Me and My Shadow

An ancient evil continues his centuries old quest for everlasting life. Then,
during a nuclear test in the USA the atomic fireball tears a hole in the dimensions.

The dimensions resonate in sympathy and two babies are born at opposite ends of the social class system.

Joanne and her ethereal twin, Leander, live separate lives, but each is what you might call incomplete.

Reluctantly they are drawn into the world of Time magic and ancient evil.

Extract

About sixty miles away the observers on Operation Tumbler–Snapper (test DOG) took the filters from their eyes and began to assess the effects of the 19 kiloton blast. The plume of debris and dust was still very visible but the pyrotechnics and the actual shock-wave had passed over their bunker a couple of minutes before. DOG was a small airburst test of a fission weapon meant to study the rope trick phenomenon and damage to equipment caught in the blast zone. The fallout levels were medium to high, but the long term effects of these were somewhere in the future for the observers and the seven thousand troops taking part in manoeuvrers in the area.
What the scientists were more interested in were the transitory fingers of energy that emanated from the nuclear fireball and hit the ground below. These were known as the ‘rope tricks’. They largely ignored the extensive physical damage even though one of the large trucks in the blast zone appeared to have been picked up and rolled along as if it were mere tumbleweed.
The date was the first of May 1952 and, although the observers didn't know it, it would be one of the last airburst tests carried out in the continental U.S. The big boys; the hydrogen bombs, would come next, but they'd be tested in the pacific or deep underground. In any case all testing would come to a halt less than two decades later when the test ban treaties were enacted.