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“Go on, then. Give her a call before you burst out of your skin,” Marlowe said, wiping his mouth and leaving his napkin for a silent servant to carry away.
The Winthrop’s telephone operator informed Jericho that Evie was not at home. Jericho thought about leaving a message, but he wasn’t sure she’d get it. Instead, he tapped out a quick note, posting the letter straightaway. He couldn’t wait to show her how strong and muscul
ar he’d become in the short time he’d been at Marlowe’s estate. The knowledge that he’d see Evie again soon put Jericho in an excellent mood. He felt fantastic. Never fitter.
Once Marlowe was safely out of the house on exhibition business, Jericho set off to see if he could find the elusive card reader. He missed Evie, and he really wanted to be able to write to her and say, “Victory!” He wanted her to see him as a hero.
For some reason, he was drawn back to the long room on the second floor that had once housed the soldiers. He pushed at the door. It opened with a creak. Inside, soft afternoon sunlight pooled on the worn rug. Jericho passed down the middle aisle created by the beds lined up on either side of the room and let his fingers trail across the iron bedposts. He stood in a patch of sun. It was warm, and his mind drifted. Memories of Sergeant Leonard bubbled up. Jericho recalled the two of them racing around a track, Sergeant Leonard taking the lead, making Jericho catch him. He’d won easily, and a winded Jericho had been frustrated that he couldn’t keep up. Sergeant Leonard had patted Jericho’s shoulder. “One day, you’ll run circles around me, around all of us, kid,” he’d said. “Don’t patronize me,” Jericho had said and taken off running. It wasn’t until later, after he’d exhausted himself on the track and come back to find Sergeant Leonard still at the track waiting for him with a glass of water though it was dark, that he realized Sergeant Leonard’s sincerity and kindness. A thread of shame tightened around Jericho’s heart at the memory. Sergeant Leonard had been a good friend and a good man. If nothing else, he wanted to do well on Marlowe’s tests to honor his friend’s sacrifice.
Jericho’s heightened hearing picked up the sounds of the house: The hiss of the radiator. The gurgle of water in the pipes. The servants talking in another room, the housekeeper giving instructions on the evening service, Ames the butler: “… The book is called The Passing of the Great Race, and it’s everything to do with how our proud white race is doomed unless we can stop this tide of immigration and mongrelization of America.…”
“Ah, you’re all wet, Ames-y.” The Irish cook. Mrs. Farrelly. “We’re all immigrants here. Unless you’re an Indian or you got brought in chains.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” Ames.
“I understand plenty, you old coot.”
Jericho thought he heard a woman crying again. He strained to hear. Yes, there it was! But where? He stood in the center of the room, listening. A strange sensation of cold came over him, and then the room was filled with the hubbub of men talking, and one voice in particular whispering, “Check the closet.…”
With a gasp, Jericho whirled around. No one was there, but he’d clearly heard someone speaking. Hadn’t he? His heartbeat picked up and with it came a second memory: the moment when Jericho realized that Sergeant Leonard was tipping into madness, that he hadn’t beaten the Daedalus program curse after all. He’d found his friend sitting on the floor of the shower, staring at the tile wall.
“You hear that, Jericho?” his friend had said, water spilling over his twitching lips. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Jericho said. There was only the pounding of the shower.
“That.”
Two weeks later, Sergeant Leonard was dead.
“I am not going mad,” Jericho said. “It’s just the adjustment to the serum.”
Jericho approached the closet with great apprehension. When he tugged open the sticking door, a fluttering of moths whooshed out on a spiral of dust. Inside was a curious wooden cabinet. At first glance, he thought it was a sewing machine table. But on the right side were a series of typewriter-styled keys, some switches, and a lightbulb. To the left was some sort of automatic feeder chute. In the center was a sorter, and on top, a printing press with a paper roll attached. The machine was electric; a long plug hung from the back of it like a tail. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF PARANORMAL had been stamped on the side.
The card reader.
SHADOW MEN
The day was crisp and sunny, a last blast of winter before the thaw. Mabel hugged herself to keep warm as she watched the skaters taking the season’s last turn around the ice rink in Central Park. The April weather might be unpredictable, but Evie was not. Once again, she was late.
Mabel sighed as at last, here she came, cheerily waving a pair of skates in one hand.
“What took you so long?” Mabel grumbled as Evie plopped onto the bench and removed her shoes.
“I wasn’t sure what to wear,” Evie confessed. “If I die on the ice, I wanted my last outfit to be memorable.”
And that was the thing about Evie—she had a way of making you forget why you were unhappy with her to begin with, replacing it with a longing to be her pal always and forever. Evie shrieked and pawed at Mabel as they wobbled onto the slick ice.
“You’ll bring us both down!” Mabel shouted, but they were both laughing.
“Wouldn’t that be something? We’d be a tragic flapper ice sculpture in the heart of New York. A landmark, like the Woolworth Building!”
“The Woolworth Building isn’t going to break a leg if it falls!” Mabel giggled. “Now I understand why you sat in the café the last time we went skating and never touched the ice. Here.”
Mabel linked her arm through Evie’s and guided her carefully around the outer edge until they found their stride. Sunlight sparkled in the budding trees. Spring was imminent. Mabel could feel it in the air. The Secret Six would probably call this outing frivolous. Who but the privileged could afford to spend an afternoon ice-skating in the park? But the sun felt so delightfully warm on her face, and Mabel would make use of this time.
“Evie, I need your help,” Mabel said, her breath coming out in little puffs.
“What are we doing? Burying a body? Carrying out revenge upon your enemy of a thousand years? I am yours, Pie Face!” Evie thumped her breast and they teetered again.
