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“You’re sending in a battalion?” Henry said, incredulous.
“We have to secure our new territory,” the general said.
“I told you we’ve taken every precaution.” Marlowe, smug as usual.
“In addition to being a lousy fella, you’re also a goddamned idiot,” Sam said.
Adams moved forward to hit Sam, but Marlowe stopped him. “We need him to function. He’ll quiet when he sees her.”
Mr. Jefferson brought forth Miriam from the sedan. She was still in irons. She looked much worse than she had a few weeks earlier. Her skin was mottled and she limped.
“Mama,” Sam said.
She looked his way. He heard his mother’s voice in his head. She sounded weak but determined. You must close the breach. Even if it means we are trapped inside. You understand, Sergei?
There’ll be another way, Mama, Sam answered.
Promise me.
Yes, Mama. I promise.
The Shadow Men and generals gathered by the fighter planes to confer with Jake Marlowe. The Diviners still stood near Marlowe’s plane, with an armed guard nearby. The desert heat was a shock after the cold of Wyoming, and Ling marveled that two such different climates could exist in the same country. It was so many countries in one, she knew. Back home, her parents would be resting, getting ready for another day at the Tea House. The dawn would rise over the Lower East Side. The streets would respond with a symphony of smells, a daily re-creation carried over from the villages of Russia and the towns of Sicily, the fields of Ireland and the winding streets of Poland and Germany. Somewhere out there, maybe Mississippi or Oklahoma, Alma and the Harlem Haymakers were finishing up a night’s work in some vaudeville dance hall. Ling wished she could see Alma and her parents one last time. In Kansas and Nebraska, Oregon and West Virginia and Washington, D.C., people had gone to sleep thinking about all they’d left unfinished today and all they’d need to do tomorrow, thinking that there would be a tomorrow.
The Shadow Men marched the Diviners forward into the desert. Heat lightning crackled above. The heat sucked the life right out of the Diviners. Fear sucked up the rest. Evie felt sleepy and a little light-headed. She was worried mostly about Memphis, though. Anybody could see that he was getting sicker. And his healing power was gone. He’d given it up in a bad bargain, just as his mother had made her bargain to try to save her boys. Isaiah was dead and Memphis was the living dead.
What would happen to him when they were hooked up to the Eye? A Diviner’s power could fend off its relentless energy pull for a while, but what about a Diviner whose power had been stolen by the King of Crows? Without Memphis, they might not be able to heal the breach. He might die. They all might.
“What is that?” Theta asked as they neared a giant canyon of striped rock.
“The Ubehebe Crater,” Mr. Jefferson informed them.
“I got them Ubehebe Jeebie bluuuues,” Henry sang. Ling shot him a contemptuous look. “Sorry. I couldn’t let that one go. It might be my very last joke.”
Down at the crater’s bottom, the army men set up generator-fed klieg lights around the perimeter of Marlowe’s latest iteration of the Eye, and for one brief moment, Ling was completely taken by its beauty. The Eye was a true marvel of ingenuity and, yes, science. Jake Marlowe had managed to open a doorway between dimensions. How many other dimensions existed in the universe? How many universes? An ax could be used to till the earth. An ax could be used to kill. Tool or weapon. It was all in the intent. The knowledge that had gone into constructing the Eye was knowledge that could have been used to advance humankind, and Ling hated that the beauty of physics was being used to create an imperial death machine.
Evie stared at the golden sphere of the Eye, sitting in the middle of the desert crater. It was also built from death, and it would bring more pain and suffering than it already had. Once they were hooked up to its immense power, they’d have no protection from it. The Eye would drain and break them like the others. Unless…
“Sam!” Evie said. “Can you tell the Eye not to see us?”
Sam was beginning to understand what Evie meant. “Not with this iron on us.”
“But the iron is part of the machine…” Ling said, a hint of a smile showing. “Isn’t it?”
“Worth a try,” Sam said. “But you know I can’t do it forever. How long will Megalomaniac Marlowe have us on that thing for?”
“It might last longer if we’re inside a dream state,” Henry suggested.
Evie looked confused, but Ling was nodding. “If Sam can keep the Eye from seeing us long enough for us to go to sleep—”
“You’re just gonna go to sleep with that Eye thing on you?” Theta said.
“I was talking,” Ling said, narrowing her eyes at Theta, who put up her shackled hands in a Pardon me gesture. “Don’t you see? We’ll be connected through the Eye. Whatever one of us feels or experiences, the others will, too. Isn’t that right, Jericho?”
“Yes. The Eye will connect us all,” Jericho said.
“For the record, I also know this. Because I also got to ride on Marlowe’s not-so-merry-go-round,” Sam complained. “It hurt. A lot. I did not enjoy it. I would just like some recognition of my troubles.”
“I will make you a swell little medal if we survive,” Evie said with a generous roll of her eyes.
