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The breach was no longer in flux. The edges of it were solidifying.
“The cycle will begin again, twice more, and then my time will have come. A countdown to a new world that belongs to me, and to my dead. We will march into your world and take what we like.”
Evie looked toward the Eye, which was chugging away. “And what about my brother and all those soldiers trapped inside?”
The King shrugged. “Something must power our world.”
Evie’s heart felt as if it would burst. Only two more loops left, and then her brother would be trapped in that agonizing cycle forever. An eternity of suffering. She stuck her fingers through the empty eye sockets of a skull and held it aloft. “We’ll break it apart if we have to.”
“Will you? Are you sure you’d like to destroy such a magnificent machine?” the King said.
“Let me think.” Sam posed with his finger across his lips, as if pondering a deep dilemma. He dropped the pose and thumbed his nose at the King of Crows. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Let’s go,” Evie said.
“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!’” the King of Crows said in a loud voice. He opened one side of his coat, letting out its dizzying glow. What they saw there was a brilliant white light exploding across the horizon and rising up into a giant cloud. It was at once magnificent and horrifying.
“What is that?” Sam asked. He couldn’t look away from its devastation. Couldn’t even blink.
“Some of your Diviner kin’s borrowed talents allow me to glimpse possible futures. Or to help fashion them. Mr. Marlowe was only too happy to build toward one of those futures. All that uranium, wonderfully enhanced by more than a decade of Diviner power, further manipulated by industry into serum and joined to some rather impressive machinery—helped along by me, naturally.” He closed his coat. “That is what you will unleash if you destroy the core of the Eye.”
“It’ll be like a bomb beyond any bomb you could imagine,” Ling said to the others, as the full scope began to take shape in her mind. “The explosion would be devastating. The radiation would poison everything—people, livestock, crops. The consequences would be catastrophic.”
“We’ll stop it somehow,” Evie said, but her voice sounded small to her ears. She was out of ideas.
“Ticktock, ticktock. Forgive me, but I’ve an army to ready and a world to invade.” The King of Crows turned and walked away.
Out on the clearing, the Eye was sitting right there, but the soldiers didn’t see it. Wouldn’t see it until it was too late. There they were simply going about their everyday business. Shaving. Dancing to a record. Laughing. And all the while, it was there, watching. Ready to devour them. Somehow, they had to break the cycle.
“I’m going to help James, even if it means I’ll be trapped here,” Evie said.
“Whither thou goest, I will go,” Sam said, taking Evie’s hand.
Evie kissed Sam’s cheek. “Leave it to you to quote Shakespeare at a time like this.”
Sam looked to Memphis. “Don’t tell her.”
Evie stared up at the Eye. It ran on pain and suffering and stolen life. Evie watched, helpless, as James and the other soldiers took their positions to play out the same awful moment. Again, the explosion. Again, the men—her brother—screaming in agony, being ripped apart as they were sucked up toward the sky and into the heart of the Eye, to become its fuel. She knew that despite what Marlowe had promised about this horror show ending once they’d stabilized the breach, it would never end. It would only get worse. She put a hand over her ears to block their screams echoing through all time, creating new universes. Everything went quiet. The world wobbled, went sideways for several seconds. The Eye stopped clanging, and then, like a watch that’s been wound, started up again. The One-Forty-Four blinked back into existence, ready to go through the same terrible motions.
“Say, what’s this mission the department’s got us on, anyway?” James asked. Same inflection. Same bemused smile.
“I won’t let this happen to you again.” Evie marched over to the tree stump. “I hate that song,” she growled, and lifted the needle from the record on the Victrola. But the soldier kept dancing beside it. Even without the record, he sang along, “Smile, smile, smile!”
The field phone rang. The sergean
t answered. “The time is now!” he yelled.
“How can I get him to stop?” Evie pleaded.
“I don’t think we can,” Henry said. “I think… they’re the only ones who can stop it.”
“James, you’ve got to listen to me,” Evie pleaded. “We’ve got to stop this madness, all right? You’re all caught in a terrible loop of time and trauma. We want to free you. But I need you to listen to me. Just do one thing differently. One thing. You’ll muck up the Eye’s works and give old Jake Marlowe, the Founders Club with their lousy eugenics nonsense, and those awful Shadow Men a stick in the eye! Just make one change. That’s all it takes. Just one change.”
“Say, O’Neill, what card am I holding?” the soldier asked.
“Eight of hearts,” Sam answered.
“The eight of hearts,” James said.
