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Split.
There was a young woman in a white dress. “I know you. How do I know you?” she said. A bell tolled. In the distance was a white clapboard church. “I’m to be married there to my Elijah.”
Split.
The King of Crows cradled the hourglass. “Soon.”
The needle stuck.
“And smile.”
Lightning. In the flashes were the dead.
“And smile.”
Dust swept
across towns.
“And smile.”
The dark sky was everywhere.
“All is connected,” the King of Crows said.
The Eye was pulling Sam in, drawing his energy like filings to a magnet. The soldiers screamed as the Eye ripped them apart, their limbs and organs fused to its eternally spinning gears. Sam could feel the unholy pull deep in his own body, just one more spark of energy to be fed to the crushing machinery, trapped in its jaws forever.
Sergei! Fight! Do not let it take you!
“D-don’t s-see mm-mm-mmeeee!” Sam screamed.
His eyes fluttered open as the Eye powered down. He was back in the solarium. His body hurt as if he’d been beaten, rearranged. Marlowe raced to unbuckle the straps and lift the helmet from Sam’s smoking head. There were strange red marks on the skin of his arms. He shook all over and could not stop.
“Just a little radiation burn. Nothing to worry about,” Jake said. “I’ll have them apply a dressing.”
Tears streamed down Sam’s face. His nose ran. He couldn’t help either. Sam looked over at his mother. Her eyes were closed. She moaned and rolled her head from side to side.
“She’ll be fine. Just needs to rest,” Marlowe assured Sam.
“You’re p-playing with the King of C-Crows. You c-can’t trust him.”
“Don’t you think I know that!” Marlowe snapped. “That’s why I need to know what you can see. So I can prepare for it. Be one step ahead of him.”
“So the United States government can prepare for it,” Jefferson added. “We are paying for these experiments. Don’t forget—the King of Crows will become our property.”
Sam kept his gaze on Marlowe. “You have no idea who he is. What he is.”
“He’s the most extraordinary being anyone has ever encountered, Sam. And we—Will, Rotke, Miriam, Margaret, and I—we found him quite by accident.”
“That’s one way of putting it. You’re talking about the tear between worlds,” Sam said. He was dizzy and nauseated. It felt as if someone had punched out all his insides and put them back in the wrong order.
“A door between worlds!” Marlowe’s eyes gleamed. “But we have to stabilize it long enough so that we don’t lose our connection to it.”
“You can also close doors. I’m just saying, some doors are very good closed.”
“That other world is a place of unbounded energy. Of unlimited power. Already, it has given us so much. Why, in just ten short years, Sam, I’ve been able to provide giant leaps forward in industry and invention thanks to our connection. The power coming from that other dimension and the King of Crows is without limit, Sam! And we, the greatest nation on earth, will control it. It will belong to Marlowe Industries.”
“And to the Republic for which it stands,” Mr. Jefferson added pointedly.
