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“We’ll make up a story. One time I went with Theta to a screen test out in Brooklyn and I had to pretend to be her seamstress to get in the door. I’ll say I’m Alma’s wardrobe mistress. And you…” Ling scrutinized Jericho’s face. “What else do you do besides catalog creepy artifacts?”
“I read a lot of philosophy.”
Ling let out a heavy sigh. “Brother.”
“And I’m very strong.”
“That could come in handy. For now, I’ll say you’re my cousin.”
“I… don’t really look like your cousin.”
“My cousin Seamus has red hair, freckles, and cheeks that are always pink.” Ling shrugged. “But he is my cousin.”
Jericho didn’t seem convinced. Ling grunted in frustration. “Did everyone from your little Hans Christian Andersen village look the same?”
“Hans Christian…?”
“…like you all escaped from a German fairy tale?”
“Shhh!” the same man from the back row scolded. Jericho and Ling moved a little farther into the lobby.
“Hans Christian Andersen was Danish. And no. We did not all look the same. The Jorgensons’ daughter, Brigid, had brown hair,” Jericho whispered testily. “How do you know that Alma will help us?”
Ling didn’t know. She couldn’t imagine Alma turning them away. Then again, she couldn’t imagine Alma suddenly saying good-bye the way she had, either. Ling had to ask herself if she was suggesting this plan just so she could see Alma one more time.
“Of course she’ll help us,” Ling insisted.
“And you don’t think anybody will notice that we aren’t who we say we are?”
“Nobody’s who they say they are.”
In Times Square, much of the crowd had dispersed. Police rounded up some would-be vigilantes and locked them up in paddy wagons. Firemen sprayed the stage’s bunting, putting out the last of Theta’s handiwork. As Jericho and Ling approached Broadway, they heard a man pleading for his life. He cowered on the ground, his arms up to fend off the blows and kicks of two men shouting, “Lousy Diviner! Anarchist! Get out of our country!”
“Wait here,” Jericho said. Jake Marlowe’s serum burned through his veins. He lifted the two men by their suit collars as if each weighed no more than a bag of flour. He liked seeing the fear in the eyes of these bullies. The serum made Jericho’s heart pump harder. His act of heroism teetered on the edge of something uglier.
“Jericho?” Ling said. “Jericho. Let go.”
Jericho dropped the men on the curb. He unclenched his fists, unsettled by the strong impulses that had seized him.
“Go on. Get out of here,” he said to the men.
The bullies stumbled away. When they’d traveled a safe distance, one of them called out, “You’re a bum! A bum, you hear?”
Jericho helped the beaten man to his feet.
“They… they just turned on me,” the man said. “Thought I was one of those Diviners.”
“Go home,” Jericho said.
The young man nodded. “Thank you.”
Nearby, another fight broke out. Several people rushed in to join, drawn by the possibility of catching a Diviner and meting out “justice.” It was getting more dangerous.
“Ling, do you mind if I carry you out of here?” Jericho asked.
Ordinarily, Ling would mind, but these were not ordinary circumstances.
“Just don’t drop me,” she said, clutching tightly to her crutches as Jericho scooped her up into his arms and took off running through the city streets.
