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“You were part of the department, Miriam. Don’t forget that. You were there, too.”
Miriam couldn’t deny this. She’d not wanted to come when they’d asked, but once she’d been recruited, she had felt a fierce pride that she, a Jewish immigrant from a Russian shtetl, a fortune-teller, might prove an American hero. If only she’d known then how disastrous it would be, how she would lose years with her son, and for what? She’d tried to warn them. No one had listened.
“I know it’s been difficult, Miriam. We’ve all sacrificed so much—you most of all. Do you want that sacrifice to be in vain? We are so very close to marching into that other dimension and making it ours. We could have dominion over death! We can claim that land and control the King of Crows! We only need to keep it open a little while longer, until I can finish the modifications. But without Diviners, we can’t charge the machine to its full power.”
“You make it all sound so reasonable.”
“We are creating the future, Miriam. Just like we did seventeen years ago. But without our babies, our Diviners, our weapons, we lose.”
He smiled as he patted her hand. And in that moment, Miriam knew she hated Jake Marlowe more than she had ever hated anyone, even the Tsar, and that was saying something.
Miriam yanked her hand free. “Then you lose.”
A furious Jake Marlowe nodded to the Shadow Men. “Take her back. Chain the door to within an inch of its life. And then go find me some Diviners.”
THE HARLEM HAYMAKERS
As Alma had promised, the bus for the Harlem Haymakers’ barnstorming tour of the country showed up promptly at nine thirty AM.
“Do you know what a miracle that is? A bunch of musicians showing up on time?” Alma laughed.
Henry would love that joke, Ling thought. She hoped Henry was okay, that he’d gotten away all right last night. She’d asked Alma to grab some newspapers. Every one of the papers was a special edition, with screaming, giant headlines:
TERROR IN TIMES SQUARE! MANHUNT ON FOR DIVINERS!
PUBLIC ENEMIES! MARLOWE OFFERS BOUNTY!
MEMORIAL MAYHEM! DANGEROUS DIVINERS WANTED FOR TREASON!
“Anything about the others?” Jericho asked as Ling scoured each one.
Ling shook her head. “If they’d been caught, the papers would be talking about it.”
“I guess that’s good, then,” Jericho said. “We all managed to get away.”
“Not Sister Walker,” Ling said. “If they try her and she’s found guilty, she’ll face the electric chair. She didn’t kill Will Fitzgerald. I know she didn’t.”
“How are we going to prove that she didn’t?” Jericho asked.
“All finished,” Alma said, snapping her suitcase shut. She’d let Ling pack some of her clothes to wear on the road.
“Sorry I didn’t have anything for you,” Alma said playfully to Jericho. “We can pick up something for you on our travels.”
“I’ll be all right,” Jericho said.
Alma made a stink face. “If I have to ride that bus with you, friend, you’re going to need a change of underwear.”
“Oh.” Jericho blushed so hard, Ling was afraid he’d burst.
Outside by the bus at the curb, a skinny dark-skinned man wearing a tan fedora and a red bow tie shouted up the steps. “Shake a leg, Alma!”
“I’m shaking, aren’t I?” she called back.
Jericho carried down the two suitcases and tied them to the roof of the bus alongside the instruments already piled there. The skinny man eyed Jericho. “How do?”
Jericho extended his hand. “Freddy Smith.”
The other man gave it a solid shake. “Heywood T. Holliday. But everybody calls me Doc.”
