Behind him, the thing that had once been Nora Hodkin loosed a second screech that bounced off the walls. Nathan was sober now, his mind sharpened by animal fear. Greenish lights pulsed between concrete subway columns.
A train?
In the dark, there were hungry growls and high-pitched, demonic cries that nearly brought him to his knees.
No. Not a train. More of them.
He heard the rapid click-click-clack of what sounded like many claws scraping across brick. She’d called them. Dear God! They were gaining on him. Nathan could smell their stench. Suddenly, Nora Hodkin leaped down, cutting off his escape. She was trying to talk. Her voice was a broken gargle, a fire consuming the last of its fuel. “Must dream…”
The distant lights of the subway train shone far down the tracks, too far to be of any help to Nathan. The night came alive with more like her—sickly, glowing, used-up things crawling from the depths, creeping along the walls and ceiling of the underground, hungry. The demonic drone escalated into a shrieking din as they dropped down like radium-painted rain.
Nora smiled at Nathan and opened wide.
The land of Flushing, Queens, was flat and favorable, with nothing to stand in the way of grasping aspiration. Already, steam shovels hovered on the edge of the proposed fairgrounds, ready to clear the way for Jake Marlowe’s vision of tomorrow. In the center of the field stood a makeshift wooden platform, which held the mayor and the city council, who eagerly awaited Jake Marlowe’s arrival. A huge crowd had turned out to watch their hero break ground on what would become the Future of America Exhibition of 1927. They stood holding small American flags on sticks under a sky so brilliantly blue it seemed wet with paint.
“Is he here yet?” Ling asked as she strained to see around the tall people in front of her.
“Would you like to get closer?” Henry asked.
“Yes, please,” Ling said.
“Mr. and Mrs. Chan,” Henry asked politely, “may I escort Ling closer to the stage?”
“Why, that would be lovely, Henry,” Mrs. Chan said, beaming.
As Henry parted the crowd for Ling, she looked back at her parents. Her father smiled, and her mother waved her flag. “I think my mother is already planning our wedding.”
“Well, if it gets you out of the house more often, I’ll try to look besotted. Prepare yourself, woman!” He stared, moony-eyed, at Ling, then flared his nostrils like a matinee idol in the throes of passion.
Ling curled her lip in disgust. “You look like you have gas.”
“It’s my secret love glance. I call it ‘From the Very Bowels of Love.’”
“Henry?”
“Yes, mein Liebchen?”
“Take me to Jake Marlowe.”
“That cad! I’ll see him on the field at dawn!” Henry made a gun of his thumb and index finger, pointing it skyward as if ready to shoot.
“Hurry up. I don’t want to miss this,” Ling said.
Henry let his hand drop. “Very well. I suppose I’ll let him live. This way, m’lady.”
“Did you speak to the crazy woman?”
“Not yet. I was afraid if I went this morning, I’d be stuck there through the afternoon as a special guest at a kitty-cat birthday party or an ancient mummification tutorial and miss this,” Henry said, just as he and Ling made it to the front. He grinned. “And I knew you wouldn’t have wanted to miss this.”
Mayor Jimmy Walker stepped to the microphone, his voice booming out in a long preamble that ended with the heart-quickening words, “A man who needs no introduction, Mr.… Jake… Marlowe!”
The crowd responded with cheers and a waving of flags. The air fluttered with red, white, and blue. With the sun shining behind him, Jake Marlowe stepped onto the platform, removed his hat, ran a swift hand across his slick black hair, and raised the hat to the assembled, a hero’s gesture. Applause erupted. The crowd loved the very idea of him.
“Isn’t this the berries?” Henry asked Ling, but her shining eyes said it all.
The microphone squawked with Marlowe’s first word. He put a hand to his chest in apology and humility, and the crowd laughed and loved this, too. And then his words echoed across the promised land of Queens, as if cast toward the future. “Ladies and gentlemen… men… en… I am pleased to announce… ounce… ounce… a marvelous step forward for American… can… greatness. A celebration of our heritage… age… age… and our great prospects for prosperity… perity… and progress… gress. The Marlowe Industries Future… ture… of America… ca… ca Exhibition and Fair… fair… fair!”
The winter sun gathered what small warmth there was in her cold light and tithed it to Jake Marlowe’s shining, smiling face. Fresh cheering erupted as Jake Marlowe exited the stage and made his way to a clearing, where he peeled off his coat, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and posed with a shovel atop a weedy mound. “Gentlemen, we are like Prometheus, creating a legacy from the clay of the earth.”
His shovel bit into the soft, wet ground and the flashbulbs popped, immortalizing the moment. Balloons were released; they floated up to the sky as if claiming it. The band took up a rousing rendition of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” while Jake Marlowe strode through the crowd, shaking hands and tousling the hair of children as the reporters tried to keep up, their shoes sinking into the grasping mud of Queens.
“Will the fair really open in only three months?” a reporter asked.
“You may bank on it.”
“But that’s awfully fast, Mr. Marlowe. Even for you.”
Marlowe grinned as he offered a peppermint to a ringleted, blue-eyed child nestled in her father’s arms. “Can’t be done. My three favorite words—to disprove. We have a thousand Marlowe Industries employees, models of modern efficiency, working to make certain that it does. The American business model is the best model.”
“Only a man as rich and ambitious as you would break ground in the dead of winter.”
“I’m not afraid of the weather, only of not going after what I want.”
“Speaking of that, what do you think about the unions and this business out at the Hibernia mines?”
Marlowe kept walking, working the crowd as he answered. “The notion of the union is fundamentally un-American. At Marlowe Industries, we believe in a fair wage for fair work among fair men.”
“Catchy. That your new business slogan?”
Marlowe winked. “It might be.”
“When are you going to get married?”
“When I find the right girl.”
“I got a sister—in the right light, she’s a beauty!”
Everyone laughed. They were buoyant with good times and hopeful possibility. T. S. Woodhouse pushed his way through, pad and pencil in hand, and sidled up to the great man. “How do, Mr. Marlowe. T. S. Woodhouse of the Daily News.” Woodhouse sneezed twice into his handkerchief. “Sorry. Caught a nuisance of a cold.”
“You should be taking Marlowe VitaHealth Tonic. Good for what ails you,” Marlowe advised.
“I’ve been taking Irish whiskey for what ails me. Just one question for you: Will Diviners be included in your Future of America Exhibition?”
Marlowe’s smile wavered. “No.”
“Why not? Aren’t they evidence of the unlimited American future?”
“They’re evidence of something, all right—chicanery. In the greatest nation on earth, we have no need for flimflam or hocus-pocus. We believe in opportunity and the power of the self-made man.”
Fresh cheers went up. T. S. Woodhouse waited for them to subside. “Sure, sure, who doesn’t love a Horatio Alger story? But you’re not a self-made man, are you, Mr. Marlowe? You came from old money.”
“Leave him alone!” a thick-necked man in a Shriners fez growled.
“What’re you, one of those Bolsheviks?” someone else cried and gave Woodhouse a small shove.
Marlowe put out a calming hand. “Now, now,” he admonished. But as he turned to Woodhouse, his anger was evident. “I made my own way. My fam
ily money didn’t create those inventions. Nor did they test-fly all those new aeroplanes or run trials on lifesaving medicines. I did.”
“But your family’s money helped finance them,” Woodhouse said, sneezing.
“My family’s fortune was lost during the war, as you well know. Every last cent of it. I was the one who rebuilt it. In fact, I surpassed it. That’s the American way.”
“For some Americans.”
“Mr. Woodhouse, that may not be a cold you have. You may be allergic to the notion of hard work and success.”
The crowd responded with a round of laughter, applause, and shouts of “Hear, hear!” With the sun streaming down on him like a William Blake painting, Jake Marlowe strode through the pressing masses, shaking hands with the people now calling his name like a wish.
“Hold on!” Henry yelled to Ling as Marlowe moved closer to them. Henry waved wildly. “Mr. Marlowe! Mr. Marlowe! Please, sir!” he shouted. “This is one of your biggest admirers, Miss Ling Chan! She’s a scientist, like you!”
“Henry!” Ling whispered, embarrassed.
“Is that so?” Mr. Marlowe said.
Ling’s heart beat quickly as the spectators cleared the way and Jake Marlowe came closer. Unlike other people, his gaze didn’t go automatically to her braces and crutches. He looked her straight in the eyes as he bowed.
“Well, then. I am pleased to meet you, Miss Chan. Will you be coming to the fair, then?” Marlowe asked.
“I… I hope so. Sir.”
Marlowe laughed. “You don’t sound too sure about it. Here. Let me make it easier.” He reached into his pocket and wrote something on a sheet of paper, then handed it to her.
“Excuse me, can we get a picture for the papers?” T. S. Woodhouse asked and gestured to the news photographer in the clearing.
“Hold it!” the photographer shouted from behind the curtain of his camera. The flash erupted with a puff of gray smoke, immortalizing Henry, Ling, and her hero in silver gelatin. “Thank you.”
“See you in the spring, Miss Chan,” Mr. Marlowe said and moved on.
“What’s it say? What’s it say?” Henry asked, angling for a better look at the paper in Ling’s hands.
“‘IOU Miss Ling Chan—two free tickets to the Future of America Exhibition,’” Ling read. At the bottom was Marlowe’s signature. She now had Jake Marlowe’s autograph.
Ling looked ready to faint or vomit. “I talked to Jake Marlowe,” she said, incredulous. “This is his signature.”
“Well, it was nothing, really,” Henry said. “No, please! No more gratitude! Your happiness is thanks enough.”
“Thank you, Henry,” Ling said.
“Shucks. ’Tweren’t nothing.”
Ling beamed, holding the piece of paper like a sacred object. “Jake Marlowe touched this!” she said, and it was as close to a squeal as she’d ever come.
“Why, Miss Chan,” Henry drawled. “I believe you are pos-i-tute-ly smitten.”
T. S. Woodhouse turned and squeezed his way through the throngs of smiling, optimistic people happy to have something to be happy about.
On the way across the muddy field, he was surprised to see Dr. Fitzgerald’s assistant, Jericho Jones. He vaguely remembered hearing some scuttlebutt that Will Fitzgerald and the inventor had been friends at one point, past tense. If he’d sent Jericho to mend fences, Marlowe’s comments about Diviners surely wouldn’t do anything to help.
At the edge of the park, white-capped nurses in starched uniforms passed out flyers to the people coming to hear Jake Marlowe paint a bright future for them. “Examinations today in the Fitter Family tent,” they called. “Free of charge.” A Negro couple walked in, but no one handed them a flyer. In fact, the nurse pretended not to see them at all, passing one to the white family behind them instead.
Woodhouse sneezed into his handkerchief again.
“Gesundheit,” said a pretty nurse.
Woodhouse smiled at her. “Gee, thanks. I feel cured already.”
“Here. Have one.” The nurse handed him a pamphlet:
Could you be an exceptional American? Do you exhibit unusual gifts? Have you ever had unexplained dreams of the future or the past? Have you or anyone in your family had a visitation from spirits from beyond? The Eugenics Society administers tests to likely candidates free of charge.
There was an address at the bottom.
Woodhouse knew he was anything but exceptional, unless there was a test for cleverness. Or survival.
“I’ll pass this along to any likely candidates,” he said, tipping his hat. He passed through the Fitter Family tent, smiling at a couple of siblings squawking over who got to go first until they saw the nurse holding the syringe, and then they fell quiet. He peeked through the crack of a curtain at a table where a pretty nurse asked a woman and her teenage daughter a series of questions. “… I see. And have you ever seen in your dreams an otherworldly being, a tall man in a stovepipe hat, perhaps accompanied by a host of crows?”
Woodhouse wrote it down on his pad, sneezed again, and moved out into the crowd. He bumped hard into a young man, knocking off his cap.
“Apologies,” Woodhouse said, brushing dirt from the brim as he handed it back.
“No trouble,” Arthur Brown said as he donned his cap once more. He leaned against the hot dog stand, watching Jake Marlowe move through the crowd clean as a newly made promise. His eyes scanned the whole of the fairgrounds, taking in everything.
“This exhibition’s gonna be the biggest thing to hit this city in a long time,” Woodhouse said, nodding briefly toward the adoring crowds before scribbling more notes on his pad. “Gonna make a big bang.”
Arthur nodded, then tipped his head and looked up at the wide, blue, American sky, where not a cloud could be seen. “It surely will,” he said.
At the appointed hour, Jericho waited for Jake Marlowe in his private tent bordering the fairgrounds, which were already bustling with industry, the air a symphony of hammering, shouting men—proof that the great Jake Marlowe intended to make good on his promise to erect the fair quickly. The inside of the tent had the feel of an officer’s quarters, as if the two of them had come to plot the next battle surge. A long table housing a diorama took up the center of the room. Jericho walked around the table, admiring the clean-lined perfection of the model’s buildings as he read the title cards beneath each one: HALL OF PROSPERITY. HALL OF AVIATION AND ROCKETRY. STANDARD OIL PAVILION. ATOMIC ENERGY PAVILION. EUGENICS EXHIBITION TENT. RADIO. MACHINES. MEDICINE. AGRICULTURE.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Marlowe entered the tent, wiping the dirt from his hands. “You’re getting a first look at what we’re building—the greatest exhibition of its kind dedicated to the advancement of American business, ingenuity, and ideals. A utopian vision of an American tomorrow.”
“Sounds like an advertisement.”
“I suppose it is,” Marlowe agreed, laughing. “But why not take pride in this country? It’s the envy of the world. A place where any man can realize his dream. We, the dreamers, built this nation.”
“The Indians and the slaves might disagree,” Jericho shot back.
“Did you come to lecture me about American history, Jericho? Or did you need this?” Marlowe held up a vial of blue serum.
If there was anything Jericho hated, it was this. He hated being at the mercy of a man he both admired and hated, someone who’d saved his life and enslaved it.
“Now, now, no need to look embarrassed. I’m glad you’re here. I was very pleased to get your letter. Here. Take a seat.” Marlowe offered Jericho a chair, settling into the one opposite him. Casually, he poured coffee from a silver pot and handed the cup to Jericho, who was grateful for the warm drink. “I heard about what happened to you up in Brethren.”
“How?”
Marlowe stirred two cubes of sugar into his own coffee. “You don’t get to be top dog without knowing how to get the information you need. That was reckless of Will. And to think he dragged his niece i
nto it, as well. This foolish obsession of his is going to get people hurt.” Marlowe’s expression went somber. “So is this Diviner business.”
Jericho wished he could tell Marlowe about what they had done, how they had stopped a maniacal demon from manifesting in New York City. What they had done wasn’t reckless; it was desperate. They had saved lives, and the public would never know.
“Believe me, Evie can’t be dragged into anything she doesn’t want to do,” Jericho said.
“The Sweetheart Seer. She is quite something,” Marlowe mused. “Isn’t she engaged to that Sam Lloyd character? Well, she could certainly do better. A good man like you, perhaps.”
Jericho looked down at his shoes, and it was all the confirmation Marlowe needed.
Marlowe was still watching him closely.
“What is it?” Jericho asked, annoyed.
“And have you had any strong feelings of aggression or agitation?” Marlowe asked.
Strong feelings of aggression and agitation pretty much sum up being eighteen, Jericho thought. “When I was shot, but otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Good. Very good.” Marlowe gulped down his coffee and put the cup and saucer aside. “I’m glad you brought up the subject, Jericho. You know, I’ve been thinking—what if you were to come out to California and work with us at Marlowe Industries?”
“What could I offer you that you don’t already have?”
“You’re my crowning achievement.” Marlowe leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. That face the press lionized was no less impressive up close. “If we could study you, find out why you’ve survived against the odds, well, think of the good that could be done for America, for mankind. And for you, Jericho.” The great man looked Jericho in the eyes. His gaze was powerful. Inescapable. Jericho could feel the idealism pushing out from Marlowe like rays of sun on the first day of spring. “I’d like to make you the star of the Future of America Exhibition.”