The Diviners

Will dragged Jericho into the backseat as Evie pumped the accelerator, careful not to flood the engine.

“What are you doing?” Will said.

“I’m driving!” The car lurched forward, the tires spewing up pebbles and leaves as the Ford rattled onto the dirt road. Gunshots followed, but Evie was too fast for the faithful. By the time they reached the road, she had put several car lengths between them.

Jericho moaned as his head lolled against the backseat. Evie’s foot pressed down on the accelerator and she took the curve at a dizzying pace, her back wheels sliding out. Uncle Will stared down the cliff at the lights of the valley below. “Dear god,” he gasped.

“My father owns a dealership,” she shouted. “I’ve driven everything you can imagine!”

“Just get us there in one piece!”

She hugged the turns, swerving once as she narrowly avoided a car on its way up the hill. The Ford wobbled on two wheels before slamming down onto all four again. In the backseat, Will cursed. At last the lights of the village were visible ahead.

“Where’s the hospital in this backwater?” Evie yelled as they rattled onto Main Street.

“Take us back to the inn,” Will directed.

“Sweet Mary, he’s been shot, Will! He needs a doctor!”

“We can’t take him to a hospital.”

“Why not?” She turned around.

Will’s face was grave. “I’ll tell you later. Just trust me for now. We’ll tend to him at the inn. Watch the road!”

Evie wanted to scream. She wanted to yell at Will—for the case, for Brethren, for Jericho. It was insanity, and she’d had enough.

“You’d better be right, Unc.” She jerked the car away from the center of town and headed back to the inn.

“Whatever I do, follow along,” Will said when they arrived, dressing Jericho in his overcoat and buttoning it closed. He disappeared inside and came out with two men, who helped hoist Jericho and haul him into the inn’s parlor. The innkeeper’s scowling wife looked on with tight-lipped disapproval from behind the desk at this filthy trio dragging a barely conscious young man into her inn.

“I’ve told you about the wages of sin,” Uncle Will said loudly enough for the innkeeper’s wife to hear.

“My brother,” Evie added, doing her best to look contrite and concerned. She still shook from the ordeal. “Father tries so hard.”

“These young people today,” the lady clucked.

Once they were inside the room, Uncle Will placed the woozy Jericho on the bed and thanked the men with a tip. Evie shut and locked the door while Will washed the graveyard dirt from his hands and removed Jericho’s overcoat. She couldn’t see exactly where Jericho had taken the hit. There was no blood to be seen, though his shirt, which was covered in dirt and grass stains, was sopping wet.

“Evie, I need you,” Will said. “Open my bag and take out the small zippered leather pouch inside.”

Evie found the pouch and handed it to Will. Inside were four small vials filled with a thick blue liquid and a strange syringe. “What is that?”

“No time to explain. Quickly, before his body shuts down. Place the vial in the chamber of the syringe.”

Evie did as she was told. There was a sharp sound as Uncle Will ripped open Jericho’s shirt. Evie struggled to comprehend what she saw. For a moment, the world slowed as she tried to make sense of it and couldn’t. The bullet had left a large hole just below Jericho’s heart. Beneath the wound was some sort of machinery, an intricate system of brass tubing and wires.

“Evie!” Will’s voice snapped her attention back to the task at hand. Will grabbed the syringe from her, tapping the glass of the vial to clear the bubbles from the blue liquid.

“There’s no time to secure him. He’s going to become agitated at first. You have to be ready.”

“I don’t understand….” Evie started, staring in horror as Will plunged the syringe into Jericho’s chest and released the lever.

“Another!”

Evie loaded the syringe with a second vial, which Will administered. Jericho didn’t move.

“Again!”

“No! We need a doctor!”

“I said, again!”

“Dammit, Will,” Evie muttered and loaded a third ampoule.

Will aimed the syringe just as Jericho came off the bed in a fit of thrashing, like a man possessed. His eyes were wild, searching, as if he didn’t know where he was or who they were. His left arm swung out, sending the bedside lamp crashing to the floor. His right arm caught Will in the jaw, and he crumpled to the floor, dazed.