The Diviners (The Diviners 1)

“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.

“Evie! Push it in. Now!”

Evie dove for the discarded syringe and plunged it into Jericho’s leg, scuttling backward into a corner as he whirled around violently.

“Jericho…” Evie whispered.

He staggered toward her, wobbled for two seconds, then fell onto the bed and was out.

Evie was still crouched in the corner. “Is he…?”

Will touched his swollen jaw, wincing, and sank onto the other bed, exhausted. “He’ll be fine now. Let him sleep.”

A loud knock startled them both. Will covered Jericho with a blanket and Evie ran to the door, opening it a crack. The innkeeper’s wife tried to see around her but Evie kept the opening narrow. “What the dickens is going on in there?”

“My brother fell and broke a lamp,” Evie said, breathless. “My father will pay for the damage, of course.”

“This is an establishment for decent folks. I’ll have no riffraff here.” The woman strained to look over Evie’s head.

“Yes. Of course.”

Evie shut the door and sat on Will’s bed watching as he expertly sutured the ragged skin on Jericho’s chest. She watched Jericho sleep. He seemed an angel now.

“What was in that fluid?”

“It’s a special serum. I can’t tell you much more than that.”

Evie’s mind reeled out to the breaking point. Her mouth struggled to form words. “What is Jericho?”

“An experiment,” Will said with finality, the teacher dismissing the class. He clipped off the thin suture wire and stowed the tools in the kit containing the syringe and vials. “Where is the pendant?”

In the chaos, Evie had forgotten. She went to her coat and retrieved the filthy object, which she handed to her uncle. “What do we do with it?”

“When we get to the museum, we’ll form a protective circle. Using what you’ve gleaned from the missing page, we’ll bind his spirit back into the pendant and destroy it.”

“Do you think it will work?”