Before the Devil Breaks You Read online

“Evenin’, everybody,” Memphis said, but his smile, radiant and hopeful, was for Theta.

  “Memphis,” Isaiah said, nestling closer to his brother.

  “This is my brother, Isaiah. Isaiah, meet everybody. Meet the Diviners.”

  Ling cleared her throat. She nodded toward the mantel clock ticking toward quarter past five. “I thought this meeting was called for five o’clock. They’re late.”

  As if in answer, the library doors slid open, and the museum’s director, Professor William Fitzgerald, entered, trailed by his partner in the paranormal, Dr. Margaret “Sister” Walker.

  Will tossed his hat and hung his umbrella on the stuffed grizzly’s stiff paw. “I see you’re all here. Good,” Will said, patting his pockets for his cigarette case.

  “Some of us were even on time,” Ling muttered under her breath.

  “Don’t bite yet, cher,” Henry whispered. “Save it for the finale.”

  “Good evening, everyone,” Sister Walker said, drawing all eyes as she perched on the edge of a leather wingback chair. She sat as still as a queen surveying her subjects and waiting to hand down judgment. Seeing Isaiah, Sister Walker smiled. She had a broad smile, gap-toothed and welcoming. “Hello, Isaiah. My, I think you’ve grown a foot since I saw you last.”

  “Two whole inches. Auntie marked it on the wall. Gonna be taller than Memphis soon!” The brightness drained from Isaiah’s face. He turned to Memphis in a worried whisper. “I thought Aunt Octavia said we couldn’t have nothing to do with Sister.”

  “Anything to do with,” Memphis corrected quietly. “And that’s why we have to keep this secret for now, Ice Man.”

  Sam cleared his throat. “All right, Professor. We’ve waited long enough to hear this. What in the Sam Hill is going on? And what does it have to do with us?”

  Rain spattered against the dusk-painted panes in a steady beat as Will lit a cigarette and pocketed his silver lighter. At last, he turned to the waiting assembly. “Evil has entered our world. A force from beyond. It is spreading across the country, getting worse by the day.” Will paused to exhale. “And we are the only means of stopping it.”

  “Gee. And I was afraid this would be bad news,” Henry said after a moment of stunned silence.

  “You’re talking about the ghosts,” Memphis said when he found his voice again.

  “Like John Hobbes,” Jericho said.

  “And Wai-Mae,” Ling added quietly.

  “And whatever those monsters were down in the subways,” Sam said, leaning against the fireplace, arms folded at his chest. “Those things that wanted to eat us.”

  “They had teeth. Very sharp, very unfortunate teeth. You never think about ghosts having teeth.” Evie shuddered. “I never want to think about it again.”

  “Unfortunately, you will all have to.” Will’s deep voice filled the space as he paced the same few feet of Persian carpet, his cigarette dropping ash onto the rug. “This museum was built by the railroad tycoon Cornelius T. Rathbone. Cornelius was my benefactor for a time, and also my friend, for a time,” Will said with a note of sadness. “He was obsessed with the supernatural and he sank much of his fortune into investigating the mysterious and unexplained. He was particularly interested in Diviners. You see, his own sister, Liberty Anne, was a Diviner.”

  Evie sagged further into her chair. “Must we have a spooky history lesson, Uncle Will? We already know about Liberty Anne.”

  “Not everyone here knows the story, Evie,” Sister Walker chided.

  “When Liberty Anne was a little girl, she wandered into the woods and was lost,” Will continued. “Two days later, she emerged from that same wood. Her hair had gone snow white. She spoke of meeting a funny man—a man in a tall black hat whose coat opened to show the wonders and frights of the world. She fell into a feverish state between waking and sleeping, speaking prophecy, which Cornelius dutifully recorded in his diary. Some of her future visions were thrilling; others were quite dark.” Will pulled hard on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Just before she died, Liberty Anne warned of a great storm to come—a battle between good and evil, of a time when the Diviners would be needed. That time is now. We believe there is a tear in the world, a crack between our world and another dimension beyond this one,” Will said slowly, deliberately. “Our aim is to find out what we can about the man in the hat and the ghosts invading our world so that we can reestablish the balance between natural and supernatural, between the living and the dead—and to do it without causing a public panic.”

  “Swell!” Sam clapped his hands together. “So, uh, how do we do that?”

  “That’s what we hope to discover,” Will said.

  “For a couple of folks who run a museum of the supernatural, you sure don’t know much,” Theta said.

  “We believe by working on strengthening your gifts, individually and as a team, we’ll find the answer,” Sister Walker added.

  “I’ve spoken to the dead plenty during my dream walks,” Ling said. “They ask me to deliver messages to the living. No one has said anything about a coming storm.”

  “My mother did,” Memphis said rather suddenly.

  Sister Walker’s brow furrowed. “She did? When?”

  “It was around the time of the Pentacle Murders, when my power started coming back to me,” Memphis explained to the group. “I would sometimes see my mother while I was under a healing trance.”

  Memphis stopped for a second to catch his breath. He still missed his mother greatly, and he’d never quite forgiven himself for not being able to heal her as she lay dying, riddled with cancer. She’d begged him not to try to heal her—Let me go, Memphis. You can’t bring back what’s gone. It was then that the man in the hat had appeared to Memphis and offered him a bargain if he wanted to see his mother again. Memphis cleared his throat and stared down at his shoes for a second. “Anyway. She, uh, she came to me in a vision and told me that a storm was coming, that we had to be ready for it. Another time, she told me to heal the breach.” Memphis shrugged. “I didn’t know what she meant by any of it.”

  Memphis cast a glance Theta’s way. She nodded at him, gave him a little smile that he knew meant, It’s okay. I’m here.

  “But Unc—Will. We got rid of Naughty John and Wai-Mae and those things in the subway.”

  Will took three long strides to the table and grabbed a sheaf of newspaper clippings, holding them aloft. “These are mentions of ghost sightings from newspapers all across the country. These are not isolated incidents. There are hundreds of sightings.”

  “So how come nobody’s talking about it?” Sam asked.

  “It’s a big country. And not everyone is paying attention as closely as we are,” Sister Walker said. “These stories are on the back pages of small-town newspapers. When you talk about seeing ghosts, most people assume you’re either crazy or drunk or both. You don’t have to disprove someone’s claim if you can discredit the person saying it.”

  Will stubbed his cigarette into an ashtray. “We should be glad that most people aren’t paying as close attention as we have been. It gives us time to work, to try to figure out what we’re up against before…”

  “Before what?” Theta said.

  “The last thing we need is a panic. Panic breeds danger.”

  “How did these ghosts get here?” Isaiah asked, wide-eyed.

  “Wait! Let me guess—you don’t know,” Evie said.

  “We believe that somehow a door between this world and the next has been wedged open, allowing this new, more powerful ghostly energy to come into our world more freely,” Sister Walker explained.

  “But there have always been ghosts,” Ling said again. “I’ve spoken to—”

  “Not like this,” Sister Walker interrupted. “This is a new breed.”

  “So what’s keeping this door open? How did it get left open? And why are these ghosts so powerful?” Ling pressed.

  “We don’t know!” Evie, Sam, and Henry said as one.

  “But tho
se are all good questions, Ling,” Sister Walker said.

  “Say, I’ve got a question. How about you finally tell us everything about Project Buffalo.” Sam fixed his gaze on Will and Sister Walker.

  Will sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “We’ve told you,” he said wearily. “Project Buffalo was a program of the United States Department of Paranormal aimed at the study, registry, and possible recruitment of Diviners in the event we’d need their help in times of crisis. That’s all there is to tell.” Will lit another cigarette.

  Sam’s anger rose. “I can’t help wondering why you’re both still here but my mother isn’t.”

  “Your mother died of influenza, Sam,” Sister Walker said gently. “I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”

  Then how come I got a postcard from her eight years after her supposed “death”? Sam thought. “Well, if it’s the truth, it’s the truth.” Sam fought to keep the edge out of his voice. He watched Will and Sister Walker carefully, but their expressions gave nothing away.

  “There’s nothing else to tell about our days in the department,” Will said.

  “You sure about that?” Sam challenged. “’Cause if we found out you were lying to us for some reason…”

  “I’m sure,” Will answered with an air of finality. “The important thing is to get to work as soon as possible.”

  “I have a question,” Mabel said. “Where do Jericho, Theta, and I fit into all of this? We’re not Diviners.”

  “Everyone can be helpful in some fashion,” Will said. “You three will be our research team. And we might need controls for our experiments from time to time.”

  Theta’s cigarette stopped halfway to her lips. “Controls?”

  “Yes. When testing certain powers, for instance. We need people who aren’t Diviners,” Sister Walker explained. “To gauge the effects.”

  “Gee, I don’t know about that,” Theta said.

  “You can look through the books and files for stories or histories that might prove helpful,” Will said.

  “Like Liberty Anne’s unholy correspondence?” Jericho suggested.

  Ling turned to Henry. “What is that? That doesn’t sound good.”

  “In a letter Cornelius wrote to Will just before he died, he claimed that Liberty Anne’s last vision had been too grim to share,” Jericho said. “Cornelius called it the unholy correspondence. Whatever it was frightened him so much that he never spoke of it until it was too late.”

  “Jericho and I tried to find it, but we had no luck,” Mabel said, glancing shyly at him.

  “Even Sam looked. And he’s usually good at finding trouble,” Jericho said.

  “Haha. The giant made a joke. Hysterical!” Sam’s exaggerated, silent laugh ended in an eye roll. “So, that’s it? This is our plan? Strengthen our powers for some big ghost fight? Look for this unholy correspondence of Liberty Anne’s that might not even exist? Close up this supernatural tear and keep the world from ending. Is that everything?”

  “You forgot that these new ghosts might want to kill us,” Ling said quietly.

  “And that they have teeth,” Henry said. “I don’t think we can overemphasize that point.”

  Isaiah had sidled up to Memphis’s side. Memphis put his arm around his brother’s shoulders. “It’s okay, Ice Man. I won’t let anything get you.”

  Sister Walker left her chair. She bent down to bring her face to Isaiah’s, cupping his chin with her fingers. “Are you frightened, Isaiah?”

  Isaiah didn’t want the others to think he was a baby. But he was frightened. He’d seen what that monster had done to their friend Gabriel. He’d had visions and dreams about it before it happened. As much as he wanted to use his powers again—the ones his religious aunt had forbidden him even to think about—he was scared, too, of what he might see. Isaiah gave one quick nod.

  Sister Walker put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be safe, I promise. I know it’s not right for us to ask you to keep this from your aunt. I’m sorry about that. But it’s very important, Isaiah. It’s only for a little while. Can you do that for me? For us?”

  Isaiah looked to Memphis.

  “That’s your decision, Ice Man. I won’t make it for you. But if you’re coming here with me, we gotta keep it a secret between us. That means not telling nobody. Not Octavia or Uncle Bill.”

  “Anybody,” Isaiah said, thrilled to correct his brother. He bit his lower lip, thinking it over. “Okay.”

  “Good.” Sister Walker rubbed the top of Isaiah’s head affectionately. She stood to address the room, towering above Isaiah. She was a tall woman, and in her heels, she was even taller. “We’ll meet here at the museum every night at closing time, five o’clock.”

  The room erupted in protest.

  “That’s impossible. I have to work in my parents’ restaurant,” Ling said. “What can I tell them? How can I get to Sixty-eighth Street from Chinatown every day?”

  “I’ll have to think of some story for Isaiah to get past my aunt,” Memphis said. “And I’ve got two jobs.” And a notebook full of poems to write.

  “The Follies are in rehearsal for a new show,” Theta said. “Looking through creepy files won’t pay my rent.”

  “And I’ve got an aversion to boredom,” Sam said.

  “This is important. We need all of you here,” Will said. “We can’t just hope this will all go away—it won’t. That’s quite clear now. And no one is going to swoop in and save us, either. It’s up to us. All of us. We have to figure this out together.”

  “Fine. But I’ll have to work around my radio show,” Evie said, reaching for her cloche. “As it is, I’m late to WGI right now.”

  “Evangeline, I don’t think you should continue to do the show,” Will said. “We don’t understand the forces at work here. You could be drawing evil into our world with each object you read.”

  “Didn’t you just ask me to use my gifts in your merry jazz band of ghost-hunting Diviners?” Evie sputtered.

  “That’s different.”

  “Ohhh, I seeee. It’s perfectly swell for me to read objects and dance with the Devil if it helps you and the museum, but not if it makes me happy. And famous.”

  “What if your uncle’s right?” Ling asked.

  “Sure. Why don’t you just give up dream walking?” Evie shot back. Anger pooled in her gut. “Will never lets himself think he might be wrong. It’s a swell magic trick if you can manage it. Oh, don’t worry—I’ll help you. But I’m not giving up my show. Nothin’ doing. Same old Uncle Will. Only looking out for himself.”

  “You’re one to talk, kid,” Sam snapped.

  “Says the thief,” Jericho said.

  Sam smirked. “Pal, I’ve never pretended I wasn’t looking out for myself. And anyway, you should be happy now that the coast is clear.” He jerked his head in Evie’s direction. Too late, he caught Mabel’s pained expression. Nice going, Lloyd. Great work. “Applesauce,” he muttered, feeling like a real heel.

  Everyone began talking at once until Sister Walker’s strong voice rose above the squabbling. “‘The skies alight with strange fire. The eternal door is opened,’” she read aloud from Liberty Anne’s prophecies. “‘The Diviners must stand, or all shall fall.’” She shut the book. “Tomorrow. Five o’clock. I’ll see you then.”

  Henry whistled. “And that, in the theater, is what we call an exit line.”

  Evie bounded up to Mabel, hoping she wasn’t too upset by Sam’s thoughtless remark. “Hiya, Pie Face,” she said with extra please don’t hate me brightness. “Say, do you want to come to the show with me tonight? There’s a pos-i-tute-ly darb party I know about on Beekman Place afterward, and I have the most scandalous story to tell you!”

  “I can’t. I have a meeting,” Mabel said, fighting with her coat. She was still smarting from Sam’s comment. It wasn’t so much that he’d said it as that he was right: Jericho liked Evie, not Mabel. Everyone knew it. It wasn’t anybody’s fault—people got disappointed
all the time. Mabel only wished she could stop liking him.

  “Mabesie…” Evie started.

  “Please, Evie.” Mabel sighed and blinked up at the ceiling. “I forgive you. All right? Honestly, I do have a meeting. I’ll phone you later.”

  As the others gathered their coats, Memphis followed Theta into an anteroom off the library. He shut the door, and Theta ran over and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him until they both had to break for a breath.

  “Pretty spooky stuff in there, huh, Poet?” Theta said, laying her head in the crook of his neck. Memphis could smell her perfume.

  “Mm-hmm. Fortunately, I got a cure for that.”

  Theta raised her face to his, and his breath caught anew at how much space one person could take up inside him. When he looked into her eyes, he saw home. He saw hope. “Yeah?” Theta teased. “Is that a power you’re gonna work on with them?”

  “Nah. Just you.” Memphis kissed Theta then, and for a minute, there were no ghosts or bad prophecies. There was only the world of them.

  “Meet me at the Hotsy Totsy after the show tonight?” Memphis asked, touching his forehead to hers.

  Theta kissed him once more, long and sweet. “Try and keep me away.”

  Memphis let Theta leave first. He counted to fifty, and then he walked out, too. Sister Walker was waiting for him when he came into the library again. “Thank you for coming, Memphis. I wasn’t sure you would.”

  “To tell the truth, Sister, I wasn’t sure I would, either. But if you can help Isaiah…” Memphis trailed off.

  “What do you mean?”

  Memphis glanced over at Isaiah, who was happily measuring himself against the giant stuffed grizzly bear whose paws served as a furred coatrack most of the time. “He’s still having seizures.”

  “How often?” Sister Walker asked, concern in her voice.

  “Once, sometimes twice a week. It wears him out. Octavia’s had her whole prayer circle on it. It’s just that…” Memphis cleared his throat and looked down at his hands. “I’ve been healing him up each time. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Besides Theta, Isaiah was Memphis’s world. He needed Isaiah to get better.