Before the Devil Breaks You Read online

  Mr. Phillips frowned. “Now, Evie. That’s unbecoming.”

  Evie’s cheeks burned with everything she wanted to say back to Mr. Phillips but knew she couldn’t. Not if she wanted to keep her radio show.

  “Frankly, Pears soap got spooked when you read that fella’s comb and… started screaming at him, asking where he got it. It was a frightening display.”

  Bob Bateman. He’d lied to her about that comb. But she couldn’t tell Mr. Phillips what she’d seen or why it was so upsetting to her.

  “I reported exactly what I saw,” Evie said, and wished she didn’t sound so defensive.

  “Oh, say, now, Evie. People have short memories. This nonsense can be forgotten. Why don’t you start getting yourself in good with Harriet and her readers?”

  Evie would rather eat glass.

  “Listen here: Why don’t you clean yourself up a bit, eh? Show Pears and the people of New York what a good girl you are,” Mr. Phillips said, as if he were delivering a pep speech to a losing football team heading into their last quarter. “When you read objects, keep it all on the happy side—tell them more about what they want to hear and nothing too alarming. Keep it entertaining! Do a bit of charity work! Make yourself a little more like, well, like Sarah.”

  Evie imagined pummeling her boss with a basket full of Pears soap.

  Still clutching the newspaper, a thoroughly unhappy Evie left Mr. Phillips’s office. Around her, WGI’s Art Deco hallways buzzed with activity and ambition. Evie passed two comics honing their patter, a jazz orchestra tuning up, and a soprano decked out in a velvet evening gown practicing roller-coaster vocal scales just outside the ladies’ lounge. Everybody wanted to be heard on the radio these days. Everybody wanted to become famous.

  Staying famous was harder.

  Earsplitting screams drew Evie back to WGI’s golden doors. Sarah Snow had arrived and was shaking hands with the many fans crowding around her, desperate for her to notice them. With her hair set in a fresh permanent wave and an orchid corsage pinned to her white dress—her signature look—Sarah gleamed like a modern angel, a saint with jazz-age flair. A month ago, she’d been a struggling radio evangelist. Now she was WGI’s rising star. And if the crowds outside were any sign, she was rising right past Evie.

  A newsman’s camera flashed. It bounced off the glass and hurt Evie’s eyes.

  “You seem to be awfully chummy with Jake Marlowe, Miss Snow. Any truth to the rumor that you might become Mrs. Marlowe?” a woman in a turban asked. Harriet Henderson, the scandal-sheet snake herself.

  “Mr. Marlowe is a wonderful man. I’m pleased to be his friend,” Sarah said, smiling for the cameras.

  But you didn’t deny it, you crafty little crusader, Evie thought, not without admiration.

  With a last wave of her white-gloved hand and a bright smile, Sarah walked toward WGI’s golden doors, and Evie tried to sneak away.

  “Good evening, Miss O’Neill,” Sarah called, catching Evie mid-tiptoe.

  Evie turned around with a pasted-on smile. “Good evening, Miss Snow. My, you sure do have a lot of fans!”

  “I’m simply the Lord’s vessel,” Sarah said, opening her arms wide.

  “Like the Titanic?” Evie muttered under her breath.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, it’s terrific!”

  “Why, thank you.” Sarah’s expression was all wincing sympathy. “I was sorry to hear about your broken engagement.”

  I’ll bet.

  “Must be especially hard after the way Sam so gallantly saved your life from that poor man who tried to shoot you. What was his name?”

  “Luther Clayton,” Evie said.

  “Oh, yes. I heard they’ve put him in the asylum. Poor thing.”

  “That poor thing tried to kill me,” Evie reminded her.

  “Jesus asks us to forgive our trespassers. Anyway, I’m terribly sorry about your broken engagement,” Sarah said again in case anyone in the hallway missed it the first time. “You must be devastated by the loss.”

  Evie’s lips stretched into a smile as phony as Sarah’s sympathy. “Yes, I’ve put teacups all around my room to catch the overflow of my tears. Somehow I muddle through without Sam. Though I do have to go out if I want tea.”

  Sarah appraised Evie for an uncomfortably long time. “You’re not really as jaded as you make yourself out to be, Miss O’Neill.”

  “Says you.”

  “Well, I will keep you in my prayers, Miss O’Neill,” Sarah said, and walked away.

  “Why’d she have to go and say something human,” Evie muttered as she closed herself off in one of WGI’s telephone booths to sulk. She watched the enthusiastic secretary pool gather around Sarah, eager for her attention. Months before, it was Evie they’d been gathering around. The picture of her toppling into the hotel’s giant potted plant blared up from the newspaper. “At least my gams look good,” Evie said. She leafed through the pages, stopping when she came to a small mention of some grisly murders out at the Manhattan State Hospital for the Insane, the very place where they were holding Luther Clayton. Quickly, Evie grabbed the telephone, asking the operator for the number of the Daily News.

  T. S. Woodhouse’s oily voice slithered over the line. “Well, if it isn’t the Sweetheart Seer herself! To what do I owe this honor?”

  “Listen, Woody, I’ve got a hot tip for you: The Sweetheart Seer is going out to the asylum at Ward’s Island to meet with Luther Clayton.”

  “The fella who tried to shoot you?”

  “Yes. I’m… I’m going to forgive him! Poor… fellow,” she said, making it up as she went along. “I thought you might like to write a story about it.”

  There was a pause, followed by a laugh. “This is about Sarah Snow, isn’t it?”

  Evie poked her head out the telephone booth’s glass door. At the end of the long hall, Sarah posed with Mr. Phillips as Harriet Henderson looked on and a photographer captured it all. Evie felt the jealousy down to her toenails. “I don’t have the foggiest notion what you mean, Mr. Woodhouse.”

  “Don’t you? I got news for you, Sheba: You will never be able to best Miss Pure-as-Snow at the good-girl game.”

  Evie snapped the door shut again. “Come on, Woody. Help a girl out.”

  “All right. I want to sniff around about the murders out there anyway, but, understandably, they don’t want any press. You get me in, and I promise to write up your Luther Clayton story in a way that makes your halo shine brighter than ten Sarah Snows.”

  Evie grinned in relief. “It’s a deal.”

  As she hung up, the photographer’s blinding flash went off, and Evie blinked against Sarah’s refracted glory.

  TESTED

  Ling arrived at the museum at precisely five o’clock. It had taken her two buses, a trolley, and a full hour to get there. Her hands burned from the constant pressure of her crutches, and even though it was brisk outside, under her wool coat, she was covered in a sheen of sweat. She removed her damp coat and dropped into a chair, flexing her aching fingers. “I can’t stay long. I told my mother I was attending an evening Mass with Henry and Evie at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”

  Henry put a hand to his chest in faux shock. “You used the Lord to lie to them? I’ll just stand over here in case you’re struck by lightning.”

  “We’ll need to figure out a better way to get me here if you want me to continue,” Ling said. “It took a long time. And I can’t keep lying to my parents. I feel too guilty.”

  “Fair enough. Dr. Fitzgerald and I will come up with a solution, Ling,” Sister Walker promised.

  “Thank you,” Ling said. The others were there, scattered around the library’s first floor looking like the aftermath of a party no one had wanted to attend. “So what do we do now?”

  “Let’s begin with a few questions,” Sister Walker said, settling herself beside a credenza hosting an array of strange-looking instruments. “Tell me what you know about your powers thus far—when did they start
? What happens while you are engaged? Are there any aftereffects that you’ve noticed, illness or dizziness, anything like that? What are your limits or weaknesses?”

  “Henry and I can dream walk,” Ling said. “And during the sleeping sickness, we discovered that we can dream walk together. I can also speak to the dead inside dreams if I have an object that belonged to the deceased.”

  “I can sometimes influence a person inside a dream,” Henry added. “For instance, if someone were having a nightmare, I might say, ‘Why don’t you dream about clowns instead?’”

  “Clowns are your cure for a nightmare?” Evie said from the couch, where she lay half-sprawled again, legs crossed, one leg kicking out and back. “Never, ever say that to me inside one of my dreams, Henry. Promise me.” She shivered. “Clowns.”

  “Henry can’t move after a dream walk,” Theta volunteered. She sat at the long table with her chair close beside Memphis’s. “Sometimes it’s as long as five minutes. I get really worried about him.”

  “Ling? Any of those same troubles for you?” Sister Walker asked.

  “No. I’m fine afterward,” Ling said with a note of stoic pride.

  Sister Walker took this down, too. “What else? Anyone?”

  “After an object reading, I get the granddaddy of skull-bangers,” Evie said.

  Sam stroked his chin. “You know, Miss Walker, it’s the darnedest thing, but I seem to be getting more irresistible every day. Golly, is that a side effect of my gift?”

  “I believe it’s a side effect of your ego,” Evie said, punctuating it with a generous eye roll.

  Jericho laughed out loud at that, something he rarely did. It pleased Evie.

  “Wasn’t that funny,” Sam grumbled.

  “Yes, it was.” Jericho gave Evie a sly glance. She returned it with a raised brow, enjoying the guilty pleasure of this small, secret exchange.

  Memphis cleared his throat before charging into the fray. “During the Pentacle Murders, Isaiah had some bad nightmares. He’d wake up in the night shaking with visions. He even predicted Gabe’s death,” Memphis said, his heart sinking at the memory of his murdered best friend.

  “I don’t remember it so much, though,” Isaiah said. “Don’t remember what happens during my fits, either.”

  “Well. We’ll see if we can get you stronger so that you can remember more and not be bothered by those seizures any longer. Sound fair?” Sister Walker said gently. “In fact, I hope that by working on your powers daily and in new ways, we’ll strengthen all of you and eliminate any troubles you might be experiencing. We’ll work with you alone, in pairs, and as teams to see how your gifts interact, whether you increase each other’s powers or perhaps affect one another negatively.”

  “Like atoms with the potential to attract or repel,” Ling said. “To create energy.”

  At the word attract, Evie glanced sidelong at Jericho where he leaned against the wall, arms folded across his broad chest, head tilted slightly back so that he could look down at everything from under those somewhat sleepy eyelids, remote, like a god from on high. The curve of his throat was inviting. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him there.

  “Do you like science, Ling?” Sister Walker asked, mercifully pulling Evie’s attention back to the group.

  “Science is what she lives for,” Henry said.

  A smile lit up Sister Walker’s face. “Then you’ll have to let me know your thoughts as we proceed. Here. Take this for making notes.” She handed Ling a small leather-bound book and a pencil.

  “Thank you,” Ling said, blushing.

  “Don’t thank me yet. I’ll expect things from you,” Sister Walker said.

  “Ooh. Teacher’s pet,” Henry whispered.

  “Not all of us get expelled from prep school,” she shot back.

  Henry nodded appreciatively. “Touché.”

  Ling cracked open the notebook, inhaling the scent of good leather and of the possibilities lurking in all those blank pages. She was embarrassingly proud of the attention from Sister Walker. Back on Mott Street, everyone knew that Ling could walk in dreams and speak to the dead, but no one really understood her love of science or how those worlds could coexist when to Ling they were simply different sides of the same coin, the exploration of equal mysteries. Sister Walker had the same two passions. Ling sensed in her a kindred spirit. The notebook was acknowledgment: I see you. I know you.

  Isaiah was bored. Sister Walker said they’d test powers, but so far it was just a bunch of talking. He’d never been in a place as fascinating as the museum, and he wanted to explore everything in it. While Sister Walker and Will asked the others a series of questions, Isaiah wandered over to the fat chest between the windows so he could get a closer look at the instrument sitting on top of it: a small wooden box with a hand crank on the side and, on its face, a needle that measured in tens from zero to eighty. It looked as if someone had tried to make a cuckoo clock with a speedometer. Isaiah ran a finger across the dark filament of the bulb in the instrument’s center. Then he turned the crank, and it flared briefly, the needle tipping up the scale to thirty with an electric scratching sound. Isaiah jumped back, and the machine calmed.

  Isaiah put up his hands. “I didn’t do anything!”

  “Careful,” Will said, marching toward Isaiah.

  Now that Isaiah knew he wasn’t in trouble, his curiosity took over. “What is it?”

  “It’s called a Metaphysickometer,” Will said.

  Isaiah shrugged, unimpressed. “Doesn’t seem like much.”

  “Just wait till we start working, and you generate energy. Then that needle will bounce around like an excited puppy. It’s one of Jake Marlowe’s finest early inventions,” Will said.

  “Jake Marlowe built this?” Ling said, drawing closer.

  “Yes. When we worked together. In the United States Department of Paranormal,” Sister Walker explained.

  “Ling’s his greatest admirer. She met him at his Future of America Exhibition announcement. He’s promised her tickets to the exhibit’s opening day,” Henry explained.

  “Jake Marlowe.” Mabel practically spat his name like a curse word. “Did you know his miners are striking?”

  “Now you’ve done it,” Evie said under her breath.

  “They’re living in tents with their families. They’re cold and hungry. But the newspapers refuse to report it,” Mabel continued.

  “Then they should show up for work and not complain,” Ling said.

  Mabel’s voice grew even more heated. “The conditions at his mine are terrible! They’ve been mining uranium twelve, thirteen hours a day, and getting awfully sick from it.”

  “Why does Jake Marlowe need so much uranium?” Ling wondered aloud.

  “I don’t know,” Mabel said. She’d never really stopped to think about it before.

  Ling scoffed. “We all have to work hard,” she said, returning to the argument. “I know people in Chinatown who work seventeen hours a day. My parents never take a day off. I feel like a bad daughter being here and not there, helping them. As for your unions, I don’t see them sticking up for Chinese workers.”

  Henry managed a strained smile. “I love this play. I can’t wait till it comes to Broadway next month,” he said, trying to smooth things over.

  Ling knew Henry was kidding and she knew it was because he hated to see people fight. But it bothered her anyway, the way he slid around anything too uncomfortable. Ling didn’t have that luxury. She was an outsider among outsiders—a half-Chinese, half-Irish, partially paralyzed girl living in Chinatown. She could not escape the looks of pity and discomfort she garnered when she struggled into a room on her crutches. All those eyes on her, then all those eyes looking away out of a fear that they could catch the bad luck of her. It had taught her to be blunt, to lash out first. Better to frighten people a little and keep them at a distance than to suffer the eventual disappointment of them. Better to wound a little than to hurt a lot. Even Ling’s gift made people u
ncomfortable. The messages she carried back from the ancestor spirits she spoke to during her dream walks weren’t always what the relatives who’d hired her wanted to hear. When that happened, they often took it out on the messenger: Ling. Only in the scientific world, among the beauty of theories and observations, equations and atoms, did Ling feel she truly belonged. And in dreams, where she could do anything, even walk. Even run.

  Ling turned her attention to the Metaphysickometer. It was cruder than Marlowe’s sleeker, newer inventions, and it encouraged her to know that everyone, even Jake Marlowe, had to start somewhere.

  “What does it do?” she asked, examining its many dials.

  “It measures electromagnetic radiation. Both ghosts and Diviners seem to emit much more of it than the rest of the population. In theory, Diviners together can disrupt or create energy fields.” Will flipped a switch on the box’s side and turned the crank a few times until a pleasant hum warmed the machine. The needle tipped up and down like a conductor’s baton. “Quite a bit of it in this room right now.” Will switched it off and the needle dropped like a fainting ingenue. “Mr. Marlowe was quite interested in what could be made from that energy—whole industries might be powered from it.”

  “I thought Jake Marlowe hated Diviners,” Theta said. “He’s always running ’em down.”

  “How come he does that if he used to be one of you, Sister?” Isaiah said, flipping the switch on the Metaphysickometer on and off until Sister Walker stopped him.

  “Yes, what happened? Did one of the Diviners pick out the wrong Christmas present for him?” Evie said.

  “Socks,” Sam agreed. “It’s always socks.”

  “It’s a long story,” Sister Walker said. “And not important at the moment.”

  “That Metaphys—needle thing—is all fine and dandy. But what about weapons? What do you have that gets rid of ghosts? Is there a Jake Marlowe ghost container lying around somewhere?” Evie asked.

  “Ghosts were once people,” Will said. “People want things. Even dead people. You have to figure out what that thing is. John Hobbes believed he was the anti-Christ and that he could only be banished by luring his essence into a holy relic and destroying that relic. Wai-Mae could not rest until she could face the trauma of her death, until her bones had been given a proper burial. There isn’t one solution. You have to see them ghost by ghost.”