by Libba Bray
“Memphis?” Isaiah said, scared.
The ghosts seemed bolder. “Chaos is born. The time is now. We are ready. You have made us possible. You did this.”
“We gotta do something!” Theta said. Her whole body felt as if it were being squeezed.
“You did this,” the ghosts repeated. They made no move to attack the Diviners. “The time is—”
“Now!” Evie called.
The surge traveled through the Diviners and out like a wave. In the seconds before the blast hit them, the ghosts smiled and sighed, as if welcoming their destruction. And then their atoms were scattered into the ether. The light carried on the wind. Fluttered into trees and singed the new leaves. Dusted the rooftops of parked cars whose lights and windshield wipers had gone haywire. Left divots in the lot.
At the first surge, euphoria swept through the Diviners. And then they were on the floor, dazed, waiting for the inevitable crash into sickness that followed the thrilling high from all that death. Jericho’s body quivered. He could not get warm. “This is what you do?” he asked, horrified.
“We have to get rid of them,” Ling answered, but she could not look him in the eyes.
“It’s us or them,” Memphis said and spat out blood.
“I suppose you think it would be better to let them rampage through the city?” Evie didn’t like being judged, and she especially didn’t like being judged by Jericho. “You’ve got no room to talk. Not after what happened.”
The comment landed, Evie could see.
Jericho looked away. “It was the serum.”
“Was it?” Evie muttered.
Slowly, the Diviners rose to their feet. There was a fiery hole where the stage had been. The remaining patrons stepped closer, drawn to the spectacle. “You did that,” a woman said, eerily echoing the ghosts.
“What if they turn that power on us?” her date asked.
“I want no part of that,” Jericho said.
“I don’t think we get to be conscientious objectors for this fight, Jericho,” Evie said. Her head pounded. The dizzying good feeling had passed. She felt queasy, like her insides were coated in something that would not wash off. She gulped down a few breaths of night air. “Tomorrow night. We meet at the memorial, and we tell Jake Marlowe to shut down that machine.” She shouldered past Jericho, stumbling toward the exit, where she knew she would be sick.
MONSTER
Hopeful Harbor, NY
Sam Lloyd woke with a headache to beat all headaches and a dry mouth that tasted like day-old sardines. “My kingdom for a toothbrush,” he said. “And some aspirin.” His eyes hurt as he looked around the unfamiliar room. The place was small and dungeon-like, with very few furnishings apart from the bed where he now lay. He took it in bit by bit: A chair. A table. A toilet and sink. Thick brick walls. In the corner, a radio broadcast a rousing piano concerto that did nothing to help the banging in his head. No windows. The only way in or out of the room was a heavy steel door with a We’re not foolin’ around type of lock.
“It’s either the world’s worst motel or swankiest jail cell,” Sam muttered. He gave his face a small slap. “Stop talking to yourself, Lloyd. That’s how they get ya. Dammit. Did it again!”
Sam pushed himself to a sitting position, feeling the ache in his muscles as he did. He was shackled to the bed. He tried pulling against the bindings, but this only brought home how weak he still felt. Whatever juice those creepy fellas had shot into him had really knocked him sideways. He had no idea how long he’d been out. What day was it? What was the last thing he could remember?
Evie. Bits and pieces were coming back now: He had been walking back to see Evie at the hotel. He’d been thinking about her, feeling all goofy, which was why he hadn’t seen the two Shadow Men until they ambushed him and stuck a needle into his thigh. His legs had gone numb, and then the rest of him. He remembered being thrown into the back of a car and then… he couldn’t remember anything after that.
Evie would have no idea what had happened to him. Knowing Evie, she’d be pretty sore about it, too. That thought brought on just the slightest bit of a smile, but then he remembered the night before he’d been kidnapped, everything they’d shared, the soft feel of her body, and he sobered. What if she thought he’d abandoned her, like a real heel? Had the Shadow Men gone after her and the rest of his friends? Were they here now somewhere—wherever this place was? He tried to slip his hand out of the restraints, but it was useless.
Sam’s stomach growled. How long had it been since he’d eaten? For the first time, he noticed a silver tray that sat on the nightstand, within reach. Sam was just able to lift the dish’s domed cover. They’d left him a sandwich. A ham sandwich. Bastards. There was a rattle at the room’s steel door. Quickly, Sam lay down, pretending to sleep but keeping his eyelids open a sliver. Through the soft fuzz of his eyelashes, Sam saw the two Shadow Men enter. The skinny one was named Jefferson, Sam remembered; Adams was the taller brute who didn’t talk much. Sam wished he could leap off the bed and punch them both. If he could get them to come close enough, he could use his Diviner power to daze them. While they were under his spell, he would find the key, unlock the cuffs, and make a run for it.
Jefferson glanced down at the tray and noticed that its lid was off. “It’s no good pretending, you know.” He had a voice that sounded as if he’d spent years screaming and was now left with a subdued rasp. “I can assure you that, just as we were able to drug you to sleep, we can do the same to wake you up. The effects are rather unpleasant, I hear.”
Resigned, Sam opened his eyes and sat up. “Where the hell am I?”
Mr. Jefferson took a seat while his partner stood watch. “Hello, Sam. Or do you prefer Sergei?”
“I’d prefer that you let me out of here.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that just yet.”
“Okay. How long do you need? I could wait five minutes.”
“Cute.” From his pocket, the Shadow Man brought out a paper bag of pistachios, picking through them methodically until he found one he liked. “We need your help, Sergei.”
“Why the hell should I help you? And the name is Sam, pal.”
“That’s not what your mother calls you, though, is it?”
Sam’s pulse quickened. He tried to play it cool. “My mother doesn’t call me anything. She’s dead.”
“You help us, we help you.” With his thumbs, the Shadow Man split open the pistachio and popped the tiny green nut into his mouth, grinding it between his back teeth while he fixed Sam with a stare.
It was the arrogance of the stare that got to Sam. He summoned up all his anger and called on his power. “Don’t see m—aahhh!” Sam yelped in pain as his wrists burned beneath the shackles.
Mr. Jefferson smirked. “Did you think I’d trust you?”
“Wh-what did you do to me?”
The Shadow Man clucked and shook his head like a headmaster. “Be a good boy, Sergei, or no dessert.”
“I’ll kill you. I swear I will,” Sam grunted, still in pain.
“I don’t think so.” Jefferson jerked his head toward the door. Adams opened it and stepped outside. Sam could make out a clank, like a long chain dragging across a floor. The Shadow Man stepped back into the room with a shackled guest, and Sam was suddenly grateful for the bed holding his weight. It had been ten years since he’d last seen her. Ten years since she’d kissed him good-bye and gone to work on Project Buffalo. She seemed smaller to him now that he was older. Gray streaked her black hair. But it was unmistakably Miriam Lubovitch, his mother.
“Mama?” Sam said.
“Sergei!” Miriam tried to move toward her son but her ankles were in irons. Tears shone in her eyes. There were more words, all in their native Russian: Are you hurt? Nyet. I love you. I love you, too, Mama. And: You got so big! Which made Sam laugh despite the circumstances, because mothers were mothers no matter what. He hadn’t been wrong. She was alive. All this time, alive. And these were the sons-of-bitches who’d d
estroyed their family, who’d kept them apart and lied about it, telling Sam’s father that Miriam had died of influenza back in 1918.
“Take her outta those chains,” Sam growled.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Thanks to her exposure to Project Buffalo during the war, your mother’s Diviner gifts are… substantial. A little iron helps contain them, we’ve found. A lot of iron makes her docile as a kitten.” Jefferson nodded at the shackles around Sam’s blistered wrists. “Seems to work like a charm on you, too.”
Sam had never felt such blinding rage. He’d always wondered what would happen if he came face-to-face with the men who’d taken his mother. Wondered if he was capable of murder. Now he knew that he was.
“Sorry there’s no time for a touching reunion, but Mr. Marlowe requests the pleasure of your company.”
With that, Mr. Adams crossed the room, where he unhooked the restraints from the bedpost and used them to bind Sam’s hands together in front of him. He yanked Sam to his feet.
“Easy, chump,” Sam snarled.
Adams glared at Sam. “Who are you calling a chump?”
“Did I say chump? I meant champ. I get my vowels mixed up.”
Sergei. Be careful.
Sam heard his mother’s voice in his head. For ten years, he’d longed to hear that voice. But now that she was reprimanding him, it was, frankly, a little irritating.
I do what I like, he thought, unsure if his mother could hear it.
Don’t be a pisher.
Yep. She could hear him.
The Shadow Men escorted Sam and his mother to an elevator that rattled them up four floors to the very top, a button marked only S. When the doors opened on the long room, Sam had to blink against the brightness of the day shining through the glass roof. The majesty of it took his breath away for a minute. A solarium, rooms like this were called. Solarium. S.
Adams and Jefferson brought Sam and Miriam to an area cordoned off by curtains. “Wait here,” Adams said.
Sam snorted. “Oh, suuure. Let President Coolidge know I’ll be late for lunch, will ya?”
Adams smacked Sam across the face. “Watch your mouth.”
“Ow,” Sam said, genuinely surprised at how much it hurt.
“Mr. Adams. That was unnecessary,” Jake Marlowe said. America’s favorite millionaire son crossed the room with sure strides. A pair of strange leather goggles, like an aviator’s, hung around his neck.
“Yeah. Make him say he’s sorry,” Sam goaded.
“I’m sure he is,” Jake said with paternal disinterest.
Sam glared at Adams, who mouthed, I’m not sorry.
Marlowe drew back the curtains and Sam forgot about the Shadow Men as he took in the sight of an enormous golden sphere of a machine perched on six tall legs like some giant mechanical spider. A dizzying array of tubes and wires sprang from its top and wrapped around antennas that stretched up to a square of open space in the ceiling, reaching toward the sky. A small compartment in the thing’s side held a glass tube in which blue electricity crackled, as if Jake Marlowe had managed to capture lightning in a jar. On either side of the machine’s gleaming metal belly was a chair attached to a golden helmet full of more wires that looped back into the body of the machine. Sam had never seen anything like it. It was terrifying; it was beautiful.
“Gee, does it lay golden eggs?” Sam joked. He didn’t want those bastards to know how scared he was.
Miriam pulled at her chains. “No! Not my son! You promised!”
“We’ll keep him safe, Miriam,” Marlowe said.
“Safe from what?” Sam asked.
Miriam kept her steely gaze on Marlowe. “Like you did the others?”
“Regrettable,” Jefferson said. “But necessary for the good of the nation.”
“Safe from what?” Sam repeated.
Miriam shook her head. “I won’t do it.”
“Miriam…”
“Safe from wh—Hey, is this thing on? Am I broadcasting? Hello!”
Adams and Jefferson took hold of Sam’s arms and dragged him to one of the chairs. Adams strapped Sam’s arms down against the leather pads. “What’s the big idea? Is this an electric chair? Do I get a trial? A last meal? A coupla cookies?”
Sam tugged furiously at the restraints, but they were snug. “Are you gonna at least tell me what this meshuggunah thing is?”
Jake regarded the machine with a fondness Sam had never seen him bestow on another person. “This is the Eye of Providence.”
“This is the Eye? No offense, Mr. Marlowe, but it doesn’t even look like an eye. More like a cuckoo spider or, gee, I dunno, like something a crazed madman with delusions of grandeur would make.”
Marlowe ignored Sam as Jefferson and Adams strong-armed a struggling Miriam into the other chair.
“Hey. Hey! Leave my mother alone! Okay, now? Now I’m mad. You made me mad. You listening to me, Mr. Heebie-Jeebies Adams and your friend, Jokes Jefferson? When I get up out of this chair, you will be sorry. Very sorry. I’m not kidding. You don’t want to fool around with me. I’m really, really mad.”
Jake Marlowe fiddled with a control. “Sam. It’s going to be fine.”
“Fine for me or fine for the chair?”
From inside a drawer, Marlowe withdrew a large syringe filled with a blue liquid. Fear curled around Sam’s insides, turning them cold. “Hey. Hey! What’s that for?”
“Hold still, please, Sam.”
“No, you don’t understand. I hate needles. A lot. I—ahhhh!”
Marlowe plunged the needle into Sam’s arm. Sam could feel the blue liquid rushing into his veins, an oily cold while the site of the shot itched and burned like an ant bite. In his head, he heard his mother: Sergei, breathe. Marlowe drew down the golden cap and screwed it into place against Sam’s skull. The serum was roaring through his body as if he were the third rail of a subway track taking on current.
“Careful. I just washed my hair,” he joked to keep the panic at bay. His heart pounded.
“Relax, Sam.” Marlowe.
“Please, Jake…” Miriam pleaded as Jefferson and Adams secured the other cap on her head.
“I promise, Miriam,” Jake Marlowe said. “On my honor.”
“You have no honor.”
“Careful, Miriam,” Jake said. His expression slid into something hard and cold, the change so sudden and shocking that Sam was reminded of the way ghosts turned on a dime.
Sam was street smart. He’d grown up on the South Side of Chicago, running from bullies who taunted him for being small and a Jew. He didn’t scare easily. But as Jake Marlowe flipped two switches and the Eye of Providence started with a chugging hum that grew deafeningly loud, Sam was animal-afraid. He wanted out of his own body. “Please,” he whispered. “Please don’t.”
Jake Marlowe pulled the goggles up over his eyes. Adams and Jefferson followed suit with their own.
“Where’s our goggles, huh?” Sam yelled over the noise. The serum slithered inside him, taking over. His breathing was rapid, shallow. “What’s with this stuff you gave me?”
“I need you to see, Sam,” Marlowe shouted over the humming. “I need you to tell me everything you see.”
The blue lightning flared against the glass tube and shot up the antennas of the Eye, up into the clouds above, making them angry. It reached into Sam’s body, too. They were joined. Everything the machine felt, Sam felt. His body shook. Sam strained against the sudden force. He tried to speak but could only grunt: “Nnn-nng-ng.” The tear between worlds was stretching wider, birthing pains that rippled through Sam as if he, too, were being stretched open. His skin burned as if a million fire ants crawled underneath. As the pressure increased, he bit his tongue. Blood coated the back of his throat, making him gag. He feared he would choke. He wanted to scream but he could not remember how. All he knew was fear.
“Easy, Sam. Don’t fight it. You’ll be fine.” Jake Marlowe’s voice. “Greatness requires some sacrifice.”
He was no
t fine. He was not fine not fine not fine. Tears trickled over his hot cheeks. A burnt-sugar scorch filled his nostrils. He bucked and arched from the current and the serum warring inside him. The dials whirred to a high whine. The life was being sucked from Sam’s very bones in order to power Jake Marlowe’s monstrous machine.
Sergei. His mother in his head. Whatever you see, my love, hold fast to yourself. Do not lose yourself to it. Fight, Sergei. Fight.
Sam could only repeat a mantra in his head: Don’t see me, don’t see me, don’t see me. The scream that was torn at last from Sam seemed to echo across forever. And then, in an instant, the pain stopped. He was floating. He was weightless and without form. Around him, the sky exploded into newness, the dawn of all time, and Sam was there for it, joined to it. Every cell in his body yearned for that beautiful dark—no loneliness, no hunger, no fear or grief. Only connection. Belonging. There was the sky and Sam was the sky. He waited for a word to be uttered to usher him into being.
“Sam?” Marlowe’s voice. It was a universe away. It was an intimate whisper in his ear. “Sam, what do you see?”
A ball of dust spun faster and faster, flattening as it did, and swirled into a gaseous sea of color. Sam felt he was inside the womb of a star and he was the star, watching himself being born. Life inventing itself over and over. Creation, infinite and eternal. How could he possibly report on something so ecstatic? Words were insufficient.
“Sam?” Marlowe.
“It’s… beautiful.” Sam.
“What do you see?” Marlowe.
“It’s like… like the beginning of the world.” Sam. Was he Sam? He was more than Sam. He was and was not and was again.
The voices of Marlowe and the Shadow Men drifted toward Sam like the conversation was coming through a tinny radio: Told you… abundant resources in that world… King of Crows… capture him and have it all… but what does this King of Crows want… hasn’t told us, just wants to keep the breach open, as do we.…
Sam was leaving all that behind like a memory. He was zooming through time, catching tiny slivers of history. Moments unfolded around him, revolutions and rebellions, protests and philosophies, quiet longings and giant leaps of progress, and dreams, dreams, dreams. So many dreams. They were endless, a stardust fuel reborn into the hearts of the people again and again. Also infinite was the quest for power, the capacity for violence.