Before the Devil Breaks You

by Libba Bray

  “Because you fancy yourself a hero?” Evie said. She hadn’t meant it to sound so sneering.

  Will’s smile vanished. “Because I know that I’m not.”

  Already, the conversation was making Evie uncomfortable. She lifted the book’s cover. The first page was inscribed, To Will with love from Rotke, Christmas 1916.

  Will cleared his throat. “Do you mind?”

  Evie snapped the book shut and returned it to its spot before resuming her slow circle of the room. “I wanted to talk to you about something. Do you remember a few weeks ago I had an incident on my radio show?”

  “I don’t listen to the radio much,” Will said.

  Evie stared in disbelief. “How can you not listen to the radio, Uncle Will? It’s 1927! Everyone listens to the radio. It’s how we live.”

  Will fought another smile. “I’m as much of an artifact as everything in here. But I’m guessing you had something else to tell me.”

  For the past few months, Evie had gotten used to thinking of Will as the enemy. But he was family, too. And Will knew things. Things that could be helpful. She was just going to have to risk trusting him a little bit.

  “A curious thing happened,” Evie said, finally coming to rest in a button-back leather club chair that she wished she could steal for her own room at the Winthrop. “A fellow named Bob Bateman came on the show and asked me to read his friend’s comb. He said his friend had died in the war. While I was under, I did see soldiers. They were on a train. I saw the soldier who tried to shoot me—Luther Clayton? He wasn’t much older than I am now. He still had his legs and his mind was unbroken. And then I saw James on that train. Will, that comb belonged to James.”

  “You’re sure?” Will asked, his face grave.

  “Positive.”

  Her uncle reached for his ever-present cigarette case, selecting one from inside its sardine-like hold and tamping the end against the top of his desk till the loose tobacco conformed. “How did this Bateman fellow get James’s comb?”

  “Here’s where it gets stranger. I chased Bob Bateman down the street and demanded to know where he’d gotten the comb. He told me he’d been paid to say that by some men in dark suits.”

  “That’s not particularly helpful. You might as well say, ‘I was paid by a man with a mustache,’” Will said, reaching for his lighter.

  “I know.” Evie pushed the words out on a heavy sigh. She snapped her fingers. “Adams! That was the man’s name.”

  Will fumbled with his cigarette lighter. He raked his thumb against the little wheel until the flame caught.

  “Does that name mean something to you? Do you know who that is?” Evie asked.

  “No.” Will drew on his cigarette.

  Evie leaned into the chair, letting its comfort cradle her. “The comb showed me the soldiers playing a guessing game with cards. James knew the card one of the soldiers held. He knew it was the Ace of Spades without even seeing it.”

  Will blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “Could’ve been a lucky guess. Or he could’ve seen the card beforehand and not told.”

  “I suppose so. Except…”

  “Except?”

  “When he guessed it, one of the other soldiers said, ‘Right again.’ That suggests James had done it before. Doesn’t it?”

  “Evie, where are you leading with this?”

  Evie sat forward. “Do you think it’s possible that James had special powers, too? I was so young when he died, I can’t remember him doing anything, well, Diviners-like. Do you?”

  “Mostly, I remember that he loved baseball, especially the Chicago White Sox. I don’t think that makes him exceptional. I think that made him an American kid,” Will said, tapping ash into an overflowing brass tray.

  Evie liked hearing stories about her brother. Why had they never talked about James before? “What else?”

  Will pulled on his cigarette again, smiling at some private memory. “He once stole a pie your neighbor had baked from off her kitchen windowsill, where she’d set it to cool. He took it into the woods and ate the entire thing with his hands.”

  “His hands?”

  “Indeed. And then he vomited all night. Your mother told him it served him right.”

  “She would.” Evie laughed. “I can’t believe he didn’t share any with me.”

  “You were only two or three, if memory serves.”

  The record spun out. It wasn’t jazz, but it was pretty. She wondered what James would think of the Hotsy Totsy, how fun it would be to take him there. How she wished he could’ve seen the girl she’d grown up to be. Would he be proud of her? Disappointed?

  “I dream about him all the time,” Evie said, her smile fading.

  “I understand.”

  Almost automatically, it seemed to Evie, Will looked over at the framed photograph of his dead fiancée that he kept on his desk. Evie had caught glimpses of Rotke when reading over Sam’s mother’s mementos, so she’d picked up bits here and there—Rotke seemed warm and happy. “What was she like?”

  “She was clever,” Will said after a long pause. “So very smart. And a Diviner.”

  “She was?”

  “Her powers weren’t as strong as all of yours. But she could read people. She could read me. And I suppose I needed reading. I didn’t even understand myself. Not as well as Rotke did.”

  “You never really said. How did she die?”

  Will drew slowly on his cigarette, letting his answer out with the smoke. “It was an accident. In the lab. There was nothing that could be done.”

  Evie wanted to know more, but she also didn’t want to pry into her uncle’s private pain. “About Bob Bateman’s comb,” she said, bringing the conversation around again. “I’ve been thinking: What if James is trying to send me a message from beyond?”

  “Oh, Evie…” Will started.

  “But what if he is? I dream of soldiers all the time—”

  “That doesn’t mean anything—”

  “The same dream. Over and over—”

  “Evangeline. Don’t do this to yourself—”

  “They’re in a forest. And James is trying to tell me something important. He’s trying to warn me and—”

  “James is dead, Evangeline!” Will thundered, bringing his fist down on the desk, rattling his papers. “He is dead! And the dead. Must. Rest. Let him go and move on.”

  Will’s words hit like a fist. Tears pricked at Evie’s eyes.

  Will raked his fingers through his hair, his nervous habit, and took in a settling breath. “I’m… I’m sorry, Evie. I shouldn’t have shouted. I know what it is to lose someone. But when they’re gone, they’re gone,” he said quietly. “We learn to live without them. To let go. To move forward.”

  Evie swallowed. Her throat ached. “Sure. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. I guess that’s why we’re chasing ghosts.”

  Will rose and came to stand awkwardly beside Evie’s chair, his hands in his pockets. He reached out and patted Evie’s shoulder as if he’d read it in a manual on how to be a human. No wonder he’d needed Rotke.

  “I’m sorry, Evie. Truly, I am.”

  Evie shirked away. This whole conversation had been a mistake.

  “Why? It’s not like you killed anybody,” Evie said, and closed the door behind her harder than was necessary.

  On Friday evening, after the week of experiments had left the Diviners tired and grumpy, Sister Walker brought out a plate of cookies. “Not to worry, I didn’t bake these. My neighbor did. So they are perfectly edible,” she said with a wink to Memphis and Isaiah.

  “What did you do with Diviners before, when you worked with the Department of Paranormal?” Sam asked between slurps of steaming tea.

  “Oh. We talked to people like you. We wrote down your stories. Asked questions.” Will dunked a cookie half into his cup while Evie watched in fascinated revulsion.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Honestly, Unc,” she said, accidentally using the affectionate nickname she’d given him age
s ago. He smiled at her, and she was immediately angry at herself for the slip. After the argument they’d had earlier in the week about James, she’d determined to be aloof with Will. As usual, she was an utter failure at holding a grudge.

  “I suppose you got to know those Diviners pretty well, then,” Ling said.

  Will brushed his hands of crumbs and took out his silver case, wedging a Lucky Strike between his lips. “We got to know what they could do.”

  Ling frowned. “That’s not the same thing at all.”

  “Did you test them like you’re testing us?” Isaiah asked.

  “Yes, we did. Some people had a small amount of ability and some had quite a bit more,” Sister Walker said.

  “What about me? How much do I have?”

  “A great deal. And there’s more in there we haven’t even explored yet,” Sister Walker said, and Isaiah broke into a huge grin. “That goes for all of you.”

  “You, uh, ever experiment on those Diviners?” Sam asked cagily. “You know, did you look under the hood, see what made ’em tick? Did you take blood samples or anything like that?”

  He avoided eye contact with Evie, but he could sense her leaning forward.

  Sister Walker put down her cup. “From time to time.”

  “Why’d you do that?” Isaiah asked. He shuddered. “I don’t like needles.”

  Will exhaled. The smoke floated in front of his face like a veil. “We wanted to know if there was an hereditary difference in Diviners that caused their powers. Was this evidence of an evolutionary leap? What if Diviners, with their connection to the supernatural, were the key to unlocking untapped human potential?”

  “So, these Diviners you tested,” Sam asked. “Can we talk to any of ’em? I mean, if we’re all needed to fight off this spooky showdown…”

  “Spooky showdown?” Evie repeated, eyebrow raised.

  “Just seems odd we’re not reaching out to them is all.”

  “We can’t,” Sister Walker said. “Our files were destroyed when the department was shut down. We have no way of reaching them. I’m afraid it’s down to the six of you.”

  “Any runner in Harlem would tell you those aren’t great odds,” Memphis said.

  “Why did they shut you down?” Ling asked. “If you were doing important work.”

  “The war ended us.” Will spoke as if each word cost him dearly. “The war and its horrors. It was no longer an age for mystery and miracles. It was an age of industry and weapons and the industry of weapons.”

  “So,” Theta said after a moment of uncomfortable silence, “in all this investigating you two did, you ever meet a bad Diviner?”

  Sister Walker warmed her hands against her china cup. “There is always the capacity to abuse power,” she said evenly.

  “Must be pretty rotten if you won’t even talk about it.” Theta’s palms prickled.

  Sister Walker sipped her tea, then set her cup down. “There was a Diviner once who could pull the life out of things.”

  “Holy smokes!” Sam said on a gasp.

  “He could kill people?” Isaiah blurted.

  “That’s some power—”

  “Who’d he kill? How many?”

  “He didn’t kill anyone that I know of,” Sister Walker said. “But he could ease an animal’s passing or wilt a rose in a vase.”

  “Can we meet him?” Isaiah asked. “Or do they keep him in a special jail somewhere?”

  “I don’t know where he is,” Sister Walker said with a note of sadness. “He left us one day. We never saw him again.”

  A hush fell over the table. The wind thundered across the roof like a ghostly herd, drawing everyone’s eyes for a moment to the painted expanse of ceiling—bewigged Founding Fathers surrounded by spirits and magic and mysteries.

  “Kinda funny when you think about it,” Sam said around a mouthful of cookie.

  “What’s that?” Will asked. He’d abandoned his cookie in favor of a cigarette.

  “Me and Isaiah. Evie. Memphis. Ling. Henry. And—” Sam quickly stopped himself from saying Theta. “Us. We got a Jew, two Negroes, a half-Chinese-half-Irish girl. Coupla Catholics. Sounds like the start of some really awful joke the stuffed shirts would tell behind closed doors.”

  “What’s your point?” Ling said.

  “Well, people like to say we’re not true Americans, whatever that means. But we’re the ones with these powers.” Sam shrugged. “It’s just kinda funny is all.”

  He caught Sister Walker throwing a meaningful glance Will’s way. It was quick but noticeable. But then Sister Walker was putting aside her tea and standing to her full height, smoothing down the front of her dress as if to announce that no wrinkle, no flaw could find purchase in her. “Time to get back to work. Sam, Henry, and Ling, let’s see what you can do together.”

  Henry slurped down the rest of his milky tea and wiped his mouth. He winked at Evie. “We who are about to die salute you.”

  Evie put a hand over her heart. “I’ll remember you fondly on your birthday,” she said with mock-solemnity. She was suddenly aware of Jericho beside her.

  “Meet me in the collections room,” he whispered in her ear, making the skin along her neck buzz. And just like that, everything about him that she’d tried to put away came flooding back.

  Evie waited until a new test was under way, and then she slipped out of the library. Her stomach had begun to flutter. Don’t you dare, she scolded, but her stomach wouldn’t listen.

  “Hi,” Jericho said with a shy smile as Evie entered the collections room.

  “Hi,” she said back. Steady, she thought.

  “You, ah, looked like you might need a rescue.”

  “Thanks.” Evie laughed, relieved that she didn’t have to pretend otherwise. It was one of the things she liked about Jericho. Around him, she didn’t feel the need to pretend. There was a certain loneliness in Jericho that she recognized, a twin to her own. The way he looked at her from time to time, like a searchlight that had found what it sought, made her go a little dizzy.

  Evie hopped up on the sideboard. “Gee, I love what you’ve done with the place. How smart you are to put the spectral barometer beside the… um”—Evie gestured vaguely to a group of shriveled potato-like cuttings on a table beside Jericho—“dead vegetables.”

  Jericho smiled and lifted one eyebrow. “It’s a mandrake root.”

  “So it is! I’m certainly rooting for it.”

  “Evie, I need to tell you something. You’re the only person I can tell, actually,” he added.

  “All right,” she said. It made her feel special that he trusted her.

  From his pocket, Jericho brought out a leather pouch. He unrolled it and took out a stoppered glass vial with a small portion of blue liquid inside. “It’s all I’ve got left. Marlowe gave me an ultimatum: Be part of his Future of America Exhibition, let him test me, parade me onstage as his shining victory—or he’ll cut me off for good.”

  Evie knew that Marlowe’s serum was lifesaving. It kept the tubes and wires inside Jericho working. “He wouldn’t really do that, would he? Why, that’s blackmail!”

  “No. It’s Marlowe,” Jericho said. He hopped up beside her on the sideboard. “If I agree, I’d need to live with Marlowe upstate until the exhibition. I’d have to leave the museum and Will and you just when you need me most.”

  “Oh,” Evie said, deflating a bit at the thought of Jericho being gone. “We’ll manage. Don’t worry about us.”

  “I do worry, though. Feels like something big is happening. I don’t want you to get hurt.” Jericho reached out and tucked one of Evie’s loose curls behind her ear, and she caught her breath. “As terrible as it was, that night with John Hobbes made me start to come alive again. I saw that I had just been existing before. I want more than that. You made me see that, Evie. I’m forever grateful to your uncle. But I don’t want to shelve books for the rest of my life. I want to make my mark.” He took hold of her hand. “It never would’ve worked for Mabel
and me, you know.”

  “I see that now. But does Mabel?”

  “I think so. What about you and Sam?”

  What about Sam? It was probably for the best that he had ended things. They were combustible together—perfection one minute and at each other’s throats the next. Still, it hurt her pride to be the “jilted woman,” with the papers reporting on all of Sam’s flings. And she’d be lying if she said she didn’t still carry a torch for him. Was it normal to have a crush on two boys at the same time?

  Jericho was looking right at her. His eyes were the blue of a summer sky.

  “Just a publicity stunt,” she said, hoping it didn’t sound bitter.

  “Seems like, for the first time since we met, there’s nothing standing in our way,” Jericho said. Very gently, Jericho took her hand and brought it to his shirt, above his heart. It had been months since their kiss on the roof of the Bennington, but she knew that the feeling hadn’t gone away. She’d only pushed it aside again and again. Evie spread her fingers against Jericho’s broad chest, and he moaned softly. It made her dizzy; it made her feel powerful.

  “Evie, I don’t want to waste any more time.” Jericho leaned in to kiss her.

  There was a loud knock. Theta popped her head around the door. She looked from Evie to Jericho, her eyebrows rising. Quickly, Evie yanked her hand away from Jericho’s chest and shoved both hands under her armpits.

  “Hi, Theta! We were just talking!” she said.

  “Yeah. I didn’t ask. Sister Walker’s looking for you, Evil. She wants you to come read some objects. So when you’re finished talking, we’re in the library.” Before Theta shut the door, she shot Evie a We will talk about this later oh yes we will look, to which Evie responded with her own: Okay. Fine. Yes. Go!

  “I’d better report for duty,” Evie said with a mock-salute. Her cheeks were warm. She let her hand rest on a poppet doll, and its secrets licked at her palm before she snapped her fingers away again.

  “Say, Evie?”