Before the Devil Breaks You

by Libba Bray

  “I got here as quickly as I could. Mr. Leong will be upset when he doesn’t get his tea,” Ling said. “What is happening?”

  Evie pointed to the end of the street.

  “Are the others…?”

  “On their way,” Theta confirmed. And not two minutes later, a taxi swerved to the curb, and out jumped Henry and Sam.

  “’Scuse us, ’scuse us. Would ya move outta the way, pal?” Sam barked as he and Henry pushed through the crowd to join their friends.

  “Where’s Memphis and Isaiah?” Theta asked.

  “Uptown,” Henry explained, and Sam groaned. There was no telling when they’d show up. It was a long way through New York City’s infamous traffic.

  More whistles sounded as the police fanned out along the barricades and aimed their guns at the menacing fog.

  “Fire!” the captain called, and the streets echoed with tight pops of gunfire.

  “Hold!” the captain shouted.

  The streets smelled of smoke. The fog was still there, unchanged.

  “Did we get them?” a policeman asked.

  As one, the ghosts screeched. The sound, terrifying, echoed through the canyons of Lower Manhattan. And then they marched forward, terrifying the crowd of onlookers, who screamed and pushed. Some of the guests tried to run back to the hotel, sending others tumbling on the steps. It was chaos.

  “We’ll be trampled!” Theta said, trying to help Ling to a safer place. But there was no safer place. The six of them stood in the middle of the street as the police fell back.

  “They’re panicking,” Ling said.

  “Probably because there’s a ghost army headed straight for us,” Sam answered.

  A man in a tuxedo pointed to the Diviners. “Do something!” he shouted, and soon others picked up the call. “Yes, do something!”

  “Everybody’s watching us,” Henry said.

  “Might be a good time to show ’em what we can do,” Sam said. “To show ’em we’re the real McCoy.”

  “Not without Memphis and Isaiah!” Theta said.

  “Theta! Theta!” Memphis was running toward them, with Isaiah gasping at his heels. “What’s happening?”

  Theta nodded toward the murky ghost army headed their way.

  “How many you think?” Sam asked.

  “Twenty, twenty-five,” Ling said.

  Henry shook his head. “We’ve never tried to take out that many before.”

  On the steps of the hotel, people screamed. “Do something! Save us!”

  The ghosts were getting closer. Figures emerged in the murk, taking clearer shape.

  “Slaves,” Memphis said. “The ghosts of slaves.”

  The Diviners came together. Electricity sparked off the sides of the buildings and climbed up the front of the Stock Exchange. The people gaped in awe. “Did you see that? What is that? What are they?”

  “Get ready. It’s gonna take a lot of energy to blast ’em,” Sam called.

  Memphis stared at the iron shackles around the ghosts’ feet and necks. Something shifted inside him. “I… I don’t know if this is right,” he said to the others.

  “But, Memphis, everybody’s watching us!” Isaiah said.

  “Doesn’t matter if it’s wrong,” Memphis said. He took a step forward, heart beating fast as he addressed the ghosts. “You need to leave these people alone,” he tried. “Go back now. Go back to your graves.”

  The ghosts spoke as one: “And if we refuse, Healer?”

  “You… you know who I am?” Memphis asked.

  “We know much.”

  “Memphis…” Theta warned.

  “Get rid of them! Destroy them!” the people shouted. Their voices were a frenzy. A bloodlust.

  “Then we’ll have to send you back ourselves,” Memphis said to the ghosts.

  “Would you send us back without knowing our story? We will speak. We will be heard,” the ghosts whispered in one groaning voice. “We know this street. We built it. There was the auction block where we were bought and sold. Where our children were torn from us. If we were to cry for ourselves, there would be no land, only an ocean of salt. And when we rebelled, they murdered us. They left our heads to rot upon sticks along Wall Street for all to see.”

  The ghosts surged forward quickly and reached their hands into Memphis’s chest. He felt the cold spreading as their molecules were joined. His limbs shook like downed wires in a storm.

  “Memphis!” Theta screamed, but Memphis was already under, dragged into the world of the dead.

  “See,” the ghosts whispered, and their voices swirled inside him. “Feel. Know.”

  The ship pitched violently on the rough seas. The dark was all-consuming. It smelled of sick, of vomit and urine and defecation. Above all, it smelled of fear. Memphis could feel the presence of so many others. More chained men beside him, above him, below. One long human chain of misery. Cracked, desperate voices prayed to the gods, begging first for freedom, then for death. Iron shackles chafed Memphis’s wrists and ankles.

  The rolling green of farmland and tobacco fields. Men in powdered wigs shot rifles at birds. In the distance, the big house—domed, scrubbed, white—loomed like a predator.

  “Release!” the gentleman of the house called.

  The birds flew up. The shots rang out. Bloodied feathers fell from the sky and pierced the ground. The slave gathered the dead and dying birds, some still twitching, in a bag. In his study lit by precious tallow candles, the gentleman kept his ledgers. Columns that weighed souls like grains of rice. The slave stood at the ready. At his master’s commands, he could only nod, his tongue having been cut out.

  “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

  The auction block loomed, a gateway to misery. The frightened, half-dead and chained, blinking in the light of a new world.

  “That all men are created equal…”

  A family scattered to the winds like seeds whose blooms were a resilience borne of grief. The chains. The iron masks. The teeth torn from mouths. The dogs set loose.

  “That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”

  The crack of the whip.

  “That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

  “Stop!” Memphis screamed.

  When Memphis came to, he fell to his knees, crying in the middle of Wall Street. His blood itched beneath his skin like a rash he could never fully scratch. He had seen. He had felt. He knew. When he looked up into the faces of the ghosts, he remembered the wraith in the graveyard and the family at the table and his mother’s tearstained face lit by the jaundiced moonlight in the land of the dead.

  “Tell our story. Do not forget us,” the ghosts whispered.

  The people on the steps had grown impatient in their fear: “Why don’t you do something about this?” “Yeah! Make ’em go away!” “Kill them!” “Get rid of them!”

  Memphis stood.

  “Memphis, come on,” Sam urged. He reached for Memphis and Memphis shrugged him off.

  “No.”

  He turned to face the people cowering on the steps of the hotel. “No. These are our ghosts. They’re here. We’re gonna have to learn to live with them.”

  “What’s he saying?” “He’s gone anarchist on us!” “I knew we couldn’t trust those Diviners!”

  “They just want us to listen,” Memphis said to the others. “We’ve been trying to get rid of them instead of listening to what they need to say to us. Your uncle was right about that, Evie: We have to see them ghost by ghost.”

  The people gathered in front of the hotel were still terrified, though. Terrified people were a threat. Ling had been right about that, Memphis knew.

  “Look upon your sins,” the ghosts cried.

  “What’s your name?” Memphis asked the ghost in front.

  “My name?” The ghost turned his head toward the night sky as if it might be written there. “My name is Lost. For I was stolen. What is stolen, haunts.”
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br />   “They’re going to riot soon,” Ling said, casting a wary glance at the people on the steps and the police reloading.

  “I need you to trust me on something,” Memphis said.

  “Okay, pal,” Sam said. “You’re scaring me, but okay.”

  “We’re with you.” Evie and Henry and Ling nodded. Theta took his hand.

  “We will tell your story. You will not be forgotten. I wish you a peaceful rest,” Memphis said to the ghosts. He placed his hands against the chest of the leader. As they were joined, he saw birds against blue skies. He heard the laughter of children. And for just a moment, he saw his mother in her feathered cape lying under a stripped tree in that blighted land of shadow and yellow moonlight with Conor Flynn nestled close under her wing. She sat up, smiling through tears.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes. I believe in you, my son.”

  Memphis let go.

  “Healer,” the man whose name was Lost said. “He builds the new Eye from the ashes of the old. It will keep the door between worlds from closing ever again. It will allow the King of Crows to stay here forever. To sow chaos and division. Hate and terror. Until your dreams lay in tatters and you no longer recognize yourselves. You must not allow this to happen.”

  The ghosts walked through the Diviners, fading bit by bit, until they were a part of the city itself.

  “They’re gone,” Evie said.

  But the people on the steps looked at the Diviners as if they were a threat.

  “Dangerous,” somebody said.

  “Oughta lock ’em up.”

  Sarah Snow came forward, her arms raised. “Let us pray, brothers and sisters. Pray for the soul of our nation! To be rid of those who would tear it asunder! Heavenly Father…”

  The people bowed their heads.

  “You thought telling the people the truth would make a difference.” Ling shook her head. “Now they just hate us for telling them the truth. People want to be safe, not free.”

  “What now?” Evie asked.

  But Memphis had his head angled toward the sky. “We’re listening,” he said. “We’re listening.”

  A SPIT IN THE EYE

  Sam had seen Evie back to the Winthrop. And after the shock of the night’s confrontation with the ghosts had worn off, Evie told him about the rest of the terrible evening, from Woody’s revelations to Jake’s lies and her own humiliating downfall. “Gotta hand it to you, Lamb Chop. When you go for something, you go all in,” he said, feeding her more aspirin and water.

  “If Jake Marlowe wants to attack me, I’ll take it. But James did everything they asked of him and more. He was a hero, and now Jake’s calling him a coward and a deserter. I hate Jake Marlowe. I hate him so much.”

  “I’m not arguing with you, Baby Vamp. He won this round.”

  “He’s rich. He’ll win all the rounds,” Evie said. “Sam, Project Buffalo happened, but we have no proof. And now those Shadow Men are going around killing people who could prove it. And somewhere out there is the King of Crows playing games. It feels as if nothing matters. Truth, honor, trying to do what’s right. None of it matters.”

  “That’s awfully cynical.”

  “I feel cynical.”

  “There’s still stuff to believe in. Still good.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Well, for one, we’re still fighting. We haven’t given up.”

  “What else?” Evie challenged.

  “For another, Memphis and Theta are back together. We did something spectacular tonight, something that felt… right. And Mabel Rose is out there working for the people.”

  Evie nodded. “What else? Keep telling me the good things.”

  Sam could feel a head of steam building inside him. But he didn’t know if he’d be brave enough to let it out. “There’s a Douglas Fairbanks picture at the Strand. A swashbuckler. You love those.”

  Evie closed one eye. “You’re telling me not to lose hope because there are pirate pictures?”

  “I’m trying here, Baby Vamp. When you’re facing evil, a good pirate picture doesn’t hurt.”

  Evie’s mouth twitched into a bit of a smile, but she fought it. She liked hearing Sam’s list, and she didn’t want him to stop. “What else?”

  “Nah. I’ve told you already.”

  “Oh, please. Just one more.”

  Sam cocked his head. “Just one more, huh?”

  “Yeah. But make it a really good one.”

  “A good one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  Sam’s heart thudded against his ribs. He was dizzy.

  “Then how about this.”

  And with that, he leaned forward and kissed her. Evie put a hand to her lips and stared at Sam.

  “Um. You might say something here. Or slap me. Hoping it’s not that, though,” Sam joked, and swallowed hard.

  “How do I know that’s real?” Evie said after she’d caught her breath.

  “Let me prove it.” Sam kissed her again, longer this time.

  And for the first time that night, Evie did feel loved. Sam wasn’t telling her to act more like a “good girl.” He didn’t want her to be anybody but who she was. Why had she tortured herself by not letting him in?

  “I’m still not convinced,” Evie said. Her head buzzed. “You… you might have to make your case more strongly.”

  Sam’s grin was wolfish, but inside he was balloons and champagne, a full goddamn birthday party. “Sure thing, Lamb Chop.”

  Evie put a finger to Sam’s lips and frowned. “I believe I have made my feelings about that name plain.”

  Sam licked up the length of her finger, drawing a gasp from her. “What can I say? I’m a naughty boy.”

  “How naughty?”

  “Would you like to find out?”

  Evie knew she should come back with a quip, but everything felt too real right now. She needed to be real with someone. “I would. But I’m afraid of what I’ll find out. I just need something that doesn’t feel like a lie.”

  “Okay.” Sam swallowed hard, took a deep breath. “Then here it is: All the times I say, ‘Don’t see me’? With you, I wish I had an opposite power: See me. See me, Evie. See all of me. There’s a fella who loves you right here. I’m not perfect. I’m a handful. But you know what? So are you. There. Not sugarcoating it.”

  “But… what if I love you and you go away?” Evie said, almost a whisper.

  “Sheba, I’m sitting across from you right now. Don’t you see that I’m not going anywhere?”

  And she knew he was being honest. There was such fear in the world. But love was everywhere if you looked. It was the best thing about humans. That they could stare into the abyss and still open up their hearts. A spit in the eye to fear.

  Evie laced her fingers with Sam’s and rubbed her thumb gently across the delicate fretwork of veins at his wrist, the pulse of her thumb against the pulse beneath his skin, faintly felt but sure and constant. Later, she wouldn’t be able to say who had kissed whom first. It didn’t matter. It only mattered that they were kissing. They lay side by side on the peach satin quilt of her bed, bodies smashed together, Evie’s top leg wedged between Sam’s so that she could feel the heat of him pressed against her, making her dizzy from this new rush of desire.

  Sam pulled away suddenly.

  “Wha-what’s the matter?” Evie panted. She wanted him back. Wanted nothing but to be doing what they had been doing. Ached for it.

  He took her face in his hands and stared into her eyes, narrowing his own. “You’re not possessed by ghosts this time, are you?”

  Evie wrenched her head free from Sam’s palms. “Sam, honestly!”

  He grinned. “Just checking.”

  Evie kissed her way up the salty sweetness of his throat, to his ear, which she nibbled very softly, then whispered, “I am the Forgotten, forgotten no more.”

  “Holy moly!” Sam jumped and Evie fell back against the pillow in a fit of laughter.

  “Oh, Sam, y
our face!”

  “Not amusing, Sheba,” Sam chided, but he was laughing, too.

  Evie’s giggles subsided, and now she caught her breath. He was beautiful to her. She reached her hand toward him, and if she lived for a hundred years more, she would never forget his expression, as if he had been lost in a dark wood for a very long time and she had just opened the door to him, light spilling out to let him know he was home at last.

  “Where were we?” Sam asked, crawling back to her.

  “We were right…” Evie kissed Sam. “About.” And again. “Here.”

  “Here?” Sam pressed his lips to hers, warm and sure.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Sam scooped Evie up into his arms, and she wrapped hers around him, the two of them threaded together like a knot that would not easily be undone. It all moved rather furiously then. Sam unfastened the buttons of Evie’s dress, and it slid to the floor in a sparkling pile. Evie lifted Sam’s undershirt over his head and kissed the scar near his collarbone.

  “Aerialist accident in the big tent,” Sam explained.

  “Mmm. Tell me later.”

  His trousers hit the floor along with his socks. Her slip was off. Sam fumbled with the hooks of her garter.

  “I thought you were a ladies’ man,” Evie joked, taking over and rolling off her stockings. She was nervous.

  “I’m not a hosiery salesman, though,” Sam shot back. He sounded a little nervous, too. Evie removed her brassiere. Sam tugged off his boxers. Evie’s pulse drummed in her head. She’d petted—every girl had, even the ones who pretended they hadn’t. But this was a lot more than petting. She’d never seen a naked fella up close before, much less one she desperately wanted, even if she didn’t know what to do next. She and Sam slipped under the covers. And then, suddenly, the whole night was too much. She was afraid. It was silly, wasn’t it? She’d been ruined by Jake Marlowe and Sarah Snow. They’d faced a street full of ghosts, and she was afraid of this, this joining of bodies, this step toward love? Her cynicism was leaving her. She was opening herself up to something more. It was somehow the scariest thing in the whole world.

  “Could we… could we just lie next to each other?” Evie said, eyes brimming with tears. “Just for a little while?”