Before the Devil Breaks You

by Libba Bray

  “Memphis. Isaiah. Pack your things,” Octavia said.

  Quickly, Memphis and Isaiah stuffed a rucksack with only what was necessary. Isaiah was sad to leave behind his leather catcher’s mitt, but he packed some drawing paper, a pencil, and a small photograph of his mama and daddy back in happier days. Memphis added his notebook and pencil. He paused at the copy of Leaves of Grass that Theta had given him. He wanted to call her, to tell her he was leaving, but it would have to wait. He shoved the book into his rucksack, too.

  Octavia wrapped some corn bread in wax paper and added it to their bounty. Octavia cradled Isaiah’s cheeks between her palms. “When you’re out on the road, don’t you talk to a soul unless they talk to you first. Keep your head low till you’re around your own. The less people know about you, the better.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She kissed his forehead. He threw his arms around her waist, and she sniffled back her tears. “You listen to Uncle Bill and your brother, now. Do what they say. And don’t forget to pray.”

  Isaiah nodded against the softness of her belly.

  “Come on, Ice Man.” Memphis took his brother’s hand.

  “Take care of my boys, Mr. Johnson,” Octavia said, wiping her eyes.

  “Like they was my own,” Bill promised.

  “Memphis John.” Octavia worried her hands for a minute, and then she pulled Memphis into a tight hug. Aunt Octavia was a solid, strong woman. But Memphis could feel her fear. When she released him, her face was resolute. “Go on, now.”

  “They’ll come here,” Bill warned.

  Octavia snorted. “Good luck to ’em, then.”

  Memphis checked to make sure that all was clear, and then the three of them were stealing down the street, eyes searching every corner, every shadow.

  Octavia Louise Joseph, born in Haiti to a teacher and a nurse, brought to America when she was a baby. Octavia, who’d taken her first steps on the sidewalks of Baltimore, made her way to New York City, taught school, who’d buried a sister and raised her sister’s kids. That Octavia called on all of her strength as she sat on the sofa with her Bible.

  “Jesus, help me now,” she whispered.

  Across the street, a brown sedan slowed. Two men in gray suits got out. Octavia put a calming hand on her stomach to soothe the butterflies inside.

  “You will not get mine,” she said quietly, and waited for the enemy at her door.

  Will stood on the sidewalk outside the museum. A wash of bloodred paint had been tossed across its limestone facade. The sign had been defaced as well. Just one bold red word: Murderers.

  Will let himself in. Glass crunched under his shoes. A rock lay in the spray of shards. The stained-glass window had a jagged hole in it now. Will picked up the rock, feeling its banal weight in his hand. He didn’t bother turning on the lights. He slipped into the library, left the rock on a table, stacked kindling and newspaper—SARAH SNOW: OUR FALLEN ANGEL—in the cold mouth of the enormous fireplace, and fanned the spark till it caught. It was too warm for a fire, but he lit one nonetheless. The flames cast shadows up the walls and across the ceiling’s mural of the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence, a host of angels and demons looking on.

  There were ghosts in the room: Rotke, Mabel, Cornelius, James. Will couldn’t see or talk to them. He had no talent for that. But he could feel them nonetheless. Their presence was a steady weight on his heart, as if all their hands pressed against his chest at once.

  Remember us.

  Remorse and fear nearly overtook him, and so he was grateful when Margaret Walker came into the library and put the mug of steaming coffee beside him.

  “Well, that’s it, then. The tax office won’t hear our appeal now. The museum is officially done for,” Will said, his voice a hollow echo in the nearly empty library. It made him unbearably sad to think of Cornelius’s strange home for the supernatural being bulldozed to make way for some modern apartment building with no memory of what had stood there before.

  Margaret eyed the rock. “Another one.”

  “Yes. It’s going to get ugly, isn’t it?”

  Sister Walker let out a grunted hmph as she poked the dying embers. “You say that like someone who’s never had to see how ugly things really are.”

  “Yes,” Will said. “Yes. What do we do?”

  Will’s question was rhetorical, but Sister Walker had little time for the rhetorical. “Do you understand now? Are you beginning to see?”

  “I am.”

  Sister Walker gave the ashy kindling one last good poke and it sparked into flame. She hung the poker on its hook and wiped her hands clean. She turned to Will.

  “Good. Now we fight.”

  Someone was pounding at the museum’s front door.

  “Did you lock it?” Sister Walker asked warily.

  Will nodded. The pounding got louder. Will palmed the rock and the two of them moved quickly down the hall. Will threw open the front door, surprised to see Memphis there with Isaiah and a tall man Will had never seen before.

  “Professor. They’re after us. I need to come in,” Memphis pleaded.

  “Memphis? Are you all right?” Sister Walker stopped in her tracks at the sight of Bill Johnson. She put a hand to her mouth as her eyes widened. “It’s you.”

  “Afternoon, Miss Walker,” Bill said, removing his hat. “Been a long time.”

  “Guillaume. I thought you were dead.”

  “In a manner of speaking, I was. Lost in the wilderness, you might say. But I’m coming back, yes, I am coming back. Those Shadow Men, though, they looking for us. I got to get Memphis and Isaiah away from here.”

  “We can keep you safe,” Sister Walker said.

  “Like you kept me safe before?” Bill challenged. He shook his head. “Ain’t taking orders from nobody no more. I’m the only one knows what those Shadow Men can do. How many of ’em there are, how they think. I’m taking these boys to safety. While I can.”

  “I have a car. I can drive you,” Will said.

  “They’ll be watching the roads—and watching you, sir. Both of you. Memphis here had an idea.”

  Memphis nodded toward the collections room. “The tunnel. The old Underground Railroad passage. We can get out that way.”

  “Memphis, that hasn’t been used in decades. There’s no telling what shape it’s in or if it still has an opening somewhere. You could end up trapped down there,” Will said.

  Isaiah looked frightened. Memphis thought about what it would be like to walk for maybe miles underground, only to reach a dead end. What if they got lost? What if there was a cave-in? But what choice did they have?

  “Professor, right now those men are in Harlem asking after Isaiah and me. How long before they find us? My face is known,” Memphis explained. He shook his head. “No. Has to be this way. We’re leaving. Through the tunnels.”

  He hoped he was making the right decision.

  Will nodded. “All right. You’ll need provisions. Wait here,” he said, heading toward the kitchen.

  “Where else would I go?” Memphis whispered. He could hear Will rummaging in the kitchen. Sister Walker was staring at Bill Johnson, at the smatterings of gray in his black hair, the lines on his face, Memphis realized. He was no longer the young man she had known once upon a time. She spied the mark upon his hand.

  “Shadow Men gimme that. A brand to make me theirs.” He appraised Margaret coolly. “What ’bout you? You got yourself a mark from your thirty pieces of silver? Or your hands still smooth and clean?”

  “I tried to stop them,” Sister Walker protested.

  “Not hard enough,” Bill said.

  Sister Walker narrowed her eyes. Her voice was a low warning. “Don’t you dare preach to me, Mr. Johnson. I spent time rotting in a prison cell for my act of resistance.”

  “So I heard,” Bill answered. “What’s done is done. I done wrong, too. We carry our sins forward, Miss Walker. What matters now is doing right by these boys. Time to step to
, Margaret Walker.”

  And Sister Walker remembered Lavinia Cooper. The light shining into the room where she lay in Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital. Before the Devil breaks you. Well, let the Devil try. Margaret Walker was up for the fight. “Who do you think has been getting these boys ready for the battles ahead, old man?”

  Bill’s lips tipped into a smile. “Ain’t old no more. Plenty a kick left in me.”

  Will charged into the collections room with a gas lantern and a burlap sack. “There’s some apples, cheese, bread. Canteen of water.”

  “Thank you,” Memphis said. It wasn’t much, but it was something. It would see them through a few days if they were careful. Memphis would give his ration to Isaiah if it came to it. He thought of Theta again; she’d have no idea where he’d gone. “Professor, can you tell Theta that I’ll get in touch just as soon as it’s safe?”

  Will nodded. He kicked back the carpet and yanked up the iron ring on the secret entrance to the cellar. A plume of dust circled up. Memphis’s heart began to beat faster.

  “Do you know where the tunnel lets out, where it ends?” he asked, peering down into the dark hole.

  “Cornelius never said. I’m afraid you’ll be traveling blind,” Will cautioned.

  Bill snorted and swung his legs over the edge. “Been doing that most of my life.”

  He lowered himself down the rickety steps, dropping to the basement’s floor with a rustling of the dirt. Isaiah and Memphis followed. Will handed down the sack of provisions, which Memphis passed to Bill, and the lantern, which Memphis kept. He looked over at his brother’s wide eyes. He needed to keep Isaiah safe. That was everything.

  But where was it safe?

  “May the spirits guide you,” Will said from above, and closed the door.

  Memphis let his eyes adjust to the dark. The air was close. It smelled of earth and dust. Of the past and the future.

  “What do we do now, Memphis?” Isaiah asked.

  Memphis took a deep breath. He lifted the lantern. Its glow fell across the murals that had been painted on the road to freedom and shone what light it could into the long uncertainty ahead.

  “One foot in front of the other,” Memphis said. “We keep walking.”

  After Will had covered up the passage again, he marched into the library and up to the second floor. From his hollowed-out copy of The Declaration of Independence, he retrieved the files he’d kept on Project Buffalo. Most of it was there. Enough of it to be damning at least.

  “I’m taking this to T. S. Woodhouse,” he announced to Sister Walker. “I’m telling him everything and letting him print every word. We have to stop this madness.”

  “You think anyone will believe us?”

  “We have to try.”

  “There more files in here?”

  Will nodded. “Upstairs. Tucked into The Federalist Papers.”

  Margaret smirked. “You do like your gallows humor, Will.”

  Margaret went upstairs, disappearing into the stacks, not wasting any time. It was so like her, and Will realized how much he admired Margaret. How much he needed her. She had been a true friend. She made him braver, always had. An overwhelming feeling of gratitude and love bubbled up inside him.

  The front door opened and closed so softly that it might not be heard by a visitor. But Will knew the sounds of the museum as if it were part of his own body. He was alert. Ready.

  “Afternoon, William,” Mr. Adams said as he and Mr. Jefferson entered the library. Mr. Adams touched fingers to the brim of his hat without removing it. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Not long enough,” Will shot back.

  Adams snickered. “And here it was I thought Margaret Walker was the spitfire. Speaking of, where is the troublesome Miss Walker?”

  “Do you think Margaret Walker is foolish enough to stick around here?” Will said loudly on a laugh, hoping that his voice carried up to the stacks. Oh, stay hidden, Margaret!

  “Sorry this isn’t a social call, William. We’re here on business. Now. Where are the files? We know you must have them. And where are Memphis and Isaiah Campbell?”

  “Too bad you don’t have a Diviner to help you find the things you’ve lost,” Will said.

  Jefferson backhanded him for it. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but it rattled Will nonetheless. Upstairs, he saw Margaret’s frightened face peek out from behind the stacks. Will wiped the blood from his split lip. He wished he had a cigarette.

  “Now, now. Don’t be impertinent, William,” Mr. Adams said. “We’ll find them, with or without your cooperation. But with your help is a far better scenario—at least, where your health is concerned.”

  Will nodded and walked slowly to the mammoth fireplace. “Cornelius Rathbone had this carved especially for the library. It actually has a name. It’s called the Fires of Knowledge. Did you know that?”

  “Touching.” Adams had pulled a round of thin piano wire from his pocket. He wound the ends around each of his middle fingers.

  Will reached down and palmed a handful of old ash from the fireplace’s unkempt hearth. It was gritty and stained his fingers gray. Around him, he could feel the ghosts of Cornelius and Liberty Anne. “‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done,’” Will said.

  “That from Cornelius Rathbone, too?” Jefferson sneered.

  “It’s from a book. Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “No. I don’t expect that you do.”

  Adams tensed the wire between his fingers. “Where are the files and the Campbell brothers, William? I won’t ask a third time.”

  “They’re long gone,” Will lied. “Your days are numbered.”

  Adams grinned. “Not like yours.”

  The agent took a step forward. Will tossed the handful of ash into the man’s eyes. Adams howled in rage and pain. In the space of the three seconds it took for William Fitzgerald to bolt across the library’s Persian rug toward the half-open doors, the futility of his situation welled up inside him in a way that nearly resembled hope in its giddy freedom. He was alive as he had not been in some time. All his nerve endings burned with life, as if discharging their last impulses. His mind whirred with memory. He thought of the first time he saw Evie in this room, like a ray of rogue sun forcing itself through the gloom, as he lectured to schoolboys about America’s supernatural past. He thought of studious, quiet Jericho sitting at the table with his books and cocksure Sam creeping around, always looking for an angle to work. He thought of Memphis Campbell’s poetic, shining soul and Isaiah Campbell’s unbridled optimism and of their frightened, determined faces as he’d lowered the cellar door, and he hoped they were well on their way. He thought of dear, funny Henry and brilliant, straightforward Ling and resilient Theta with her hidden strength—all of them refusing to be pressed under by the world’s thumb. He thought of James and Luther and the wrong he had done them, and he prayed he would know their forgiveness yet. He thought of Margaret, his friend and occasional enemy, but mostly friend, and he hoped fervently that she had heard his warning and had hidden herself. She would be needed in the days to come.

  At last, he thought of Rotke’s beaming face in the cold winter sun, her laughter whipping along the wind: Oh, Will, that’s you all over!

  Rotke, his love.

  Behind him, Adams, blinded by the ash, hissed in pain. Jefferson, recovered from his momentary shock, was in pursuit. Will tipped over the chair behind him, impeding the bigger agent’s progress. Up ahead, the stuffed bear’s dead eyes stared, unseeing, as Jefferson caught Will by the ankle, bringing him down hard, knocking the air from his lungs. Will could not speak or move. He could only lie on his back, looking up, at Jefferson’s furious face as he landed a blow to Will’s jaw, shattering it, then up again at Adams behind Jefferson, tightening the piano wire between his gloved fingers, and finally, up at the painted ceiling where men inked ideals into parchment, a root worker held aloft her mandrake, a host of a
ngels and demons fought on the prairie lands of a new world, and around the mural’s edges, Diviners looked on, watching, waiting and wary and ready.

  He hoped, he hoped.

  “Any last words?” Adams snarled.

  Blood filled Will’s mouth. “Vive la résistance.”

  In the stacks, Sister Walker clutched the secret files tightly to her chest and listened to the last dying gasp and gurgle of her friend Will Fitzgerald. Tears stung her eyes. A scream clawed at her throat.

  “That’s been a long time coming.” Adams.

  “What do we do with him? Torch the place?” Jefferson played with the matchbook in his hand. His eyes gleamed.

  Adams shook his head. “Leave him. Let him be found. Someone should pay for this murder, don’t you think?” Adams tsk-tsked. “Those Diviners. They can’t be trusted, you know. Enemies of the state. Perhaps it’s time we let the nation know just how dangerous they are.”

  THE TIME IS NOW

  The Shadow Man entered the cell like a ghost. “Good evening, Miriam.”

  From her chair, Miriam Lubovitch Lloyd registered the man’s odious presence and continued reading her book without comment.

  “Whatcha reading?” At Miriam’s silence, the Shadow Man angled his head sideways. “A Geological History of the United States.” He righted himself, chuckling. “Well. You certainly know how to have fun.”

  “Why are you here? Is not mealtime. You come to torture me more?”

  The Shadow Man frowned. “Persuade. We persuade, Miriam. I’ve come to let you know that, thanks to you, our agents are bringing in one of our lost chicks. Your Sergei is coming home, Miriam.”

  Miriam’s split-second joy was doused by anger. “You don’t know the fire you play with. Theirs is not power you can manipulate. It is grown too big for your control. I can feel it.”

  “Anything and anyone can be manipulated. Isn’t that right, Miriam?” The Shadow Man’s gloved hand rested on her shoulder. “Besides, we’re not accustomed to losing. We’ll get them in line. We are not afraid of a bunch of uncontrolled, misfit kids.”