Before the Devil Breaks You

  It was curious, though. The men were performing the same pantomime motions with their hands. And then, suddenly, they began laughing all at once, as if they’d just been told a joke no one else could hear. There was something oddly familiar about the scene, and a shiver passed down Evie’s back.

  The lights dimmed down to nothing. In a few seconds, they revved back up.

  “What was that?” Sam asked.

  Mr. Smith smiled sympathetically. “Don’t be alarmed. That happens quite a lot. They’re blasting rock in the Hell Gate to make the passage deeper. Those explosions coupled with the violent currents affect us here in the hospital.”

  “Well, it is called the Hell Gate,” Sam joked.

  “From the Dutch hellegat,” Woody said. “It means ‘bright passage.’ Except that it’s not. It’s the most dangerous water in New York City. Those currents are so bad the sailors renamed it: hellhole. Just in case you had any notions about swimming back to Manhattan.”

  “And when can I see Luther Clayton?” Evie said.

  Mr. Smith’s expression was pained. “Oh, dear. I thought it had been made clear. We can’t allow it. By order of the police.”

  “But we’ve come all this way!” Evie said. “I’d only need a few minutes and—and think how much good it would do for Luther to know I forgive him.”

  “And it sure would be great for the story,” Woody added. “Just the sort of thing that makes those state boys with the money take notice.”

  The warden remained unmoved. “I’m sorry, Miss O’Neill. I wish I could allow it. But rules are rules. Even for radio stars.”

  “I’ll bet Sarah Snow could get in,” Evie griped once they’d managed to ditch Mr. Smith under the pretense of Evie’s “delicate Diviner sensibilities” needing a rest. She lay on a cot in a receiving room.

  “Lamb Chop, you gotta let go of this Sarah Snow business,” Sam said.

  “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one watching that Jesus viper take over your spot.”

  “Jesus… viper…” Woody said, writing.

  “Woody, you print that and I will throw your body right into the Hell Gate.” Evie sat up and tossed the compress she’d been given to the end of the cot. “Applesauce! How are we gonna get to Luther Clayton?”

  “Won’t be easy. Look here,” Sam said, walking over to the wall, which boasted a proud, framed photograph of the asylum on its opening day. “This is where we are now.” Sam pointed to the main building out front. “And according to the chatty Mr. Smith, this is where they hold the most disturbed patients.” Sam pointed to a three-story rectangular ward all the way in the back. “This pavilion. Top floor. That’s where Luther Clayton is. Where they don’t allow visitors. Not even radio stars,” Sam said in perfect imitation.

  “I am not leaving without seeing him,” Evie swore.

  “Baby Vamp, with your moxie and my good looks…” Sam spread his arms wide.

  “So we’re half-doomed is what you’re telling me. Well. I suppose you can always just…” Evie wiggled her fingers.

  “What, dry my nail varnish? Pretend I’m a bird? Play an imaginary piano?” Sam said.

  “No! Do your don’t see me trick.”

  “How come yours is a ‘gift’ and mine is a ‘trick’? I’m insulted.”

  “Just make yourself useful, Sam.”

  Woody laughed. “Shame you two called off your engagement. You’re a perfect couple. Why don’t you former lovebirds wait here. I’ll step out and see if the coast is clear,” Woody said. He slipped into the hall, leaving Sam and Evie alone together.

  “How’s Will taking Jericho’s leaving?” Evie asked, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Oh, you know how it is with your uncle—impossible to tell what he’s thinking. He has the same expression whether it’s figuring out what to eat for lunch or facing the possible end of the world. You, ah, hear from the big fella?”

  Evie shook her head.

  Woody sneaked back in. “I think I found a way. Let’s ankle while we can.”

  The three of them set off down the labyrinthine halls of the asylum. For the first time, Evie realized that the work they’d been doing with Sister Walker had opened her gifts up further. The very walls seemed to want to whisper their long-held secrets to her:

  “… I wasn’t crazy. My husband put me here so he could marry another.…”

  “… Dirty Robert… does things to us when the warden’s away.…”

  “I only want the pain to stop, don’t you see? Just end it.…”

  “There’s evil in this world.…”

  Sam looked concerned. “You okay?”

  Evie nodded. “Too many secrets here,” she said, and kept straight down the middle.

  At the entrance to Luther Clayton’s ward, an attendant was on duty at his desk.

  “Afternoon, sir.” Woody tipped his hat briefly as he approached the guard. “The name’s T. S. Woodhouse of the Daily News. And this lovely lady is the Sweetheart Seer.”

  The guard stood and smoothed a hand over his hair. “Well, Miss, it’s an honor. A real honor. I sure do love your show!”

  “Aren’t you just the berries!” Evie said, smiling flirtatiously and fluttering her lashes just a bit.

  “Don’t cause a windstorm with that peepers-batting,” Sam whispered.

  Evie stepped lightly on his foot with the heel of her Mary Janes.

  The attendant frowned. “Gee, you’re not supposed to be back here, though, Miss. Not without permission.”

  “I’ve come to see the man who tried to kill me, Luther Clayton,” Evie said quickly, managing to work up a few perfect tears. “I want to forgive the poor tortured soul.”

  “Golly, Miss O’Neill, I sure wish I could let you see Luther, but he can’t receive visitors. Orders of the police. You’d need permission. Should I call up to the warden…?”

  “No! That is, I wouldn’t want to bother him. I’m sure the warden wouldn’t mind if I just popped my little head in and—”

  The attendant crossed his arms. “Sorry, Miss. Orders are orders.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s time to dry that nail varnish, then, isn’t it, Sam? Woody, could you turn around and cover your ears, please?”

  “What? Ohhh. Sure.”

  “Sam, do you mind?”

  “For you, Lamb Chop? Anything.” Sam stretched out an arm. “Don’t see me,” he said. The attendant’s eyes went blank. His arms dangled loosely at his sides. Evie tapped Woody’s shoulder. He took in the sight of the mesmerized man and shook his head, whistling.

  “That is a neat trick, kid. Wish I could use it on my bookie next time I run into him and he wants his money.”

  “How much time do we have, Sam?” Evie asked.

  “Three, maybe four minutes, tops?”

  Evie bit her bottom lip. “It’s not much. But it’ll have to do.”

  “See, why you gotta say that? Three minutes—do you know how hard that is? How much skill that takes? Look at these hands. These are gifted hands. I should insure ’em.”

  “Whaddaya wanna see Luther for?” The question came from a slight, dark-haired boy drawing feverishly at a corner table. It was hard to know his true age. The freckles made him seem young, but his eyes were wary, and much, much older than they should be.

  “Luther is an old friend of mine,” Evie said.

  “You’re lying.”

  Evie started to protest, but something about this fragile-looking boy made her want to tell the truth. “Yes. I’m lying. He tried to shoot me.”

  “You’re the Sweetheart Seer,” the boy said. “I recognize your voice. From the radio.”

  “Seems you’ve got fans everywhere, Sheba,” Woodhouse said.

  The boy seemed very nervous to her. Like someone whose mind wouldn’t allow him to rest. Sam tugged gently on Evie’s arm. “Come on, doll—we gotta ankle before that guard wakes up.”

  “You gotta leave before nightfall! That’s when they come. Wit’ the night and the fog.”
br />   “Who?” Evie asked the nervous boy.

  He flicked his gaze toward the window. “The Forgotten. They can get inside you. Make you do things. Awful things. They belong to—” His eyes were as large as a fish’s. “Just don’t be here when it’s dark,” he said, and ran back the way he’d come, disappearing down another hallway.

  “Evie!” Sam pleaded.

  “Not in this room,” Woody said, closing the door to one of the many rooms along the ward’s long hallway. “One minute gone.”

  “Thanks. That’s a big help,” Sam said.

  Evie peeked through the inset window of room number seven. There was a young man in a wheelchair. “Found him!” she whisper-shouted, and opened the door.

  “Don’t… even… lock… the doors.” Woody scribbled quickly on his pad. “Sweetheart Seer put aside concerns for her own safety… gained entry to the cell of violent madman…”

  “Luther? Luther Clayton?” Evie said softly into the dim room. It was very still and sparse: only a bed and a bedside table with an unopened Bible on top. Luther Clayton sat in his wheelchair, staring at the wall.

  Evie drew closer. “Mr. Clayton?”

  “Hold still. I want to get a picture. Evie, lean in, will ya?” Woody urged, taking a long-snouted accordion camera from his reporter’s bag.

  “To the man who tried to kill her?” Sam said. “Nothing doing.”

  “It’s okay, Sam,” Evie said. “Just make sure you get my good side, Woody.”

  Evie moved closer to Luther. He smelled of old sweat. There were bruises on his neck, sores on his chapped lips. War and pain had aged him, but underneath, Luther was delicately handsome, with a face that seemed familiar, as if he might have been a bit actor in a cowboy picture. Evie was jealous of Memphis’s Diviner power; if she could, she would try to heal this man’s broken heart.

  This close, she could feel his clothes wanting to whisper to her.

  “Hurry,” she said to Woody.

  The flash cut the gloom. “Got it,” Woody said.

  Evie took a step back. “Do you remember me, Mr. Clayton?” she said softly. “I’m Evie O’Neill.”

  He inclined his head toward her. His eyes were still distant.

  “I want you to know that I forgive you for trying to shoot me. I only wish I understood why you did it.”

  Luther blinked several times, as if trying to wake up from a dream. Evie kept talking: “You once took hold of my hand on the street. Do you remember? I put a dollar in your tin cup and you grabbed my hand. You were trying to tell me something back then. Something about following the Eye. I’m sorry I ran away then. I was frightened. Were you mad at me about that? Is that why you tried to shoot me?”

  Luther Clayton’s voice was so soft Evie had to lean forward to hear.

  “They… m-made m-me.”

  “Who made you do it, Luther?”

  Luther’s sad brown eyes were bloodshot. It looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. His whisper gained power. “The Shadow M-men. They said it… would s-stop the sc-c-screaming. I hear them… sc-screaming.”

  “I don’t understand—who’s screaming?”

  Spit bubbled up on Luther’s bottom lip as if he were trying to birth his words. But nothing came.

  “Kid, you got what you came for. Let’s ankle,” Woody said.

  “They never should’ve done it! Follow the Eye! He is coming—don’t let him find me!” Luther cried out suddenly, his back arching with tension. His palm came up and pounded the side of his head. “Stop screaming! Stop screaming!”

  “Mr. Clayton! Please! You’ll hurt yourself!” Evie reached for Luther’s arm. With surprising quickness and strength, he grabbed hold of her wrist. Evie’s fingers grazed the leather strap of his radium-dial watch.

  “Let go!” Sam said. He raced forward and then fell back as if he’d been shoved by a giant’s hand. “What the…?”

  Luther Clayton’s eyes locked on Evie’s. Whispers from Luther’s watch crawled up her arm and settled in her head. Her mind flashed with gunfire-quick glimpses of the terrible secrets he carried. She saw a train transporting soldiers through mountains and trees. She saw those same soldiers in a forest clearing. A Victrola playing “Pack Up Your Troubles.” It was a scene Evie knew all too well from her own dreams. Her body shook from the force of Luther’s revelations. She could smell blood and fear and a presence so sinister it made her want to run as far as she could get from the asylum and the demons inside Luther Clayton’s mind.

  “Help them,” Luther pleaded. “Please. Help. Him.”

  Evie struggled to speak over the whispers inside her head. “Who?”

  “Help James.”

  Sam and Woody tore Evie loose from Luther’s grip. The whispers floated away.

  “Doll,” Sam said, concerned. He dabbed his handkerchief against her nose and it came away bloody. She was still trembling.

  “H-how… how do you know James?” Silence. “How do you know my brother? Where is he?”

  “We should get outta here.” Sam put an arm around Evie’s shoulder.

  She shrugged it off. “Tell me! Tell me!”

  Luther Clayton’s eyes were again fixed on the wall. “The Eye has him.”

  A thin stream of tears trickled down his cheek. He tapped his head gently against the back of his chair: “The land is old, the land is vast, he has no future, he has no past, his coat is sewn with many woes, he’ll bring the dead, the King of Crows.… He’ll bring the dead, the King of Crows, King of Crows, King of Cr—”

  The door flew open. The guard was still a little woozy from Sam’s touch, but that was no match for his fury. “Out,” he said. “Now.”

  “I can’t believe we actually got thrown out of an asylum,” Sam said.

  “I prefer ‘firmly escorted from the premises,’” Evie said, holding Woody’s wet handkerchief to her aching head, his parting gift to her before he’d decamped for the newsroom. It didn’t help that she and Sam were winding through Times Square, their ears assaulted by the discordant symphony of car horns, clattering trolleys, and the rumble-and-clang of a steam shovel and pile driver pumping away at a nearby construction dig, where men in coveralls busied themselves making way for more skyscrapers in the city that never stopped reaching higher. “Where are we going, Sam?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  On Eleventh Avenue, Sam knocked on the basement door of a building that looked to be falling down.

  “This is your idea of safe?” Evie said. “It’s probably crawling with thieves and ne’er-do-wells.”

  Sam grinned. “Yeah. I’m in my element.”

  “As long as they have gin.”

  A panel in the door slid open. “All for one, and one for all,” Sam said.

  The door swung open, and Sam escorted Evie through the dank basement speakeasy, past a rough crowd to a dark-paneled booth in the very back. It smelled like dust and stale booze wiped up by a stinky rag.

  “Okay. Spill. What did you see?” Sam pressed.

  “It all happened so fast. But it felt familiar, too. I’ve seen those very images in my dreams, Sam. And he knows James! You heard him—he told me to help James.”

  “Doll, you don’t know that he meant your brother. That coulda been anybody named James.”

  “No. Sam, I can’t explain it. It was a feeling. Just like you knew about your mother, I know he was talking about my brother.” Evie sipped her gin, grateful for the familiar warm sting of it as it burned down to her stomach. “What did he mean, the Eye has him?”

  “Evie, he’s not right in the head.”

  “Something terrible happened to Luther,” Evie said, staring into her cup. “I saw things in his mind that I’ve only seen inside my own dreams: The soldiers. The Victrola. The forest. It went by very quickly, but it was there. When Bob Bateman brought me James’s comb to read, he said somebody had paid him to do it. Men in dark suits. Luther said Shadow Men told him to shoot me. We saw two men in dark suits when we broke into the abandoned offices
of the Department of Paranormal. Somehow, this is all connected to Project Buffalo and us. I just know it is. And Luther Clayton is the key that unlocks these mysteries, Sam. I’ve simply got to talk to him again.”

  “Well, good luck, doll. You just got us thrown out of there. That warden was not happy. How you gonna get back in?”

  “I’ll think of something,” Evie said.

  “Yes, you will. And that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  The minute Evie returned to her hotel, she asked the operator to dial the number for the Daily News.

  “Woody? It’s Evie.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Listen: That story on me forgiving Luther Clayton?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m working on it right now.”

  “Well, forget it. I’ve got a better story.”

  There was a pause. “Okay. I’m all ears.”

  When Evie had finished enlisting Woody’s help, she called Theta. “Theta, who’s your dearest friend?”

  “Henry,” Theta replied.

  “After Henry.”

  “Memphis.”

  “After Memphis,” Evie said, annoyed.

  “I’m pretty fond of my doorman.”

  “Theta!”

  “I’m just pulling your leg, Evil. What plan is cooking up in that feverish noggin of yours? I can hear the diabolical wheels turning from here.”

  “I need an acting job. How’d you like to come on my show tomorrow night?”

  There was a pause followed by a heavy sigh. “Why do I know I’ll regret this?”

  BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

  The next morning’s headline was a beauty:

  EXTRA! EXTRA! SWEETHEART SEER SEES GHOSTS AT ASYLUM

  Exclusive to The Daily News by T. S. Woodhouse

  Just yesterday, New York’s beloved Sweetheart Seer, the irrepressible Evie O’Neill, made the arduous trek to the Manhattan State Hospital for the Insane on desolate Ward’s Island.

  “Arduous trek? You took a ferry ride!” Mabel interrupted. She was sitting at Evie’s vanity table painting on a fresh coat of her best nail varnish.