Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray
“I can’t.”
“You got another date?”
“Need my beauty sleep.”
“You get any more beautiful and I’ll have to start washing my eyes every night. I won’t be able to take it.” He put one hand over his heart and shook, making Theta laugh. She kissed him harder. Memphis moaned softly, running a hand up her back until Theta felt warm and tingly.
“I gotta go, Poet,” she said between kisses.
Memphis was flushed. Sweat beaded around his freshly shaved hairline. “You’re cruel, woman.”
Theta laughed. “We all got our talents.” She fixed her dress and reached for her coat.
“Hey…” Memphis took hold of Theta’s hand, drawing her back for one more kiss. “I love you, you know.”
“Yeah,” Theta said, pressing herself against him until she thought she might lose her mind. “I know.”
Upstairs again, Theta passed through the club like a phantom. Around her, people stomped and danced. The band played on. Trumpets wailed against the night. The chorus girls glittered and winked. In that corner booth, her friends were huddled together, happy. Sam was telling some story using his hands. Henry wiped away tears of laughter. Ling kept stealing glances at Alma up onstage, and anybody with any kind of sense could see that she was smitten. Theta tried to imagine cantankerous Ling lovestruck, and it was almost enough to chase away her fear. Out on the street, Theta checked the time. Eleven thirty. She read over the note one more time. Midnight. Come alone.
The doorman hailed Theta a taxi. “Where to?” the cabbie asked.
“The Bowery,” she said. “And step on it.”
REUNION
“Thanks. Keep the change,” Theta said, and set off down the Bowery. Steam pulsed up around the edges of the manhole covers, lending the streets a grainy wash. Just past the darkened windows of a hosiery shop, Theta found the building—a skinny door nestled between a bakery and a tailor’s shop. Theta climbed up two steep flights, listening to a baby’s hungry wail drifting down the stairwell. At the end of a dim hallway with a chipped floor, she saw it: 3C. There was a note with her name on it taped there: Door’s open, it read.
Heart thumping, Theta turned the knob. The apartment was dark. Only the lights from the Bowery leaking in through the windows gave the room any shape at all. She wanted to run, but if she did, the threats would never stop. She had to know who was sending those notes. Theta shut the door behind her.
A lamp clicked on, and Theta blinked against the sudden bright. Her surprise turned slowly to disbelief, then horror at the figure on the bed sitting half in shadow. Her knees wobbled as she was seized by a fear so overwhelming it had a smell and taste. Bile inched into her throat. She fought to swallow it down.
“Roy?” she managed at last.
“Hello, Betty. D’ya miss me, baby?”
The wildflower in the vase. The hand at her throat. The slap across the cheek.
She was having a hard time staying in the room, staying in her body.
Her hands shook as she stood in the middle of the room like a guilty child.
The bed creaked as Roy stood up. He’d filled out the past two years. His arms and shoulders were thickly muscled, making him look even more of a menace. Slowly, he circled the room, prowling like a panther.
“You look good. Never used to wear all that face paint, but…” Roy added quickly, “Golly. You sure are pretty, Betty.”
He was talking to her the way he used to when he was a handsome soda jerk in Kansas and she was a gawky-legged girl on the vaudeville circuit. Theta felt like a small, cornered rabbit. She kept her eyes on the scarred floorboards.
“I suppose those New York fellas like all that face paint you wear, huh? Yes, sir, must be lined up for you.”
“No,” Theta said too fast. “I mean, I, uh, I work all the time.”
“Yeah? Who’s that fella you’re living with?
That Roy knew about Henry terrified Theta. “Just a fella works at the show. Piano player.”
Roy laughed. “Oh. A theater type. A sissy, then?”
Theta’s cheeks burned at the insult. The less she said, the better. For once, her palms were stone cold. It was as if her fear were a breath blowing out the flame.
“Well, well. This is a nice reunion, ain’t it? Took me a long time to find you. Nobody knew where you’d got to. And then I was doing a job in Brooklyn and I happened to see that newspaper article on Theta Knight, the Russian princess turned showgirl,” Roy said, giving the last bit a showman’s flair. From the corner of her eye, she saw him wagging a finger at her, grinning. “You looked different in the picture, but I knew, I knew that Theta was my long-lost wife, Betty Sue. And that Russian baloney was made up by those showbiz people.” He took a deep breath. “I missed you, Betty Sue.”
Her mind could only absorb snatches of thought: Memphis. Flo. Scandal. All gone. All gone.
“See, I figured after that night and the fire, you musta had, whatchamacallit—amnesia or something. Walking around without a clue who you were or where you come from.”
Theta had spent her life not knowing that. All she could do was move forward. Roy was like falling back. He was studying her the way he used to, waiting to catch her for some invisible wrongdoing. But Theta had learned a lot the past two years.
“I don’t remember much at all,” she said, acting the part.
“You remember doing this? Look at me, Betty. Look.”
Slowly, Theta turned toward him. Roy moved into the light and Theta gasped. Half of his face was burned all the way up to the hairline. She could just see the faint outline of her handprint on his left cheek, a bumpy scar.
“You did that. I don’t know how, but you did.”
She was fighting to stay in her body. Her mind wanted to flee.
“I-I don’t remember,” she heard herself say.
“Well, don’t you worry, Betty. I’m here now,” Roy said, and Theta’s gut screamed at her like a scared child. Run. Go. Hide. She remembered how his threat used to lay coiled under caring words, like a venomous snake hidden deep inside a pretty velvet bag.
“Tomorrow we can go back to Kansas.”
“I got a contract,” Theta said, again too quickly. “At the Follies.”
“Yeah? You make good money? I’ll bet you make good money. Okay. We’ll wait till your contract is up. Tell the sissy you’re moving out.” He patted the bed. “After all, I’m still your husband in the eyes of the law.” Roy’s smile changed. “Or did you get yourself another sucker?”
Theta could only imagine Memphis’s fate if Roy found out.
“I told you, I work all the time,” Theta said.
“Work is good. Keeps a girl outta trouble,” Roy said meaningfully. And then, like a wind, his glowering face changed. He smiled. “You know, now I think about it, why go back to that lousy two-flea circus in Kansas? This town’s gonna be good for us. I could be your agent. Look after your career.”
He would own her. “People don’t know me as married.”
“So now they will.”
“It ain’t that simple, Roy.” Her voice had gotten so tiny.
A familiar shadow passed over Roy’s face. He didn’t like no. “Gee, if I go to the newspapers, this sure would look bad on you. I mean, lotsa people remember you was my wife. Lotsa people remember that fire. How suspicious it was. The whole place goin’ up like that? Police back home might wanna ask you questions.”
There it was, the snake in the bag. She had to stall him until she could figure this whole mess out. “I just have to find a way to tell Flo without him getting sore. He’s worked so hard on this Russian princess angle. If he got mad, I could be out of a job. Out of money.”
Roy searched her face. Theta spent every ounce of energy maintaining a look of pure truth. “Okay. You figure it out. I’ll give you till next week, but then I want a meeting.”
Theta’s heart sank. A week was no time at all. “Sure, Roy. Sure.” Theta inched toward the door. “I better
Roy crossed the floor in three quick strides and pulled Theta to him. Gripping the back of her head, he forced his kiss on her. When he pulled away, he was smiling. “Now I found you, Betty, things’ll be like they was again. Just the two of us.” He stroked her hair, wrapping a section tightly between his fingers. He put his mouth to her ear, and even his whisper felt like a violation. “If I find out you been lying to me about another fella, well, I wouldn’t want to be that fella, Betty Sue. Nod if you understand me.”
Theta nodded.
The baby’s wailing was loud in Theta’s ears as she raced down the steps of Roy’s seedy building and out onto the Bowery. The Third Avenue El rumbled overhead, drowning out her choked sobs. What was she going to tell Flo? If the papers, if somebody like Harriet Henderson, got wind of this story, she’d be ruined. She was trapped. And if Roy found out about Memphis, he’d kill him. She knew that. Theta could still feel Roy’s foul kiss on her mouth as she stumbled down the streets of Chinatown. Feverishly, she wiped at her lips. She cried until she had no tears left, until she was numb and hollowed. Theta wandered the city until dawn. As the day’s first gray stirrings sniffed between the skyscrapers, she knew what she had to do.
HOPEFUL HARBOR
The Marlowe estate was nestled deep in the Adirondacks, nearly a day’s drive from the city. The clouds sat low on the mountaintops and blew out across the valley below. It was colder up here; snow still dotted the ground and the roads were muddy. Weak sunlight peeked between the towering firs. Marlowe’s chauffeur rounded a corner, and the sprawling gray estate came into view, stretched out across the hillside like a huge stone animal in repose.
A gray-haired butler met Jericho at the door. He seemed as if he’d come with the house as much as the furniture and trees. “I’ll tell Mr. Marlowe you’ve arrived, Mr. Jones,” he said, disappearing up the massive, red-carpeted staircase, which was backlit by the most impressive set of stained-glass windows Jericho had ever seen outside a church. Moments later, a shiny, pressed Marlowe bounded down those stairs with the energy of a boy.
“Jericho! Welcome to Hopeful Harbor! Leave your suitcase here. Ames’ll see to it. Let me show you around.”
Marlowe led a wide-eyed Jericho down a long, chandelier-lit hallway whose walls boasted Chinese vases on pedestals, expensive-looking paintings of somber ancestors, and a wooden, gold-leafed coat of arms with a crowned, upright lion at its center under the motto VICTORIA SINE TERMINO: Victory without end. In the billiards room, a bust of Caesar stared down from a long marble mantel while another of Hannibal topped a tall stack of books, all of them about conquerors. There was a dining room the size of a football field where two maids vigorously buffed the silver laid out in a neat line across the gleaming table fit for a king’s court. Jericho had thought that the museum was the most impressive place he’d ever seen. But it was no match for Hopeful Harbor. As they passed from room to room, Jericho kept his eyes open for a possible card reader, but so far, he’d seen nothing.
Back on the first floor, Jericho stopped outside a long room that held a dozen iron beds. “What’s this?”
“We opened the estate to some soldiers during the war. There wasn’t adequate housing. It was the patriotic thing to do. You know, I don’t believe anyone’s stayed in this room since.” Marlowe barked out a hearty laugh. “Jericho, there are just too many rooms in this house—I’ve forgotten half of them!”
Marlowe showed Jericho a dizzying number of other rooms before ending the tour in a tasteful library.
“What do you think?” Marlowe asked.
“Nice castle,” Jericho said.
Marlowe laughed. “Well, every man’s home is his castle, they say. But I saved the best for last.”
Marlowe tipped down two books on the third shelf of a bookcase, and it opened, revealing a secret lift. A grinning Marlowe ushered Jericho inside.
“This is my crowning glory,” he said, his fingers trailing over the golden panel of buttons—B, 1, 2, 3, and S—before selecting the B. The lift descended, and the doors opened again onto a long, shadowy corridor with steel doors lining each side.
Why steel? Jericho wondered.
“This is where the magic happens,” Marlowe said, leading Jericho to the first door on the right. Inside was a shining, white-tiled laboratory that seemed as if it had sprung forth from the pages of Jules Verne. Elaborate contraptions and strange equipment filled the cavernous space. One half of the room had been set up as an operating theater. A sheet-covered hydraulic table sat in the center of the room beneath a spiderlike array of strong lights. Beside it, a smaller metal table held a collection of syringes and vials on a tray, as well as a glass-fronted cabinet that Jericho thought might be an autoclave for sterilizing equipment. The whole arrangement made him very nervous.
“This is the birthplace of the future,” Marlowe said, barely able to contain his pride. “It’s also where you’ll be spending most of your time over the next few weeks as we ready you for your victory lap at the Future of America Exhibition. But there’s time for this later. Come. You must be famished.”
Back in the lift, Jericho pointed to the buttons. “What is the S for?”
“Solarium. There’s one on the roof.”
When Jericho had lived with Will at the Bennington, he’d often escape to the roof to think and to read and to feed the pigeons. From there, he could see the great steel backbone of the city and feel that he was joined to it. He wondered what he could see from the top of Marlowe’s estate.
“Could we see it?” Jericho said.
“I’m afraid the solarium is off-limits,” Marlowe said in a tone that did not invite further questioning.
Jericho and Marlowe sat in the heated sunroom eating their ham sandwiches with tall glasses of cold milk. The sandwiches, smeared with mayonnaise and sweet pickle relish, were delicious, and Jericho ate two.
“Good appetite.” Marlowe grinned. “That’s good. Healthy.” He trained his blue-eyed gaze on Jericho. “What do you remember about the Daedalus program?”
“It cured me. It cured a lot of us. Made us all stronger, faster. And then it reversed. Drove most of the men mad. Made them violent or catatonic. It killed many of them.” Jericho paused. “Or it drove them to kill themselves.”
Jericho slugged back some of his milk. He kept his eyes on Marlowe.
“Like your friend Sergeant Leonard.” Marlowe nodded. He looked sad. “It was one of the darkest moments of my life. All those men. I wanted so much to save them. To make them whole. When it reversed, I was devastated. I felt personally responsible.”
“Perhaps because you were personally responsible.”
Marlowe winced. “Still want to punish me?”
“No. I just want you to take accountability.”
“It was my fault,” Marlowe said. “And I’ve never stopped regretting it. I’ve spent the past decade trying to fix my mistakes.”
Jericho softened. “And have you fixed them?”
Marlowe’s eyes gleamed. “I think so. I’m much closer to a cure. Which is why I wanted your help, Jericho. You are the lone survivor of the Daedalus program. You can be the key to a cure for so many diseases.”
“You blackmailed me into it.”
“Yes. And I’m sorry. I want you to know now that it’s your choice. You can leave at any time. I am not telling you what to do. I’m asking for your help—not just for me and Marlowe Industries, of course, but for the country. You’d be helping everyone.” Marlowe leaned forward, his eyes glowing with some inner light. “You’re some sort of evolutionary jump! You are, quite literally, the Übermensch. That gunshot wound you took to your chest, it should’ve killed you. Instead, the wound healed in record time. Imagine: Superior strength and mental fitness. No illness! You’ll age more slowly. When your friends are suffering the aches and pains of forty-five, you’ll still look and feel like a man in his prime.”
“That sounds lonely,” Jericho said.
<
“What do I have to do?”
“First, there’s the new and improved serum. I’ve been perfecting it for years. All it needs to be perfect is a few drops of your blood mixed in and put through my patented purification system.”
Jericho winced. “How much of my blood?”
Marlowe pushed the concern away with a wave of his hand. “Oh, not much at all. A few vials should suffice until I figure out how to duplicate it. Then there’ll be physical endurance tests, of course. And mental tests as well, to see if we can push past normal human limits into superhuman strengths, into areas of the mind where we’ve never been able to reach before. It’s a new frontier! And you and I are the pioneers staking our claim. In a few weeks’ time, everyone will know your name, Jericho.”
Jericho drank his milk. “What if people find out about…” He pounded his chest.
Marlowe looked around. He lowered his voice. “They won’t if you don’t say anything. The machinery inside you saved your life, Jericho. It didn’t change who you are.”
And that, more than anything, was what Jericho needed to hear.
“Is there anything you need to make your life here more comfortable? Anything at all. Name it,” Marlowe said, and Jericho had to smile. Everything Marlowe did was big. Even his promises. Especially his promises.
“I’d like to be able to write to Evie.”
“The Diviner niece of my long-lost enemy,” Marlowe said coolly as he cut a second sandwich in two with an engraved silver butter knife that mostly mangled the job of it. “All right, then. I’ll have Ames bring around stationery and a typewriter. But the testing that happens here is strictly confidential, Jericho. I’m afraid all of your correspondence must be reviewed first. Part of Marlowe Industries policy.”
Jericho hadn’t counted on that. His letters to Evie and the others would need to be coded in some way.