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“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.”
