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The machinelike shriek was everywhere.
The King of Crows’s face loomed before her in the grave. “I told you we’d only just begun our dance.” He stroked Mabel’s hair.
Evie tried to scream and vomited a stream of black bile. The oily ooze poured out of her. It coursed over her chin and down her neck, just like every ghost they had ever annihilated.
As if she were one of them now.
PLAYING WITH FIRE
New York City
A palpable tension pulled through the newsroom as two men in gray suits and hats and overcoats walked purposefully between the rows of reporters and stopped in front of Woody’s desk.
“Mr. T. S. Woodhouse?”
“Sorry, boys. I already gave to the Girl Scouts this year.”
“Cute. I’m Mr. Adams. This is my associate, Mr. Jefferson.”
The Shadow Men. Woody tried to remain calm.
“We’ll need to see these letters, if you please, Mr. Woodhouse.”
“Why? They’ve already been printed in the paper.”
“But you’re going to stop printing them in the paper.”
Woody smirked. “I don’t know how well you boys can read, but the Bill of Rights guarantees a free press. You don’t even have to read very far. It’s the First Amendment. I could print my laundry list, as long as it was factual.”
“It’s a matter of national security. You understand.”
“I understand that you’re asking me to divulge my sources.” Woody kept up his reporter’s bravado, but inside he was afraid, and he hoped the Shadow Men didn’t see him swallow hard just a moment after he spoke.
One Shadow Man leaned so close that Woody could see the first hint of a five o’clock shadow on his jaw. “We are at war, sir. War from within. There are those who would tear apart the very fabric of freedom, and they must be stopped.”
“You and I might not be in agreement on just who those usurpers of freedom are,” Woody answered. “One person’s treason is another’s patriotism.”
“Careful, Mr. Woodhouse. You sound a bit like an anarchist yourself.” The Shadow Man leaned back. “We already know this is the work”—he stacked one quarter, then another on the edge of Woody’s desk—“of a dangerous Negro agitator.” He added a third, straightening the edges with clean fingers. “Worse than Marcus Garvey.” A fourth quarter. A fifth. “And we got rid of Mr. Garvey just fine.” Six pieces of silver. “So I’ll ask you again, Mr. Woodhouse: Where is Memphis Campbell hiding?”
Woody kept very still. “How do you know it’s Memphis Campbell?”
The Shadow Man’s mouth tightened into a semblance of a smile. “He sent a poem to the Crisis. The poem was called ‘The Voice of Tomorrow.’”
“That doesn’t prove anything. Just like I’m sure there’s no connection between Luther Clayton shooting at Evie O’Neill and Project Buffalo.”
/> The Shadow Man stopped smiling. “It would be a shame if you ended up a story yourself, Mr. Woodhouse. Like poor Dr. Fitzgerald, dead in his museum, more than likely killed by his coldhearted Diviner niece and her Diviner friends, under the tutelage of Margaret Walker. That’s what we’re up against. Anarchists with special powers. Enemies of the state with the means to destroy this great nation. What happens if such power goes unchecked?”
Woody looked up at the Shadow Man and found that his eyes were the same gray as his suit. “An excellent question: What happens if power goes unchecked and unbalanced?”
“You be careful now, Mr. Woodhouse. When you play with fire, or with people who can make fire, well, you might get burned.” Quick as a rattler strike, Mr. Adams swept the quarters into his palm and shoved them in a pocket, out of sight.
Woody tapped his foot nervously. This was the sixth house he’d been to in three days. Each one had the same story: A daughter or brother or cousin had gone to a county fair or carnival and into the Fitter Families tent, where they’d taken a test. The daughter or brother or cousin had something special about them—they got premonitions about cards, fires, twisters, or even when somebody was going to die. Two had mentioned visions that had left them feeling unsettled for days—a man in a tall hat walking just ahead of a great big storm. These daughters, brothers, and cousins would come home from the fair with a bronze medal that read, YEA, I HAVE A GOODLY HERITAGE. And soon after, they’d disappear. Like Annabelle Carter did.
“You said your sister went missing two days after the carnival came to town, Mrs. Plunkett?”
“Yes,” the woman said, pouring tea into two china cups.
“And she’d visited the Fitter Families tent?”
