Lair of Dreams
Page 202

“Now who’s lying? You forget. I read your personal effects. I know you.”
“You know bupkes.”
But the gin had loosened the last of Evie’s restraint. “I’ve seen you. The true you. I’ve held your secrets in my hands. You’re scared, Sam. You pretend you’re not, but you are. Just like the rest of us.”
Sam whirled around. “All you know about are parties, good times, and telling people what they wanna hear on the radio. And breaking hearts.”
Sam pushed on, shining his flashlight ahead of them in the darkness. He hated that Evie had unsettled him like this. That was the trouble with letting people in—once you’d taken off the armor, it was hard to put it back on.
Evie stumbled after him. “Right! I forgot. I’m just a girl on the radio. Well, I only read what people choose to give me, Sam. You steal whatever you like and never think about what it costs anyone,” Evie said, eyes brimming with tears.
“Don’t cry,” Sam said. He was all balled up inside. “Please don’t cry. I got no defenses against girl tears.”
“You can’t have my tears, Sam Lloyd. I revoke them,” Evie said through chattering teeth. “But don’t go tellin’ me what I know. ’Cause you don’t know.”
“I don’t even know what we’re arguing about anymore.”
“Let’s just put the ghost to bed. I want a bath. I want twelve baths. And then, tomorrow, we can announce the tragic end of our engagement. You wanna be alone? Be alone,” Evie said, and she and Sam walked on in silence.
The water was now shin-deep. It sluiced up the sides of the tunnel as they walked and splashed up onto their clothes, chilling them through. Evie glanced through the arched steel supports of the subway tunnel toward the other side of the tracks and the platform heading in the opposite direction. The dark lit up for a second, revealing the bleached form of a man wearing a miner’s hat. But there was something not quite right about him. He fell into a squat, his mouth opening and closing, opening and closing.
Evie gasped.
“What’s the matter now?” Sam asked.
“Did—did you see that?” Evie whispered.
“See what?”
Evie pointed through the archway to an empty space. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing.”
“Hey! I think I found it!” Memphis called. He stood in front of an old gate adorned with gilded flowers, markers of an age long past. The rust couldn’t obscure how beautiful it had once been. Memphis and Sam tugged the gate open against the tide of water, the hinges protesting the sudden use after so many years asleep.
“We’re in,” Memphis said.
The flashlights weren’t much help in the deep, velvet darkness of underground, but eventually everyone’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. Memphis swept his flashlight beam around the forgotten station, briefly illuminating its decayed beauty.
“Holy smokes,” Sam said, angling his head back to take in the high, arched ceilings. The stained-glass window was caked in decades of dust. A tarnished chandelier dangled precariously from its broken chain. Sam cleared cobwebs from the chipped piano keys. He plinked one, but it made no sound. It was like being inside a shipwreck on land. Down below lay the rotting remains of New York City’s very first subway train.
“Careful on the stairs,” Memphis cautioned as they stepped down to the lower platform. He stuck his head inside the car. “Nothing here but a bunch of dust.”
Memphis’s flashlight beam fell across the broken bulbs ringing the station’s entrance and the etched lettering of the plaque there: BEACH PNEUMATIC TRANSIT COMPANY.
“Just like Isaiah’s drawing,” Memphis murmured.
“I don’t like the feel of this place,” Theta said.
“Why can’t ghosts ever haunt some place swell, like the 21 Club?” Evie sneaked a drink from the secret flask she kept hidden in her garter.
“Evil!” Theta wrestled the flask from Evie’s grip. “I’m gonna murder you.”
“Oh, please, Theta! It’s awful down here.”
“Mine,” Theta growled. She took a quick belt and handed it over to Memphis. “Don’t let her have that back.”
“I. Had. A very bad daaaay!” Evie yelled, and it bounced off the walls of the station.
“Shhh!” Theta whispered. “You wanna get us killed?”
Sam marched over to Evie. “You’re on the air, Sweetheart Seer. Time to find something to read so we can find out what gets rid of these ghosts, save our friends, and get out of here.”