Page 16 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

Rose

Once her shift was over, Charlie crossed the parking lot of Rapture. Her hand was in her pocket, touching the papers that Balthazar had given her. A map to the missing piece of Red, the part that might restore his memories and bring him back to her.

Vincent. Bring Vince back to her. That’s what she meant.

She made a sharp noise of surprise as she realized Red was walking beside her, matching his stride to hers. Her hand flew to her chest. There had been too many surprises recently. Her nerves were shot.

“You told me that I didn’t need to disappear all the time,” he accused. Tension hunched his shoulders.

“Right,” she said. “Good.”

He nodded once and seemed to relax a little.

The van’s engine wheezed when she turned it on.

Her own car had stalled out completely months before—and the cost to fix it had been more than the car was worth.

That left her with Vince’s van—a vehicle he owned but had never registered or insured, considering he wasn’t a person with a Social Security number, or even a license.

If the van broke down too, she wasn’t sure what she would do next.

“Tell me about Mark,” he prompted.

She shook her head, not ready for that conversation. “Let’s talk about the guy who drank out of the dog dish.”

He gave a small shrug. “Quincy Crowninshield.”

“Wait. You know him?” She was pissed. Vince hadn’t told her that. He’d just told her about the watch.

“Crowninshield Construction owns half of Western Massachusetts,” Red said, oblivious to the deceptions of his past self. “One of Salt’s cronies—not someone who knew him well, but someone he spent time with at the local country club.”

“Gross,” she said.

He met her gaze. “Make serving him scotch out of a dog bowl more gratifying?”

She smiled. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Did you know Don fights with his girlfriend in the parking lot sometimes?”

Charlie blinked in surprise. “Wh aaaaaa t?”

Red gave her his familiar half-smile, reminding her of how much he’d always loved gossip. “And Balthazar meets Bellamy behind Rapture occasionally. It doesn’t seem entirely professional.”

She laughed as she pulled onto the highway, realizing how well he’d distracted her from Mark. It was a kind thing to do.

“I’m going to drive by the church,” she told him.

“You think there’s anything to see?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Probably not.” Charlie was operating on instinct. She would have cased the place if she was going to steal from it, so she figured it would be a familiar way to start an investigation.

The Grace Covenant Church sat in a sleepy corner of a main road in Hatfield, Massachusetts, a town that looked straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Graceful old houses with red bows and tasteful wreaths on their doors sat beneath canopies of trees.

Charlie parked across the street from the church. At that time of night, no other car was on the road. Most of the lights inside the houses were already out. A few fake candles winked in windows and holiday lights twinkled from bushes.

Behind the church, an old graveyard stretched toward some woods. That would be the path she’d take out of there if she were the killer, even if she were a Blight.

A police car cruised down the street, slowing as it passed the van. When it didn’t stop, Charlie let out her breath. But two blocks away, it started to turn around.

“Time to go,” Charlie said, hoping the cop wasn’t running her plate. She pulled the van onto the road, heading out of town. The police car didn’t follow.

Her phone rang and she jumped, jerking the wheel so that the van swerved in the road.

She didn’t feel any better when she realized who was calling.

Vicereine. Oh right, because the head of the alterationists had wanted to talk to Charlie. And since it had turned out she wasn’t the one who dragged Charlie out of her house, Charlie had left her hanging.

Charlie positioned the phone against her shoulder, so that it would sit there while she drove. “Sorry, my phone was busted and—”

“A lawyer contacted me,” Vicereine said.

“He wanted to make me aware that Remy Carver is about to become very wealthy and that I would be doing myself a favor to get out of his way. I informed that person that they must be mistaken, as Vincent is no more Remy Carver than Adeline Salt is her own reflection in the mirror.”

Red stiffened in the passenger seat. His eyes darkened, as though they were about to burn. Reaching over, he took the phone and hit the speaker button. “What else did the lawyer say?”

“He wanted to know if I was going to tell anyone else what I’d just told him.” Vicereine sounded surprised to hear Red’s voice.

“And are you?” Charlie asked, thinking of the journalist who’d called her.

“Not unless there’s a reason I should,” Vicereine said, annoyance in her voice. “But if I’m asked, you can hardly expect me to lie.”

Which was a warning, but also a reason to be grateful. Charlie hated being grateful.

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t make Adeline the Hierophant?” she asked. “Just imagine how many times her lawyer would have called you then.”

“If she thinks she can buy the Cabals,” Vicereine said, “we’ll bury her. You should let her know that. Remind her to whom you’re beholden.”

“She wants Vince,” Charlie corrected. “Not me.”

Vicereine snorted. “Him, she believes she already owns.”

“And you don’t?” Charlie asked.

Vicereine made an impatient sound. “If you didn’t want it to be this way, you shouldn’t have put a collar around your own neck and handed us the leash, Charlie Hall.”

Then she hung up.

“That could have gone worse,” Charlie said, but Red was looking out the window, lost in thought.

When they got back to the house, Charlie turned to him.

“You can sleep in the bed with me if you want,” she said, courting humiliation and determined to see it through. “I promise I won’t hit on you or anything like that.”

He studied her, his expression unreadable. “You’re very beautiful.”

She kept her face carefully neutral. “Maybe you don’t like beautiful. Everyone has a type.” Charlie flopped down on the bed and tried to kick off her boots. They were laced up, but not so tightly that she didn’t think it might eventually work.

Red caught her calf. Going down to one knee in front of Charlie, he undid her laces as though she were a child, then pulled off her boots, one and then the other.

When he was done, she slid her feet away from him and under the covers, pretending not to still feel the warmth of his hands on her skin.

Pretending not to be in any way affected.

Red lay down at the very edge of the mattress.

Still mostly dressed, Charlie closed her eyes and tried to ignore the nearness of his body, the softness of his mouth, and the hardness of his jaw. His lashes, bright as gold when the moonlight caught them.

Her bra was still on. Her onyx necklace dug into her chest. She was never going to be able to sleep like this.

Her thoughts circled between her memory of Mark, standing in Rapture with that familiar false smile. The bullet hitting her windshield. Red speaking in her head: I’ll kill him. If you want. Around, again and again.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a shadow near the window move. It slid across the floor in the way no shadow should.

Charlie shut her eyes automatically, playing possum.

Stupid, but she’d done it, so she might as well take a moment to think.

The weapon that had been most consistently successful against Blights was fire and her lighter was in her purse.

If she moved fast, she might be able to get to it, but that was a very small flame.

“Red.” A strange, scraping voice came from the shadow—a woman’s voice, sounding like metal against metal. Charlie’s breath caught. A Blight that could reason, that could talk, was very, very dangerous.

Maybe even as dangerous as him.

“ You. ” Red’s voice was low. Charlie felt the mattress move as he rose.

Red knew this thing? Fuckityfuckingfuck.

“Come with me,” the shadow rasped.

There was a long silence. Charlie opened her eyes just in time to see both shadows going out through the window.

A moment later, she sat up, her hand pressing over her speeding heart as though she could slow it with pressure.

At least Posey wasn’t home. Her sister had been spending more and more nights out, creeping home near dawn.

Though it had worried Charlie that there were secrets between them, now she was grateful.

Sliding out of bed, she shoved her feet back into her boots.

She had to know what was happening. Throwing on her clawed-up coat, she went out the front door as quietly as she could and into the night.

If she concentrated, she was able to follow a pulling sensation from somewhere in the center of her body, drawing her toward him.

She could feel the distance, and if she looked down, in the moonlight, she could just make out the skein of shadow that bound them, thin as a cobweb.

Cold air bit her cheeks and gusts blew her hair around her face, but she could hear voices, not far from where she stood. She moved closer, crouching beneath a low bush to remain hidden. Her legs were already starting to feel numb with cold.

“Thought I died?” the shadow woman asked. “Or tried never to think about me at all? Blot out the old days?”

“What do you want?” His tone was as blunt as his words.

“I don’t have much time,” she said in that strange voice. “Just listen.”

“I suppose I owe you that, at least,” he said.

“You owe me more,” said the shadow woman. “Much more.”

“Now you’re the one wasting time,” he reminded her.

“There is a man I need you to kill.” Her voice combined eerily with the sound of the wind.

“I have a keeper,” Red said.

“Did they give you to her the way they gave me to him?” the voice asked. “Did you think that being their loyal monster meant they would spare you?”

“Be careful,” Red said. “You came to me , Rose.”

“You didn’t save me before. Save me now. Like you said, you owe me.”

Rose. There was only one person Charlie had ever heard of by that name, Rose Allaband. The woman Remy had been accused of killing. The one whose body had been found in the burnt-out husk of a car in Springfield.

No one had ever asked what happened to her shadow.

“I could help you too,” the shadow woman said.

He gave a huff of laughter, but not the kind with amusement in it. “I am beyond helping.”

“I’ll murder her for you if you want,” the shadow said, gesturing toward the house. Charlie. She was talking about murdering Charlie.

“Now?” he asked, as though maybe the offer was a welcome one.

“In payment for you helping me,” she replied.

“What made you come here?” he asked.

“Oh, everyone’s talking about the new Hierophant and her shadow. When they called you Red, I knew.” She was talking fast. “The only reason I was able to get to you tonight is that he’s gone to a bar nearby—meeting with Mr. Punch—but we might not be here for long. We move around a lot.”

Mr. Punch. It figured that everything creepy washed up on his shores. Charlie wondered how long he’d planned to take Malik’s place as the head of the puppeteers.

“If you move around, how am I supposed to find this guy? Unless you want me to go back with you to the bar now? Kill him together.”

“No, there are other gloamists with him. It’s too dangerous,” she said, slight panic in her voice.

“I’ll leave word. There’s a convenience store he goes to on the edge of town.

They sell the brand of cigarettes he likes.

Look in the bathroom for a message on the wall about where and when to attack. Give me two days.”

“I’ll look for it,” Red said.

“Bring her.” Rose gestured to the house. “Charlie. That’s her name, right? We can murder them together and be free.” She looked up at him, hand on his arm, longing in her eyes. In the moonlight, she was translucent, a ghost in love, planning to spend eternity with her betrothed.

Or a ghost planning on dragging her enemy down into death.

Abruptly, Charlie realized she needed to get back inside before Red did. She didn’t wait to hear his answer, but crept toward the door, her hands shaking, her thighs numb and stinging with cold.

And then she saw her pillow. It had been ripped open, the pillowcase slashed into pieces, stuffing spilling out.

If Charlie hadn’t followed Red onto the lawn, if she really had been asleep, that could have been her throat.

And since Rose was still outside, she had no idea what had come looking for her.

By the time she collapsed on the bed, she was shaking so hard that she didn’t know how to stop. She got herself under control before he returned, but when the mattress dipped beneath his weight, she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming.