Page 22 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

“Next, I want you to look out of his eyes,” Balthazar said. “Vince, pick out a book from my shelves and take it into that corner. Now, no cheating and telling her the sentence you’re looking at. Charlie, you go over there.” He pointed to the opposite side of the room.

“I don’t know how to do that,” she protested.

“You’re not getting in his head,” Balthazar said, with an annoyingly accurate assessment of her fears. “You’re just looking out his eyes.”

Charlie stood across the room from Red and concentrated, imagining that instead of sending him a message, she was reaching through the tether that bound them. She pressed her eyes shut. She tried to picture the page. But no matter how hard she focused, she couldn’t seem to make it work.

Finally she gave up with a groan and flopped down on Balthazar’s sofa.

“Experiment at home,” Balthazar told her, waving a hand as though it wasn’t important.

“I’ve had nearly enough of you, especially since I haven’t been paid for my services yet.

But in reference to your earlier question, let’s put it to Vince.

And I am interested in his answer. You see, Charlie is supposed to be getting me my own shadow. ”

“I heard.” Red appeared entirely solid as he walked to the couch and sat beside Charlie. A few locks of dark blond hair fell across his eyes.

“I’ve never had a shadow attached to me that either wasn’t my own or wasn’t dormant.” He gave Red a searching look. “She can control you, correct?”

“She can,” Red said.

“I won’t, ” Charlie said.

Balthazar made a frustrated noise. “Does she need to give you an order?”

After a moment, Red spoke. “If she tells me to do something directly, I’ll do it, of course—if she thinks a command at me, I’ll have to follow it.

It’s not something that I can be tricky about either, like some enchanted creature in a fairy tale.

I’ll want to do it the way she means for me to.

Sometimes the thing will be over before I can even think it through. ”

“For how long?” Balthazar asked. “I mean, how long do the commands last?”

“I don’t know—but I’ve never tried to resist them,” Red said, looking puzzled. “With Remy, it took a long time before I thought of us as separate. I didn’t see them as commands. They were extensions of what we wanted.”

“Fine.” Balthazar took a big sip of his coffee. “But what if my new shadow wants to hurt me?”

“It can’t,” Red said. “It won’t.”

Charlie puzzled that through. If Red was saying that a shadow couldn’t hurt the person tethered to them, that was one thing. But he was implying a shadow couldn’t want that and that couldn’t be true. Rose had asked him to kill the gloamist to whom she was bound. He was lying.

“What about the last Hierophant?” she asked, since she couldn’t ask him about Rose without admitting to what she knew. “How did his shadow drain him?”

“Ketamine,” Red said.

“ What? ” Balthazar demanded, leaning forward.

Red frowned. “It’s a—”

“I know what ketamine is,” Balthazar interrupted, rushing the explanation along.

“Salt used it to drug Remy to sleep. When he did that, I spoke through Remy’s mouth.

I controlled his body. I was alone in his mind.

Salt gave doses of ketamine to Cleophes of York to make the arrangement with him.

That allowed Cleophes to use up his host. But even then, I don’t think he meant to harm the man; I think he was just too bent on his own goals to notice how far he’d gone. ”

Charlie thought of her interactions with Red.

He hadn’t shown up when she was in danger and had arranged a murder with Rose’s shadow, one that might be dangerous to her, at the very least. If he couldn’t hurt her, he could arrange for her to be hurt, which seemed like an important distinction, although maybe not one Red was eager to share.

“Salt drugged his grandson?” Balthazar asked.

“He drugged a lot of people,” Red said. “He gave Charlie pentobarbital. That was one of his favorites.”

Balthazar looked over at Charlie. “I don’t recall you mentioning that.”

“Maybe you should have me over more often,” she said. “I’ve got lots of good stories.”

“Well, you’ll have to come at least once more,” he reminded her. “With my Blight.”

After they left, as they walked through the lot to the Porsche, Charlie stopped Red with a hand on his arm. “What about with us?” she asked. “Do you want what I want because we’re bound together?”

“That’s the thing.” His mouth twisted with obvious frustration. “How would I know?”

Later, in bed, she tried to stay awake, watching the window from the corner of her eye. Waiting for a shadow to slide through it, to come looking for him. Waiting for him to go out and the tether between them to slim to a skein of thread.

Listening, in case Posey came home, and might be in danger.

But no one entered and no one left. Red remained beside her all night, eyes closed, drifting in something like dreams.

The alarm on Charlie’s phone went off at ten the next morning, which should have been a reasonable hour except that she’d only fallen asleep when the sun was already bright in the sky, perhaps two hours before.

Her head hurt and the idea of turning over and going right back to sleep was extremely tempting. Red was no longer beside her.

Cursing under her breath, she dragged herself out of bed and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

In the living area, she found Red’s long body sprawled on the couch, arm behind his head, handsome profile on obnoxious display.

He wore jeans and a black Henley tight enough to draw her gaze, despite wishing it didn’t.

On the television, someone with an accent was deep-sea diving to find the remains of U-boats.

He had a book open on the cushion beside him, but she wasn’t sure he was paying attention to either.

The scent of coffee filled the air and he seemed to have a cup of it in front of him.

“You fixed the coffeepot?”

He gave her a familiar slanted smile. “Too many grounds in the tubes. I flushed it.”

“When did you start teaching yourself things that Remy didn’t know?

” Looking back, she’d always assumed Vince’s habit of cleaning gutters and changing the oil in her car had been part of his human-boyfriend act.

But Red didn’t pretend to be anything other than what he was.

He shoved his inhumanity in her face. Half the time, he didn’t even seem to like her.

Which—oddly distressing—meant his kindness in cleaning out the coffeepot this morning was likely real and his other, forgotten kindnesses had probably always been real too.

He frowned at her question. “I’m not sure.”

He didn’t like talking about Remy. And he definitely didn’t like admitting to anything that cast Remy in a bad light. Her question had probably stung, which was poor repayment for doing something nice.

She was sharp-tempered from lack of sleep, she told herself, and refused to feel guilty because her lack of sleep was his fault.

But she still wondered. Had Remy ever been unnerved by how clever Red was?

Or had he accepted it as his due and found useful tasks to give his shadow—staying awake in class, studying geometry, writing their papers?

She wished she knew if—in the end—he’d ever felt as though he was Red’s shadow.

“What’s with the history lesson?” she asked, gesturing toward the screen.

Red looked up at her, a few strands of blond hair falling across his eyes.

“The RMS Lusitania sank too quickly for anyone to evacuate because of its own speed—it pushed water into its body as it drove itself into the bottom of the sea. Had it been less good at what it did, the submarine attack might have been survivable.”

“That was the twin of the Titanic, right?” she asked.

He gave her a strange smile. “No, but people think that because they were both such famous disasters. A matched pair.”

For a moment, she thought he was making a remark about the two of them, but that couldn’t be right.

Leaving him to his naval warfare, Charlie went into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of irritatingly totally decent coffee.

There, she took out her old phone and a new glass screen protector she’d bought from the drugstore. She wiped down her cracked screen and put the glass over it, hoping to keep her fingers from getting cut. Despite her skepticism, it seemed to work and she could finally get to her messages.

One from Vicereine telling her to call. A few from her mother, a few more from Adeline, one from Fiona, asking about their lunch date. Some from friends she’d asked to help move her into the Northampton apartment later in the week asking whether free pizza would be provided.

And, of course, a reminder she had a shift that night.

Yawning, Charlie deleted the messages. She needed to focus on the job that mattered. Get Mr. Punch his answers. Which meant getting into that church. Hatfield was a small town and while they might give leeway to or even gossip with someone in the community, they weren’t going to do that for her.

So she had to become someone they’d talk with.

Loading up the Grace Covenant Church Facebook page, she scrolled through messages until she found the reverend, Kevin Powers, and a part-time office assistant, Melissa Svoboda.

Charlie copied the church contact information into her phone, looked up a few more facts, and then called.

“I’m Carli Bradwell with CMIC following up on a claim,” Charlie said, talking fast. “Is this the office of the Grace Covenant Church?”

“Yes?” a-person-who-Charlie-hoped-was-Melissa said, sounding a little confused. “Who did you say was calling?”

“CMIC,” Charlie repeated. “Church Mutual Insurance Company. Your insurance agents.” At least Charlie figured they probably were. They were the biggest company insuring churches on the East Coast.

“Oh! I didn’t realize,” Melissa said. “Of course.”

“We’ve been looking over your policy and there’s a problem with your claim.

You’re not covered for any kind of biohazard cleanup.

Blood could, unfortunately, be considered a biohazard.

Plus there’s the issue that no one on the policy was there at the time these people were doing whatever it was they were doing. ”

“They weren’t a cult. They were a discussion group, ” Melissa snapped. “This is a tragedy and you’re seriously saying you can’t help us, after always paying our premiums on time? Your company insures churches; where is the compassion?”

Charlie guessed that church administrative assistant was a thankless position.

Everyone wanted to be a hero—Charlie was going to give her a chance to be one.

“I think we can do something under the vandalism and criminal acts part of your policy. You’re covered for that.

” After a careful pause she went on. “But I still need to come and take pictures. I need to assess how much damage there really is and present the information to my supervisor.”

“And they’ll cover it?” Melissa asked.

“I want to help make that happen, I swear. Can I come tomorrow? It won’t take a lot of time.”

“I’m afraid that tomorrow isn’t going to work,” Melissa said, sounding a little panicked. “No one is going to be here. Unfortunately, we’re closing up the church for a few weeks, starting tonight.”

Charlie’s heart sank.

“You could come now, though,” said the woman. “The reverend is already away with family, but I can stay a little late. Would that work?”

Charlie leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. Yes! “I can do that, I suppose,” she said, trying to keep her voice neutral. “I’ll have to move some appointments around.”

Melissa thanked her effusively.

After Charlie got off the phone, she did a victorious dance around the kitchen, jerking to a halt when she noticed Red watching her from the doorway.

“You could charm a wolf away from a steak dinner,” he said.

“I sure could,” she agreed, going to pour herself a second, celebratory cup of coffee.