Page 24 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

“Absolutely,” Charlie assured her, lying through her teeth.

“These people weren’t part of any cult. They were just interested in learning about shadow magic, even though not a one of them had it. I told the police that they had speakers sometimes or out-of-town guests—I said one of them must have killed them.”

Seeing the room, Charlie tried to overlay her memory of the photos she’d seen online onto the space.

But the pattern of death made no more sense than it had before.

Why would people race for the corners and stay in them instead of going for the door?

How could any one person have killed three different groups, before a single person made it to the steps?

No one Blight could do that. Not even a gloamist and a shadow working together.

You’d need at least three separate actors.

“I’ve got to take some pictures,” she said, moving around the room. On one wall, she noticed deep gouges. Like claw marks. She got out her phone and took several shots. “This is going to have to be fixed.”

“Honestly, what I told the police isn’t what I really think, though,” the woman said.

Charlie glanced at her, then went back to taking photos. It seemed clear that Melissa had more to say and maybe she was one of those people who needed to fill silences.

For that reason or because there was a certain safety in unburdening oneself to a stranger, after a few minutes she sighed and began to speak.

“Nothing human made those. The police said one of those gardening things might have been used. A three-prong rake. But I think it was claws.” Melissa turned toward the stairs with a shudder.

Charlie followed her back up. As they passed by the church nave, with all the empty pews, her steps slowed.

She remembered that red carpet, those prayer books sitting in pockets behind the seats.

Memory washed over her, the smell of freshly applied nail polish and her mother’s perfume, the stickiness of the weedy flowers in her hand, someone playing the piano, and the vows that Travis read off of a folded piece of paper: I promise to love you until we die and I plan on dying in your arms.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” the woman said.

Charlie startled out of her thoughts, blinking.

Tell her you’re not going to say anything about what she told you, Red prompted.

“Your secret is safe with me,” Charlie said. Then, she made an exaggerated shudder. “And I am going to do my best not to have nightmares.”

Melissa led her to the door nearest the parking lot. “The reverend and everyone here wants to believe it wasn’t something supernatural.”

Charlie frowned. “You mean a Blight?”

“I mean a demon, ” Melissa said. “Every day I pray it won’t come back and then I feel terrible, because that seems like wishing it on someone else.”

“You saw something?” Charlie’s voice came out too sharp.

Melissa shook her head. “No, but I know in my heart.”

Without knowing what else to do, she got Melissa to initial the fake form on her clipboard, then left, feeling like a failure.

She hadn’t learned anything that led her closer to a suspect, much less knowing what role Rooster Argent had in any of this.

Nor did she have any idea how she was going to keep the Cabals from getting more bad press from it.

Outside, hoping for inspiration, Charlie took a walk around the grounds and through the attached cemetery. The cold air felt good on her face.

Have you ever seen Blights working together? she thought at Red. If he and Rose could conspire, it stood to reason that others could too.

No, Red said in her mind. And the idea is very disturbing.

Since she knew he was lying, that meant less than nothing. If there had been a group of Blights—a pack of Blights, her mind unhelpfully supplied—then they could have separated the seekers and kept them in their corners.

A boy biked into the graveyard. He looked about nine years old and eyed her with suspicion. Charlie was very glad she hadn’t said that out loud so she would have seemed to be talking to herself.

“There’s something wrong with your shadow,” the boy called to her as he whizzed by.

He had no idea.

“You live around here?” she called in return.

“I’m not telling you,” he yelled, circling her again.

Fair enough.

“You here about the murders?” he called.

“Aren’t you a little too young to know about that?” She turned back and started in the direction of the Porsche.

“The Nine-Shadow Man did it,” the kid said.

“From the story?” Charlie asked.

“The Nine-Shadow Man” was a fairy tale, like “The Witch and the Unlucky Brother,” except more gruesome.

The Nine-Shadow Man started with one shadow, but because he was greedy, he coveted the shadows of his neighbors.

One by one, he killed them and stole their shadows for his own.

But with each new shadow he took, he heard the voice of the departed whispering in his ear, hungry and demanding blood.

And so he kept killing people to feed his shadows, but he was too greedy not to take more shadows.

And so, the shadows on his back got hungrier and hungrier as there were more and more of them.

The story ended: and so, if you hear the Nine-Shadow Man on your door, you know he’s come seeking his tenth shadow.

Turn-of the-century creepypasta.

“I saw him,” the boy said, a challenge in his eyes. He’d stopped pedaling, one foot braced against a tombstone, looking like he was waiting for her to say he’d made the whole thing up.

Just one decade ago, no one believed in magic, and fairy tales had just been stories. But this kid had never lived in that world. She wasn’t certain what he’d seen, but he believed he’d seen something.

“What did you witness, exactly?” Charlie asked.

“A man on the road with shadows all around him,” the boy said. “He was talking to himself, so I got scared and pedaled away, fast. I didn’t know about the murders until later.”

“I’m glad you got out of there,” she told him.

He gave her a look, like he wasn’t sure how far to trust her sincerity. Then he gave her a small nod and pushed off the tombstone. His shadow followed him in a liquid slide, not at all the way a shadow ought to move.

“A baby gloom,” Red said, stepping into the full sunlight. His blond hair was all gold, though his eyes were the pale gray of shadows.

She watched the boy pedal away, thinking about what he’d said. Had he seen a man with more than one shadow or had he seen multiple shadows gathered around a man?

Red’s thoughts must have traveled down similar lines. “If Blights were working together, I would think they’d begin with attacking one individual, not an entire group and not inside.”

A person going missing would be in the news—unless the Blights were very clever or lucky.

“It might have looked like an animal attack,” she said, thinking she might do some searches when she got home.

Had there been any bear-related deaths in Western Massachusetts?

It seemed like that would have been something she’d heard about, though.

And none of that would explain what had happened to Rooster. Why wouldn’t his body be with the rest of the victims?

At the edge of the cemetery, Charlie noticed something catching the light. An empty glass bottle, half-full of cigarette butts, sat against the base of a tree.

Charlie stared down at the bottle. The filters inside were white with curved lines of gold and the Marlboro logo printed on them.

They could have belonged to anyone who smoked Marlboro Touch cigarettes—a mourner, the reverend, kids who wanted to hang out by graves.

There were enough, though, that the person had spent some time near here.

Her gaze snagged on an empty matchbook in a clump of weeds—a pale pink, with gold lettering.

Fancy. She took a step closer to see better.

Solaluna, it read. That sounded familiar, though she couldn’t place it.

“I just don’t understand,” Charlie said, tucking the matchbook in her pocket. “If Blights were working together, why kill these people? Why come to this church?”

“Maybe it really was the Nine-Shadow Man,” Red said.

“Or maybe it was Rooster Argent,” she countered. “If he’s not dead, then maybe he’s the killer.”