Page 34 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

“A little parasite,” Red said, looking down, his gaze going to Charlie’s bleeding finger.

“We’re all parasites when we aren’t fully developed,” Malhar said.

“It’s old,” Red said. “I can tell that much about it.”

“How?” Charlie asked.

He blinked at her. “I… I don’t know.”

“You sure there isn’t some secret shadow language?” Malhar asked.

Red gave him an exasperated look. Then he turned to the shadow. “Hiss or I will rip you to pieces and devour the pieces,” he said, in a voice so sweet that the contrast between his words and tone made the hairs stand up all along Charlie’s arms.

A small hissing sound came from the shadow as it flattened itself low in the netting.

Malhar raised his eyebrows.

“What was that?” Charlie demanded, mightily unnerved.

“Secret shadow language,” Red told her with a small, amused smile.

Charlie sighed and pointed toward Malhar’s computer. “Can I use that for a second? While you two do whatever it is you’re going to do to that thing, which clearly can understand us after all.”

“Sure.” Malhar leaned across her and typed in his password.

Charlie sat down and cracked her knuckles.

Although she played through her cons in person, the lead-up to each required a lot of digital research.

Usually she did it at libraries when she was sure she could stay out of the range of cameras.

Sometimes, when she was really worried about being found out, she would break into office buildings and do her research there.

But this time, she had nothing to worry about. She was the investigator, not the criminal who’d be investigated. So Malhar’s desktop would be fine.

Charlie took a still from one of Rooster Argent’s videos and reverse- image-searched his face.

Then she scrolled through lots of photos of people who might be him if she squinted.

Frustrated, she went to a site that offered a better image search for about fifteen bucks.

That yielded more precise results. Rooster at a conference of YouTubers.

Lots of photos from his Instagram. And there was one—she clicked through to an abandoned Myspace page of a fifteen-year-old named Dave Pugliese.

Gotcha.

Dave Pugliese graduated from Holyoke High School in 2013—there was a photo in the yearbook. He was arrested for criminal trespass in 2015, then seemed to disappear. Six years later, Rooster Argent arrived on the scene, already a gloamist.

But it was Dave Pugliese who’d bought a penthouse apartment in an old building near the center of Northampton.

Charlie stood. “We should go.”

Malhar let out a sigh from where he was attempting to create a maze that led to a blood-soaked tissue. “You could leave it here overnight. I could observe it some more. See if it communicates more readily with less distraction.”

Red shook his head.

“You don’t think it’s safe?” Malhar said.

Red gave him a look. “Absolutely not.”

Charlie was only halfway paying attention.

I have had a great deal of blood from many people, living and dead, and I care nothing for most of them.

Red had said that earlier. The Blight in the cage had been focused on her finger.

“Maybe the motive was simple. Maybe the killer—maybe Rooster—just wanted a much more powerful shadow. Wanted the blood. Didn’t Balthazar imply there was some kind of conflict between him and Mr. Punch? ”

“He said they were opposites,” Red said, leaving her unsure if he was agreeing or not.

On the way out, she saw Aron sitting on the couch outside the house with an enormous water bong resting on the ground in front of him. He struggled with a matchbook.

“You want a hit?” he offered, then blinked at Red. He must have wondered how he’d missed a large guy like that showing up.

“I’m good,” she told Aron, stepping off the porch in the direction of the car. Halfway to it, Charlie met her sister, walking up the path.

Posey jerked to a stop. “What are you doing here?”

Charlie studied her, the weight of the duffel bag slung across her body, the timing of her arrival, and the number of times she hadn’t been in her own bed at night recently. “You’ve been sleeping over at Malhar’s place? That’s where you’ve been?”

“I—” Posey began. On the porch, Aron waved and after a moment, she waved vaguely back. She was so busted.

“Malhar’s your boyfriend?”

Posey gave her head a half shake, but seemed to think better of denying it. “We have a thing . Which is undefined and also none of your business.”

Hall women made famously bad choices. But Charlie hadn’t seen any warning signs in Malhar, except, of course, that Posey liked him.

“Great,” Charlie said decisively. “He’s got a lot of roommates. We’re moving tomorrow. How about you get your not-quite-a-boyfriend to come and bring them along to help?”

“I will,” Posey said, but she still looked unhappy. “Now you explain why you didn’t come to me?”

“About what?” Charlie found herself mystified.

“Whatever you wanted to ask Malhar. I’m the gloamist,” she said. “Ask me. I know stuff.”

“Fine,” Charlie said. “Who massacred the people in the basement of the Grace Covenant Church?”

Posey flinched, visibly uncomfortable. “You asked Malhar that ?”

“I came here looking for leads,” Charlie told her. “One of my theories was that Blights might have been involved, maybe controlled by a gloamist? I figured Malhar could know something about their habits since that’s his area of study.”

Posey looked more upset, rather than less. “You should leave it alone.”

“Leave what alone?”

“Whatever happened in the church was bad. Let the Cabals figure this one out for themselves.” Posey wasn’t wrong, but there was something strange in her expression, something that Charlie didn’t like.

“So I guess you don’t have any theories for me?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, that it was done by a psycho,” Posey said. “See you at home.” Then she headed toward Malhar’s house, as though she hadn’t been the one pushing Charlie to ask her for help. As Posey went up the path, Charlie noted a dark stain marring the cuff of her jeans.

She thought of the massacre in the church, of the hungry Blight in her backpack, of Rooster’s TikToks. He didn’t seem the type to kill a roomful of people for their blood, but then, she supposed that people seldom did.

They drove to Northampton next. Charlie directed Red to take her to a grocery store, then park across the street from Rooster’s apartment building. Now that she knew his name, finding his place hadn’t been difficult.

“Dare I ask?” Red appeared a little amused, ready to be impressed. He didn’t seem to even consider the possibility that she didn’t know what she was doing, which was flattering enough to make her cheeks redden in a way she pretended was just from the cold.

“Watch and wait,” Charlie told him, glorying in the moment.

They sat in surprisingly companionable silence until the events of the day caught up with Charlie and she yawned. “Talk to me. I don’t want to fall asleep.”

Red leaned back in his seat. “Did you go to college?”

“That’s what you want to know?”

He shrugged. “I asked.”

“It just wasn’t what I expected a monstrous Blight, bound to miserable servitude, to be curious about.” He smiled.

“I went to community college,” she admitted. “Then I dropped out so I could give my full attention to my life of crime.”

“Plenty of criminals with college degrees,” Red pointed out.

Charlie groaned. “I hate that there’s even an old boys’ network of miscreants.”

“That’s a good word.” He was watching her with warmth in his expression. “Miscreant.”

Charlie looked up and saw someone heading toward the building. “You have to stay in shadow for this,” she said, getting out of the Porsche, then grabbing her bags of groceries.

Sprinting across the street, she got through the doors before the approaching sucker. Scanning the buzzers for Rooster’s apartment, she saw that each floor was broken into three units—1A, 1B, 1C, and the same for 2s and 3s—except at the top, there was only 4.

The person she’d seen walking arrived at the building. He used a key to open the second, inner door and, as she’d hoped, held it for her without any questions.

The guy took the elevator, so Charlie headed for the stairs, climbing them all the way to the fourth floor.

A metal fire door greeted her. Setting down her groceries, she tried the handle.

Locked. Since there was only one residence on the fourth floor, it was possible that it led directly into the apartment.

Picking the lock on a fire door wasn’t easy, but at least she had Red.

“Is there onyx?” she asked him.

He moved out of shadow, his legs still blurred as he moved toward the door. Then he was flowing beneath it.

A moment later the lock turned. Red stood, silhouetted in the doorway, still not quite solid. “I don’t think Rooster expected anyone to send a shadow here.”

Looking around, Charlie wondered if it was because he’d been too worried about a line of black flooring ruining his aesthetic.

A cloud sofa dominated the living room, aimed at the enormous television taking up a whole wall.

Three separate gaming systems had been plugged in, their controllers on a slick black console.

On the wall, staggered shelves showed off a collection of Kaws art figures, each one carefully spotlighted.

A “KEEP OFF” Supreme x Ikea rug covered the floor. The full hypebeast experience.

She walked to the next room, which turned out to be Rooster’s filming studio—lights, tripods, a mess of expensive camera equipment, a green screen, and a couple of stools and chairs.

Down the hall, she discovered his bedroom, dominated by a huge bed—by appearances, larger than a king—as though he was expecting an impromptu orgy.

A display of prized sneakers covered the wall over the headboard.

A mini fridge sat in the place of a nightstand.

“Charlie,” Red called.