Page 36 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

Moving Day

Charlie spent her night frantically packing in preparation for moving out of their rental house the following day.

She threw clothes in garbage bags and dumped her toiletries on top.

By the time Red came into her room late that night, she had a line of them against the wall as though she was ready to take her whole life to the dump.

She looked up at him. His eyes were hot and hungry, but he didn’t move toward her. Didn’t do anything but look.

“You should, um…” Charlie said. “I should give you some blood.”

He took a step toward her. “Should you?” he asked, voice deep.

She turned away from him and flopped down on the mattress. “Throw me something sharp,” she said. “Or bite me. Whatever you’re into.”

“There isn’t much you failed to pack up,” he said, looking through her drawers.

She grinned. “I guess that leaves only one option. You’re going to have to play vampire.”

He sat on the edge of the mattress, a strange light in his eyes. He looked hungry. “Give me your hand.”

Charlie thought of the bites on the bodies and shuddered, suddenly less certain about what she was inviting him to do. But she reached over to him and felt the pressure of his thumb against her palm.

He brought her pointer finger to his mouth. Between his lips. His tongue slid over it and then she felt a sting, as though the tip of his tongue had a thorn attached to it. The barb of a scorpion’s tail. He drew her finger deeper into his mouth.

She shuddered again, this time for entirely different reasons. She felt the warmth of her cheeks and a sudden heat between her legs. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from making a sound.

Then he kissed the very tip of her finger and returned her hand to her.

“You were right,” he said.

“Oh?” Her thoughts were a muddle of disappointment and shame.

“I want you. I’ve always wanted you.” He stood. “And I can’t have you.”

Leaving Charlie to lie there in the darkness and wonder why he couldn’t.

Moving day is when people discover who their true friends are.

Charlie had asked Barb for help, but she and Aimee were allegedly visiting Aimee’s parents upstate for the holidays and couldn’t make it.

José, however, showed up with Katelynn, and José’s new boyfriend, Paul.

Paul and Katelynn had enough of a resemblance that Charlie thought he might be the cousin that Katelynn had offered to set up José with.

That guy with the blue hair might have eaten a moth when he was a child. Vince had met these people, so Red needed to be briefed. Was that a justification for gossip? Maybe.

Only one moth? Red asked in return.

Does it matter? Charlie imagined the powder from their wings coating her tongue and made a face.

Red smiled. Multiple moths means he has a taste for them.

Charlie had to smother a laugh. True to her word, Posey had recruited Malhar and three of his roommates who hadn’t gone home for winter break—Ibrahim, Deon, and Aron.

“We were promised the ambrosia and nectar of pizza and beer,” Deon said as he came through the door.

“And lo, that shall come to pass,” Charlie said in return. “But not until we get to the new place.”

Red had spent most of the morning working on the van and it now had a new battery as well as a few other new things. Importantly, it was running again and could hold a lot more boxes than the Porsche.

They loaded up as much as they could and headed over to Northampton to get the keys and unload the first trip’s worth.

Leaving their Easthampton rental house made Charlie feel oddly nostalgic, but maybe a new start was what they needed.

Hopefully the place wouldn’t be too tiny, because that was the only way an apartment downtown could be affordable.

On the way, Posey’s phone rang. She was in the front seat, squeezed in beside Charlie. Red drove the van, allowing Ibrahim—who’d promised he knew how to drive stick—to take the Porsche.

“Hey, Mom,” Posey said, then glanced over at Charlie and pressed the phone to her neck. “She wants to know if you’re going to be at their place for Christmas?”

The holidays were coming up fast. “Sure,” Charlie said. Where else was she going to go?

“Is Vince going to be with you?” Posey blinked, all mock-innocence.

“I guess I’d have to ask him,” Charlie said, looking over at Red in the driver’s seat.

“If you’re going, then so am I,” he said, which sounded like more of an answer than it was.

“You sure?” Charlie asked. “It’s not going to be—”

“Tell her I’m coming,” he said to Posey. “And thank her for the invitation.”

After that was settled, Posey told their mother about the meaning of a tarot spread she’d done for her. They laughed and talked about presents they were buying. Once again, Charlie was hyperaware of what an easy relationship Posey and their mother had.

Maybe she and her mom could be like that, if Charlie didn’t mind building a relationship on quicksand. But her mother would never forgive Charlie for all her lies, so she just kept lying.

The apartment building was a beautiful old stone building near the end of Northampton’s busiest street.

It was two doors down from Rooster’s place.

All the restaurants and galleries and shops were an easy walk from their door.

The moment she saw it, Charlie was sure there had been some mistake.

There was no way they could afford this.

It was an apartment for the kind of person who probably walked into town every Wednesday with a basket to get farmer’s market jams and who had dinner out with friends at least twice a week. The kind of person who had a chunky necklace and an interesting job.

Not that Charlie didn’t have an interesting job, but it was the bad kind of interesting.

“Come pick up the keys with me,” Posey said. “We have to go to the office.”

“I’ll start unloading,” Red told Charlie.

She felt the pull of the tether between them as she followed her sister. It wasn’t far, but she could still feel it, the slight unspooling of energy.

Posey knocked on a door on the first level bearing a slightly tarnished brass plate engraved with the word OFFICE . A moment later, a woman with lots of silver curls opened the door. She had on dark-washed jeans and a navy blazer with bright gold buttons.

“I’m Posey Hall,” she said. “Here to pick up the keys to 9A.”

“Welcome, welcome,” the woman said, reaching over to her desk where a manila envelope marked with the apartment number rested. “We have a wine social on Wednesday nights in the back garden. Hope you can join us and meet some of your neighbors. Did we get your pet contract?”

“I think so,” Posey said.

“And you have no dogs, correct?”

“Just a demonic cat,” said Charlie.

The woman’s smile was unamused, the movement of her lips only a polite reflex. She handed the envelope to Charlie, who could feel the weight of the keys inside.

She went to the elevator and pressed the brass button for the second floor, a sinking feeling in her gut. A couple with a stroller came in from outside, scarves around their throats.

“Old buildings,” the man said to Charlie and Posey apologetically, when he saw them waiting. “Everything takes a little longer.”

They rode up together, although the family was headed for the third floor. The baby gummed on a necklace that appeared to be made of soft beige beads. The woman bent over the stroller to tuck the blanket more firmly around the child.

When Charlie and Posey got to 9A, the key turned smoothly in the oiled lock.

Inside the apartment, large windows let ample sunlight spill over onto original hardwood floors.

High ceilings added to its grandeur. Intricate plaster moldings filled Charlie with a kind of longing.

Not just to live in a place like this, but to be the sort of person who could.

Someone who relaxed over French press coffee in a sun-dappled kitchen with a stone countertop.

Who had a multi-step skincare routine instead of a multi-step process to cover up her bruised eye.

To be like the handsome couple with the stroller, complaining about the slowness of the elevator.

“How are we affording this place?” she asked Posey.

“Don’t you like it?” Posey returned.

“You know that’s not the point,” Charlie said. “The money doesn’t add up. Our rent should be twice what it is.”

“We caught a break,” said Posey. “Can’t we just be happy?”

Charlie couldn’t, but that wasn’t her sister’s problem. With a grunt, she headed back to the elevator. Time to move a lot of boxes into the impossibly beautiful space.

A woman came out from the apartment across the hall. “Charlie?” said a familiar voice—Suzie Lambton.

Shit. It’s true that I broke into your condo, Charlie thought. And slept in your bed like that little bitch Goldilocks. And stole some of your clothes. I am a total asshole. Please don’t guess it was me. But what she actually said was, “Hi.”

“That guy you brought to Barb and Aimee’s party—I didn’t recognize him at first, but that was Remy, right? Remy Carver?”

“Yeah,” Charlie agreed warily.

“You called him something else, though,” Suzie said.

“He goes by his middle name,” Charlie said. “Vince.” That, at least, had the virtue of being true. And Charlie was happy for any subject that wasn’t breaking-into-condo-related.

“I—we even talked that night. I don’t know how I didn’t see it.” Suzie frowned at the floor.

“Did you know him?” Charlie asked.

Suzie waved a hand loftily in the air. “He went out with a girl I was in high school with. He was at Deerfield and I went to Williston, so there was a lot of cross-dating. We hung out a couple of times. I can’t believe I didn’t—oh, we were just talking about you!”

Red had walked up the stairs, box in hand. It was marked BOOKS TO HATE READ . He looked startled.