Page 44 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

Bad Decisions

Posey passed her phone over, with a video cued up on YouTube from Western Mass News.

A newscaster in a red sweater had been paused midsentence:…

the coroner has determined the time of death to be too close to the Hatfield Massacre for the events not to be related.

The body of TikTok darling Dave Pugliese, who went by the name of Rooster Argent on the platform, final victim of the nightmarish event that changed this sleepy town forever, was found buried in the graveyard behind the Grace Covenant Church.

If you have any information, the Hatfield sheriff has put up a tip line to call.

The square over the woman’s shoulder, which had been showing the icon of a shadowy church, changed to an image of a balding man.

Next, new charges in the Maine governor’s election fraud case—

Charlie paused the video, hoping that somewhere Mr. Punch was impressed. Rooster Argent was dead, just like she’d predicted.

“See?” Posey said. “I knew he didn’t do it.”

Charlie had forgotten about the argument she’d made in favor of Rooster being the murderer. “You’re right. My bad.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to that Umbral Elevation thing, since you can be sure he won’t be there?” Posey asked.

Charlie tried to make a noncommittal motion, a half shrug that might not have looked like anything at all. She should have guessed that Posey would immediately know what retreat upstate she’d been investigating. “I never said I was going.”

“Getting into places you’re not supposed to be is your thing,” Posey said.

There was no point in denying that, so she didn’t.

Posey put a hand on her hip. “I’m going with you.”

“You can’t,” Charlie blurted out, too surprised to consider her words.

“Bullshit,” Posey said. “I want to know what’s going on among the wealthy gloamist-wannabes. This is one of the most exclusive conferences ever, and if you’re going, I want to go too. I know you can get me in.”

“That’s a bad idea,” Charlie said.

“You keep treating me like a kid,” Posey replied. “Hiding things from me. Acting like you have to protect me. Deciding my future without me Remember those months you barely got out of bed? I have my problems, but so do you.”

Charlie got up and started to clean off the kitchen island, pouring out the remains of bottles and cans, then dropping them into the recycling. It was familiar work and it kept her from letting her agitation show. “I never said I wasn’t a mess. But I’m not the only one hiding things.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Posey demanded.

Charlie turned to her sister, frustrated. “How about you tell me what you’ve been doing for work?”

Posey’s face had gone carefully blank.

“Well?” Charlie gestured to the apartment. “Where are you getting the money to pay for this place? And why have you been trying to pretend to me that it’s secretly affordable, when I know the rent in this building is well beyond what we should be able to afford?”

Posey met her gaze, looking flummoxed. She still didn’t speak.

“Exactly.” Charlie started back toward her room. “Look, I got into this trouble all on my own and it’s mine to fix.”

“If I did what you’re doing for a man, you would never let me hear the end of it,” Posey called after her. The words cut, worse than she could know.

“Is this another complaint about Red?” Charlie returned.

Posey seemed to have a sister’s intuitive sense that she’d struck true. “You’ve been like this for years, throwing yourself away on one worthless guy after another. You think that you can make them love you by doing things for them no one else would do.”

“Let it go,” Charlie said, warning in her voice.

“And you talk about the Hall family curse like it’s real.” Posey’s voice had risen. “It was just a stupid thing I said.”

“Well, you are the fortune teller. Who better to prophesy?” Charlie crossed her arms in front of her.

“You’re going to wind up just like Mom,” Posey snapped.

“And how long have you been waiting to say that to me?” Charlie asked, her anger uncoiling like a snake, fangs dripping venom.

“Am I supposed to be insulted, when you live in our mother’s pocket?

How many times a day do you call and text her, apparently all the while thinking that comparing anyone to her is an insult? ”

“She’s apologized for the past,” Posey replied.

“Not for what she actually did, ” Charlie said.

“How can she when you’ll never tell her the truth about what happened?” A light came into Posey’s eyes. “Of course, I could always tell her.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Posey smiled, pleased to have stumbled into leverage. “So take me with you to the Umbral Elevation Retreat.”

It was clear that Posey thought Charlie was being unreasonable, so strong-arming her was justified. She might not have ever intended to follow through. But Charlie felt a roaring in her ears at the familiar threat of blackmail, the one she’d caved to for so many years.

She picked up her phone and called their mother.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t been making terrible decisions all day.

“Charlie?” her mother said, picking up on the third ring.

“What are you doing?” Posey asked, although the horror in her voice made it clear that she had a good guess.

“I am not a medium and I never was a medium,” Charlie said, too fast to be interrupted.

“I pretended to channel that warlock Alonso Nieto, so that I could trick you into leaving your abusive, asshole husband. It was all an act. Smoke and mirrors. Lies. And Rand? He wasn’t teaching me how to be a better psychic.

He was teaching me to help him scam people. He was a thief.”

Charlie hung up, shaking with rage.

Posey gaped at her. “What’s wrong with you?”

Typical Charlie Hall. Think you can fuck her over? She’ll fuck herself over even harder.

Her phone rang. She hit the button to send her mother’s call to voicemail.

“Because I am not going to be extorted by anyone and certainly not by you. That medium bullshit? I did it for you, because Travis hit you . And you hated me for years because you couldn’t stand all the attention I got from Mom.

I bet you can’t stand that the only reason you have your dream—the only reason you’re a gloamist—is because I gave it to you. ”

Posey’s upper lip curled, like a dog growling. “I got the best part of you when I got your shadow. There’s nothing left of you that I want.”

Charlie met the nastiness head-on. “Good. Because I threw away more of myself for you than I ever did for any man. It will be a relief not to carry your dead weight.”

“Good,” Posey shouted back, then grabbed her coat and headed for the door.

Which is how Charlie found herself sitting on the floor wet-eyed like a kid, when Red manifested. His eyes were embers and he was still half shadow, but he loomed in front of her, giving her a target for all that hurt and rage.

“Liar,” she snapped.

He was silent for a long time. Then he knelt on the floor beside her bed, light streaming through him, eyes like holes. “Charlie.”

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. Once, she’d pinned her hopes of him getting his memories back on that vial she’d stolen from the vault in the watchtower, but now she wasn’t at all sure that’s what she wanted. “Are you—”

“If I could be him again for you, I would.”

Relief flooded her, guilt hard on its heels.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For all of it.”

“Liar,” she said again, but there was no heat in it.

“For some of it, then,” he said, smiling as he corrected himself.

Charlie had already fought with her sister and her mother—even if she hadn’t given her mother the chance to fight back. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to fight with him too. “Explain. What happened? Why not just tell me?”

He glanced away from her, as though telling her all this was difficult. “Inviting me to the house was a trap.”

“Obviously,” Charlie said. “As it turns out.”

“It was a trap meant for you, ” he said.

Charlie felt as startled as if he’d abruptly kicked her in the ankle.

“Rose was one of those people who wanted to do good in the world,” he said. “Who was excited about her future and had boundless enthusiasm. And her shadow… Rose talked to her shadow. She wasn’t afraid of it.”

Charlie wanted to ask him so many questions, but she bit her tongue and waited.

“If Rose’s shadow had stood by when Remy was killed, I would have never forgiven her,” Red went on to say.

“So when she came to the house to ask me for help, she was right that I owed her. And if she wanted me to free her from the person to whom she was bound, I’d do it.

But something didn’t sit right. I saw shadows creeping around our house.

And she was so cagey about obvious things, like the name of the person I was supposed to kill. ”

“And you didn’t tell me all this, why?”

“I thought she wanted me dead, and for understandable reasons.” He spread his fingers against the wooden floorboards. “I couldn’t be sure and I felt obligated to try to help her. But then I became afraid that it wasn’t me that she was after, but you.”

“But why go after me?” Charlie asked. “I’m nobody.”

“At first I worried it was revenge for Rose,” Red said. “But you’re the Hierophant, investigating the Grace Covenant murders.”

“And I guess Rose’s shadow is bound to the person who committed them,” Charlie said. “Same brand of cigarette. Same bite marks on the victims. Did you see him?”

“No, I didn’t see anyone human,” Red said. “I approached the house through the backyard, thinking I was going to be able to get close enough to figure out if Rose’s shadow was playing a game with me. I didn’t see anything. Then two shadows came at me out of the dark.

“I killed one and chased the other into the house. We fought there, when a third shadow attacked. By then, I was hurt badly. Rose’s shadow came at me, ready to finish me off. It seemed possible she could kill me, especially because I hesitated to hurt her.”

Charlie shivered. “What did you do?”