Page 52 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)
“No, that’s fine.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll talk with the hotel. I just have to lock this room up—and find a way to put up a sign on the door in case someone comes looking for their badge.”
“We can help,” Charlie said. “We just move bags to that table and stuff these lanyards? That won’t be a problem.”
“I can’t let you do that.” Her smile stiffened.
“It’s no trouble at all.” Charlie moved over to where the bags sat. “And if someone comes, we’ll tell them you’ll be right back.”
“You’re not worried about us being in here, are you?” Malhar delivered his most important line. Archie would have cautioned his assistant not to offend the Cabal leader.
“I’ve just got my system is all,” Vera demurred.
Charlie gave her a smile, trying to project clueless innocence. “What if we guard the room until you get back, but promise not to touch anything? If anyone comes in, we’ll direct them to wait.”
Charlie could see Vera debating. What she wanted to do was lock the room up, but that would involve kicking them out and she would get in a lot of trouble if Mr. Punch was offended.
“That would be wonderful,” she said, finally, caving.
“He said he would be in the main office,” Malhar told her, as though just remembering.
“Did you get his name?” Vera asked.
“Afraid not.” Malhar made a face.
Vera was going on a fruitless errand. But it would stop her from going out to reception and coming immediately back. The walk to the main office, the frustration at finding it closed, and then returning would give Charlie an admittedly small window, but one she could work with.
“And you won’t touch anything?” Vera asked, looking as though she thought one of them could possibly push a big, red button and have the whole retreat come down around their heads.
“I promise,” said Posey, speaking for the first time.
“Absolutely,” Malhar told her, holding up his hands in surrender.
She must have felt guilty, because she stopped scowling. “I know you’re only trying to help. I do appreciate it.”
“We’re not going to cause any trouble to your process,” Charlie promised.
Then, with obvious reservations, Vera left, looking for a hotel employee that didn’t exist, in an office that wasn’t due to open for forty-five minutes.
Charlie went immediately to the laptop on the table.
The file Vera had been printing from was open, so it was easy to add “Lena Hall” and a deliberately misspelled “R. V. Caver” to the spreadsheet of attendees.
It was possible that Archie had checked to see if Remy was on the list after last night.
Hopefully, the misspelling would explain why he hadn’t come up in a search.
Once that was done, Charlie checked Vera’s Google Calendar.
And there on the screen were a series of appointments.
The first one was marked for 8 a.m., which meant they’d missed intervening.
One quickened shadow was already gone. The second was set for 11:30 a.m. That was the window for their heist. Charlie had worked with less.
When Vera returned, more flustered than ever, she thanked them for waiting and printed their badges.
Red came in a few minutes later, conveniently stepping out of shadow just before the doorway.
It took a little longer to get his badge, as first Vera had to find it in the system, then he had to explain the whole thing about ID to her, and then she had to call Archie.
By the time he and Charlie left, more people were coming in. They went on to breakfast.
“Morning,” Red said, under his breath.
Even that made Charlie feel a flush of heat prickle on her skin. This was ridiculous. She needed to focus.
In the hall, talking with a person she didn’t recognize, she saw the redheaded puppeteer who’d dragged her out of her house to see Mr. Punch. She turned her head, hoping he didn’t see her.
“Tonight we leave,” Charlie said. “After the cocktail party.”
Posey looked mulish. “Nothing happened last night.”
“The person who killed Rooster is here somewhere,” Charlie reminded her. “We don’t know who he’s looking for.”
Red put his hand on Malhar’s shoulder. “Very possibly Mr. Punch.”
“You think the psycho who murdered all those people in Hatfield wants to kill me ?” Malhar said.
“It’s not really you,” Red reminded him unhelpfully.
“I am going to prepare for my speech,” Malhar told them. “And, apparently, my demise.”
He must really like Posey to have let her talk him into this.
“If anyone seems like they’re following you, call,” Charlie told him. “And Posey, keep watching the shadows.”
Her sister nodded, heading off with Malhar.
The breakfast area was set up as a buffet.
Charlie and Red walked down the line. She filled her plate with fruit and something labeled BLUEBERRY & MASCARPONE–STUFFED FRENCH TOAST. Red got a bowl of congee, bacon, and three soft-boiled eggs.
Then they seated themselves at a table with two strangers who immediately introduced themselves with firm handshakes.
“I’m Lars,” the first one said, pushing hair a brighter blond than Red’s back from his face. He wore plaid pants with a dark blue polo shirt and neon blue socks. “I flew in from Sweden. There are so many retreats that promise so many things. I hope this one is sincere in its claims.”
“Lena,” Charlie said. “And this is—”
“Hej,” Red said. “Call me Carver.”
Lars laughed. “Hej! Very good.”
“And I am Shawn,” the other guy interrupted.
He wore a baseball cap over dark hair, dusted with gray.
With his jeans and sneakers, he looked casual, but the labels made it clear the outfit was expensive.
“From Los Angeles. I want some unvarnished truths. Like, did you know the Cabals started because one guy stole a bunch of books from a library? He and his friends read them and then they burned them. That was the start. But no one talks about that.”
Charlie had no idea if Shawn’s origin story was true or not, but she leaned heavily toward not.
“Instead of wanting knowledge to be for everyone, they decided it would just be their little anti-elite clique. So they came up with the idea of the Cabals.”
That definitely wasn’t true. No one called themselves “cabals”—it’s not like that was a particularly nice descriptor. That word just hung on them so long that it stuck.
The guy was on a roll, clearly pleased to have an audience.
“Then these Cabals sprang up all over the world. They managed to gather up all the resources just because they were the first. But they have no business sense. I’ve met some Cabal members and let me tell you—they’re like any downline in an MLM—already so invested that they have to exploit others to justify what they’ve already done. ”
Charlie let out a surprised snort of breath. He wasn’t exactly wrong.
Lars, though, was not having it. “The Cabals rose up because that’s the traditional way things work—some authority at the top.
An apprenticeship for new gloamists. But I admit they may turn out to be too old fashioned.
They cling to the idea that the solution to their problems is going to be found in musty old tomes.
And they can be ridiculously hierarchical.
They delight in being enigmatic. Still, they’re what we have and I look forward to hearing whatever they have to teach us. ”
“And they haze like a fucking fraternity,” Shawn put in.
Charlie wished Posey was there to hear this. But more than that, she wished she could speak to Red, mind to mind. She’d love to hear his running commentary.
Charlie took a sip of coffee and poked at her breakfast. She wasn’t sure these guys disagreed with one another, but they were definitely not to be outdone.
Shawn went back to complaining. “They make you do a bunch of things for them and only give you a tiny bit of knowledge in exchange. They want to gatekeep shadow magic. You remember that book, years ago, that led to so many deaths? I think it was a Cabal plant, to make sure that people outside of the Cabals knew they better join.”
“So why are you willing to listen to one of their leaders?” Charlie asked.
“If he has secrets to impart, I want them and—” At that point Lars stopped, because Archie was standing at the front of the room and clearing his throat, Malhar beside him.
“Welcome, everyone. I trust we’ve all had a good breakfast and enough caffeine to face what is ahead,” Archie began in his big booming voice. “First of all, I thank you for being the people you are—successful in your own rights, and yet still curious.”
Charlie couldn’t help thinking of Curiosity Books and its slogan: The world belongs to the curious. Its proprietor died for following his own advice.
“We are here to lend our time, energy, and yes, money, to the building of a better world. A world in which the depths of human consciousness and human power are tapped. I know there are doubters among you who believe nothing new will be revealed. I doubted too. Your skepticism speaks well of you. No one gets to where you all are without being able to spot the difference between fool’s gold and real gold.
“To get us into the right state of mind, we’re going to start the day with a guided meditation to get us relaxed. So when you finish up your food, please head to the conference area and we will begin.”
Charlie rose and started out when she spotted Mark in the back of the room. He was dressed in a leather coat, black jeans, and a white shirt that was stained with sweat around the collar.
She still couldn’t look at him without one of the worst times in her life flooding back.
The bullet. The sound of it cracking through the windshield.
The man in the passenger seat thrown back by the force of it striking.
She’d screamed and screamed and screamed, her car slamming into a Jeep parked on the curb.
And with that, the memory of him, before. Of lying in bed together. I love you to the moon and back, he’d whispered in her ear.