Page 118 of Thief of Night
“Fine,” said the shadow. “Leave the phone here.”
That was unfortunate, but reasonable. “Will you cut the ties on my feet?”
Rosalva changed the end of her finger into a knife and sliced it through the zip tie, scratching Charlie’s skin. As a few beads of blood welled up, an unmistakable hunger showed in Rosalva’s demeanor.
Charlie had been bound like that for hours and as soon as the bonds snapped, pins and needles started to prickle her calves. She stood and nearly fell, stiffness taking her by surprise. Holding on to the wall, she tried to walk it off.
There weren’t a lot of rooms off the one she was in, but any mistake would tell hersomethingabout where she was, so she didn’t ask for directions. The first door she opened led to a bedroom, the blankets covered with gore. Probably, somewhere in this apartment, was the blood-drained corpse of the former resident, starting to rot.
Charlie closed that door, moving to the next one. A bathroom, electric razor in its charging station. Spray cologne beside it. A scum of toothpaste in the sink. A Star Wars shower curtain hung around the tub, featuring Boba Fett.
Despair hit her in the chest. The person who had lived and died here hadn’t done anything to bring the Nine-Shadow Man to their door. Mark had been a shitty boyfriend and a bad person, but he hadn’t been murdering people every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
But now, this was what he was. If no one stopped him, there would be more murders in church basements. More dead-and-bled innocents with convenient apartments. More shadows shackled to his madness.
But how could she stop him? She wasn’t a gloamist.
Charlie looked out the small window. She might be able to wriggle through it, but they seemed to be on the third floor, with a steep drop.
“If you don’t come out, I’ll send Archer in,” Rosalva said.
“I’m pissing,” Charlie shouted back and then actually used the toilet. When she was done, she washed her hands and drank five handfuls of water straight from the tap. Then she perched on the edge of the tub and lifted her shirt.
There, pressed beneath the underwire of her bra, cushioned between her breasts, rested the glass scroll-like vial with a single shadow trapped inside.
She had no idea if it was strong enough to be a Blight, but if Mark found it, he would bind it to him and she couldn’t risk that. The scroll was stoppered at both ends with wax sealing it airtight. Taking a toothpick out of the medicine cabinet, she stabbed at one end, scraping off enough wax to pop out the stopper.
Perhaps Charlie’s hands were damp with sweat. They were probably unsteady. Maybe she just wasn’t careful enough. The scroll slipped out of her fingers, shattering on the bathroom floor.
“What was that?” Rosalva demanded.
“Sorry,” Charlie called back. “I knocked over a glass.”
A new shadow stood in the room, a darkness against the tiles that wasn’t there before.
“Hi,” Charlie whispered to it.
“I hope you’re finished,” Rosalva scolded.
Charlie lifted up a shard of glass and cut her palm. It hurt much more than the razor. Then she held out her cupped hands. “In the direction of the mountain, there’s a place called Solaluna. Once you make it there, there’s a shadow named Red. Find him and he can help you get back to your person, if that’s what you want. And if you don’t, he can help you learn how to survive like this.”
The shadow slid away from her. She had no idea if it had understood her.
“Be careful,” she whispered after it.
“Charlie,” came the singsong voice of the NeverMan from outside of the window, a shadow stretching across it. She jumped in surprise, and was suddenly very glad she hadn’t even tried getting out that way.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the bathroom door to see Archer and Rosalva. She stepped through Rosalva and went back to the couch, picking up the phone.
“That wasn’t nice,” Rosalva said.
“Oh, we’re being nice now, are we?” Charlie asked before she thought better of it. She needed Rosalva on her side, if that was at all possible. “I’m sorry. I opened the door to the bedroom, thinking it was the bathroom. All the blood upset me. And then I broke the glass and cut myself.”
“There are a lot of us,” Rosalva said, sounding defensive. “We’re always hungry.”
Charlie shook her head. “It’s not you I blame.” That wasn’t entirely true, but all of those bound to Mark were stolen shadows. Whatever they’d been before, they didn’t deserve to be gorged on terror.
She couldn’t help thinking of Red, being force-fed the lives of others. He wasn’t what he was made to do. Maybe they weren’t either.
