Page 112 of Thief of Night
More laughter.
“Yeah, man,” someone called out.
Sean walked into the room, alone.
Like a car crash in slow motion, Charlie saw Malhar look up. His gaze passed over Sean and then back to the crowd, with absolutely no sign of recognition. Her slight hope that she could convince him that Malhar was being puppeted by the real Mr. Punch went up in smoke.
“Mushrooms have worked for people. Acid. Benadryl. Massive amounts of hash,” Malhar said. “But the percentages are small. Please recall my own experience with shrooms, which led to a theory, but not any shadow quickening.
“We all understand in a vague way that trauma wakes up people’s shadows—but only some people’s shadows—and we all know about the bifurcated consciousness—but that’s considered something you need to cultivate once your shadow is quickened, not something that you need in order to quicken your shadow—so the connection between these two things isn’t obvious at first. To be honest, I think I lucked into it. Trauma makessomepeople disassociate. Anddisassociationis what awakens the shadow.”
Charlie blinked. The silence was so profound that she was both aware of it and part of it. Hope shone in the eyes of some seekers, confusion in others. Even Sean looked a little stunned.
This wasn’t a sales pitch, nor a con. It didn’t seem possible that her sister’sboyfriend had figured out the key to the world being more magical. But Charlie had never heard quickening explained this way before either.
“You’re taking that in,” Malhar said. “But the next step—and I can see from your expressions that some of you got to this question already—is how do youchooseto disassociate?”
There was a murmuring from all around Charlie and she found herself as engaged as the rest of them.
“Good news. We all disassociate. You know how sometimes you’re driving a familiar route and you wind up at home, but don’t remember how you got there? That’s disassociation! Unfortunately, not a deep enough disassociation to trigger shadow awakening, but a good start. Your goal is to achieve the feeling of standing outside yourself. So whether you engineer the stress or you experience it organically, when it happens, your objective will be to make yourself feel as though it’s happening to someone else. A different you.”
Charlie thought of the night her shadow awakened, recalled that feeling of seeing herself from a distance.
“Now I’ve given some thought to relatively harmless stressors and—”
A woman’s scream came from just outside the door.
Charlie was through it and into the hall before she could think.
Vera lay on the ground, her stomach ripped open and a woman’s indistinct shape crouched over her, licking her insides, the shadowy hands sharp-ended and covered in gore.
Vera was still alive, but mercifully, the light in her eyes was fading fast.
Then Mark turned the corner, his shirt stained red, dragging Archie’s limp body by the arm. When he saw Charlie, he laughed. He let go of Archie and spread his arms wide.
Shadows unfurled from both sides of him, like those sheets of paper that you cut into the shape of a single angel and then unfolded to show a string of them.
The Nine-Shadow Man from the fairy tale.
For a disorienting moment, all Charlie could do was stare, heart in her throat. Screams were all around her. People were shoving past her. One knocked into her hard enough to make her stumble.
You always think you know everything and you’re always wrong.
A moment later, two of the shadows flowed toward Sean. Three went at Red.
“I am going to kill every last person who wronged me,” Mark said, heading straight for Charlie. “And you, I am going to kill twice.”
With trembling hands, Charlie drew the onyx knife from her boot. She held it into the space between them, wishing once again that she knew how to fight beyond just trying to put the sharp part in whatever was coming at her. Mark stopped, glaring.
One thing she was sure of. If he got close enough, she wouldn’t hesitate to stab him.
To one side, Red grappled with a shadow that was recognizably female in shape. She had her hands around his throat. Another was on his back, biting and scratching. Red’s eyes were bright embers, burning with rage. “Get out of here,” he gritted out when he caught her eye.
Charlie took a step back automatically.
Sean lay on the floor, screaming, blood running down his arm. His shadow was in tatters. Puppeteers didn’t usually engage in open combat and the fear on his face was terrifying.
Behind him, Posey’s shadow grew larger and long-clawed, like a distorted, fiercer Charlie. It grappled with a third shadow. Her gaze snagged on that.
