Page 17 of Thief of Night
Charlie woke in the dark, dragged out of dreams of Blights and birthday cakes and crowds of sticky children holding hands with shadows as they spun in circles, singingRing around the gloom, pockets full of moons. Shadows! Shadows! We all fall into doom.
She sat upright, alert but not sure why, until she heard a too-heavy tread on the floor. Enough to make the floorboards creak.
Rolling on her side, Charlie felt around for the iron bar she’d shoved underneath her mattress after the events of this past autumn.
“Is someone there?” she heard Posey call sleepily. Posey didn’t sound scared, which scared the hell out of Charlie.
She shoved open her bedroom door, iron bar held high.
Two men stepped into the hall, their shadows looming around them. One had a gun, the other held a net threaded with onyx beads. Both of them wore dark clothes, boots, and coats. For a moment, they just stared.
Not at Charlie or Posey. At Red, who was forming in front of them.
“What do you want?” Posey demanded, a quaver in her voice.
The combination of the looming shadow; Charlie in her t-shirt, underwear, crowbar, and black eye; and Posey in Demon Slayer pajamas, laptop tucked casually under one arm, had to be disorienting.
Oddly, though, they looked as though they’d come expecting something much worse.
“You,” a man with a thin goatee said to Charlie. “One of the Cabal leaders wants to see you.”
“In the middle of the night?” When Balthazar gave her the message from Vicereine, it hadn’t sounded this imperative.
“When one of them jerks on your leash, you come immediately,” said the other guy, a much younger redhead.
Charlie rubbed her face with the back of her free hand. “This is ridiculous. You don’t need to do all this.”
“If you need a stronger reminder that the Hierophant serves at the pleasure of the Cabals, we can supply it,” said the goateed goon.
“Can you?” Red asked, soft and menacing.
It came to her that when she didn’t respond to messages, Vicereine might have thought something happened. Maybe that Red happened. Perhaps these guys had come here to see if a dangerous Blight was on the loose.
“You’re seriously telling me that Vicereine wants me to come see hernow? I did her goddamn job, and I’m alive. Just go back and tell her that.”
“Put on some clothes,” the guy with the goatee said. “We’re in a hurry.”
Red faded a little, becoming obviously and unnervingly inhuman. Shadow streamed off his body like smoke. “Come a little closer and I’ll kill you fast. Since you’re in such a hurry.”
The men glanced at one another. The redhead took a step back.
“You better leave,” Posey said, appearing pleased with Red for once.
Charlie had witnessed Red murder before. Though the thought of how easily these guys forced their way into her house made her sick, she didn’t want to watch them die.
“No, I’ll come,” Charlie said, forcing herself to roll her eyes, to behave casually even though her heart thundered in her chest. “I’m up now anyway.”
“Charlie—” Posey cautioned.
“It’s fine,” Charlie said.
Red took another step toward the goons and for a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to stop. But he did, staring at them as if daring them to make him change his mind.
Hoping Red stayed stopped, Charlie headed back in the direction of her room, heart not slowing a bit. She’d been in too many fights over the last twenty-four hours. Her cortisol was on a whole other level.
She forced herself to pull on jeans and a sweatshirt. When she went for her coat, she realized how badly the back of it was scratched up, the foam lining fully spilling out. She grabbed her leather jacket and a scarf instead.
Red stood in the doorway. Charlie startled, not having heard him come in.
