Page 20 of Thief of Night
Charlie noted the surprise on the faces of the two men who had brought her there. They knew he could speak, but they still looked shocked when he did. Maybe they hadn’t expected sarcasm.
The Vince she’d known had hunched his shoulders in order to seem smaller, had tried to take up less space in every room. But Red emanated violence. He didn’t eventhinkto make himself seem docile; he chafed at the end of a leash and didn’t mind who knew it. As his eyes met hers, he smiled, but there wasn’t an ounce of gentleness in it.
“Let’s sit down to business,” said Mr. Punch. “Have a seat, Charlie Hall.”
Then the man in the robe seemed to deflate as a shadow slid away from him, across the floor, toward the landing.
“Yes, sit,” said a second voice from the stairs. It was a woman in her midfifties with silvery hair, wearing only a nightgown. Her eyes were closed and she swayed slightly, as though deep asleep. Was that the other homeowner?
“Dramatic,” said Red.
“Creepy,” Charlie added, her gaze sweeping the room. If she could spot the line that connected his shadow to wherever Mr. Punch was hiding, she’d have a shot at figuring out who he was. But there were too many other shadows in the room. “Done playing with your dolls yet?”
“Don’t be rude,” said the redheaded man, who immediately put his hand to his lips as though he couldn’t believe those words came from his throat. Mr. Punch again.
“Sit,” the man in pajamas on the couch said as the puppeteer’s shadow returned to him. “Before I lose patience.”
Not wanting the next command he gave her to come out of her own mouth, Charlie sat on the velvet couch. Red moved behind her, close enough that if she leaned back, she’d be touching him, which she definitely didn’t want to do.
“Now let’s be hospitable,” Mr. Punch told the redhead he’d recently controlled. “Bring tea.”
The man frowned, but headed for the kitchen.
“Coffee, if there is any,” Charlie called after him, trying to act like things were normal. Like this was fine.
The woman still stood on the stairs, eyes closed, swaying slightly. Somehow, she didn’t fall. “I have an assignment for you, Hierophant,” she said, with Mr. Punch’s intonation.
It had only been a week since Vicereine had told Charlie to hunt down the Blight in the warehouse, after some baby glooms saw it hanging around an underpass by the river. The last thing Charlie needed was another job. But it seemed she was about to get one.
At least there’d be a bounty.
“There was a massacre at the Grace Covenant Church,” he said.
“The one in Hatfield,” Charlie supplied, thinking of the televisions in the Walgreens and the reporter talking about dead people in the basement. Thinking of the milky stickiness of the stems she’d been holding when her mother had married Travis. They’d been freshly picked from the side of the road. She’d been hopeful about her future, about her family. “With the cult.”
“The victims were meeting regularly in the church basement to discussshadow magic,” said Mr. Punch, speaking through the man in his pajamas on the couch. “They were hoping to quicken their shadows. You must be familiar with people like that.”
Charlie wasn’t sure if he was suggesting that Charlie herself had been one of those hopefuls—not true, well, notentirelytrue—or that he knew about Posey. “I’m familiar” was all Charlie said.
“They weren’t part of any cult,” Mr. Punch told her. “One of our people was there. He gave a lecture that night. No one has seen him since. I want you to figure out what happened.”
“Me?” Charlie held up her hands in warding. This was outside the role of the Hierophant and not something she was likely to get paid for either. “I’m no good at investigating disappearances or finding murderers. I hunt down rogue Blights and steal stuff.”
“I thought you were ambitious,” he said.
She stalled out at that. “What are you saying?”
“Kill the Blight responsible. Find Rooster Argent and hide his involvement. I don’t want any of this coming back on the Cabals, do you understand?”
“A Blight caused that?” Charlie asked.
The redhead returned with a single cup of coffee, obviously instant from the smell. She took it gratefully. A sip cleared her head a little. But on the second sip, she realized the guy hadn’t brought anything for Red. Was that because they didn’t expect Red to ingest food or drink? How unusual was it that he could?
She glanced at him, but she could read nothing of what he was feeling on his face.
You want some?she sent through their bond, lifting the cup. She was still angry with him about the fight they’d had in her bedroom, but not treating him like a person wasn’t any kind of revenge.
Red shook his head.
