Page 36 of Thief of Night
Posey made a face. “Intense. Bitter.”
“Just like Charlie,” Red said, smiling wryly.
“Did you make a joke?” Posey asked, feigning astonishment.
Ha, ha, a funny guy with a plan to kill me,Charlie thought, feeling very bitter indeed. He’dsaidhe didn’t want her dead, he’dlaughedat her jokes, he’d seemed tolikeher—but every minute that he didn’t take her aside and explain what had happened the night before made it harder to believe he didn’t intend her harm.
With a half-smile at Posey, Red set down his empty cup in the sink and headed for the door. Charlie grabbed her coat, then went back for her bag. She was scatterbrained with a combination of dread and lack of sleep.
By the time she got outside, Red had the hood of the van lifted and was poking at its innards.
Oh, that just figured.
“Battery’s dead,” Red said, wiping off his hands on a towel. “And that battery thing in the back with the jumper cables is dead too.”
Right, the battery thing in the back. The one that Vince used to plug in regularly and she’d totally forgotten. Truly, Charlie was god-tier when it came to fucking things up. The only thing she was better at was sulking about it.
“If you call Adeline, she’ll send someone to get us. Or we could skip the thing entirely.”
“Youcall her,” Charlie snapped, shoving her phone at him.
He pressed his finger against the screen of her phone, but it no more registered his contact than the brush of an object. Then he seemed to shift somehow, concentrating on his hand, and it worked.
It rang, loud in the cold air. He’d put it on speakerphone. Adeline answered on the second ring.
“Charlie Hall,” she said. “No excuses. I expect you here within the hour.”
“This isn’t Charlie,” Red told her.
For a long moment, there was only silence. Then, in a much softer voice, Adeline said, “I didn’t expect you to call.”
“I imagine not.” Then, after a pause. “Send a car for us, won’t you, Addy?”
“Y-yes.” She sounded off-balance. Vulnerable.
He disconnected the call without explaining why he needed the car, or even where to send it.
Nonetheless, twenty minutes later, a sleek black town car appeared outside the door. Twenty minutes in which Red had, once again, told her absolutely nothing about Rose.
She had to admit to herself that she’d wanted him to react. Her bad mood had, at least subconsciously, been in the hope he’d give her some kind of reassurance. But that was foolish. He wasn’t going to tell her about the shadow girl and her offer. He wasn’t going to tell Charlie he’d agreed to murder a gloamist.
Your ex-boyfriend is planning your murder with an accomplice,she admitted to herself.Really, you’re the only person this could happen to twice.
She had to keep her feelings to herself. Her anger wasn’t for display; this was the rage you ate and savored the flavor. This was fury you stoked to greater heights so that you could use it as fuel to do whatever would be necessary.
Charlie went out, and got into the vehicle. Red sat beside her in the back, looking thoughtful, as though he was working through a problem in his mind.
She smiled at him, playing along. She’d act the fool and let him steer her toward this assassination. Mark had caught her by surprise; she wouldn’t let Red do the same.
And so instead of sitting in hurt silence or digging her fingernails into the skin of her palm the whole ride to Salt’s estate, the way she wanted to, she opened up TikTok on her phone and searched for Rooster Argent.
His early videos were short, mostly pranking people by making his shadow misbehave in public or jump scare them. Grocery stores were a favorite venue. He often had a friend named Archie with him, who mostly seemed to handle the filming, but who sometimes got involved in the pranks. Then Archie was replaced by a girl who called herself Razor. The pranks got meaner. Then Razor was gone and Rooster started making more “explaining what it’s like to be a gloamist” videos, including instruction in stuff like “how to feed your shadow without getting an infection” and “is it fun to have a shadow you can talk to or creepy to never be alone in your head,” a question that Charlie had a ready answer for in that moment.
Once the car passed through the open iron gates of Salt’s estate, she couldn’t help glancing up, her eyes searching for the roofline of the mansionthrough the trees. Her heart hammered. As they wended their way up the drive, she began to feel ill with fear. Memories of her childhood visit loomed, punctuated by all the death and horror of the last time she’d been on the grounds. By the point Salt’s mansion came into view, it seemed as though her skin was too tight and she might have to claw her way free of it.
It was the same fairy-tale castle that had haunted her childhood. Gray stone, covered in withered vines of Boston ivy. Bronze gargoyles, their bodies green with verdigris, leered down from the roof. Everything about the place felt wrong.
When she and Rand had come here that terrible night, it had been with the plan of convincing Salt they were occultists. They thought they could get him and his friends to pay for access to the “beyond.” Rand, with his stupid waxed moustache and tweed jackets and swindler’s overconfidence. She recalled Rand in her dream, with the burning cigar poised over his hand.
