Page 48 of Thief of Night
Charlie frowned. “You mean a Blight?”
“I mean ademon,” Melissa said. “Every day I pray it won’t come back and then I feel terrible, because that seems like wishing it on someone else.”
“You saw something?” Charlie’s voice came out too sharp.
Melissa shook her head. “No, but I know in my heart.”
Without knowing what else to do, she got Melissa to initial the fake form on her clipboard, then left, feeling like a failure. She hadn’t learned anything that led her closer to a suspect, much less knowing what role Rooster Argent had in any of this. Nor did she have any idea how she was going to keep the Cabals from getting more bad press from it.
Outside, hoping for inspiration, Charlie took a walk around the grounds and through the attached cemetery. The cold air felt good on her face.
Have you ever seen Blights working together?she thought at Red. If he and Rose could conspire, it stood to reason that others could too.
No,Red said in her mind.And the idea is very disturbing.
Since she knew he was lying, that meant less than nothing. If there had been a group of Blights—apackof Blights, her mind unhelpfully supplied—then they could have separated the seekers and kept them in their corners.
A boy biked into the graveyard. He looked about nine years old and eyed her with suspicion. Charlie was very glad she hadn’t said that out loud so she would have seemed to be talking to herself.
“There’s something wrong with your shadow,” the boy called to her as he whizzed by.
He had no idea.
“You live around here?” she called in return.
“I’m not telling you,” he yelled, circling her again.
Fair enough.
“You here about the murders?” he called.
“Aren’t you a little too young to know about that?” She turned back and started in the direction of the Porsche.
“The Nine-Shadow Man did it,” the kid said.
“From the story?” Charlie asked.
“The Nine-Shadow Man” was a fairy tale, like “The Witch and the Unlucky Brother,” except more gruesome. The Nine-Shadow Man started with one shadow, but because he was greedy, he coveted the shadows of his neighbors. One by one, he killed them and stole their shadows for his own. But with each new shadow he took, he heard the voice of the departed whispering in his ear, hungry and demanding blood. And so he kept killing people to feed his shadows, but he was too greedy not to take more shadows. And so, the shadows on his back got hungrier and hungrier as there were more and more of them. The story ended:and so, if you hear the Nine-Shadow Man on your door, you know he’s come seeking his tenth shadow.
Turn-of the-century creepypasta.
“I saw him,” the boy said, a challenge in his eyes. He’d stopped pedaling, one foot braced against a tombstone, looking like he was waiting for her to say he’d made the whole thing up.
Just one decade ago, no one believed in magic, and fairy tales had just been stories. But this kid had never lived in that world. She wasn’t certain what he’d seen, but he believed he’d seen something.
“What did you witness, exactly?” Charlie asked.
“A man on the road with shadows all around him,” the boy said. “He was talking to himself, so I got scared and pedaled away, fast. I didn’t know about the murders until later.”
“I’m glad you got out of there,” she told him.
He gave her a look, like he wasn’t sure how far to trust her sincerity. Then he gave her a small nod and pushed off the tombstone. His shadow followed him in a liquid slide, not at all the way a shadow ought to move.
“A baby gloom,” Red said, stepping into the full sunlight. His blond hair was all gold, though his eyes were the pale gray of shadows.
She watched the boy pedal away, thinking about what he’d said. Had he seen a man with more than one shadow or had he seen multiple shadows gathered around a man?
Red’s thoughts must have traveled down similar lines. “If Blights were working together, I would think they’d begin with attacking one individual, not an entire group and not inside.”
