Page 46 of Book of Night
Why would a Blight be looking for theLiber Noctem?
And who the hell had it?
If Salt had hired Adam to look for the book, was it possible he’d found Edmund Carver’s hiding spot and had been sitting on the thing?
Of course, it was asking questions like those that got Odette’s place trashed and herself almost killed. She thought she’d let the dream of revenge against Salt go years before, and she ought to let it go now. It was impossible, and childish.
“Youcould take the job,” Balthazar said. “You want to quit the game for good? Go out in style. Come on, Charlatan, you could steal breath from a body, hate from a heart, the moon from the sky.”
“Flattery is so unlike you.” Fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money, but it wasn’t a fraction of what Salt deserved to pay. “I’ll think about it.”
Balthazar smiled, as though she’d already agreed. “There we are. I knew you’d come around.”
As Charlie crossed the asphalt to her car, she noticed a man on the other side of the street. She might not have taken a second look if he were moving, or even had a phone out, like anyone would. But this guy was standing stock-still, staring at the firehouse with his hands—arms, even—tucked deep into the pockets of his coat.
In the daylight, she could see that the Hierophant was a young man, and yet his eyes burned with something ancient.
If he was hunting Blights, then what was he doing at Balthazar’s place? She couldn’t forget the way he’d walked toward her in the alley, with what had seemed like sinister purpose.
Charlie shuddered, got in the Corolla, and hit the gas. As she pulled out, she saw his head turn slowly and his gaze follow her car. Then his shadow became vast wings behind him, lifting him up into the air. He hovered against the blue sky, an impossible angel, coat flapping around him.
She almost veered into a ditch, heart hammering. At the first stop sign, she looked back again; he didn’t appear to have followed her.
Back home, Charlie was full of nervous energy, and a lot of caffeine. She washed the dishes in the sink left over from the Bolognese. Wiped down the counters. And when that wasn’t enough, she started to clean out the whole refrigerator. Not just her usual sweep, dumping out the most offensive things—a forgotten cucumber that had caved in on one side and become colonized with mold, a tiny piece of cheese that had turned white and hard and no one was going to eat, a sealed container full of grayish noodles that bulged alarmingly. This time she took out everything, condiments included, and wiped the shelves down with towels soaked in diluted bleach.
“You need help?” Vince asked, coming in from the bedroom and reaching for the coffeepot.
She startled at his voice.
He appeared to be the same man she’d lived with for months. Blond hair mussed from sleep. Stubble along his jaw. As he moved around the kitchen with no mention of the night before, it seemed impossible to believe he’d snapped a guy’s neck and then fucked her on some broken steps in the moonlight.
And lied.
And lied and lied and lied—
“Can I borrow some cleaning stuff from your van?” Charlie asked.
He hesitated. “Let me get it for—”
“Great,” she said, cutting him off cheerfully. If he didn’t want her rooting around in his van herself, it was probably because he had something else to hide. Maybe she’d find a head rolling around in the back.
Or maybe he was just being nice, offering to get the stuff for her.
Or maybe Hermes’s body was in plastic-wrapped pieces and he wanted to spare her the sight.
Charlie turned back to the fridge with renewed vigor. She scrubbed it as though she could scrub away all her desire for him, all her foolishness.
Vince brought in cleaning stuff and went out to clean the gutters, mug in hand.And hide the head,Charlie’s mind unhelpfully supplied.
Posey got up even later than usual, around four. She looked ragged as she staggered into the kitchen and filled a cereal bowl with all the remaining coffee, then stuck it in the microwave.
Charlie had dated a fellow burglar for a couple of months, before he skipped town with a pair of earrings she’d managed to convince him were set with diamonds. He’d told her that when he’d first started breaking into houses, he’d thought rich people would keep their really expensive stuff in safes, but it turned out that people mostly kept things where they could see them. Wealthy people kept a key under the mat like everyone else, because they misplaced their keys too. They wound up locking away birth certificates, marriage licenses, and legal paperwork instead of valuables. Jewelry was in the primary bedroom closet, even the really good stuff, because people wanted to wear it. Laptops were on desks or sofas. TV on the wall. Expensive liquor on the bar cart. Guns in the first drawer of the nightstand.
People like their stuff close by, including their secrets. What makes you feel safe when you go to sleep at night? Being able to check and see that your secrets are still hidden.
If there was something for Charlie to find, there was a good chance Vince kept it in their bedroom.
Once she had the thought, it caught like a burr.
