Page 77 of Book of Night
He wiped the edges of his mouth with a cloth napkin. “I need to hear you say that you understand. That you will be at my estate on Saturday, book in hand.”
Charlie pushed back her chair and got up, biting the inside of her cheek. “You have my word.”
He nodded. “Good day to you, Charlatan.”
As she turned to go, though, Adeline grabbed her hand. “I know you saw the news stories. Before you judge my father, remember what Red is capable of doing.”
Was Vince’s shadow really out there, murdering people in anticipation of some transformation? Was that what had happened to Rose Allaband? How responsible had Vince been for all of this?
And yet, Rand’s body had also been found in a car, along with a dead girl that Charlie was fairly certain he’d never even met while alive. All staged by Salt.
Maybe Vincehadn’tfaked his own death. What if he’d just taken the book and run? If Salt had set up the burned husk of the car, with charred bodies inside, Vince would have been pronounced dead, making it impossible for him to get far, or to go to the authorities. If anyone thought he was alive, he’d be wanted for murder.
Of course, that didn’t explain Red.
“Let go of me,” Charlie told her.
Adeline’s fingers dug into Charlie’s skin. “You think you know Remy, but you’re wrong.”
Charlie pulled her hand out of the woman’s grip and walked from the room as fast as she could. She wasn’t even sure where she was going, as long as it was away from the Salt family and their horrifying desires and demands. As she crossed the smooth tiles of the reception hall, she spotted a man leaning against the wall.
Charlie’s heart sped.
He was younger than most people walking through the country club, dark-haired with deep-set eyes and bruised skin underneath. Bullet holes, she’d thought of them that night when she first saw him in the alley. But up close, his eyes just seemed tired.
Then her gaze fell to the area between the edge of his gloves and the cuffs of his shirt. It didn’t show much, but she could see there was shadow where the skin of his wrist should have been.
“You’re the Hierophant,” she forced herself to say.
He smiled, but it was all wrong. Too many facial muscles were engaged. His mouth was pulled in too many directions.
“Yes,” he said, as though forcing the words out. “I am hun-ting a Blight.”
Charlie took an involuntary step back, alarmed more by the way he spoke than what he said. It reminded her, suddenly and horribly, of how she had sounded when Salt controlled her.
“Red?” she asked him.
A gleam appeared in his eye. “You’ve seen him, haven’t you?”
She shook her head.
The Hierophant gave her one of those strange smiles. “I was a thief once. Like you.”
If she’d gotten caught in the wrong place, at the wrong moment, she could have wound up like him. Hands cut off, sent out to kill Blights. Had he been a gloamist before? Most thieves weren’t, if for no other reason than it was hard for a shadow to cross the onyx protections most gloamists put in place.
“Your shadow—” Charlie began, wanting to ask if it had quickened on its own, or if they’d bound him to something.
His eyes narrowed and he pushed off the wall, taking a step toward her. “Once they get their claws into you, they never let go.”
She scuttled back.
The Hierophant cocked his head to the side and began to speak, at first in a monotone, then in a rising shout. “Tell Red I want the book. Tell Red we can share.Tell Red that I will rip him to pieces.”
As he continued to advance toward her, Charlie turned and ran. Her flats slapped against the polished floor.
“No one can fight their own shadow,” he shouted after her.
She hit the doors with her shoulder, throwing them open. The matte black car was waiting for her, and she didn’t stop running until she was inside.
