“Is it a Blight?”
Charlie didn’t understand the details of how energy exchange worked for gloamists, but she understood enough to know that the more of themselves they put into their shadow, the more it could do. A gloamist could let their shadow draw their energy directly, but they could also put pieces of themselves—memories they no longer wanted, desires that shamed them, emotions that stood in their way—into their shadow. Upon a gloamist’s death, that could become a Blight. Detached shadows, cut off not just from a human, but from their own humanity. Most were little better than animals, and the gloamists made it their business to hunt them down. Others could think and reason. Charlie had seen very few, and never expected to witness the birth of one.
Vince didn’t meet her gaze. “It might be.”
Charlie thought of Paul Ecco’s shadow, of the way that it had been shredded, as though his shadow had been destroyed separately from whatever killed him. And she considered Vince, who seemed to know a lot more about gloaming than she’d thought.
“Is it dying?” she asked, hush-voiced.
He nodded. “Unless it’s cut free or it tears free, it’ll die.”
She remembered breathing the shadow into her lungs. Remembered the blow from its hand. It might be pitiful to watch the thing struggle, but she was glad it couldn’t get to her. And glad it would soon be gone.
Vince shook his head. “Is anyone here but you?”
Charlie glanced toward the back room. Odette and the others had gone in the direction of the exit behind the stage, but it was possible that one or more of them had locked themselves in her office instead of leaving. “Maybe.”
He nodded. “I’ve got to move the body into my van. You going to be okay by yourself?”
“I said I was fine.” Charlie put both hands on the bar top. She felt a little light-headed, but that was all.
He nodded, like he didn’t believe her but didn’t have time to argue either.
Charlie went out from behind the bar, slowly and carefully stepping around the glass. Chunks of it were already embedded in the bottoms of her Crocs; it gave them an uneven fall on the floor and caused them to make a harsh sound, like tap shoes.
Glass slippers.
Gingerly, she navigated her way over to a table. There was still a tea candle burning on it, the wax gone liquid and the glass burned dark.
That was when the Blight ripped free and came at Charlie directly.
Onyx was useful in two ways for stopping quickened shadows. It weakened them and forced them to become solid, so that a knife with onyx in it could cut them no matter how translucent they appeared. But Charlie didn’t have any onyx, and what hurt shadows the most was the brightest light—fire.
Charlie grabbed the candle, not caring how the hot wax splashed her wrist or the glass scorched her fingers. She swept it down toward the Blight, tossing the flame right at it. The shadow caught, and flared bright as dry brush.
For a moment, she just stared at the broken tea light, the spill of wax. Her burnt fingers.
And Vince stared at her. “Quick thinking,” he said.
Charlie sat heavily in a nearby chair. Nodded.
Vince heaved up the body over his shoulder, like it was a dead deer or something. He headed for the double doors of Rapture.
Was he the first person you’ve killed? The words sat on Charlie’s tongue. She swallowed them. His job was cleaning up crime scenes. She’d like to believe that gave him some perspective when it came to handling the dead, a reason to be so calm. But murdering someone, that was a whole other thing.
Her ex-boyfriend’s brother—the one who eventually shot her—had been in prison for knocking over a liquor store. He’d told her about how after their first kill, people’s minds don’t work right. They go full-tilt boogie, bubble-brained. That’s why, even if they’re normally meticulous, even if they planned the whole thing, they start screwing up. They do stuff that doesn’t make sense, like calmly letting in the police when their whole bedroom is covered in blood. Or renting a getaway car under their own name.
Vince wasn’t acting like that. He’d done this before.
And a history with murder wasn’t the only secret he’d been keeping, given the way he’d spoken about that gloamist’s shadow. He knew much more about that world than he’d ever let on. As much as she’d been keeping from him, he’d been keeping a lot more from her.
She looked down at the stupid bike shorts she was wearing, at her stretchy dress, soaked with spilled booze. Beads of blood were blooming along her calves where shards of glass struck her, and when she looked at the backs of her hands, she was surprised to find they were bleeding too.
It was hard to fault Vince, though. Whatever his secrets were, she could still count on him. He was currently getting rid of a dead body for her. You couldn’t get more dependable than that.
A little laugh escaped her mouth, a weird giggle.
Her gaze fell on the floorboards and her own shadow. She blinked at it twice, waiting for her vision to clear. It seemed to ripple. Had Hermes done something to it?
Puzzled, she leaned down and touched her hand to its shadow on the floor. It met her, as usual. When she pulled back, she left a small smear of blood from the cuts on her fingers behind.
Just then the landline behind the bar began to ring, making her jump.
Charlie staggered back to the bar. “Yes?”
“Darling,” said Odette, sounding for all the world like a starlet from the past. “I heard a terrible crash and then everything went quiet.”
“Are you still in your office?” Charlie asked, ashamed of the way her voice didn’t come out as evenly as she’d intended. “He’s gone, but he left a real mess. You shouldn’t have stayed.”
The line disconnected. A moment later, she heard the turning of tumblers. Odette sauntered back into the room just as Vince came through the double doors.
“Did the police finally come? I called them ages ago.” She regarded them and the room, taking in the destruction of her club and the presence of Vincent with a somewhat stunned expression.
“No one here but us.” Charlie realized abruptly that she wasn’t okay after all. Her hands were shaking. She thought she might have to sit down. She thought she might not make it to a chair before she did.
Odette was talking. “Did you know that man? I tried to get the gun out of the safe in the back, but I couldn’t remember the combination.”
Charlie knelt down on the floor, forcing herself to take a few deep, even breaths. That was what she did when she was having a panic attack. And she suspected this was going to be a monster of a panic attack. “What?”
“That man.” Odette frowned at her. “He seemed to think he knew you. And perhaps you should move off the floor. A chair would probably be more comfortable. Cleaner, I’m sure.”
“He thought I knew someone else, but I don’t. I didn’t.” Maybe Charlie was the one whose mind had gone full-tilt boogie. “I’m good right here.”
Odette sat down on a barstool. She looked at the smashed wall of liquor and gave a long sigh. “I don’t understand the world anymore. I think I’m getting old.”
Charlie shook her head. “Never.”
“Did you see what that man did? With his…” Odette looked toward the double doors, the way she’d been looking when the magic rolled toward her. “With Balthazar’s shadow parlor, I saw the wondrous part of gloaming, but not the awful side.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said quietly.
“It was horrible.” Odette glanced toward Vince, then back at Charlie. “Do you think this has something to do with Balthazar?”
“The man was looking for a guy they tossed out the other night,” she said after a moment.
“But why ask you?” Odette said, which was an entirely reasonable point.
Charlie opened her mouth, trying to find some explanation that could make sense when Vince interrupted her. “Is there a first aid kit somewhere? She’s bleeding.”
“Oh, of course. In my office,” Odette said, rising from her barstool.