“I saw Paul’s body that night, on my way home,” she said. “It looked as though it had been ripped open. So, okay, I wanted to know who could have done something like that. Then some heavy comes in and acts like I know where Paul got the page. So then I was really curious, especially about who snitched on me.”
“You wrong me,” Balthazar said, all mock-innocence. “It’s not my fault if you’re a truffle pig for trouble. All I did was answer a few questions for an interested party.”
Balthazar turned away to get down a can of condensed milk, but not before she saw the way his mouth had gone pinched. Among criminals, and the crime-adjacent, there might be a flexible sense of morality, but there was one thing every ne’er-do-well was firm on: no rats.
“Omitting the part where Paul tried to sell you the page?” Charlie reminded him. She wondered how long it was going to be before word got around that Hermes was missing. It was worth reminding him that if she went down, she could take him with her. “What is so important about this particular book?”
“It’s called the Liber Noctem,” he told her in a bored voice. “Colloquially, The Book of Blights because it’s supposed to contain rituals specifically to do with them. Some gloamists think that’s the key to immortality, to be able to live on as your Blight. But whatever’s in there, it’s a truly magnificent object. Metal pages, stamped instead of printed on. Bought at auction by that particularly wicked old gentleman, Lionel Salt. Rich as a Medici, and with the same set of interests.”
Charlie’s lip curled.
“Do you know him?” Balthazar asked.
“Of course not,” said Charlie. “But he’s the one who sent Hermes.”
Balthazar set down two large mugs, generously filling the bottoms of each with gooey condensed milk. He poured coffee on top of both and brought one to her, then sat, smoothing out his dressing gown. “Salt’s grandson is supposed to have stolen the Liber Noctem and run off. Ed Carter, I think his name was. Carver? Anyway, the grandson gets involved in some kind of murder-suicide, but must have sold the book on beforehand, because it doesn’t turn up with the rest of his stuff. Salt’s so keen on getting the book back that he has a standing offer of fifty grand to anyone who returns it, no questions asked.”
Edmund Carver. That was the name Hermes had asked her about. But he hadn’t sounded as though the kid was dead.
“Sold it on to Paul Ecco?” Charlie asked.
Balthazar shook his head. “More likely to someone else, who then sold a single page to Paul Ecco.”
“Why not the whole thing, then?” Charlie asked. “Fifty grand’s nothing to sneeze at.”
Balthazar opened his expressive hands, granting her point. “Maybe someone who wanted to get Salt’s attention. Chum the water.”
Charlie sipped the coffee. It was sweet enough to make her wince and strong enough that she was glad it was so sweet. “To make him pay more?”
“When the Liber Noctem first went missing,” Balthazar said, “he hired one of my people. The new guy.”
Charlie raised both eyebrows. “Adam?”
“Yeah, him. But my guy didn’t work out. Found nothing. The old man didn’t seem too surprised, either.” Balthazar shrugged and took a long drink from his mug.
“Huh.” It bothered her that anyone knew Paul Ecco was trying to fence the page so soon after he’d been thrown out of Rapture; that seemed too fast for a rumor to spread. And not only the presence of the Hierophant, but the brutality of the murder made her think it was something other than a human who’d done it. A Blight would have reason to tear a shadow to tatters when it killed. The strength to rip open a rib cage.
Why would a Blight be looking for the Liber 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.
“You could 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.