As a kid, Charlie hadn’t believed third nipples could be real until she looked them up. It turned out they could show up anywhere on the body. Imagine having a nipple on the back of your calf. Or on the knuckle of your finger.
It made her think of a pronouncement some misogynist barstool scholar once made with great seriousness: Martinis are like breasts; one is too few, and three are too many.
Which was bullshit. Ask anyone who’d been through surgery to remove a tumor. Or any fan of science fiction. Or anyone who liked martinis.
Ask her shadow, which was curled around her, nursing as tightly on her skin as any familiar. Black cat. Toad. Crow. Spirits sent from the devil to make mischief in the world. One wound was fine for it, although even a few drops of blood are hard to squeeze out when your scabs were shallow and are healing.
“You’re okay,” she soothed, as though to a child after a fall. “You’re okay now, right?” So hard not to think of it as a separate thing. So hard not to treat it like one.
So hard not to love it. Or not feel responsible for it.
It settled back into place, a cloak on her back, a carpet at her feet, a veil. Real magic. Her magic.
It was never great to get punched in the face, but Charlie found herself smiling through her split lip. Until she realized that to have followed her from the hospital, Adam must have tailed her to the hospital. Which meant that he knew where she lived. And as angry as he was, he might drive straight there.
She picked up her cell and, cradling it painfully against her cheek, called Posey.
It rang. And rang.
“I know you’re awake,” she muttered.
Posey’s voice mail started up. She must be Zooming with a client. Charlie tried her again, letting it ring, hanging up and calling right back.
Finally, Posey picked up. “Charlie, I’m—”
“You’ve got to get out of the house. Now.”
“Why do you sound so weird?”
Charlie didn’t have time to explain about her swollen lip. “Seriously. Now. A coffeeshop. The drugstore. Doesn’t matter where. Just pick up your laptop and your wallet, go out the back door, and hop the low fence into our neighbor’s yard. The one with the trampoline.”
“What’s—”
“I am going to stay on the line while you do it.”
“I’m in the middle of a card reading,” Posey protested.
“It’s got to be right now,” Charlie said.
“Gimme a sec.” Charlie could hear her talking to someone in a conciliatory way, although she couldn’t make out the words. Hopefully explaining to her client that she had to go.
She came back a moment later. “You know I can’t drive.”
“I will be with you the whole way,” Charlie said, keeping her voice calm and low. Radio voice. Hostage negotiator voice. “I promise. I’m coming to pick you up.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.
“Please, Posey.” So much for staying calm. “Hurry.”
“Fine. The backyard?”
“So you’re not visible from the street.” Charlie wanted to get on the highway and race toward home, trying to beat Adam, but she knew it was better to focus on getting her sister out of the house. “Just. You know. Quick.”
As Posey moved through the house, grabbing some things she said she needed and herding Lucipurrr into a cat carrier, Charlie dug her fingernails into the mound of her thumb. She wanted to scream at Posey to move faster. She wanted to do anything but sit there in the parking lot, hurt and powerless.
Some huffing and rustling later, Posey said, “Okay, I’m outside with the cat. I’m heading toward the back.”
“Go over the fence,” Charlie said. “You’re almost gone.”
“You’ve got to explain—”
“I will, I promise. And I’m sorry.”
“What if the neighbors—”
“Just keep going. Don’t look back. Go, go, go.”
“Okay,” Posey said, sounding fragile. “I’m over the fence. You know I hate walking through someone else’s property. What if Elias comes outside and yells at me for cutting through his yard?”
“You’re doing great, all you have to do is keep going. Avoid the main roads, and cut through to…” Charlie tried to think. There were a lot of streets crisscrossing around there. It would be easy to choose the wrong one. She didn’t think Adam knew what Posey looked like, but a woman with a cat carrier was hard to miss.
There was the Williston Library one way, attached to a private high school for rich kids that had perks like riding horses. Posey might be able to talk her way inside, but she’d have to deliver her story with conviction. In the other direction was a Dunkin’, a lunch place that would already be closed, a tattoo studio called Needle Inc., Union Package liquor store, and Glory of India, which mostly did takeout.
“You should have come out on Clark, so cut through the parking lot on School Street. You’re going into Union Package. Browse the wines until I get there.”
“What if they don’t allow pets?” Posey asked.
“Then we’ll figure out something else. There’s a Walgreens that’s not far.”
Charlie waited, listening to the sound of Posey’s breath, until she heard the jangle of the bell on the shop door.
“You’re coming right away?” Posey asked in a hushed voice.
“Right away,” Charlie confirmed, and hung up.
This was why she’d stayed away from gloamists, away from cons and heists of magic. How had she not yet learned the lesson of juggling knives? Even when you kept them all in the air, you still cut yourself on the blades.
She glanced at her shadow one more time, trying to shift her perception toward it. It flickered in response.
“Okay,” she said, and pulled out of the gas station.
Her car sped down the highway, the rattling of the engine barely noticeable. Whatever Vince had done held even as she pressed down on the gas and wove around delivery trucks and commuters. Her swollen eye made it hard to switch lanes to the left, and a pickaxe of a headache cleaved through her thoughts, which were mostly a litany of what-else-could-go-wrong—What if Adam decides he needs a shot of courage before he busts into my house and goes into the nearby liquor store, what if he is following my car right now, what if he has an accomplice, what if Lucipurrr pees in the cage and gets Posey kicked out at just the moment when—
Charlie pulled up to the curb and fought down a wild urge to jump out of the car. Keeping the engine running, she called Posey.
Her sister picked up on the second ring.
“I’m out front,” Charlie said, feeling out of breath despite having done nothing more than drive. Maybe she’d cracked a rib.
A few minutes later, Posey emerged with a bottle wrapped in a paper bag, an overstuffed backpack on her shoulder, and the cat crate swinging from her hand. She climbed into the back. Lucipurrr let out a miserable yowl as her cage was unceremoniously dumped into the seat well. “I got both our laptops and some wine for Mom.”
“Mom?” Charlie echoed.
But Posey had lost interest in that line of conversation. She was gaping at Charlie in the rearview mirror. “What happened to your face? And who are you afraid is coming to our house? Is it Vince? Did he threaten you?”
“Vince?” Charlie gave her sister an exasperated look.
Posey frowned. “I don’t know! Was it the gloamist from Rapture?”
Charlie shook her head, pulling away from the street. She needed to put some distance between them and anywhere close to her house. “That guy’s dead.”
“What?” Posey’s eyes widened. “What do you mean dead?”
“Check behind us. See if anyone’s following,” Charlie told her.
Posey shrugged off her backpack and turned around, kneeling up on the seat. She looked pale and a little sweaty. “How am I supposed to tell?”
“You keep watching. Not just the cars behind us, but the cars behind them. I don’t know. I’ve only seen it done in movies.” Charlie took a turn. “No one follows the exact same route, especially the one I am going to take, doubling back on the same roads. So if they stay with us too long, we worry.”
“Okay,” Posey said, staring.
“Are you okay?” Charlie asked, her gaze on the road.
“Of course I am,” Posey said. “You’re the one with the face that’s swelling like a balloon. Now will you explain?”