She could not bring herself to look at the body of Luis, the only innocent person in this whole building. Her failure to rescue the boy still ravaged her. Only obliterating the Children of Phonos—the entire global cult, not only the chapter that had gathered here—could alleviate the guilt Indigo felt for not arriving in time to save the boy.
It would take a long, long time to rifle the pockets and handbags of all the dead. So Indigo, her fingertips wrapped in shadow to blur her prints, concentrated on the discarded handbag of the white-clad priestess, now identified as Charlotte Edwards. Indigo pocketed Edwards’s keys and identification. She also examined the wallets of an Ovidio Bogdani and the purse of a woman whose license read Bonnie Alessio. Bogdani and Alessio were both younger, and more cheaply clothed. Their addresses were not fancy. In fact, Bogdani’s was in Kingsbridge … and his name was ringing a bell in Indigo’s memory. She couldn’t remember where she’d heard it before.
Indigo spent a few moments deciding where to go first. The priestess’s wallet contained a picture of the woman with two children and a man, so Charlotte Edwards’s apartment would not be empty. Indigo found it disgusting that the woman had a family of her own when she had been involved in the deaths of other people’s children. She didn’t harbor a scrap of guilt or regret for sending Charlotte Edwards to hell.
Winston’s personal effects gave no hint that he had a family, so she’d try the co-op across from Central Park first.
Indigo stepped into the deepest patch of blackness in the warehouse, danced through inky nothing, and emerged among the trees in the park. With one glance across the street, she flickered back into the dark and slid out into the shadows beside Marshall Winston’s apartment building.
It made her a little uneasy when she thought about the increasing ease and speed with which she moved from shadow to shadow, as if she had somehow graduated to an entirely new level of intimacy with the darkness. The logic seemed reversed. Indigo had never been less confident, never been more confused, and yet she felt as if she had only begun to tap the potential of her power. The temptation to surrender completely to instinct, to shadow, was almost overpowering. If only she could make sense of it all.
Now’s not the time. Now’s the time to find out who these bastards really were and if there are more of them. In her previous skirmishes with them, she’d learned of at least seven chapters of the Children of Phonos in the United States, including those in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Houston, and she assumed their high priests and priestesses all reported to one who was above them all—some national or global figure or secret council or something. But those larger mysteries were for later. Right now she wanted to find out if some members of the local chapter were left alive.
Charlotte Edwards, the dead priestess, had claimed to have some secret knowledge about Indigo—and she needed that knowledge. Yes, she wanted to unravel and expose the entire cult, and, yes, she knew that if they were trafficking in abducted children, they had to be stopped. But her fear and confusion drove her tonight. It was selfish, but she didn’t care. How could she help anyone, how could she expose them to the light, if she couldn’t even be sure who or what she was?
She hid in the darkness outside the luxury apartment building. Through the glass of the lobby, she could see the doorman standing behind a high desk. The lobby gleamed with glass and chrome, well lit. Indigo didn’t like well lit.
Fortunately, shadows were everywhere. Wherever there was light, she could find darkness.
In a heartbeat, Indigo was inside, swathed in the shadow of the high desk, rising up behind the doorman. She drew that bit of darkness around her, hiding inside it, practically invisible. A few seconds later, he opened a door to admit a resident. Indigo took the darkness with her as she went into the elevator with the elderly woman and her dog. A light in the rear corner of the elevator winked out. The Pomeranian knew Indigo was there. It sniffed the floor and backed away, staring into the corner, but Indigo’s shadow cloak concealed her. The Pomeranian pressed against the legs of its owner, but whether to protect her or to be protected, Indigo couldn’t tell.
“What’s wrong, Plutarch?” The woman bent to stroke the dog’s head. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
I never had a dog when I was a kid. Or a cat. Any pet. Indigo didn’t know where the piece of knowledge had come from, but she recognized it as the truth. Real truth, not some blurred bit of untrusted memory.
Indigo got off the elevator with the old woman and Plutarch, and as the woman unlocked her apartment, Indigo took to the stairs. Low and fast, the shadow streaked up the gleaming marble. It was too well lit. It felt as though she were running in a spotlight. On the next floor, Indigo found the apartment number she’d been seeking. Two keys, two locks, and she stepped inside, taking the precaution of locking the door behind her.
The foyer was a hallway, not wide, lined with bookshelves on one side. The flooring was wood, and she used a shadow below her feet to cushion the sound of her steps. The short entry hall led into the living area and the kitchen, and she stood still for a moment. A single light burned within, a tiny lamp on a narrow table behind the couch.
Though the ever-present sounds of the city provided a background hum, Indigo could not hear any other living thing breathing within the apartment. It was as silent here as it had been at the warehouse. Her hand found the light switches, and in an instant the luxury of the place flooded her senses. Though it wasn’t large, it was expensively furnished. It looked like a dream after Nora’s scruffy place. The colors harmonized, the floors gleamed, and there was no clutter. The surfaces were dusted and orderly, the furniture modern. It didn’t look like the apartment of a man who’d been part of a child-murdering black-magic cult.
Demon worship pays well, Indigo thought. For the first time, she wondered what the Children of Phonos gained by the deaths of the children. She’d simply been ascribing the murders to “evil,” but there had to be some kind of profit in it for the cultists. Does sacrificing the real children reap tangible rewards? Are they all this prosperous?
The bedroom was as elegant and orderly as the rest of the place. Winston’s clothes were all name brand, and he must have had twenty pairs of shoes, which amazed Indigo. She opened a box in his closet to find a collection of watches, which simply bewildered her. Who needed more than one watch? They all told the same time, right? She shrugged and continued her search. The bureau held nothing out of the ordinary—clothing, medication, a few books. All novels. No grimoires or satanic Bibles. She couldn’t find a safe.