Book of Night(113)

The smile left Salt’s face so quickly that it seemed as though it had been slapped off. “Where did you find—”

“I stole it,” Charlie said. “That’s what I do. You told me to get it, so I got it.”

The Hierophant reached for the book with pale, trembling fingers. “Mine. Those secrets belong to me.”





32

THE CHARLATAN




This close, Charlie could smell the sour sweat of the Hierophant’s body. She held tight to the book and turned her gaze to Salt. “Shall I give it to him?”

“No!” Salt barked, then saw the warning in the Hierophant’s face and modulated his tone. “Bring it to me, so I can verify this is the authentic volume.”

Charlie frowned. “So you don’t want me to give it to him?”

“Do not make me repeat myself,” Salt said. “Bring the book to me.”

Her heart pounded. There were so many chances to get things wrong here and only one chance to get them right. People were watching. Vicereine was close by, but so far with no reason to be anything but amused.

“I can promise you this copy of the Liber Noctem is authentic,” Charlie said. “Since I got it from your safe, along with a certificate from Sotheby’s and a receipt from the auction. The book never left the house. You just let everyone believe that it was stolen.”

“Is that true?” the Hierophant croaked out.

Salt began walking toward Charlie, allowing him to lower his voice, making it harder for the rest of the crowd to listen in. “Let’s discuss this further in private.”

Charlie had puzzled over why Salt had set her an impossible task with an even more impossible deadline, unless he wanted her to fail. It was thinking about that which had made her remember Knight Singh’s opinion on the Liber Noctem.

If there had been a ritual in the book to let a Blight take human form, then nothing made much sense.

But if there was no ritual, if the book was as useless as Knight had claimed, then Salt was free to employ the rumor to convince a Blight to help him. But that depended on keeping the book forever out of the Blight’s hands—and yet seemingly obtainable enough to stay hooked. Hence the need for a thief of the original volume (Edmund Carver), a new possible lead (Paul Ecco), and the most recent red herring (Charlie Hall).

If she hadn’t shown up, Salt could have convinced the Hierophant she had the book and was hiding it from him. And Charlie would wind up with her guts smeared on the ceiling, just like the others.

Or she could have shown up to the party to say she hadn’t found the Liber Noctem. That might help some, but Salt would accuse her of holding out, and her guts would still wind up on the ceiling.

What Salt needed was someone for the Hierophant to blame. Anyone other than him. Which meant he knew where the book was, and the simplest answer for how he knew was that he still had it.

She’d had a bad moment when she saw Red in the cell, not just astonished by him, but abruptly sure she’d been wrong about everything. But then she realized he must have been the convincer. The reason the Hierophant believed Salt in the first place. If there wasn’t a ritual, then how could he exist?

“Private? I don’t think so,” said Charlie, shaking her head. “You’re responsible for a lot of murders. Knight Singh, for one. I’d rather not be next.”

A wave of murmuring moved through the crowd. It was one thing to chuckle at a party’s host bickering with a guest; an accusation like the one Charlie was making required a more serious response from the Cabal.

“Come along.” Salt grabbed for her arm.

“What did that young woman say?” asked Malik. He stepped forward, several others with him. Charlie didn’t think surrounding Salt was intentional, but it spoke to how the mood of the room had shifted.

Two things she’d known from the time Salt forced her into his car at gunpoint were that he wanted control more than anything, maybe even more than power. And that he expected absolute obedience from those he considered beneath him.

He sent his shadow toward her. They were close enough that it might not have been immediately noticeable to the crowd, but she felt it brushing against her shoulder and cheek, as though she’d been touched by a piece of muslin whipped by a breeze.

She only had time to gasp once before it flooded into her skin. She could feel it worming inside of her, trying to force her to speak. Trying to make her tongue form the words that would cause her to deny everything.

Long ago, when Charlie had come to Salt’s house with Rand, she had practiced rolling up her eyes into her head to indicate that she was possessed. Had been ready to speak with another voice. Ever since Alonso, she’d found it disturbingly easy to be someone other than Charlie Hall. A relief, to give in to such an old urge.

“I’m drunk!” she shouted in a deeper voice than her natural one. “And a liar! A drunk liar! Also, I have a secret resentment toward the fantastic, handsome, totally-not-a-killer Lionel Salt! Who is most certainly not trying to puppet me!”

He stared at her, mouth agape. Everyone was looking at his shadow now, the way it had bent against the light to get to her.

“Get out of my head, Mr. Salt,” she said in her normal voice.

Laughter bubbled up around them. Charlie allowed herself to step away from the door to the garden, the one whose proximity to the darkness had hidden what was changed in her, what she was lacking.