Book of Night(39)

“We can do this,” Rand told her. “If we do, he says he’s got more work for us. If we’re bold, we’re going to get rich, I know it.”

Charlie rolled her eyes. Rand dreamed of the one big score the way that Charlie’s mother dreamed of love. It was the thing that would allow him to live the life of ease to which he thought he was entitled, and of which he was always on the very cusp. Always a mirage, always just over the next dune.

“Our client’s name is Knight, but that’s all I’m going to tell you,” Rand said. “And so long as we bring him his book, he says we’re free to bilk Moneybags for anything else we can get.”

Charlie didn’t like it. They usually worked for themselves. A client could be trouble.

“I’ve finagled us into a meeting in the house of this guy, Lionel Salt. Family wealth in medical manufacturing. That’s where the big money is—making the widgety doodad that fits into a surgical thingamajig. I’ve informed him that I and my young daughter are occultists who communicate with the unseen world, which includes demons. And those demons are going to help him quicken his shadow.” Rand sounded calm, but he kept twisting the end of his mustache.

“Lionel Salt?” she asked. “The guy with the car?” Even then, she’d been aware of his matte black Phantom, discussed in loving detail by half the boys in her class.

“Yeah, him,” Rand said dismissively.

Charlie frowned. “This guy is going to think we’re ridiculous. Demons?”

But Rand wouldn’t be swayed. “Believers want to believe. He wants to quicken his shadow, right? They all do. We can give him hope.”

And that was how Charlie found herself in the passenger seat of his car, practicing rolling her eyes up hard enough that only the whites were showing. It wasn’t an easy technique to do without closing your eyes first—but it was creepier.

If she’d known how to do this back when she was “channeling” Alonso, she was almost certain her mother would have left Travis after the first visitation. It looked that good.

Charlie was hoping the job would go well enough (or that while she was in the house she could grab something worth enough) to buy a leather coat she had her eye on. She’d seen it at a thrift store for a hundred seventy-five dollars, and while she thought she might be able to convince the owner to give it to her for less, it was still going to be a lot.

“You remember the plan?” Rand asked her for the millionth time on their drive over.

She did. Rand was going to pose as her father and explain that Charlie (who would, of course, be using a different name) had begun speaking to unseen beings a few years back. People wanted to treat her for mental illness, but he realized she had a talent to speak with the supernatural world, including the infernal one. And so he had cultivated her talents.

Rand wanted the man to be a little disgusted with him. People trust that when someone is doing something terrible, the reward must be real.

All Charlie had to do was provide the special effect. She just had to be an intimidated, quiet girl until her eyes rolled up and she vomited beet juice all over everything. Finally, she was going to give them “the gift of the devil.”

The rich believed they were lucky, and that any good fortune they didn’t already have could be bought. They had so much already, disappointment became inconceivable.

“You should teach me how to drive,” she said, looking out at the highway and the lights glittering across the Connecticut River.

Rand snorted. “You’re not old enough.”

“You mean it’s illegal?” She shrugged. “Oh no.”

He made an annoyed, huffing noise. “I guess I could. I’ve got time next week. You never know when it might come in handy.”

They pulled off the exit, heading from city into suburbs and then stretches of woods beyond, where mansions had been nestled back when Springfield was a production hub.

Charlie bit her nail, looking out the window. Feeling a little sick to her stomach from a combination of beet juice and nerves.

She saw the mansion coming into view as Rand took the turn onto the drive. She’d never seen a place like it. It was like a museum, or a place out of a fairy tale where cursed princesses slept.

“This is a bad idea,” she muttered, but Rand ignored her.

He got out and opened the door for her. “Stage fright,” he said. “You want a swig of whiskey?”

“I’m fifteen,” she reminded him.

“Oh?” he said, mimicking her voice. “Is it illegal?”

The front door opened. A small red-haired man stood there, squinting at them. Charlie realized she had no idea what Lionel Salt looked like.

“Is there anything I can help you bring inside, sir?” he asked, making it clear he was a butler or something.

“We don’t have props,” Rand told him, as though the very idea offended.

Charlie had her game face on, and so didn’t roll her eyes.

Inside, several old men were sitting around on green leather chairs in a large library. The real Lionel Salt was an old man with a shock of white hair. A silver-tipped cane rested beside him. One of his friends appeared to be close in age, while the other was maybe twenty years younger. Rand introduced himself to them all, and then indicated Charlie, as though she were some kind of trained lemur instead of a person. She tried to surreptitiously read off the titles of the books.