Book of Night(6)

There was something wrong with his hands.

Really wrong.

They were entirely made of shadow, right to the scarred nubs of his wrists.

He began to walk toward Charlie, his footsteps sharp and distinct on the asphalt. Half her instincts were telling her to run, the other half wanting her to freeze because running would ignite the predator’s desire to give chase. Was she really going to fight? The knife in her hand seemed ridiculously small, little better than cuticle scissors.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

At the sound, the man paused. They watched one another, the corpse between them. Then he stepped back, slipping around the corner and out of her line of sight. Charlie felt light-headed with shock and horrifyingly sober.

Forcing herself to move, she stumbled out of the alley and fast-walked toward Union. If she was near the body when the police arrived, they were going to have a lot of questions—and weren’t likely to believe a story about some guy with shadow hands. Especially not from Charlie, who had been hauled in twice before the age of eighteen for confidence schemes.

Her legs were carrying her forward, but her mind was reeling.

Ever since the Boxford Massacre twenty years ago, when the world had become aware of gloamists, Western Massachusetts had been lousy with them. The Silicon Valley of shadow magic.

From Springfield with its shuttered gun factories and boarded-up mansions to the universities and colleges to the idiosyncratic farms of the hill towns, polluted rivers, and the marshy beauty of the Quabbin Reservoir, the Valley was cheap enough and close enough to both New York and Boston to be a draw. Plus, it had an already high tolerance for weirdos. There were goats available for mowing lawns. A gun club that ran an annual Renaissance faire. You could buy an eighteenth-century bedframe and a hand-thrown pot in the shape of a vagina and score heroin from a guy at a bus station—all within a fifteen-minute travel window.

These days you could add on stumbling into a shadow parlor and getting an alterationist to remove your desire for any of the aforementioned vices, or adding on a new one. Rolling bliss was skyrocketing in popularity. The more gloamists there were, the more the towns were changing, and there wasn’t enough onyx in the world to stop it.

And yet, for all that, this murder seemed uniquely awful. Whoever or whatever had done it would have needed incredible strength to crack open a body like a walnut.

She shoved her trembling hands deep into her pockets. Her familiar route had become strange to her, full of jagged shadows that moved with each gust of wind. Her nose seemed to catch the scent of spoiling meat.

Two more breathless blocks, and then she was heading up her driveway, hands trembling.

The bell over the door jangled as she entered into the ugly yellow kitchen of their rental house. A frying pan and two dirty dishes sat in the sink. There was a plate domed with another near the microwave. Their cat, Lucipurrr, nosed it hopefully.

Heading toward the living room, she found Vince asleep in front of a television turned down low, his big body sprawled on their scavenged couch, a paperback resting on his stomach. When she looked at him, she felt a stab of longing, the uncomfortable sensation of missing someone who hadn’t yet gone.

Her gaze went to where his shadow ought to have fallen. But there was nothing at all.

When Charlie had first met him, her eye had noted something off, as though he was always a little out of focus, a little blurred at the edges. Maybe she’d been distracted by being drunk, or by his being hard-jawed and clean-cut in a way guys attracted to her never were. It wasn’t until she saw him the next morning, silhouetted in a doorway, seeming as though light was streaming through him, that she realized he didn’t have a shadow.

Posey had noticed right away.

Now Charlie’s sister sat on the worn gray shag rug, squinting at a grainy moving image on her laptop, a spread of cards in front of her. She had on the same pajamas that she’d been in when Charlie left, the cuffs scuffed and dirty. No bra. Her light brown hair twisted into a messy bun on top of her head. The only adornment she wore was an onyx-and-gold septum ring, which she never removed. Posey took all her Zoom calls with the camera on her end off, at least partially so she didn’t have to dress up for them.

She sounded entirely professional, her voice soothing as she continued her tarot reading, barely seeming to notice Charlie. “Nine of Wands, reversed. You’re exhausted. You want to give a lot of yourself, but lately you feel as though there’s nothing left to give—”

The person on the other end must have started spilling their guts, because Posey cut herself off and just listened.

When they were kids, their mother had dragged them to lots of psychics. Charlie remembered staring at dusty velvet pillows and beaded curtains in the front room of a house off the highway, Posey’s head on her lap, listening to their mom getting lied to about her future.

But even if it was a scam, their mother had needed someone to talk with, and it wasn’t like she was going to open up to anyone else. Psychics were therapists for people who couldn’t admit they needed therapy. They were magic for people who desperately needed a little magic, back before magic was real.

And while Charlie didn’t believe Posey had powers, she did think that her clients got someone who treated their problems as important, who wanted to help. That seemed worth a fifty-dollar donation and a subscription to her Patreon.

Charlie went back out to the kitchen and uncovered the plate. Vince had cooked egg tacos, with sliced avocado on the side and twin splashes of Tabasco and sriracha. From the plates in the sink, it looked like he’d even made some for Posey. Charlie ate hers at the rusty folding table in the kitchen while she listened to her sister talk.