Book of Night(86)

She spat at him. Saliva sprayed his cheek. He flinched in surprise, closing his eyes, giving her a moment to tear out of his arms.

Racing around to the other side of her car, she jerked open the door. He grabbed her throat.

And then she was in two places, as though there were more than three dimensions to the world. Her consciousness split. She was both the person screaming and trying to claw at his hand and she was something else, which rammed into him from the side.

Her shadow. She felt a pull somewhere in the center of her. And she saw it, a figure all of darkness, as though someone cut a hole in the universe. Her and not her. A mirror that reflected back no light.

He stumbled, and her butt hit the seat before he got hold of her again.

Animal instinct took over. Her body went wild, kicking and screaming. One kick landed against his upper arm, another scraped his knuckles. He howled in pain and let go of her. Charlie yanked the door shut. She slammed her hand down on the lock button.

The clicking sound from all four doors felt deafening.

Adam pulled on the door handle and Charlie had a horrible moment of being sure that it would open.

He beat his fists against the glass window.

She just sat there, her fingers running over the steering wheel. He was shouting at her, but her mind felt far away, numb with shock.

Even though she’d known Adam was terrible and that she’d robbed him—she’d underestimated the danger. A year out of the game, and she was fucking up left and right.

Though it was dormant, there was something new between Charlie and her shadow, a buzzing of sensation, an almost umbilical connection. A phantom limb. A homunculus.

With shaking hands, Charlie rooted out the key from her bag. Thankfully, the car roared to life. Adam pounded on the hood, and Charlie gave him a momentary warning of revving the engine, before hitting the gas. He reeled back just in time to avoid being hit. Heart thundering, Charlie steered herself out of the parking lot.

At the first red light, everything looked a little hazy, as though she was seeing it through a Vaselined lens. She realized her eye was starting to swell.

Also, she thought she might be having a slight panic attack.

She pulled over at a gas station about a mile away and checked her face in the mirror. Her left eye was purpling. Her mouth was cut, upper lip swollen like an aesthetician had gone ham with a needle full of filler.

Charlie was a mess. There were enough people wanting to knock her around that they were going to have to take a number, like at a deli counter.

And what it had taken out of her shadow. She remembered Vince’s words about unspooling. Remembered that it was freshly quickened, with no reserves of energy.

She had to feed it.

Charlie couldn’t remember where she’d first seen an image of a witch feeding her familiar from a third nipple. She recalled a woodcut, or an illustration meant to look like one. It must have been in the research she did for the Inquisition, back when she was Alonso.

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.