Book of Night(95)

And, more importantly, what was Charlie going to do? Salt expected her to bring him the Liber Noctem by the weekend, and the weekend was coming up fast.

Charlie’s head hurt and her eye hurt and her ribs hurt.

Her gaze rested on the refrigerator, with its dozens of magnets. And as she looked at them, a thought came to her, about the little magnetic silver thingy dangling off her keys. The one she’d found among Vince’s belongings.

Maybe that’s all it was, a magnet. A magnet for holding a metal-covered book.

She got up as quietly as she could and, clad in a borrowed shirt of Bob’s, slid on her shoes. Put on one of her mother’s coats. Slipped out the door as quietly as she’d slid into plenty of other homes.

In the parking lot, the angle of the streetlight gave everything long shadows. The hiss of cars on the highway was distant, the streaks of the lightning farm barely visible.

She popped the hood of her Corolla and looked at the puzzle of the engine and spark plugs and other things she didn’t really understand. Rich people never performed their own oil changes, or rotated their tires. They never even vacuumed their own seats. And Vince had spent a lot of time working on her car.

But the Liber Noctem wasn’t stuck in the guts of the Corolla, and though she crawled underneath, the only thing she discovered was an oil leak.



* * *



In the morning, Charlie’s neck felt hot against the press of her fingers. She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water in her face, combing it back through her hair. Her mother’s dire predictions hadn’t proved accurate. The swelling had gone down around her eye. It had, however, turned a magnificently dark purple, with plenty of yellow and green bruising at the edges.

“I’m heading out to Rite Aid,” she announced over breakfast, drinking down the sweet milk in her cereal bowl.

“You can’t go to work like that,” their mother said.

“I know,” Charlie told her. “That’s why I need to go to the drugstore first.”

Posey snorted indelicately.

A few minutes later, Charlie was out the door.

According to the YouTube tutorials she’d watched while the air mattress slowly deflated beneath her, Halloween makeup was her best chance to fix her face. Luckily, some remained in the clearance section. She got herself a cheap palette that consisted of white, lime green, royal blue, bright yellow, and cherry red. Charlie was concerned she was going to look like a clown.

She added to that some regular stuff—a full-coverage concealer, liquid eyeliner, distractingly red lipstick, new deodorant, a three-pack of panties, and the only black t-shirt in her size. Unfortunately, it was emblazoned with a red-nosed reindeer below IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE FUCK THIS in puffy letters. Still, it was a fine opportunity to break Salt’s hundred-dollar bill.

Back at the motel room, Charlie poured the stuff out on her mother’s bed and sprawled on the comforter to put it on.

After a lot of googling of color wheels and watching that video again, she mixed bright yellow with a little red and dabbed it on the purpling parts. Then she waited for it to dry.

Surprisingly, by the time she applied the concealer in careful dabs, the only thing that showed she’d been hit was the swelling—and even that was less obvious next to a red lip and a little bit of gold dusted on her eyelids.

“You look good,” her mother said with a frown. “But I still think you should call out sick and go talk to the police.”

“I’ll think about it,” Charlie lied.

“Are you ready to go?” Posey asked. “And can I use some of that?”

Charlie ducked into the bathroom to fix her hair and turn the disturbing reindeer shirt inside out. When she returned, Posey was wearing eyeliner and some sparkly shadow.

They split the pack of underwear.



* * *



That night, being back at Rapture was strange. The mess had been cleaned up, the broken glass was gone. New bottles rested on the shelves. Although the bar wasn’t as well stocked as it had been—the unusual whiskeys and gins that Odette liked (rose and rhubarb were favorites) would take time to replace—it was functional.

Normally, Wednesdays were slow, but since the bar had been closed for the better part of a week, there was a lineup of performers. As Charlie came in, a body modification artist was up on the stage doing public piercings and tongue splittings.

By the time she was pouring her first drink, an acrobat with labrets through fresh holes in the dimples of her cheeks was performing a set that was half sleight of hand and half burlesque.

An hour in, Charlie was sweaty and footsore. She had to make a conscious effort not to touch her face and wipe away her careful makeup. Even with it, customers had to notice the swelling.

Balthazar gave her an odd, guilty look the one time she saw him out of his shadow parlor.

“Make me that awful thing I like,” Odette said, sitting herself down at the bar. She was in a red vintage Vivienne Westwood sweater set printed with black barbed wire.

Charlie turned away to spray a coupe glass with absinthe from a spritzer.

“How are you holding up?” Odette asked.

“I’m fine.” Charlie shook up Odette’s burnt martini and pushed it over to her, along with a twist of lemon peel for garnish. “Glad to be back.”

“You’re a darling for saying so, anyway,” Odette told her.