Vince didn’t meet her gaze. “It might be.”
Charlie thought of Paul Ecco’s shadow, of the way that it had been shredded, as though his shadow had been destroyed separately from whatever killed him. And she considered Vince, who seemed to know a lot more about gloaming than she’d thought.
“Is it dying?” she asked, hush-voiced.
He nodded. “Unless it’s cut free or it tears free, it’ll die.”
She remembered breathing the shadow into her lungs. Remembered the blow from its hand. It might be pitiful to watch the thing struggle, but she was glad it couldn’t get to her. And glad it would soon be gone.
Vince shook his head. “Is anyone here but you?”
Charlie glanced toward the back room. Odette and the others had gone in the direction of the exit behind the stage, but it was possible that one or more of them had locked themselves in her office instead of leaving. “Maybe.”
He nodded. “I’ve got to move the body into my van. You going to be okay by yourself?”
“I said I was fine.” Charlie put both hands on the bar top. She felt a little light-headed, but that was all.
He nodded, like he didn’t believe her but didn’t have time to argue either.
Charlie went out from behind the bar, slowly and carefully stepping around the glass. Chunks of it were already embedded in the bottoms of her Crocs; it gave them an uneven fall on the floor and caused them to make a harsh sound, like tap shoes.
Glass slippers.
Gingerly, she navigated her way over to a table. There was still a tea candle burning on it, the wax gone liquid and the glass burned dark.
That was when the Blight ripped free and came at Charlie directly.
Onyx was useful in two ways for stopping quickened shadows. It weakened them and forced them to become solid, so that a knife with onyx in it could cut them no matter how translucent they appeared. But Charlie didn’t have any onyx, and what hurt shadows the most was the brightest light—fire.
Charlie grabbed the candle, not caring how the hot wax splashed her wrist or the glass scorched her fingers. She swept it down toward the Blight, tossing the flame right at it. The shadow caught, and flared bright as dry brush.
For a moment, she just stared at the broken tea light, the spill of wax. Her burnt fingers.
And Vince stared at her. “Quick thinking,” he said.
Charlie sat heavily in a nearby chair. Nodded.
Vince heaved up the body over his shoulder, like it was a dead deer or something. He headed for the double doors of Rapture.
Was he the first person you’ve killed? The words sat on Charlie’s tongue. She swallowed them. His job was cleaning up crime scenes. She’d like to believe that gave him some perspective when it came to handling the dead, a reason to be so calm. But murdering someone, that was a whole other thing.
Her ex-boyfriend’s brother—the one who eventually shot her—had been in prison for knocking over a liquor store. He’d told her about how after their first kill, people’s minds don’t work right. They go full-tilt boogie, bubble-brained. That’s why, even if they’re normally meticulous, even if they planned the whole thing, they start screwing up. They do stuff that doesn’t make sense, like calmly letting in the police when their whole bedroom is covered in blood. Or renting a getaway car under their own name.
Vince wasn’t acting like that. He’d done this before.
And a history with murder wasn’t the only secret he’d been keeping, given the way he’d spoken about that gloamist’s shadow. He knew much more about that world than he’d ever let on. As much as she’d been keeping from him, he’d been keeping a lot more from her.
She looked down at the stupid bike shorts she was wearing, at her stretchy dress, soaked with spilled booze. Beads of blood were blooming along her calves where shards of glass struck her, and when she looked at the backs of her hands, she was surprised to find they were bleeding too.
It was hard to fault Vince, though. Whatever his secrets were, she could still count on him. He was currently getting rid of a dead body for her. You couldn’t get more dependable than that.
A little laugh escaped her mouth, a weird giggle.
Her gaze fell on the floorboards and her own shadow. She blinked at it twice, waiting for her vision to clear. It seemed to ripple. Had Hermes done something to it?
Puzzled, she leaned down and touched her hand to its shadow on the floor. It met her, as usual. When she pulled back, she left a small smear of blood from the cuts on her fingers behind.
Just then the landline behind the bar began to ring, making her jump.