Shadow Thief - Eva Chase

1

Sorsha

The story of how I was going to end the world began not with a bang or a whimper but a kerplink.

The kerplink came from the latch of an arcanely ancient window lock hitting the sill as it disengaged. Adjusting my position on the ledge outside, I withdrew my equally ancient wedge and probe—gotta have tools that fit the job—from beneath the sash. At my tug, the window slid upward with a faint rasp.

Shadows draped the hallway on the other side even more densely than in the backyard below me, where the glow of the mansion’s security lamps cut through the night. Less work for me. Dressed in black from head to toe, with my hands gloved to avoid fingerprints and my vibrant red hair tucked away under a knit hat, I blended in perfectly.

I slipped from the flutter of the warm summer breeze into the stillness of the hall and eased the window shut. The ceiling loomed high above. The tangy scent of wood polish tickled my nose. No doubt the floorboards that showed at the edges of the Persian rug gleamed like glass in daylight.

The thick rug handily absorbed my footsteps as I slunk along it, eyeing the doors. If I’d been able to get a good view from outside, I’d have snuck straight into the room I was aiming for, but with the coverings on the other windows, it’d been impossible to know whether I’d hit the jackpot or stumble onto inhabitants I wasn’t looking to meet.

Looking around now, there were a couple of signs that this wasn’t the home of your typical collector. Most of them kept the rest of their living space free of anything that would hint at their secret interests, a portrait of normality. Here, paintings of eerie, twisted forms with glowing eyes hung on the walls. Farther down, a patch of thicker darkness streaked across the pale paint of the ceiling as if it’d been scorched. What the heck had this dude gotten up to?

But then I spotted the door that had to lead to his collection room, and that question fell away behind a tingle of exhilaration.

I couldn’t tell exactly what kind of security I was dealing with until I got right up close and flicked on the thinnest beam on my flashlight. The sight made me grimace. Son of a donkey’s uncle.

In my experience, there were two kinds of collectors. Some went all in on traditionalism, preferring esoteric fixtures and devices of times past—the older the better—to match the nature of the creatures they’d stashed away. Others valued modern tech over keeping a consistent ambiance and secured their collection areas with the most up-to-date electronics.

I preferred the former. Forget fancy do-dads hacking digital codes—it was much more satisfying getting to tackle concrete objects hands-on, like a puzzle I was putting together… or, more often, pulling apart.

This guy clearly leaned that way too. Except he leaned it way too far. One look at the mass of interlocking metal around the door’s handle told me my standard picks weren’t getting anywhere with that lock. I didn’t encounter many that required more forceful methods. Tonight’s collector was awfully paranoid about protecting his treasures.

Or he had something in there that was so special it justified the lengths he’d gone to.

A prickle of apprehension quivered down my spine. You know the feeling when you realize that the thing you’re in the middle of doing might actually be a horrible idea—but you’re so committed already that stopping would feel even worse? Yeah. I lived there so often I might as well have made it my permanent address.

Which meant I shrugged off the uneasiness and reached into the cloth bag hanging from my belt. I had ways of defeating even a ridiculous lock like this, and I wasn’t going to let some wannabe master of the macabre get the better of me. Once I set out on a mission, I saw it through. And so far I always had seen them through, no matter how tricky the situation got.

I broke a pea-sized bead off my lump of explosive putty and poked it into the deepest cranny in the center of the mechanism. “Beating you with some goo, eat your fill,” I sang at a whisper to the tune of Duran Duran’s “A View to a Kill.” Mangling ‘80s song lyrics always put me in a better mood.

Hey, everyone needs a hobby.

Bracing myself, I aimed my lighter at the cranny and flicked on the flame. The putty burst with