Page 128 of Book of Night
Vince pressed the knifepoint harder, and a bead of blood trickled down Salt’s throat like the track of a single tear.
He made a choking sound, and his arm sagged, although he didn’t drop his Glock.
Still, it wasn’t pointed right at her face. Charlie let herself breathe.
“Drop the gun on the rug, Lionel,” Vicereine said. “The Blight will remove the knife, won’t you?”
“Will I?” Vince asked lightly. “I didn’t come here planning on leaving.”
Lionel Salt’s face had paled and his eyes darted around. How odd the moment must be for him. Malhar had called shadows “ghosts of the living,” but Vince was the shadow of a dead man.
Vince, who was almost Salt’s grandson. Who was that grandson’s avenging specter.
“You’re going to leave,” Charlie told Vince. “With me. Plans change. The Cabal knows what he’s done. Surely they’re not going to ignore the murder of one of their own.”
Vince lifted the point of the knife infinitesimally away from Salt’s artery.
“I have done nothing—” Salt’s words came to an abrupt stop as the Hierophant stepped between him and Charlie. His back was to Salt and his eyes blazed.
The Blight looking down at her through Stephen’s eyes was ancient. And wrathful. He held theLiber Noctemin his arms.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me about this book. Tell me about his lies.”
Charlie cleared her throat. “Vince could probably answer this better—”
“You,” the Blight said.
She nodded. “Okay. When Remy died, he pushed all his energy, his last breath of life into his shadow. That’s how Red became able to pass for human.” She looked directly at the Hierophant, not allowing herself to flinch. “The ritual, the one that was supposed to have made Red like this? It doesn’t exist. It’s not in theLiber Noctem. It’s not anywhere. That was the thing I couldn’t figure, at first. Why would Mr. Salt tell me to find a book when it was locked away in his safe?”
She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, forcing herself to pause for dramatic effect. “Because he’d promised you something he could never give.”
The Hierophant’s fingers closed over the metal, pressing hard enough to bend the edge.
“He convinced you to compromise yourself for him,” Charlie said. “And you know that young man you’ve been possessing isn’t doing well. There’s not much more energy there to take. Killing Knight Singh was for nothing. Killing Paul Ecco was for nothing. Killing Adam Lokken was for nothing.”
Salt laughed, although it sounded forced. “Is that what this is about? Of course I know how Red became the way he is now. It’s all inThe Book of Blights.”
It was hard to argue convincingly against an old man with a knife to his throat. She decided to ignore him. “Red was already pretty solid because Remy had put so much of his own energy into him, and then cut him loose for short periods of time, over years. He started to appear like Remy, and to hold that shape. Isn’t that right, Adeline?”
She gasped in surprise, as though Charlie had asked her something awful.
“You murdered your own grandson?” Vicereine asked. “And Knight?”
“You lied to me.” The words boomed out of Stephen’s mouth, but the voice was nothing like his. “Deceiver, I will strip the flesh from your bones. I will—”
The sound of the gun going off cracked through the air.
The Hierophant fell on the rug, blood seeping from the wound, fingers clutching at it. Mouth opening.
And behind the body, the shadow of the Hierophant rose larger and larger.
“Breath of life,” it said.
The shadow swept over the body it had worn. Stephen gave a wordless howl as he withered, his skin shrinking in on itself, his body curling and then going limp. The blood around the bullet hole was dry, crystallized.
The shadow towered over them, crackling with fresh energy.
“Oh god,” Vicereine said. “Oh shit.”
