Page 76 of Book of Night
“Something caused him to leave when he did. Do you really expect me to believe it was because you had a crisis of conscience over him experimenting with his shadow?”
Adeline took her wineglass and drained it in one long swallow. “This is awful. Just tell her—”
“Iam,my dear,” he said, with slightly too firm an emphasis for the words to be true. He turned to Charlie. “Edmund was unreasonable about Red. You know enough of Blights to know how horrifying they are. They’re made from the worst parts of us. They can be enormously powerful. And they are invariably insane. That’s why some Blights are disposed of, and others are caught and tethered to new wearers. Controlling them is the only thing that keeps humanity safe.”
Charlie knew a few gloamists wore Blights instead of their own quickened shadows, although it had never seemed like the wisest idea. Gloaming was too young an art for its practitioners not to attempt dangerous paths to power, though. Posey might be willing to do it.
Who was she kidding? Posey would jump at the chance.
But it didn’t seem like Vince not to be aware of the danger in letting a Blight roam free. And it didn’t seem like Salt to worry about the safety of humanity.
Charlie was glad when the waiter came back with the food, forcing the conversation to a stop.
Salt directed him to set the lamb loin in front of her. Charlie took an absent bite and chewed mechanically, barely tasting what she was eating.
“It’s true I had a hand in what happened next,” Salt said, once the waiter had refilled their wineglasses and departed. “I tried to save Edmund from Red, but my grandson released his shadow before I could destroy it. Now it’s loose in the world. You see why I must have my book before he manages to complete the method outlined in it. What Edmund intends cannot happen. A Blight who could pass for human, with an endless hunger… would you want that walking our streets, doing to others what it did to Paul Ecco and Knight Singh?”
“Vince wouldn’t do that,” Charlie said.
“Hewon’t,” Salt said. “Because you’re going to bringThe Book of Nightto a gathering this Saturday, and we are going to keep it safe. Do we understand each other?”
Charlie was still stuck on his accusation. “Why would Vince’s shadow—Red—have killed those people?”
“One of them got a piece of the book, which it wouldn’t like,” Salt said, with a twist of his mouth and a glare. “The other knew too much about the contents of theLiber Noctem. But Red needs to kill. The more blood and shadow energy it consumes, the more powerful it becomes—and the more ready for the ritual.”
By the time Charlie looked down at her plate, the only thing that remained were smears of red from the rare meat. She wiped the edges of her mouth with her napkin. She didn’t recall eating any of it.
“This book has been missing for a year or more. What makes you think I can get it by Saturday?” Charlie asked.
“YouknowEdmund. You can do what no one else can—determine where he could have put a book he didn’t want anyone to find. I am having a little soiree for the gloamist community in celebration of my elevation to the Cabal.Having the book would be a worthy proof of how successful I will be in my new position.”
Charlie stared at him in horror. Sure, the Cabal was a bootleg governing body, but it served to identify threats to the community—like loose Blights, or laws meant to regulate gloaming—and employ a Hierophant. It also kept the local gloamists in check. Someone as monstrous as Salt on there, to be one of the five people making decisions, was going to be bad for everyone.
No, one offourpeople, Charlie realized. Because Knight Singh was dead.
“I appreciate the offer of work, but the job’s not for me,” Charlie said. “I have no idea where Vince is or what he did with your book. For all I know, he got rid of it. And besides, I don’t like you. You kidnapped me at gunpoint. And you’re kind of a dick.”
Telling him that wasn’t revenge, but it wasn’t nothing.
Adeline sucked in her breath.
Salt looked at Charlie across the table, and there was something in his face as though in anticipation of some great pleasure. That’s all the warning she got before his shadow flowed toward her and sank into her skin. Before she understood what was happening, her hand lifted the steak knife just as the waiter returned to the room.
She could sense the shadow inside her, a separate consciousness. She could hear its thoughts and sense the enormity of its hatred.
Her mouth opened and she could feel her tongue begin to form words, her voice rough with resistance. “I wi-ll mur-der—”
Then she was free, and shaking with horror. Uncertain if she cast the shadow off with her will, or if Salt let her go.
He laughed at the waiter’s startled face. “She becomes heated when we discuss politics, but there’s no harm in her. Isn’t that true, my dear?”
Charlie bit her tongue and didn’t answer, too afraid that it wouldn’t be her own words coming out of her mouth.
Salt leaned in close, dropping his voice to a whisper. “You have a week to steal theLiber Noctemfor me. Given your reputation, I am certain of your success. But if you fail, we’ll see what else I can make you do, and to whom. You have a sister, isn’t that right? Now, would you like coffee before you go? A cordial?”
Anger and fear and fury rose in Charlie like a wave, sweeping every other thought away. She hadn’t thought it was possible to despise him more than she did, but now her hands were shaking with a desire for violence. She wanted to break a glass and use it to slice open his face. She wanted to watch him squirming on the carpet as poison stole his consciousness.
Salt’s smile grew as he studied her expression. She had the sinking suspicion that he enjoyed her hating him. It was another kind of power.
