Page 67 of Thief of Night
“And Red?” Malhar asked.
At the question, his shadow lengthened and thickened. Then Red stood at the other end of the tether, formed out of darkness.
“Shit,” Malhar said. “Shit.”
“It’s weird to watch him do it, right?” Charlie said.
“Every time,” Malhar confirmed.
Red gave them a self-conscious half-smile. He went over to the chair by the desk and sat down.
Charlie unzipped her backpack, then pulled out the onyx netting, hoping the thing inside wasn’t about to bite her.
“Is that the Blight?” Malhar asked, squatting down beside the bed to peer into the netting. It wasn’t solid in the way that Red was, but the onyx kept it solid enough to have a shadowy shape. It was still roughly the size of a bobcat and occasionally opened something like a mouth to show off shadowy teeth. “Can it talk?”
Red shook his head.
“I promised Balthazar a shadow,” Charlie said. “But before that, I wanted to see if you could—I don’t know, learn something from it?”
Malhar peered down at the thing. Experimentally, he put his fingers into the bag, then yanked them back out just as fast.
“Did it try to bite you?” Charlie asked.
He shook his head. “It moved. I panicked. I’m not sure about its intentions. You’re really going to give this thing to Balthazar?”
“It’s better than it hurting someone—or being ordered to kill it as the Hierophant. What would you do, keep it as a pet? Like a reptile in an onyx fish tank you drop crickets into from time to time?”
“No,” Malhar said reluctantly. “Although when you put it that way it sounds pretty great.”
Red gave another of his barely there smiles.
“I think this thing was eating shadows. Small ones,” Charlie said. “Absorbing their powers.”
“Interesting.” Malhar peered at it.
Charlie focused on the creature in front of her. She thought of the scrapeson the wall of the Grace Covenant Church basement. “There’s something I want to know. Would there be a way for someone to control more than one shadow at a time?”
Malhar raised an eyebrow. “You know that’s not my area of study, but I guess you could make each one an offer.”
“Could a Blight like this one even understand me?” Charlie gestured toward the creature she’d trapped.
“We could do a quick experiment. Unless…” Malhar looked at Red.
He rolled his eyes. “There is no secret shadow language.”
Malhar sighed, slumping. “Right, sorry.”
Charlie got an onyx knife out of her pack, then pressed the tip against her finger with a wince.
“You’re going to feed it?” Red asked.
She wondered if the thought bothered him; she hadn’t fed him in days. It felt dangerous, letting him feed, even though the Cabal leaders had warned her that the real danger was in not doing it.
“Hopefully that guy it’s meant for—Balthazar—won’t mind sharing,” Malhar said.
Charlie got his meaning. “This won’t bond me to it, right?”
Red smiled. “I have had a great deal of blood from many people, living and dead, and I care nothing for most of them.”
