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 the Liber 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 in The 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.”
Salt ducked away from Vince’s hand, bringing his hand up to touch the shallow cut at his throat.
The Blight looked down at them, growing so that the library lights dimmed as shadow covered them. “If no one will give me flesh, then I will take it.”
“We have to contain it,” said Malik.
“I have weapons,” Salt said. “Devices. Down through that corridor.”
But there wasn’t time.
The Hierophant lunged. Vicereine’s shadow cat leapt to meet him, claws raking, but the Blight only struck it aside. Bellamy stepped forward, holding up his shadow sword. The Hierophant grabbed hold, and the blade turned to smoke.
Charlie grabbed Vince’s arm. He looked at her the way he had that night out in the cold when he hadn’t seemed to believe she would still touch him.
“Come on,” she said. “We have to go. Now.”
He shook his head.
“I serve no longer,” the Hierophant threatened in a voice that was the rush of wind in the sky, the echo of an empty room. Not human in the least. “I was made from your kind, but I am greater than you now. I will take all that I want, and you will serve me.”
Bellamy rushed down the hall toward the great room, calling a warning as he drew a dagger of shadow from his coat. Malik’s shadow triplets circled his body, preparing for an attack.
“No more hiding.” Vince took her hand.
His body started to blur at the edges. It was his eyes that went first, from hollow to empty to smoke. Then the gold of his hair, like sparks flying off a bonfire. Darkness licked at his body, as though threatening to devour him.
“Vince!” Charlie shouted.
The Hierophant’s voice moved through the room, like the howls of wind through trees. “All of you who bound me, who tied me to your weak wills and mewling ambitions, know me. I am Cleophes, and I will paint the—”
Vince lunged into him. They crashed together, down the hall. Shadows on the walls, but where they hit, drywall shattered, plaster rained down. A painting was knocked loose, falling and cracking its frame.