Page 41 of The Dagger and the Flame
His father didn’t. ‘You,’ he hissed, lumbering to his feet.
He swung blindly. Missed. Shade made it easy to dodge the blow. Another swing. Ransom leaped out of the way and Papa hit the wall, cracking the plaster. He howled in pain.
‘Fool,’ said Ransom, surprised by the callousness of his own voice. The Shade was speaking for him.
His father spun, but Ransom caught his fist, stopping the strike in mid-air. The shadows lunged, crossing the barrier between their bodies. Time slowed as they burrowed into his father. His eyes widened until Ransom could see all the red thorns inside them. Then they turned black. Ransom watched death crawl across his father’s face with a curious sense of detachment, as if he was not in his body but floating somewhere above it, letting the Shade act in his stead.
His father had a heart after all. It only took ten beats to kill him.
And then it was over.
When Papa slumped to the floor, Ransom was still in a daze. He looked down at his father’s lifeless face. His eyes had rolled back in his head, their whites now inky black. His lips were black, too, twisted in the throes of a final curse. Those cruel fists lay slack at his sides. The monster had been felled. But Ransom felt no relief.
As he stood in the narrow hallway, the Shade left his body like a terrible wind howling out of his bones. The night grew darkaround him. Nausea roiled in his gut, and he pitched forward. The stitches in his lip split and blood trickled out, mixing with his vomit. He sank to the floor, choking on his sobs.
He might have stayed like that all night, curled in a ball beside Papa’s lifeless body, if Dufort hadn’t slipped through the door and scooped him up, carrying him away from the ashes of his childhood.
‘It’s all right, boy,’ he soothed. ‘It’s done now.’
When they reached the street, Dufort set him down again. This time, when he vomited, the man rubbed his back. ‘Here comes the gloom. It will pass.’
Ransom groaned. ‘When?’
‘When the last lick of Shade leaves your body.’
Dufort released him and walked on, humming softly to himself. ‘That could only have gone two ways,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘You were either going to kill your father, or that vial of Shade was going to kill you. Truth be told, I’ve never used it on a kid before.’ When Ransom didn’t answer – only retched again – Dufort turned on the heel of his boot. He was grinning so wide, Ransom counted three more gold fillings. ‘Thanks to you, tonight has opened up a whole new world of possibilities.’
Ransom wiped his mouth. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you passed the test.’ Dufort winked, and in that twinkle of silver, Ransom saw an entire future unfurl. A fate he had not bargained for. A destiny woven by a devil, not a saint. ‘Welcome to the Order of Daggers, son.’
Son.The word was a life raft in a stormy sea. Ransom hurried after Dufort.
By the time they reached Old Haven, he was so tired, he could have curled up under the statue of Saint Lucille and slept for a week. In the flickering lamplight, he looked at his hands, tracing the slim black whorl that had appeared on his right knuckle. It ached.
‘Your first shadow-mark,’ said Dufort, guiding him past the statue. ‘Take pride in it. There will be more to come.’
But the sight of that mark only filled Ransom with dread, his heart pounding as they descended into the bowels of Fantome, where ancient skulls peered after him.
Down, down, down, into the dark.
Ransom woke to find a familiar pair of green eyes staring down at him.
‘Hell’s teeth,’ said Lark in a strained voice. ‘What happened to you?’
Ransom’s hand flew to his chest, searching for his heartbeat. It thrummed dully beneath his fingers. He blinked, willing the world into focus, and remembered where he was. When he was. He was lying half-dead on the banks of the Verne.
‘There was a monster,’ he said, with a rasp.
‘We lost it,’ came Nadia’s voice from the other side of him. ‘We were tracking another one, eastward, when we got word of this one. That makes three separate sightings tonight.’ She grimaced as she examined the blood on his clothes. ‘Where did all this come from?’
Ransom flinched as she lifted up his sweater, revealing the deep wound in his side. And then he remembered the rest. ‘Seraphine,’ he hissed.
‘What?’ said Nadia. ‘Who—?’
‘It’s the farmgirl,’ said Lark, leaning over to examine the wound.
Ransom’s breath shallowed as he tried to sit up. His head spun and the world blurred. He was losing consciousness again, his friends’ voices fading as the darkness swept back in.
