Chapter 2
The second volume had no cover.
It was tucked away at the very back of the parchment book, sewn in with thin linen thread.
The thread had turned black, and there was something shiny stuck to the knot.
As I used my knife to pick at the knot, the archivist took two steps back.
He didn't stop me.
He just pushed the oil lamp farther away, as if he was worried the light might reveal something better left unseen.
The beginning of the second volume wasn't written by Rodrigo.
The handwriting was bolder, and the sentences were shorter.
The signature was Martin Graves, once a sailor aboard the Saint Maribel, who later returned to the Dusklands on a supply ship.
He wrote as if he were testifying.
"I've seen it," Martin wrote, his hand steady as if swearing an oath.
"It's no demon.
"It's no bird, either.
"And it's definitely not just some ordinary bat."
Martin said the thing first showed up at a temporary camp near the mangroves.
There was no wind that night.
The tide had gone out far, leaving the mudflats gleaming black under the night sky.
The settlers had iron pots over the fire, cooking up mutton and cassava stew.
A few Indigenous locals were tied to the trees nearby, forced to act as guides for them.
One of the old men kept staring up at the sky.
He kept shaking his head.
He said the moon was too bright, and he couldn't sleep.
The translator mocked him for his cowardice.
A soldier named Pedro Alcazar poured wine over the old man's head to shut him up.
The old man didn't resist.
He gazed into the shadows beyond the firelight and said only one thing.
"It'll go after the loudest one first," the old man murmured.
After midnight, Pedro's laughter faded away.
The others in the camp thought he was just drunk and out cold.
It wasn't until someone heard the sound of dripping water near the stake.
It wasn't rain.
It wasn't the tide, either.
A sentry holding a torch went over and saw Pedro sitting under the roots of a tree, his head bowed, still clutching his wine jug.
As the torch drew closer, his head lolled to one side.
A shadowy mass latched onto the side of his neck.
It was barely bigger than a man's palm.
A thin membrane was fused to Pedro's neck.
Two claws dug into his collar.
Its head was sunk deep into his neck, motionless.
The sentry shouted.
The shadow lifted its head.
Martin's pen pressed hard into the page as he wrote.
"Its face was that of an old man."
My fingers froze when I read those words.
The next few lines looked like they'd been written while the author was retching.
The thing had a short, wrinkled nose, wet, glistening lips, and a mouth lined with tiny, sharp teeth.
It had no beak.
And no horns like those you see in paintings of demons.
It was just a creature of the night with the wings of a beast, yet in the firelight, its face wore an almost human expression.
It wasn't hunger.
It was just pissed off that someone had interrupted it.
The sentry swung his knife.
The blade hit the tree root.
The shadow had already flown off.
It didn't scream.
All you could hear was the soft flap of its wings.
It was very soft.
Like a wet rag gliding across your cheek.
When Pedro collapsed, a faint breath escaped his throat.
He wasn't dead.
Not yet, at least.
The surgeon cauterized his wound with a red-hot needle, poured hard liquor down his throat, and had the priest pray over him.
Pedro's eyes stayed wide open, but he kept muttering the old man's words over and over.
"It'll go after the loudest one first," Pedro muttered.
Before dawn, the camp had lost two more horses.
No one had dragged them off.
They remained standing where they were, reins still tied.
Their eyes were frozen wide open.
Tiny punctures marked their bellies, blood seeping down their legs into the mud.
That was when the old man finally spoke up.
He said the Nightbloods weren't in it to kill, they just wanted your blood.
They're just after your blood.
If you made it out alive, they'd leave a mark in your veins.
And when darkness fell again, they could track that mark and find you all over again.
Martin didn't buy it.
Neither did the soldiers.
They carried Pedro into the tent and built a ring of fires around it.
The priest sat vigil at the entrance, clutching a cross.
The old man watched them finish up, then said only one thing.
"Fire won't stop something that can fly," the old man said.
That night, not a single scream came from inside the tent.
Only the tent fabric slowly bulged outward, forming a strange shape.
It was as if something was hanging upside down from the ceiling, creeping closer and closer to Pedro's face.
Martin raised his musket.
But before he could pull the trigger, Pedro suddenly sat up.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
But the monster was nowhere to be seen.
It was just Pedro, sinking his teeth into his own wrist.