Surprisingly enough, we found Thomas's crew where Kenny had left them. The apartment complex wouldn't look any different from the surrounding ones if not for a dark blood trail leading to the entrance.

  Their happy conversation and animated body language differed significantly from their former subdued selves.

  I barged in on them, enjoying the startled yelps.

  "You're not very good at keeping a lookout, are you?" I asked.

  They gawked at me.

  "Ya, tryin' to scare us?" Thomas finally asked.

  His shirt was drenched in dried blood near his neck, but he lacked the wounds. Instead, they all shone in a golden inner light, filled to the gills. Thomas had more of it, and he shone slightly brighter, but it was minor, and it looked like a natural difference between people.

  "Just saying hello," I replied. "Is this my cut?" I asked, pointing to the fallen figure of the ghoul.

  'My cut,' I was already talking like some second-rate drug dealer.

  Its essence was diminished compared to Victor's haul, but it was still much better than the shade.

  I still couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness, like it was somehow tainted. I looked closer at Thomas using the Sight and barely perceived something similar in him.

  "Mostly, yes," Thomas agreed. "But it still got more in the tank than we agreed."

  Of course, Kenny told them that.

  "By all means," I agreed. "You are free to take what's yours."

  The trio shared conspiring looks. I was almost starting to worry when he made his counteroffer.

  "I was thinking," Thomas said. "You can have what's left, but we get another one of your fancy knives."

  I thought it over. We had extra, but it was a lower price than we agreed, and it wasn't like he could take any more of the ghoul's essence anyway.

  "That's not how it works," I negotiated. "You got two knives for half of it. So the difference of what you're offering for the third is about half price."

  "Come off of it," he laughed. "We both know now how precious every drop of it is. I need a third weapon, so we're all loaded. I'm overpaying if you ask me."

  Kenny stayed silent for the exchange, but I could see he agreed with Thomas's words.

  "I'll take you on the offer," I decided to show my most significant concern. "On the condition that you tell no one about what Kenny taught you."

  "Sure thing," Thomas quickly agreed with a light hand wave.

  Was it because he had already considered it and decided against it? Or was it an easy promise to make now and break out of sight later? I had no leverage over him on this.

  I scrutinized him looking him in the eyes, but he was not backing down, so I grudgingly handed him my last knife.

  "A pleasure," Thomas smiled as he threw it back to one of his colleagues.

  I waited for them to leave, but they took their sweet time.

  "We can work together, ya know?" He offered. "It's safer together, and we don't need the witch no more. No reason not to."

  Kenny looked hopeful at that.

  "I'm not a team person," I declined.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  He looked at Kenny, waiting for his decision. But he just inclined his head towards me, not saying a word.

  "Suit yourselves," he said goodheartedly, prancing out of the building. The trio was unmistakably high on the energy influx.

  Kenny waited for their footsteps to recede and turned to me.

  "It would be safer," he said, agreeing with Thomas's statement.

  "From an outside threat," I agreed. "But not from a well-timed backstab."

  Kenny looked up and shook his head but didn't deny it. He must have felt similarly. Otherwise, he would have joined them himself.

  ***

  I sat by the ghoul, Looking at it intently, trying to discern the blend in its life force.

  "Did you feel anything strange from it?" I asked. "Like you did with the shade?"

  "I don't know, I didn't Drain it yet," Kenny sounded surprised. "Do you?"

  I nodded.

  "Thomas's crew had it, too," I added. "It was subtle, but it still felt foreign to them, like it tainted their energy."

  Kenny sat near me and moved his hands slowly above the ghoul, using a different method to sense, only the thrum of his tattoo betraying the magical nature of his actions.

  "There is something there," he finally concluded, unsure how to proceed.

  "Not gonna try to Drain it?" I asked.

  "I don't think it's safe," Kenny shook his head. "Feels persistent like it's gonna sit inside forever."

  I thought it over. If both the ghouls and the shades had the same poison inside of them, we didn't have any way to get it cleanly.

  "I saw Claire use another symbol," I remembered. "A necklace with a five-pointed star in a circle. Looked like she used it to store the essence. Didn't feel any of that from her or her new jewelry, but I wasn't close enough to tell for sure."

  "You think it somehow cleans it?" Kenny asked.

  "We have to find out," I replied helplessly.

  We discussed our possibilities, and I got to it.

  I drew a pentacle under my Ankh and concentrated on the intended effect. I didn't know what was right, but I wanted to use the Life symbol to guide only the pure essence away from the ghoul and into the Storage symbol, and I willed the Storage sign to only hold on to it and lose any contamination.

  I put my hand on the gored body, its skin smooth and dry under my touch. A shiver of revolution ran through me.

  "Drain," I used the trigger word to ease the spell.

  I first noticed how hard it was to maintain the three signs. I used Sight to closely monitor the flow in addition to Life and Storage.

  I burned my energy to guide the ghoul's essence. Thankfully, a lot more of it flowed in than I forfeited.

  It was a mistake to think of it as clean fuel and poison. It was how it felt when I looked at Thomas and his gang, yet in the ghoul, they were not separate but the same. The poison was a quality of the essence, not distinct contamination. Still, it was a quality I was trying to reject.

  The Ankh glowed steadily as I found my pace of using roughly as much energy as I naturally regenerated. The pentacle, on the other hand, was filling up nicely, the golden light in it gaining in depth and brightness.

  Minutes passed, and I noticed that it was taking me increasingly more effort to Store the energy. Like stacking up boxes, only to lift the stack by the bottom box to stock it on the following box. I was doing something wrong, but it was good enough for now.

  Another snag was the otherness in the ghoul. It was gaining in concentration the more I took.

  Finally, I stopped with enough left over for Kenny and explained everything I did.

  "Did it work?" I asked him.

  He moved his hands around me and above the pentacle.

  "I think it did," he cheered. "I was expecting to at least catch some contamination from the shade, but I can't find even that."

  "I hope it's because I got rid of it naturally by now and not because we are so bad at sensing the stuff," I replied with a frown.

  I consumed some of the sealed power to Restore myself. The pentacle sapped for about a fifth of its stores. The weight of the last day lifted from my shoulders, the Force training and the absence of sleep wholly negated in a matter of minutes after the hearty meal.

  "Oh, I can get used to that," I said, enjoying myself.

  Kenny started to Drain the ghoul in a similar fashion, containing the energy in a separate Shaped stone he had prepared beforehand. I looked in interest as the ghoul's appearance shrank and dried out. I felt that he was faster and less efficient than me, but everybody had their own style, I guess.

  "The genie is out of the bottle," I said when he finished. "It's only a matter of time before they blabber. We must get the most out of it as quickly as possible."

  Kenny didn't try to disagree.

  "We also need to warn them about the poison. They didn't know about it when they left," he added, as always looking out for others.

  But first—I remembered my talk with Victor—we had to prepare our bait.