With a growl, the Dark One lifted his hand to wipe the little gnat away, and Yehuda Leib, shying back, found himself clutching instinctively at the light in his pocket.

The Dark One stopped, his hand high in the air. “What have you got in your pocket?”

Yehuda Leib swallowed. “Nothing.”

The Dark One’s cold eyes twinkled like stars in the frigid sky. “Don’t lie to me.”

Yehuda Leib shook his head quickly. “It’s nothing.”

“Do you wish to know what happened to the Rebbe, Yehuda Leib?” said the Dark One, the sound of a sick grin creeping into his voice. “My bare finger—this one here—caught on the hem of his prayer shawl. That alone was sufficient to fell a man as holy and as potent as he.”

Yehuda Leib was still clutching at his glowing pocket. “You can’t have it.”

“You are meddling with powers you cannot possibly comprehend,” said the Dark One, shaking his head. “Give him to me, boy. Now.”

Yehuda Leib could feel the cold brick wall against his back. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run.

“You’ll have to kill me first,” said Yehuda Leib.

“Ha!” said the Dark One. “Do not tempt me.”

“I mean it,” said Yehuda Leib.

The Dark One shook his head. “Perhaps you do,” he said. “But you have no idea what it is that you mean.”

All of a sudden, Yehuda Leib found that he could not speak without screaming. “I know perfectly well!” he said, tears stinging his eyes. “I watched him die!”

Now the Dark One lost all patience. “And still you continue to meddle! Do you realize that if you hadn’t run from Tupik, your father would still be alive? Do you not realize that he died because of you?”

“Liar!” Yehuda Leib lunged forward, fists swinging blindly in the swimming of his tears.

If, in taking hold of Yehuda Leib, the Dark One’s bare hands had come into contact with even so much as a thread of his clothing, our story would’ve ended here; it was only by Yehuda Leib’s very good fortune that the Dark One managed to cover his hands with his sleeves in time.

But it did not feel like good fortune at all.

With icy fury, the Dark One lifted Yehuda Leib from the ground and slammed him hard against the brick wall. His mouth was beside the boy’s ear, his body close and cold, and Yehuda Leib could smell him: rot and vodka, and a million years of open road.

“I never lie, Yehuda Leib,” he whispered. “Never. And I shall prove it to you. These shall be your final moments: You will be alone. And you will be frightened. Nothing and no one will come forth to save you. And when your time comes, you shall look me in the face, and you shall tell me that I was right.”