Balthazar
Page 37
“Oh, it’s something,” said Redgrave as he pushed open her bedroom door.
Skye screamed and flung herself backward, but there was nowhere to run. Charity was with him, and two other vampires, three, four—oh, God, how many were there? “How did you get in?” she cried.
“Once our dear Miss More joined us, and finally learned what was keeping us from paying you another call, she was kind enough to tell us that certain charms can repel the wraiths. Apparently her last, brief stay at Evernight Academy was highly instructive.” Redgrave lifted a chain from around his neck, from which dangled a copper key. “The wraiths loathe certain metals. Won’t come near a surplus of them. So we came with a surplus. But don’t worry, we’ll be leaving shortly. And you’ll be leaving with us.”
He stepped closer, and once again she felt that shroud descend over her—the one that wouldn’t let her move except as he wished. Skye could only stand still as Redgrave stroked her hair and said, “I did warn you, my dear. You’ve made your choice. And now it begins.” He leaned so close that his lips nearly brushed her cheek. “You’re mine.”
Chapter Twenty-five
BALTHAZAR DITCHED THE COUNSELING SESSION as fast as he could while appearing cooperative; the last thing he needed was for Zaslow to decide he should be questioned some more. As soon as he walked out, he heard the final school bell, and the hallways and quad were instantly flooded with students. He hurried through them as quickly as he could, heading toward his car. Reaching Skye as soon as possible was his only goal.
Even as he reached into his pocket, though, he noticed that several of the students—mostly the girls, but several of the guys, too—were looking at him in ill-disguised fascination, or whispering about him as they passed by. In the clamor of school letting out, he wasn’t sure what they were saying, but he had an idea … and was pretty sure Madison Findley got it started.
Gossip wasn’t his biggest problem at the moment. He picked up his cell to see that he had a message from Skye, sent a while ago: Redgrave called me. He was talking like whatever it is he’s going to do, he’s going to do it soon. Tomorrow, maybe. Let me know as soon as you’re free.
Quickly he texted Skye, I’m out of there. Are you all right? I’m headed your way.
Just as he pressed Send, someone stepped in front of him, blocking his path. Balthazar looked up to see Madison Findley standing there, all innocence, made-up and smelling strongly of perfume. “Mr. More?” she breathlessly said. “I just wanted to let you know—what people are saying—well, I for one totally believe in you.”
He gave her a look that showed more of his true power—more of his nearly four hundred years on earth—than he normally showed any mortal. She couldn’t have understood what that really meant, but her face paled slightly. “What are people saying, Madison?” Balthazar leaned slightly closer, the predator in him close to the surface. “Since you seem to know.”
“I didn’t mean to—well—it’s not my place to say,” she finally managed to get out.
Did she think she was fooling anyone with that act? He said only, “I’m leaving now, Madison. Excuse me.” Then he stepped past her, giving her distance, as if she were a pile of trash to be avoided.
When he looked down at his phone again on the edge of the parking lot, he saw that Skye hadn’t responded.
It had been a whole two to three minutes, at most.
Skye wouldn’t fail to answer instantly today unless—unless something was preventing her from answering.
Or someone.
Balthazar swung into his car and gunned the motor. If any students got in his way while he drove out, he’d just fulfill Nola Haladki’s dream and run a few over.
As he tore through the streets of Darby Glen, tires squealing on the asphalt, Balthazar kept glancing at his phone, as if somehow he’d missed its chime. It never blinked. No messages.
At one stoplight, he hastily typed, Skye? Did you get my last message? Are you OK?
She didn’t reply to that one either.
Balthazar drove even faster, almost blind to the road or anything else—which is why it shouldn’t have been so surprising when he zipped into an intersection at the same moment another car did.
For one split second it rushed toward him—this looming mass of metal—and then the shattering power of impact. The world turned into the sound of tearing steel, and glittering shards of broken glass.
After that, for several long moments, it was hard to say exactly what happened when. Balthazar knew that his car flipped and rolled. He knew that he was suspended upside down by his seat belt for a few seconds that still lasted too long. Although he could taste blood in his mouth, the wreck had done nothing very severe to his resilient vampire body.
But the other driver—
Jesus Christ, Balthazar thought, coming back to himself as he struggled to open the door with it upside down. I wanted to get to Skye, but I didn’t want to hurt some innocent person. Or kill them—please, not that.
He managed to push his way out onto the days-old snow, which had turned black from dirt and soot along the roadway. The intersection wasn’t a busy one, at least; only the two cars were damaged, though both of them appeared to be nearly totaled. Each of them was now a twisted, smoldering hulk on the side of the road. His Ancient Civilizations text lay in the dead center of the intersection, open to an illustration of the pyramids. The only structure nearby was a junky bar farther down the road that looked as if it had a shady clientele; though most bars wouldn’t have been open yet at this hour, neon signs in the window proclaimed different beer brands as the best. Nobody had ventured out to see what the ruckus was, though; the wreck must have been distant enough not to be heard inside.
All of this flooded into Balthazar’s mind unfiltered, slightly disjointed. He must have struck his head—not badly, but enough to shake him for a second. As he struggled to his feet, he saw someone walking toward him—the other driver, it had to be, thank God she was okay—
Then he saw who it was.
“Constantia,” Balthazar said. He realized that he hadn’t had a stop sign at the intersection; he’d done nothing wrong to cause the wreck. “You rammed me.”
“It looked like the only way to get you to stop. I had to do some wild driving just to catch up with you.” She smiled at him, maddeningly confident despite the bloody scratches across her cheek, or the splinters of dashboard glass scattered across her jeans and olive-green coat. “In a hurry?”
“Where’s Redgrave?”
Constantia’s smile became even more smug. “Where you’d most like to be, I think.”
That meant, with Skye.
His car was beyond driving, now or ever again. He’d have to run the rest of the way. But he was within a mile of her house—it wouldn’t take long. “Get out of my way,” he said.
“I think it’s past time for me to be in your way,” Constantia said.
Balthazar reached inside his jacket—no, he’d lost the stake at the Valentine’s Dance. So he’d have to improvise. He snapped a short branch off a nearby tree, never dropping eye contact with Constantia. “It’s past time for us to settle this.”
She laughed at him. “Think about it, would you? You’re so desperate to reach Skye in time. Well, it’s too late for that. Redgrave has her. What you need to know is what’s going to happen next. I’m willing to tell you.”
Did he believe her? To his horror, he did. At times like this, Constantia didn’t bluff. “Are you saying you’ll help me?”
“And all it will cost you is one drink.” She nodded toward the bar. “C’mon, Balthazar. For old times’ sake.”
As if the old times had been any better than these. But if Constantia was telling the truth—and he suspected she was—getting more information was probably the best thing he could do. “Five minutes,” he said. “Tops.”
“Ten minutes, and you buy the drinks.”
“If it’s ten minutes, you’re buying.”
“Fine.” Constantia laughed again. When she was happy, and thought herself in control, she could be such a beautiful woman. “Ten minutes and the booze is on me.”
The bar was even more decrepit on the inside. Avocado-green linoleum on the floor seemed to have been laid down in the 1970s, which Balthazar suspected was also the last time it had been mopped. Only a handful of other customers were in there, all men, all reeking of tobacco, alcohol, or other, more highly controlled, substances. Eighties heavy metal blared from the jukebox; no wonder nobody had heard the wreck. A few of the men gave Constantia hungry looks, but as soon as she looked back, they seemed to understand that it was time to turn their heads and study something else.
Constantia spoke to the bartender, ample br**sts snug on the bar, a bill folded between two of her fingers; all of this guaranteed his attention. “This guy usually prefers red wine, but here, I think he’d like … a scotch. Straight. I’ll have a shot of tequila.”
“You’ve changed your drink,” Balthazar said.
“Good absinthe’s not as easy to come by, these days. They finally sell it again, but they’ve stripped the hallucinogens out. So what’s the point?” Constantia smiled at him, warm and inviting, the same way she’d looked at him countless times in the centuries between them. Despite her cruelty and her petty need for vengeance, she was beautiful, vital, and witty. Had she not orchestrated his murder, and Charity’s, Balthazar might have truly cared for her.
As it was, he said only, “You never give up, do you?”
“On you? I’m glad to see you have enough ego to assume my only possible motivation could be jumping your bones again.” The bartender slid her shot in front of her, and she gulped it back in one smooth motion. “I’ve moved on to bigger game now.”
Balthazar was wild to reach Skye, to find out what was happening to her, but he knew the only way to get that information was to let Constantia play it her way. “And what’s that?”
Constantia leaned closer to him, and in the avid, hungry gleam of her eyes, he could see flickers of the Teutonic warrior-woman she’d been in the thirteenth century. “Redgrave. It’s time to finish him. My suggestion? We take Redgrave on together, like you suggested back in 1918. I knew you didn’t really mean it then, and that’s why I didn’t listen, but you were righter than either of us realized. That wasn’t the best opportunity, though. This is.”
It was only one of many shocks he’d received that day, but in some ways it was the greatest. Redgrave and Constantia had been together when he met them; their alliance had continued from centuries before Balthazar’s birth to now. Constantia turning on Redgrave was like the moon turning on the sun. “You can’t mean it.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“He’s right about Skye,” she said. “As soon as I tasted Lorenzo’s blood and knew what he’d experienced through her, I realized the potential. The vampires are already massing. They’ll do whatever they have to do just for a taste.”
“So how do we stop it?”
Constantia stared at him. “We don’t. We use it for ourselves.”
Incredulously, he stared at her for a long moment before he could speak. When the bartender put his scotch in front of him, Balthazar found his first words, “Give me the whole bottle.”
As it slid across the bar to him, Constantia said, “Don’t reject it out of hand.”
“If you think I’d ever put her through that—”
“What would you be putting her through, Balthazar? She adores you. Skye’s sweet teenage putty in your hands. Just get her to give a pint every six weeks. Standard blood donation. That would be more than enough for you and me to claim power over Redgrave. Over anyone. Skye won’t even mind, not if she’s doing it for you.” Constantia gave him a sidelong glance. “And I promise not to be jealous. Though maybe you’ll let me watch occasionally? For old times’ sake.”
Skye screamed and flung herself backward, but there was nowhere to run. Charity was with him, and two other vampires, three, four—oh, God, how many were there? “How did you get in?” she cried.
“Once our dear Miss More joined us, and finally learned what was keeping us from paying you another call, she was kind enough to tell us that certain charms can repel the wraiths. Apparently her last, brief stay at Evernight Academy was highly instructive.” Redgrave lifted a chain from around his neck, from which dangled a copper key. “The wraiths loathe certain metals. Won’t come near a surplus of them. So we came with a surplus. But don’t worry, we’ll be leaving shortly. And you’ll be leaving with us.”
He stepped closer, and once again she felt that shroud descend over her—the one that wouldn’t let her move except as he wished. Skye could only stand still as Redgrave stroked her hair and said, “I did warn you, my dear. You’ve made your choice. And now it begins.” He leaned so close that his lips nearly brushed her cheek. “You’re mine.”
Chapter Twenty-five
BALTHAZAR DITCHED THE COUNSELING SESSION as fast as he could while appearing cooperative; the last thing he needed was for Zaslow to decide he should be questioned some more. As soon as he walked out, he heard the final school bell, and the hallways and quad were instantly flooded with students. He hurried through them as quickly as he could, heading toward his car. Reaching Skye as soon as possible was his only goal.
Even as he reached into his pocket, though, he noticed that several of the students—mostly the girls, but several of the guys, too—were looking at him in ill-disguised fascination, or whispering about him as they passed by. In the clamor of school letting out, he wasn’t sure what they were saying, but he had an idea … and was pretty sure Madison Findley got it started.
Gossip wasn’t his biggest problem at the moment. He picked up his cell to see that he had a message from Skye, sent a while ago: Redgrave called me. He was talking like whatever it is he’s going to do, he’s going to do it soon. Tomorrow, maybe. Let me know as soon as you’re free.
Quickly he texted Skye, I’m out of there. Are you all right? I’m headed your way.
Just as he pressed Send, someone stepped in front of him, blocking his path. Balthazar looked up to see Madison Findley standing there, all innocence, made-up and smelling strongly of perfume. “Mr. More?” she breathlessly said. “I just wanted to let you know—what people are saying—well, I for one totally believe in you.”
He gave her a look that showed more of his true power—more of his nearly four hundred years on earth—than he normally showed any mortal. She couldn’t have understood what that really meant, but her face paled slightly. “What are people saying, Madison?” Balthazar leaned slightly closer, the predator in him close to the surface. “Since you seem to know.”
“I didn’t mean to—well—it’s not my place to say,” she finally managed to get out.
Did she think she was fooling anyone with that act? He said only, “I’m leaving now, Madison. Excuse me.” Then he stepped past her, giving her distance, as if she were a pile of trash to be avoided.
When he looked down at his phone again on the edge of the parking lot, he saw that Skye hadn’t responded.
It had been a whole two to three minutes, at most.
Skye wouldn’t fail to answer instantly today unless—unless something was preventing her from answering.
Or someone.
Balthazar swung into his car and gunned the motor. If any students got in his way while he drove out, he’d just fulfill Nola Haladki’s dream and run a few over.
As he tore through the streets of Darby Glen, tires squealing on the asphalt, Balthazar kept glancing at his phone, as if somehow he’d missed its chime. It never blinked. No messages.
At one stoplight, he hastily typed, Skye? Did you get my last message? Are you OK?
She didn’t reply to that one either.
Balthazar drove even faster, almost blind to the road or anything else—which is why it shouldn’t have been so surprising when he zipped into an intersection at the same moment another car did.
For one split second it rushed toward him—this looming mass of metal—and then the shattering power of impact. The world turned into the sound of tearing steel, and glittering shards of broken glass.
After that, for several long moments, it was hard to say exactly what happened when. Balthazar knew that his car flipped and rolled. He knew that he was suspended upside down by his seat belt for a few seconds that still lasted too long. Although he could taste blood in his mouth, the wreck had done nothing very severe to his resilient vampire body.
But the other driver—
Jesus Christ, Balthazar thought, coming back to himself as he struggled to open the door with it upside down. I wanted to get to Skye, but I didn’t want to hurt some innocent person. Or kill them—please, not that.
He managed to push his way out onto the days-old snow, which had turned black from dirt and soot along the roadway. The intersection wasn’t a busy one, at least; only the two cars were damaged, though both of them appeared to be nearly totaled. Each of them was now a twisted, smoldering hulk on the side of the road. His Ancient Civilizations text lay in the dead center of the intersection, open to an illustration of the pyramids. The only structure nearby was a junky bar farther down the road that looked as if it had a shady clientele; though most bars wouldn’t have been open yet at this hour, neon signs in the window proclaimed different beer brands as the best. Nobody had ventured out to see what the ruckus was, though; the wreck must have been distant enough not to be heard inside.
All of this flooded into Balthazar’s mind unfiltered, slightly disjointed. He must have struck his head—not badly, but enough to shake him for a second. As he struggled to his feet, he saw someone walking toward him—the other driver, it had to be, thank God she was okay—
Then he saw who it was.
“Constantia,” Balthazar said. He realized that he hadn’t had a stop sign at the intersection; he’d done nothing wrong to cause the wreck. “You rammed me.”
“It looked like the only way to get you to stop. I had to do some wild driving just to catch up with you.” She smiled at him, maddeningly confident despite the bloody scratches across her cheek, or the splinters of dashboard glass scattered across her jeans and olive-green coat. “In a hurry?”
“Where’s Redgrave?”
Constantia’s smile became even more smug. “Where you’d most like to be, I think.”
That meant, with Skye.
His car was beyond driving, now or ever again. He’d have to run the rest of the way. But he was within a mile of her house—it wouldn’t take long. “Get out of my way,” he said.
“I think it’s past time for me to be in your way,” Constantia said.
Balthazar reached inside his jacket—no, he’d lost the stake at the Valentine’s Dance. So he’d have to improvise. He snapped a short branch off a nearby tree, never dropping eye contact with Constantia. “It’s past time for us to settle this.”
She laughed at him. “Think about it, would you? You’re so desperate to reach Skye in time. Well, it’s too late for that. Redgrave has her. What you need to know is what’s going to happen next. I’m willing to tell you.”
Did he believe her? To his horror, he did. At times like this, Constantia didn’t bluff. “Are you saying you’ll help me?”
“And all it will cost you is one drink.” She nodded toward the bar. “C’mon, Balthazar. For old times’ sake.”
As if the old times had been any better than these. But if Constantia was telling the truth—and he suspected she was—getting more information was probably the best thing he could do. “Five minutes,” he said. “Tops.”
“Ten minutes, and you buy the drinks.”
“If it’s ten minutes, you’re buying.”
“Fine.” Constantia laughed again. When she was happy, and thought herself in control, she could be such a beautiful woman. “Ten minutes and the booze is on me.”
The bar was even more decrepit on the inside. Avocado-green linoleum on the floor seemed to have been laid down in the 1970s, which Balthazar suspected was also the last time it had been mopped. Only a handful of other customers were in there, all men, all reeking of tobacco, alcohol, or other, more highly controlled, substances. Eighties heavy metal blared from the jukebox; no wonder nobody had heard the wreck. A few of the men gave Constantia hungry looks, but as soon as she looked back, they seemed to understand that it was time to turn their heads and study something else.
Constantia spoke to the bartender, ample br**sts snug on the bar, a bill folded between two of her fingers; all of this guaranteed his attention. “This guy usually prefers red wine, but here, I think he’d like … a scotch. Straight. I’ll have a shot of tequila.”
“You’ve changed your drink,” Balthazar said.
“Good absinthe’s not as easy to come by, these days. They finally sell it again, but they’ve stripped the hallucinogens out. So what’s the point?” Constantia smiled at him, warm and inviting, the same way she’d looked at him countless times in the centuries between them. Despite her cruelty and her petty need for vengeance, she was beautiful, vital, and witty. Had she not orchestrated his murder, and Charity’s, Balthazar might have truly cared for her.
As it was, he said only, “You never give up, do you?”
“On you? I’m glad to see you have enough ego to assume my only possible motivation could be jumping your bones again.” The bartender slid her shot in front of her, and she gulped it back in one smooth motion. “I’ve moved on to bigger game now.”
Balthazar was wild to reach Skye, to find out what was happening to her, but he knew the only way to get that information was to let Constantia play it her way. “And what’s that?”
Constantia leaned closer to him, and in the avid, hungry gleam of her eyes, he could see flickers of the Teutonic warrior-woman she’d been in the thirteenth century. “Redgrave. It’s time to finish him. My suggestion? We take Redgrave on together, like you suggested back in 1918. I knew you didn’t really mean it then, and that’s why I didn’t listen, but you were righter than either of us realized. That wasn’t the best opportunity, though. This is.”
It was only one of many shocks he’d received that day, but in some ways it was the greatest. Redgrave and Constantia had been together when he met them; their alliance had continued from centuries before Balthazar’s birth to now. Constantia turning on Redgrave was like the moon turning on the sun. “You can’t mean it.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“He’s right about Skye,” she said. “As soon as I tasted Lorenzo’s blood and knew what he’d experienced through her, I realized the potential. The vampires are already massing. They’ll do whatever they have to do just for a taste.”
“So how do we stop it?”
Constantia stared at him. “We don’t. We use it for ourselves.”
Incredulously, he stared at her for a long moment before he could speak. When the bartender put his scotch in front of him, Balthazar found his first words, “Give me the whole bottle.”
As it slid across the bar to him, Constantia said, “Don’t reject it out of hand.”
“If you think I’d ever put her through that—”
“What would you be putting her through, Balthazar? She adores you. Skye’s sweet teenage putty in your hands. Just get her to give a pint every six weeks. Standard blood donation. That would be more than enough for you and me to claim power over Redgrave. Over anyone. Skye won’t even mind, not if she’s doing it for you.” Constantia gave him a sidelong glance. “And I promise not to be jealous. Though maybe you’ll let me watch occasionally? For old times’ sake.”
