Balthazar (34 page)

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 breasts 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.”

He had to stretch this out a little longer. Besides, he truly wanted to know: “Why would you ever turn against Redgrave?”

“You're not the only one who got murdered, you know.” Constantia stared into the distance for a moment before throwing back another swallow of her drink. “Did that ever sink into your self-absorbed mind? Some of us hide our resentment better than you do. You were always a guy who wore his heart on his sleeve, Balthazar. Me—I take my time. I choose my moment. And the moment is now. He's never played for higher stakes; that means he's never been more vulnerable.”

Balthazar let his inner turmoil show on his face, the better to weigh his words with the proper reluctance. “It seems inevitable—with so many vampires after her, they're going to get her blood one way or the other. I just can't believe this is the only way out. But it is, isn't it?”

“I knew you'd see sense!” Constantia leaned closer. “Or is it just that you're past ready to slice off Redgrave's head and throw it in the nearest river?”

“That would be a side benefit.”

She laughed—a rich laugh, husky and sensual. “They're taking her to Redgrave's hideout. You'll never guess where—I'm sure you looked—well, it's the old church on Holland Avenue.”

“A church?” Churches repelled vampires; Balthazar couldn't have searched the churches in town even if it had ever occurred to him. “How is that possible?”

“Desanctified.” Constantia's grin widened. The unsteady light from the television above the bar painted her face and blond hair in different shades, second to second. “Something ghastly happened there—I'll spare you the details, since you were always the squeamish type. Anyway, it's about as holy as a McDonald's. Let's go there. You explain to Skye how we're going to handle this. Sweet-talk her. You know how. And we take Redgrave out forever, claim Skye for ourselves.”

Balthazar tilted his face toward her—not suggestively close, but not far short of it. “Just one thing, Constantia. Which part of this do I need you for?”

“If you could take Redgrave out on your own, you'd have done it by now. So would I. Together, we have the chance neither of us had alone. After that? You'll stand by the bargain, because that's the kind of sap you are.”

Drifting still closer to her as his fingers closed around the scotch bottle as if to pour again, he said, “You might be right.” Then he smashed the bottle into the side of her head.

Constantia collapsed, unconscious. “Hey!” the bartender yelled. This place didn't have high standards, but apparently knocking women out during happy hour was beyond the pale. “Hey, what are you trying to do?”

Balthazar went for the door, pointing at the bill Constantia had left on the bar. “Keep the change.”

As soon as he was out, he took off—pushing himself into a run, faster again, then faster, as hard as he'd ever driven himself, praying against hope that he'd reach Skye in time.

SKYE WALKED OUT OF HER HOUSE WITHOUT THE vampires laying a hand on her.

Redgrave had her, utterly, completely. In whatever spell he could weave that controlled her actions, he pulled her forward. With one hand on the banister, she carefully descended the stairs, the vampires behind her mocking her powerlessness. She struggled with all of her strength—and yet she remained trapped within the meek, pliant shell Redgrave had sealed her in.

As she walked, she could hear her phone chiming—she had a text from someone, probably Balthazar—but she was as unable to answer it as she was to do anything else of her own free will.

The effect wore off once she was in the van, but by then it was too late. Vampires sat on either side of her, their clawlike hands clamped around her arms, and the one behind the wheel was taking them toward the highway.

“Where are we going?” she demanded.

“My dear, does that matter?” Redgrave rode shotgun. He carelessly yanked the copper key from around his neck and tossed it into the tray between the two front seats. “Soon it will make very little difference to you where you are. Or who you are. It's enough to say that we're going to a stronghold of mine only a few hours away. Once we're there—you'll see.”