Balthazar

by Claudia Gray

  “It really is a tough commute when the weather gets tough,” Tonia insisted. “And when you pull basketball duty during a blizzard—no fun.”

  Basketball duty, too? Great. Then again, just before he’d walked into Skye’s homeroom, Balthazar had heard her talking to a friend about going to a game tonight. That was reckless of her, but he could at least be sure to be there. “Speaking of which, I need to take my fair share. There’s a game tonight, isn’t there?”

  “Yes, but that’s okay. Nola and I have it, don’t we?” Tonia gave the track coach a rather fake grin; Nola didn’t bother smiling back. These two clearly didn’t even pretend to get along when a newcomer wasn’t in the room.

  “Take the night off,” Balthazar said. “I’ll go to the game, do my first shift.”

  Tonia’s face lit up, and too late he realized that he’d sounded like he was flirting with her. “Aren’t you sweet? Isn’t he the sweetest thing?”

  “Like a Snickers bar dipped in maple syrup,” said the algebra teacher dryly, with an acerbic glance in Tonia’s direction. “Good luck, More.”

  I’m going to need it, he thought.

  During the day’s classes, as the kids supposedly studied but mostly texted quietly, Balthazar reviewed some of what he’d be teaching this year. Ancient Civilizations: Well, that would take some work. He’d never been friendly with anybody from further back than about the eighth century AD. American Colonial History Honors Seminar, Skye’s class: piece of cake, so much so that he didn’t even bother flipping through the textbook. World War II Honors Seminar: Okay, doable. He’d just concentrate on the Pacific Theater, where he’d served his tour of duty. U.S. History, 1945–Present: been there, did that, had the T-shirt.

  It was odd to look out at all the roomfuls of students and think that he was supposed to be an authority figure for them. They looked roughly the same age he looked most of the time, and the four centuries he’d walked the earth did nothing to change the fact that, deep within, Balthazar felt that he was a teenager. He always had, always would. Vampires never truly changed, after death—they gained experience, gained knowledge, and yet their souls remained, like their bodies, frozen in time.

  And if there was any more proof that being a vampire was a form of damnation—well, Balthazar had never heard of a purer definition of hell than eternal adolescence.

  His final hour at school was to be spent supervising an actual study hall in the library, which turned out to be Skye’s study hall as well. As she walked in and saw him again, he had to turn his face away so as not to smile; it was going to be tough, pretending not to know each other every day.

  But that didn’t mean they couldn’t communicate, as demonstrated by the fact that, about three minutes after Skye sat at her table with a friend, his phone vibrated to tell him he had a message.

  He carefully slipped his phone in front of the Ancient Civilizations text he was reviewing to read: OK, I’ve been wondering. Why didn’t you just transfer in as a student? Then we could, you know, talk to each other during the day.

  NO WAY. I’ve tried real high schools several times in the past couple of centuries. They’re all horrible. Unless another version of Evernight Academy comes along, I’m done being a student forever. So I figured I’d try it on the other side.

  Doesn’t being a teacher suck even more than being a student? I mean, it looks like it would.

  That’s only because, most of the time, being a high school student is temporary, and being a teacher is permanent. In my case, that’s reversed.

  There was a long pause before Skye’s next text; she clearly was holding on to her phone, but thinking hard, perhaps unsure what to say. Balthazar stole a long glance at her across the library—a bright room with pale gray scrubby carpet that was still soft underfoot, posters with various celebrities who thought everyone should READ, and bright orange movable bookshelves all around. Skye sat at the end of a long white table, sunlight painting warmth into her deep brown hair. She had a delicate face—more delicate than he’d realized before, more than he’d been able to see when she wasn’t silent and still. Thick lashes visible even at this distance, pale skin that went rosy at her cheeks, and the elegant length of her throat—

  —and that was just one more reason why he had a No Humans rule. Thoughts like that. Balthazar breathed out sharply as his phone vibrated again.

  Are you really going to teach here every day until Mr. Lovejoy comes back?

  Or until we get rid of Redgrave. Whichever comes first. Until then, I’m on faculty. I’m even sitting in on basketball duty tonight, so you can go to the game with your friend. Check with me about that stuff first, will you? I would’ve thought last night would make it clear that we have to be careful here.

  I’ve been trying to get out of that all day! I wasn’t going to go. I don’t even want to.

  Damn, Balthazar thought. Now he had Tonia Loos hanging all over him and basketball duty, for no good reason. Obviously I’m the one who should’ve checked with you. Well, I’m stuck now. Can you go to the game anyway? I really don’t want to leave you alone more than necessary at this point.

  Skye looked more depressed by this than he would have anticipated—it was only a basketball game, wasn’t it? But she sent back, Sure. That means I’ve got to hang out with Madison at Café Keats until the game starts, though.

  I’ll make sure you get there safely, he promised.

  Then her red-haired friend—Madison, presumably—began whispering to her, and their conversation was on hold.

  Balthazar forced himself to stop watching Skye and to turn his attention to more critical matters. He was here to protect this girl; time to think less about the girl, more about the protection.

  Now that he’d made sure he would be near Skye most of the time, he knew he was in a good position to stop Redgrave if he came after her. Now he needed to go on the offensive. To figure out what Redgrave meant to do with Skye, and the quickest, best way of stopping him, permanently.

  Tailing Skye to Café Keats turned out not to be difficult. Balthazar was just one of several students and teachers who were headed toward the nearby Darby Glen town square; nobody would particularly notice that he happened to be about ten feet behind Skye and Madison at all times. There was a faster route to take to the center of town, a path that dipped into a small gorge but was perfectly walkable—but it was so severely ignored that he suspected it was considered uncool, somehow.

  Apparently Café Keats was a coffeehouse. It looked inviting—bright turquoise walls, bright white tables and chairs, and some kind of stage in the back complete with a dark red piano. Students were crowding in, but others had already claimed the best tables. The place was packed. Skye would be safe there; no matter how bold Redgrave might be, he was nowhere near the point of trying an attack anywhere so crowded.

  No, that would require getting Skye alone and Balthazar didn’t intend to give him that opportunity.

  For a moment, Balthazar watched Skye standing in line with her coffee, laughing with Madison, looking like the normal girl she deserved to be. He hoped she felt that way, at least for a while.

  Then he took off. Before he devoted himself to Skye’s protection full-time, he had one last logistical matter to handle.

  “You’re teaching at the high school?” said his new landlady, one Mrs. Findley. “My girl Madison’s a senior there.”

  “I think she’s in my first-period homeroom.” Balthazar wrote the check out without worrying about the amount; investing well over the past few centuries meant money was the least of his concerns. “But it shouldn’t be awkward. I keep to myself, mostly.”

  “And we’ll let you do that, never fear. Madison’s always out, and my husband and I let the tenants do what they like as long as we don’t hear screams or see fire.” Mrs. Findley obviously meant it as a joke, but Balthazar was uncomfortably aware that he couldn’t rule either of those possibilities out. “Here’s your key. Get yourself settled in, and let me know if you need anything.
”

  His new home was a carriage house, located far enough back from the Findley home that Balthazar could scarcely see it through the trees. Good. He’d have his privacy. Although the interior wasn’t of much interest to him, at least it was pleasant; the Findleys apparently normally rented it out to tourists who came to hike and sightsee in better weather, and so it was furnished with simple, older wooden furniture. Just three rooms—a small kitchen, a dated but shining clean bathroom, and a large bedroom with a gas fireplace and a huge four-poster bed. For honeymooners, he supposed. That bed was larger than their entire sleeping area had been in his childhood home.

  For a moment, the memory flared brighter in his mind. He remembered the fields of grass, Fido’s barking, the sound of Charity murmuring nonsense words in her sleep. He remembered the first time he’d seen Redgrave, and how suspicious he’d been. Yet not suspicious enough.

  Balthazar tossed his few things onto the bed and went back out, taking stock of his surroundings. If he’d judged the area correctly, he was within half a mile from Skye’s home—a distance he could cover quickly. He walked due south, past the Findley home and back into the woods, surer and surer that he was headed in the correct direction … then stopped.

  Between the Findleys’ home and the Tierneys’ was a river.

  No, not a river—a stream, but one large enough to still bubble with water despite the cold temperatures. Balthazar knew this because he could feel the deep, illogical and yet irresistible dread any vampire felt near running water.

  I can’t cross this, he thought—then immediately rejected that idea. He could cross it. If he had to, he would. It just wouldn’t be easy. Crossing any kind of river or stream was, for a vampire, unpleasant at best, paralyzing at worst.

  He imagined looking across the river and seeing her as he had that first evening, riding in the afternoon light. The sunset light now was much the same, and he could picture Skye perfectly: her alert gaze, the set of her shoulders, the outlines of her slim legs against the blackness of her horse. If she were over there, in trouble…

  Yes. He could cross the water.

  Resolved, Balthazar turned back so that he could begin the journey back to school for the basketball game. After a few steps, though, he realized that he wasn’t alone.

  Constantia stood among the trees, so tall that she seemed to belong to the forest, so ethereal and mysterious, he wondered if she was an illusion. He hated that he still felt a twinge of longing at the sight of her. She watched him quietly, hands in the pockets of her long coat, saying nothing. Instinctively he understood that she hadn’t come here to fight him, that Redgrave’s tribe had no interest in hurting him when he wasn’t standing between them and Skye.

  No, then their interest in him was far more insidious.

  “Following me?” Balthazar said. “I thought you’d given that up.”

  “You’re a bit of a bore.” Constantia’s voice held a curl of laughter; her eyes, as always, half mocked him, half devoured. “I keep waiting for you to start being fun, Balthazar. The first century or so, it was worth the wait. These days, not so much. Being near you is like trying to make wet tinder catch flame.”

  “Starting a fire requires a spark we don’t have.”

  Her thin-lipped smile could be unspeakably cruel. “The first century and a half we knew each other—you didn’t seem to think so.”

  Balthazar bit back a surge of anger. Constantia’s selfish, thoughtless desires had led her to beg Redgrave for a toy. And he’d made her one—Balthazar himself. He’d been killed for her. His life, his mortality, perhaps his very soul: They’d all been destroyed to make her a young vampire plaything.

  He tried to stay focused. “If you’re not here to kill me, then why are you here, Constantia?”

  “I’m here to explain how much easier it would be if you’d give up this—stubborn independence of yours and rejoin us.”

  “You can’t seriously believe that will ever happen.”

  “You still don’t see what the girl is.”

  This was his chance to find out what they wanted, though he would have to be cagey about it. Asking her outright would only make her laugh in his face. “How do you know Redgrave isn’t selling you more of his lies?”

  “Lorenzo tasted her blood. Then he let us drink from him.”

  She said no more; she didn’t have to. Between vampires, blood drinking was a way of communicating that went infinitely deeper than words—the taste of another vampire’s blood let you experience his life, his emotions, even his pleasure. Balthazar had learned that by drinking Constantia’s blood and tasting her desire for him, which had flowed into him until he had no choice but to desire her in turn. By sharing his blood, Lorenzo had made certain that every vampire knew Skye was worth pursuing. And Balthazar was still no closer to figuring out why.

  She continued, “You’re being given a chance, Balthazar. Redgrave doesn’t give many second chances. Think long and hard before you waste it.” Constantia began strolling away, her feet crunching in the snow, maddeningly confident. As she went, she called back over her shoulder, “By the way, ‘ever’ is a very long time.”

  Chapter Ten

  ON GOOD DAYS AT CAFÉ KEATS, LOCAL BANDS would get up and jam for hours. On bad days, people who thought they were talented got up and proved themselves wrong. Skye and Madison didn’t agree on which kind of day this was.

  “How old is she? Like, eighty?” Madison rolled her eyes as she licked a bit of the whipped cream from the top of her drink.

  “Probably. What does it matter?” Skye stole another glance at the white-haired woman sitting at the red piano, gently picking out a slow, melancholy version of “You Really Got a Hold on Me.” It was an old song, but one she liked. “I mean, I hope I’m getting out and having fun when I’m her age. And she can really play. So why not?”

  “I prefer music from this century,” Madison insisted. After another sip of whipped cream, she said, “Listen, about tonight—the game—I only realized at the end of the day how that’s kind of awkward for you. What with Craig and everything.”

  “I’ll be okay.” She kind of had to be, now that Balthazar was going there to guard her. Skye sensed it would be easier to sit through one of Craig’s games with Balthazar as a distraction.

  “We’ll sit far away from that girlfriend of his. I can’t stand her. She’s just—vacant, you know? Like, the lights are on but nobody’s home.”

  That was clearly an invitation to bitch about Britnee, but Skye didn’t feel like it. Shrugging, she said, “I didn’t really think about them as much today. Maybe I’m getting over him a little. I don’t know.”

  Madison’s face brightened with mischief. “I know. You were too busy thinking about our sexy new sub.” Skye felt her face going warm, and she must have blushed, because Madison cackled with laughter. “You were! Somebody’s hot for teacher.”

  “I’m not hot for—” That was a lie. But telling the truth was out of the question. “Okay, he’s good-looking. I noticed. And so did you.”

  “True, true.” Madison draped her legs over the side of the chintz armchair she was sitting in; they’d gotten the good table with the cozy chairs in the far corner by the poetry board. “Mr. More seems young. Like, really young. I bet he hasn’t been out of college for long.”

  A few centuries or so, actually. “Looks that way.”

  “So that means he’s only about four or five years older than us.” Deep in thought, Madison licked the edge of her spoon. “If you ask me, that’s close enough to date.”

  “But he’s a teacher.” Plus he’s a vampire, which I bet you would never be able to handle. “That’s against the rules.”

  “I never heard of that rule.”

  “Why would you hear about it? Who else are we going to date? Coach Haladki? Mr. Bollinger?” Skye made a face at the thought.

  “Mr. Bollinger would be more interested in Mr. More than in us. We might have to fight him off if we want a piece.” Madison gave Skye
a hopeful look. “Do you think Mr. More’s the kind of guy who breaks the rules?”

  Laughing, Skye wadded up her paper napkin and tossed it at Madison. “Stop it.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You’re not fooling anybody. And I’m going to write a poem.”

  Writing poems at the poetry board was a tradition at Café Keats. Most people tried to do something cute or funny; the occasional obscene drawing was quickly wiped by a barista. Every once in a while, one of the poems would actually be good, and that would get to stay up for a few weeks or even months. Skye, no writer, just wanted a few seconds where she wouldn’t have to listen to jokes about Craig or Balthazar.

  Though she did want to think about Balthazar—

  He’s my teacher now. Does that matter? The rules about the other teachers don’t exactly apply to him. I mean, we were in English class together six weeks ago.

  Skye understood that Balthazar wouldn’t consider getting involved with any of the other students. But did she have a chance with him? There had been moments when she’d felt his eyes on her, known he was drawn to her … but only moments.

  Briefly the memory of Bianca glimmered in her mind, aquamarine and ethereal, but it faded just as quickly.

  No, whatever happened between Skye and Balthazar in the future wouldn’t be about Bianca. It would be only about them.

  Also, he’s a vampire. Undead. Blood-drinking. Fang- … um, fang-having. What would that even mean for us, if we got together?

  She wasn’t at all sure about that. But she’d spent the last two and a half years surrounded by vampires, however unknowingly; for the most part, they acted like people. Arrogant, sometimes ruthless people, but still. Skye knew that if she’d learned Balthazar was a vampire when she’d first met him, she might never have wanted to get to know him better; now, however, this was just one more aspect of the supernatural strangeness surrounding her, one more quality he had that was as tantalizing as it was dangerous.