Balthazar

by Claudia Gray

  Yet the mere thought of Keith’s hands on Skye’s lithe body made Balthazar furious with jealousy.

  For one moment, he couldn’t see the road in front of him, even his hands clenched on the steering wheel. All he saw was his dark vision of Skye lifting her face for someone else’s kiss—

  And that was the moment someone walked into the road in front of his car.

  He shouted in wordless horror at the thump of his car striking flesh and bone. Even as he slammed on the brakes, sending his car careering into the thicker snow alongside the road, the body was flung up onto the hood, onto his windshield, limp and in tatters. For a moment he could only stare, aghast, at the crumpled form that lay in front of the windshield. Then, slowly, his victim lifted her head to stare through the glass at him.

  “Gotcha,” Charity said, before bursting into peals of laughter.

  Balthazar slammed his fists against the steering wheel in frustration. “Jesus, Charity! You scared the hell out of me.”

  She grinned at him, wriggling with pleasure as if she were a little girl telling riddles again. “Just think! If it had been a human, you could’ve eaten it! And no guilt about biting that one at all.”

  “Your idea of guilt and mine are very different.”

  Her expression darkened. “They are, aren’t they?”

  Balthazar got out of the car. His feet sank in loose, powdery snow almost up to his knees. The darkness around them was nearly total, and by now almost nobody else was foolish enough to be out on the road. He and Charity were alone. Her white dress and pale hair made her appear to be part of the snowstorm around them.

  “You’ve gone back to Redgrave,” he said. “Thought you had your own tribe.”

  “I do. They’re with me. But you never forget your first love, do you?”

  Once again he remembered the barn where he’d drawn his last breath as a living man, and how slick with blood and gore it had been when he’d finished murdering her. No moment in his existence had greater horror than the one when he’d seen Charity dead by his hand—lying next to his first love, the woman he’d tried to save by sacrificing his sister. Tried and failed.

  Charity was thinking of it, too. Her high, youthful voice shook, as if from the cold. “Why do you never choose me? Why am I never the one you want to save?”

  “Why do you always choose to go back to Redgrave? How can you be on his side after what he did to both of us?”

  “Redgrave only killed you,” she spat back. “You’re the one who murdered me!”

  They’d had this argument before—hundreds of times, over hundreds of years. This was Balthazar’s cue to retort that he’d been given no choice, that she knew how it was, that she would have died one way or the other before that night was through. Would she rather be poor Jane?

  But this time was different. Because this time, he’d been back there. He’d relived it, as vividly and immediately as he had experienced those events the first time. This time, Balthazar finally understood.

  Charity wasn’t asking him why he hadn’t somehow managed to save them all from Redgrave’s clutches.

  She was asking why he hadn’t done her the mercy of allowing her to be the one who died.

  Jane had a chance, he’d told himself. Charity didn’t. Charity’s spirit and soul had already been broken.

  But that was why he should have killed her. Had Jane been a vampire—maybe she would’ve been a killer like Redgrave, because the change transformed people in every possible sense, but maybe she would’ve been like Balthazar or the other vampires of Evernight. Sane. Reasonable. At any rate, her choices would’ve been her own.

  By turning Charity into a vampire, Balthazar had ensured that she would remain trapped in the labyrinthine chambers of her own insanity for all time.

  Balthazar said, “I’m sorry.”

  “You always say—”

  He sank to his knees in the snow and looked up at her. The gesture silenced her beyond any words he’d ever spoken.

  All the same, he spoke. “Charity, if I could go back, I’d do it all differently. If Redgrave told me again to choose one of you to turn, I’d walk to you and snap your neck myself. I’d let you go along with Mom and Dad. I’d let it be over. I would set you free. What I did to you I live with every single day, and even though you don’t see it, I swear to God, it’s as bad as the fate I made for you.”

  She only became angrier. “You can’t go back! There’s no wishing for it, because I wish and I wish—” Charity wiped angrily at her face with the back of her hand; it was the first time Balthazar realized she’d begun crying. “We’re vampires now. Both of us. We always will be. So there’s no such thing as ‘Redgrave’s side’ or ‘our side.’ We’re on the same side, forever. Thanks to you.”

  Balthazar didn’t rise. The snow was already thick on his shoulders and the front of his coat. His car’s headlights showed him that Charity’s feet were bare and raw. “It’s not as simple as that. What Redgrave is—that doesn’t have to be what we are.”

  “What we are is vampires. You just play-pretend you’re a human.” Charity’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you got yourself another girlfriend? A simple, stupid human girl filled up with the best blood of all—”

  “You don’t get to judge her. Judge me all you want. You’ve got the right. But not Skye.”

  She bent over, bringing her face not far above his. Despite her disheveled appearance and singsong voice, her eyes were shrewd. “Or are you saving her for yourself? Make her your girlfriend, and then you can have all the blood you like and never, ever share.”

  If only he could answer that he’d never drunk Skye’s blood.

  Instead, he rose from the snow, forcing Charity to stand, too, until they faced each other again. Balthazar repeated, “Not Skye. Don’t let Redgrave set you on her, Charity. Don’t do to her what he did to me or … or what I did to you.”

  Charity said nothing. She never moved, even as he got back in his car and drove away. In the rearview mirror, he could see her remaining there, utterly still, until she was erased by the snow that surrounded her.

  The next few days were … awkward.

  Skye was as good as her word. She didn’t text him during study hall, didn’t exchange glances with him during history class, and spoke only to answer “present” during the homeroom attendance roll. It wasn’t that she froze him out; in every way, she was calm and polite.

  Balthazar managed to remain polite, but he wasn’t at all calm.

  There she was, walking down the hallway with That Lump. Or exchanging notes with Madison in study hall, Madison all giggles; probably they were talking about Keith, or the dance, which he already profoundly regretted agreeing to chaperone. The next weekend, she wanted to go riding again, but suggested evenly that it made more sense for him to be at something of a distance, the better to scout around for intruders. “That way I won’t be a distraction,” she said, as if everything about her wasn’t maddeningly distracting.

  He kept guard over her house at night, which he felt was in no way like stalking. Except, that was, for that moment every evening when she walked to the window, just before turning out her light. It was her silent way of affirming that she knew he was there—her only acknowledgment of the bond between them that survived their silence. The silhouette of her body against the bedroom light always stayed with him throughout the long hours before dawn.

  Teaching at Darby Glen High began to feel like a job. Watching her began to feel like a mission. Countless little details distracted him (Tonia Loos’s endless flirting in the staff room, Madison Findley’s numerous questions about her impending term paper on John Alden), but nothing ever took his mind away from Skye.

  Balthazar was beginning to think that nothing ever would—that even if he walked away from her in Darby Glen after the immediate crises were resolved, Skye would always claim a part of him.

  One night, after hours of tossing around in bed and trying desperately not to think of Skye, he finally fell asl
eep—and dreamed of her.

  They were back at Evernight Academy, though no longer strangers to each other as they had been then. Together they rode on the grounds, which were green and warm as summertime:

  “You’re too slow,” she called, glancing over her shoulder. Her deep brown hair, free from the helmet she always wore, framed the curve of her face. As Skye urged Eb onward, she said, “Catch up!”

  “I’m coming!” He spurred on Bucephalus, thinking idly that it had been too long since he rode him. Why didn’t he take this horse out every day? Bony and awkward he still looked, but he was fast. Fast enough to catch Skye.

  She and Eb vanished into a glade of trees, and Balthazar followed, eager to find her again. When he found her, he’d take her into his arms and kiss her again. This time nothing would stop them. Nothing would get in the way.

  Once they entered the clearing, he saw Eb standing still, bridle aside, so he could munch on the grass. Balthazar dismounted, expecting to see Skye somewhere nearby. Perhaps she was hiding, turning this all into a game. He felt himself starting to smile. “Skye?”

  “Find me!” Her voice rang out joyfully from deeper in the glade, and he dashed toward the sound. The branches seemed incredibly thick—and the sunlight was dimmer here, less steady than it had been but moments before—yet it didn’t matter, not if he were about to find Skye.

  Finally he pushed aside the last branch and saw a small grove. In the center stood Skye, her ruffled sundress fluttering in the sudden strong breeze. Her bare feet were pale against the vivid grass. She simply stood there, waiting for him with a smile on her face, and Balthazar took a step toward her—

  —just as Redgrave appeared behind Skye, and slipped his arms around her waist.

  “Only her friend,” Redgrave whispered as he stroked Skye’s hair away from her face. She simply glanced back at him, as eager to be with him as she’d been for Balthazar a moment before. “Only her protector. And yet you dream about her dancing for you barefoot in a meadow. How incredibly pathetic, Balthazar. Your erotic imagination might at least have become a bit more creative in the past few centuries.”

  This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. Why wasn’t this real anymore? “Let go of Skye,” Balthazar said. The words were difficult to force out. “She doesn’t want you.”

  “I’m the master of this dream now,” Redgrave said as he traced his fingers along Skye’s bare arm. “So I think she does want me. Don’t you, my dear?”

  Skye’s response was to turn to Redgrave and kiss him, as passionately as she had ever kissed Balthazar. But Redgrave wasn’t pushing her away the way Balthazar had. Instead he was responding to her, delighting in her, and the sight was sickening to behold.

  This isn’t real, Balthazar thought. He knew that, didn’t he? He attempted to step forward and break this up—to fight for her if he had to—but his feet wouldn’t move. Glancing down, he saw that he stood in mud, or quicksand … something dark and liquid that had begun to drag him down.

  Redgrave’s laughter made him look up again. “I’ve half a mind to make you watch this in real life, Balthazar. It could be even more enjoyable. And you know I can do it, don’t you?”

  Balthazar awakened with a start. Panting, he leaned against his headboard and put his face in his hands. The fact that his sire was invading his dreams again to torture him was bad enough.

  Worse that Redgrave knew what Skye really meant to Balthazar—and had figured it out faster than Balthazar himself had.

  “I hate this hellhole,” Nola Haladki said.

  Balthazar gave her a sympathetic glance. They stood on the sidelines of the auditorium, which was now draped with various pink and red decor, while Snow Patrol blared from the DJ’s booth and couples did that weird twitching thing that for the past forty years or so had passed for “dancing.” He missed the waltz. “By hellhole, do you mean Darby Glen High in particular, or the Valentine’s Dance in particular?”

  “Both.” Nola took a swig of the sherbet-and-Sprite punch from her blue plastic cup. “I’ve been getting my certification for physical therapy online. This summer I’m doing the hands-on part of the training, and then I am so out. Of. Here.”

  “You’re going after what you really love,” he said. “Good for you.”

  Nola gave him a sidelong glance. “Listen, kid. You’re fresh out of college. You probably still think you can ‘inspire students’ or some crap like that. But I’m telling you now, if you think it’s going to be all Freedom Writers all the time, you’re living in a dream world. This business sucks. Get out while you still can.”

  As gravely as he could, Balthazar said, “I doubt I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life.”

  “What’s that you won’t be doing?” Tonia Loos came skittering up on her high heels, which, like her skintight dress, were brilliant red. “Balthazar, you look amazing in that suit. Too bad you can’t wear it to school so we could enjoy the view every day…. Oh, hi, Nola.”

  “You both look wonderful tonight, too,” Balthazar said. Which was true: Although Tonia’s getup was a little loud for his taste, she was undeniably attractive in it, and Nola had abandoned her usual fleece track jackets for a gray satin sheath that gave her a classic elegance.

  Nola gave him a grin and a nod; Tonia draped herself on his arm. “You’re a smooth talker, you know that?”

  “I’m gonna see if any of the kids got around to spiking the punch yet,” Nola said, with the definite implication that, if they had, she’d help herself to a glass before making the students dump it out.

  “You know,” Tonia said, looking up at him from beneath a veil of thickly mascaraed lashes, “later on, when the crowd’s started to die down, sometimes the teachers dance.”

  “I doubt they’ll play many songs I know.”

  “You’re always so mysterious! Never talking about yourself. Like, for instance, what kinds of music you enjoy. What songs would you know?”

  Balthazar considered Tonia carefully before answering. “If I answer one of your questions, will you answer one of mine?”

  “Ooooh, a guessing game. I love games.” Tonia’s grin widened.

  “I tend to like older music,” he said. “Classical, mostly, though I have a soft spot for fifties stuff. Elvis, rockabilly, that kind of thing.”

  “I bet the DJ would play some Elvis. At least the remixes.” Tonia was obviously very fixated on the idea of their dancing together later that night. Balthazar resolved to have something very important to do at the end. “Okay, your turn. What do you want to know?”

  Balthazar kept his voice very gentle, because he suspected that, with her, the words would have to be harsh: “Why is a woman as attractive as you so insecure?”

  Tonia didn’t answer at first. Then she raked her nails through her hair, as if that could calm her down. “Wow. You’re—blunt. Really blunt.”

  “I’m trying to be honest.”

  “If you’re not interested—or there’s someone else—there is, isn’t there? Should’ve known the women of this country wouldn’t let you wander around unattached.”

  Balthazar nodded and tried not to think of Skye. “Will you tell me why?”

  “You only see the final result. But in high school—really, my whole life up to now—I didn’t have this.” She made one gesture that seemed to take her in, head to toe. “Do you know, I lost fifty pounds the year before I came to Darby Glen? I thought it would change things. But nothing ever changes.”

  He was too familiar with loneliness not to recognize it in another. “You’re not the person you were before. I’m not talking about the weight; I mean—you get to change. Mature. Grow up.” It was a journey Balthazar would never be able to take; no matter how many centuries he lived or how much wisdom he acquired, his heart would always be young. “Trust the person you’ve become. Take pride in it. And see who chases you.”

  Tonia finally smiled a little. “Maybe you should be a guidance counselor instead of a history teacher.”

  “You
never know.” Before fate was done with him, who could guess what else he might have to become?

  The song shifted to something slower, almost mournfully sweet. The lights dimmed slightly, and the room filled with a rosy glow and dozens of tiny white scattering beams reflected throughout. For one brief moment, even the high school auditorium seemed to be beautiful.

  Laughter echoed from the doors as another group of students came in. Balthazar turned, knowing even as he did so that he would see Skye there.

  She stood at the edge of the group, tethered to them only by Keith’s meaty hand around hers. Skye wore a more elegant dress than the showy stuff most of the girls favored; in this light, her dress appeared to be some delicate shade between champagne and rose, made out of filmy stuff that left her shoulders and most of her legs bare while wrapping her body in soft petals. Her dark, burnished hair was gathered into an artfully messy tail that fell to one side of her neck. There was no pretending that she wasn’t the most beautiful girl in the room.

  Skye’s gaze locked with his. In that instant, he saw just how much she didn’t want to be with Keith … how she’d dressed for him, so that he would see her and want her.

  And he knew she saw how badly he wanted her.

  The moment between them was broken when Keith towed her out onto the dance floor. Within seconds, they were only one of the many couples shuffling along awkwardly out there, Keith half talking to his friends over her shoulder as if she weren’t even present.

  Balthazar remembered seeing Skye waltz with Lucas at Evernight Academy’s grand Autumn Ball a few months ago. That was the place for a girl like this, not some crepe-papered auditorium. And the guy who should be with her … the one who should dance with her… God, anybody else but Keith Kramer. She was so much more graceful than her lump of a partner would let her be.

  But he didn’t mean that. He didn’t want her to be with “anybody else.” He wanted her to be with him.

  The rest of the dance was torture. He had to confiscate some cigarettes from a few juniors out back, and summon the willpower to toss them away unsmoked. Tonia Loos had finally gotten the picture, but a couple of students, including Madison Findley, asked him if he was allowed to dance with them even though he was a teacher. Balthazar instantly said no. One of the final couples to arrive was Craig Weathers and Britnee Fong, which made him want to somehow shield Skye from the sight. She didn’t seem overly troubled, but not long after they came, she let Keith lead her off the dance floor and out of the auditorium.