Balthazar

by Claudia Gray

  “Yes,” Balthazar said. “I’m a vampire. So is my sister, Charity.”

  “I’m not,” Skye added sleepily. “I’m just a psychic. I can see deaths suspended in time, and use them to reach through and speak to the dead.” When Balthazar glanced over at her, she said, “I’ll explain later. That last trip over the river told me a lot.”

  Britnee said, “Our next substitute is going to seem so boring?”

  Craig shook his head from side to side. “This night had better not get any weirder.”

  Once they reached Skye’s house, she was able to take the warm shower she needed to heat herself up; Britnee found a tin of cocoa in the kitchen and set about making some for everyone, with Craig’s help. Balthazar remained downstairs with Charity.

  She clearly hadn’t spent much time in a normal human home anytime recently; Charity’s curiosity led her to pick up the remotes and punch multiple buttons at once, then to trace her fingers around the sides of the unfamiliar thin plasma-screen TV. Balthazar let her do what she wanted as long as she didn’t cause any harm; for tonight, at least, he thought she was safe to be around.

  In the meantime, he checked himself out in the front hall mirror; it had been too long since he’d properly fed, because the image was hazy. Still, he could see that the cuts on his face had already healed, and the bruises were almost entirely gone.

  “Looking good,” Skye said.

  Balthazar glanced up to see Skye standing at the top of the stairs. She wore a simple white cotton T-shirt and jeans; her hair had the slightly windblown look that told him she’d just finished with the blow dryer, and her face was clean-scrubbed, still somewhat pale. To him, she had never appeared more beautiful.

  “Come here,” he said, opening his arms for her as she came down the steps to leap into them. She smelled like fresh soap and lavender. When they kissed this time, he buried his hands in her warm hair, opened his mouth, and pretended they were all alone.

  When they finally pulled back from each other, Skye said, slightly breathless, “Well, I’m heated up now.”

  “You’re sure you’re all right? If you need to go to the hospital—”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “I’m warm again, and you’re with me, and we’re safe. I’ve never been better.” Her eyes flicked over to Charity. “I can’t believe I just said we’re safe, considering … but we are, aren’t we?”

  “For now.”

  Eventually, Charity would become monstrous again. But Balthazar now knew—no matter how terrible she became, no matter what she did, he would never be the one to destroy her. There had been times, over the past few years in particular, when he’d attempted to find the will to kill her. Charity was a murderer countless times over. She was unstable, manipulative, and cruel. Right now she remembered their love for each other as brother and sister, but she’d probably forget it again.

  Someday, someone would have to stop her. Balthazar accepted that. But he also knew that he would never have the right. He’d killed her once; that had been more than enough to damn them both. No matter what she became, Charity was his sister—in life, in death, always.

  When he turned back to Skye, her sad smile told him that, somehow, she knew exactly what he was feeling; she understood him more than he’d ever thought a human could. Perhaps more than he’d thought anyone could. “I saw Dakota,” she said. “While I was on the riverbank. Brothers and sisters … the bond doesn’t go away when you die.”

  “Or long after death,” Balthazar said. “What did you see?”

  Before Skye could answer, Craig and Britnee entered the room, Craig with a tray of steaming mugs in his hands. “Okay, who wants hot chocolate?” Britnee chirped.

  Skye went straight for it; she needed the heat. Though human food had little taste for Balthazar, he wouldn’t mind some himself—vampire bodies were slower to chill but also slower to warm again. When Britnee cheerfully handed a mug to Charity, his sister stared down into it suspiciously, as if they might have spiked it with holy water. But she held on to it, and he could see a small smile of pleasure as a few curls of steam wafted past her face.

  While everyone settled in, Craig said, “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Skye’s got psychic powers, and that does something amazing to her blood, so a vampire was trying to capture her and make other vampires follow him just to get some of the blood for themselves. But now that vampire’s dead, so everything’s okay?”

  Balthazar had been feeling better before Craig said that. “The first part is right. But Redgrave’s death doesn’t make everything okay. Not by a long shot.”

  “They’re still coming,” Charity confided. Good God, she was actually trying to be helpful. He could see her struggling to be clear, to behave well. “So many vampires. They won’t know what to do without Redgrave, but they’ll look and they’ll look.”

  “And Black Cross is on the way,” Balthazar added. Charity startled; Craig and Britnee looked confused. To explain to them both, he said, “Vampire hunters. Armed and extremely dangerous. Our old friend Lucas used some old contacts to send them this way. They’ll take out any vampire they find, present company included.”

  Britnee said, “Are we about to be in a vampire war or something like that?”

  “Are all the vampires going to come after Skye?” Craig said. Charity nodded, almost gleeful, before apparently realizing that wasn’t the right reaction and sobering herself.

  Skye and Balthazar looked at each other; in her eyes he could see the mirror of his own dismay. They’d long known this crisis was coming, but he’d always believed Redgrave would be in charge … which, ironically, had given him a false sense of security. With Redgrave claiming power, the other vampires would have been held in some kind of check. There would have been some chance to control them, to guess what the dangers might be and when they might fall.

  With Redgrave gone, everything changed.

  Every vampire or tribe that came to Darby Glen would be independent, seeking Skye for its own use. They would make wars on one another. Form alliances and betray them. There was no saying when or how they would attack. This town would be more than endangered; it would become a battleground once again, just as it had been during the French and Indian War. Except now the battles would be between the dead—with untold human beings at risk as well. The only way to prevent that catastrophe was for Skye to leave.

  Quietly, Balthazar said to Skye, “You can’t stay here.”

  “I can’t leave Mom and Dad,” she insisted, as stubbornly as she always had. “Not after they lost Dakota. It’s too cruel, Balthazar.”

  “Too cruel,” Charity agreed, in such a singsong tone of voice that Balthazar at first thought she was simply parroting words she’d heard, as she often did. But then she continued, “Crueler if they die because of you.”

  That got through to Skye as nothing else had, Balthazar realized. She paled at the thought. Redgrave would have spared her parents because it suited his absurd ideas of his own nobility and fairness; the other vampires descending on the town would have no such qualms.

  Craig suggested, “Take them with you.”

  “Mom and Dad?” Skye considered this for a moment. “You mean, tell them the truth about all this?”

  “Maybe they could handle it?” Britnee said. “I mean, we’re kinda catching up?”

  Craig nodded, deep in thought. It occurred to Balthazar that, as Skye’s ex-boyfriend, Craig probably knew the Tierneys better than anyone else in the room besides Skye herself … and his view of them might be less clouded by guilt and grief. “I know they’ve been acting weird since Dakota—well, since Dakota,” Craig said. “But this stuff you’re dealing with is too big for you to carry alone, Skye.”

  Balthazar could imagine it now. Spiriting Skye and her parents somewhere out of the way, an unknown location where they could still lead regular lives. He could make sure they remained safe—perhaps allow himself the luxury of remaining with Skye a while longer before letting her get back to bei
ng the normal girl she deserved to be.

  At that moment the front door opened. Balthazar went for Charity’s blade, now in his own coat, but the new intruders weren’t from Redgrave’s tribe. They were people he’d never seen before—

  “Mom! Dad!” Skye’s eyes lit up as she put down her mug and rushed into her parents’ arms. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Honey, we came as soon as we could,” Mrs. Tierney said. “The bill’s up for a vote tonight, but we just said, screw it.”

  “Your mother means that we knew we needed to be here.” Mr. Tierney was the one his daughter took after, with the same dark hair and pale eyes. “We need to talk to you about this business with the teacher.”

  Said teacher, still sitting on the sofa, now felt acutely embarrassed. Before Balthazar could begin making any kind of explanations or excuses, though, Mrs. Tierney gave them all a big smile. “Well, hello, Craig! Good to see you again. And you’ve got all your friends over, honey.”

  “They’re trying to make me feel better,” Skye said, “because all that stuff about the teacher is just Madison Findley’s gossip. Ask Principal Zaslow yourself tomorrow.”

  Craig grinned, at ease with people he must have known well for years. “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Tierney. I see you guys still keep hot chocolate on hand for the needy.”

  “We try,” Mr. Tierney said. Their jokes seemed a little hollow to Balthazar—as if her parents were trying hard to come across as happy and easygoing, but couldn’t quite pull it off. Still, he would try to cut them some slack, now that he saw how comforted Skye was to finally have them near. “Why don’t you introduce us to everyone else?”

  Skye said, “Well, this is Balthazar. He’s … in history with me.” Balthazar hoped he looked much younger with his glasses off. “And that’s Craig’s new girlfriend, Britnee, and—and that’s—um—that’s Charity.”

  Charity looked cornered; she knew she needed to come across as a perfectly normal teenager, but clearly had no idea how to pull it off. She was casting around for something to say; God alone knew what she would come up with. Before Balthazar could start talking and cover the awkward moment, Charity blurted out, “I love Justin Bieber.”

  “Oh, I remember that feeling!” Mrs. Tierney chuckled as she patted Charity fondly on the arm; Balthazar could see his sister resisting the urge to bite. “For me it was Shaun Cassidy. I used to sleep with his LP under my pillow.”

  Mr. Tierney said, “As good as it is to see all of you, I think we need to talk with Skye for a while.”

  “We’re going,” Balthazar said, rising to his feet and taking hold of Charity’s arm; her gaze toward Mrs. Tierney had only grown more pointed, and he gave her his best don’t eat the nice people look. “Skye, I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Soon,” she repeated. The night hadn’t scarred her; her cheeks were rosy again, and her smile had never been as bright.

  Craig and Britnee offered them a ride, but Balthazar refused it. As they drove off, he and Charity walked into the forest; the driving sleet of earlier had turned into light, gentle snow.

  “Where will you go?” he said.

  “I don’t know. I always used to find Redgrave when I didn’t know what to do. Now… I’ll find out.” Though she still spoke in a childlike tone, Charity made more sense than she had in a long time. Balthazar wondered if—just possibly—Skye’s blood had been powerful enough to work a permanent change in his sister. If she remembered enough of her living self, of the girl she’d been before the savage attack that killed them, she might be different from now on. Maybe that was too much to hope for, but for the first time in nearly four hundred years, he dared to dream.

  He warned her, “Constantia’s still out there. She’s going to try to take over.”

  “Should we stop her?”

  “I think we should avoid her.”

  “I don’t like her,” Charity said. “She pulls hair.”

  “Among other things.” Balthazar realized, with increasing concern, that Constantia was the most likely candidate to become the head of the vampires coming to Darby Glen. And she would be a formidable enemy—one capable of predicting Balthazar’s moves, who knew many of his hideouts and habitations as well as he did. One capable of rallying most of Redgrave’s tribe to join her instantly. One who already knew Skye’s face and would never, ever forget it. Tonight’s victory, sweet as it had been, was only the beginning of a longer battle.

  Charity gave him a brittle look. “I’m still going to get you back someday.”

  “You’ll try.”

  She laughed, as if it were now all one great game between them. Perhaps, from now on, that was what it would be. “You’ll see!” Then she ran away from him at full speed, a zephyr of frost in the woods for one split second before she vanished completely.

  Balthazar didn’t chase her. The truth about whether or not Charity had changed would come only when she chose to find him again.

  Chapter Thirty

  SKYE KNEW THE DANGER WAS FAR FROM OVER, but she couldn’t think about that yet. Right now she just wanted to be where she was—on her living room sofa, between her parents—and who she was—the daughter they had forgotten, remembered at last.

  As she took the last swallow of her hot cocoa, she watched her parents, both of whom were checking their phones … which was kind of annoying, but the bill was up for a vote tonight. What mattered most was that they’d finally dropped everything to return to her. Between this and seeing Dakota earlier, it was as though she’d gotten her entire family back tonight. Skye couldn’t stop smiling.

  “Ohhhh-kay,” Mom said, finally putting her phone on the coffee table. “Now, what’s up with this teacher?”

  “Nothing,” Skye insisted. By now, in her head, “Mr. More, the history teacher” was just a fictional character Balthazar had played; it was as easy to deny this as it would’ve been to deny that she’d had a hot affair with Harry Potter. The real Balthazar—the one she loved—was someone else entirely. “He never did anything inappropriate. He just let me talk to him about things. About … about Dakota.”

  That was the first time she’d spoken his name to her parents since the day after the funeral. Their faces went slightly rigid, as if there was no way any real emotion was going to get to the surface, ever. Seeing that made Skye’s heart ache for them, but she wasn’t going to pull back, not now. It was time to talk about this. Eventually, when they learned she could still speak to Dakota, they’d be so grateful.

  “His sister died when he was about my age,” she said. “So he understood about Dakota. About how—how you try to push the person you lost away, but you can’t. You have to hold on to them, on to how much you loved them. Because you don’t lose someone when they die. You only lose them when you forget the love you had together.”

  There was a moment of silence before her father briskly folded his glasses and tucked them in a case. “It’s a relief to hear that nothing problematic is going on,” he said. “We always thought you were far too sensible to get mixed up in anything like that.”

  “I told you we should have stayed in Albany,” her mother said to him, and he shrugged, like, Score one for you.

  And that was it. They hadn’t even acknowledged that she’d said anything about Dakota. They were sorry they’d come home for her at all.

  “Dad. Mom. Come on.” Skye felt sure she could get through to them. Okay, so it would take a little work. She couldn’t expect them to change completely in an instant. “Aren’t we ever going to talk about Dakota again?”

  Sharply, her mother said, “Nobody’s forgotten your brother, Skye. But we all handle things in our own ways. We’ve tried to respect your grief; you have to respect ours.”

  When had they ever tried to respect her grief? When had they ever done anything but expect her to handle this the same way they did—by pushing her brother into the darkness of the past?

  Dozens of images from the past year flickered in Skye’s mind, illuminated differently than they
had been before, and finally in true focus: Her father glancing away from the photos of Dakota in her room—away from Skye herself—until the day she gave up and put them in the drawer, away from sight. How they’d gone about business as usual the afternoon following the funeral, and how Skye had felt bad for crying when they could be so “brave.”

  How they’d expected her to care for herself from now on, leaving her alone day and night to bury themselves in work. How she’d accepted that absurdity as something she could do for them. And for a month or two, maybe that wouldn’t have been so wrong. They had come home tonight, after all; it wasn’t as if they didn’t love her. Skye knew perfectly well that they did.

  But now—now she realized her parents were so deep in denial that they would never get out.

  And they expected her to go on denying her brother’s death with them, forever, even though that also meant denying his life.

  Skye slowly rose from the couch. Neither of her parents looked up; Mom already had her phone back in hand. She said, “I’ve had a long day.” Which was putting it lightly. “I’m going to go up to bed.”

  Her father gave her a distant sort of smile. “You’re a good girl, Skye.” We’re so pleased with you for dropping the subject. See how easy denial can be? “Sweet dreams.”

  Once she was alone in her room again, Skye started work.

  She pulled out her largest suitcase, stared at it for a minute, then put it back up and grabbed a pack for long horse trips instead. Into it she tucked only a couple changes of clothing, a few toiletries, and the picture of Dakota and her on their white-water rafting trip.

  Then she saw her phone, still sitting where she’d dropped it hours ago. Balthazar’s text messages were all hours old by now, but there were several from Clem: R U there?

  OK, I know u r busy but srsly txt me back. I’m freaking here.

  Skye?

  Quickly Skye sent a few words back: I’m safe—but barely. Will tell u the rest l8r. She paused before adding, Luv u. That was kind of sappy for her and Clementine, but tonight Skye felt like she’d rather say too much than not enough. Like Dakota had told her, you could never say those words too often.