Balthazar (5 page)

However, it crossed her mind that being alone was maybe the opposite of being careful in a town that might be infested with vampires. So instead of taking the quick way home—which led down a winding country road—she decided to go the long way on Garrett Boulevard. Traffic would be busy, and there would be the occasional cyclists and joggers around. She'd just be alone in spirit, but that was enough. She'd get home in plenty of time to spend a long, enjoyable evening with her head under a blanket, screaming in pent-up frustration and anxiety from one of the worst twenty-four-hour periods in her life.

But the Garrett Boulevard path was longer than she'd counted on, and her cheeks and nose were frozen numb long before her home was in sight.

Why didn't I buy that car last summer?
Skye thought as she trudged along the side of the road, hands jammed in the pockets of her long down coat. Her reasons had seemed good at the time—she could afford only a junker, she couldn't have taken it to Evernight, and her parents had hinted that they'd buy her a nicer car as a graduation present. At that moment, though, with the temperature hovering around ten degrees, Skye would've given a lot for some old junker car with a working heater.

Maybe I ought to have asked Balthazar for a ride home
. But could vampires get driver's licenses?

Just as she was beginning to get lost in a stupid but delicious daydream of Balthazar sweeping up to her high school on Eb, wearing a long black cloak or something similarly Darcyesque and romantic, extending his hand to her in front of Craig, Britnee, and everybody, Skye glimpsed her first jogger—a diehard who was out despite the chill. She raised her hand in a wave—and then stopped.

That wasn't a jogger.

Even at this distance, she recognized it as Lorenzo.

TRACKING A VAMPIRE WAS DIFFICULT WORK.

Usually, Balthazar liked it that way, because that made it difficult for anybody to track him. Whether he was evading Black Cross or his own disturbed sister, Charity, he valued the ability to disappear if and when he wished.

When he was the one doing the tracking, instead of the one being tracked—not so much fun.

All day he'd worked his way through the woods, painstakingly searching for evidence of animal kills. A forest hid its secrets even at the best of times, and in such cold weather, with snow thick on the ground, the bodies were hard to find by either sight or scent. After long hours of combing through the underbrush and checking the trails, Balthazar had found only one other vampire kill. It, too, bore the vicious bite marks but not the throat gash that would've marked it as Redgrave's; he thought the fox had died within the hour.

Lorenzo is alone right now
, Balthazar thought. Redgrave had been in this area with him earlier, though, and probably some others—his tribe waxed and waned over the years, sometimes as few as five or six, but sometimes as many as twenty-five. Whom might he meet with again? Constantia? Charity?

Don't think about it. Focus
. Lorenzo was on his own for now, and that was all that mattered.

Balthazar leaned down close to the carcass, breathing in deeply. Lorenzo's scent lodged deeply within his predator's mind. It felt good to have an excuse to be a hunter again, to let those powerful instincts claim him.

He squinted at the ground; the snow cover was too patchy here for him to track Lorenzo by his footprints, but scent alone would do it. He began walking along the path, moving faster and faster as he became surer of his route. The path led up the hill, toward a public space of some kind—the rushing of cars came closer, became louder than the wind through the bare branches of trees.

Then he rounded the hill, saw what lay past it, and breathed in sharply: a school. The sign at the front of the drive proclaimed it D
ARBY
G
LEN
HIGH SCHOOL
.

Skye's school. Lorenzo was pursuing her after all.

Balthazar began running as fast as he could—faster than most humans would be able to match, but if he was seen, to hell with it. Skye was in danger, and it was late enough in the afternoon that she'd almost certainly have left school by now.

Was it possible she'd taken the bus, as she had this morning while he watched from a distance? He hoped so. For now he kept running, kept following Lorenzo's scent along what appeared to be a main road, busy with traffic. Even if Lorenzo had been unable to find Skye, Balthazar was dead set on capturing him now.

But as he ran, he began to detect Skye's scent as well.

Balthazar had a sudden vision of Skye crumpled and bloody like the fox he'd found in the snow, and the mere image sickened him. His inhuman speed wasn't fast enough.

Lorenzo's path took him off the main road, away from Skye, which didn't encourage Balthazar at all. Lorenzo would have quit following Skye only to get ahead of her, to stand between her and the safety of home. Balthazar hesitated for only a moment, deciding—then followed Skye's path. As badly as he wanted to catch Lorenzo, Skye's safety was more important.

Finally, as Balthazar ran around another curve of the road he saw her—alive, well, upright—but staring ahead, at Lorenzo, who stood in her path and closer to her than Balthazar was to either of them.

“Skye!” he shouted, but an eighteen-wheeler roared by at that moment, its engine drowning out his voice. Skye started running, not into the road or back toward Balthazar, but slightly up the hill toward a building, a gas station from the looks of it—

—but one that looked long deserted, with a dusty, faded sign that proclaimed gasoline was for sale at ninety-seven cents a gallon. Not good. A public space would've given her some protection, but an abandoned building wasn't shelter. It was a trap.

Lorenzo dashed after her, his eyes only for his prey. Balthazar pursued them both, anger and battle heat flooding through him. He gave way to those emotions so seldom, and yet they felt almost as hot and real as being alive.

The door had probably been pried open by vandals years ago. Balthazar ran inside just after them; old, rusty bells on the handle jingled. Skye, against the back wall with nowhere else to run, saw him and shouted, “Balthazar!”

Whirling around, Lorenzo saw him; his smile had a curiously glazed quality, as though he were drunk or drugged. “You're still protecting her,” he said. “You can't for long.”

“Won't have to for long.” Balthazar grabbed the nearest thing at hand—the end of some abandoned metal shelves, where snacks or motor oil had once been—and shoved it forward hard. The other end of the shelf slammed into Lorenzo's side, sending the vampire staggering back.

Skye turned toward Balthazar, but he gestured toward the door. “Get out of this place! Get back out to the road!”

She didn't argue, didn't hesitate, just ran through the door like he'd said. Thank God she had some sense.

Balthazar rushed toward Lorenzo, but he was already up, and the punch he aimed at the guy's face only swung through air. Lorenzo shoved him back, growling, “You
do
want to keep her for yourself. Admit it.”

That didn't merit an answer. Balthazar glanced around the old gas station, with its moldy drop ceiling and dusty walls. There were few potential weapons, and no wood to fashion a stake. The old freezer doors still had their glass, though, and while it would make for a messy beheading, he'd done worse.

“We'll drink her dry,” Lorenzo said, and it wasn't mere taunting anymore; his words sounded more like a promise to himself. “Nothing's going to stop me from tasting her again.”

One booted foot through the freezer door made the glass shatter. Balthazar went for the largest section, which was still connected to the metal frame—that made a sort of ax, if he could pry it loose—

“Balthazar!” Skye came running back in with a jingling of bells, and how could she be so stupid as to run back into a fight between two vampires?

Then he saw the three other vampires just behind her. Two were unknown to him—disheveled, young, vicious, the usual—but the tallest of them, in the back, looked tantalizingly familiar…

Lorenzo leaped at him, but Balthazar dodged, pulling his makeshift ax free and running toward Skye. The first of the other vampires came in through the door just in time for Balthazar to slash at his neck with the glass for a swift beheading. Skye screamed—yeah, it was messy, and the vampire was new enough that it fell like a dead body to the floor—but the bigger problem was that the glass dislodged from the metal frame and shattered against the floor. No more ax.

As the other vampires came in, bells on the handle jingling, Skye pulled Balthazar backward; almost before he'd realized what she was up to, they were through the door that led to the gas station attendant's booth. She slammed it shut and locked the door—a pitiful knob-only lock that wouldn't hold for long, but it was better than nothing. They were pinned together in a space hardly big enough for one person to stand in, much less two. He could feel the fast rise and fall of Skye's frightened breathing against his chest.

One of the vampires slammed against the glass wall of the booth, realizing too late that it was bulletproof. Balthazar put one hand against the far wall and tried to think of what to do; the building was so old, so run-down, that the wall felt almost soft against his hand. And there was a cold draft coming in, too.

The tallest vampire stepped closer, and for a moment, Balthazar's mind froze. Almost without his realizing, he whispered, “Constantia.”

“Hello, darling. Long time no see.” Constantia smiled the same possessive, arrogant smile she'd always had for him. Her burnished gold hair hung long and straight as ever, and he had somehow managed to forget how tall she was—at least a couple inches taller than him. Even in the plain gray coat she wore, Constantia was a striking figure: like a statue of some avenging Teutonic goddess, beautiful beyond belief but hard as stone. “You ran far and fast last time, Balthazar. But now you've run in front of something we want.”

“Are we trapped?” Skye whispered. “I trapped us, didn't I?”

“You bought us time,” he said to her, refusing to answer Constantia. Long-ago memories of the 1950s came back to him—he'd worked at a service station in Montana for a while, fixing up cars mostly, but occasionally pumping gas. This station had used the old-fashioned pumps; the switches were still on the wall. Because they were manual, not computerized, they probably still worked.

Would any gas fumes still be lingering in the tanks all these years later? They might have to find out. He snapped the switches to on with one swipe of his hand.

Constantia slammed her foot into the door; the old wood bowed and splintered immediately. Two more kicks and she'd be in.

Balthazar said, “Cover your face. I'm going to break through the external wall.”

“With what?” Skye looked around, and he couldn't resist a smile.

“With me.”

No cinder blocks, please no cinder blocks—

With all his vampire strength, he threw himself at the rotten, drafty section of the wall, which thank God was not reinforced with cinder blocks, and broke through. It hurt like hell, but Balthazar was able to stumble free of the jagged gap; Skye followed him instantly, grabbing his arm as he staggered to walk off the blow. “They're coming,” she said as he dragged her toward the front of the station and, behind them, the bells on the gas station's door jingled again.

“I know. Come on.”

As they ran toward the pumps, a car pulled in—long and silvery, with the weight and gleam of expense. A Bentley, maybe. Balthazar knew many vampires with a taste for luxury like that, but he also knew which of them was going to step out even before he did.

Redgrave stood up. His dark gold hair was slicked back, almost the same color as his perfectly tanned skin. The camel-colored coat he wore was tailored perfectly to his lean, angular form, and a heavy golden watch shone on one wrist. As he saw Balthazar, his hazel eyes glinted, avaricious and cruel, much as they'd been the first day they ever met—one of the last days Balthazar would ever be alive—

Skye pulled them ahead faster; at least one of them wasn't so easily distracted, Balthazar thought. He grabbed his old lighter from his pocket, snapped it into flame, and dropped it into the pile of papers and debris in front of the old station just before pulling loose one of the pumps and turning it on.

“What are you doing?” Skye cried. “We have to move!”

“We do now.” Balthazar grabbed her hand again and ran almost as fast as he could, towing her after him though he knew it had to almost hurt her to be dragged along at this speed. But they got to the very edge of the road before the pumps blew.

The explosion slammed into them, a wave of heat as solid as rock, shoving them both off their feet and into the snowy drifts at the side of the road. Balthazar saw the wall of flame blazing up brightly and felt a deep, irresistible terror well inside him. Fire—fatal to vampires, one of the only things that ever could destroy him completely—

Get over it. You're in a snowbank. The only vampires burning alive right now are the ones who killed you
.