Hourglass (9 page)

Lucas snapped, “Bianca and I have some business to resolve.”

Milos looked surprised, but he took a step back.

Lucas pushed his way toward the front of the crowd; I lagged behind. I wasn’t a player in this scenario; honestly, I was more of a prop, there to look stricken and weep. Though I hated pretending to be so helpless, I’d have to take comfort in the fact that this was my plan.

Then I saw Balthazar, and there was no comfort to be had.

His flesh was striped with lines of raw skin from the streams of holy water. Both his eyes were swollen and dark, and his jaw was lumpy from repeated blows. His lips had cracked open and bled, as had his wrists. He looked worse than I knew anybody could look. Balthazar’s bloodshot eyes met mine, dull and incurious, like he was past even imagining that help could come.

“Back up, Mom,” Lucas said, pulling her away. “It’s my turn.”

“Like hell it is.” Anger seemed to illuminate her from within,
like a candle in a leering jack-o’-lantern. “This thing killed Eduardo. I’m going to have answers, and then I’m going to have its hide.”

“He didn’t just kill Eduardo.” Lucas swaggered up to Balthazar, who didn’t react. “He went after Bianca. You know that. What you don’t know—what I didn’t know until today—is how far he went. How close he came to hurting her to get his way.”

My crying wasn’t an act. I backed away, body shaking, as if I were somehow afraid of the bloody, broken figure chained to the railing. The hunters parted for me, respectful of what they thought I’d suffered at a vampire’s hands.

Lucas grabbed Balthazar by the hair. I winced—but there was no other way to do this next part. He growled, “You tried to screw my girl.”

“Well, you know.” Balthazar’s mutilated smirk might have been genuine. “I figured she needed somebody to show her how it was really done.”

Lucas backhanded him, hard. A few of the hunters made approving noises—not cheering, but muttering “yeah” or “that’s it.” I hated them so much I wanted to scream.

“You listen to me.” Lucas panted. His green eyes blazed, and he looked utterly wild. When he got like this, gave full rein to his hot temper, sometimes he scared even me. “You know how bad I hate you. You know I’d never get tired of hurting you. So you better tell me what it is we want to know, and you’d better do it now, or they’re going to turn you over to me for the remainder of your existence. I promise you, you’d rather go fast. So what’s
it going to be, Balthazar?”

Under my breath, so low that nobody who wasn’t a vampire could possibly have heard me, I whispered, “Make something up. We’ll take care of the rest.”

Balthazar hesitated, confused. Lucas kicked his leg.

Come on, Balthazar, you can think of something! Anything! Just trust us!

Lucas shouted, “Spit it out! What was Mrs. Bethany after?”

“You!” Balthazar said. “She was after you.”

“Lucas?” Kate stepped forward in alarm. “Why do they want my son?”

“Mrs. Bethany blames him,” Balthazar said. Could the others tell he was making this up as he went along? Apparently not. “And I think she—she thinks Lucas might have gone through her records. She’s scared he knows too much. Mrs. Bethany’s never gotten over the fact that you planted a spy at her school. It drives her crazy. I think the burning of Evernight pushed her over the edge.”

Kate lifted her chin. “So she’s scared, you’re saying. Desperate. Lashing out at my son because she doesn’t know what else to do.”

“She knows exactly what to do,” Balthazar said. “As long as Lucas Ross lives, she’ll be after him. After anybody who’s with him. So maybe you want to think twice about how tightly you stick to this one. From now on, anybody who’s standing next to Lucas has a decent shot of ending up just as dead as he’s going to be.”

Coolly Kate glanced at her son. “Do you believe him?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said, drawing a stake from his belt. Then he slammed it into Balthazar’s chest.

I heard Raquel stifle a small cry. Balthazar gasped in pain, but he immediately slumped forward, unconscious and paralyzed.

Lucas said, “I want to burn this trash myself. Bianca can come with. I think it’ll help her get over what he did, torching him.”

Eliza nodded. Kate put her hands on my shoulders as I wiped my eyes. “Just remember,” she said, “you’re free now.”

The others helped us load Balthazar’s inert body into the van. I couldn’t get over how, well,
dead
he looked, with the stake poking out of his chest. Milos gave Lucas a few hints about good spots for burning vampire corpses, which made me think he’d done this several times before. That gave me the shivers.

I slammed the van doors shut. Lucas started the engine and pulled onto the road. Once we were a few blocks away, I slipped into the back where Balthazar lay and said, “Now?”

Lucas nodded, never taking his eyes from the road. “Now.”

With both hands, I grabbed the stake and pulled it out of Balthazar’s chest.

As soon as the wood slipped free, Balthazar jerked, then writhed beneath me in pain. His bloodied hands sought the gaping wound in his chest. “What the—”

“Shhhhhh.” I put one hand on his forehead. “You’re okay. We had to pretend we were going to kill you. There was no other way to get you out of there.”

“Bianca?”

“Yeah, it’s me. You remember what happened?”

“I think so.” Balthazar grimaced, but he forced his eyes open to look at me. “You and Lucas—”

“We broke you out,” Lucas called. “Listen, we’re on a tight schedule here. Is there a place we can drop you? Where you’ll be safe while you heal up?”

Balthazar had to think a couple seconds before he nodded. “Chinatown. A shop—I know the owner—he’ll hide me.”

“We’ll get you there,” Lucas said.

“Thank you,” Balthazar said. One of his hands found mine. Normally he was so strong, but now the pressure he put on my fingers was weaker than a child’s. “Black Cross—They aren’t—”

“They don’t know about me,” I said. “Lucas is taking care of me. I’m safe.”

Balthazar nodded. His handsome face was twisted and swollen, and I wished I at least could’ve brought some bandages. Even a vampire might require weeks to recover from injuries this serious. I tried to smile for him as I wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, but it was difficult.

At last we reached Chinatown. The street Balthazar told us to turn onto was small and unbelievably crowded. Almost every single store sign was in Chinese; it really felt like we’d driven to another country altogether.

Lucas double-parked and glanced over his shoulder. “You sure you can get where you’re going?”

“Maybe Bianca could walk with me.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said. It was too easy to imagine Balthazar passing out in the gutter and being dragged to a hospital, where he’d promptly be declared dead. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’m going to circle the block.” Lucas glanced at our passenger. “Good luck, Balthazar.”

“Thanks. I mean it.”

I got out first and accepted Balthazar’s heavy arm across my shoulders. He could stand but just barely. Once the van doors were shut, Lucas drove away. Although several people stared at Balthazar, bloody wreck that he was, nobody said anything. That was New York for you.

As soon as we started walking, Balthazar said, “Come with me.”

“I am coming with you. We’re going to find the shop. I think it’s right along here—”

“No, I mean—don’t go back with Lucas. I can hide you here.”

Shocked, I said, “Balthazar, we talked about this. You know how I feel.”

“This isn’t about romance.” He limped beside me, and a few drops of blood trickled down from his wrist, along his hands, onto the sidewalk. “You see now what Black Cross is. What they’re capable of. Bianca, if they learned the truth—if one tenth of what happened to me happened to you—”

“It won’t,” I said. “Lucas and I are leaving soon. I promise.”

Balthazar didn’t look convinced, but he nodded.

When we reached the shop, an older lady behind the
counter began shouting something in Chinese. At first I wondered if she wasn’t suggesting that somebody call 911. Then an even older man, almost entirely bald, emerged from the back of the store. He saw Balthazar and hurried forward; though I didn’t understand a word he said—or of Balthazar’s response, which was also in Chinese—I could tell he was expressing concern.

“You guys are friends,” I said.

“Since 1964.” Balthazar stroked my cheek with one hand.

“Please be careful.”

“I will. Balthazar—if I don’t see you again—”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I know.”

He leaned forward, as if to kiss me, then grimaced. His lips were too torn for that. I took his less-mangled hand in mine and kissed his palm. Then I ran into the clamor of Chinatown, back toward Lucas and the danger that awaited us when we returned to Black Cross.

“CAN I ASK YOU A PERSONAL QUESTION?” RAQUEL said.

I glanced over at her warily. We were partnered with Milos and Dana on patrol in Grand Central Terminal. Bustling crowds surrounded us, and the walls were lined with as many stores as any shopping mall. For a train station, it was incredibly beautiful—lots of white marble, a golden clock, and, my favorite part, a high cerulean ceiling painted with the constellations in gold. Despite all this, it wasn’t really the place for a heart-to-heart chat, which made me wonder why Raquel had waited until now. But I said, “Sure, go ahead.”

My guess about her intentions was borne out when she said, “You and Balthazar—how close did you two get?”

“I wasn’t ever in love with him, if that’s what you mean.”

“But what Lucas said two nights ago, when he—when Balthazar—” Raquel struggled for a way to describe what she had thought had happened without the word “murder,” and failed.
“He suggested that Balthazar tried to force you to have sex with him. I thought the two of you were—well, I didn’t think he had to force you.”

Raquel was the one person who might be able to see through the ruse Lucas and I had constructed to save Balthazar. Eventually I hoped to be able to tell her the truth about that much of it, but not now. “Lucas got angry. He took some stuff I said out of context and—blew up, I guess. You know about his temper.”

“Oh. Okay.” Still disquieted, Raquel shifted from one foot to the other.

A station employee nearby shot us a dirty look, assuming we were loitering teenagers. I mean, we
were
teenagers, plus we were loitering, but we were also watching out for a vampire that was rumored to be stalking prey here. In my opinion that was justification enough, but it wasn’t the kind of thing we could explain. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s stroll for a bit.”

She fell into step beside me. “So, getting seriously into the TMI zone here—did you and Balthazar ever have sex?”

“No, we didn’t.” When Raquel shot me a skeptical look, I added, “One time we got really close. But we were interrupted. You remember the whole thing with the ghosts, in the A/V room?”

“Yeah. Wow, that turned out to be a major save, didn’t it? I mean, sex with a vampire—ewww.” Raquel kept scanning the crowds in front of us, always on the lookout; she was better at this than I was. “If we didn’t know better, you could almost think the ghosts were trying to help you out there.”

I remembered the blue-green chill of the air that night, when
the wraiths had attempted to kill me and claim me for their own. “We definitely know better, though.”

We stepped out of the main rush of people into a slightly less busy corridor. Long lines of tired commuters wandered up and down, either focused on making their trains or slightly dreamy as they listened to their iPods. Everything looked pretty ordinary to me.

“It’s weird that you couldn’t tell,” Raquel said.

“What do you mean?”

“That Balthazar was a vampire. I mean—you never noticed he didn’t have a heartbeat? Or that his body was cooler than ours?”

Caught off guard, I grasped for a reply. “Well—I never—I mean, it’s not the kind of thing you usually watch out for. Most girls don’t have to ask themselves, ‘Gosh, I wonder if the guy I’m dating is alive.’ Right?”

“I guess.” Raquel didn’t seem convinced, but then something else caught her attention. She pointed. “Hey, check out the parka.”

I knew what she meant. Vampires, who often felt cold in surroundings where humans were warm, occasionally wore winter clothing in the middle of summer. That was a clue Black Cross had told us to watch for. (My parents had always simply made sure to wear layers.) Sure enough, a guy in front of us was wearing a heavy white parka as he sauntered through the station, in the opposite direction from the usual flow of traffic at this time of day.

“Could just be a weirdo,” Raquel said.

“Probably. This is New York, after all.”

But I knew better. I couldn’t say how I knew—maybe because of that vampire sense Balthazar had told me I’d develop in time, the sense that another was near. I knew this guy, with his white parka and his long, reddish-brown dreadlocks, was a vampire like me.

My heart sank. Ever since I’d been with Black Cross, I’d dreaded a moment like this. This was about to turn into a vampire hunt—and I had to find a way to save this guy, or else I’d become a murderer.

The most logical thing to do was talk Raquel out of her suspicions, but it was already too late. Raquel’s gaze remained fixed on him, her eyes bright and avid. “Look how pale he is. And he’s just got—I can’t describe it, but when I try to picture him at Evernight Academy, I know he’d fit right in.”

“You can’t be sure,” I said.

“Yes, I can.” Raquel peered past me, quickening her steps to stay on the vampire’s trail. “We’ve finally got one.”

Oh, crap.

Raquel’s voice was tense with anticipation. “Think we can grab Dana and Milos?”

If more experienced hunters joined us, I’d have a lot more trouble protecting this guy. “Right now I think we can handle it.”

We followed the dreadlocked vampire down the white corridor that led out of Grand Central. Although it was still daytime,
the rainy weather kept the sun at bay. Neither Raquel nor I had an umbrella, so we stuck close to the edge of the buildings to keep from getting soaked. Luckily, the vampire seemed to have the same idea.

Raquel pointed. “He’s turning the corner.”

“I see him.”

We followed the vampire a few blocks north. This area was congested and busy even by New York standards; tourists in goofy T-shirts held newspapers or shopping bags over their heads as they ran, and cabs honked angrily in the streets, their wipers beating staccato thumps against the downpour. Mostly I saw office buildings, hotels, and stores. This meant the vampire might duck in any place at any second.

What am I going to do?
I thought. Pretending to lose him in the crowd was no use. Raquel’s sharp eyes never left him.

The dreadlocked vampire turned onto a crosstown street and went into a building whose doorway was tucked almost surreptitiously between two huge storefronts.

Raquel pulled out her cell phone. “I’m calling Dana.”

“No, don’t do that.”

“Bianca, are you nuts? That’s a vampire! This is probably a vampire lair! We need backup.”

“We don’t know what else is going on in there.” The reasoning was weak, but I didn’t know anything else to say. As she started punching in Dana’s number, I hurried a few steps in front of her to inspect the door. I could see bells with names next to them in the vestibule.

Then the glass door swung open, and another resident—a human woman, scary-thin and only a few years older than me, stepped out and gave me a slightly vacant smile as she held the door open for me. She must have assumed I lived there, and her welcome apparently put the doorman off guard, because he just kept reading a magazine. Quickly, I stepped inside and let the door shut behind me.

Raquel appeared on the other side of the glass door. “What are you doing?”

“I’m checking things out, okay? You stay out here to call for help if we need to.”

“Seriously, you need to wait.”

Ignoring Raquel, I hurried to the elevator. Golden circles outlined the elevator’s progression upward. Okay, I could work with that. Once I saw where it stopped, I could go to that floor and maybe use my sensitive vampire hearing to find where the vampire had gone.

But then I heard a whisper. “You, there.”

I stared. In a small cubby at the end of the lobby, near what looked like a side door, stood the vampire. His body was tense, almost in a crouch, and his brilliant blue eyes locked with mine.

“You’re one of us,” he said, in an accent that I thought might be Australian. “So what are you doing with Black Cross?”

“Long, long, long story.” At least he knew he was being tracked. “They’re on to you. You have to get out of here for now.”

“I just got this place. D’ya have any idea how hard it is to find a place on the East Side?”

“If you take off now, they won’t think about coming back here even after a couple of days. They don’t think we have…homes, or friends, or anything like that.” The bitterness in my voice surprised me; I thought I’d made my peace with our situation in Black Cross, at least for now, but the pent-up tension threatened to shake loose. “All you have to do is clear out for a couple of days. Stay with someone you know.”

“Summer in the Hamptons,” he said, almost like he was making fun of me. But why would he do that when I was trying to save him? I decided I’d heard him wrong when he smiled.

“You’re one of our babies, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” I smiled back. It felt nice to be recognized for what I was, to have a couple of moments where being a vampire was no big deal. For a moment, I even missed Evernight Academy.

“Name’s Shepherd,” he said. “Have we got ten minutes, you think? I’d like to grab a couple things before running off.”

“Maybe. They won’t know where you are in the building, though they have ways of tracking—”

“We’ll be quick about it. Help a fellow out, would you?”

We rode the elevator to the ninth floor. The whole way up, I held my breath, sure that at any moment Raquel would call, or Black Cross hunters would be waiting for us. But we got there fine, and I hurried after Shepherd to his apartment. “You only have time to grab the basics,” I said. “Some clothes, some cash, whatever ID you’re using.”

“Believe me,” he said. “I understand the deadline.”

I walked into the apartment, ready to start helping him pack up anything—until I saw Charity.

She was sitting cross-legged on a white leather sofa, intently smoking a cigarette. Shepherd said, “Is she the right one? The one you thought you saw the other day?”

“Yes,” Charity said softly. “That’s her.

“Don’t run,” she said in the last half second before I was going to flee. “We have so much to talk about. And we can’t talk while we’re chasing you.”

As dangerous as it was to stay, I thought running might be worse. If I ran, Charity and her friend would come after me for sure; if I talked, there was every chance I’d be safe. Despite all the horrific things Charity had done, she’d never attempted to hurt me. So I stayed. “What are you doing in New York?” I demanded.

“My brother is missing. He went on one of Mrs. Bethany’s foolish errands. I suppose he’s trying to find you.”

I turned toward Shepherd, sick at my own foolishness. “I was trying to save you.”

“A word to the wise,” he said. “The enemy of your enemy isn’t necessarily your friend.”

I took stock of my surroundings. Charity’s apartment looked as though it had been very nice only a short time ago, but nobody had cleaned it in several days. The white shag rug was covered with footprints and cigarette butts and, on one corner, rusty smears of blood. A large TV hung on the wall but slightly askew,
as if it had been knocked partly loose. A sickly-sweet smell hung in the air, and I realized that a human had died here not long ago. Charity had taken this apartment by force.

She wasn’t in much better shape than the apartment. Her pale golden curls didn’t seem to have been washed recently. Charity wore only a silky lavender slip with beige lace that might have been pretty when it was new and clean; now it was stained and threadbare, making it painfully obvious how youthful her body was. She had only been fourteen when she died.

Trying very hard to keep my voice steady, I said, “Balthazar’s okay. I can promise you that.”

“Are you sure? Very sure?” Charity leaped up from the sofa, her childlike face alight with hope. Even now that I knew how insane and vengeful she could be, something in me wanted to protect her—this wide-eyed, seemingly delicate girl who could look so afraid and alone.

But it was for Balthazar’s sake, not hers, that I spoke. “Yes. He was injured, but he’s healing. He’s in a safe place now. I saw him just two days ago, and I think he’ll be fine.”

“Two days ago.” Charity breathed out a sigh of purest relief, then held her face shockingly close to mine. At first I thought she was going to kiss me, which was weird enough, but then she inhaled so deeply that her whole body tensed. “Yes. You did. I can smell him on you still.”

“Okay.” Black Cross only gave us three minutes in the shower. I’d thought that was enough time to get clean, but now I felt self-conscious.

Charity’s hands closed over mine—not to threaten but to soothe. “Where is he?”

I shook my head. “If Balthazar wanted you to know where he was, he’d find you. Right now, when he’s weak—you need to leave him alone, Charity.”

From his place on the white sofa, the dreadlocked vampire snorted with disgust. Charity tilted her head, and one oily ringlet tumbled loose across her cheek. “You won’t tell me where he is?”

“Last winter you wanted him to leave you alone. Why not now?”

“I never realized how far gone he was,” she said, which coming from a loony like Charity was almost unbelievably ironic.

“Or what a hypocrite he’s become. He used to admit he was a killer at heart. He used to remember that he killed me. So tell me where he is, Bianca. I want to remind him.”

Could I run away before she caught me? I didn’t think so. At least Raquel was outside; when I didn’t show up after a while, she’d call for help. The best thing to do right now was stall. “I’m sorry, Charity. I won’t.”

“You’re a vampire hunter now?” She pointed at my belt, where I wore a stake; my hand had come to rest near it, evidence of my subconscious desire to defend myself. “Black Cross, like your darling Lucas? Balthazar’s not the only one who’s lost.”

Charity took another step forward as I shuffled back. One of her long, rail-thin arms pushed the apartment door shut, and I heard an automatic lock click. Because of her sweet, youthful face and her seemingly fragile form, it always surprised me to
realize how tall she was—only a couple inches shorter than her brother. Her size was not the source of her power, but it served as a compelling reminder.

I need to distract her
, I thought.
That will buy time.
“Mrs. Bethany’s very angry.”