Balthazar (17 page)

BALTHAZAR PACED THE LENGTH OF HIS BARE carriage house; the sheets were rumpled from his brief, futile attempt to get some sleep. The early morning sunlight filtering through the curtains seemed to fall on his mistakes, making them clearer, and therefore worse.

No humans. It's a simple rule. How could you forget it?

His mind's reply didn't take the form of words; instead, he remembered Skye's face last night—drawn and pale, and yet trying so hard to be brave that his defenses had crumbled. The way she'd leaned against him on the bus, glowing with warmth like the last ember of a fire. The feel of her mouth against his.

Frustrated, Balthazar tried to push the memories away. Skye was a beautiful girl. He enjoyed spending time with her. He knew he was already committed to keeping her safe from Redgrave and his tribe. That was all there could ever be to it, though. Going any further than one impulsive, mistaken kiss would be unfair to her in the end.

But it had been so long since anyone good and decent had wanted him that way—and her silhouette against the window last night, looking for him in the darkness—

No humans
.

As he got ready for the day, slicking back his hair and dressing as tweedy-preppy-conservative as he could manage with his wardrobe, Balthazar thought again of how fragile Skye had been the night before. Being pushed away after a kiss like that: That couldn't have helped her state of mind. How could he have gotten so carried away, been so selfish, as to pile one more thing onto the burdens she already had to bear?

He shrugged on his blazer and looked at himself in the mirror; his reflection was crisp and bright, no doubt thanks to the sip of Skye's blood he'd drunk the night before. Even in small doses, living human blood gave vampires a kind of vitality nothing else could. Not that he deserved it.

“You bastard,” he said to the man in the mirror.

A knock on the door startled him. His first thought was Skye, but he hadn't told her exactly where he was staying yet. To find him here, somebody would have had to be following him.

Balthazar tensed. He walked to his small kitchen and looked in the knife drawer; nothing in there was larger than a ten-inch carving knife, but the blade seemed sturdy. It would do. Palming the handle so that the knife lay flat against one arm, he put one hand on the doorknob, took a deep breath, and opened it—

—to see Madison Findley on his doorstop, a coffeemaker in her hands.

“Madison!” He put his hands behind his back, the better to conceal the knife. “Good morning.”

“Sorry to intrude, Mr. More.” Madison didn't look sorry; her eyes darted around the bit of his carriage house she could see, the gesture of the perpetually nosy. “My dad remembered last night that the coffeepot in here broke and we hadn't gotten around to putting in the replacement.” She hoisted the coffee maker a little higher in her arms. “Meet the replacement.”

“Oh, thanks. Some caffeine would be good around now.” Balthazar didn't respond much to caffeine; he just needed something to joke about, so he could laugh to cover the sound of his sliding the knife onto his table.

“They said you took Skye home last night. Is she okay?”

“Fine, I think. It can get hot in the gym, and just after you come in from the cold—you know.” Which made no sense, but hopefully Madison would skip over it. “Just dropped her off at the house. She should be in class this morning.”

“That's good. Hey, want me to set this up for you?”

She'd taken one step inside before Balthazar's hands were free to collect the coffeemaker from her. “That's okay, Madison. I've got it. But seriously, thanks for bringing it by.”

“Well, okay.” Madison hesitated a moment before stepping back out again. “See you in class!”

“Don't be late!” he called cheerfully as he shut the door. That was a teacherish sort of thing to say, right? At that moment he was too relieved to worry about it much.

It never occurred to him to wonder whether Redgrave and the others would really have knocked on the door if they'd come intending to do violence.

He suspected they wouldn't knock on his door the night they came to kill him.

Balthazar walked into his first class just before the bell, so all the students were in their seats. Though he gave the room a glance he hoped was professional, his eyes searched for Skye first of all—

—and found her. Instead of looking crushed by last night's events, as he'd feared she would, she gazed back at him evenly. Serene, almost. As if she didn't have a care in the world. And she'd dressed accordingly.

That skirt … that cannot possibly pass the dress code
.

Skye's outfit wasn't outrageous; her sweater was slightly oversized, even, and the colors were all blacks and dark grays and plum-colored tights. But he could see a whole lot of the tights, almost all the way up her thighs, because that skirt…

Drooling over one of the students in front of the rest of the class is definitely not professional
, he told himself, pulling it together as best he could. “Good morning, everybody. We'll be diving into chapter one today—though I haven't had much time to review, I'm afraid. Had to catch the game last night.”

“Where the Weatherman kicked their butts!” somebody said, and most everyone started cheering and clapping. A few people patted the shoulders of a tall, handsome kid in the front row, who hung his head in not entirely false modesty. Balthazar glanced at the seating chart to see that this was WEATHERS, CRAIG… Skye's ex, he realized. Not that he should care one way or the other.

“Okay, everyone, settle down.” That was definitely a teacherish thing to say. “Basketball is over, and Colonial History Honors Seminar has begun. Let's see, what do we have here, chapter one is … freedom of religion?”

“It's, like, about the Pilgrims?” said a cute Asian girl seated directly beside Craig. “And how they came to America so they could create freedom of religion for everybody?”

“Well, that's not true,” Balthazar said. “Seriously, does it say that?”

Everyone in the class seemed to be glancing around at one another—except Skye, who was now hiding a smile behind her hand. Madison Findley piped up: “Yeah, it does. I mean, that was the whole point, right?”

“No. That was—as far from the whole point as it gets.” He started flipping through that first chapter, which had been written by someone with more patriotism than common sense. “This is wrong. And that's not—Good God, it's
all
wrong. Completely and totally wrong.”

The Asian girl (whom the seating chart called FONG, BRITNEE) said, “Then why did they come?”

“The reason the Godly—wait, let me back up. The Puritans didn't call themselves Puritans; that was a nickname given to them by people who disliked them—in other words, everyone who wasn't a Puritan.” Though he'd fallen into the trap of using it himself, in the centuries since: The present always exercised a kind of tyranny over the past, all-knowing, invariably right. “The reason nobody liked them was because they were convinced they knew the only true way to God, the only true way for people to live. They didn't come to the New World to create freedom of religion; they came to create the kingdom of God on earth. They could worship as they chose, but anybody else who came to that territory—or, in the case of the Native Americans, anybody who lived there already—was going to have to worship in the same way. Even other Christians weren't welcome. Roman Catholics in particular.”

Some of the students had started to smile, but in a good way, as if they were actually sort of interested against their will. Balthazar decided to go with it. He shut the idiotic book and just went to the board. If the best way to handle this class was to talk about what he already knew, fine.

“The Puritans called themselves the Godly,” he said, jotting it on the board. All around him, students started taking notes. Skye looked down last, though. Their eyes locked for an instant, long enough for Balthazar to realize how good it felt to know at least one person understood that he was telling his own truth.

By the study hall at the end of the day, Balthazar was feeling pretty good about the whole teacher thing—at least until Skye walked into the library, and how could that skirt possibly have become shorter since homeroom? It had to have. There was no way she could've walked around like that for hours without being spoken to. Or possibly arrested.

Balthazar realized that was partly the old-fashioned side of him talking—her skirt was short but not indecent. The obscenity of it wasn't the length of the hemline; it was the thoughts that hemline inspired in him.

Skye texted him first:
I'm going straight home after school. Madison asked me over, but I told her I still feel weird. You didn't tell me you were living over there!

Haven't had much chance. Listen, are you okay?

Yeah. The vision in Ms. Loos's class today was intense, but since I fainted yesterday at the game, she was actually nice about it for a change. I think everybody thinks I'm epileptic or something. I should be transferred out of there by the end of the week, though
.

Balthazar raised an eyebrow at the realization that Tonia had been giving Skye a difficult time, but that was hardly the most important subject for them to discuss.
I just need to say—I'm sorry. About last night
.

For what?

For going further than I should've gone
.

I was hoping you were going to say, for leaving too soon
.

The idea of lingering longer in Skye's bedroom flickered in his mind, invitingly, but Balthazar pushed it away.
I think you're amazing. You know that. But I meant what I said. Getting involved with humans—it's a line I don't cross
.

There's a first time for everything
.

He glanced up from his phone to look at her the precise moment she did the same. As their eyes met across the library, Skye recrossed her legs, giving him another glimpse of just how long and slim and toned they were.

A bold move—but her eyes told the true story. There he could see her uncertainty, her vulnerability. Whatever it was, that mixture of flirtation and fragility struck deep within him.

Balthazar's response was as much a reminder to himself as to Skye:
We can't be anything more than friends
.

I hear you
, Skye sent back, which seemed surprisingly reasonable—until the next line arrived.
But nobody said I had to make it easy for you
.

He should have been exasperated. Concerned. Something like that.

Instead, it was all he could do to keep from smiling.

Madison walked as far as Skye's house with her, so Balthazar followed them at a distance. It was easier watching Skye when she was wearing a long puffer coat that hid those legs. Yet as they wound their way through to her house, Balthazar began to sense it—that faint energy in the air, thick and ominous, like the coming of a storm.

A vampire was near.

Balthazar moved a little faster; better to be seen following Skye than to leave her exposed. Yet the vampire didn't close in, didn't give chase. The presence lingered until a few moments after Skye and Madison had gone inside.

That was when he heard Redgrave's voice: “It doesn't bother you?”

“A lot of things are bothering me right now.” Balthazar resolved to get a meat cleaver or something to keep on hand. Anything that would equip him for an impromptu beheading. “Which one are you referring to? The fact that you're stalking one of my friends?”

“‘Friend.' How courtly of you.” Redgrave appeared from the underbrush, his elegant clothes still perfect. That camel-colored coat probably cost thousands of dollars; the crocodile leather shoes shone as if the slush and ice couldn't touch them. His maddening ability to remain polished, no matter what, was just one of the things Balthazar loathed about him. “I mean, the fact that the young lady has a haunted house. The wraiths are no greater friends to you than they are to us. How have you conquered your fear? Or tell me, Balthazar—have you conquered the wraiths?”

That was uncertainty in Redgrave's voice—the only uncertainty Balthazar had ever heard from him. The ancient terror of the wraiths among vampires was especially strong in Redgrave's, for reasons Balthazar had never been allowed to know; perhaps, two thousand years ago when Redgrave had still been new, still calling himself by the name his mother had given him, violence between the twin forms of the undead had been more common. At any rate, his fear of the supposed haunting within Skye's house was very real … which meant Skye remained safe when at home.

Small as this victory was, Balthazar had learned to cherish any win against his oldest and worst enemy. “Let's just say I have friends in the strangest places.”

They faced each other then, without weapons, without other vampires. Balthazar tried to remember what it had been like before Redgrave. For the centuries since his death, Redgrave's shadow had stretched across Balthazar's years, drawing away the light.