Balthazar (35 page)

Skye imagined a cage—a literal cage of steel bars—and fought back the sudden, throat-clenching urge to vomit.
I'll fight
, she thought.
I need to surprise them. That's the only chance I've got. What I need is the right opportunity and the courage to go for it
.

She looked out the windows, trying to get her bearings. Though the fear racing through her and the van's speed threw her off for a moment, finding their location wasn't that difficult for her in the town where she'd lived her whole life. They were taking the longer but better-known route to the highway, which meant they were going to lead her right by…

Could that work? No telling until she tried it.

The vampire closest to her was Charity, whose beauty and height made it clear that she was Balthazar's sister, even if nothing else about them was the same. As Charity yanked off the copper chain she wore, breaking the links with no thought of using it again, she said, “Why can't we start now?”

“Charity.” Redgrave's voice held a note of warning, despite his undeniable fondness. “You know the rules.”

Charity stomped her foot on the floorboard of the van. “I
hate
rules.”

Redgrave chuckled. “You've been a good girl lately, haven't you? Coming back when you were called, telling us how to battle the wraiths: all very useful. I suppose we do need someone else to spread the news of what Skye can really do, now that Lorenzo is gone.”

“May I? Please? May I?” Charity's eagerness had taken on a gleeful edge that made Skye's skin crawl.

“Just one sip,” Redgrave said, and Skye's gut tensed so hard that she thought she might vomit.

Charity turned to look at Skye with eerie eyes that seemed to penetrate her. They were not unlike Balthazar's eyes, but—unfocused, somehow. Even as Skye tried to push herself away, in vain, Charity lifted Skye's arm and bit in just below the elbow.

Skye cried out more in revulsion than in pain, though that was bad enough. Just the sight of Charity, lips curled back, fangs sunk deep in her flesh as red blood welled—it was utterly repulsive.

“Charity! That's enough!” Redgrave's polite mask had again fallen; he reached behind to grab Charity by the neckline of her dress and forcibly pull her away from Skye. The pulling away hurt even worse than the bite, and Skye folded her arm against her chest with a cry. Charity didn't even seem to notice. Her eyes had a glazed, uncertain look.

The mere scent of blood had never been so distinct to Skye before. It seemed to fill the van. All the vampires breathed in deeply, and she could almost see the ripple of excitement that went through them.

All of them except Charity: She remained lost in that far-off place—in her long-lost life, Skye realized. Her jaw was slightly slack, and blood smeared her lips, yet Charity looked more sane … more alive … than she ever had before.

“From now on, nobody touches her but me,” Redgrave said. “Nobody ever drinks from her without my permission, and nobody takes one drop more than I allow. When she's herself again, Charity will be reminded of the price of even momentary disobedience.” The other vampires nodded, willing to do anything if it meant they had a chance at her blood.

The van took a turn onto a road Skye knew well. She pushed Charity away from her, as if she were too disgusted to bear having her near. Now they were past the old Crouther house—now the Hanna place—

As soon as she saw the intersection she sought, Skye brought both knees to her chest and reached for the door on the other side of Charity. When the other vampire tried to seize her, she kicked him soundly in the jaw with both feet. Her sweaty fingers slipped on the door handle—but she had it. The door swung open, and Skye shoved toward it with all her strength. Both she and Charity fell out onto the side of the road.

The impact slammed into her gut, robbing her of breath, but Skye pushed herself to her feet immediately. She had to stumble over Charity's inert form; Charity kept staring upward, as if at the stars, taking no notice of what was happening near her. Once she was up and clear, Skye ran as fast as she could down the side street. If she could just reach it—

Behind her she heard the squealing of brakes, the slamming of doors. Redgrave and the others were behind her, gaining fast, and Skye didn't dare look back.

A weather-beaten
FOR SALE
sign marked her target, though Skye would have known it anywhere. The yellow paint, now faded, the dark green shutters on the windows: Her childhood home was as she remembered it. She took the front steps two at a time, the way she used to when she was racing Dakota to see who would get the first brownie fresh from the oven. The lock had never been the best, and she kicked the door just beneath it, the same way she had when she got mad about Dakota stealing her Padmé Amidala action figure. Just as it had then, the front door gave way, and she ran into the empty house.

“I'm here!” she called. Her words echoed amid the empty rooms. It hurt to see the place like this—cobwebs in the windows, every room bare and lonely—but there was one thing Skye knew hadn't left. It couldn't leave. “Help me!”

More steps thundered on the front stoop. Skye bolted toward the back door, just in case this didn't work, though if it didn't, she would be buying herself a few more seconds of freedom at most. She'd take it.

“Do you really think you can escape?” Redgrave said. His voice echoed, too; the vampires were inside. Her hands shook as she placed them on the back doorknob. “Silly girl. Don't you understand?” He was half growling now, his words more like those of a demon than a human being. “You belong to me.”

Which was when the light began to flicker.

Not the electric lights: Those remained as dead as they had been a year ago when her family moved out and cut off the power. No, this was an unearthly light, a sharp blue-green that sliced through the darkness in flickering waves not unlike sunlight against the bottom of a swimming pool. The air chilled around her in an instant, as if she'd opened a refrigerator door. Skye's rapid, panicked breath made small clouds in the coldness around her.

She knew what this was. This was what happened when a ghost became angry.

And Skye had always known that her childhood home was haunted.

Sleet began to fall, thick, frigid sheets of it, appearing out of nowhere, and behind her she could hear the vampires begin to screech in astonishment and fear. Balthazar had been right: Most vampires hated ghosts and feared them so much that they couldn't bear even facing them—and the talismans they'd brought to ambush her in her own home had been discarded in the van. They were powerless against ghosts now. And her ghost—the ghost she'd known as a child, the one she had never feared, always welcomed—was striking back with all its might, saving the little girl it had once cherished.

The vampires scrambled back the way they'd come, not quite out the door but close. She could stay in here, remain safe … but no. She didn't have her phone or any other way of contacting Balthazar, which meant the vampires would have plenty of time to think about how to flush her out. They could set the place on fire, for instance; if she'd thought of that within five seconds, the vampires would think of it soon. She had to use this chance, this momentary disorientation, to get as far away from Redgrave as possible.

“Thank you,” Skye whispered as she yanked the back door open and ran into the night.

The cold air hit her harder than it had before, when she'd been entranced by Redgrave. He hadn't done her the small kindness of allowing her to grab her coat, and so she wore only her skirt, boots, and a violet sweater that did little to ward off the intense chill. Snow had begun falling again, tiny, sharp flakes that blew sideways with the fierce wind.

Hang on
, she told herself.
You're not far now
.

Soon the vampires would escape from her childhood house; not long after that, they would pursue her. But Skye thought she'd bought herself a few minutes, and that was all she needed.

It seemed to her that her childhood ghost remained with her—a helpful little shadow trailing behind. Skye could picture her more vividly than ever now: the small girl by the fireside, who wore a long nightgown and hugged her knees to her chest.

But, no. It wasn't just a picture. The ghost truly was with her—communicating, perhaps, through Skye's connection with death.

Skye thought,
Why didn't I feel your death, too?

The reply was an image rather than words: the little girl in an old-fashioned hospital, sick from something the doctors didn't understand. Her tiny hands above the blanket, clutching and pulling at it in her pain, until finally she let go. That was where she had died, not at home. But the death remained unnatural and wrong.

You were poisoned
, Skye realized.
By who? And why?

The child had never known. Her parents? The strict nanny? Something horrible, though—all those images were immersed in a depthless kind of evil that felt like oil against Skye's skin.

Skye grabbed at the branches of the trees around her as she took the steep slope down to the riverbank. The wind had never seemed more brutal, and the edges of the water were thickly overlaid with a crust of ice. Still, she knew what she had to do.

Quickly she stripped off her sweater, boots, and skirt, until she wore only her underwear and camisole. The cold was almost unbearable, but she knew that trying to swim in heavy clothes would drown her, and wearing wet things after she got out of the water would freeze her faster than anything else.

And she had to swim. To cross the river. It was the one way to hold the vampires off long enough for her to reach Balthazar. On the other side of the river was the high school, Café Keats, lots of places—and her running naked and wet into Café Keats would be the gossip of the year, for sure, but that was fine by her.

No matter what the cost, Skye was going to win. She was going to live.

She took a deep breath and jumped into the river.

The freezing water felt like a thousand razor blades slicing into her at once. Skye surfaced and screamed in pain, but she also started kicking as hard as she could, fighting the current to take herself to the far shore.

The cold had its own will, it seemed, and within seconds her limbs seemed almost too heavy to move. Skye kept kicking, though, reaching out with each arm even as her teeth began to chatter. Water splashed her face, stung her eyes. She could feel the droplets beginning to freeze on her skin and hair within moments.

Her ghost seemed to surround her again, but it felt different this time—like she was being shown something. Another way.

A door.

Gasping, Skye's hand broke through the ice on the far shore of the river. She managed to stumble out, and her wet body felt as if it were freezing to the ground. Shaking so hard she could barely move, she crawled up the riverbank toward the grove near her school.

The door opened near her, around her. It was as if she had no choice but to fall through. Skye collapsed onto the frozen snow, unable to move any longer. What was happening within her body had become a thousand times more important than what was happening around her.

Someone was reaching through the door to her. Someone who loved her.

Her lips formed the word she no longer had the strength to speak: “Dakota.”

And that was when she knew she must be about to die.

June 12, 1978

Los Angeles, California

DONNA SUMMER CROONED OVER THE SPEAKERS as the dancers moved on the discotheque's illuminated floor. Balthazar—decked out in the polyester slacks and open shirt the era's fashion required—moved among them, grateful for the crowd and the thick wreaths of cigarette smoke that caught the whirling blue-and-white lights overhead.

All of these would help hide him.

Finally, amid the swirling figures around him, at the very center of the dance floor, Balthazar glimpsed the people he sought.

Redgrave, slick in a dark red suit and shiny pink shirt, dancing with Charity—she who had been so sweet, so innocent, so lost—now wearing a sheer white top and hot pants that barely covered her childish body. Sparkly shadow coated her eyelids all the way to the brows, and the thick, creamy blush so in vogue now made her look as artificially rosy as a porcelain doll.

They were having fun. Even Balthazar could recognize that.

The thought of it pricked through any semblance of sanity he'd restored to himself over the years. Rage swept through him—at Charity, at fate, but most of all at Redgrave, who had created them all in his own murderous, soulless image.

Well, Redgrave was the one he'd come to kill. Charity could break her heart crying for him if she wanted. Balthazar told himself he didn't care. What happened to his faithless baby sister didn't matter. Nothing mattered but finally ending Redgrave.

The others weren't here tonight; he'd taken care to watch them for a long time, to track their movements for months, before making his move. Lorenzo wasn't currently with the tribe—off on one of his solo jaunts, from which he inevitably returned blood-fat and overly satisfied with himself, a new, terrible poem in hand. Constantia and the others had set out in a black Trans-Am, to hunt or to party, assuming they saw any difference between the two.