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She hadn’t attacked him. Hadn’t turned away in anger. Was it possible his sister was finally ready to be helped?
“Let’s go,” he said. “You and me. Come with me now. Right away.”
“Go where?”
“New York. Toronto. San Francisco. It doesn’t matter. Someplace far from here, where Redgrave can’t find us.”
Balthazar reached his arm out, meaning to stretch it across her shoulders and lead her off, but Charity shrank back as if he were going to strike her. The old fear still lingered inside her, and Balthazar knew that was his own fault. “I can’t,” she whispered. “He’ll find out. He’ll find me. He always does; you know that.”
So she had tried to run away before, and failed. His heart ached at the thought of his little sister’s long captivity—and his own wretched inability to protect her. Now, though, things could be different. He had to make her see that. “Look around you,” Balthazar said, gesturing at the deserted streets. “Nobody will stop us.”
“Constantia would.”
“She’s not Redgrave.”
“She’s just as bad. Worse, maybe. You’ve never seen that, but I have.”
Charity was talking nonsense—who knew Constantia Gabrielis’s bag of tricks better than he did?—but Balthazar persisted. “Where is Constantia now?” With his luck, she’d come storming out of the nearest house, stake in hand.
“She’s at the house up the hill, the one we took. Everyone inside was sick, so they couldn’t fight us off. Well, the old man wasn’t sick, but he couldn’t fight us off either.” Charity’s pink tongue darted to the corner of her mouth, as if she were licking her chops at the memory. “I don’t like this flu. It makes everyone taste funny.”
“Charity, concentrate. If Constantia isn’t here, then she can’t stop us from going.” Could it really be as easy as this? It seemed impossible, and yet nothing stood in their way. Wild hope Balthazar had thought long dead sprang up inside him. They might flee this ghost town and start over somewhere. He could show her how to exist among humans without causing harm. How there were a few friendships to be had, a few deeds worth doing. That sometimes, just sometimes, their time on earth could feel like it mattered.
His sister furrowed her brow, deep in thought; it was the first time he’d seen her so focused on anything since well before her death. “She’ll know. She’ll figure it out.”
“Only that you’re gone!”
“We can’t leave her behind to tattle.” Charity’s dark eyes lit up with glee. “We’ll have to finish her off.”
Balthazar had never slain a vampire before—though not because he hadn’t wanted to. There had been nights he’d been unable to sleep because his thoughts were too full of what he could do to Redgrave: beating his smug, porcelain face until it cracked. Slicing through his neck and watching him turn to bones. Setting him on fire and lingering long enough to hear him scream. Before Redgrave, Balthazar hadn’t even known it was possible to hate that much.
Constantia … he hated her, but not like that. Not enough to enjoy killing her.
But he would do what he had to do.
The plan was mostly his, in the end; Charity could hardly focus on anything past telling him where the house was and what time to come. Just at sunset, she said: Constantia liked the anonymity of the streets after dark and would often go out prowling. During the day, she’d almost certainly be sleeping.
That seemed unlike the Constantia he remembered—Balthazar recalled her minding sunlight less than any other vampire he’d ever encountered—but he hadn’t shared her bed for 140 years or so. Habits could change.
Wasn’t he proof enough of that?
He dressed as if for a fancy party; she’d see it as a compliment. Then he went to the address Charity had given. Evening shadows falling across the stricken, eerily silent city, Balthazar made his way up the steps and simply rang the doorbell.
It took a long time for anyone to approach. His sensitive ears picked up the swishing of skirts, the click of her boots against wood. Balthazar leaned close to the door. If Constantia breathed in deeply, she would recognize even his scent. Already he recognized her. For a few moments, he simply remained there motionless while she did as well; he knew they were aware of each other, poised only inches apart, at the intersection of wrath and desire.
Finally Constantia opened the door. She stood there, blond hair down and loose as if she’d just risen from her bed. “Balthazar,” she said. “My God. Charity told the truth. With her, you never know.”
He’d told Charity to inform Constantia that he was in town. That he was lonely, regretting his isolation from other vampires. That he’d been excited to learn they were without Redgrave. Lies were always strongest when mixed with the truth: Redgrave had taught him this much.
“Constantia.” He managed a smile for her; it was bent and uncertain, but that was all right. She wouldn’t have believed an overly enthusiastic welcome. “May I come in?”
Instead of welcoming him, Constantia merely stepped backward. Balthazar walked into that space and shut the door behind him. They stood very close. She was the only woman he’d ever known tall enough to look him in the eyes.
“Where’s Charity?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.
“Wandering the streets, as usual. She can hunt on her own now. Quite well, in fact. You’d be proud of her.”
Proud wasn’t exactly the word. Still, his sister had followed the plan. She was away from the house, away from any potential blame should he fail. Already he could see that her description of this place had been entirely accurate; she could focus better than he’d realized before. Celadon paper wreathed with white vines covered each wall, and the home possessed newfangled electric lighting and a broad stairwell just next to the door. That meant the room he could barely glimpse upstairs was the bedroom Charity and Constantia weren’t using … the one his sister would have hidden the stakes in.
