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“I’m working on that,” Balthazar said. He didn’t want to make any promises before he knew for sure. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Wait—you’re leaving?” She looked stricken.
“I promise you, they aren’t coming back tonight.”
“But you could still stay here. My parents wouldn’t see you.”
“There are a few things I need to take care of. If I did that here, I’d keep you up.”
“Like I could sleep after this.” Skye sighed, but more in tiredness than frustration. Balthazar disliked leaving her, but for the moment she was safe, and he had to think about protecting her in the long term.
“Just go to school tomorrow and trust me, okay?”
He tossed the words out lightly, a phrase and nothing more. But Skye’s expression became solemn as she said, “I trust you.”
She really meant it.
He hadn’t realized, until that moment, how badly he’d wanted to hear her say that.
That night, he returned to the cheap hotel room he’d rented on the edge of town, when he’d believed he would be here for only a handful of days. Obviously he’d need a longer-term solution, with Redgrave on the scene. The danger to Skye wouldn’t go away in a day, or a week. This required long-term thinking. This required commitment.
Balthazar went to bed around midnight. Though he, like most vampires, preferred to remain awake at night and rest during the day, he knew that behaving this way separated him too completely from human society. There were times he’d allowed himself to drift into a vampiric existence; those were the times when he’d looked up to see that a year or a decade had come and gone without his having had a single meaningful experience. No more, he’d decided.
Besides, if he wanted to help Skye, he’d need an early start.
And he did want to help her—more strongly than he could have imagined he would after only a couple of days—
Refusing to think about it anymore, Balthazar went to sleep.
And dreamed.
1988.
How long had he been out of synch? Five years? Closer to ten, maybe. Balthazar’s jeans and T-shirt weren’t quite right—everybody wore jeans washed out pale now, and the stripes on his shirt’s sleeves had gone from ubiquitous to unfamiliar. But he could pass. He could manage.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t left the house in Chicago for ten years. He’d made trips to the hospital blood banks and the butchers, to get the blood he needed. He’d walked to the nearest bars and walked back. Sometimes he went to the store for cigarettes. But depression hung a kind of veil over everything—clouding it, making it more distant than it really was.
Now that Balthazar was pushing himself out again, that veil was gone. In its place was a world transformed.
Like cars. When had cars become so dull? Everything was white or gray, boxy and boring.
Women’s fashions were interesting—sort of like the 1940s on acid. Big hair, big shoulder pads, brilliant neon colors: It would take some getting used to, but he’d give it points over the 1970s.
And the storefronts all seemed to have gone away. Maybe this was because of those “malls” he’d heard about. He’d have to see one.
“Look at this,” said Redgrave, falling into step beside him. “Balthazar’s revisiting his glory days.”
Balthazar stopped where he stood, staring at Redgrave, trying to understand how he could be here. It made no sense—he hadn’t seen Redgrave in at least—in at least—
“You tried to destroy my tribe. To destroy me.” How was Redgrave in his mind? Everything around them was changing now. The twilight Chicago street seemed to be shimmering—no, melting, not vanishing but melting the way candle wax did—taking on new shapes.
The shape of a dance club in the late 1970s.
He’d been here once. No. This was the first time. Balthazar’s confusion only increased as Redgrave became more and more gleeful, clapping his hands as he circled Balthazar. A haze of smoke from cigarettes—and other smoked substances—made the blinking lights around them seem almost eerie.
“I’ve only just begun finding ways to hurt you,” Redgrave said. “Take this dream, for example. I’d never have done anything so rude, if you would only mind your manners. But Charity says you haven’t minded yours at all.”
Charity. His baby sister. Balthazar looked across the club and saw her—
