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To escape being a son? A brother? A citizen of Massachusetts Bay Colony? “Impossible.”
“Very possible.” Redgrave leaned closer, so close that Balthazar felt uneasier than before. “What would you be willing to do if it meant you could be with the woman you love?”
Balthazar considered the answer carefully before answering, “Anything but your bidding.”
Redgrave didn’t like that. The angry flash in his eyes threatened to shake his composure for the first time, and Balthazar felt a small thrill of triumph. How good it felt to deny this man his arrogance.
But Redgrave said only, “We’ll see what you’ll do. And I tell you now, Balthazar—you may be surprised.”
Ropes around his wrists, blood trickling down his arms, Balthazar gasping helplessly as he looked at the knots holding him to the beam overhead as Redgrave whispered in his ear, “Are you ready to do my bidding yet?”
No, Balthazar thought, but already the world was slipping away.
Chapter Twelve
“HEY.” SKYE SHOOK BALTHAZAR BY THE SHOULDERS as her mood shifted from merely concerned to deeply freaked out. His eyes were all but shut, his face still, and he swayed on his feet like a man in a trance. “Hey, come back. Come back. Balthazar!”
She slapped her hand across his face, hard, and instantly his fingers clamped around her wrist. His eyes opened wide, but it still took him a moment to speak. “Skye.”
“Yes. It’s me. Where did you go?”
Balthazar slumped back, so unsteady that she wondered if he was dizzy or ill. Was her blood some kind of poison? Skye braced his shoulders in her hands, and that seemed to rouse him. Haltingly, he said, “It was as if—it was like I was reliving my own past.”
“Just memories?” Skye frowned; she didn’t know what she had been expecting, but not that.
“Not just memories. It’s as if I’m really there. Every sensation, every sound—they’re all perfect.” As he spoke, he smiled, but uncertainly, as if he were saying words he didn’t dare believe. “And not just any memories, either. Skye, your blood takes vampires back to when they were alive.”
She wasn’t seeing any difference here. Why would vampires be mad to kill her merely to do the equivalent of looking through old photos? “So—just memories.”
“You don’t understand.” Balthazar shook his head, impatient but not unkind. He took her arms from his shoulders and held her hands in his—only a gesture, she thought, but the touch still made this cold, sterile room feel as if it glowed with warmth. “Life has power, Skye. It has a … grace, and beauty, and vitality that nothing after death can match. Despite all our abilities and immortality, every single vampire longs, down deep, to feel the experience of life again. Some of us deny it, but each of us knows it. Life is irreplaceable.”
“Except they can replace it through me.” The impact finally sank in, and Skye felt a little dizzy. “Or are there other ways?”
“Your blood is the only thing I’ve ever heard of that would allow a vampire to truly feel alive again without surrendering our powers.”
“Which means they want my blood really, really badly.”
“Yeah.” Balthazar breathed out, half elation, half frustration. “Skye, your blood is like a drug for us. The ultimate high.”
“That’s not good.” Skye wrested her hands free from Balthazar’s and began pacing the nurse’s station; though she still felt shaken from the tumult earlier in the evening, she couldn’t let the tension boil inside her. She needed to walk it out. “Is there anyplace in the world vampires don’t go? Anyplace I can go?”
Grimly, Balthazar shook his head. “There aren’t that many of us, but we’re spread out. Besides, if Redgrave knows what you really are—and he does—he’ll chase you as far as he has to. Even to the ends of the earth.” He spoke as though from experience.
She put her hands against the wall, as if she could push her way through to escape. Only hours ago, Redgrave had stood by her side, polite and patient, while she composed a poem. “He said—he said he wouldn’t kill me. Because they need my blood. So they won’t murder me, won’t even try—”
“That’s not good news.” He stepped closer to her, more fully present than he’d been since drinking that sip of her blood, every word urgent. “You have to trust me on this—there are fates worse than death. I’ve suffered some of them.” Balthazar’s broad hand closed around her shoulder. “You don’t want to know what Redgrave would do to you, body and soul, to keep you captive.”
Skye wanted to scream. She wanted to hit someone, but what was the point? That fury and fear had no place to go.
“Home,” she whispered. “I want to go home.” It was the only place Redgrave wouldn’t come for her, she knew, but that wasn’t as important as climbing into her own bed, pulling the covers tight, and hiding from the whole world.
From the way Balthazar squeezed her arm, she thought he understood. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”
As it turned out, escorting a sick student home was just the kind of thing teachers were on basketball duty for, and Coach Haladki waved Balthazar off without even needing much of an explanation. Within ten minutes, they were sitting together on the crosstown bus, in the very back; the only other passenger was a man dozing in the front near the driver. Though there were lights within the bus, they weren’t bright, and the road outside wasn’t well lit or heavily traveled at this hour. Skye felt as if they were in a tiny shell of illumination and warmth, surrounded on all sides by endless cold and night.
Balthazar kept his arm around her shoulders, bracing her. Though his body didn’t warm her the way another human’s would have, the contact kept her own warmth close; it was like being wrapped in a blanket.
“I’ll have to get a car,” he said. “We can’t rely on this.”
