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“And now you know what she’s really worth.”
“I know that better than you ever could.” Balthazar decided to try to talk some sense into Redgrave; selfish and corrupt as he was, he was usually logical. “Those memories are tempting. Too tempting. They make the existence we have now seem—pale and meaningless. If you drink Skye’s blood, if you try to make a habit of it, you’ll turn yourself into an addict. Nothing more than that. You’ll only keep trying to escape into the past more and more until you’ve lost yourself completely. Is that really what you want?”
“You never understood the power of giving in to pleasure, did you? The Puritan in you never did entirely die.” Redgrave seemed to mull it over, genuinely weighing Balthazar’s words, but as if trying to decide how they could best be twisted for his amusement. “I could of course take her only out of spite.”
“What reason could you have to spite a girl who’s never done anything to you?”
“Not her, Balthazar. To spite you. To take her from you the same way I took Charity, and your precious—ah, what was her name? Yes. Jane.” Hearing that monster speak her name sickened Balthazar, and he wished again for a blade. Redgrave continued, “Someday you’ll understand: There’s nothing and no one you can love that I can’t destroy.”
“I don’t love Skye,” Balthazar said.
Redgrave laughed, and then he disappeared—melting into the shadows almost instantly, leaving Balthazar standing there alone.
His words seemed to hang in the air: I don’t love Skye.
He wanted them to be a lie, for her protection even more than for his.
I don’t. I couldn’t.
And yet no matter how many times he said it, no matter how many ways he put it, it never sounded entirely true.
The Time Between: Interlude Two
New York City
July 14, 1863
A BOTTLE SHATTERED AGAINST THE WALL JUST beyond the window, sending shards of glass spraying against the frame. Some of the people inside groaned, but Balthazar and Richard shushed them. It was vitally important that they not be heard.
Outside this warehouse, a violent riot was taking place—the worst New York City had ever seen, or would ever see. Anger over the severe Union losses in the Civil War had boiled over into bloodshed unleashed upon African-Americans, whether former slaves or free men of color. Some anti-war elements had seized upon the idea that the war was being fought for blacks … and that blacks should somehow be made to pay for all the thousands of young men dying even now on the fields of battle. The great victory at Gettysburg had done nothing to encourage support for the war; all the rioters knew were that more men had been drafted, and so would be sent to die. They preferred to do their killing here, for no purpose, Balthazar supposed. For his part, he would rather have been a soldier with honor, but he no longer claimed to understand humanity.
Richard’s dark face shone in the light of the one lantern he held. “They’re powerful close.”
“They’re all around us. It doesn’t mean anything.” Balthazar hoped he was speaking the truth. If the rioters found this place—and the dozens of black families huddled inside—the repercussions would be deadly. And he would feel obligated to defend those hiding here, by any means necessary … no matter how unholy his means might be.
“Thought the rain last night might’ve cooled them off.”
“No such luck.” Already the summer heat beat down on the city, punishing and heavy with humidity, enough to drive the sanity out of more stable men than those gone savage outside.
This was Richard’s mission, Richard’s rescue; he was the one who had mobilized late last night after the first day’s ugliness and had gathered the others together. That was the hard part. Balthazar knew he played only a very small role in this by offering a warehouse he owned as a hiding place. But if the rioters realized who hid here and broke through the door, his role would expand into violence. Only his full vampiric strength would allow him to fight off so many attackers. The people huddled in this warehouse would then realize that Balthazar was something other than human. The semblance of a normal life he had painstakingly carved out for himself here in Manhattan would shatter in an instant.
If that were to be the price of keeping these people alive, then Balthazar would pay it. But he would not pay it gladly. Whatever shadow of a life he had, he hoped to keep.
Richard whispered, “I don’t like the sound of it out there.”
“Me either.” Balthazar didn’t say what he’d seen, rather than heard: the two bodies hanging from a makeshift gallows, dying slowly, the ropes too short to allow for broken necks and merciful swift deaths. The sight of a suffocating man’s feet kicking—that wasn’t for sharing. “When it’s quieter, I’ll go out. See what’s happening.”
“Appreciated,” Richard said. Their eyes met, sharing a glance of the darkest humor. To the fools outside, who looked no deeper than a person’s skin, Richard was somehow suspect, and Balthazar—the murderer, the monster—would be trusted.
The warehouse had fortunately been all but empty of cargo; only a few barrels sat stacked in the corner. This left more room for the dozens of people—African-Americans, some escaped slaves but mostly free people whose ancestors had lived here for generations—to hide from the marauding hordes in the streets. They huddled together, some of them families with small children, desperately silent in contrast to the ugly yelling from outside. In the past day, more than one hundred people had died—far more, Balthazar suspected. Some of the slain had been the friends, neighbors, or family members of those who hid here now.
Balthazar took a deep breath as he realized, yet again, the fragility of human society. When you thought it was set, it shifted; when you thought it was safe, it changed. He’d spent most of the past century on his own, more or less—wandering for a couple of decades before realizing that the hustle and bustle of New York City was the best place to disguise his own unearthly nature. For the past thirty years, he’d made his home in lower Manhattan, shunting from neighborhood to neighborhood as needed to make sure that nobody noticed he didn’t age. A handful of individuals had even gotten to know him; they’d all observed and commented on his peculiar habits, even Richard, who swore that Balthazar must live on air and sunshine like a flower, since nobody ever saw him eat. But in New York, it took more than that to count as “weird,” and so he was accepted. Some of these people Balthazar would even dare to call friends, the first friends he’d had since his death.
He loved it here … or he had, before this violence beneath the surface had finally boiled over. Now Balthazar saw the ugliness beneath the chaos that had hidden him so well.
Richard whispered, “They’re coming closer.”
“Only a few.” Balthazar’s sharp vampire senses told him that the people walking closer to the door were no more than six or seven in number. He could take that many humans easily, as long as they were not Black Cross. And what would Black Cross be doing here now?
