Get over it. You’re in a snowbank. The only vampires burning alive right now are the ones who killed you.
Tires screeched, and Skye flung herself against his side as a car on the nearby road—its driver apparently startled by the explosion—ran off the pavement into the ditch so hard that the entire hood crumpled. For one moment Balthazar looked up at the gas station, just in time to see Redgrave’s car speeding past them, back on the highway.
Well, he hadn’t finished off the bastard, but at least he knew the old crew remained as afraid of fire as he was. And Skye was safe from further vampire attacks … for the moment.
“Are you okay?” Skye called toward the driver of the wrecked car as she stumbled through the snow. “Hello?”
Balthazar pushed himself up to follow her. The driver of the car looked dazed, and on his forehead—
Blood. Lots of it. He stopped in place, not trusting himself near such weak prey at such a moment; it was too soon after the fight, too soon after he’d let himself be a hunter again.
“Mr. Lovejoy!” Skye got the car’s door open to lay one hand on the injured man’s shoulder. He was apparently too weak to answer her. “It’s okay, Mr. Lovejoy. I’m calling nine one one right now.” As she pulled out her cell phone, she said to Balthazar, “It’s my history teacher. He’s hurt. Are you all right?”
Desperate for blood. Bound to protect her from a danger he didn’t understand.
“Yeah,” Balthazar said. “I’m fine.”
Weary, dizzy, he knelt in the snow and lowered his head, thinking only to collect himself. But on the snow was a small cluster of blood droplets—those of the man from the crash. Mr. Lovejoy. Or Skye’s cut hand. Maybe even his own, if he’d gotten banged up worse than he realized.
But Balthazar soon lost the capacity to think about them in any rational way. His mind focused on only one thing: blood.
Just a taste, one taste, you’ll get your strength back—
He dipped his fingers into the stains on the snow. The blood had already chilled. But he slid his fingers between his lips—even cold blood would be glorious to him right now—
And then the world went away.
Replaced by a better one.Chapter Five
Massachusetts, 1640
BALTHAZAR BREATHED IN DEEPLY. IT HAD seemed to him, for a moment, that there was something strange about the fact that he needed to draw breath—but why should that be? They had just walked up a steep hill, which was enough to make anyone pant.
That brief oddness was quickly forgotten, replaced by a rare, deep satisfaction. According to his parents, and to the rest of their community, one’s best was never good enough—no life was industrious enough, virtuous enough, ever. But right now he was alone, save for his sister and his dog, neither of whom judged him. At market in Boston, he had sold the cow for fifteen strands of wampum, three more than his father had expected him to get, which would surely make his parents happy. Goodman Cash had even given each of the Mores an apple—a rare treat, for free, out of nothing but kindness.
As Fido bounded ahead in the high grasses, Charity leaped after him. Her natural exuberance was too great for the strict rules under which they lived, but try as he might, Balthazar could see nothing sinful in it. Perhaps it was not prudent for a young girl to dance around in the sunshine in front of others—that could be seen as immodest, he guessed, though he understood Charity had no such intention. Here and now, though, with nobody else to watch, his little sister could be free, and she knew it.
“Why can’t every day be market day?” Charity said, holding out her hands as if she wanted to catch the sunlight in her palms.
“Because we don’t have something to sell every day, just as nobody needs to buy something every day.”
“I wish we could.”
Balthazar had a flicker of a thought about markets that really were open all the time—even at night—but the peculiar daydream faded in an instant.
“If it were market day every day, then we could have jugglers and singers every day, too.”
“You’ve never even seen a juggler in your life.”
“Mama told us, and she even tried to show us with the potatoes before Papa came in that time. I think it would be fun.”
Their mother made life back in England sound much more enjoyable than life in Massachusetts Bay Colony, Balthazar thought. Their father often reminded them that they were building a city greater than London could ever be—the city of God on earth—but that was poor comfort in winter when the snow piled high, the wind whipped through the crevices at the corners of their two-room house, and there’d been nothing to eat for days but deer jerky and root vegetables. Then their mother’s stories of London—with shops that sold a fragrant hot drink called “coffee” every day and singers that performed in the marketplace for anyone to hear—well, it sounded closer to heaven than Massachusetts Bay Colony was likely to get.
“You like market day, too,” Charity said. “Because you get to see Jane.”
In front of his parents, Balthazar would have denied it; for his sister, he had only a smile. “She looked well today, didn’t she?”
“A green dress. Green!” Charity—who had never worn any color dress but black or brown, and was surrounded by women who considered colorful clothing a sign of pro-England sympathies at best, immodesty at worst—couldn’t get over it. Truth be told, Balthazar himself had understood for the first time just how bright colors could inspire lustful thoughts.