Hourglass (17 page)

Lucas said, “And they never told you what would happen if you didn’t?”

I shook my head. “I asked them tons of times, but they just acted like that wasn’t an option. They didn’t say how long I had, either. Now I’m starting to wonder.”

“You think how you’re feeling is your body trying to tell you to kill somebody?”

“Shhhhh.” There was another group of people, maybe a little older but with equally wild appearance, coming near us from a side street. Our paths would intersect soon. “Do you have to say that so loudly?”

Lucas’s steps slowed. “How do you feel right now?”

“This second? I’m fine, I guess, but—”

“Good. Get ready to run.”

“What are you talking about?” But then I saw what Lucas had seen: a third group of people, all dressed in similar rags, were approaching from across the street. This wasn’t random. We were surrounded.

Then I recognized a man in the third group, a guy with an aquiline profile, skin as pale as mine, and long, reddish-brown dreadlocks.
Shepherd.

“That guy,” I said. “He hunts for Charity.”

Lucas grabbed my hand and squeezed. “The bus stop. Go.”

We started to run. As soon as we’d taken two steps, the vampires around us gave up any pretense of just hanging out. They
swirled around as fast as a flock of birds, right on our heels. And they weren’t laughing any longer.

Lucas sped up, calling on his enhanced speed to propel us forward. I clasped his hand as tightly as I could, once again cursing my stupid sandals, but I couldn’t quite move as fast as Lucas. Before, I usually outran him. Not anymore.

The footsteps behind us pounded closer and louder. I could hear their belts and bracelets jangling. Lucas kept trying to tow me after him. By now we both knew we weren’t going to get back to the bus stop in time, not with me running so slowly. So I wrenched my hand from Lucas’s and took off running to the right. “Bianca!” he shouted, but I didn’t turn back.

I had thought the vampires would split up, half chasing Lucas and half chasing me. Lucas would be able to escape from his pursuers, and as for me—well, maybe I had a chance if I only had to fight half. Instead, from the sound of it, they’d all followed me.

Lucas, please get away, please get out of here!
I didn’t dare look back to see if that was what he was doing. They were too close, so close, getting closer—

A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me around. I stumbled and nearly fell, but Shepherd caught me.

“Smile for the people,” he whispered. “They want to think we’re just kids playing around. So you smile and make them think that. Or else we’ll make you scream.”

There were ten of them and one of me. I smiled. Nearby, in the park, I saw a young couple with a stroller shrug and keep
going, satisfied that nothing was really wrong.

“Let her go!”

Lucas pushed his way through the vampires, like they were any other crowd of punks. Nobody fought him, but the vampire didn’t let go. Shepherd said, “We’re taking her for a ride, or we’re taking her out, here and now. You know we can do it. It won’t be any trouble to take you out, too.”

We didn’t have stakes or holy water or any other weapons. We’d come out for my birthday, not for a fight. Lucas’s eyes met mine, and I could see him recognizing the hard odds we faced.

Shepherd continued, “So you have two choices, hunter. You can come for a ride with us, or you can turn around and go home like a good boy.”

“Lucas, please,” I pleaded. “They’re only after me.”

But he shook his head. “Where you go, I go.”

They walked us around the corner to a slightly less busy street and pushed us into the back of a truck. I thought for a moment of our escape from Black Cross, but that hope died instantly. We didn’t have Dana to help us this time, and the cab of the truck was completely separate from the metal box we had to stay in. When they slammed the doors shut behind us, blackness fell, save for a few lines of light around the corners of the doors.

Once I’d had nearly perfect night vision. That was starting to fade.

“Hang on, Bianca.” Lucas put his arms around me as the
truck rumbled into motion. “We’re gonna have to think fast when they open those doors back up.”

“They’ll still outnumber us,” I said. “And they’re taking us to a place where they’ll be more in control than they were here.”

“I know. But we had zero chance out there. We have to hope the next situation is going to work more to our advantage.”

I didn’t see how that was even possible, but I tried to follow Lucas’s example and think like a fighter.

It seemed to take an incredibly long time before we reached our destination—a large, one-story building that had evidently been abandoned for a long time but had been either a health club or a gymnasium. Several of the windows were broken, and graffiti striped the walls. This building was waiting to be torn down, and apparently some vampires had decided to take advantage of the delay. They tugged us out of the back of the truck—four vampires flanking each of us.

“Let’s head to the pool,” Shepherd said. Lucas and I shared a look; I knew he was telling me to look out for anything we might be able to use for weapons or an escape. I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to take out that many vampires at once, but we had to remain focused.

The pool area looked even more torn up than the rest. As we walked inside, I could see that was where the vampires had chosen to stay. Beer bottles littered the floor and windowsills, and every corner had become a trash heap. It smelled like cigarettes. In the center of the room was the swimming pool itself, long emptied of water; the abandoned high-dive board stood above,
lonely, with a cobweb dangling from the end.

At first I thought nobody else was inside. But then a solitary figure in the corner moved. Somebody in rags had been sleeping in a huddle on the floor, and I’d taken her for another trash heap.

She pushed frowsy pale hair back from her face and looked at us steadily. Even from across the room, I recognized her immediately. Ever since our capture, we’d known who we would be taken to—but that didn’t make her any easier to face.

Lucas whispered, “Charity.”

CHARITY WALKED CLOSER TO US. HER FAIR CURLS hung loose, making her look even younger than usual. She wore a lacy sleeveless cotton dress that probably used to be white instead of bloodstained and gray. Her feet were bare, her red toenail polish badly chipped. I thought of a small child awoken from its nap, confused and cranky.

“You brought them here,” she said to Shepherd. “You brought them to our home.”

“You wanted to find the girl, right? Well, we got her.” Shepherd grinned. He clearly considered this a job well done, and Charity’s displeasure didn’t even register.

She tugged at her hair and frowned. “You brought the boy, too.”

“That’s right,” Lucas said. “Miss me?”

Charity pulled down the front of her dress far enough for us to see the pink, star-shaped scar above her heart left from when Lucas had staked her during the burning of Evernight. Stakings
were the only wounds vampires could receive that left permanent marks. She traced the edge of the star with her little finger. “I think of you every day.”

Great
, I thought.
She’s obsessed with us both.
I stepped between them, so that she and I were only a few feet apart. “What do you want, Charity? Balthazar’s probably left New York by now, so it’s not like I can tell you anything.”

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “The best way to find Balthazar is…not to find him. To make him come to me. And how better to do that than by taking something he wants?”

A chill shivered through my body as I realized she was talking about me.

“I don’t want to join your tribe.” I said. My voice sounded clear and didn’t shake—the opposite of how I truly felt.

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” she said.

This was it. There was no way to escape. Lucas and I were outnumbered and surrounded. Charity would turn me into a vampire. Tonight, I would die.

I tried to tell myself it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. I’d spent most of my life expecting to become a vampire someday. Maybe I’d feel some weird bond to Charity. That often took place between a new vampire and the older one who had brought her over. But I’d still be me. Lucas had already accepted what I was, so we would still love each other. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

But I had wanted to
choose
. I had wanted to have some say in what I would become, what existence I would lead. I’d wanted
to be free—and now I never would be.

“Fine,” I said. I blinked quickly, hoping she wouldn’t see my tears. “I can’t stop you. Just let Lucas go.”

“Bianca,” Lucas pleaded. I couldn’t turn to look at him.

Instead I remained focused on Charity, whose dark eyes widened with disappointment. It was like she wanted me to be happy about becoming a vampire. How could she expect me to feel any other way? How could she not know that I hated her?

“You want to force me to do this? That’ll make you feel strong, convince you that you took something away from Balthazar? Then do it.”

“She isn’t Balthazar’s girl,” Lucas said loudly. “She’s mine.”

That was the worst possible thing he could’ve said.

“Yours?” Charity clasped her hands together. A jelly cord with only a few beads left dangled from one wrist, the cheap, ruined reflection of the coral bracelet I wore. “Bianca is yours. That makes you hers.”

I got even closer to her, so she would stop looking at him. “Leave Lucas out of this.”

“How can I leave him out of it, when you belong to each other? What I do to you affects him. And—what I do to him affects you.”

She flicked her hand. Shepherd and another vampire grabbed Lucas and began dragging him backward. Lucas struggled, elbowing Shepherd so hard in the ribs that he doubled over, and for a moment Lucas pulled free. I saw his hand go to his waist, where he had for so many years worn a stake—a useless reflex, a remnant
of the life he’d abandoned.

Shepherd recovered himself, and a third vampire joined in. Lucas fought against them with all his strength, but he was outnumbered.

“What are you doing?” I cried, struggling against the hands that held me fast. “Leave him alone!”

“You will determine his fate,” Charity promised. “Only you.”

“Balthazar always said vampires could never change, that it was the tragedy of what—of what we are.” It was bitter to again include myself with Charity, to admit that soon there would be no difference between us. “That’s the only reason he still cared about you, Charity. He thought you hadn’t changed, but you have. You’ve become a monster.”

Charity shook her head. “My poor brother never did understand. I haven’t changed. This is what I always was, even in life.” Her gaze was distant, focused on the past, on people no longer here. “But now I have the courage to act.”

“This one is strong,” Shepherd called as he continued struggling with Lucas. “Too strong.”

Charity’s face lit up in a giddy smile. “He has vampire strength? You’ve drunk his blood, Bianca. Was he sweet? He looks sweet. I wouldn’t mind a taste.”

“Don’t you bite him,” I said, and my voice shook now.

“Don’t.”

“If I bit him, and drank all his blood, and he died,” she singsonged, “Lucas would become a vampire. Would you drink willingly then? To join your lover?”

I slapped her. Her head jerked sharply to the side, and most of the vampires froze in their tracks, like they couldn’t believe anyone had dared strike Charity. She pressed her own delicate hand to her cheek, which was flushed red from my blow. Otherwise, she acted as though it had never happened. “You will ask me to join my tribe,” she said. “You will beg me.”

“Why would you think I would
ever
—” The words choked in my mouth as I realized why she thought that, what she was planning to do.

She whispered, “You’ll beg me for it, and you’ll open your throat to me. If you don’t, I’ll kill your boy.”

Lucas tried harder to free himself, but they had him fast, and another of the vampires was duct taping his wrists and then his ankles together. Then Shepherd threw Lucas over his shoulders, like he wasn’t even a person, just a bag or a thing.

“Climb the ladder,” Charity called, and Shepherd began ascending to the diving board, Lucas still in his grasp. She walked to the edge of the empty pool, and I followed, unable to understand what was going on. But when I looked in the pool, my stomach turned over. The pale-blue surface was horribly stained with blood, splash after splash of it, dark brown with age. Glimpsing the terror on my face, Charity whispered, “Sometimes, the ones that bore us, we give them a chance to get away. If they can survive the fall, we tell them, we’ll let them go. It’s so much fun to watch them on the diving board. They cry and they scream and they beg, but eventually they all decide to jump. They all fool themselves that they have a chance. Then
they fall. So messy. All that wasted blood.”

“You’re disgusting,” I said.

“Sometimes it takes them hours to die. Days. One poor fool kept whining down there for nearly a week. How long do you think Lucas would suffer?” Charity’s dark eyes glinted with pleasure at the memory of others’ pain. “Beg.”

“It wouldn’t work anyway. I can’t become a vampire unless I take a life.”

“If I drink your blood—if I drain you far enough—you’ll become so desperate for blood that you’ll attack the first human you see. I promise to keep you away from your darling boy, though it wouldn’t make any difference to you, not in that state.”

I thought about how crazed I’d been for blood at times, especially during my captivity with Black Cross. Even then there had been times I’d been in danger of losing control with Lucas. I didn’t doubt that Charity was telling the truth.

“Don’t do it,” Lucas said. “She’ll kill me anyway.”

“I won’t. Cross my heart. You did me a favor once—I do remember, you know.” The small hesitant smile on her face was as girlish and trusting as ever. “You really can choose. You can walk out of here right now, safe and sound, and live out your life as a—well, as whatever you are. We’ll let you get far away before we drop him, so you don’t have to hear.”

I closed my eyes tightly, willing myself to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Charity continued, “Or you can be a good girl and beg me nicely, and we’ll let your boy go. He’ll have to watch you die, of
course. Otherwise he wouldn’t believe us. But we’ll let him live. On my word.”

The crazy thing was, I believed her. Charity believed in bargains and debts. Also, she was a sadist. If she were simply going to turn me into a vampire and then kill Lucas anyway, or have
me
kill Lucas anyway, she’d say so and take pleasure in watching me scream. No, I had a real chance to save Lucas’s life. That meant I had to take it.

Slowly, I forced myself to say, “Please.”

“Bianca, no!” Lucas thrashed in Shepherd’s grip, but there was nothing he could do.

Charity gave me the most tender smile, like I was a prodigal child who had come home. “Please?”

“Please—make me part of your tribe.” Was that enough? No. I hated every word. Every single heartbeat felt precious, because I knew I wouldn’t feel that much longer. Brokenly, I thought that I would die on my birthday—just like Shakespeare, I remembered. My life was being stolen from me, and I had to beg. For Lucas, I would beg. “Please turn me into a vampire.”

“Do you want to stay with me forever?” Charity’s hands framed my face. “Will we be sisters? Then Balthazar will see that you’re mine instead of his. We’ll show him. Please say yes. Oh, please say that’s what you want.”

That was why she wanted me to beg; so she could convince herself it was true and that she was building a family again. She didn’t want me to get back at Balthazar; she wanted me to replace him.

I’d begun shaking so hard I felt like I couldn’t stand up, but I managed to say, “Yes. That’s what I want. Please.”

She stuck out her bottom lip, a spoiled little girl. “If you really wanted, you would plead. You would go down on your knees.”

It was impossible for me to hate anyone more than I hated her at that second. I thought of Lucas and sank to my knees. The broken tile floor scraped my skin, and I put one hand over my coral bracelet, the last token of love Lucas had given me. “Please, Charity. Please take my life.”

“There,” Charity said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” She smiled at me sweetly, and her fangs were out. It wouldn’t be long now.

“No!” Lucas shouted. “Don’t! Bianca, you can fight, forget about me!”

I tilted my head backward, looking up at the metal rafters. Cobwebs drifted lazily, like wicked clouds. My throat was bared to Charity, and I knew this was the end of my life.

I’ll be a vampire now
, I thought.
Please let my parents be right. Please let it not be so bad.

As Charity cupped her hand around the side of my throat, I saw a strange flickering in the rafters. Like light reflecting on water in a pool—though there was no water in the pool—

My eyes opened wide.

“It won’t hurt much,” Charity promised. “Really it won’t.”

The blue-green light brightened and spread, covering the entire ceiling as it coalesced into something that looked like
clouds. A cool breeze flowed around us, making a summer night into winter, and I shivered.

“Charity!” Shepherd cried. “What is this?” All the vampires were staring upward now, and even Lucas had stilled his struggling.

Charity gasped. “Oh, they wouldn’t dare. They wouldn’t
dare
.”

Sleet began to fall. Sharp pinpricks of ice rained down, jabbing my skin and crackling against the floor. Charity skittered back from me, and I got to my feet, wishing I could run. Maybe I could escape, but I couldn’t leave Lucas behind, not even now—not even during an attack by the wraith.

The sleet thickened, silvery curtains that blurred our vision and made Charity cry out in pain. Ice fell so hard that it hurt. I winced, and then gaped in astonishment as one of the silvery curtains grew more solid, more distinct, and a face formed in the sleet. Though the ice kept falling, the face and form remained.

Even more shocking: I recognized him. He was the first wraith who had ever spoken to me. His long, dark hair flowed loose, and he had a beard. Although his clothing was indistinct, it looked old-fashioned to me—like something from a couple of centuries back, with a long cloak and high boots.
The frost man
, I thought. It was the only name I’d ever had for him.

In a voice made of the sound of breaking ice, he said, “This one is not yours.”

“She
is
mine! She is!” Charity stamped her foot. “You heard her! She said she wanted to join us!”

He tilted his head, curious and disdainful, then punched forward. His fist went through Charity’s gut.

She opened her mouth as if to scream, but no sound came out. Her entire body shifted color, turning the same pale blue as the wraith. I realized he was freezing her—and apparently, even vampires could be frozen to death.

Charity jerked her head upright and shrieked, “No!” She pulled back, which seemed to take all her strength, but she staggered away from the frost man’s fist. There wasn’t any blood. Stumbling, she cried, “Get out of here! Everyone, out!”

With that, Shepherd threw Lucas from the board.

I screamed, reaching out for him in vain as he tumbled downward. But then the blue-green light appeared in the pool—more like water than ever—and it slowed his fall. Lucas still hit the bottom, but not that hard, and I could see him struggling to get free of his bonds. Obviously he was okay.

The wraith saved him
, I realized.
The wraith saved
me.

There was no time to wonder about it now. I had to get Lucas.

I hurried to the ladder and descended, through the blue-green light. It was cold—even colder than ice—and yet somehow it didn’t hurt. Instead it felt like waves of energy, or maybe electricity, dangerous to be near. I ran through it, or tried to run; it slowed my steps. My long hair trailed behind me, almost as though I were swimming instead of running. “Lucas!” I cried.

Lucas tore his hands free of the tape just as I got to him. Together we pulled at the bonds on his ankles. “Is this what
I think it is?” he asked.