a loss.
Balthazar drove us back toward the nicer neighborhood in Philadelphia where Vic lived. Lucas and I sat together in the backseat, his hand gripping mine tightly, his gaze focused in the distance beyond the windshield. Sometimes he frowned and closed his eyes like a person in the throes of a migraine; his feet moved restlessly against the floorboards, as though he were pushing back, or attempting to push through. He didn’t want to be here, to be contained—everything around him now was just one more thing between him and the blood he needed. I knew better than to try to get him to talk. After he’d had something to drink, then he would be okay. He had to be.
Balthazar broke the wretched silence by turning on the radio, classic jazz, the kind of thing my dad used to listen to around the house. As Billie Holiday crooned about foolish things, I wondered what my parents would say now, and whether there was any advice they could have given us. We’d parted badly before I ran off with Lucas at the beginning of the summer; at the moment, I missed them so much it hurt. What would they think of everything that had happened in the past couple of days?
I glanced at Lucas—the pale, cool stillness of his flesh, the way that death had brightened his eyes and carved out his cheek-bones—and thought bleakly, Well, they always wanted me to end up with a nice vampire boy.
The car turned onto the road where Vic lived, an upscale area with broad yards separating the palatial homes. As every house had a four-car garage, we rarely saw other cars out on the street, but there were three right in front of Vic’s house. Not the usual kinds of Mercedes or Jaguars that drove around here either—these were beat-up trucks and station wagons. Something about this began to feel familiar.
Then I realized nearly a dozen people were standing in the street and in Vic’s yard. When I glimpsed a stake in one man’s hands, I realized at least that some of them were armed.
“Is this Charity’s tribe?” Balthazar said. “Is she still after Lucas?”
I remembered the e-mails Lucas had sent out just before my death, when he’d been so desperate that he’d asked anyone and everyone for help, even people we had every reason to expect to turn against us. His messages had been answered.
“It’s not Charity,” I whispered. “It’s Black Cross.”
Chapter Two
“BLACK CROSS,” BALTHAZAR REPEATED. IF I HADN’T been there when Black Cross captured Balthazar—and tortured him—I might have thought he was being very calm about the fact that a band of vampire hunters had showed up. Instead, I could see the hints of fear and anger submerged in his gaze. His fists tightened around the steering wheel. “We should get out of here.”
“We can’t just leave Vic and Ranulf!” I said.
Then Lucas leaned forward and whispered, “Mom?”
I saw her, too: Kate, a Black Cross cell leader and Lucas’s mother. Her honey gold hair, so like her son’s, shone beneath the streetlamp’s light; shadows etched the firm muscles of her arms and the stake she wore at her belt. When Black Cross had learned of my true nature and cast us out of their cell, they’d kept her away. I’d always believed this was because of Kate’s fierce love for her son, which was often hidden beneath her discipline and duty but was undeniable. Was it strong enough to sustain them now?
“It’s okay,” I said to Balthazar. “She brought some friends and came here to help Lucas, not to hunt. See?” Pointing, I showed him where another Black Cross hunter was at the front door, apparently asking Vic a lot of questions while Vic did a bad job of looking casual.
“These ‘friends’ are some of the hunters who captured me and discovered you, Bianca,” Balthazar said. “They might have come here to help, but once they see us, all bets are off.”
“I need to talk to her,” Lucas said. “If you guys want to go, go.”
I wasn’t afraid for myself; these hunters knew little about the wraiths and would be unable to hurt me. That didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid. “Do you think Kate can protect you from them? And Balthazar?”
“She’ll hold off if I tell her to,” Lucas insisted. “And what about you?” Balthazar said. His hands only clutched the steering wheel harder. “Who’s going to hold you off?”
Lucas glared at him. “I won’t attack my own mother.”
“You think that now. Wait until you get out there and smell fresh blood. You’ll be able to feel her pulse, almost—like a magnet, drawing you in.” Balthazar knew too well what he was talking about; his first act after being turned into a vampire had been to murder his own sister. Also, the hunters had begun paying attention to our car, moving closer. Balthazar continued, “If we’re going, we need to go now.”
“We’re not going.” Lucas’s jaw was set, his stare resolute. “I can handle it. I’ve got to. And—come on, it’s my mom.”
As he slid out of the backseat, Balthazar glanced at me in the rearview mirror, like I was suddenly going to take his side versus Lucas’s and run away. If Lucas trusted himself, then I would trust Lucas. I simply stepped out behind him. Balthazar could get out of the car to back us up or not; I didn’t care.
“Lucas?” Kate said. She jogged toward him, a smile lighting her face for the brief moment before she saw me. In the distance, I could see the hunters walking toward us and away from Vic’s house, and Vic slumping against his doorjamb in relief.
“Mom.” Lucas remained still, as if frozen to the spot. His features tightened, and I could tell that he was staring at her throat. What Balthazar had said was true. He could feel her pulse—sense her blood.
Kate’s eyes narrowed as she came closer to us. “Thought you were supposed to be sick,” she said. Distrust and contempt laced her every word. “So sick you couldn’t move.”
“I was,” I said. “But—not now.” I couldn’t exactly claim to have gotten better.
“No more reason for Lucas to stick around, then.” Kate held out her hand to her son. “You can come back. It’s okay. The people who would hold it against you—we don’t need them. All you have to do is realize you made a mistake.”
Lucas didn’t take her hand. “I didn’t make a mistake.” His voice was thin, his words forced. His eyes glittered brightly in the dim light, and I could sense the waves of killing madness washing over him. Yet he stood his ground. “I love Bianca. I made my choice. But . . . I’m glad you came.”
Movement in the farther distance caught my attention. My eyes widened when I recognized two of the hunters in this small group, standing at the far side of Vic’s lawn—a heavyset, dark-skinned woman with her hair in thick braids, and another with golden skin and hair sheared crazily short against her scalp: Dana and Raquel. Dana had been Lucas’s best friend since they were little kids, and when my true nature had been revealed, she was the one who had helped us escape. Raquel had been my best friend and junior-year roommate at Evernight Academy, and the victim of a terrible wraith haunting ever since childhood. She had run away with Lucas and me, joining us when we’d become part of Black Cross.
Raquel was also the one who had turned me in to Black Cross when she’d realized I was the child of vampires.
They loved each other. Would Raquel have come around to Dana’s way of thinking and stand with us now? Or would Dana side with Raquel instead of the
