Skye had the sense to start running—away from Redgrave, away from all of them—over the next ridge. Eb must have gone that way, too. As much as Balthazar would’ve liked to use the melee to take a crack at Redgrave—hoped for a momentary distraction that would give him a chance to crush his sire’s skull—he thought he’d see whether Redgrave’s own tribe might take him out. That would make a nice change. He turned to the side, ready to dash after her, when he came face-to-face with another of Redgrave’s loyalists and enforcers.
She stood a few feet from him, silent as a cat. Instead of the heavy coat even vampires would want in this bleak chill, she wore only a short-sleeved white dress that stopped far short of her knees. Her legs were bare; she wore high heels that might have glittered back before they were so dingy. Balthazar knew better than to assume she couldn’t run in them. Her fair, curly hair hung loose, halfway down her back, and a few tendrils blew across her face. She’d washed it recently—rare, for her. Her eyes remained locked with his, as if she were as startled to see him as he was to see her.
He could manage nothing louder than a whisper: “Charity.”
“Hello, dear brother.” Charity smiled at him, guileless and sweet—for only one instant. Then her face twisted into a grimace. “Still saving everybody’s life but mine.”
Guilt and shock froze him only for a moment, but it was a moment too long. Charity swung something into his head; he hadn’t even seen that she had something in her hand, but whatever it was, it was metal, heavy, and long. She swung again and again, stunning him further with each blow, and the more his head hurt, the harder it was to defend himself or even to think.
Once again she struck him, and he stumbled backward on ground that sloped sharply. Balthazar fell, rolling over and over, at first only grateful that for a moment Charity wasn’t beating the hell out of him.
Then he realized that the only ground sloping sharply beneath him was the riverbank.
If there was one thing vampires hated more than trying to cross running water—it was being submerged in running water.
Balthazar grabbed desperately for something to hang on to, anything, but it was too late. He fell from the riverbank, fell through the air for one terrible moment, and then plunged into the ice-cold rapids.
He sank like a stone.
Chapter Sixteen
SKYE RAN AS HARD AS SHE COULD. HER SIDE cramped and each breath was cold and ragged in her lungs, but she kept pushing. Eb stood not far away, quivering with fright, but if she could calm him enough to ride, she could take advantage of whatever insane vampire battle was going on to get out of here.
But where was Balthazar? She’d seen him just seconds ago, before Redgrave appeared, but not since. They couldn’t have hurt him, could they? Or would they have staked him, beheaded—
Her terror for Balthazar outweighed her fear for herself, and Skye turned to look for him. Within seconds, she sighted him—being beaten, brutally, by somebody who appeared to be a bedraggled middle-school girl but must have been another vampire. He fell backward onto the riverbank, sliding along the loose rocks and brush there, then tumbled into the water.
Could he swim? There was something about vampires and running water, something bad. Skye couldn’t remember; she couldn’t think straight with her heartbeat pounding and her whole body already aching. All she knew was that Balthazar wasn’t able to save her. Instead, she’d have to save him.
Skye ran the rest of the way to Eb, who stood still but remained jittery. Even amid her panic, she knew she had to make sure he was steady to ride; the only way to make her situation worse would be to wind up thrown or trampled by a frightened animal that weighed half a ton. “C’mon, boy,” she murmured as she ran her hands reassuringly along his side. “Good boy. You want to get out of here, don’t you? Let’s get out of here. Okay, Eb? That’s my boy.”
He seemed good—not great, but enough, she thought. Skye hooked her foot into the stirrup and got herself into the saddle. Eb stamped his feet a couple of times, but he remained steady. Grabbing the reins, she urged him forward so that they galloped downstream.
The tide pool, she thought. She and Dakota had played down there as children before their parents caught them at it and forbade it—after which they played down there only slightly less. They’d discovered that almost anything tossed into the river upstream (Frisbees, canteens, various Nerf sporting goods) eventually washed into the tide pool. If Balthazar couldn’t swim, or was too dazed to do so, he’d probably wind up there. Certainly it would be her best chance to retrieve him.
But then she heard the sound of someone—multiple someones—crashing through the trees behind her, and knew Redgrave hadn’t stopped all of her pursuers.
Skye spurred Eb harder, wishing she didn’t have to do it, and maybe she didn’t; her horse wanted out of there as badly as she did. As she steered Eb down the slope leading to the tide pool, Skye looked around desperately; almost right away, she saw what she’d sought. A tree nearby had lost a few branches during the last hard ice, and one hung amid the lower limbs, almost as thick around as her arm and twice as long. Skye tugged it free and clutched it close to her side, end out.
But then Lorenzo sprang out, running toward her at that blurry vampire speed. Almost without consciously deciding to do it, Skye drove Eb forward, toward Lorenzo rather than away, leaning forward with her makeshift weapon leading the way.
Maybe she’d meant to frighten the vampire; maybe she’d meant to knock him aside. Skye wasn’t certain. She didn’t mean for the branch to stab Lorenzo through the chest—but it did.