She did, and a small white bird, just like the first, flew from her hand and into the sky.
The woman laughed, put a hand on her chest in nervous excitement as the crowd erupted with applause.
“Thank you,” Balthasar said, and looked at the camera again. “Sharing is how we show love and respect.”
I know he hadn’t meant me, not specifically, but the remembrance of his magic—as potent as it had been unwelcome—sent a cold trickle of unease down my spine. Ethan must have sensed my discomfort; he put a hand at my back, warm and gratifyingly possessive.
“May I impose on you one more time?” Balthasar asked. His voice was sweet as honey, his gaze warm and inviting.
Or maybe that was just his magic working overtime.
The girl nodded, extended a hand when he offered, and stepped forward beside him.
“We’ve never met before, yes?”
She nodded. “We’ve never met.”
“And yet here, beside this beautiful building”—he gestured toward the Wrigley Building behind him—“in this beautiful metropolis, it is impossible but to be moved.”
“What’s he after?” Ethan murmured to himself, fingers rubbing his jaw as he watched.
“It’s very beautiful,” Park agreed.
Balthasar fanned and fisted the fingers of his right hand, then opened them to reveal a soft white flower in perfect blossom. The woman’s eyes grew wide.
“For you,” he said, and she took it, inhaled deeply.
Her gaze went slightly vacant, her lips parting in what looked like delicious agony. But I saw the truth in her eyes—the dilated pupils, the mask of arousal overlying fear, overlying lack of control.
A shiver ran down my spine in earnest sympathy. She wasn’t pretending; she was glamoured.
“Ethan,” I said, the word a bare whisper.
He moved closer to the screen, eyes wide in horror as he watched the scene unfold in front of us. “He’s glamouring humans on Michigan Avenue.” I caught the shock of fear in his voice, that Balthasar had done the very thing Ethan had feared.
“Right on the damn street,” Lindsey muttered, eyes glued to the screen.
“Kelley,” Luc said. “Is he doing what we think he’s doing?”
“Glamour,” she said. “I can feel it, but just the outer edge. It’s pretty concentrated on her at the moment.”
Luc glanced at Ethan. “Sire?”
Ethan didn’t hesitate. “He cannot manipulate humans on Michigan Avenue. It’s a violation against the humans, and they most certainly will crucify us for it. Send her in. Stop this.”
Humans knew vampires existed, and over the course of the past year had learned about some of our strengths and weaknesses. But they weren’t, at least as far as we knew, fully aware of vampire glamour—and its ability to influence and seemingly control.
“Roger that. Kelley, you are clear to intervene. Move forward and intercept. Get him off the damn street. Bribery, your own glamour if you have to. But no violence.”
“Roger that,” Kelley said quietly. “Moving forward.”
The camera moved closer to Balthasar, to the woman in his arms. She put a hand on his chest, and as the crowd guffawed with amusement—as if she were only acting her coquettish part—leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.
Kelley pushed through to them, the camera jerking as she tried to muscle through a crowd unwilling to part for her. The humans were too absorbed in the show to turn away or lose their seats.
Like prey scenting predator, Balthasar looked up and right into the camera, smiled broadly for all of us to see . . . and then pushed the hapless woman into Kelley’s arms.
Kelley muttered a curse, grabbed the human, helped her to the ground, where the rest of the crowd surrounded them to offer aid.
“Shit,” Luc said. “Kelley, get eyes on him! Get eyes on him!”
Kelley moved fast, and the camera panned up again . . . but he was gone.
“Move!” Luc barked out.
Kelley did, rising and tunneling through the arms, legs, and torsos of the humans who’d surrounded her and the woman, forcing her way back to the stone railing that marked the drop to the Chicago River below.
She looked down, left, right, scanned the stone dock where a water taxi sat empty, bobbing in dark water. There was no sign of Balthasar.
Luc spat out a curse.
“He can’t have just disappeared,” Ethan said, his voice low and dangerous.
“No,” I said. “But he’s fast. So fast that being in his spell makes it seem as if everyone around you has slowed.”
The vampires in the room looked at me curiously.
“That’s what it felt like,” I said, forcing my voice to stay calm, “when he glamoured me. He is very, very powerful.”
“He’ll show up again,” Ethan said ruefully, sounding suddenly tired. “He won’t be able to resist. Tonight, he showed us what he can do, what he will do, to disrupt this city unless and until we give him what he wants.”
“He can’t get into the House,” Catcher said. “Not with the wards.”
“No,” Ethan said. “But I suspect that won’t stop him trying. Either here, or in the street, or wherever else he believes he can extort action from us. He hasn’t made demands, not specifically, but he’ll do that soon enough.”
He muttered a curse. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.”