Hourglass

“Excuse me,” I said, as Lucas and I wove our way through the merchandise toward her. “I’m looking for Balthazar.”

She froze, and for a moment I thought she was scared of us. We did look pretty frightening. Then her face relaxed as she recognized me. She hurried to the back of the store, pulled back a bead curtain, and yelled something in Chinese. The old man I’d seen before appeared from behind the bead curtain; when he looked at Lucas, his eyes narrowed, but then he recognized me. He led us through the bead curtain and up two flights of rickety steps. Rapping twice on a door, he called to Balthazar, then motioned to us, like, take it away.

I opened the door. Inside was a small room with a sharply slanted ceiling—an old storage room, or maybe an attic, that had been converted into a cramped bedroom. A double bed filled almost the entire room, and crates of paper parasols and fans filled most of the rest. The one lamp had an embroidered shade in brilliant orange and pink, which made the light unexpectedly warm and almost pretty. In the center of the bed, beneath a black silk coverlet emblazoned with a dragon, propped up on some pillows, lay Balthazar.

“Bianca?” He didn’t quite seem to believe his eyes. “Lucas?”

“You look better,” I said. He did, but that was a matter of degrees. Scars still marked his chin and cheeks. Balthazar wore no shirt, so I could see that in the center of his chest was a dark, angry star—where Lucas had staked him. None of that seemed to matter as much as the smile that spread across his face.

“It’s good of you both to come,” he said, “but it’s dangerous.”

“You’ve got it the wrong way around.” Lucas closed the door.

“We’re the ones on the run this time.”

“What?”

“I slipped up,” I confessed. “Raquel saw me drinking blood, and she—well, she turned me in. We only barely managed to escape.”

“Raquel—that’s impossible. She wouldn’t.” Then Balthazar thought it over, moving past his initial rejection of the idea. “I’m sorry.”

“We have to talk about something else,” I said quickly. “If I start crying today, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”

Balthazar winced as he pushed himself completely upright. His voice was gentle as he said, “Sit down. Both of you.”

The only place to sit was the foot of his bed. As soon as I touched the mattress, I knew I wanted to lie down, so I stretched out across the end. Lucas sat next to me cross-legged and stroked my jeans-clad calves with one hand. The bed felt like the most comfortable place in the world; until that moment, I hadn’t realized it had been more than six weeks since I’d slept on a real mattress. I had almost forgotten anything could be so soft.

Balthazar said, “Tell me what you need.”

“Cash,” Lucas said bluntly. “If you’ve got any.”

Balthazar motioned toward the corner. “My wallet is in the pocket of those slacks. Grab it, will you?”

Lucas did so and tossed it to Balthazar. Then my eyes went wide as Balthazar pulled out seven hundred-dollar bills and slapped them into Lucas’s hand. “I’d give you more if I had it on me, but I don’t.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Lucas stared down at the money. “This is—well, it’s a lot.”

“You saved my life, Lucas,” Balthazar said. “I guess that means I owe you one.”

Shaking his head, Lucas replied, “You don’t have a life to save, buddy.”

“You know what I mean,” Balthazar said.

“Yeah, I guess I do. “Lucas was quiet for a few moments.

I protested, “Balthazar, we don’t want to take all your money.”

To my surprise, he laughed. “This is hardly all my money.” When I frowned in confusion, Balthazar leaned against the headboard and smiled. “I invested in sugar in the eighteenth century. Coal in the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century, I bought some stock in Ford Motor Company. In the late twentieth century, I sold that stock and sank the proceeds into computers. Money is not one of my problems.” He sighed. “If you could remain in New York another week or so, by then I’d be able to go to the bank, get some real cash for you.”

“That’s okay, Moneybags,” Lucas said. “This will get us out of town.”

“If this is about pride, please, stop and think.” Balthazar looked stern. “Keeping Bianca safe matters more than scoring points.”

Lucas glared at him. “This doesn’t have jack to do with pride. We can’t even spend one more day in New York. They’ll be watching the train and bus stations by this afternoon if they aren’t already.”

Balthazar held up one hand. “No time even to rest, huh?”

“Guess not,” I said. Regretfully I pushed myself up from the soft bed. “Will we be able to reach you here?”

“It’s going to be another week or two before I’m back on my feet. I’ll be staying here.”

“But, later than that—could the people downstairs forward a letter to you? Or do they have a phone number we could use?” A lump had begun to form in my throat. “There has to be some way we can talk to you again someday. This can’t be good-bye forever. Right?”

Balthazar and Lucas shared a look. I knew they both thought it would be safer if this really were good-bye forever. I also could tell that Balthazar didn’t want this to be the ending for us either, and that Lucas didn’t exactly approve. Looking Lucas very squarely in the eye, Balthazar said, “Take one of the cards at the cash register downstairs. That phone number will work for me while I’m here, and I will check in for messages every so often after that. You might ask them about transport out of town, too—there’s a way to get out of New York without coming near a bus or train station.” The pause was slightly awkward, so Balthazar quickly added, “And ask them for some blood before you go. They picked some up from the hospital for me yesterday, and you could probably do with a couple of pints.”