Читать книгу The Vampire's Protector - Michele Hauf - Страница 9

Chapter 2

La Villetta cemetery; Parma, Italy

“Hexensohn!”

At the sound of the guttural accusation, the man sat up—and banged his forehead on the stone directly above him. He pressed a hand to the flat surface. Solid and cold. He pushed. It didn’t move.

He opened his eyes to...no light. Darkness muffled. And cold, so cold. Sucking in a breath, he couldn’t feel his heartbeats.

But he didn’t panic. The realization that he was trapped inside a container was only a minor distraction. What disturbed him was that he was aware of his thoughts. And that he was thinking. Again. After...

His death.

Sitting up in a panicked lunge, this time his forehead did not connect with stone, but rather, he felt a sludgy resistance as he rose upward and moved through the stone. His body ascended with little effort until his hands and shoulders felt the warmth of sunlight on them. Slapping a hand onto a hard surface, he levered his body up and out until he sat upon a stone monument.

“What in all...?” His shoulder bumped a stone pedestal, and he leaned against it. Not relaxed, by any means, but more getting his bearings. He sat up off the ground a few feet, one leg dangling over the edifice. Columns surrounded the area, and around that, a black wrought iron fence. Had he just risen from a sarcophagus?

Hmm... Looked like a fancy monument to someone long dead. Could it be his own? He had died. The knowledge was instinctive and ingrained. A certain fact. And he recalled that last, painful, gasping breath so clearly. Had it only been just yesterday?

A deep breath took in his surroundings. The air smelled of mildew and jasmine flowers. Birds twittered nearby. And the weird rushing sound of something unfamiliar not far off. Gasping out a breath, he pressed fingertips to his chest and realized his lungs were taking in air. He breathed? But how? He— Wasn’t he dead?

Something had sung to him. Called him. Summoned him with that vile curse hexensohn. It meant witch’s son, and he’d hated it once and already hated it again. Yet accompanying the curse he had felt the music. The pure and rapidly bowed tones from an instrument that had once facilitated his very livelihood.

Glancing about, he took in the close-spaced tombstones and nearby mausoleums. He sat in a cemetery, upon a large tombstone. And that startled him so that he slid off the stone sarcophagus, stood, wobbling as he stepped a few paces, and then turned to study the bust placed upon the pedestal where he had just risen. He narrowed his eyes. The face and hair on the bust looked familiar. Though it wasn’t life-size, perhaps a bit bigger. Had he ever appeared so...regal?

“Not me. Can’t be,” he muttered. “I’m dead. This is a dream. Some means of Hell torture. It has to be. No one comes back from...”

His eyes took in the area. The entire monument he stood within was about ten feet square with eight columns, two supporting each corner of a massive canopy. Wandering to the edge and stepping down onto the narrow strip of loose stones circling the structure, he turned and looked high over the front of the canopy.

And he read the name chiseled into the stone above. “‘Nicolo Paganini.’”

He grasped his throat, marveling at the sound that had come from him. Because... “I could not speak for so long.”

Years before his death he’d lost the ability to speak. It had been miserable, and he’d to rely on his son, Achille, to press an ear to his mouth so he could hear the barely imperceptible sounds he’d made and then interpret to others.

“Achille?” Where was he? How many days had it been since his death? Had his son buried him? How had he come to rise from the grave?

What was happening?

The brimstone bargain? No. He had not fulfilled his portion of that wicked bargain. And yet...the sound of a violin had woken him from his eternal slumber.

He tapped his lower lip in thought and then was surprised at the feel of his skin and—he opened his mouth. He had teeth! All of them, in fact. They had all fallen out in the years before his death.

Looking at his hands, he marveled that the age spots that had once marked his flesh were not there. He pushed fingers up through his hair. It was long and tangled, but it felt soft, not dry from years of sickness. His face, too. The skin was smooth and taut. Had he grown young in his death? Impossible.

Again, the steady heartbeats prompted him to touch his chest. And then he beat a sound fist against his body. When had he ever had such firm, well-developed muscles as he now felt beneath the clothing?

What foul magic was this?

Was he alive? Was this his body or that of some creature? What diabolic magic had been enacted to conjure him from his very grave?

“It can’t be.”

He thought of the devil Himself. That wicked, foul beast. The ruler of Hell, or rather, as the creature had called it, Beneath.

“That bastard wouldn’t. He had made the offer to me so many times. Every time I refused.”

Many a night Himself had set the black violin before Nicolo’s old and decaying body and told him he had been born with supernatural power. Why must he continue to deny his birthright?

Nicolo had always denied that wicked magic. Many times over the decades he had performed, he had steadfastly refused the bargain Himself offered. Because he’d not wanted his son, Achille, to see him as a monster. For he knew that by drawing the bow hairs across the violin strings, he would become evil. A creature like the devil Himself.

Supernatural power or not, he could have never lived with such a selfish choice. Instead he’d used the talent that he’d honed since a young child. And even with death withering his skin and bones, he’d not the urge to accept Himself’s final bargain on his deathbed.

“Pick it up,” the Dark Lord had said of the black violin that gleamed with promise. “Play one song and you shall have it all. Your legacy.”

Never, Nicolo thought.

And yet, is that what had happened now? No, he’d not played the violin. He’d instructed Achille to ensure it was destroyed after his death. So how was he now standing before his final resting place?

Very much alive.

It was a rather fine-looking tomb, if he did say so. Quite a large pediment and a glorious monument to the maestro.

The maestro himself. A man now seemingly unhampered by age and time—even death—and feeling rather as if he was in his twenties again.

How much time had passed? Closing his eyes, Nicolo concentrated on the sounds, moving beyond the birds and weird rushing nearby to that minute rhythm. It wasn’t coming from a window or even a distant concert hall. It was coming from within him. From his very soul.

Did he have a soul now? Should not death have released his soul?

A profound thought.

A few simple notes had woken him. Not even a tune or melody. Bow across strings. Almost accidental, really. Yet those notes had sung to him. Calling him. Luring him. Gesturing with a coaxing finger for him to follow.

Achille must not have destroyed the black violin. Had someone found the instrument? Were they playing it right now? It had literally pulled him up from death. He knew that as he knew his heart beat now.

Nicolo turned about, lost in the odd sensation of being lured and yet feeling as if he’d just been reborn. His eyes fell to a nearby tombstone that detailed Marie Grace’s final rest taking place in 1920.

“1920? But that’s...”

He had died in 1840 after living fifty-eight years. A splendid life. A troubled life. A boisterous and desperate life. But he regretted none of it. For he had lived for his pleasure and had fathered a smart and kind son.

Had so much time passed then? Eighty years? The woman’s tombstone looked old. A corner was chipped, and soot and moss covered half the surface. It could be even later than 1920. Yet the idea of stepping into the world so far into the future was impossible to fathom.

Nicolo stepped forward and gripped the wrought iron fence encircling his tomb. Where must he go? How would he go? And with what means would he survive? And what would he do now that he’d risen from death? Would the violin continue to sing and lure him down the dark and evil path he had literally been born to follow?

The music grew more insistent, and his newly beating heart answered those desperate questions for him. There was only one thing he could do to ensure that bedamned bargain did not claim him. He must find the violin that had called him up from death. And destroy it.

* * *

Sitting in the silver Audi with the windows rolled down, Summer glided her fingers over the leather violin case nestled on the passenger seat. Since discovering the instrument an hour earlier she’d been hearing the silvery whisper intermittently. It wasn’t a voice, more just a sound, a distant note on a violin. So far away that she had to lean forward and tilt her head to hear it, but she wanted to hear it. To answer it.

And that was strange. She likened it to her vampiric persuasion. Had she fallen under some weird thrall when uncovering the violin? If it really had come from the devil Himself any number of malevolent spells or hexes could be attached to the instrument.

The thought gave her a shudder. It took a lot to scare her. Devil’s magic was number one on that very short list. Demons ranked number two.

Her reflection in the rearview mirror showed a tired blonde with dirt smeared across her cheek and dust still cluttered in her hair. She’d driven straight from Paris to Italy and hadn’t slept since two days earlier. She required a few hours shut-eye each night. That’s what she was considering now as the car idled roadside at the edge of Parma.

She rubbed at the dirt on her chin, but didn’t bother when it smeared. She was used to being dirty. In her spare time she liked to work on cars, and getting greasy was part of the fun. Makeup and hair spray? Ugh. Leave the war paint for the girlie girls. Much to her ultrafeminine mother’s annoyance, Summer was a tomboy to the bone.

Probably another reason why the Retriever job fit her like a glove. She didn’t mind the tough work, long hours, travel or the dirt. And she really didn’t mind the creep factor.

Except when said creep factor was accompanied by a violin that played itself. But had it really? Or maybe the unconscious fear of evil she had was putting that freaky scenario in her brain. It could have been that she’d dropped the bow, the bow hairs had slid across the violin strings, and, voilà. A few random notes had sounded. Shouldn’t raise the dead or Beneath.

She hoped.

“Paganini’s violin,” she whispered with awe. “Nice snatch.”

Now to get it to Paris. Without falling asleep. A sip of blood should do the trick to keep her awake, so she’d keep her eyes peeled for a potential donor. Someone nondescript, young, not terribly attractive, but not a vagrant. She preferred mousey and bookish, actually. Though, considering what she did to them, she should probably go after criminals. But then, she argued that changing a criminal would only make him a worse danger to others. A normal person? With hope, they could handle the results of her bite.

There was nothing she could do about it, and she did have to take blood. Bags of blood from a blood bank wouldn’t cut it. A vampire had to drink blood with a heartbeat to survive.

Initially, she hadn’t realized what her bite did to humans. Her father, Vaillant, had been the first to notice. He’d gone along with her those first times when she’d come into her fangs at puberty and had taught her to stalk the shadows and take a donor without killing. Yet, her father had noticed that her donors were different after Summer’s bite. Some struggled with voices about them that they grasped for as if at insects. Others shouted out to nothing but the madness inside them. It seemed a condition that lasted for hours.

Over the years, her family had figured that Summer’s bite was somehow changing her donors. A little or a lot, depending on how large a drink she took from them. A long drink? The donor very possibly went mad. It had frightened her to know she had such an ugly power. And confused her. Why only her? Other vampires did not impart madness with their bites. Nor did her bite seem to affect the paranormal breeds. But she could hardly keep her blood drinking only to paranormals. Humans were so much more abundant.

Fortunately, she had a strong family support system and had learned to control her hunger as much as she could. Which meant taking only a small sip and then hoping the donor would be okay. Just a touch of madness.

It was no way for a vampire to exist. But it was her life.

What she wouldn’t give to be a normal vampire who could take a nice long quaff from a pulsing vein and then walk away, whistling a show tune.

Her job did make avoiding that emotional struggle a little easier. No time for empathy for others or personal-relationship woes. She kept busy. Focused on the prize. And never got involved with distractions such as families who may own the sought-after magical item, or humans who wished to challenge her for the prize, she, as a Retriever, had been assigned to obtain.

Life was basically good. And it would be much better when she dumped this weird, whispering violin.

“I’m going to bring you in to the Archives to be cataloged, tagged and stored. Never to be played,” she said and followed with a sigh. “That’s so wrong. This violin is exquisite.”

Whatever horrible powers it might possess could be counteracted with a witch’s spell, yes?

No. She wouldn’t go there. Dark and dangerous things were best kept under lock and key. And wards. And spells. And any other magical device that could be slapped on to the thing. Better safe than sorry.

She picked up her phone and scrolled to the director’s number, when it suddenly rang. From the director.

“Yes,” Summer answered. “I’ve found the black violin. Got it in the case and sitting next to me right now.”

“Excellent. So you’ll be flying it to Paris today?”

“Uh, you know I drive.” Because, adventurous as she was, soaring up to thirty-thousand-feet altitude in an airplane? Not going to happen. She was a creature of the earth and intended to remain as close to it as possible. It wasn’t that she was afraid of flying, she was merely sensible. “I’m sure I can have it there by tomorrow evening. Monday morning at the latest. I might find a place to pull over and rest because I’ve been driving all night.”

“That’s fine. As long as it’s secure, there is no rush. Go ahead and bring it directly to the Archives for cataloging.”

“Uh... Director Pierce?”

“Yes, Santiago?”

“What is the thing with this violin? I mean, it seems innocuous. It’s just another violin, albeit remarkably well preserved. The strings were even tight—”

“You didn’t play it, did you?”

“What?”

“Don’t play that violin, Santiago. All of Beneath will, quite literally, break loose if anyone should play that violin.”

“Uh...” Gulp. All of Beneath? That covered quite a lot of area. And included its ruler and nemesis, Himself. But really?

“Summer.” The director rarely used her first name, so that set her back in her seat. “Tell me you did not play the violin.”

“I did not play the violin.”

“I’m sensing there’s a but?”

She sighed heavily, and with a glance to the violin case, nodded. “But I did drop the bow, and it slid across the strings. It wasn’t as if it was purposefully played. It made more of a noise than anything.”

“Fuck.”

She had never in her service to Acquisitions heard Ethan Pierce swear. And now Summer noticed her hands shook. What the heck? She hadn’t done anything cataclysmically wrong. She was still alive. A vile nest of demons had not been released from the depths of the storage room where she’d found the violin. The sky was still blue. The earth still circled the sun. The birds were chirping. The...well, really. Everything was cool.

“Summer, Paganini had specifically stated that violin be destroyed. He did so because before his death the devil Himself made him an offer.”

“I know the history.”

“Yes, the history you can read in books and on the internet. But the real history—the one Archives records in the Book of All Spells—details that if Paganini had played one song on the instrument he would have been granted all the power the devil possessed.”

“Yes, but, Director Pierce, Paganini is dead. And like I said, it was just a note or two. Some noise. I did not play the violin. I’m pretty sure the uh...” No one spoke the devil’s name too much. Say it three times? You’ve invited him for lunch. “...the Big Guy hasn’t risen either. Everything is cool.”

“Is it?”

“You know I’m an ace at the smooth, clean mission. Why are you so worried?”

“It may be a precautionary worry. And I certainly hope it is. But what if playing a note or two disturbed the dead Nicolo Paganini? It’s a probability I have to consider due to the nature of the strange magics with which we often encounter.”

Summer let out a burst of laughter. And then she silenced. Director Pierce had not offered equal levity with return laughter. “Really? No. That’s— Why the musician? It was just a note or two.”

“Where was the violinist buried?” She heard clicking on his end, indicating he must be doing a search on the computer. “Parma. Not far from Cella Monte.”

“Yes, I’m just outside Parma now. I pulled over to...” She wouldn’t admit she’d been considering a nap.

“Then you can ensure your little mishap didn’t stir up trouble. You must go to the grave site to check that the musician’s grave is undisturbed.”

“Seriously?”

“Santiago, it is essential. You have either dallied very closely with a wicked bargain, or have, in fact, released a malicious force into the world.”

He had a way of making it sound so devastating that Summer shrank even deeper into the car seat. But then she sat up straight and hit the steering wheel with a fist. “I have done no such thing. Have you ever known me to mess up a mission, Director Pierce?”

“No, and I don’t want to jump to conclusions with this one. But that violin has been forged by Himself. I will hazard no foul-ups regarding any such object. The important thing right now is that you must go to the cemetery. Yes?”

She nodded. “What about the violin?”

“Keep it safe. And unplayed.”

“I can do that.”

“I know you can, Santiago. You have served Acquisitions well over the years. I’m sure this little mishap was nothing more than that. An accident.”

“It was. I swear to it. You know I would never lie.”

“I do know that about you. Call me as soon as you’ve confirmed the Paganini grave at the Parma cemetery remains intact.”

“I’m off to do a little grave digging.” Yikes. “Sorry, Director Pierce.”

“Every Retriever faces a life-altering challenge at one point or another in their career. This may be yours.”

Life altering? He was really laying it on thick. “I’m always up for a challenge. Goodbye.”

She slunk back into the seat and closed her eyes. “Good one, Santiago. You may have just unleashed untold evil into the world.”

It always sounded more ominous in the movies. Of course, the movies had a soundtrack that made everything ominous.

“Good thing there’s no soundtrack today,” she muttered.

Had an accidental slip of the bow across the strings disturbed the famed violin maestro in his grave?

Only one way to find out.

“Guess there’s no rest for this wicked violin thief.” She swallowed, wishing she’d found a donor to slake her thirst earlier. “This is going to be a long day.”