The Vampire's Protector

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“I’m assigned my missions. I fulfill them. I’m always off after some kind of magical device or haunted item. Your violin was just another mission.”

“Not my violin,” he reiterated.

“Right. The devil’s violin. Yikes. I touched it. Do you think it will have some kind of residual effect on me?”

“You are the furthest from a zombie, my lovely blonde cherub.”

“I’m a vampire who sucks blood from people’s necks to survive. Cherub will never be me.”

“Perhaps not. But a vampire named Summer?” He let his eyes stroll across her soft skin and up to those brightly inquisitive blue eyes. There lived a tease in her look that he wanted to entertain. Might his first love affair in this new age be with a vampire? “Just seems a bit too cheery for a creature of the night. You, with blood drooling out the corner of your mouth, and a pair of white cherub wings stuck on your back.”

“Ha! Quite the image. You’ve got a bit of goth to you, I suspect.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’ll get along just fine.”

“Thanks, Brightness. You like that better than cherub? I do. You are bright as summer.” He tapped her witchbox with the neck of the wine bottle. “Now command it to play some of that hard metal. I like the tones and wild scales those guitars produce. How is it that they sound so different than the guitar I once played?”

“They are electric. The sound is amplified. Electricity came about after your time, and it’s a long explanation. Get in the car and I’ll crank the tunes.”

They did so, and the car filled with the raucous tones of the female singer and some strange instruments that he guessed might be guitars, but he’d never heard one so...amplified, as Summer had explained. Amazing. It would serve to distract him from the sudden distrust that had risen when she’d paused after he’d asked about the violin.

She had it still. She must. But where had she put it? And how to find it?

* * *

About two hours east of the Italian/French border Summer stopped the car at a roadside rest stop and got out. She’d had the music on the whole way and not the GPS. Bad idea. She announced, “I’m lost. I don’t recognize this road. I wonder if I took a wrong turn?”

“Why don’t you ask your witchbox?” the violinist said with weighted sarcasm as he got out of the car. “It seems to have everything you need in it.”

“Good idea.” She tugged out her cell phone and asked Siri for directions.

“That is utter madness,” an astonished Nicolo said as he joined her in a stroll along the curbed rest area. “Tell me, is it a tiny witch who lives within that box?”

“No. Not even this day and age could invent something so strange. Are there tiny witches?”

He shrugged. “You’re the one with the fangs.”

“Doesn’t mean I know everything about witches. I’m going to go with no on the tiny witches. But this?” She waggled the phone between them. “It’s just bits and bytes. Of which, I also know little. I only know that all the information I need is contained in here, and it’s also great for finding a good vintage car supply store in a pinch.”

“Vintage. So you do have an interest in the carriages that once conveyed me from city to city?”

“Vintage is like 1950s and ’60s. I own a 1960s Bimmer R65 that I’ve been tinkering on for years.”

“I see. So I must be absolutely ancient to you, eh?”

Summer chuckled. “You are not the oldest of my friends. Trust me on that one.”

“Right. Vampires live very long, as I recall. How old are you again?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“I remember twenty-eight. I was traveling across Europe with il Cannone and Antonia. Such a lovely voice she had.”

“Was she your son’s mother?”

“Indeed. I had no desire to marry, but I was thrilled to become a father. My son, Achille, traveled with me on the concert route, as well.”

“Did you ever play in Paris?”

“A few times. Took me two weeks to travel the same path we now journey. I must have stayed for months following. Couldn’t force myself to get back into that stuffy, wobbly box on wheels. If they would have had that remarkable cold air forced through tiny vents back then. Whew!”

“Right? It’s called air-conditioning. Wait until you learn about the shower and toilets. And computers!”

“Is a shower what I think it is? Because I could use some freshening. I feel as though I’ve gone for almost two centuries without washing.”

“Ha. The dead guy made a joke.”

“No, the dead guy is merely speaking the truth.” He flapped the lapels of his velvet jacket open. “This thing is hot. And...a hundred and seventy-five years old. I need new clothing. But how to obtain clothing and food without money? I require a violin, as well. Then I can play for a living again.”

“I’ve got cash. Don’t worry about it.”

He walked around in front of her to stop her in her tracks. “Summer, a man does not accept money from a woman. Not unless she wishes him in her bed every night after a concert,” he added with the roguish grin.

“Have you ever been a woman’s gigolo?”

“There were a few times when the money did not come in quickly and in such amounts as I had needed. Must needs for hard times. You understand.”

“Yeah, sure. You were a man whore.”

He caught on to her tease and could play along. “I never stood on the streets offering my wares. Yet before my name became known I had to sacrifice for my art. Now where is that violin? You have to have it with you.” He peered over her shoulder at the parked car. “Where did you hide it?” He strode off toward the car.

“I said I sent it to Paris!” But she didn’t believe that lie any more than he obviously did.

Summer spun around and went after him. He pounded on the trunk and ran his fingers along the seam opening.

“It is inside this car,” he said. “I can hear it. There, within this receptacle. It looks like a back boot on a carriage. Open it!”

“You can hear it, too?” For a moment their eyes met, and she saw his wince before it even happened. “I don’t think it’s a good idea that you touch that violin. We can’t know what it will do to you.”

He rapped his chest with both fists and gave her the most incredulous stare. Okay, so they did know what it would do to him. Because it had already done it. It had brought him back from the dead.

“Let me rephrase that,” Summer said, trying for the stall.

“Open it,” he insisted. “Or I’ll—”

“You’ll what? Toss me across the field? Shove me so hard I’ll fly into the next town?”

“I apologize for my quick aggression earlier. I had no idea I was so strong. It is a new strength to me. But I like it. It makes me feel powerful.” He flexed his fingers into a fist. “But I won’t allow you to redirect this conversation. You have the violin.” He rapped the metal trunk hood. “In there. I’m sure of it. I can hear it. It whispers,” he said, feeling it in his veins. The darkness that curdled up his spine whenever he considered his origins and the wicked bargain he’d continually refused in his previous life.