The Vampire's Protector. Michele Hauf

a hard rock edge. It’s awesome, isn’t it?”

      Despite the fact he’d never appreciated when someone had attempted to play his compositions—because they could never achieve the perfection he had mastered—Nicolo found himself shaking his head to the dashing allegretto scale. “It’s different, but I do like it. The violinist even manages the harmonics. How were you able to command it to play a specific song? Does this vehicle know every song ever composed?”

      Summer laughed. “No, it’s in my, uh...witchbox.” She tapped the tiny device. “More stuff you’ll have to learn about if you want to survive in the twenty-first century.”

      “The twenty-first century.” He leaned an elbow on the vehicle door and caught his forehead in hand. “Who would have thought? And I am being conveyed in a horseless vehicle with no fear of running off the road. It is a marvel. And such a smooth ride.”

      “Shock absorbers.”

      “We had the like in my time. Just those springs were not so smooth as whatever is under your carriage.”

      “It’s a car. Ah, I love this part.” She turned up the radio.

      And Nicolo closed his eyes to take in the composition. It was well played and even more rapidly than he had once managed. The violinist was an expert. But he could not get beyond the marvel that the music was right there, at the literal touch of the vampire’s fingertip. She could call up any song she wished with her witchbox. A song that summoned many wonderful memories. Life had been beautiful when standing on stage. To be adored and respected had mattered to him. He’d had a lovely son and many lovers.

      Could he have that again?

      “We’re driving through a town,” Summer informed him.

      “Ah.” He opened his eyes. “Keep your eyes open for a tavern.”

      “They are usually referred to as bars nowadays. I see a liquor store. With luck, they might still be open.”

      After Summer had bought a bottle of wine for Nicolo and explained how money was kept on small plastic cards, he decided he wanted one of those cards. They stood outside the car, and she handed him the wine. He bit the cork out with some difficulty.

      He asked after swallowing a good draft, “They issue those plastic cards to everyone?”

      “Yes, but you have to pay back the money. It’s not free money. And I’m pretty sure you are penniless.”

      “You said my violin was on display in Genoa? If I sold that I would have thousands.”

      “More like millions,” she said. “The Guarnerius Paganini is worth a fortune.”

      “Just so?” She nodded at him and took a quaff from the bottle. “Then we should drive right to Genoa and demand they hand it over. It is mine, after all.”

      “And how are you going to explain who you are? The whole rising-from-the-dead part?”

      “I will leave that to you. It seems zombies are common in your modern world. You carry pictures of them in your witchbox.”

      “I didn’t take that picture. It was from The Walking Dead. A TV show.”

      “I know what a tee-vee is!”

      “Good for you. I’ll have to find a music station for you to watch. Until then, I can do this.” She stepped alongside him and held up the device before them. “Smile.”

      Nicolo could not figure what she was doing, but he smiled on command. Of course, he was distracted by the sweep of her hair across his neck. She took liberties with their proximity. He liked that, as well. The device clicked and after adjusting it, she turned it to him for inspection. Their images had been captured. Just now. The two of them standing together. It was...

      “More than witchcraft,” he said on a tense whisper. “Is this the devil’s magic? Is it you who has come to tempt me this time around and see me play the black violin?”

      He backed away from her. Tried to recall the way to hold his fingers to ward off the damned, but making a cross with two fingers was not it, he was sure of that.

      “Nicolo, don’t worry. And we vamps are not repelled by the holy unless we’ve been baptized. Which I am not. Anyway, the last thing I want you to do is play that violin. A few accidental notes may have raised you from the dead, but I don’t think it was enough to make you evil. I suspect you actually have to play it to get the power promised to you by Himself. You uh...don’t want that power, do you?”

      “The brimstone bargain.” He shook his head. “Never. I swear to it. It is vile. Monstrous. I would become like him. That is the last thing I want. I will not play the black violin, I promise you. But I must know how did you get it to Paris so quickly? If you found it back in Parma?”

      “It was in Cella Monte, actually.” She shrugged, and Nicolo sensed a lie would follow. She looked away from him when speaking a mistruth. “We have our ways of making things happen.”

      “We? That’s right, you said you worked for some organization that retrieves things.” Apparently they could transport items rather quickly. It surprised him, yet it should not, seeing that the world had changed so drastically. “Why was it decided you needed to locate the violin now?”

      “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