Downbeat (Biting Love)

by Hughes, Mary

The lamp by the couch clicked on. I jumped.

  “Have you been drinking?” My mother, in a frilly apron with the slogan “Potters Do It By Touch”, sat on the couch, carving a gnome—she’d found a hunk of white porous stuff in the dumpster of our cheese and sausage Wurst Und Käse store, which she called soapstone but which I suspected was actually petrified mozzarella.

  “Hi, Mom. You know I usually go out for a beer with friends after rehearsal.”

  “Yes, but usually you are not stumbling over your own feet.” She tsked. “As that great German philosopher Immanuel Kant said, ‘It’s all fun and games until someone gets their eye poked out’.”

  “I don’t think that was Kant—”

  “Who was that nice man you were with?”

  I sucked in my tonsils. “Um, nobody.”

  “‘Nobody’ has expensive taste in liquor. I smell Grand Marnier on your breath.” The deep-throated vroom of Zajicek’s engine brought her to her feet. She shuffled over to the window, twitched aside the curtain. “Apparently ‘nobody’ also drives a Lambo.”

  I bowed to the inevitable. “Maestro Zajicek is our interim conductor while Hugo’s recovering from a minor stroke. He’s unfamiliar with Meiers Corners and wanted my help getting around.”

  “Zajicek.” She returned to the couch and her gnome carving. “That is a good Czech name, like your father’s. So he took you out for a drink, hmm? What did he do to make you as red as a nice ripe tomato?”

  “Umm…”

  “Perhaps showing him around included showing him his hotel room?”

  Zajicek spiked ping pong balls; Mom lobbed Obvious Bricks. Images crashed into my head of king-size beds and sweaty bodies. I turned much redder than a ripe tomato, nice or otherwise. I was trained in martial arts and knew fifty ways of incapacitating an attacker, but the only defense against an inquisitive mother is a swift retreat. “Goodnight, Mom.”

  The gnomes were laughing.

  Dragan drove to Otto’s with his usual fine precision, but underneath, his thoughts were roiling. Rocky, indeed. With her delicious breasts, that wealth of chestnut hair, the smooth contralto that poured like perfumed oil over his skin? And those huge blue eyes that a male could stare into forever…no, she was no Rocky.

  He was briefly glad he’d destroyed those hideous glasses.

  Even more attractive than her lovely face and figure, she was a talented musician, her tone and technique singing easily above the rest, sometimes brilliantly enough to be artistry. He’d heard the best, and she could certainly rival them, given the proper venue.

  But she worked at an insurance company. She could have played with the top orchestras, or even soloed. She had beauty and talent. Did she not know how special she was?

  Apparently not, since she let a bar host make her wait in a half-empty place.

  She didn’t seem to have a clue how attractive she was. Despite his stolen kisses, flirting and all of the passes he’d made at her, she simply didn’t get it. A lovely innocent. She needed education in the way society worked.

  He could teach her.

  Excitement plumed in his belly at the thought, excitement that even the highest-stakes gambling and endless rounds of partying hadn’t stirred recently.

  Because of her? No, it couldn’t be. Not only had he had the best of the best, his tastes ran more to mistresses with well-tutored tongues and wanton sophisticates with no strings attached.

  So his excitement wasn’t because of Raquel. Not her, but because teaching her would make all his favorite vices new again. Gambling, drinking…

  Sex.

  The rising plume ignited. Tasting the pink blush riding her delicate cheeks, sipping her breath through the hesitant parting of her lips as he kissed her…and in bed, oh yes, her whole face would flush that pretty pink as he stroked her between her sleek thighs. Her voice would sweeten, urging him to give her more, harder. Her firm, plump breasts would heave under him as he thrust into her, driving her to the peak. And then, when she was lying with her thighs parted in relaxation he would come between them and thrust her into a tight vortex of pleasure yet again…

  He nearly went up the curb. He slammed on his brakes.

  Taking a deep breath, he looked around. He was a block from Otto’s. He carefully released the brake.

  He was going too fast, both with the car and with his beautiful innocent. Although she wasn’t fragile like an orchid flower. But definitely untried, like a rosebud…roses.

  He drove past Otto’s, heading for Chicago and a special all-night florist he knew.

  Oh yes, educating the naive beauty would be a very pleasant distraction indeed.

  Somehow I escaped a hangover the next morning, but I was groggy when the alarm went off. Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette”, better known as the theme to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, was running through my sluggish brain.

  I hit snooze several times. I was late and knowing I was going to have to truncate my morning practice session when I yawned and stumbled toward the shower, scratching myself…and saw my flute in the rocking chair in the living room rather than its accustomed spot in my room, remembered why it was there and nearly melted right there. I took a very long, very cold shower, shivered through drying and brushing, burned half a loaf of bread making French toast while trying not to think of Zajicek’s kisses and strong arms saving me from my own damned feet. Then I had to suffer through my mother’s pointed looks (abetted by a new figurine joining the Seven Dwarfs on the table, the Eighth Dwarf, Guilty) as I shoveled down breakfast. I not only missed my practice session but was twenty minutes past my time to leave and ten minutes past burnt-toast-and-scrambling time.

  I rushed toward the door, remembering I’d left my car in Redfox Village as I twisted the knob. Dammit, I’d have to run the ten blocks to Nixie’s to borrow a car to make it to work anywhere close to starting time. I flung open the door and kicked into a sprint——and nearly did a somersault over the hood of my car, waiting for me at the curb. I managed to deflect most of the damage by landing with a half-twist that would have done my martial arts teacher, Mr. Miyagi, proud. I got up, dusted off the worst of the damage, unlocked the car, slid in and slapped my coffee in the cup holder as I slammed the door shut. I started to dump my lunch in the passenger seat—

  A dozen blush roses lay there.

  I gasped and caught my lunch just before it wrecking-balled into the profuse array. Sweet musk filled my airways, caressing my tongue and palate, so heady it nearly made me go into convulsions.

  I cranked down the window, stuck my head through, and rasped in the normal tang of burning leaves from the city’s park and rec.

  When I had myself under some control, I eyed the roses. The heads were huge, like I’d only ever seen in pictures. Tentatively I brushed one. The petal was velvet under the pad of my finger. Such luxury. Even the blue wrapping was expensive, a thin sheet of plastic cut from the star-spangled night sky.

  A card was embedded deep within the emerald leaves, in an envelope of thick textured cream. I teased it out.

  I hesitated opening it. These roses represented something far bigger than I wanted to deal with.

  While I was pondering, my fingers opened it and pulled out the card.

  “Raquel. Thank you for a lovely time. I hope we may get better acquainted this evening. -Z.”

  Yep, bigger than my deal-with quotient right now. I tossed the card onto the passenger seat and started the engine. I wondered where Zajicek had found a flower store open after ten at night. Then I saw the time on my clock—not late, not way late, but my manager will skin me alive late, and thrust questions from my mind to drive to work.

  The burning leaves of Meiers Corners gave way to the burnt gas of Chicago. I’d nearly quit CIC when we’d had trouble with them in May. But Nixie had suggested that I stay; reading between the lines, I was an early warning system in case CIC tried anything else.

  So I worked at Bad Vamp Central. But I wasn’t in any danger. My friends would never put me
at risk. I think there’s some sort of truce where noncombatants are concerned.

  At CIC I parked in the attached structure, dashed into the elevator, rode it to the ground floor, raced across to the main entrance, sprinted into the building, raced to the employee elevator bank, rode it to ten, and scrambled, panting, into my department eleven minutes late.

  Outside my supervisor’s office I hid my purse with my body and changed to a nonchalant saunter, trying to sneak by. Even one minute late earned a severe thrashing from Triana. Luck was with me. Triana didn’t look up as I slunk by. Nobody much notices me when I don’t have my flute.

  Nobody notices me without my flute—except, apparently, Zajicek. My desk phone rang two seconds after I’d sat down. We’re not supposed to take personal calls at work but in my defense the display read Out-of-Area. I picked up. “CIC Mutual, Safe and Secure for You and Your Family. Rating and Coding, this is Rocky. How may I help you?”

  “Hello, Raquel.” Zajicek’s rich voice sent pleasure rippling along my skin without even trying.

  I hunched in my chair to hide the luscious shivers. “I can’t talk.”

  “Then it will be my pleasure to do so. I am taking you to dinner at LeLuxe tonight at eight.”

  I pushed my glasses up, hit only nose, realized I’d forgotten my spare pair at home and felt naked. I hunched down farther and whispered, “I told you I can’t. All my evenings are full.”

  “No, you said three nights a week are orchestras and one is lessons. But I discovered the Meiers Corners Symphony does not start its season until next month. So you are free tonight.”

  He was right, damn him. “I would, but I planned to visit Hugo in the hospital tonight.”

  “We will visit him together, and then you will have dinner with me.”

  I could have lied and said I had shelter work tonight, but I lie like crap. I opened my mouth to decisively say no. “Maybe.”

  “Definitely. I will gather you at your office after work.”

  I hung up to see my supervisor filling the cubicle opening, smiling at me.

  Normally smiling is pleasant, but Triana smiles like a snake, right down to the glittering eyes and deadly fangs, or at least eyeteeth that are unnaturally long. She also has a fondness for blood sausage and is neurotic about sunlight.

  I’m guessing Triana is a vampire.

  While I have absolutely no proof vampires exist, last spring we had strange doings in Meiers Corners and I saw a lot of red-eyed, fangy people. The problem was, every time I was sure I’d seen a vampire, Nixie or somebody put in a phone call to Iowa, to this guy with a bowels-of-the-earth deep voice named Kai Elias, who gently told me what I really saw. Except I didn’t. But after talking with Elias, I never quite remembered exactly what I’d seen. It all got fuzzy. When I even hinted at it with my friends, everyone said I couldn’t possibly have seen that—and quickly changed the subject. I’d have wondered if I was going nuts, but if my mother’s menagerie couldn’t drive me there nothing could.

  So I simply smiled back at Triana and got to work.

  To my surprise, she didn’t leave. “There’s a new rumor going around. About Mr. Nosferatu.”

  When she showed up in my cube it was usually to crack the whip. But sometimes it was to gab, maybe because I brought blood sausage bribes, or maybe because I was the only one who didn’t run screaming to the company psychiatrist.

  I nodded but kept working. She might relax her standards around me but she still has a departmental quota of policies to churn out.

  “You know he has three VPs, right? Lieutenants? Well, he lost his first looey earlier this year.”

  I nodded again and kept my nose to the keyboard. Between Triana and things my friends had let slip, I knew Nosferatu was head of the Chicago Coterie, a group that ran the area’s vampires. He had three main vampire lieutenants. There were more in some sort of hierarchy which I didn’t get. But the Coterie ran gang muscle called the Lestats. Julian, Logan and the rest belonged to the Iowa Alliance. I think Mr. Cave-voice Elias was their leader, but I was working from hints and hearsay and fuzzed-out memories and wasn’t sure.

  Triana slid into my cubicle and lowered her voice. “Rumor has it he’s got a candidate for first lieutenant. Someone big.”

  I held my breath. The slight tremble of fear in Triana’s voice was unprecedented.

  “Actually, bigger than big. Badder than bad.” She crept closer and practically breathed the next words. “He rivals the ancients themselves. No human or vampi… I mean nonhuman can defeat him. His codename is Megavamp.”

  I dared to glance at her. “Are we nervous?”

  “No,” she said. “We’re scared shitless.”

  My insides turned to water. Anything that scared a badass vampire like Triana was sucky news indeed.

  I had to get this information to the Iowa Alliance as soon as possible. But as an unacknowledged spy I had no direct channel. I usually passed along my tips in casual conversation with one of my friends. For this, I needed something faster.

  When Triana left my cubicle, I eyed the phone. I’d always taken care to give my information in person. But this was so important, maybe this once…I picked up the handset and punched in Nixie’s cell phone number with a shaky finger. I was about to punch the last digit when Triana walked by.

  I slammed the handset and gave her a sickly smile. Smack dab in the enemy’s bosom, I didn’t know who might be listening in.

  I’d simply have to return to Meiers Corners as soon as possible. Right after work, in fact.

  Which meant canceling my plans with Zajicek.

  A strange feeling hit me. It should have been a weight lifted from my shoulders. I wouldn’t be subjected to stolen kisses and whipped places in his ultrafast car. Wouldn’t feel his arms around me as he rescued me from my feet yet again.

  I quivered with chill, as if my insides had been scooped out of my chest. Why didn’t I feel more relieved?

  Because I’d decided, for the benefit of the Alliance, to keep an eye on him. Well, of course. That was why I felt bad not seeing him.

  Like I said, I lie poorly—even to myself.

  But I’d made a decision, so at five-oh-one I emerged from the front door of the CIC building to tell Zajicek I needed to go home and couldn’t come with him to the hospital and oh yeah, so sorry about dinner.

  He wasn’t waiting for me.

  I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the light. The problem with plans is there’s one way for them to go right, and a whole truckload of manure of ways for them to go wrong. What did I do now? Wait for him and give him the bad news that I was skeddaddling? Or simply skeddaddle while the daddling was good?

  Sure. I hooked a left on the sidewalk and bee-lined for the parking structure and my car.

  A suspiciously sports car–sized mob, cooing and primping, barred my way.

  I spun back toward the building. If I were lucky, Zajicek hadn’t seen me—

  “Raquel? Where are you going?”

  I scurried for the front door. I was about to fling it open when Triana appeared in the lobby, waving a file that spelled overtime at me.

  Yeah, sometimes plans go wrong, and sometimes they grab you by the head and beat you face-first into the sidewalk.

  I spun and ran, plunging deep into the mob. At the center was Zajicek in his red car, wearing a contrasting dark green skinny suit coat with open collared shirt and loose tie, the epitome of celebrity chic.

  He was signing autographs through the open window. He looked a touch sunburned. Then again, sunset wasn’t for another hour or so.

  The moment he saw me he waved a hand. “Allow Ms. Hrbek through, please. Ah, you.” He pointed at a big young man with the build and lips of a tuba player. “Would you please hand Ms. Hrbek into the passenger seat?”

  I panicked. “Wait! I can’t come with you—”

  “Right away, Maestro.” The young man jumped to it and I found myself shoehorned between fans and muscled into the car. He was quite enthusiastic about
it. Thank goodness for my martial arts training, because I don’t think my limbs would have normally bent that way.

  He stuffed me into my seat and then tangled me in the belt so bad I felt like The Mummy. Then he shoved a score through the window for Zajicek to sign, nearly guillotining my nose. It was the Vaughan Williams Concerto for Bass Tuba in F minor. Got it in one.

  Zajicek signed the score then waved off the rest of the mob. “Move back. Clear the area, please.” His tones were deeper than usual, darker, reminding me of Elias’s mind-fuzzing voice.

  The mob backed up and Zajicek accelerated smoothly away, not dropping my teeth this time but we were in the moving parking lot known as Chicago city streets. Anything faster than a slow crawl would have put us up tailpipes.

  I struggled to pull my arm out of a loop of seatbelt and had managed to get my hand through when it snapped tight against my face, yanking me into the bucket seat. I continued to struggle but the seat belt was obviously winning. “I can’t go to the hospital with you,” I said from under a belt gag. “Or dinner. I have to go back to Meiers Corners.”

  Zajicek cocked a brow at me. “For what?”

  “Um, something. Something important.” Like I said, I lie for crap. “I’d at least visit the hospital with you, but with rush hour traffic snarls it’ll take two hours to get there and I need to get back right away and…and it’s important.”

  “I’m sure it is,” he said smoothly. “But we’re almost at the hospital. Surely you have a few minutes to spare for poor sick Hugo.”

  I wedged my nose out from under the belt. Sure enough, we were nearly at the hospital. The Lambo must have been part grease. Zajicek zipped in and out of traffic and within moments we were entering the hospital parking structure. If I tried to get out of it now I’d look like a thundering douchebag.

  Zajicek’s star status, money and a little vampire compulsion got his car a spot next to the elevator station, marked Reserved for Drs. As I fought with the safety belt and my frustration, he came to my door, opened it, saw me struggling and released me with a simple jab of one finger.