Downbeat (Biting Love)

by Hughes, Mary

  He injected steel into them, as cold as he could make it. Impossible. This was physical attraction, no different in nature if not in strength than he’d felt for ten thousand females. The alternative was too alarming on too many levels. As he opened the car door for her mother and her he kept that thought firmly in mind.

  Her scent stirred the air as she passed. Sweet máma, it was the scent of life itself.

  No. She was not, could not be his mate. Because…well, because he wasn’t ready to settle down. And even if he were, she deserved better than a hell-bound roué like him.

  She deserved a male who could hold her when she laughed and when she cried. Not a conductor and spy whose activities took him across the globe on a moment’s notice. Not a vampire whose heart was black with pain and loss and sin.

  He nearly turned to run away.

  But no. As a member of his orchestra, no matter how temporary, she was his responsibility. He’d already taken her under his wing.

  Besides, she was like a baby bird. He had so much more to teach her so that she could fly.

  He’d simply have to help her fly free of him when the time came.

  I slid in. Memories of another limo turned my hands to ice.

  So I didn’t see much until the limo pulled up outside the magnificent double doors of the posh Avignon Francois Hotel, where even the entryway was like a palace. Then what I saw was how incredibly out of place I was.

  We got out. Luke and Mom waltzed arm in arm along the red-carpeted concrete under the tunnel of awning to the gold and etched glass pieces of art they called doors.

  My feet were ice now too, blocks fused to the carpet. “I can’t.”

  Ever gracious, Dragan called to Mom and Luke. “I must help with Raquel’s necklace. Wait for us inside please?” He took the sapphire necklace from my nerveless fingers. “What is it?”

  “Memories.” I swallowed, or tried to. My mouth was coated in dry gelatin. “Bad memories,” I amended.

  “I can see that.” He fastened on the necklace. “Perhaps if you imagine you’re playing your flute? You’re more confident then.”

  “Right.” I tried. My head filled with music, but it was a stark sound, plaintive and keening in loss. “It’s all ‘Syrinx’,” I whispered.

  “The Debussy?” His gaze went far into the distance, hearing the piece in his mind, then came back to mine, dark and filled with compassion. “A song of love that is twisted and killed. Chaste Syrinx escapes Pan’s abuse by transforming into water reeds, only to be cut by him to make pan pipes. Raquel, who abused your love? Tell me.”

  I was shocked. I’d never considered my little incident with Todd as quite so archetypal.

  But Dragan’s understanding warmed my hands and feet. No matter what other horrors happened tonight, he wouldn’t treat me like Todd. “I’ll tell you, but later. I’m ready to go in now.”

  He hesitated, then put a warm hand to the small of my back and guided me inside. We joined Mom and Luke in a cavern of opulence. Mom wasn’t intimidated at all. She glowed. Luke occasionally bent to her ear to make a remark, and she’d let out a peal of laughter like a girl.

  Even amid my own worry, I loved seeing her happy. Occupied by Mom, Luke’s haunted expression seemed to have lifted too.

  The place was huge but we finally arrived at a bank of six elevators. Even those functional doors were a daunting gold buffed to a mirror polish. The four people boarding with us, reeking of old money, sent me scurrying from Dragan’s guiding hand into the corner to cower.

  Dragan joined me in my corner and, with an understanding smile, picked up my hand, gave it a pat and tucked it in the crook of his arm. “It’s all right, drahý.”

  “Drahý,” my mother said brightly. “That’s what your father used to call me.”

  “A casual endearment.” I said. “It means honey.”

  “No. More. It means beloved.” She gave a happy sigh.

  “And when’s the wedding?” Luke drawled.

  Dragan’s high cheekbones darkened. My face wasn’t far off. Gotta love friends and relatives, otherwise you’d never want to see them again.

  The elevator dinged. The rich people sashayed out and Mom and Luke sashayed right after. Dragan might have had to tug a little to get me out. Not my fault. My limbs had solidified into stone, or maybe a new kind of plastic like ethylavoidance or polyscaredshitless.

  The elevator alcove opened into a hallway like an airport runway lined with bars. Opposite them, three sets of double doors stood open. The ballroom. I froze completely again.

  “Would you like a drink, Raquel?” Dragan patted my hand and tried to disengage, but my polyavoidance had permanently fused my fingers to the crook of his arm.

  “We’ll get them,” Luke said. “Won’t we, Trudi?”

  She beamed at him. “Love to. I’ve wanted to try a bunch of fancy cocktails. Here’s my chance.”

  After they’d set off for the bar Dragan looked down at me. “Shall we see what they’ve done with the ballroom?”

  “No! I mean…shouldn’t we wait for Mom and Luke to come back with our drinks?”

  “Raquel,” Dragan said gently. “We’ll have to go in sooner or later.”

  “Later, then.”

  Suddenly a sharp stink like rotten sewage rotor-rootered my nasal cavities. I stiffened.

  A cart zipped by.

  The breeze in its wake concussed me. My stomach wadded itself into my throat. I recognized that scent, or rather, olfactory assault.

  Cheese balls—but not any old cheese balls. These were made by the Meiers Corners’s Lutheran Ladies Auxiliary Mothers Association. LLAMA balls were regulated under Article XII of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

  “On second thought—let’s go!” I kicked into motion after the cart, dragging Dragan with me.

  He came freely, but I could hear the raised brow in his, “What’s wrong?”

  I pointed at the blue-sweatered back of the figure stepping sprightly behind the wobbly creak of a badly aligned cart. “That’s Mrs. Blau. She has—” I waited for the dramatic duh-duhhhh music, but apparently life only has a soundtrack in my head, “—cheese balls.”

  “Very interesting.” His tone said what he was really thinking: Big deal. Delicious cheese in a convenient shape, perfect for parties.

  “Those aren’t ordinary cheese balls,” I panted. “They’re not balls containing cheese.” Or food of any kind. “Those are LLAMA cheese balls.”

  “I see.”

  He really didn’t. “Dragan, nobody knows what they’re made of, but it isn’t cheese. Nixie says they’re pus and mayonnaise. Liese thinks the ingredient list is much darker, like people pâté.”

  “I see.” This time the music in his voice said I was edging toward crazy.

  I backpedaled fast. “Of course, I think that’s ridiculous.” I did. It was much more likely, from their consistency, that LLAMA cheese balls were made from creamed zombie.

  Mrs. Blau, wheeling the cart of doom, disappeared into the ballroom.

  I chased after her, Dragan in tow. It struck me we were doing a Nixie and Julian, but even that thought didn’t slow me. “Mrs. Blau, what are you doing here?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. She must have seen us bearing down on her like the grill of a semi gaining on a moped but she only said, “Oh, hello, Rocky. Isn’t this a lovely shindig?”

  “Yes.” Actually, I had no idea. Somehow I’d entered the ballroom without having a meltdown. Potentially the place was a magical wonderland or a fiery hell but I was mid-ballroom and the only thing I saw was that cart. I wasn’t even worried about whether I looked like a Mud Queen to all the rich important people. It’s amazing how a little life-or-death panic can reorder priorities. I threaded white-draped tables, vaguely aware of appetizers along the far wall and a small orchestra on a stage and dance floor to my left. “Mrs. Blau. Stop a minute, please?”

  “Well…just for a moment.” She creaked to a halt. “I don’t have much t
ime. Mrs. Gruen said we had to have all these appetizers out before they serve the first course.”

  Mrs. Gruen was the current LLAMA VP, confirmation if I needed it that these really were the toxic balls. “Why? I thought the hotel’s five-star restaurant was doing the catering.”

  “Sure, but when we heard you were coming, given what happened last time…well.”

  It was junior high, but as I said, people have long memories in the Corners.

  “We united and decided to show our support.”

  “You mean you brought—” I waved my hand at the cheese grenades, “—to help me?” I laughed feebly. Joy of joys, as if I couldn’t do a good enough job of pantsing myself on my own, now I had friends who would help.

  “How kind of you to think of Raquel,” Dragan said. He’d finally gotten a whiff of the deathballs. I knew because his nostrils were drawn, as if he were trying very hard not to breathe. “But perhaps it would be better if you let hotel catering handle the job.”

  “Oh, but they don’t have cheese balls,” Mrs. Blau said. “Want one?”

  “Thank you. But—”

  “Here you go!” She grabbed his fingers with one hand, slid a spatula under a ball with the other and flipped it onto his palm.

  He pulled his hand loose at the last second. The ball slid off the spatula onto the floor, splatting like a squashed bug. There was a hiss as it began to eat through the carpet.

  Dragan bent to pick it up. I grabbed at his coat sleeve, but he was too strong to stop. His fingers closed around what was left of the ball…and sank in. A hissing and bubbling as they disappeared made it look like acid dissolving flesh and bone. With a pained expression, he straightened and dropped the ball back onto its plate. Tendrils of goo stuck, and he had to shake his fingers several times before he got loose. His fingers were bright red as if the skin had indeed been seared with acid.

  While we were focused on this drama, a statuesque woman in pearls and paisley steamed up, straight out of Society Matron Monthly Magazine, complete with lorgnette. She looked like my mother, if Mom had been one of the idle rich on Titanic.

  It was the green lady from the restaurant. She nodded to Dragan and then tentatively at me. Apparently Dragan’s reprimand Tuesday had made an impression.

  She eyed the balls through her lorgnette. “What are those?”

  “Cheese balls, Mama.” A slender young woman in pink silk and crystal beads had followed the matronly woman. She was the epitome of debutante heiress, even pronouncing “mama” mah-MAH. Her pink-gloved hand rested on the sleeve of a somewhat stiff-looking young man with a middle part and bottle brush blond mustache straight out of the 1800s. I hoped it was a costume.

  “I would enjoy a sample,” the matron said.

  The heiress’s escort reached onto a table to snare a spoon and offered it to “Mama”.

  “Lovely.” The matron dipped the small silver spoon into a ball and brought it to her mouth.

  “No!” I lunged for her.

  Just as Mrs. Blau stepped between us to say helpfully, “That particular ball is cheddar and creamed braunschweiger.”

  The spoon disappeared between coral-painted lips which smacked. “Piquant. A mellow tang of cheddar, with overtones of…of…”

  Her eyes widened and her bosom started heaving.

  “Incoming!” I grabbed a napkin from the cart and shouldered by Mrs. Blau to shove it under the matron’s chin.

  She grabbed it with both hands and pressed it to her mouth, then spun and ran heaving for the doors. The heiress and her escort exchanged a worried look, and followed.

  I turned to Mrs. Blau. “Thanks for coming to help. But I don’t think these cheese balls are what society people are used to.”

  “Oh, but you heard her. They’re piquant!”

  And potentially deadly to elite digestions, since they didn’t have the years of sauerbraten, beer and blutwurst which had given Corners people cast iron stomachs.

  A flash of purple near the appetizers distracted me. Mom? But the woman wasn’t a matron floating in an amethyst dress. She was a black-haired bombshell bouncing along in shrink-wrapped purple cellophane with four strategically placed postage stamps.

  I straightened in surprise. What the hell was Camille doing here? “Dragan.” I pointed.

  “On it.” He strode away. I watched him. He moved like sex. I tingled pleasantly, wondering if that would ever get old.

  “Oh, here you are,” someone called cheerfully.

  Even cast iron stomachs can drop painfully. I turned to behold Mrs. Weiss in her Liberty hair and star-spangled dress, wheeling in another cart with a jumbo fondue pot. I tensed, but this one smelled good. It smelled like…

  Melted chocolate. Damn.

  Memories of a hot stove will make a child recoil. That dance with Todd was as traumatic. Time kaleidoscoped and I was fourteen and immersed in splashing liquid, my heart thudding painfully, my very cells quaking in shame—“No!” I jerked back. I really think I expected to be drenched any second.

  I trod on a lady behind me.

  “Hey.” She shoved me off her. Hands flailing, I rebounded into another lady wearing an ostrich headdress with two plumes, a chunky necklace and a lot of cleavage. My fingers caught in her necklace, pulling her head down at the same time I dived toward the floor.

  We clunked heads.

  “Ow.” I reeled back, slapping my hand to my forehead—adding concussion to the mix.

  Ostrich lady reeled back with the same force…right into the chocolate fondue cart.

  She hit at an angle. Instead of rebounding, the cart spun under her and she went sprawling. She landed on the floor on her back, arms and legs in the air…just as the cart tipped. The pot emptied warm chocolate all over her. It coated the two antennae of ostrich feathers, her face, and ran down to pool in her cleavage.

  “You…you are a menace!” She blinked up at me through glossy rivers, the only thing not coated the tip of her now-pink nose. With the feathers, she looked like a chocolate bunny.

  It wasn’t a helpful image. “Sorry.” I backed away, cringing from the daggers in her eyes, hoping she didn’t go psycho killer rabbit on me. “I didn’t mean…I couldn’t help—”

  “Raquel.” Dragan snared my elbow and pulled me away from bunnihilation. “Shall we give the waiters room to help this poor unfortunate creature?”

  He smoothly propelled me out of the ballroom. He kept going until we were in a corridor with nobody else around us.

  My roiling belly changed its tune to something more seductive. I wondered if Dragan was going to teach me something new.

  But he only straightened my dress and smoothed my hair. I smiled tentatively at him.

  Then he twirled me into a corner and kissed me senseless and I forgot cheese balls and chocolate baths and even that woman screeching.

  Until Camille drawled, “Hello, darlings.”

  Dragan spun, his body between me and the vampire woman, his shoulders flaring like an enraged cobra. “What do you want?”

  “We’re just saying hello.”

  We? I peeked out from behind Dragan.

  Camille stood on the arm of what first appeared to be an elderly man, with a bent body, a lined, bespectacled face, and an almost bald head sporting a long fringe of white hair.

  But on closer inspection, the pate was a bald cap and the lines in his face were painted on. It was an obvious disguise and, having played pit orchestra for a hundred musicals and seeing a lot of stage makeup, not a very good one.

  The man’s blue eyes shifted to me. They twinkled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, and it amused him.

  Dragan stood pumped up and tense in front of me, as far from the elegant conductor as I’d ever seen. He growled, “Who are you?” I could practically feel the rough vibrations coming off his back.

  “Giuseppe Marrone.” The man gave a short, ironic bow. “At your service.”

  From Dragan’s still-flared back and clenching fists, he wasn’t reassured. “W
hy are you here?”

  Bushy gray brows rose. “Like you, I am merely checking out rumors of a new colleague.”

  Dragan’s body stiffened with an almost audible crack. “I’m not here for any rumors. I’m here to conduct the community orchestra.”

  “My mistake.” The old man’s smirk said he knew otherwise. “Then you won’t be interested to know the rumors say a megavamp will be here tonight.”

  Megavamp. That was Triana’s code word for the bigger-than-big, badder-than-bad vampire who had supposedly come to Chicago to be Nosferatu’s new first lieutenant. And if he was Giuseppe’s colleague, Giuseppe was a Coterie vampire.

  I said, “Does this über-vamp have a real name?”

  “Yes, as the matter of fact.” The old man/vampire appraised me from behind his half-moon glasses. “Gravloth.”

  That sounded sinister.

  “Herbert Gravloth.”

  Herbie, not so much.

  Camille said, “What I don’t understand is, why now? The position has been vacant since February. Why is Nosferatu so intent on filling it now, and why from the outside?”

  The pseudo-old man turned a slightly mean smile on her. “You expected it to be you?”

  “Of course.” She stiffened. “You did too. I’m second, after all.”

  “Dear Camille. You know Nosferatu has limited tolerance for mistakes. Your defeat at the hands of your old amour in May was your first strike and your complete fuckup in July—”

  “Yes, all right!” She held up both hands.

  The music—the fear—in her voice shook me. I slid back behind Dragan, my hands fisted in his tux. What did Nosferatu do on the third strike that had her so terrified?

  She said, “You’ll help me, Giuseppe, won’t you?”

  “As I ever do, my dear.”

  I peeked. His smile was that small, mean expression. And the music in his voice was a symphony of sarcasm.

  But she glowed at him, not seeming to catch that he wasn’t going to help her at all. I wanted to shout the truth at her.

  She turned to Dragan. “What about you, Zajicek? Have you discovered any weaknesses?” She’d dropped all her “darlings”. She must have been even more panicked than I thought.