Mozart’s Blood

by Louise Marley

  A heavy silver fog had rolled in from the sea to obscure the waters of the bay. The stars disappeared behind it. The fog bell tolled every few minutes from Alcatraz Island, its deep gong slicing through the mist to reverberate off the bricks and cobblestones of the city streets. Hélène crept along the footbridge, hardly able to see where she put her feet. A gaslight at the end, where the stairs led down to the Ferry Building plaza, gave her a goal. There were always people in the plaza, even on a foggy midnight. She would find someone there who could slake her thirst, and then dash back to the Palace, hoping against hope that no one would see the young singer returning unescorted at an unsuitable hour.

  The slender young man was leaning against the railing, looking out into the curling fog. His black hair, half hidden by a flat cap of gray twill, gleamed beneath the gaslight. He wore a well-cut jacket and slim trousers, with heeled boots. He seemed out of place in the midnight darkness of the Embarcadero. He looked like a schoolboy who had escaped his chaperone in search of some deviltry.

  She stepped softly as she approached, thinking to surprise him.

  When she was within five steps of him, he lifted his head and smiled at her. Even in the dim light, she could see that his eyes were as black as coal, and his features narrow and delicate. She pulled her cloak more tightly around her and allowed her lips to curl at the corners. Inevitably, such men surmised that an unescorted woman, late at night, was a streetwalker. For her, it was a useful assumption.

  “Buona sera, signorina,” the young man said softly.

  Startled, she almost responded in the same language. She blinked and caught herself. “Bon soir,” she breathed, with her close-lipped smile.

  “Ah,” the young man exclaimed. “French, not Italian. Forgive me.”

  “De rien,” she said. She came closer. This one, so slight and young, should be easy. The bandanna of silk he wore around his neck was loosely tied, and his collar fell open beneath it, baring his throat as if in invitation.

  “You’re out late, mademoiselle,” he said. His wide smile showed very white teeth.

  “Indeed,” she murmured, moving closer to him. “The hour is far gone, isn’t it? Perhaps you would like to escort me to the Ferry Building.”

  “Ah. Headed for Oakland, are you?” The fog bell tolled again, a deep, resonant tone that seemed magnified by the fog. The young man put out his arm for Hélène to take, and when she put her fingers on it, she felt thin, corded muscle through the gray worsted of his coat. A man in a tall hat and a long fur-collared overcoat came up the wooden stairs from the plaza just as they were going down. He eyed them disapprovingly, and pulled the hem of his coat away so Hélène’s cloak would not touch it.

  “You see,” the young man said to Hélène, snugging her hand tighter beneath his arm. “That gentleman is convinced you’re a soiled dove.”

  She tucked her chin so she could look up at him. “And what do you think, sir?” she asked demurely.

  They had reached the plaza. Drifts of fog swirled beneath the gaslights, and the damp air carried the tang of salt and fish. Subtly, Hélène guided her companion to the left, into the shadows beneath the footbridge.

  He followed her lead, but he chuckled as they stepped into the darkness. “What I think,” he said lightly, “is that you look too clean and healthy to be a whore.”

  “Vraiment,” she answered, her tone as light as his. “Are whores always dirty?”

  “In my experience they are.”

  “Perhaps you need to widen your experience, sir.” She released his arm and turned to face him, standing very close so that her breasts touched his chest. The thirst was on her, driving her. Her lips felt hot, and her belly clenched with need. She lifted her hands to his shoulders and put her face close to his.

  He said, “You’re wasting your time, mademoiselle.”

  “Why?” Her voice was throaty, throbbing.

  “I have no money.”

  “Ah.” She let her fingers trail across his open collar, linger on his throat, just where the jugular vein throbbed its little endless dance beneath the fragile skin. He smelled deliciously of verbena and soap and tender, unspoiled flesh.

  “Ah, but it’s not money I need, young sir.” Her voice was throaty, and her breath came quickly. Her upper lip swelled and began to retract. She couldn’t stop it. She opened her cloak and moved in, pressing her body against his, putting her hand on the back of his head to bring his throat to her lips. She dared not wait any longer. She would lose control, drink too much…. And she had sworn to herself she would never do that again.

  Her breath hissed in her throat as she bared her teeth.

  The sound that came from him was no longer a laugh, but a growl, deep in his throat. His hand came up, slender but devastatingly strong. His fingers were hard as iron as he caught her throat just beneath her jaw. He thrust her back and held her at arm’s length.

  She felt the cold air on her teeth and knew that he must see them, the long, gleaming canines ivory pale in the darkness, their tips razor sharp.

  His hand squeezed her throat, shutting off her air. That didn’t matter. She could manage without air for quite a long time. But his other hand was drawing up her skirts, scratching at her cotton stocking, searching for that place…that one vulnerable place…digging in with sharp nails, tearing the fabric, probing for the artery’s pulse.

  She realized, with a shock, that he knew.

  Desperate now, she gripped the back of his head with her hand and pulled at his hair, forcing his neck back, loosening his grip on her throat. The growling deepened. She pulled harder and felt that lethal claw against her skin.

  With a strangled cry, using every bit of her considerable strength, she tore herself free. She stumbled back a step, and another one, one hand held out before her as if that would stop him. With her other hand she palmed her upper lip, forcing it down over her teeth. Her skirts, of their own weight, fell back over her torn stocking. She stared at him in horror.

  Tendrils of mist swirled between the two of them, obscuring his face. For a moment Hélène thought she saw the red eyes of an animal through the fog. “What—what are you?” she said. “Mon dieu! What are you?” Her hand went to her aching throat, and she remembered, with dismal foreboding, that she had a sitzprobe, an orchestra rehearsal, in the morning.

  His look of youth and innocence returned as the mist cleared, and he smiled, touching his perfect teeth. “Why, mademoiselle,” he said. “It is not what I am, but what you are that is so very interesting.”

  “You tried to kill me,” she said, her voice going flat.

  “Were you not going to kill me?”

  There was a step behind them, and two men, drunken, leaning on each other, staggered past. Hélène seized the moment to arrange her skirts, to wrap her cloak around her, to pull the hood well forward. When the men had passed, she stood very straight and looked into the black eyes of the strange young man. “I was not going to kill you,” she said. “But I could have.”

  He raised one slender eyebrow. “Indeed?”

  She turned on her heel and started across the plaza. The thirst raged dangerously in her, but now she would have to get away from this…this creature. He understood what she was, but perhaps it was not too late to escape exposure.

  His footsteps pattered behind her. “Mademoiselle, wait,” he said. “Tell me what you meant.”

  She stopped, staring at her feet, folding her arms. He was not going to let her go, it seemed. “Perhaps I should kill you after all,” she said in an undertone.

  He put out his fingers and tipped up her chin. His eyes were as cold as the waters of San Francisco Bay. “I doubt you could,” he said.

  She stared at him. “Stand aside,” she said. “I have to go.”

  “To do what?”

  “I think you know.”

  “But I can’t let you do that,” he said.

  “Why not?” she asked. “If you let me go now, no one will have to die.”

  He ga
ve her a boyish grin and said softly, “If you killed someone, I would not care. It’s this other thing you do…I can’t allow it.”

  A rage born of frustrated need surged in Hélène’s bosom, and she shoved past him, forcing him to stumble back. A trio of people came out of the Ferry Building. She hurried toward them, past them, into the bright lights of the waiting area. A ferry had just docked, and a few people were disembarking. A yawning ferryman in a blue uniform stood at the open door, his wispy hair lifting in the breeze from the water.

  Hélène glanced back over her shoulder, but she didn’t see her tormentor. She dug into her pocket for boat fare, bought a ticket from the ferryman, and hurried onto the boat.

  “Be a bit late,” he called after her. “Because of the fog.”

  She didn’t answer, but strode swiftly toward the prow of the ferry, where one or two other passengers lounged in the seats. She would find someone, anyone. And if she had to kill, it would be on his head. Whoever, and whatever, he was.

  Octavia Voss sighed as the memory left her. She let her hot forehead touch the cold thick glass of Il Principe’s window. It had seemed so awful, that San Francisco night in 1906. But it had been the best possible thing that could have happened.

  The next day’s rehearsals began at the top of the second act for most of the cast, while Octavia and Peter went off with the director’s assistant to work on the Donna Anna–Don Ottavio duet from act one. As they left, Massimo Luca whispered to Octavia, “Peccato! I was hoping to see you this morning.”

  She smiled, murmuring, “Work, work, work.”

  “Perhaps we could lunch together,” he said.

  Now she chuckled. “You’re flattering me, Massimo.”

  He gave her a boyish grin. “Not at all.”

  She and Peter followed the director’s assistant and a pianist down one floor to a small rehearsal room, where their marks had been taped on the floor, and chairs and a couple of music stands had been arranged to indicate the set.

  The pianist opened his score. “Would you like to sing it through once first?” he asked.

  Peter smiled at Octavia, his round cheeks creasing pleasantly. “I’d love that,” he said. “I haven’t sung ‘Dalla sua pace’ in weeks.” He patted his chest. “I warmed up this morning, just in case. God forbid I should crack the G in Milan, even in rehearsal!”

  The pianist laughed, and Octavia chuckled. She touched Peter’s arm, warmed by his easy collegiality. “I feel just the same,” she said, and nodded to the assistant director. “Let’s sing it.”

  Fortunately, she, too, had warmed up before coming this morning. The intervals of “Or sai chi l’onore” were devilish, shifting swiftly from high to low, every word of text laden with emotion. Octavia had experimented, over the years, with different techniques, different interpretations, each production a little more nuanced, each performance shading this way and that, from the most dramatic to the most heartbreakingly lyrical. Her interpretation had changed substantially since Teresa, half trained and inexperienced, first undertook the part.

  This morning Octavia poured her anxiety and loneliness into the music. She sang full voice for the first time since she had come to Milan, and the release of the soaring melodic leaps was a relief after controlling herself so carefully. She held back only on the sustained As, knowing there was a long way to go in this opera. If she gave too much too early, her second-act music would suffer. She had learned that lesson from unhappy experience.

  And as always, when she sang Donna Anna, she remembered her own father’s death. He had died long, long ago, but his loss was as fresh in her recall as if it had happened last week. The memory brought the throb of real feeling into her voice, the weight of true grief that never dimmed. It was a sorrow, she knew all too well, that few could bear. She turned to Peter, her Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s betrothed, and she sang Mozart’s sublime music from her heart.

  When the final A major chord sounded, Peter put a hand to his plump cheek, cupping it as if to comfort himself. His eyes were red, and his lips quivered. The pianist struck the D major chord for his recitative, but Peter choked, “Wait—wait a moment.”

  Octavia touched his arm. “Peter, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  He dashed at his eyes, and then he laughed. “Damn you, Octavia!” he said. “How am I supposed to sing after that?” He took her other hand and pulled her close to him to buss her on the cheek. “Divine,” he murmured. “Absolutely divine. Brava!”

  The sincerity of the compliment made Octavia’s own eyes sting, and she blinked furiously. This would never do. Only with Ugo could she let her guard down in such a way.

  She drew away from Peter, smiling. “You are too kind, my friend. Thank you so much. I’m encouraged! Now come, carry me away with your ‘Dalla sua pace.’”

  He returned her smile a little ruefully. He rubbed his pink hands together, cleared his throat, and nodded to the pianist. The D major chord sounded again.

  Octavia closed her eyes to listen to Peter’s clear, sweet tenor as he began the recitative.

  There had been no “Dalla sua pace” in that first production. Antonio Baglioni, the first Ottavio, had had to make do with “Il mio tesoro,” in the second act. Teresa had listened from her dressing room, that first performance after the bite.

  Teresa stared at herself in the dim glass as she listened to the aria. A small oil lamp flickered among the jars of powders and creams. The petals of drying flowers dropped here and there on her makeup table. Antonio’s slightly nasal tenor drifted from the stage as she brushed a little fresh powder on her nose and trailed her fingers over the skin of her throat.

  It was the oddest thing, the swiftly fading marks there. She had been intoxicated with wine, with triumph, and especially with the closeness of Mozart that night. She knew the Countess had closed her mouth on her neck, but she could not remember feeling pain. It had not been frightening, but sensuous; not disturbing, but deliciously wanton. She had felt, that night, that she could do anything she wanted to do, have anything she craved, and no one would criticize.

  She was weary of criticism. She knew Signor Bondini was pleased with her appearance—everyone teased her about her figure, and even Mozart called her il piatto saporito, a tasty dish—but Bondini was never satisfied with her singing.

  The marks of the Countess’s bite were half a thumb’s length apart, more deep than wide. They were scars of the tooth, and they shook her composure and troubled her dreams. When she touched them, a wave of heat swept up from her belly to her cheeks. Her upper lip pulsed, as if bruised.

  What was this? she wondered. Lust, yes. Her yearning for Mozart had not abated. Rather, it was as if their brief night together had stoked the flames of her desire, so that its heat flared through her body. Even now she could hardly wait to be back onstage, looking down at his compact figure, his fine hands on the harpsichord, his merry dark gaze turned up to the singers.

  But it was more than that. Something primal had happened to her, something that burned in her blood as well as her mind.

  The tenor’s aria was coming to an end, and she rose to take her place for her final entrance. At the last moment, she seized the ewer waiting on a side table and poured herself a cup of water. She drank it greedily, nearly choking in her haste.

  Thirst, she thought. That was what had changed. It was as if Zdenka Milosch’s bite had parched her, stolen every bit of moisture from her body. She had drunk water, wine, even beer in an effort to soothe her burning throat, but it seemed to Teresa Saporiti that there was not enough liquid in the entire world to satiate her thirst.

  9

  Il scellerato m’ingannò, mi tradì!

  The villain deceived me, betrayed me!

  —Donna Elvira, Act One, Scene Two, Don Giovanni

  The Fiat raced through the center of Milan, turning again and again down the short streets, moving too quickly for Ugo to read the street names mounted on the sides of the buildings. He caught sight of a restaurant he recognized,
Iris, which he knew was in the center of the city. He turned his head just in time to see the ancient wall fragment that marked the center of Piazza Missori. Floodlights shone on its blind arches and illuminated the silhouettes of a few late-night passersby. In the distance the Duomo rose, its thicket of spires glittering with fairy lights. The car rounded a corner and shot past the circular wall of San Satiro on its way north. It slowed as it nosed its way into one of the dark neighborhoods, where apartments and shuttered shops clustered together as if to protect themselves from the intrusions of progress.

  Domenico saw Ugo peering out at the streets, and laughed. “It will do you no good to look,” he said complacently. “Where we’re going no one will find you.”

  Ugo leaned back against the seat. “Che peccato,” he said lightly. “I would have liked to share your charming company with one or two friends.”

  Domenico grinned. He was not a bad-looking man, Ugo thought, though a bit sallow. He had crooked teeth, and he wore his brown hair a bit long, making him look foppish. But it was nice that his voice was good. Ugo was sensitive to voices.

  “I suspect,” Domenico said, “that being a friend to Ugo is a dangerous thing.”

  “You will learn that for yourself very soon, signore,” Ugo said. He favored Domenico with his most winning smile.

  “Oh, I think I’ll be all right.” Domenico held up Ugo’s package, which he had ripped from his hand as his two thugs—Società hopefuls, Ugo had no doubt—forced him into the backseat of the Fiat. “I’ll just take care of this for you, shall I?”

  Ugo raised his eyebrows. He purred, “Do you think that’s wise, my friend? You’re playing about in something you don’t understand.”

  Domenico thrust the package inside his coat and narrowed his eyes. “I understand more than you think, Ugo,” he said, putting an unpleasant inflection on the name. “Stories of your little—What shall we call them?—Mutations, perhaps—have reached me.” He buttoned his coat and patted the slight bulge made by the strega’s carefully wrapped bundle. “We’ll have no trouble with that, though, will we?”