"I can guess with whom," Peyton smirked. "You haven't gotten that look out of your eyes since you first mentioned her."
"I haven't seen her since that night," Klaus said quickly. "I think that's my problem. For some reason I can't get that woman out of my mind. It's like she's haunting me. And the hell of it is, I know she could answer a lot of questions for me, maybe questions nobody else would even understand. I guess she's gone, though."
"Good," Peyton said, "it's about time we did some work, then."
Sebastian and Peyton nodded, but Klaus began to look annoyed. "I said I'd work on the damned music tonight, didn't I? Let's leave it at that."
Peyton lowered his eyes to his silverware, and Sebastian, after holding Klaus' gaze for a moment, nodded. If Klaus was going to snap himself out of this strange, moody behavior, the music was the only thing that could do it. Sebastian made a mental note to talk to the others later, when they were alone. There was no reason the three of them couldn't work some material out on their own while they waited for inspiration to strike Klaus between his love-fogged eyes.
Just then the food arrived, and Sebastian noted with relief that at least Klaus was eating. The roast was rare, just as he liked it, and within a few moments the color had returned somewhat to his face. Sebastian ate in silence, watching in tired amusement as Peyton badgered the Innkeeper's daughter, who was doing her best not to smile outright and finding more than a normal amount of excuses to brush close to their table on her rounds. It was starting to seem almost like normal.
Chapter Ten
As soon as the table had been cleared, Klaus said his goodbyes and took his leave. He knew that the others were beginning to wonder what he was doing, and what he was thinking. He was beginning to wonder as well. It had been nearly a week since the concert, and he'd accomplished exactly nothing in that time except to lose about ten pounds and sleep away uncounted hours of daylight. He'd wandered the mountain by night, retraced his steps up the trails carefully and looked for any sign of where Rosa might have disappeared to, but all his searching had produced nothing. She was gone, and it was nearly time for him to admit it and to try to get on with his life.
So why couldn't he do it?
He felt a strange rejuvenating energy flowing through him that seemed to coincide with the gathering shadows of dusk. It was energizing, and he felt that he might have told Sebastian the truth. He felt like he might be able to do some actual work. It would help to take his mind off of his problems, and maybe it would placate the others somewhat if he came up with something usable by morning. He sure wasn't going to be able to sleep.
He grabbed the case to his twelve-string by the worn handle and headed back out into the night, drawn to the base of the mountain trail by invisible strings. The shrine was as good a place as any to write. At the very least he would be almost certain of not being disturbed.
As he moved deeper into the trees, the moon played familiar games with the shadows. He'd become accustomed to the eerie beauty of the mountain by moonlight over the past week. It was like he saw more clearly, though he told himself it was only that he'd spent so much time walking in the darkness that his eyes had acclimated.
He also heard strange, hidden sounds, more sounds than he could ever remember experiencing in the past. When he'd been in the Inn he'd heard every conversation in the room, all at the periphery of his senses. It was disconcerting, at the very least, to try and talk to his friends and at the same time to hear the angry whispers of villagers around the room in the background. If he concentrated, he could shut out those near to him and hear that other conversation clearly.
He knew the others wouldn't understand. He didn't know how he could tell them what was happening to him without sounding like he'd gone off the deep end, so he was just going to have to find a way to deal with it. Besides, the expanded sound spectrum he had discovered was feeding his creativity. The possibilities had multiplied and crystallized into patterns. He was surprised to feel a tingle of anticipation as he neared the clearing. The guitar reached out to him from the confines of its case, begging to be played.
The moon was full, and it shone from almost directly overhead by the time he was seated and had the guitar out and tuned. Like muted daylight, the silvery illumination scattered the shadows to the corners and gilded the leaves of the surrounding trees. A glowing aura surrounded everything with a halo of rainbow hued energy.
He let his fingers play across the strings with no particular direction at first, rippling through easy chord progressions and lingering on small bits of older, familiar music. His thoughts soon drifted, and the music followed. A melody rose, came to the brink and threatened to burst forth. It was something melancholy and slow. He concentrated, trying to carve the music from the silence of the surrounding air.
He wasn't sure exactly when the accompaniment started, only that it had been there for some time before he noticed it. He stopped his own playing with an abrupt, discordant jangle of strings. Notes trailed off into the night, many more than could possibly have been formed by his fingers. They were higher, resonant, but with an odd metallic timbre that was both alien and beautiful at the same time.
Rosa walked from the shadows then, a smile twisting the corners of her lips in what looked like subtle irony. "You play well," she said, moving to the steps beside him and sat comfortably, as though she'd been expected. In her lap she cradled a beautiful, black-lacquered lute.
Klaus could think of nothing to say in answer, so he satisfied himself with staring. His heart raced and his mind felt numb. He'd known he wanted to see this woman again. He'd even had himself convinced that his reasons were important, to question her about his past, to learn more about the song and the music. Somehow her presence clarified it all. The past didn't matter. With her sitting so close that the skin of their legs brushed through denim and silk, all thoughts beyond her eyes melted to insignificance.
"What?" she asked coyly, "no, 'I've missed you', or 'Where have you been?' I'm disappointed. I thought I'd made a better impression on our first meeting."
"I..." he stuttered, finally finding his tongue, "I've looked for you. I've been here every night."
"I know," she grinned wickedly. "I've watched you. You had such a forlorn, tragic expression; I couldn't bear to break the spell of it. It's very flattering, you know."
"The music, a few minutes ago," he blurted, feeling foolish, "that was you?"
"Of course," she answered, running her fingers lightly up and down the neck of the lute in her arms, sending a ripple of twining notes into the darkness. It was so perfect, that small flurry of notes, so effortless in its execution, that it sent a shiver up Klaus' spine.
"I thought you had gone," he said. "I came here to try and start writing some new music. My band is getting restless, and I seem no closer to the answers I sought when I came here than I was before. Why did you come back?"
"You don't know?" she said, licking her lips slowly and seductively, moving even closer to his side. She leaned in, ran her tongue up the side of his throat and snaked her arm around his back. The blood rushed to his head, nearly causing him to pass out and he pulled away weakly.
Just before their skin parted, he felt a slight convulsive twitch in her lips, heard a tiny moan escape her throat. It was as though the act of pulling away caused her actual pain. She slid around in front of him, straddled his legs on both sides, pushed his guitar aside and laid her lute on the cold stone. Her eyes seemed to grow, to surround him, and they were filled with a need that bordered on hunger, or obsession.
"We are meant for one another," she breathed, sliding her hips sinuously over his thighs. "Don't tell me you haven't felt it. We are drawn together, bound by our past. Do you think it is an accident that we met here? Did you imagine that I make a habit of making love to strange young musicians on mountainsides?"
"I don't know you," he answered, fighting his reeling senses for control. "But I need to know. Who are you? How do you know so much about me, and about th
is mountain? Why did you come here?"
The words blurred together, and he was certain they would be lost in the maelstrom of emotion that was washing through him, but abruptly she pulled away, moving to sit again at his side. He gasped, reaching out to grasp her and pull her back, but she evaded him easily. She smiled wickedly as his arms closed on empty air.
"Very well," she said, enjoying his torment, "first we will talk. What exactly would you like to know about the mountain, Klaus. What is it that burns at your soul?"
"You said, when we last met, that you had learned our song here, and that your mother often sang it to you. You must have lived here when I did."
"I did live here then," she said. "I have lived here, off and on, all of the days of my existence. But what could I tell you of your own childhood that you don't already know?"
He wanted to ask about his parents, but something held him back. He wanted to know why men loved the mountain, and why his mother, and every other woman in the village, hated it with such passion. He wanted to know to whom, or to what, the shrine was dedicated.
In essence, he wanted to know what it was about this mountain that had caused his mother to send him away, disappearing in search of his father on his own and never returning. It was all a jumbled mass of yearning and confusion, and he felt overwhelmed at the thought of forming it into simple questions.
Taking his silence for shyness, she went on. "How about this, I'll start with more music. You think about what you want to know, and how bad you really want to know it, and meanwhile I'll fill in a few gaps we might both enjoy?"
"What do you mean?" he answered. Her manner was puzzling. She seemed to already know what he wanted to ask, like she could read his thoughts.
"I mean you came here to write some music, isn't that what you told me?" He nodded uncertainly, his eyes straying guiltily to the guitar at his side, and then snapping back to hers. "Then let me show you more music from the mountain. Maybe it will jog your memory."
Without waiting for his answer, she picked up the lute and strummed softly. The instrument's tone was beautiful, resonant and melodic. It was obviously of fine workmanship, very old, and very expensive, if he was any judge. It wasn't the kind of instrument he'd run across often. The music she played had a throbbing, rhythmic beat, very reminiscent of old blues, though shifting in patterns he'd never heard, progressions that seemed obvious, now that he heard them, but that he could not remember having heard before.
Somewhere near the fourth stanza, her voice joined the lute, blending so closely to the instrument in its harmony that the change in sound didn't immediately register. Klaus didn't understand all of the words. They seemed to be German, but not the modern language he was most familiar with. There were sounds and intonations that he only vaguely recognized. Somehow it didn't matter.
He felt the dampness of a spring morning, heard the running, playful waters of streams and the echoing crypt-like depths of caverns, saw birds cutting v-shaped swaths through azure skies and trees swaying to the whim of mountain breezes.
It was a story, of that much he was certain, a journey, he believed. It had the feel of antiquity, the mellow, intricate construction of the works of ancient bards. It might have been played for a king, or written for an emperor. She played it for him, and he listened, mesmerized.
Again, as on the first night, the only nagging fault to her music was its utter, mechanical perfection. Though the music itself had soul and identity that transcended the artist performing it; it did not touch her, or she it. It flowed forth effortlessly from her fingers and soared magically at the command of her voice, but they were not a perfect meld. There was a cold, calculating surety to her vocals, a haughty indifference to her effort, or lack of effort, that scorned the beauty of the music. He noticed this all peripherally, but his heart was so taken with the song that it didn't really register, just tucked itself away in the back of his subconscious.
When she had finished, he reached eagerly for his guitar, attempting clumsily to imitate the perfection of her performance. The progression was difficult, elusive in a frustrating, almost infuriating way. "How the hell did you do that?" He asked finally, almost tossing his instrument aside in a sudden flair of anger.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean, you used a progression of chords I've never heard, and I can't find the third chord of it. How can you play a chord that doesn't exist?"
"Does nothing exist," she asked, "beyond that which you are familiar with? How boring life would be if that were true."
"But," he said, "How can you create a new chord? There are only so many notes, so many combinations…"
"Nobody said anything about new, Klaus," she smiled at him. "That song is older than the both of us, and that chord has always been played in the same manner. It is, in fact, a chord that you know, but I have shifted keys and added the diminished 7th. Like this."
She took the guitar from his hand and slid her fingers into a chording pattern he'd never seen, one that he wasn't even sure his fingers could duplicate. She seemed to have no trouble with the odd twisting of her little finger. The chord rang out from his guitar as it had from the lute, the octave harmonic of the smaller strings adding a new dimension. She strummed quickly through the rest of the progression with no more effort than she'd exhibited on her own instrument, then handed the guitar back to him.
"Give it a try," she said, her gaze intense.
"I'm not even sure my fingers will do that," he frowned, took the guitar and laid it across his knee once more. He moved his fingers around a couple of times, and felt a slight twinge as he put pressure on the high strings with his little finger.
He was surprised to find that it wasn't as difficult as he'd thought. He was able, after only a few tries, to limp through the entire progression. Even Rosa, who was still seated very close to him, faded as he concentrated, pushing his hands to the limits of their agility, forcing the recalcitrant strings to his will.
"Do you want to bleed to death?" she said softly, and he started.
Looking down, he saw that small drops of blood were dripping from his fingers. The calluses had worn completely through, though the pain of it hadn't registered. He looked up at her sheepishly.
"I just wanted to get it right," he said, embarrassed. "If I'm any judge of the way things have gone so far, you aren't planning on coming to the cottage tomorrow to teach that chord to Damon?"
Her laughter rang out quick and pure, and he was thrilled to see those eyes dance. "You read me well," she answered. "I am not good with new people, or with strangers. One day, I'm sure, we will all get together, one day soon, but not yet. For now, I am here only for you."
Her words wiped the music cleanly from his mind once more. Somehow, for a few minutes – or had it been longer? – the song and the guitar had detached him from her. Now, as their gazes met, the passion that had buffeted his senses returned, magnified a thousand fold. He managed, barely, to slide his guitar to the ground beside him before they fell together.
This time there was no pulling back, no time for questions or uncertainty. He wrapped her tightly in his arms and pulled her close, so close that the scent of her filled his nostrils and his mind whirled. Their lips met hungrily, and he didn't wait for her to slip from her dress, but slid it roughly up her body and over her head himself. Some instinct made him want to assert control over the situation. She had manipulated him so easily from the beginning, a thing he was definitely not used to.
She let him lay her back on the moss-covered stone, wrapping her long legs tightly about his back, her hair a bright cascade of red fire that surrounded her face like a halo. Even as the thought entered his mind, though, it passed. There was something in her manner, in the detached iciness of her eyes that belied any comparison to angels. She wanted him. That much he knew beyond doubt, but for reasons she wasn't sharing, reasons he might not even comprehend. Love did not even flicker into his mind, not on her part, anyway.
He ran his hands up a
nd down the curves of her body, one moment flitting across the surface with the softness of moth's wings, the next with rough pressure, exploring and experimenting, learning the landscape of her body. She moaned and pulled him more tightly against her, searching for his lips with her own.
Her tongue found his ear, and then his lips, brushed across the tips of his eyelashes, and then slid down toward his throat. There was still a faint twinge of pain there, something he'd forgotten, but he ignored it. Her lips made wet trails in looping spirals that reached his shoulder and then twisted back up, and his attempt at control was rapidly failing.
Where their skin touched, a cold fire burned, linked in some way to a hot, burning point on his throat. His blood grew hot and rushed through his veins so rapidly that they fairly hummed with energy. His head throbbed, and the clearing, Rosa, all faded, blending in with the sensuous touch of her lips and the frantic, chaotic coupling of their flesh.
He couldn't tell if she was out of control as well, and momentarily he fought back to the surface of his mind, searching for a glimpse of her eyes. He never got it. As if she sensed his momentary hesitance, she slid herself upward, guided him with one hand and pressed her lips to his throat with the other. As he entered her, his mind snapped. All conscious thought departed in a surge of pleasure beyond any experience in his life.
It was better than the first time they'd met, with more depth. Whole new realms of passion opened and engulfed him. His body shuddered, exploding with a release so sudden and complete that it left him without breath. When it was over, he could only lay still, her body still twined with his, pressed close and slick with a sheen of sweat.
~*~
She still sucked at his neck, but he didn't notice. She drew forth his blood in a small, trickling stream and let it run between her gasping lips. Rosa fought the battle with her raging hunger, clamping down with all the iron-willed control she'd nurtured over the years, over the centuries. It was too soon. She had to pull free, or everything would be ruined, and he might even prove to be dangerous. The boy had to live a bit longer, had to be kept on the end of her string and manipulated into position to play his part. She would not be denied.
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