"Raphael?" the man asked in heavily accented English. He consulted the notepad one of his cohorts pushed in his hand. "Raphael Saint Johan?"
"St. John," I answered. "It's pronounced 'sinjun' actually. He's British, you see."
The man stared at me.
"They do things like that. With their names, I mean."
He stared a little more, then with deliberate movements pulled a pencil from his pocket, licked the end, and made a notation. "I am familiar with the British, madam. I attended Oxford University in my youth."
"Oh. Sorry."
He inclined his head in acceptance of my apology. "I am Inspector Jan Bartos of the Brno police. Your name?"
I told him. He took down the information that I was staying at the hotel, my home address, and what I was doing in the Czech Republic, then warned me that he would check the information against my passport.
"Fine, I have nothing to hide," I said, glancing over my shoulder to see if Raphael had returned. "I was on my way back to the hotel to take a bath when I found Tanya. Raphael ran into me after calling you guys. That's all."
"Tanya? You know the victim?"
"Just slightly. That is, I've met her, and talked to her a couple of times"—if you could call the threats and curses she tossed at me talking—"but I didn't really know her. She worked at the fair. I'm just here as a tourist."
He made another note. "You do not work with the fair?"
"No." As soon as I said the word, I felt the need to explain, just in case the police questioned people attending the fair who'd had me read the runes for them. "That is, I don't actually work for them, but I did read rune stones there tonight."
"You read—?"
"Rune stones. They're little stones with runic graphics on them. It's kind of like reading tarot cards, only different. Here, I have my set, I can show you." I pulled the black velvet bag out of my purse and plucked an amethyst stone out. "See? These are amethyst. I was reading these at the fair tonight, but I haven't done it there any other time. Well, except a couple of nights ago, but that was special."
"I see." He didn't look like he understood, he looked like I had a neon light over my head blazing PRIME SUSPECT for everyone to see.
"It was a wager, just a stupid bet my friend had with Tanya."
Inspector Bartos frowned at the tip of his pencil, tucked the pad of paper under his arm, and patted his pockets until he extracted a small black object. Carefully he inserted the tip of the pencil into the sharpener, rotating the pencil with exacting precision. His tongue peeked out of the corner of his mouth as he worked. I had to bite my lip to keep from giggling.
"Now," he said, having finished with the task of sharpening his pencil. I waited for him to lick the sharpened end. He looked like he was going to, then thought better of it. "You will tell me, please, about this wager you had with the victim."
I looked again over my shoulder, hoping to see a large man with beautiful amber eyes charging up the hill from the meadow, but there was nothing but the police swarming the area, roping off a large section around Tanya's body.
"It wasn't my wager, it was my friend Roxy's. Roxanne Benner. We're traveling together. Tanya was saying some nasty things about me, so Roxy bet all of her money that I could read runes. It's as simple as that."
"Is it?" he asked, taking notes. It was a weird feeling knowing that everything I was saying was being taken down.
"Yes."
"Tanya lost a great sum of money to your friend, no? She was angry?"
I gave him a wry smile. "Not with Roxy, no. It wasn't really between the two of them, you see, it was because of—" I closed my mouth on the word "me" and swallowed nervously.
"Yes? Who was the cause of the wager?"
"Um. Well, it really wasn't any one person; there were a bunch of us there at the reading."
"I see."
This time I truly did have the feeling he saw. I had no doubt that he could see right through my pitiful blathering to the ugly fact that Tanya hated my guts. The PRIME SUSPECT light overhead suddenly acquired flaming red arrows that pointed directly down at me.
"I will need to speak with you later," Inspector Bartos told me, making a final note before staring up at me with a cool, assessing look in his eyes. "I will be able to find you at the hotel?"
I hoped the darkness was enough to keep the blush that heated my cheeks from being seen. "Um… well, there or… uh… Raphael has a trailer on the far side of the fair. It's the blue one with a giant red hand painted on the side. If I'm not at the hotel, I'll be there."
He pursed his lips and pulled his notebook back out of his pocket. "You do not work for the fair but you read rune stones for them, you are the subject of wagering with members of the fair, and you are"—he flicked an unreadable look at me—"closely acquainted with a fair employee. Is that correct?"
I curled my toes up inside my shoes and wished I were anywhere else but where I was. "Well, it sounds so suspicious when you say it like that, but really, it's all quite innocent."
"You have known Mr. Raphael St. John for how long?"
"Well, maybe that isn't quite innocent. That is, it's innocent in that we're not doing anything wrong, but it's not innocent because we are… um… doing… not innocent things. Together. With each other, I mean." I cleared my throat and tried to look like I didn't just admit I was a trollop.
"How long have you been acquainted with Mr. St. John?" the inspector asked again.
My blush cranked up another couple of notches. If it got any hotter, I could fry an egg on my cheek. "About four days," I muttered to my shoes.
"I could not hear you."
"About four days," I said louder, staring at his chin. "Four long days. Very long. Action-packed, you could say."
"I see," he said again.
"Can I go now?"
He nodded and moved aside so he was no longer blocking the path to the parking area.
"No, I'll just go back the way I came," I said, pointing through the trees.
He paused in the act of putting his notebook away and shot me a martyred look as he riffled through the notebook pages until he found the notes he'd just taken. "You stated that you were on your way back to the hotel to take a bath when you found the victim."
"Yes. But I don't want a bath any more. I'd rather—" This time my brain stopped me before I admitted any more damning statements.
"I see," he said, just as I knew he would. "Your passport will be held by the police. You may not leave Bransko until it is returned to you."
I nodded that I understood and sidled around him. I'd just made my escape, giving the police a wide berth, and was starting down the slippery pine-carpeted slope when Inspector Bartos called my name. I stopped and looked back at him.
"Who won the wager?"
"I did," I answered.
"Ah. And what was the victim's response when she lost?"
I stared at him, unable to answer. He nodded his head as if I had, and waved me off. I didn't wait for him to change his mind. I hurried down the hill, and raced for the lights and people of the fair.
"Where's Christian?" I asked Roxy a short time later. She was talking with one of the fair workers who had been drafted into Raphael's security force.
"Mmm? Oh, he left a while ago. Said he didn't want to listen to the bands again. I don't blame him. That Six Inches of Slime guy doesn't sound any better for having had his nose broken."
"Damn. Have you seen Raphael?"
"Nope. Did you see Raphael, Henri?" she asked the slightly overweight man who was nervously watching the crowd.
"He was here a few minutes ago. He was looking for Dominic and Milos," Henri said.
I pulled Roxy a little way from Henri and looked around to make sure no one was within listening range. This was the last night of the fair proper, and finding breathing space, let alone somewhere one could talk in private, was difficult. "Come with me," I ordered her, and scooted through the crowds until I was behind a line of portable toilets.
>
"What's gotten into you? Henri was telling me all the dirt on the bands. Why do we have to stand here?" she asked, glaring at the backs of the toilets.
"Because no one else wants to come here. Listen, I have something to tell you, but you have to promise to keep it a secret, OK?"
"Again? That's two major secrets in as many days. Do you have any idea what this is going to cost you in hush money?"
"This is serious, Rox. Tanya's dead."
She stared at me, her mouth slightly ajar.
I nodded. "Raphael found her, and I found him. He's gone to tell Dominic, I guess. I've already spoken to the police, but the worst thing is"—I looked around again to make sure no one was near enough to hear—"her neck was torn out."
"Tom out? Like an animal attacked her?"
"No," I said, watching her steadily. "Like a vampire killed her. There was no blood, Roxy, nothing. Somebody ripped into her throat and drained the blood from her body."
She put her hand over her mouth as if to keep from screaming. I know I certainly felt like it. "Oh my God, you don't think—Christian?"
"I don't know of any other vampires around here, do you? Oh, Lord, it's all my fault, too. I had no idea he would lose control so easily. I figured if he had lasted nine hundred years, he could last a little longer until we found him his Beloved, but I guess he finally realized that I wasn't she, and he went berserk."
"Oh my God," Roxy said again, her eyes huge. "Christian—who would have thought? He's been so nice to us."
"I have to find him. I have to find him and calm him down, and make him see reason. I have to make sure he doesn't do anything like this again."
"How are you going to do that?"
"I don't know," I wailed, heading back around the toilets toward the mass of humanity. "But I'd better do something pretty damn quick before anyone else figures out what happened, or the famed reclusive author C. J. Dante is going to find himself on the business end of a sharp stake."
Roxy and I searched the fair but did not find Christian. We saw Raphael and Dominic in grim consultation, a silent Milos standing with them. Arielle's tarot-card booth was dark and empty, so I assumed she'd been told of her sister's death. Roxy offered to go sit with her after I borrowed a nice couple's mobile phone and had no luck getting hold of Christian at his home.
"I talked to Demeter," Roxy told me after a quick confab with the aura photography woman. "She says Paal took Arielle to her trailer, and Renee is sitting with her. All the fair employees know about what happened to Tanya."
"It was bound to come out," I said, tapping my lip. I wondered aloud where Christian had gone, and how I was to find him.
"Easy. Call him," Roxy suggested.
"I just tried. His housekeeper, who I think I woke up, said he was gone for the evening and she had no idea when would be back, and could I please not call again this late because she had to be up early to get ready for the festival."
"Not that kind of call. Use your Vulcan mind-meld, or whatever you said you can do with Christian."
A cold chill raced down my arms at the thought of such intimacy with a man who could savagely kill another person. "No, thank you."
Roxy turned to look at me. "Why? What are you afraid of? He swore never to hurt you."
I rubbed my arms. "I'm just afraid, OK?"
She gave me a weak smile. "Do you remember when we were seven and I got my head stuck between the school gym wall and the drainpipe, and I wouldn't go near the gym for months? You went all philosophical on me and told me that it was all right to be afraid of something as long as you didn't let the fear control you."
"I remember," I glared at her. "My mother used to say that to me. Damn, I hate it when you're right. All right, I'll try to see if he's got his receiver on, but it'll be on your head if he swoops down and carries me off because of it."
She held one arm, watching me.
"What?" I asked.
"Are you doing it now?"
"No!"
"Oh." She sounded disappointed. "So are you doing it now?"
"Roxy, it's not a circus act. I'm not going to do it with you watching me."
"Why not?"
"Because, it's something… intimate. I can't do it with people watching me. I have to be somewhere private to do it, where I know I'm not being stared at."
She looked around the fair. People were elbow to elbow in the long aisle leading up to the main tent where the second band was setting up for their session. The tarot-card booth and the palm-reading booth, both empty, offered no privacy. She turned back to me with a faint grin. "I guess there's only one place for you to use."
I nodded. "Raphael's trailer."
She shook her head. "Do you really want to take the chance of having Christian swoop down on you where a bed is handy for that all-important fifth step of the Joining?"
"Oy. You have a point. So what great idea do you have?"
She pointed at the lines before the portable toilets. "Voilà! Instant privacy."
I didn't like it, and spent a good fifteen minutes trying to find an alternative, but in the end I waited in line for an eon to use a toilet, Roxy at my side to keep me from being bored, or so she said. I think she was really just hoping to see me "do it."
"Good luck!" she called as I stepped into the toilet, closing the door on a bunch of startled looks. I decided I'd rather stand than sit, and closed my eyes, trying to clear my mind of everything but the thought of Christian. It was difficult to do, what with all the noise—the second band had started their set—not to mention the unpleasant and aromatic surroundings, but I made a conscious effort to block everything out.
I let my mind stretch and reach out to find him.
Christian?
I caught the image of awareness, of Christian turning to look at me, but he didn't respond. That was followed by a horrible thought. Maybe he didn't know who I was. Maybe he was so far gone in his madness that he had lost his memory of me.
Christian, it's me. Joy. Are you all right?
A distant noise so faint it might have been the wind moaning through the trees swept past me.
I know you're probably hurt and angry right now, Christian, but I'm worried about you. If you could just let me know where you are and that everything is OK, it would make me feel a lot better.
My head was filled with silence.
Christian? Please let me know you're all right.
He did not answer. I tried to contact him again for the next few minutes, but he would not respond to anything I said.
"No luck," I told Roxy as I stepped out of the toilet.
"You should eat more bran," a short, magenta-haired Goth told me in perfect English as she claimed her turn at the toilet.
I ignored Roxy's giggles and headed away from the toilets, drained by my attempt to contact Christian.
"Raphael's looking for you. The police are here, although no one is supposed to know. Raphael said it was business as usual. What are you going to do about Christian?"
I shrugged and searched the crowd for my amber-eyed Romeo. He was standing in the empty tarot-card booth with Dominic and Inspector Bartos. "What can I do? He won't answer me. I know he's out there, I can feel him, but he's ignoring me for some reason. I don't have control over him, Rox. I can't demand he come to me, so there's nothing I can do but hope he's holed up somewhere away from people."
She nodded. "Raphael said the police are going to want to speak with all of us. I've never been interviewed as a witness before. It'll be one for the diary, huh?"
"That's one way of putting it," I said grimly as I headed for the tarot-card booth.
It wasn't until a few hours later that Raphael climbed wearily into his trailer. I was curled up on his bed, fully clothed this time, reading one of the many mysteries he had tucked into a tiny bookshelf.
I set the book down as he locked the door, flipped the lights out, and walked to the bedroom. "Was it bad?" I asked.
He shrugged one shoulder as he peeled his coat
off, leaning out of the bedroom to toss it onto the tiny table. "They're police. It's always bad when there's been a murder." He turned back to face me. Both eyebrows lifted as he stood on one leg to pull his boot off. "I liked you better last night."
I looked down at my jeans and sweater. "So did I, but I wasn't sure if you wanted me here after you'd been grilled by the police. I know how you must have been dreading that."
He grunted as he pulled off the second boot, "Baby, the only thing that kept me going tonight was the thought of you waiting for me."
Questions? Yes, I had questions galore about what he'd been doing near Tanya's body, but first things came first, and at that exact moment, Raphael's mental and physical well-being topped my list of priorities. I pushed the book off the bed as I slid down. "Oh, well then, seems to me it's my duty as a humanitarian to render you whatever aid you require."
I got to my feet and wrapped my arms around his neck, wiggling my hips against him as I kissed a trail around his lips. He slid his hands under my sweater and teased my nipples through my bra as his mouth captured mine.
"I am going to require a lot of aid," he said between nips to my lower lip. His hands were burning my breasts, stroking and teasing until I gave in to his demand and parted my lips, welcoming that bossy tongue of his into my mouth with a hum of pleasure. "I will be needing so much aid, it's going to require multiple applications."
"Multiple, hmmm?" I slid my hands down his back, lovingly stroking the hard curves of his behind. "I like the sound of multiple."
He growled as I sucked his tongue into my mouth, tugging his shirt out of his pants. His hands tightened around my breasts as I gently raked my fingernails up his belly until I reached his chest.
"Nipples," I cried in delight. "Imagine finding them here! I must explore more fully."
"That's not fair." His breath was hot and ragged on my neck as he nuzzled me, licking and kissing and nibbling while his hands slid around to my back. "You have bare flesh in your hands. It's only right I should have some as well. I want bare flesh. I need bare flesh!"
I saw the reason in his argument as soon as he got my bra unhooked and his hands had pushed that annoying bit of material away to cup my breasts, his thumbs teasing my nipples mercilessly. Tiny little rivulets of fire started in my toes and worked their way up my body as I gently scored my fingernails up his sides, throwing my head back so he would have better access to my breasts. He peeled my sweater off, tossed my bra after it, his hair brushing against my bare skin as he bent to take a breast in his mouth.
A Girl's Guide to Vampires do-1 Page 24
