“Stefan takes Tanja home so Birgit won’t get jealous? I suppose I’m lucky that Michael isn’t married then.” Martellius gave me a strange look, opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. He shook his head. “Stefan will bring a different human. Tanja doesn’t want to see it, but it’s getting too dangerous to draw energy from her. Birgit wouldn’t understand why she’s here. She’s curious to meet his human, and it’s common for spouses to take some of the energy from the other one’s human.”
“Why did you react so strangely to my question? Does Michael have another woman?” Granted, I should have been more outraged at Stefan’s and Birgit’s behavior towards Tanja, and at this weird custom, but she knew what she was getting into when she started dating him. She accepted her part and even desired it. The day before I had given Stefan some of my energy to help her in her plight, but the problem with Birgit would not be resolved if I chipped in. Plus I didn’t see myself as an energy PEZ dispenser. Stefan had become my friend, while I didn’t even know Birgit.
Martellius appeared honest and straightforward when he said: “Michael doesn’t have another woman. You are like your father. He meant a lot to me and he taught me many things.”
“If she really is his daughter, that is.” Michael was back. “Father, I have seen them die. It’s so very unlikely. Maybe you simply see it in her because that’s what you wish.” Martellius shook his head and patted him on the shoulder, before leaving us alone. They all moved so fast. I missed seeing a person walk away. My mind was buzzing with a thousand questions, but Michael drowned them all with a single kiss. Then he whispered: “I hate it when we’re being interrupted.”
Natalia didn’t bother to clear her throat. “We’ll have lunch in a bit. Birgit should be here any minute now. I’d appreciate it if you could get ready.”
I pulled away from Michael. “Next year we’ll celebrate at home,” he vented his frustration.
Natalia wanted to speak to him in private, so I went upstairs to our room and got out the presents for his family. I had five bottles of home-made blue saffron liquor, but it felt odd to give each of them a bottle of alcohol. Originally my plan had been to have a box of chocolate cookies for each member of the family, too. It had seemed like a good idea, before I had messed up Michael’s business meeting with my cookies. Now I felt I had come virtually empty-handed.
“Is something wrong?” Michael had been watching me, as he often did, and I hadn’t heard him come in.
“I don’t have great presents. I’m not sure how they will take it if I give everyone alcohol,” I admitted honestly.
“You don’t need any presents. You and I belong together, and I have something for everyone. But a bottle of saffron liquor can’t be taken the wrong way, since we can use it for a lot of purposes; it’s not just for drinking.”
“I had something else in mind for you.” I pulled up my shirt and gave him a peek at my underwear.
The mood at the lunch table was a lot tenser than the day before. It had to be Birgit’s presence, but maybe that was just my impression. Bianca, whom Stefan had brought from Salzburg, took a seat next to me and talked without pausing to draw a breath. “Annette told me you put a spell on her. Why didn’t you tell us that you’re less human than her? Do you know how cool that is?” I offered her a forced smile and hoped she would drop the subject. She did, but she prattled on: “I feel so honored that Stefan chose me. He could have taken anyone, but he selected me. It’s such an honor.”
I didn’t want to spoil her mood, but I thought she should know what she had agreed to: “You are aware that most likely Birgit will draw on your energy as well, yes?” I gave her a sympathetic look, because I expected her to be horrified.
“Yeah, I know. Cool, isn’t it?” she swooned. She seemed so enthusiastic; she obviously couldn’t wait for it to happen. My expression betrayed my astonishment, and Michael put an arm around me with a laugh: “Get over it, love. There are people who view our company as an honor.” Still flabbergasted, I stared at Bianca. “Yes, I know.”
Birgit had peered at me with a deprecatory expression; she thought I was an ungrateful megalomaniac. How did I know that? Because she told me two seconds later. We would not become best friends. I decided to ignore her, which certainly didn’t garner me any brownie points.
Martellius was not the type to parade his authority, and he didn’t have to. When he spoke, everyone in the room was silent. He had watched us. “Birgit, Melanie is my guest,” he warned in a quiet but firm voice. Birgit’s eyes widened. She nodded gravely. Now she disliked me even more. After we had all finished eating, Michael took me to the stables. Two saddled horses were waiting for us. A human man came to meet us and nodded at Michael. “The white one is the gentlest we have.”
That was probably meant to be my ride then. Michael wanted to explain the basics of riding a horse to me, but I ignored him and mounted the pretty animal, trotting off towards the forest. I felt like galloping, but didn’t want to overtax her in this temperature before she was properly warmed up. Michael caught up with me in no time. His black stallion suited him. He was a temperamental animal. When we reached the edge of the forest, the first snowflakes started falling. We would have a white Christmas, how wonderful! I felt the weightless crystals melt on my skin and said dreamily: “It’s snowing; that’s perfect.” Soon the forest was glittering white. As usual, Michael reveled in my emotions, much more so than what caused them. We reached a clearing encircled by trees, and I jumped to the ground, formed a snowball, and threw it at my boyfriend. When Michael got off his horse, I kissed him and rejoiced: “Thank you!”
“Melanie, I’m not responsible for the snow.”
“Thank you anyway! If it wasn’t quite so cold, I’d have an idea … Maybe we should turn around and head back?”
Michael smiled, gestured in the air, and murmured something unintelligible – in short, he worked magic. The air around us got warm, quickly reached at least seventy-five degrees. I slowly took off my coat. When I let the sweater follow a moment later, Michael smirked. Unfazed, I undressed, until I stood before him in my lingerie. Michael’s lascivious gaze and the promise it held sent a sweet wave of arousal through my body. The warmth of the air combined with the tingle of the melting snowflakes on my naked skin whipped my desire into an uncontrolled frenzy. I teased him playfully with my energy, ramping it up to the max. He lost any restraint he might have had. He pushed me against the trunk of a tree, kissing me passionately and smoldering at me with animal heat in his eyes. The world around us was a mere blur. All I wanted was to feel him inside me. While I tried to open his fly, I heard Stefan’s mock clueless voice echo through the forest: “What are you doing there?”
“Get lost!” Michael grumbled, not ready to pull away from me. “Ignore them,” he breathed into my ear, his voice husky. He pulled down his pants.
“No, stop.” I didn’t want to have sex in front of Stefan. And why had he spoken in the plural? I spied Alessandro behind his father. Embarrassed, I wished they would disappear in a hole in the ground. I firmly stopped Michael, who was still acting as if we were alone. His body covered most of mine, and since I was wearing nothing but my sexy underwear, I wanted to keep it that way. Stefan and Alessandro stood there wearing mischievous grins, both with their arms crossed in front of their chests. Michael struggled to contain his desire, lifted his head and glared at them over his shoulder. “What are you still doing here? Why couldn’t you simply keep your mouth shut and turn back around?”
“Theoretically we could have, yes, but it’s much more fun this way. We remembered how many times you spoiled our fun over the last fifty years or so, due to your grumpiness and work mania. We thought it was only fair to give you a taste of your own medicine.” They both found it all very amusing, while Michael was seething with anger and frustration. Stefan handed me my coat. “Here you go. Don’t stress.”
“Yeah, we like you better when you’re happy,” Alessandro added with a laugh.
“Don’t you think I would have been so much happier if you hadn’t interrupted us? What are you guys doing here anyway?”
“Birgit is driving us crazy. We had no choice but to sneak out.”
I wrapped the coat around my body, but then I realized how silly that was. They might see me in a bikini in the summertime, so how was that different than my underwear? I dropped the coat again and got properly dressed, with no hurry. Shirt, sweater, pants, and then the coat. I did not want to see their reactions, so I didn’t look up until I was finished. I didn’t want to know whether they liked what they saw or not. When I was fully clothed again, they were looking at me as if I was still wearing nothing but my lingerie, while Michael glowered at them as if he wanted to decapitate his offspring. I felt unsatisfied and was still yearning for Michael’s touch, so I got on my horse and galloped towards the manor house. As soon as I got away from Michael, the air was cold again. I hadn’t expected to be caught in the almost-act somewhere out in the woods.
With his thoroughbred stallion, Michael caught up with me quickly. Stefan and Alessandro were back at the house before us, moving with Peri speed. I wanted to rub my horse dry, but Michael took the bundle of straw from my hand. “We have a stable boy for that; you don’t need to do it.” But I wanted to. I had to cool down somehow, because although the temperature was close to freezing, my body was still on fire, and I felt sweaty. “I want to do it. I like horses.” I fetched another bundle of straw. “Come on, my beauty, I’ll take good care of you,” I whispered to the horse. Michael had no choice; he picked up a bundle of his own and started to rub down his stallion, but the animal snapped at him. Of course he easily evaded the bite. After the third irritated snap, I traded places with him. The stallion liked me.
In the evening they served a feast that was like a culinary journey through many different cultural regions of the earth, accompanied by J. S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. Birgit watched closely as Michael and I joked and teased each other. We kept touching casually, needed the physical contact. I thought it was fascinating that Michael’s family celebrated a Christian holiday, despite the fact that their entire existence didn’t seem to fit with this faith. He told me with a smile that any family gathering was worth celebrating. After the culinary trip around the world, Michael and his family played music together, with the ornately decorated Christmas tree as the perfect backdrop. Following that, Michael handed me a maroon envelope, stamped with the words ‘For my Melanie’ in gold letters. Excited and a little nervous, I opened the flap: He had registered my motorcycle and paid the annual premium. Wow! For the first time ever, he had chosen not to patronize me or tell me what was good for me. I hugged him and thanked him profusely.
“I had thought about giving you a car, since that is less dangerous, or at least a new motorbike, but I was worried you would have taken either the wrong way. So I had your bike checked by a mechanic, and he refurbished it a little. It’s waiting for you in our garage in Salzburg.”
Next I distributed my presents and wished everyone a merry Christmas. I wanted to respectfully shake everybody’s hands, but given that I exuded an unusual amount of happiness, each of them pulled me into a long, tight embrace. Even Birgit couldn’t resist the temptation. She held me for almost a minute, while I cast pleading looks at Michael.
After we’d said good night, we finally enjoyed the yearned-for privacy. Nobody cleared their throat, nobody had any urgent requests for Michael, nobody surprised us. We had the whole night.
On Christmas Day, we were back at Michael’s place around noon. Still tired, I sat down in front of the TV and let it lull me. Michael joined me, and I realized that we had never just spent an entire afternoon on the couch, watching whatever. It would be a nice change from both the constant excitement and the time I spent alone and studied. The news alerted me to the fact that there was something all of Salzburg was speculating about – a welcome distraction from the reports on the murdered women:
“The disappearance of nine reindeer on December 24 has everyone guessing. The animals were gone for an entire day, and were found unharmed on a lawn in front of the zoo on the morning of Christmas Day. Where could they have been in the meantime? Salzburg’s children of course have their own theory: They are convinced that the nine reindeer helped Father Christmas deliver their presents. So did Santa Claus really come to borrow his fabled helpers, or is this merely some strange publicity stunt? We’ll probably never know.”
The news anchor ended his segment with those words. I was snuggled up against Michael, but now I crossed my arms and complained: “Great. Now even fewer children will believe it’s the Christ Child who brings you the presents.”
Michael pressed a kiss to the back of my head. “We need to talk about something. I didn’t want to spoil Christmas. Yesterday a Peri was killed, the day before a vampire. The situation in Salzburg is coming to a head, and it’s getting more and more dangerous. And now there is … do you remember the business dinner with Rebekka?” he asked gravely. I remembered her face and nodded. “Yes, Rebekka, the woman with the scales on her forehead.”
“We have a contract with her, and that means we have to fly to London tomorrow. The contract is binding and I have to fulfill it, even if we currently have problems we should take care of,” he explained. I didn’t see where this was going. “Okay, so what do you expect from me now?”
“Come along and travel to London with me. I don’t want to leave you here when the best of my men are leaving town.”
“Oh, really?! I can go to London with you? I’ve always wanted to see Big Ben, Madame Tusseaud’s, and the Tower Bridge. Maybe I’m lucky and see how it’s opened and closed. I need to put together a sightseeing plan … and we’re leaving tomorrow?” I jumped up enthusiastically, all sleepiness forgotten, ready to race to my computer. Michael intercepted me and pulled me into a tight embrace, closed his eyes and reveled in my energy. I made a face and said: “Let me guess, I can’t go sightseeing, and you want to enjoy my euphoria before you tell me?” His expression confirmed my suspicion, but I would still research what I might do and see. Maybe an opportunity would present itself.
We were at Salzburg airport at nine the following morning, waiting for our plane. My phone buzzed, and it was the stipend office. I was baffled to hear that my information was false, and asked what they thought was the problem. The woman said I should have mentioned that I was an orphan. When I assured her that I was not, she merely said that I needn’t be embarrassed, and that she was very sorry I lost my parents at the young age of nineteen. Apparently what it meant was that I was eligible for a higher stipend in this case. The phone call threw me off course in the blink of an eye. Even though Michael had stood several yards away, he’d overheard every word of it, and the same applied to Stefan, Alessandro, and the other Peris. Nicky patted my shoulder encouragingly: “You can explain it once we get back.” Easy for him to say, his entire existence wasn’t unraveling before his eyes. Michael threw me a look that was half worried and half annoyed.
We flew from Salzburg to Vienna and from there to London. It wasn’t my first flight, but the first one in business class. Compared to a normal seat, you had lots more leg room, more than you might need. The flight from Vienna to London took no more than ninety minutes. I was sitting next to Michael, but he had no time for me. He had a bunch of documents in an unfamiliar language before him, which he was reading and taking notes of. In London a limousine with tinted windows was already waiting for us. I was placed in the passenger seat, ostensibly so I could get a first glimpse of the city, not so the others could talk without me overhearing everything. Driving on the left side of the rode was frightening. I kept feeling that we’d cause an accident any moment. I marveled at one of the Routemasters, the famed London double-decker buses, which was right in front of us for a while. We turned a corner and entered the mansion district or villadom of Hampstead Heath. If I remembered correctly, a plot of 2500 square feet cost about three million Euros in this area. When we reac
hed our destination, I was duly impressed. We rolled down the wide driveway of the gigantic mansion, and I wondered how wealthy a person could be. 2500 square feet would have fitted several times over into the property surrounding the mansion.
20 SIGHTSEEING
I followed the Peris into the modern mansion with its long, mirrored glass front, utterly unconcerned. I heard Michael greet someone. Curious, I pushed past my much taller companions to get a peep at our host. Then I stumbled backwards. I must have landed right in the middle of a bad dream. I wanted to turn and run for my life, but Nicky was blocking my way. He grinned and raised his eyebrows, giving me a questioning look. I gesticulated that I needed to get out of there, but he merely shook his head. His amused expression left little doubt that I wouldn’t get past him. Michael asked me to join him, but my legs felt like stone. I couldn’t bring myself to move, so Nicky gave me a little push. I latched on to Michael’s hand as if it was a lifeline, feeling desperate and about to freak out. I wished he would put a protective arm around me, while I stared right into the large yellow eyes of our host, my mouth hanging open. The creature seemed confused. “Does she squint?”
“No.” Michael threw me a quick glance and squeezed my hand. What was he trying to tell me? Our host turned to another one of his kind. “She seems even dafter than Rebekka said. Peris, I’ll never understand them,” he shook his head and they both laughed, baring their gigantic teeth. Each tooth was at least as long as my lower arm. The creature was covered in turquoise scales, with a wide yellow stripe that went all the way from his forehead to the tip of his tail. The stripe looked jagged because of the diamond-shaped scales. The best way to describe the monster was the word ‘dragon.’ Yes, our host was an eighty-foot long dragon. He had four huge paws with frighteningly long claws, a pointed tail with small spikes towards its end, ‘small’ being relative in this context. The other dragon’s scales were mostly yellow, apart from a large black diamond pattern on his chest. His orange eyes examined me critically.
Peris Night: Terakon (Secret Language) Page 28
