Lord Corbin sighed wistfully. "I should like to have such talent myself. Alas, I know that is impossible." His long white fingers tightened on the arms of his chair, which had been fashioned to look like two crawling serpents. Their fanged mouths, polished to a shine, seemed to grin at Hawk. "Yet perhaps I can have the next best thing."
Hawk froze as the duke lifted one hand and turned it palm-upward. The courtiers around him slowly rose. Even Aldor started from his chair, his jaw clenched nervously. Had Aldor's fears been justified? Would the duke take him by force?
Two of the courtiers, middle-aged men Hawk had scarcely given a glance to before, stepped toward him, one on either side. In a flash of movement, one he could barely follow, they seized him. Their eyes were black, like the duke's. He hadn't noticed it before. At the same time, the knight and another man moved to surround Aldor and the young man seated beside him.
"No!" he heard Aldor scream as the duke himself approached Hawk.
Lord Corbin's fangs were exposed, exactly like the ones carved into the heads of the serpents adorning his chair.
"Run! Run, Aldor!" Hawk screamed as the duke's icy fingers pressed into his arms and his sharp teeth sank into Hawk's neck. In the blur that followed, he thought he saw Aldor fighting for his life, possibly even breaking free and racing for freedom. But he couldn't be sure.
TRACK TWO
Boston, Charles River Performance Center, 2012
"Hawk? Hey, man, are you even listening to me?"
Hawk pulled himself out of his dark reverie to find Riley, his personal assistant, standing beside him. Riley had clearly been talking for some time, but Hawk hadn't heard a single word.
"I'm listening," he lied. Riley's skeptical expression told Hawk he didn't believe him, but Hawk knew Riley wouldn't bother to argue. Part of the hefty salary Hawk paid him purchased Riley's indulgence in matters he didn't need to understand.
Shaking his head, Riley started over again. "I was telling you that we've got a full house tonight. I just checked. They're a rowdy crowd, but a good one. The energy out there is incredible."
"Glad to hear it." Hawk rose from the couch where he had been centering himself since rising a few hours earlier and feeding on a compliant groupie. The young man was currently sleeping it off on the floor in the corner. Riley walked over to check on him and frowned.
"I take it you're … um … nourished enough to perform? You didn't overdo it, I hope."
"I'm okay. He wasn't too drunk, and as far as I could tell, he wasn't on anything else. My head's clear." Hawk shrugged and watched Riley bend over the groupie's still form. "Don't worry, he's not dead. I'm not in the mood for a scandal. He will awake with a pleasant memory of meeting his idol and then fainting from excitement."
"Okay. I'll take care of it. He'll be ticked he missed the concert, though."
"Give him free tickets to tomorrow's show when he wakes up. Meanwhile, I'll finish getting ready."
Riley politely averted his eyes as Hawk untied and tossed aside his robe. He closed and locked the door to his private dressing room, knowing that when he emerged, the unconscious young man would be gone. Riley would see that he was sent safely and discreetly on his way as soon as possible. When the live shows completed for the week, it would be back to bottled blood.
While he dressed for the concert, Hawk reflected on the dark visions that had plagued his mind as he ingested the young man's warm and succulent life force. Just before every performance since his last one as a human, almost eight hundred years earlier, the same images had cavorted through his troubled mind. When he closed his eyes, he could still smell the candles burning in Castle Corbin, along with the coppery scent of flowing blood. He remembered the scent of his own death.
After Lord Corbin had drained him, Hawk had awoken the next night to begin his long existence as a dead man walking. Back then, there had been no name for what he was. Not until five hundred years passed would he hear the term vampire for the first time. It would be two hundred more years before he even dared utter it aloud. The fears of angry mobs with torches and stakes had frozen his tongue on the first syllable.
How different things were in the twenty-first century. Vampires were no longer feared, but served as teen idols and romantic heroes. He could walk onto the stage and openly proclaim himself a vampire, if he ever wished to, and his fans would probably cheer him for it. Life, if that was the proper word for a revenant like him to use, was easier and better in so many ways.
Only one thing was still missing. Hawk rubbed his temples as the familiar stress-induced headache began to throb. What had happened to Aldor that terrible night? Never had Hawk been able to discover the truth. Under cover of night, he fled Castle Corbin and its undead lord. Whether Aldor had escaped with his life he still knew not. And he had wondered every night for eight centuries.
Half an hour later, he emerged from his dressing room in full black leather and makeup, his electric guitar over his shoulder. Hawk Black, twenty-first century rock icon, was ready to perform.
Riley had been right, he saw as soon as he stepped onto the stage. The audience was filled with fans and rockers, some simply screaming and others singing his hits. Hawk couldn't help but smile. His most recent CD had been out for only a few weeks, and already they knew all the words.
Quickly he nodded to his band behind him and launched into his first song. Just to play with his fans a bit, he changed up some of the words on the fly, something he had learned to do in his minstrel days.
By the end of the first set, the audience was rowdier and noisier than ever. When Hawk started up again, a powerful strobe light swept the crowd. It lingered on a corner of the mosh pit, where a few of the bolder fans had gathered for a better look at the stage.
When the light caught the man who stood at the very edge of the crowd, Hawk's voice stalled on his lips, and his hands went so numb that he almost dropped his guitar.
The guy stood with other fans, swaying but not singing, dressed casually in faded jeans and a plain black T-shirt with an open flannel shirt over it. Aside from his modern haircut and clothes, eight centuries had not changed him a bit.
"Aldor," Hawk whispered.
TRACK THREE
Summoning every tendril of concentration in his body, Hawk finished the concert without incident and even returned for an encore. During the few moments he ducked offstage, he signaled to one of his roadies and described the man in the audience.
"I want him backstage," he said in a tone that left no room for disagreement. The roadies looked at each other and dashed off to do his bidding.
After the show, Hawk retreated to his dressing room to strip out of his sweat-soaked clothes and change into something more suited to the party he and his road crew always threw after their final show at a particular venue. Usually, he opted for fashionably shredded jeans and a muscle shirt or tank top, usually topped with a leather vest or jacket. Tonight, he went for a new pair of black jeans and a black button-down shirt, which he left open to the middle of his chest. It was the sort of outfit he would have chosen for a date.
As the backstage celebration got underway, Hawk concealed himself behind a curtain and watched the door. Soon enough, his two roadies walked through with the man from the audience between them. As he stared, Hawk felt everyone and everything else in the room fade from his consciousness. Until that moment, he had half-convinced himself that his mind was playing tricks or that the strobe lights had caused some strange optical illusion. Standing in front of the man, he knew that neither had been the case.
He was Aldor, sure enough. Hawk knew every contour of his face and body, the exact shade of pink on those lips he had kissed so long ago.
But how had he survived until 2012? Was it possible that Aldor, too, had become a vampire? If so, why had Hawk never heard about or run into him during his travels all around the world? The vampire community was not exactly small, but neither was it large enough that one of their number could escape notice for eight hundred years. It
would take skill and determination to stay hidden, though Hawk didn't doubt that Aldor possessed both of those traits.
His long-unused stomach clenched the way it had in the old days when something was troubling him. Perhaps Aldor didn't wish to see him. Perhaps he'd been avoiding him for a reason. If he had become a vampire, did he blame Hawk in some way? Had he spent the last eight centuries seething with hatred?
Yet he had shown up at the concert. Aldor hadn't come by accident. Hawk's name and image—digitally processed, of course—adorned posters and ads all over the city. Then he'd deliberately put himself in a place where Hawk would see him from the stage.
No, Hawk had every reason to be hopeful. If his heart had still been able to beat, it would have been thundering by the time he threw aside the curtain and headed toward the three men walking toward him. Though the party was buzzing around him, and guests called out to him and even touched him as he passed, he remained focused on one person only. Just like that, his seemingly endless search was over.
"Aldor," he said as he stepped into the man's path. Icy tears slid down his face as he opened his arms. "At last, you have returned."
Surprised by Hawk's uncharacteristic display of emotion, the two roadies looked at one another and moved to the side. Aldor, though, stood his ground and gaped at Hawk with a puzzled expression.
Hawk found himself struggling to speak. "It has been so long," he managed to choke out.
Aldor smiled uneasily. "Sorry, dude … but I think you've got me mixed up with someone else."
"What?" Hawk stared. Slowly, his arms dropped to his sides. "What can you mean by that?"
"I mean you and I haven't actually met before. Must be some kind of misunderstanding. But hey, I really enjoyed the concert. When your guys invited me to come back here for a party, I couldn't believe it. I almost ran off, figuring it was some kind of a ruse so they could beat me up and take my wallet or something."
"I can assure you that was not the case." Hastily Hawk tried to recover his composure, which was difficult when his mind was churning like a stormy sea. "I invited you back here as my guest."
"Glad to hear it. I'm a big fan." The man who looked like Aldor grinned. It was the same grin he had directed at Hawk many, many times before. How could he deny his identity? Hawk knew he wasn't mistaken.
Just then someone cranked up the music. The thunderous beat made the floor vibrate under Hawk's booted feet and assaulted his sensitive vampiric hearing.
"It's too noisy to talk out here," he shouted, leaning in closer. "Let's go somewhere quieter." He motioned for Aldor to follow him across the backstage area and headed for his private dressing room. To his relief, the man accompanied him without protest.
They seated themselves in the outer room, from which Riley had thankfully moved the unconscious groupie. Hawk settled down on the sofa and Aldor on a matching loveseat across from him.
"Can I get you anything?" Hawk pressed, watching Aldor's face. If he had become a vampire, the mention of such repulsive treats might get him to reveal distaste for human food. "Beer? Chips?"
"Nah. I try to stay away from junk food as a rule, and I don't drink. I mean, when I go to a party I usually just walk around holding the same one all night so no one will bug me." Aldor waved a dismissive hand between them. "I must sound like the biggest wet blanket around. No offense. Feel free to go ahead if you want something."
"It's all right. I don't drink either," Hawk said. He'd listened closely to Aldor's voice. He thought he could detect the trace of an English accent—or an Anglo-Norman one, perhaps—but it was too faint to make out clearly. Similarly, after many years in America, Hawk had shed his own distinctive accent. It came out now and again, during times of extreme emotion or during bouts of nostalgia. "I prefer to keep a clear head at all times."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Boston's a great city, but in my opinion you have to stay on your toes. All kinds of stuff happening on the back streets that I'd rather not get involved with."
Hawk's brows drew together in curiosity. "Anything in particular?"
Not-Aldor pursed his lips and shook his head in obvious embarrassment. "Well, my first night here, I saw this guy standing outside of my hotel. He looked at me like he was lost, so I asked him if he needed my help. Turned out he was—you know—a hustler."
"Oh? And you weren't tempted?"
"I guess I was a little." Aldor blushed. "But no. I wouldn't dare do anything like that. For all I know, he was an undercover cop. I'm not stupid. I've seen those reality shows on cable."
"Yeah. Me too." Hawk felt bewildered. His Aldor watching reality TV and hanging around in hotels? Hard to imagine. In his mind, Aldor was still an elegant courtier, resplendent in silks and silver, inhabiting a stone castle and seducing him by reciting French and Latin poetry. But of course, Hawk knew that reality could no longer exist. He had changed a lot, along with the rest of the world, and he knew Aldor would have changed, too. He decided to try a different approach. "So tell me about yourself. Where did you come from, before you checked into that hotel? What brings you to Boston? Surely you didn't come all the way from … wherever … just to attend my concert."
Not-Aldor smiled shyly. "Surely that isn't important. Plenty of tourists stream through this city every day. I'm just one of many."
Hawk suspected his reticence might be more than just general evasiveness. "Of course it's important. I want to know more about you. That's why I invited you back here."
"But why? Are you … um … I mean, are you hitting on me?" He used the slang uncertainly, as though he were unfamiliar with modern terms. But, Hawk finally decided, the man was no vampire. His manner was too soft, his blush too deep. And his clear blue-grey eyes looked no different than they had in the thirteenth century, right down to that little gleam of naïveté Hawk had always adored.
"Would you like me to? Because I'll be honest—I'm more than willing." Hawk leaned back so that Aldor could see the swelling behind the fly of his jeans, which said more than his words would ever need to.
"Yeah … I'd heard that … you know … you were into guys. Some people were talking about it while we stood in line to get into the concert, in fact."
Hawk shrugged. "It's the way I am. I'm not ashamed of it. I've never made any attempt to cover up my sexuality. If any of my fans have a problem with it, they can listen to someone else's CDs. It doesn't seem like most of them do, though." He fixed Aldor with an especially penetrating stare. "Welcome to the twenty-first century."
Aldor—or Not-Aldor, as the case might be—managed a nervous little laugh. "Is it hard in this business to be open about who you are? I mean, people must expect you to be seen in public with girls and so on."
"It's probably tough for some—the ones who try to hide who they really are. I go to most public functions alone. Though if I had a guy to bring, I'd do it without shame. I just don't have a lot of time for relationships. What about you?"
"Me either."
"That's why I'm being up-front with you right now. I figure it's always best to be honest. You were right before—you seem familiar to me. It's kind of like we already know each other, don't you think?" He waited for a response, but when he received none, he pushed forward. "On the other hand, I wouldn't dream of doing anything that would make you uncomfortable. So I guess I'm leaving it up to you to make the first move."
"Um … I see." A troubled look came over the young man's face. "I just don't know if I'm quite ready to do that."
Hawk moved over to the other loveseat. He reached out but stopped just short of resting his hand on Aldor's denim-clad thigh. Instead he let his palm drop between them. "All right. Can I ask if there's any particular reason why not? I think it could be great between us."
The guy seemed to be shaking, though Hawk could see that he was trying very hard to control it. Finally he gulped down a calming breath and stood to go. "Look, I'm not sure about any of this. I'm not saying no … just that I'm not sure."
"Okay." Hawk pulled
his hand away and followed Aldor to his feet. "I can accept that." He went to his guitar case and pulled out a card with his personal cell phone number on it. "I'd definitely like to see you again, though. There's a reason I thought I knew you before. I was hoping we could talk about that … among other things."
Not-Aldor took the card, looking more skeptical than ever at Hawk's words. "Can I think about it and give you a call?"
"I'll pick you up tomorrow night. I don't have a show scheduled, and I'm planning to be in Boston for two more days. Call that number at eight o'clock—no earlier—and tell me where you'll be. I'll meet you wherever you want. You can tell me to get lost after five minutes if you want. But we need to talk for at least that long."
"All right." Nodding, Not-Aldor put the card in his pocket.
"You know, I don't know your name yet," Hawk said meaningfully as the two left the room together.
"You're right. You don't."
"Will I find it out tomorrow?"
"Maybe." Aldor smiled. "What did you call me when you thought I was someone else? Aldor?"
"Yes. Aldor." Hawk tasted the name with a fresh jolt of longing as it rolled over his tongue. He didn't say it aloud much. The sound brushed against his ears like a kiss.
"Well, go ahead and call me that for now. I'm fine with it."
Scowling, Hawk let him go. He returned to his dressing room and leaned back on the couch, scrubbing a hand over his face. The whole situation was weird as hell. Nearly eight hundred years of looking for Aldor, and the man himself had walked right up to Hawk and claimed not to know him.
Hawk hated mysteries in general. He didn't like reading them and he certainly didn't like living them. But this one had him hooked.
TRACK FOUR
The following evening, Hawk rose from the lightproof container he slept in and immediately began to pace his hotel room. Not even a generous guzzle of the bottled blood he kept in the room's fridge took the edge off.
Rocking Hard, Volume 2 Page 25
