“Where did you train?”
“Many places, and the sound quality here rivals them all.”
“What school? Who was your teacher?”
“Ah. I’ve not had instruction. I teach myself.”
Of course you do, you bastard, she thought with an inward sigh.
He wrapped his bow in a worn cloth before putting it in the bag. His violin joined the bow after being covered with a frayed towel.
“You need a violin case. An instrument like that deserves better protection.”
“The violin has never complained,” he said as he zipped the duffel. He looked up through strands of dark blond hair and added with a slow smile, “Which is why it makes better company than some people.” He looked so young and heartbreakingly handsome that her heart thudded in her chest.
She noticed the Crimson logo written in bloodred script on the side of the bag.
Crimson is Merrick’s bar.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It’s better if I don’t even give you that much. It’ll only make you want more.”
She laughed. “You are so full of yourself. I’ve met rock stars who were more down-to-earth than you.”
“That’s certainly true. Being down-to-earth is not something to which I aspire.”
Aspire. She’d been determined to make him an aspirant. Was she still? He had the talent, but he would be a nightmare to work with. Still, his playing…
“I’m Cerise Xenakis.” When his expression remained blank, she rolled her eyes. The fact that she was world famous could not have escaped his attention, especially when he was in the Etherlin for God’s sake. And how was he still inside? When he’d smiled, she hadn’t seen fangs. Was he ventala or not?
“I’m the Etherlin muse who inspires musicians.”
She waited for him to respond, and he finally said, “Congratulations?”
She scowled. “This center belongs to the Etherlin community.”
“It was built for great music. That’s what I bring.”
She held out a hand. “I know. I’m not going to give you a hard time for trespassing. You clearly deserve to be here. I want to talk to you about your aspirations. What do you want to do with your music?”
“Play it?”
Smart-ass. She smiled. “Nothing beyond that? C’mon,” she said. “You could’ve snuck into an auditorium anywhere in the world. You chose one in the Etherlin. Wasn’t some part of you hoping to be discovered by a muse? By me?”
“Definitely not,” he said flatly. “I chose this place because it’s the best place to play that’s close to where I live.”
“Close to where you live? Where is that?”
“Will you excuse me? I should go.”
“So go.” She had no intention of leaving him alone. She wanted to see how he was getting in and out.
“I need to snuff the candle. To leave it burning would risk a fire.”
His turn-of-phrase seemed odd at times. Where was he from originally? Not the Varden. His speech was too precise and too archaic to have been born of its mean streets.
“I tire of waiting,” he said.
She glanced at the girder. The drop was dizzying. She didn’t blame him for wanting to avoid any distractions when he walked out there to get to the candle, but what idiotic impulse had caused him to put the candle there in the first place? Maybe he’d gone onto the girder to look at the book?
“Sorry, but I’m not leaving,” she said. “I came to retrieve the book that’s sitting next to the candle. Since you’re getting the candle, it would be cool of you to bring me the book. That way both of us don’t have to walk out there.”
“Step aside,” he said.
She glanced at the end of the beam. There was plenty of room for him to get to it without her moving out of his way. “I’m not going to touch you,” she said.
“Of that I’m certain.” He ran a hand through his hair, adding more chaos to locks that already defied a style. “Nevertheless,” he said, with a gesture for her to move.
She held out her hands in surrender and backed up. “Take all the space you need. I’ll wait here. You can just drop the book as you go past.”
He turned and strode out onto the beam without a moment’s hesitation or fear. She glanced at his legs and noticed for the first time that his feet were bare. She also noticed the scars on his back. There were a lot of them. Mostly thin lines where bladelike cuts had been made, but also two thick vertical lines just inside his shoulder blades that didn’t look like the other scars. They weren’t flat and shiny white as the others were. They looked like golden brown grooves. The tops and bottoms of the vertical scars came to points that were unnaturally perfect.
What the hell are those marks?
She studied them and then her eyes lingered on his waist and down to the seat of his leather pants. He had an athlete’s butt. Griffin had been good-looking, but he’d been somewhat androgynous. This mystery musician had a stunningly beautiful face, despite its scars, but there was nothing pale or fragile about his body. He could probably play a piano; he also looked like he could lift one. The appeal of that combination was not lost on a muse who inspired great athletes as well as great musicians.
She watched his sure footwork as he turned and strode back toward her, candle and book in hand.
“Do you dance?” she asked, her gaze fixed on his well-defined stomach muscles.
“Often and well.”
“Is there anything you don’t do well?” she asked dryly.
“I don’t lie well. Sometimes it would be convenient if I did.”
She glanced at his face. “You’re odd.”
“That’s the other thing I don’t do well.”
“What?”
“Blend.”
He walked to his duffel bag.
“Hey,” she said.
He glanced over his shoulder.
“You forgot to give me the book.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, zipping the duffel over the candle and Griffin’s songbook.
“What the hell?” She rushed toward him, but he shouldered the bag and sprinted away. Her socks slipped on the floor, but even if they hadn’t, despite being able to run a five-and-a-half-minute mile, she wouldn’t have been able to keep pace with him.
By the time she rounded the corner, he’d disappeared. She looked around and up. She heard a rustle of wind, but by the time she raced back to where she thought the sound had come from, he was gone. She checked the stairwells, but there was no sign of him.
Where the hell did he go?
She swore in frustration. Griffin’s songbook had probably been sitting on that beam unattended for almost a year, and on the night she’d finally seen it, she’d had the bad luck to run into Merrick’s eccentric friend. The other bizarre thing about the night was that for the twenty minutes she’d spent talking to him, despite being aware of the songbook, she hadn’t thought about Griffin or been pained by his memory.
That still didn’t mean she could leave the songbook with the mystery musician. She needed to read it and then she needed to turn it over to the Molly Times.
Cerise put a hand to her forehead and grimaced. The only thing she really knew about the phantom musician was that he was a friend of Merrick’s. It looked like she would be talking to Alissa sooner than she’d intended.
Cool air grazed Cerise’s cheek, and she glanced heavenward. Suddenly, everything slammed into place.
The children of men will not recognize him for what he is unless he reveals himself. They will look, but not see.
“In the rafters,” Cerise murmured. “Not: in the falling playground…In the fallen’s playground above the stage.”
Ventala don’t have scars, and they don’t have vertical grooves on their backs that could conceal wings.
Merrick’s friend is a fallen angel.
Chapter 4
Tamberi stood at the front of the crowd in the partitioned area of the war
ehouse. Rebel ventala stood shoulder to shoulder. She shrugged out of her coat and tossed it aside. She didn’t need a bra and wouldn’t have worn one if she did. Most ventala were male and the points of her nipples against her silk shirt would help focus their attention on her.
“So you know what my position is,” Tamberi said in a voice loud enough to flatten the chatter. “The syndicate has gotten more and more corporate, and I’ve been as responsible for that as anyone. But we’re not a company. We’re not a city government. We’re not politicians or lawyers or fucking bankers!”
The volume of disgruntlement rose in agreement.
“I say we’re not meant to be respectable citizens. We can look that way to the outside world, but to put ourselves on leashes? What are we? Goddamned dogs?”
There were shouts of agreement.
“Merrick used to be a badass, but he’s decided he wants to set up house with a muse. I don’t begrudge him that. She’s a really beautiful piece of ass. But when he turns his guns on his own like he did a few weeks ago, he’s not one of us anymore.”
The room was more subdued and it wasn’t because they didn’t agree. It was because taking on Merrick was the last thing anyone wanted to do.
“My father put a kill order out on Merrick but then rescinded it because he was afraid of the heat it would cause. This morning he went to negotiate with Merrick, and when things didn’t go well, Merrick shot my father and took his head.”
The room went dead silent.
Tamberi nodded. “Over the past few months, I’ve buried a lot of ventala. My brother. Twelve members of the syndicate hit squads who hunted our enemies and helped bust our way into the Etherlin—the supposedly impenetrable Etherlin. Now I’ve got to bury my goddamned father, too.
“I’m getting fucking sick of funerals. Even I don’t have that much black in my closet.” She looked away, feigning emotion, blinked, and looked back. “Merrick’s not an easy kill, and I don’t expect anyone to go for him out of loyalty to me or my family. I wouldn’t take him on out of loyalty to any of you bastards.” Her mouth curved into a small smile, and there was a bit of answering laughter. “So let’s get down to it. A two-and-a-half-million-dollar bounty. Each. Bring me Merrick dead and Alissa North alive.”
“Then what?”
“Then you get paid,” she said smoothly.
“Is the syndicate going to put a hit on him, too?”
“Probably, but they don’t pay as well as I do.”
“You broke from the syndicate?”
“I have no intention of interfering with the syndicate, but I plan to do things my own way. That may mean pretty soon there will be a hit squad after me, too.” She shrugged. “So be it. This dog is done with the leash. I want revenge. And I want this world under our fangs again. If I get an Etherlin muse, I can use her blood to bring forth enough true vampires to overrun the world. That’s why we went into the Etherlin. And the mission almost succeeded. It’s worth it to try again, I promise you,” she said, walking through the men to a large temporary wall that hid the remainder of the warehouse. “Some of you might not be able to imagine what a world full of vampires would be like. If you’re not old enough to remember the last Vampire Rising, I thought you might like a taste.” She kicked the partition, toppling it and revealing a spectacle worthy of a Roman orgy.
Tables overflowed with food and drinks. Naked women were sprawled over couches and mattresses. Some were chained in place. Others had been chemically restrained. Heroin and valium worked wonders.
The ventala shoved their way past her. “The muses and their supporters made it against the law to feed off human beings. Even the willing ones,” she called as the ventala descended on their human prey. “I say if they won’t let us use the willing, we’ll take whoever we want.” There were screams and cries mixed with grunts and groans. “Yeah, go ahead,” Tamberi said. “Drink and feast and fuck like it’s the end of the world as we know it. ’Cuz it is.” Tamberi’s smile widened as the first girl died, her skin turning marble white as she was drained dry. “That’s right. We’re not playing politicians or lawyers or fucking bankers anymore.”
With her phone in hand, Cerise dropped into her bedroom’s window seat and contemplated what to say to Alissa when she reached her. After Alissa had left the Etherlin, ES had tried to recover her, but at first she’d been completely off the grid. Then the famed Muse Wreath, which Alissa had reportedly stolen on the night of her disappearance, was returned with a detailed letter about the night’s events. The letter to Cerise’s father, Dimitri, had been kept confidential, but the security team had been recalled.
There were those who were concerned that Alissa had been kidnapped and was in fact still being held prisoner by the ventala syndicate’s most deadly asset, and Cerise had wondered sometimes herself, but one thing made her skeptical that Alissa was being held prisoner—she’d sent Cerise a message inviting her to meet in the Sliver—the small slice of neutral territory between the ventala territory called the Varden and the muse world of the Etherlin. Cerise could believe that Alissa might be pressured into pretending to have chosen to go with Merrick of her own accord, but she didn’t believe that Alissa would lay a trap for another muse. No matter what leverage Merrick or the ventala had over her, Cerise didn’t believe Alissa would betray her. She’d known Alissa her entire life, and once upon a time they’d been best friends.
Cerise scrolled through her contact list to the fake name she’d entered for the number that Alissa had written in her message. Cerise pressed the button and waited as it rang.
“Hello?” Alissa said, but before Cerise could answer, her mouth went dry. In the background, she could hear a blazing guitar solo. Her spine tingled. Was that him again? The angel?
“Hello?” Alissa repeated.
“Hey. Sorry. It’s Cerise.”
“Hi!” Alissa said. “Give me a moment. It’s loud here,” she said, and then in answer to a deep voice that asked where she was going, she added, “Just to the lobby.”
The music dampened, and Alissa said, “Hello. How are you?”
“I’m okay. Where are you?”
“At Crimson. It’s a club…in the Varden,” Alissa hesitated on the last, which wasn’t surprising since the muses had been raised to believe that they’d never survive a night in the Varden. Tempted by their blood, the ventala would consume their last drop of life. Had that just been propaganda? A scare tactic to keep the muses in line?
“Are you safe there?” Cerise asked.
“It’s Merrick’s club. He’s with me,” she said, as if that answered the question.
“And you’re okay with him?” Cerise asked skeptically.
“Yes, I’m very well. How are you? How are things there?”
“They’re all right. You’re missed.”
“Oh, that’s—It’s nice of you to say.”
“When you first answered the phone, I heard music playing. What song was that?”
“Nothing you would have heard before. Merrick has a friend who’s a musician, and he wrote it.”
“I think I’ve heard it before.”
“You do? I can’t imagine. It’s called ‘Paradise Lost’ because some of the lyrics are from Milton. As far as I know it’s never been recorded. Unless someone made a bootleg. The guitarist from the band that usually plays weekends here cut his hand, and we convinced Lysander to come down and play a set with them. But he’s only been onstage for about twenty minutes.”
“Lysander,” Cerise said. “Tall? Blond? Leather pants and lots of scars?”
“You have seen him,” Alissa said, her surprise evident.
“Speaking of being seen, you wanted to see me. Let’s do it tonight.”
“Tonight?” Alissa asked. “You’ll never get Etherlin Security to clear an impromptu trip to the Sliver at eleven thirty at night.”
“Let me worry about ES. Can I visit you tonight or not?” Cerise said. She didn’t like the fact that Alissa had more freedom of movement than sh
e did.
“Of course. Do you want to meet in the Grand Hotel or at Clarity?”
“Neither. I want to come to Crimson. You’re safe there. I would be, too, right?”
“Well—yes, of course, Merrick wouldn’t let anything happen to you in his club, but are you sure you want to come into the Varden?”
“Can you arrange for my safe passage from the Sliver to the Varden and back?”
“Yes, if that’s what you want. Merrick and I will pick you up. Where?”
“I’ll wait in the lobby of the Grand. I can be there in thirty minutes.”
“All right. We’ll be there.”
“Great, and one other thing?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell Merrick’s friend that I’m coming.”
When Alissa didn’t respond, Cerise added hastily, “See you soon,” and she ended the call before there could be more discussion. She slid the phone into her pocket. She passed the mirror and gave herself a brief inspection. Dark hair with its black cherry hue curled softly around her face and shoulders, kohl rimmed her eyes, and wine-colored lipstick accented her full lips. She wore a tailored shirt with a maroon scarf and black leather pants. She went to her closet and pulled on high-heeled boots that would take her from five foot ten to well over six feet. Then she opened a large jewelry box and took out a couple of bangle bracelets and a 9 mm filled with vampire-killing bullets. She tucked it into the back of her leather pants and covered it with her shirt. She shoved a thousand dollars, her ID, and a tube of Black Honey lipstick into her pocket.
On her way out the bedroom door, she almost bumped into her sister.
“Hey,” Dorie said. “You’re going out? Can I come?”
“No,” Cerise said, not breaking her stride down the hall.
“Why not?”
“I’m going to a bar to hear a band.”
“So? If I’m with you they’ll let me in. Like they did—”
“That was a one-time thing for your sixteenth birthday,” Cerise said, hurrying down the stairs.
“What’s your problem lately?” Dorie snapped.
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