Excerpt from the freebie Overture

the first part of the Serenade Serial

 

All the trouble started because of a human. A human. Honestly. After six hundred years, I should know better than that. I do know better than that. So maybe it didn’t start because of a human. Let me begin again.

All the trouble started because of my idiotic offspring.

All right, maybe calling him idiotic is a bit unfair. Morgan has brains. Before I made him one of us four hundred years ago—four hundred years to the day when this all started, actually—I’d made sure he was smart. Vampire families stay close, or at least mine does. My offspring don’t call me ‘Mother’ for nothing. Because of that, I try not to saddle myself with anyone susceptible to boring me to death within a decade. I’ve had three offspring, and they were all intelligent. Even Ethan, whose vampire life ended much earlier than it should have. He was smart, that was one thing I loved about him, but in the end maybe he was too smart for his own good and…

Never mind that. I wasn’t talking about Ethan, that’s done and gone. I was talking about the most infuriating man I know—or at least, the most infuriating one I knew when this all started, Morgan Ward. Another man may have taken the crown since. Possibly even two. It’s a close race.

Morgan decided a quarter of a century ago that he wouldn’t feed off living humans anymore. He started buying blood from hospitals, blood banks, butchers, and the First Maker knows where else, and starving himself both of fresh blood and of physical contact.

His sister Lilah and I watched him for a while, waiting for him to snap out of it. She worried more than I did—or at least, she worried more than I let her see I did—but I got tired of waiting first. When you get to my age, waiting starts to become really annoying.

I enlisted Lilah’s help and our plan was to come to fruition the very night this story starts. Morgan didn’t want to have close contact with humans, but he wouldn’t have a choice, not when we inserted a carefully chosen girl into his life and forced him to deal with her. That plan was the reason I was in Paris, where Lilah would join me as soon as she set things into motion. If we remained close to New York, Morgan would pester us to set him and the girl free.

Once he figured out where we were, he might come all the way to France to do the pestering in person, but I suspected he would not. The last time he’d been in Paris, he’d almost been outed as a vampire, and he had sworn never to set foot in the city again. Granted, a century had passed since then, but Morgan has a thing about keeping his promises, even those he makes to himself. He and I are alike in that regard, so I can’t fault him.

And there you have it. I was in Paris because of Morgan, and it’s because I was in Paris that all this started. Frankly, the last thing I was looking for, let alone wanted, was a romantic entanglement. I’m much too old for that kind of nonsense.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not too old for the chase. I’m a vampire, hunting is what I was created to do. I hunt prey for blood or sex, and often both at the same time. I’ve bedded men on all continents. I used to have a journal in which I kept track of my progress through men of the human species. I’d made it my goal to have at least one man in every town over a certain size. And then the nineteenth century came, the world population exploded, and I might be the next best thing to immortal but there are just too many towns in the world to keep track of anymore.

With the time-zone difference, it would be hours before I could call Lilah and ask how our plan was progressing, and staying home to wait wasn’t my style. So, upon waking up that evening, I slipped on a tight little dress that stopped over my thighs and always caused men to stare at my legs like they’d never seen anything of the sort before, put on a coat over that for appearances’ sake since it was, after all, the middle of December, and left our townhouse with the intention of going clubbing.

The advantage of dance clubs for someone like me is simple: I get to see a lot of potential prey all in one place, I can choose as easily as though browsing from a catalog, and in the end it doesn’t take much more than batting my eyelashes or crooking a finger to show I’m interested. After that, it’s a matter of ‘allowing’ my prey to seduce me.

Not to be obnoxious, but when one has the body of an eighteen-year-old fashion model and the confidence borne of six centuries of inhabiting that body, attracting male attention isn’t much of a challenge.

No, the challenge is to find someone interesting. Someone worth more of my time than it takes to feed and thrall him into forgetting me. What they look like is not as important as the way they move, the way they dance, the way they hold themselves, whether they smile at the people around them and make eye contact, whether they’re a little too free with their hands or wait for an overt invitation before stepping closer to a new dance partner—to me.

That night, I was in the mood for loud and crowded. The trouble was, the night life in Paris only gets really fun after midnight. I had two hours to kill and some interest in seeing the sights by night, as it had been a while since I had walked up the Champs Elysées or strolled through the Quartier Latin.

So many places in the world, so much to see and experience…

Paris was and always will be on my list of favorite cities, but it is a long list. Besides, it is always fun to come back to an old friend and discover all the small and not-so-small ways in which it has changed. The last time I’d been around in May 1968, the youth of the country had been staging an uprising against its elders. Being in the midst of all that exuberant life had been thrilling. I’d marched with them, confronted the police with them, felt alive with them. When it all calmed down, I left the continent for a while; the aftermath of revolutions, when things settle back into a routine, really isn’t my scene.

So, to pass time until the night life started to become interesting, I found my way to a bar off Pigalle, one of Paris’ raunchier neighborhoods. I’d heard about it from Lilah, who had been in Paris much more recently than I had. She’d said she’d enjoyed the music a lot, and that I might, too.

As soon as I entered, I knew what she’d meant—or at least, I thought I knew. I only truly understood a few minutes later when I recognized the music.

A baby grand was set on a platform right in the center of the large room, and a pianist was playing, competently enough I thought as I listened distractedly while handing my coat to the attendant. Metal tables were set around the platform, some tiny, just large enough for two people to huddle together, others larger to accommodate groups of four or more on the crimson chairs.

A bar stood along the entire right-side wall, black wood topping the red half-wall. High stools of black metal and red leather lined the bar.

Red and black—a bit boring, if you ask me. That was also Morgan’s color scheme for his birthday party tonight. He’s not the most imaginative of men, and the owner of the bar clearly didn’t have the most imaginative of decorators.

I took a seat at the bar, ordered a martini, and turned sideways to look at the pianist. From where I was, I could see the well-defined lines of his profile. Light caramel skin was topped by a mop of dark hair that had been carefully crafted into chaos. He wore a white shirt that was stretched taut over his broad shoulders, and his striped gray tie matched his slacks. He was smiling, I noticed, and he played with his eyes half-closed behind his glasses, his hands flying over the keyboard. More competent than my first impression had warranted, then.

Taking the glass the barmaid had set in front of me, I turned fully toward the piano, with my back to the bar and my legs crossed, one foot kicking lightly, black leather catching the light. There was something about the melody filling the bar, fast, airy, familiar…

I took a sip and grimaced at the taste. It seemed I’d lived on the other side of the Atlantic for too long, and had forgotten that asking for a Martini, in France, was likely to yield different results than in America. I caught the attention of the barmaid again and let a bit of an accent slip into my voice this time when I corrected my order.

“Oh, sorry,” she said in passable English. “I thought you are French. Let me arrange this.”

She fixed me a new drink, and I turned once again to watch the pianist. I took a sip… and froze again.

It wasn’t the drink that shocked me this time, but the new piece of music rising from the piano.

I knew, suddenly, why the first piece had sounded familiar. And I knew why Lilah had sent me here.

I’d composed that piece of music, as I had composed this one.

It had been decades since I’d heard or played either of them, and I’d composed hundreds more since, which might be why it took me so long to recognize them. Or maybe I simply hadn’t expected to hear them in a bar, which had slowed me down. But I couldn’t not recognize them. They were as distinct to me as the faces of my offspring. They were mine in a very primal way: parts of me that had been born and shared with others but still, intrinsically, my own.

After the first moment of surprise and bafflement, outrage was quick to follow. Those compositions were private. I’d created them for my own enjoyment and my family’s. How did this man dare play my notes like that? Where had he even found the sheet music? I had dozens of folios full of my compositions scattered through the different houses where I lived, but I’d never published any of it. If he had my music, it could only mean one thing: he’d stolen from me.

If you want the plain, hard truth, here it is: I had killed men for lesser offenses than playing my music without my permission.

Of course, that had been during less civilized times, when a man found in a ditch somewhere with his throat torn out would be buried without too much of an investigation as to how he’d died. Some farmer’s aggressive dogs might be blamed, or a wild animal, but certainly not the proper lady who’d been seen traveling through those parts recently.

A well-lit, fairly busy bar in the middle of Paris was not the ideal place to take a life, far from it, even with a very good motive. And besides, I hadn’t killed in a long time, not because of misplaced sensibilities but simply because it was too much of a bother to engineer a proper cover-up.

I was still pondering my options when a man sat next to me before leaning in close—much too close, actually, as the cologne he’d liberally doused himself with threatened to make me gag.

“Do you enjoy classical music?” he asked in what, I supposed, he believed was a sultry voice, and with an accent that hinted he’d spent some time working on his English in London. He must have heard me speak to the bartender.

I’d raised my glass to my lips to breathe in the scent of the martini. I lowered it again without taking a sip, scoffing. As far as pick-up lines went, this one didn’t rate very high.

“Classical music?” I repeated. “Is that what you think he’s playing?”

“Well, what do you call it?”

Robbery, for the most part, but I didn’t feel inclined to share that sentiment with this man. For that matter, I didn’t feel like talking to him at all.

Turning my face fully toward him, I caught his gaze. His mouth curled up in a grin; no doubt he thought he’d captured my attention. The important part, however, was that I had his.

“Go home,” I said, and if my voice was quiet, it held all the strength a centuries-old vampire can put into a compulsion without even trying hard. My eyes bore into his, reinforcing the order and turning it into something he literally would not be able to refuse. Had he tried, his own body would have rebelled against him, and the consequences would have been less than pleasant.

He didn’t try to resist, however. Instantly, he turned back to the bar, paid for his drink, and left. I don’t know how human women deal with annoying people, but for me compulsion is both fast and easy. That guy was lucky I told him to go home rather than throw himself into the Seine River. A few decades earlier, I might have done just that.

Free from that unwanted distraction, I turned my attention back to my drink and, more importantly, the piano.

The more I listened, the better the melodies sounded, as though the pianist had been warming up earlier and was now hitting his stride, finding the rhythm of the musical phrases, along with their heart.

Along with my heart, I guess I should say, although it’s been the subject of some debate between my offspring and me as to whether I do have a heart or not. They’re much too sentimental.

By my second drink, I’d mellowed enough that murder, as impractical as it would have been to attempt it, was not the main thing on my mind anymore. Instead, I wanted—no, I needed to know where the pianist had found my compositions, all of which he played from memory. And, as far as I remembered, without ever missing a note.

When I ordered my third drink, I asked about sending a glass to him. The barmaid gave me a knowing look, and mentioned that he was fond of red wine. Moments later, she delivered a glass, which she set on a thick coaster on the piano. She murmured a few words to the man, and even through the music and low chatter, I only had to pay close attention to hear her describe me as ‘The brunette American woman at the bar in the short green dress.’

Not exactly flattering or even all that accurate a description. Despite appearances, I’m not a brunette. In its natural state, my hair is red—bright red, and fairly distinctive. Too much so for someone who tries, for the most part, not to be too memorable. My dress was green, yes, to match my eyes, but I’m not American, despite what my passport or my accent might claim. Not that it mattered.

I expected he might join me when he finished playing the sonata, but all he did was pause just long enough to pick up his drink, turn toward me, and raise the glass in a toast before he took a sip. Then he was back to focusing on the piano, and while this particular piece was more lively, it was, like every single note I’d heard him play tonight, mine.

The difference was that this was much more recent, dating from the couple of years I’d spent in Paris in the late sixties, while everything else so far had been composed during the same period of my life at the turn of the previous century.

If I’d been stunned when I first recognized my notes in what he was playing, now I was mystified. There was nothing —nothing at all and very much on purpose —to link this last piece of music to the other ones. The style was different, the mood, the rhythm, and even the name I’d written on my sheet music. I’d been wearing different personas when writing those pieces of music, and they very much reflected that fact.

It seemed an extremely unlikely coincidence that he would happen to play pieces from two of my alter-egos without knowing they were related. Still, I couldn’t begin to fathom how he could possibly know those two composers, separated by decades and the English Channel, had anything to do with each other.

One more question I’d ask him when he finally joined me, I decided.

I’d been in bars like this before, or in clubs with bands. I’d sent drinks to musicians whose skills I enjoyed, and few of them had refused to join me to share another drink, a few words, and when they were so inclined more than that. Usually it didn’t take long before my invitation was answered.

That night, it was another hour—another five music pieces—before the pianist took his bow to some applause from the patrons. Another man walked onto the scene, and they exchanged a handshake along with a few words. I finished my drink and ordered two glasses of wine, expecting the pianist to finally join me. When I turned back, he was disappearing past a door marked private at the other end of the bar. He returned moments later minus the tie and wearing a leather jacket and started walking through the bar, saying goodnight to a couple people on the way. When he passed by me, he gave me nothing more than a smile and an inclination of his head.

He wasn’t going to stop, I realized with a burst of very unpleasant surprise. He wasn’t even going to say one word to me.

I’m not used to people paying me so little attention. I can’t say I liked the feeling.

“Is that all?” I blurted out in French, loud enough that he’d hear me over the new melodies—not mine anymore—rising from the piano. “You’re not even going to say thank you for the drink?”

He paused, and I could see him hesitate before he turned to me. He opened his mouth, but I had no interest in whatever he might say in reply to my outburst, not when I had much more important questions to ask him. Before he could say a word, I locked eyes with him and demanded, “Sit with me.”

I hadn’t meant to compel him, or at least not unless he was reticent to answer my questions. It’s not that I have a problem using compulsion on humans, I think I’ve already made that clear. I am a predator, and compulsion is one of my weapons, the same way my attractive clothes, careful make-up, or fangs are, each with a different purpose, each used in its own time. However, using compulsion to force a human to talk to me… that felt like a waste of my time and talents.

But it was still better than running after him into the street and risk ruining my high heels.

He came forward immediately, and I knew he wasn’t able to control his own movements. When he climbed onto the high stool next to mine, his mouth twisted into a grimace.

“You could have just asked nicely,” he muttered in faintly accented English. “There was no need for you to compel me.”

For what felt like the umpteenth time that night, he was surprising me. I wasn’t getting used to it. What can I say? I don’t like surprises unless I’m the one surprising someone.

“You know what I am?” I asked, frowning as I watched him remove his jacket and lay it across the bar.

“I didn’t know until two seconds ago,” he replied. “I’ll never understand why va… why you guys feel like compulsion is the correct answer to every little problem. Is that for me?”

I glanced down to what he was gesturing at, and when I nodded, he picked up one of the two glasses of wine. I took the other and tried to find my footing again. We vampires are, as a rule and by necessity, fairly careful about letting humans know what we are and what we can do. Many stories and myths exist about us, but very little of what they depict is true. It’s our best defense mechanism, of course.

We do drink blood, that much is true, but we usually don’t take enough to kill our prey. We don’t transform into anything, be it bats, mist or whatever else stories might say. We don’t age. We can walk in direct sunlight, although prolonged exposure can lead to sunburns. We do have a reflection, but while humans see us as perfectly normal, we see in mirrors what is, I suppose, our true nature, alien and dangerous.

If humans knew we existed, if they knew our real strengths and weaknesses, we’d undoubtedly be tracked and exterminated. It’s not easy to kill us, but it’s possible. Making them believe we’re nothing more than a myth and feeding them false information helps diffuse issues that sometimes arise when one of us is not as discreet as he or she ought to be. We deal with those troublemakers swiftly, because they endanger us all by letting humans know we exist.

I never believed myself immortal—everything must die, sooner or later, even vampires—but I was in no hurry to find death, and I’d always been very careful. Clearly whoever had let this particular human know about vampires was not anywhere near as cautious as I was. I supposed I’d have to do something about it. Find out who they were, get in touch with other vampires in Paris, talk it out with them. But until then…

“If you could make anyone do whatever you want,” I said, “wouldn’t you be tempted?”

Sipping his wine, he shrugged.

“I always thought it was more fun to convince people than to force their hand. Now, is there a reason why we’re having this absolutely lovely chat?”

His voice dripped with sarcasm and it was like being slapped across the face. The good will he had earned from me by playing my notes so beautifully was eroding, and I was forcibly reminded that, beautifully played or not, they had been stolen notes.

“If you know what’s good for you,” I hissed, “you’ll start showing a little respect.”

He raised his eyebrows at me and smirked.

“Or what? You’ll compel me again? You’ll kill me, right here in front of everyone? Please. Don’t take me for an imbecile. You wouldn’t expose yourself like that.”

My murderous thoughts from the beginning of the night were fast resurfacing. I don’t tolerate anyone giving me lip, least of all humans who know what I am and what I could do to them if I so chose. I wouldn’t say that I enjoy scaring people, but all things considered, a healthy dose of fear often smoothes things out. Not with him, that much was clear. I figured I might as well get on with it and ask what I wanted to know.

“The music you’ve been playing all night,” I said coldly. “Where did you get it?”

He took another sip.

“Here and there,” he said, turning around to look at his colleague seated at the piano. “A friend of mine collects sheet music from little-known composers. It’s a bit more interesting to play than this.”

He gestured toward the scene, drawing my attention to it. The new pianist was playing instrumental versions of recent pop songs. The only reason I even knew what they were was that they were overplayed in clubs across multiple countries. I grimaced and set my back firmly to the stage. Noticing my reaction, he smirked.

“Not a fan, huh?”

I had no interest whatsoever in discussing what the current entertainer was playing and how, as far as I was concerned, it could only loosely be called music. What I wanted to know was how he’d come to play my pieces.

“Where does your collector friend find these compositions?” I asked. “Do you know the names of the composers? How did you choose the pieces you played tonight? The first ones sounded completely different from what you played later on.”

He took another long sip from his wine, but kept his eyes on me. In the slightly muted light of the bar, I couldn’t tell if they were brown or hazel. Why it mattered right then, I couldn’t say.

“Why are you so curious about what I played?” he asked. “It’s just music. Nothing special.”

I’m usually fairly good at keeping my expression neutral when I don’t want to show something. At that moment, however, seeing his eyes grow wide and smelling the fear that burst in his scent like pricked soap bubbles, my expression must have shown something of what I felt. Which was anger and outrage. Had he slapped me across the face, I would have felt much the same.

“Nothing special?” I repeated, and I could hear the ice creeping into my own voice. “If they’re nothing special why did you spend the past two and a half hours playing them? Why did you play them that well, for that matter? A musician as talented as you are doesn’t dwell on pieces from an unknown composer that are ‘nothing special’ when there are ten millions other things by renowned composers he could be playing.”

He blinked several times and even leaned back as though to get away from me.

“I didn’t mean,” he started, but fell silent as his eyes widened. He inhaled sharply and let out a quiet, “Oh!”

Out of the blue, a look of pure awe spread over his face.

“It’s yours, isn’t it?” he asked in an excited voice, the words rushing past his lips. “You wrote that music. That’s why you’re curious about where I found it. And that’s why you’re offended I called it nothing special. You’re her. You’re Solange. Or Katherine. Whichever is your real name.”

I’ve lived for over six centuries, and even if lately decades seem to pass like weeks, it still is a very long time, you can take my word on that. Never, in all that time, has anyone known who I was, whether it was one of my names or my status as a vampire, when I didn’t want them to know. Not once in that entire time did I make a mistake and expose myself—something that is becoming more and more difficult with the advance of technology, digital pictures, computerized records, and facial-recognition software. I’ve always been extremely careful, changing my name every few decades, playing with my hair color, using make-up and clothing to disguise my appearance. Twice, I even lived as a man for a few years, just to blur things a little.

Never, to my knowledge, had anyone figured out that Solange Dubois or Katherine McClyde or any of the other pseudonyms I had used might possibly be related to one another.

Never, except that this man knew.

Worse; he’d known before meeting me that Solange and Katherine were one and the same, and when I said, with my best confused expression, “I don’t know what you mean,” he proved to me I hadn’t been quite as careful as I thought I was.

“I’ve seen a portrait of Solange,” he said, his accent a little thicker as he talked faster. “The hair color is wrong so I didn’t recognize you right away, but please don’t pretend it isn’t you. I’m not going to out you as… what you are. Or who you are. I’m just happy I got to meet you.”

And he did sound, and look, happy. As happy as music fans who get to meet their favorite band, or movie buffs who stumble on the starlet or action hero of the day and ask for their autograph. I’d been in the periphery of some famous people, and I had seen it happen, but it had never happened to me.

Part of me was absolutely horrified that my cover had been blown to smithereens by… what? A human? Some random musician in a piano bar? How pathetic was that, really?

But I’d be lying if I denied that another small—tiny—absolutely minuscule—part of me was flattered that someone enjoyed my music enough to have untangled the webs I wove to protect my identity and that he was now looking at me with such excitement in his eyes.

“Irene,” I said, although I couldn’t tell you why I did. I’m not in the habit of giving out my real name to people I have no intention of seeing again after the night ends. “My name is Irene. Nice to meet you too, I suppose. Now will you tell me where you found my sheet music?”

He repeated my name, but pronounced it as though it were French, the way Ethan used to, and I felt a strange pang of longing. It sounded oddly intimate, especially after I’d listened to him play my music so beautifully, his eyes half-closed as though he’d been caught in a daydream.

“So?” I said after clearing my throat. “My sheet music?”

He finished his glass of wine and leaned back against the bar, and while a moment ago he’d been trying to pull away from me, now the same gesture was the very image of casual sex-appeal. I’d used the same move often enough to recognize it when it was being used on me.

“I already told you. A close friend of mine collects old compositions. He has a very thorough collection. As to where he finds it all…”

He spread his hands to indicate he didn’t know.

Following a hunch, I asked, “And, this friend of yours… He wouldn’t happen to be like me, would he?”

I let my fangs peek out as I finished to make it clear what I meant, but he was already nodding. He understood the word I wasn’t saying in this busy bar.

He chuckled. “As a matter of fact, he is, yes. I can’t wait to tell him I’ve met you. Actually…” He pulled his cell phone from his jacket. “If I don’t give him a chance to come meet you, he’ll never forgive me.”

I covered the phone with my hand before he could dial or type a text message.

“No, don’t,” I said, slipping back toward compulsion. “One groupie is quite enough for me.”

Or, more accurately, I needed to think before I met that vampire. Check on a few things, too, like the state of a couple of properties where the sheet music might have come from. I thought I remembered Lilah mentioning something about a break-in in our London home a few years back. She’d dealt with it and I’d never checked what was missing exactly. Knowing what had been taken would only have angered me, and it wouldn’t have helped me retrieve whatever it was. Sometimes, it’s better to let go.

But I couldn’t let go of this. Why would anyone steal music? Why would anyone steal my music? If it had been sheet music signed by a renowned composer, I could have understood, but none of my alter-egos had ever achieved fame, a decision that had been quite deliberate on my part.

So, why would anyone have such an interest in my music that he’d track me across countries, centuries, and false identities?

“Groupie?” he said, chuckling again as he pocketed the phone. “Is that what you think I am?”

I gave him a long look. The expression of awe he’d displayed when he had figured out who I was had disappeared, but the casualness he affected now felt forced—the same way a groupie might try to play it cool in front of their idol so as not to scare them away.

“Well,” I said with a dangerous grin, “there are two people in this room who can play my music for hours without referencing the sheet music. I know those notes because I’ve written them. What’s your excuse?”

He inclined his head.

“Touché. But I haven’t asked for your autograph yet. Isn’t that a requirement for groupies?”

I snorted in my wine.

“Yet?” I repeated, coughing a little. “Does that mean you’re going to?”

“Who knows? The night is still young.”

The prospect was rather… not frightening, maybe. I’m a vampire, I’m not going to be scared by someone wanting me to scribble my name on a piece of paper for them. But it was definitely disconcerting. And unexpected.

He signaled the waitress for a napkin, and handed it to me with a smile. I dabbed at my lips and observed him.

As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve always been very careful about concealing my identity. Over the centuries, I’ve played my compositions in public a few times, but always very sparingly, and never to the point of getting noticed. And now… now I was in front of someone who’d known my music before meeting me. Someone who played it not exactly as I played it, but with nuances that made it ring even more strongly.

All of a sudden, I wondered what he’d do with my most recent compositions, pieces that I had written in the past century, with more modern influences and themes woven throughout.

The thing about living as long as I have? You learn to be careful and not to act without forethought. But you also learn that, if you only ever do what you’ve planned without ever surprising yourself, life gets boring, and fast.

In the time it took me to set the napkin and my empty glass down on the bar, I considered the strange idea that had come to me.

Was it dangerous? No. Human, vampire; even if he knew what I was, he was no danger to me whatsoever.

Was it smart? Well. I didn’t know about smart, but at least it wasn’t stupid.

Was it necessary?

Yes.

Yes, it was.

Now that the idea had touched my mind, I had to know. I had to sit him at a piano, give him those sheets, and hear what he made of them. And I knew just which piece I’d give him first, if I could only find it again.

“Come on,” I said, sliding off the stool. “We’re leaving.”

I started toward the coat check, but soon realized he wasn’t following me and turned back. He was still sitting at the bar, and while he’d turned to watch me walk away, he gave no indication that he intended to follow me. I returned to him, impatient.

“Well?” I snapped, and it was a struggle not to tap my foot impatiently on top of it. “Are you coming?”

He gave me a bewildered look.

“Come where?”

“To my place.”

If anything, he seemed even more confused. Humans can be so infuriatingly slow at times.

“Uh… No offense, but why?”

“Do you want me to actually order you around?” I asked in a very low voice. “Because believe me, I’m two seconds away from doing it and ending this tedious conversation.”

I’m not used to people not doing what I say. I’m not used to anyone laughing in my face when I all but threaten them, either.

“You’re joking, right?” he said, chuckling. “I want to know what’s going on, and your answer is to compel me to do what you say? Wouldn’t it be easier to just, I don’t know, tell me?”

Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder why I even bother trying to talk to humans. Why do they have to make everything so complicated?

As interesting as he was, I’d reached the limits of my tolerance for annoying conversation and disrespect. I could have compelled him as I’d threatened, but what about when we got to my townhouse and I sat him at the piano? I could compel him to play, too, but I’d discovered a while back that even the best musicians lost something when they were forced to play as opposed to when they were free to play music of their own accord.

So, without another word, I turned on my heel and went to the coat check. Moments later, I was wrapped in my coat and starting down the street and back toward home. I wasn’t in the mood to dance anymore. Wasn’t in the mood to be around more idiotic humans, blood and feeding be damned.

I hadn’t even turned the corner when running strides resounded in the street behind me, and soon he caught up with me. To be honest, I had expected he might. I didn’t so much as glance at him as he fell into step with me.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said after a few seconds of silence, and there was no trace of laughter left in his voice.

I didn’t respond.

“I mean, try to see things from my point of view,” he said after another beat of silence. “When a…” He said the next word in a whisper, looking around us as though to check he wouldn’t be overheard. “Vampire you just met invites you home and won’t tell you what for, if you’re not a bit wary, you’re asking for trouble.”

I still didn’t reply anything, nor did I look at him, observing him instead from the corner of my eye. If he was that wary, why was he following me?

“For that matter,” he continued, “you haven’t even asked me my name. Why would you want me to go home with you when you haven’t even bothered asking my name? It’s Rachid, by the way.”

I repeated the name to myself, though I still didn’t speak. It was familiar, and it took me a couple of minutes to place it. I’d known a Rachid, at the turn of the previous century when Lilah, Morgan, and I had traveled through North Africa over the span of a few months. He’d been our guide through Morocco and Tunisia, and I’d walked in on him one evening as he was writing a poem about me. His embarrassment had been about as delicious as his blood. I’d kept the poem when I left him—alive though unable to recall what he’d been doing for the past two weeks, or where the sheet music bearing his name on his bed was from.

“Seriously? You’re just going to ignore me?” this Rachid snapped as I tried to remember how that piece of music had started.

I recalled the main melody but was unsure about the first few notes.

“First you force me to talk to you, then you question me, then you want to take me home, and now you’re just going to pretend I don’t exist? What is wrong with you?”

I stopped abruptly at the question and looked at him with my coldest gaze. The street was, for the most part, deserted, but it was well-lit, and cars were driving by regularly enough. Killing him wouldn’t have been as easy as snapping my fingers, but it wouldn’t have been much of a challenge, either. I put all that into my eyes, and while I didn’t utter a word, he seemed to understand and swallowed hard, his throat clicking audibly. He did not, however, take a step back or run away, which was usually the result when I gave anyone this particular look. Maybe that was the reason why, when I turned away, took three more steps, opened the door of my townhouse, and stepped in, I didn’t close the door behind me.

Or maybe, now that I’d led him home, it would have been a waste of time and effort not to let him in.

By the time I’d shrugged out of my coat, Rachid still hadn’t come in. I was debating slamming the door in his face or compelling him to come inside when he finally did, of his own choice, and closed the door behind him. He did so very carefully, as though afraid to make a noise. He then stood there, both hands pushed deep into his pockets, his shoulders a little hunched. He gave me a half smile and a shrug.

“Well, I’m here,” he said. “And I’m still not sure what for.”

There was something in the way he looked at me that hinted he had a guess, and that guess involved a lot less clothes on both our parts. He confirmed that by taking off his jacket and hanging it up beside my coat. With a snort, I turned my back on him and strode down the hallway toward the music room, my high heels clicking on the wooden floors. I didn’t invite him to follow. If he’d come this far, I supposed he’d come down a corridor, too.

I have had a music room with a piano in every home I have ever owned, and my offspring always take care to think of me when they furnish a new house or apartment, and arrange for a music room, too. Neither of them loves the piano anywhere as much as I do, but they are competent players. I taught them well.

In this house, the music room was tented with dark green velvet that sometimes seemed black depending on the lighting. It made the space feel quite cozy. The baby grand in the center of the room was black, of course, while a handful of sofas, loveseats, and armchairs in various shades of ivory and cream surrounded it. The only other piece of furniture in the room was the writing desk in a corner with a roll-down top, and that was where I directed my steps.

While I shuffled through a few folders, looking for a specific piece I was almost certain was in this desk, I could hear Rachid walk in behind me. Judging by the sound of his footsteps, he had stopped right in the doorway. And judging by his quiet, “Oh,” he was beginning to understand why I had brought him here.

“That’s a beauty,” he murmured. “Bösendorfer?”

I didn’t know many people who could name a piano’s manufacturer with nothing more than a quick glance from a few feet away.

“Give it a try if you want,” I said as nonchalantly as I could muster, still searching through folios full of half-completed pieces and snatches of melodies that needed more work.

I’m not in the habit of leaving things unfinished, but some pieces need more time than others to develop fully. Sometimes, they are just meant to match a person I haven’t met yet or an event that hasn’t happened. Sometimes, I need to reflect on that person or event for a while. It’s all right. There’s no rush. I have all the time in the world to finish every piece of music I have ever started.

Behind me, Rachid began to play. They were only scales at first, going up and down the keyboard, a fast glide of his fingers as though he were practicing. He did it three times and then, abruptly, switched to a sonata—Beethoven, if I wasn’t mistaken. I threw a glance back over my shoulder, amused.

“You played my music for hours in a bar full of strangers, but now that you’re in my home and on my piano you’re playing Beethoven? Seriously?”

He chuckled.

“Well, I’d have been a lot more reluctant to play your pieces if I had known you were listening.”

“How come?” I asked, browsing through another folio—finally the one I’d been looking for.

He went through another few bars before answering, and by then I’d turned around and leaned back against the desk, the folio still open in my hands but my attention on him. I’ve never been a big fan of Beethoven, and it has less to do with his music than with the man himself. We met once, very briefly, and I can’t say I cared much for him.

Listening to Rachid’s rendition, however, I could forget the composer and take in the music and nothing more than the music. Every note, every nuance, every emotion was coming through crystal clear. This was what music was supposed to be: a hand that touched you in the deepest, most secret part of your soul, that caressed and soothed you so that, when the last note finished quivering in the air, you felt at peace with the world around you.

“They’re your notes,” he said in a soft voice that barely rose over the beauty he was coaxing from the piano. “If I hit a chord wrong, no one in the cafe would know any better. I can pretend it’s my interpretation of the piece, my spin on it. Maybe Ludwig would turn around in his grave if I did this—” He added a few extra flourish notes to the next bar. “But I’ll never have to face him and explain myself. However, if you’re right there…”

He looked up at me with a half smile and let the end of that thought hang between us, carried by the last few notes of the sonata. They lingered in the air, an almost tangible presence. Vampires don’t get goose bumps, but at that moment my body didn’t seem to care.

“If you’d played my music poorly,” I said after clearing my throat, “you wouldn’t be here now. And you wouldn’t ever have played another note I wrote. I’d have made sure of it.”

He gave a little laugh.

“And you wonder why I’m nervous about playing your music now.”

Rolling my eyes at him, I pulled the three sheets from the folio and walked over to the piano.

“False modesty doesn’t become you,” I said, mildly chastising. “You’re good. You’re better than good. And you know it. Stop pretending otherwise and play this.”

I’d sat at the end of the bench as I spoke, and now I set the sheets down on the stand in front of him. He looked at them, then at me, his eyebrows arching high.

“So, I tell you I’m nervous about playing in front of you, and your answer is to drop a new piece in my lap? It’s yours, I’m guessing?”

“It’s mine, yes. And it’s not in your lap; it’s on the stand. Now play.”

As his eyebrows arched a little more, I was taken by an awful doubt.

“You can sight read, right?” I asked, remembering that he hadn’t had any sheet music in front of him at the bar. Maybe he learned by ear.

Or maybe I had just insulted him enough to get him to start playing.

With an offended huff, he turned away from me and leaned closer to the sheets while pulling a pair of round, metal-rimmed glasses from the front pocket of his shirt. He settled them on his nose and studied the first sheet for a few seconds, his lips moving soundlessly, his thumb tapping the rhythm against his thigh. Then, without a word, he put his hands on the keyboard and started playing.

Almost fifty years had passed since I had heard that piece on a piano. I sometimes heard it in my mind, or at least bits and parts of it, but I hadn’t played it since the last time I’d been in Paris. Hearing it come to life so expertly under his fingers would have left me breathless, had I needed to breathe. Instead, it caused something to tighten painfully inside me as I remembered, or maybe truly understood for the first time, what this piece was about.

I often have a story in mind when I write music. A story, a person, a particular place or time; more often than not, these are the triggers that prompt a new composition. Not so for this one. I’d just let the music come to me and hadn’t let myself think about what it meant. Listening to Rachid play this slow melody, almost a lament, I finally knew what it was about. I knew that, when it was finished, it would have a title. And I knew that title would be ‘Ethan.’

I’m not one to dwell on the past, but every note, every chord reminded me of my dead offspring’s smile, of his laugh, both so full of warmth, and both of which had become so rare as time passed and until his death.

Rachid’s fingers stilled on the keyboard in the middle of a bar, the same way I’d stopped, decades earlier, frustrated by my inability to find the perfect way to end this piece. I’d left Paris the very same night and hadn’t returned until now.

“It’s not finished,” he said, an edge of disappointment in his words. “Or is it missing the next sheet?”

I didn’t reply. Not in words, at least. I scooted on the bench, sliding closer to the center—and incidentally closer to Rachid. He must have understood what I meant to do because he withdrew his hands to his lap, leaving the keyboard to me. I started at the beginning of the last complete measure, half-closing my eyes and playing from memory rather than looking at the notes written down in front of me. By the time I reached the end, where Rachid had needed to stop, I knew what the next note was.

And the ones after that.

My fingers didn’t hesitate or slow down. I kept playing, working in the main musical theme of the piece and changing it, little by little, until I’d reached the perfect ending for this piece, left incomplete for fifty years. The wound of Ethan’s death started to close, just a tiny bit. It would take time before it didn’t hurt anymore, but I’d taken one step tonight, and I didn’t know what surprised me the most: that I’d never realized until that moment just how much I needed to heal, or that it was a stranger, someone about whom I didn’t know much more than his name, who had helped me see it.

A stranger who was now staring at me with wide eyes.

“Did you just…” He blinked twice. “Did you compose the end just now? Like that? On the fly?”

“After being unable to for fifty years, yes.”

He blinked again. “Aren’t you writing it down? Or recording it or something?”

I shook my head and settled my fingers on the keyboard again.

“I’m not going to forget. I never forget a note. I’ll write it down later when I have time.”

It wasn’t to show off that I started to play the piece from the start without looking at the score. Well, it wasn’t only to show off. I wanted to hear the whole thing again, from start to finish, and maybe change a note or two, but probably not more than that. What I didn’t expect was that Rachid would join in.

At first, he only set one hand on the keyboard and started to add in a few complementary notes following the main theme. When I didn’t object, his second hand joined in as well.

Had he been adding flourishes or jazzing things up, I would have stopped him right away. It’s not that I don’t like jazz, per se; it’s just not what I write. He wasn’t changing the melody or beats, however, merely echoing them, reinforcing them. And it happened again. Like at the bar, like a few moments earlier, I listened to his playing and I had the feeling that he understood my music, understood me in a way no one ever had before. Maybe not even myself.

It sounds over the top, doesn’t it? Believe me, I’m the first one to realize that. And I don’t even like having to say it so plainly. But if I’m going to tell this story, I might as well tell all of it, and that was how I felt: exposed. Under a bright shining light. Open.

And, I have to admit it, curious, too. I looked at Rachid’s fingers dancing alongside mine, their rhythm perfect, their gentleness as they pressed down each key exquisite, and I had to wonder how those same fingers would feel on my body. Would he know where to touch and when? Would he draw notes from me as lovely as the ones he pulled from the piano? Would he reveal my soul, then, too? Would I get a peek at his?

I think I told you before that I don’t usually care to get to know the humans I feed from, but I felt like I already knew him: the same way he exposed me when he played my music, he revealed himself, too. And I couldn’t wait to bite him and see if he tasted as good as he sounded.

It was too soon that we reached the end of this piece again. Much too soon.

“Keep playing,” I demanded as the last note was fading away, and while I did not try to compel him, he replied as readily as though I had.

He didn’t ask what he should play next and just segued into a new piece as easily as though it were a set he’d practiced to perform at the bar. He played another one of my compositions, one I hadn’t heard him play tonight but whose tempo complemented the music we’d just finished playing together, although its mood was brighter and lighter than that somber piece. And I knew, then, that however unconsciously, he did understand me and my music. How else could you explain that, after I’d shown him a piece composed about one of my offspring, he’d moved on to something composed about another one of them?

This was Lilah’s serenade, written after she’d left Morgan and me for a few years at the turn of the previous century because she’d fallen head over heels for a man. She’d denied it, of course; she always pretended she only wanted to ‘play human’ for a few years and didn’t truly care for whomever she left us for. But we’d seen it happen five times over the centuries, and every time she’d had the same look in her eyes, however much she tried to claim otherwise. She and Morgan were much more similar than either of them would have admitted, and neither of them could fool me. How I managed to end up with such romantic offspring, when I am anything but, is a mystery to me.

Stopping the pointless meandering of my mind, I focused on the music and how smoothly, how flawlessly it rose under Rachid’s touch.

“Nice choice,” I said, leaning a little more against him. I rested one hand on the keyboard and accompanied him, the way he had accompanied me, with just a few notes in counterpoint to the melody.

“I have pieces for four hands,” I murmured. “If you’d care to really play with me.”

“I’d like that, yes,” he replied, smiling as he tilted his head toward me.

I think he only realized at that moment how close I now was to him, and he licked his lips as his gaze dropped to my mouth. Distracted, he lost his rhythm and missed a couple of notes. I clucked my tongue.

“Come on, pay attention to what you’re doing. I thought you were worried about playing badly for me?”

Say what you will, but it is my long-held belief that there are few things quite as endearing as a grown man blushing. On Rachid’s caramel complexion, it was simply lovely to watch all that blood color his cheeks, the tips of his ears, his neck, and the triangle of skin exposed by the open collar of his shirt. I wondered how far down all that beautiful color went. I wondered enough, actually, that I decided to find out.

Removing my hand from the keys, I reached for the first button of his shirt. It easily came undone, as did the next one. Rachid faltered a little in his playing, losing his rhythm again, but another cluck of my tongue was enough to get him back on track.

For a second, I wondered if it was worry that had caused that slight misstep, but there was no trace of fear in his scent. Good. Earlier, I’d all but threatened him, but that had been before he brought back to life a melody I’d been unable to finish for so long. Did he understand I wouldn’t hurt him, or was it his familiarity with vampires that kept him calm? I hoped it was the former.

To the sound of chords not so much played as they were caressed into existence, I slid a hand inside the opening I’d created in his shirt and pressed it, palm down and fingers spread, against the skin of his upper chest. He was warm, warmer than he should have felt, even as devoid of heat as my hand was. Short of stripping him down—and while I fully intended to get there at some point, there was no rush—it was confirmation enough that his blush extended further south.

All that blood roused just for me…

I didn’t withdraw my hand right away. Instead, I moved it to the left until my palm rested over his heart. It was beating faster than the tempo of the music, but as soon as I found it, I forgot all about it, having discovered something much more interesting: the tips of my fingers were brushing against his nipple—and against the metal ring attached to it.

With a hum of surprise, I pushed at the ring with a fingertip, causing Rachid to shiver, although he didn’t miss a note this time. My hand moved to the right, but his other nipple, while it tightened against my questing fingers, was free of adornments. I pinched it gently once before returning to the left to tug at the ring and play with it. In a moment, I’d get a good look at it, but for now I enjoyed exploring the metal, warmed up by his skin, with nothing more than my fingertips.

It was a full circle, smooth, not very thick, wide enough that I could slip my thumb through it—then again, I have small hands, so that didn’t mean the ring was particularly wide. As I flicked the ring back and forth and ran my fingers along it, delicate shivers coursed through Rachid’s body. His nipple was a tight peak against the ring, and I imagined flicking my tongue against it and through the metal. I’d had lovers with piercings before, and they always were marvelously responsive to the smallest sensations.

They also rarely limited themselves to a single piercing…

“Where else are you pierced?” I asked, intrigued.

Still playing—though I admit I’d lost the thread of the composition—he turned a tiny smile toward me.

“I guess that’s for me to know and for you to find out.”

If that wasn’t meant to be a challenge, it definitely sounded like one to me, and I’d never been one to back down from a challenge, especially one coming from someone six centuries younger than me. Abandoning his nipple ring for now, I dropped a hand to his crotch, foregoing anything resembling finesse. When I cupped his cock through his pants, finding it half-hard after my ministrations to his nipple, he took in a sharp inhalation and bungled the next few notes, finally stopping just as my fingers found what I’d been looking for: the unyielding feel of metal against flesh.

“Why did you stop playing?” I asked, mock-chastising as I ran a finger around what felt like a ring similar to the one attached to his nipple, this one protruding from the tip of his cock. No, not exactly similar, I realized; it had a small ball attached to it.

“I stopped… I stopped because it was the end of the piece,” Rachid said, his words coming very close to ending on a moan.

He remained still under my hand, and I could sense the tension in his body as he tried hard not to buck into my touch.

I replayed the last few seconds of music in my mind, and realized that, yes, he had indeed finished playing; I’d been too busy to notice.

“The beginning was lovely,” I said without stopping the slow dance of my fingers along the tip of his cock. “But the end was rather lacking. Disappointing, even. I think you should make it up to me.”

A little breathless, Rachid blinked at me and asked, “How?”

I played coy.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

 

… Continued in Overture