Promise Me Anthology (19 page)

Sonata

It began as most dares
began between Nate and I. The enjoyment of a shared bottle of wine
after the latest grueling Gathering of all the State Vampire Rulers
was a welcome and familiar release for both of us. And if Nate
looked to curry a little favor, I was amenable to that. Friends
were hard to find in my world. There was much that was evil about
Nate, but he was an ally that had always had my back in the past.
After a hundred years, that was a rarity for me. When you are
master of a country, friendship must often give way to the
necessities of control.

The Gathering had been like usual:
stultifying. I had—as always—to reiterate my warnings to those who
dared to involve themselves in the human world to the point of
discovery. The subject of werecreature rights had also come up, and
also that of other supernaturals. In that regard, I admit that Nate
was often on the list of those that had to be disciplined, even if
I counted him friend. That he was annoyed at this was also a usual
occurrence.

“I do not like being called to task for
things you yourself have often done to excess,” he grumbled as he
poured us both a second glass of wine. His resentful brown eyes
caught mine across the oak table.

“You give me no choice but to make an example
of you,” I said mildly, taking the proffered glass from him. “What
you do in your state I leave to you, within reason. But it’s not
wise to attract attention with too many murders.” I took a sip.
“And this is not the first time I’ve had to address this issue with
you, Nate.”

“I take only those that come to me,” Nate
said defensively. “I have never sought out any human and taken them
against their will. You have always done the same. Have we not told
each other enough tales over the years of being the pursued, rather
than the pursuers?” He smiled, baring just the tips of his fangs.
“And have we not always agreed that pursuing was always the more
delightful role?”

I grinned back, baring my fangs completely.
“Yes. But as the years pass, the more we must watch our steps. My
chiding this year was not human related, but vampire related. If
you must dispense justice to those turned illegally, you must also
make sure they are aware of all the rules before declaring them
guilty of breaking said rules.”

“I acted within my rights to protect my
business.”

“I know what happened on that rooftop,” I
said, my tone edging to anger. “Your business was never in any real
danger.”

“You have often said that one vampire more or
less is not an issue. Rodney was—”

“He was a child in every important sense of
the word,” I grated out, my eyes bleeding to full red. “Make
examples of those that deserve it, Nate. That neither one of us are
saints does not mean that we can’t show mercy to those few that
actually deserve leniency.”

Nate wrinkled his nose. “As you will. But be
advised that if I have to check with you about all my judgments
that you may be in Tennessee more often than you are at
Hayden.”

“That would not be so bad,” I said darkly.
“In spite of my harsh words just now, I enjoy our talks.” I offered
him a faint smile. “I do not want to hear that you are dead,
friend. I have lost too many I knew to gluttony and the hunter’s
stake. We cannot be the monster gloating outside the window,
obvious to all.”

“Too true,” Nate agreed, sipping his wine.
“Though I have you to credit for that, my friend. I was just a
brash unlearned boy when we first met. It was you who helped me
become the cunning chameleon, able to hide my nature in plain
sight. You who gave me the taste for culture and the direction to
shape my life into something extraordinary.” He smiled, spreading
his hands to indicate the fine restaurant we were in, his
well-tailored clothes, and the cream of society that surrounded us.
“Do I not look every inch the successful businessman, instead of a
bloodsucking brute?”

“Something we all must strive for as the
decades pass,” I said with reluctance. “There is too much at risk.
The humans are fresh from triumph over yet another perceived evil
on a distant shore. They would eagerly seek to stamp us out if we
were suddenly revealed in their midst. We must remain the paramour
of fiction stories, never stepping off the page.”

“I know, I know,” Nate said, rolling his eyes
as he sat back in his chair, surveying the room. “I will do as you
bid, as I have always done.”

“Good,” I said, pleased. “I value your
friendship, Nate. And my desire for fairness does not mean we
cannot enjoy our usual adventures.”

Nate smiled wickedly. “Exactly what I’d hoped
you say.” He took a long swallow, then replaced his wineglass on
the table. “And what adventure do you propose this year?”

“Seduction, of course!” I said, laughing.
“First one to lay the girl wins.”

“And the mark?” he asked eagerly.

“Alas, Danial Racklan has no loved one to try
for this year,” I said, thinking of my brother’s loneliness with
glee. “We shall have to try for someone else who is attached.”

“How about a virgin?” Nate suggested. “We
have done married women to death, Dev.”

“Passé,” I scoffed. “And in that regard I
must also adhere to my guidelines of legal consent, Nate. No
virgins under 18.”

“My sister was taken against her will at 14,”
Nate said angrily, his dark skin flushed with fury. “Mal Jenkins
did not care she was a child, only that she was his chattel to do
with what he pleased.”

Nate had never truly come to terms with his
human past, the agony of once having been a slave. “Your sister has
been avenged,” I soothed. “There your methods of punishment were
richly deserved. And your sister is safe now from all who would
abuse her, with her brother as her protector. Colette lives as a
queen.”

Nate took a long breath, then let it out.
“Some hatreds die hard, Dev. Let us not speak of it further. Your
point was that it is too easy in these immoral times to seduce a
young virgin, and I assent.” He paused for a long moment, then held
out his glass with a winning smile, as if to toast me. “I think I
have a challenge for you, if you’re up for it. The mark is legally
of age.”

“Go on,” I encouraged, intrigued.

“There is a successful woman I have pursued,”
Nate stated. “She has not fallen to my advances, as she cares
nothing for wealth.”

“If they were made in your usual rough
manner, I shouldn’t wonder,” I teased.

“I sent flowers and gifts of jewelry,” Nate
retorted, peeved. “All were returned. If you can persuade her to
accept your touch—”

He smiled.

“—
and mine as well—”

His smile widened.

“—
then I will owe you a favor, which
you may collect at your convenience or need.”

“Any favor?” Nate was unquestioningly an
ally. He had always been one, since our first contest of wills
years ago. But he was also a highly competitive businessman, the
hard circumstances of his youth leading him to always do what was
most advantageous for himself and his sister at the expense of most
everything else. His allegiance was not without cost. In short, I
could always use a future favor that I would not have to pay for
with some concession of my own.

He offered his empty palm face up with
fingers splayed. “Anything.”

“What is the catch?” I asked drolly. “Is she
a nun?”

Nate laughed. “A religious woman to be sure,
but currently belonging to no other man or to God.”

This was too easy.
“She must like
females.”

“By observation, no,” Nate assured. “She
likes men. She just will not entertain my suit, as I’m a man of
dark skin, and not of her social class.”

Being white and a former aristocrat myself,
this conquest he suggested sounded like no trouble. “I accept.”

“Shall we say a week?” Nate offered.

I nodded. “I’m surprised that you give me
such an easy challenge.”

“There is one simple request, however,” Nate
said gleefully. “You cannot use your voice, Dev. You must gain her
acceptance—and mine—without uttering one word of your own.”

My spirits sank. “What about written
words?”

Nate smiled. “No more than one or two
sentences at one time...and only five such sentences in the entire
pursuit!”

In terms of courtship, my skill with words
was unequalled, and my voice in song one of my most powerful
persuasive tools. Without either, any seduction would be an
incredible challenge, even with my looks and money. But my blood
was up now. “Agreed.”

* * * *

The next night found me at the address that
Nate had specified. Like a contemporary Dracula, I stood outside
the mark’s first floor window and looked in, hoping to get an idea
of inspiration in how to proceed. The woman herself was not at
home. The room in view seemed to be a living room, with a couch, a
coffee table, some lamps, and some plain paintings of
seascapes.

She likes the water. That’s something to go
on, at least.

Finally, there was the sound of car in the
drive, a small Subaru SUV. A woman with short brown curly hair
emerged, then entered her home. After turning on lights, she poured
herself some wine, sat down on the couch, and began to work on her
laptop computer. From her intent expression, I concluded she was
working hard at something, rather than just chatting online with
friends or bidding on various internet auction items.

I watched for a solid two hours, but the
woman did nothing exciting, just kept typing on her keyboard. Even
her wine was ignored, after the first sip. I was about to leave
when she finally shut the lid of the computer, put it aside, and
went to bed.

I lingered outside until I was sure she was
asleep, then crawled in the basement window. While I could have
asked Lash to procure her laptop—or even for Titus to simply
teleport me inside her home to look at it—my old instincts of
hunter were re-emerging. I wanted to experience the thrill of
stalking my prey, not just the inevitable triumph at the end.

I walked over to the table quietly, secure in
the fact that even if the woman were to awaken, I would be able to
move fast enough to avoid being seen.

I opened the laptop, scrolling through her
desktop files. There were spreadsheets of grades, lecture notes,
and two papers in final stages of completion, rendering up a lot of
useless facts and figures, along with that most coveted of info, my
quarry’s profession and name. She was a professor of English
Literature at Southwest Tennessee Community College. Her name was
Mary Ann Bridges. I committed the name to memory, then kept looking
through files, hoping for something to leap out at me.

Mary Ann had tried to be a poet, though she
was an amateur from the verse I discovered. But her papers—in my
opinion—were excellently written, all the points clear and concise,
with well-drawn supporting arguments. This was a woman with
intelligence who had an appreciation for the poetical arts, but was
not gifted herself in them.
Interesting.

A phone rang shrilly, startling me. I looked
over with alarm at the cell phone on the end table, then heard Mary
Ann stirring in her bedroom. The phone shrilled again.

I shut the lid of the computer, darting into
the darkness of a shadowed doorway. Mary Ann emerged rumpled,
trudging sleepily to the phone. “Yes?”

I couldn’t make out what the caller said,
only that the tinny voice was male and insistent. Mary Ann was
equally forceful. “I don’t want to hear your excuses, Mike. This is
the second time you cancelled on me for dinner at the last
minute.”

Mike said something to his defense. I took it
for a poor excuse, the way Mary Ann’s face twisted in
annoyance.

“We’re supposed to be engaged,” she snapped,
her resentful voice rising in volume. “No one who loves a woman
treats her like this, Mike.”

Mike began to give some explanation, but Mary
Ann hung up on him. After turning her phone off with a vengeful
push of a button, she trudged back into her bedroom.

She was bound to be vulnerable on the
rebound, especially with her fiancé’s behavior. Something to
consider.
I just had to find way to communicate with her
without words...

Then the answer leapt out at me. Music. I
would serenade her using the voice of another to communicate my
pining...No! Nate might say later I had cheated, if the song had
lyrics. I would write my own classical composition, something to
call her to me with its pure beauty and longing. That was the
answer.

* * * *

I shifted again in my chair at Hayden,
rubbing my left upper fang against the lower one. I had been
sitting there in my study the better part of the last hour, a blank
sheet of paper in front of me, pen in hand. The solution that had
seemed so easy mere hours ago now appeared insurmountable.

What is wrong with me, that I’m not inspired
to write one single note?

I’d never been big on my own compositions
while travelling as a bard centuries ago, tending to be more
comfortable giving perfection to popular songs with my voice than
in bringing my own stories to life in song. But in my many years as
vampire, I had always been able to write poetry, when the situation
called, even if my stanzas were not exactly in Lord Byron’s
exquisite class. Yet each time I had brought my pen to paper this
evening, I stopped, the beginning of the proposed unwritten “new”
melody revealed to be just another song I was remembering from my
past. While any of those old songs might have been suitable for
this situation, it bothered me that I could not write my own song,
something new and bursting with not only beauty, but also life.

After another hour of false starts and more
than a few muttered oaths, I gave up and went for a walk, trying to
recall what a fellow vampire David Helm had once told me about song
writing. Something about pieces of his soul being written into his
lyrics, so that they wouldn’t just sound beautiful, they would
cascade into a powerful living thing capable of moving the listener
to ardent emotion. I could not remember his exact words, but the
passion in his tone as he’d spoken had been more than memorable,
the stirring inflection of his voice coming to mind instantly. That
passion was what I needed now.