The Maestro's Maker (17 page)

five years old and slightly built, he carried himself powerfully, as a much older, much

larger man would. He had Claude-Michel’s prominent nose and bottomless black eyes.

His skin was much darker, however, an olive tone, his lips full and sensual. His head was

ringed by a mass of long, black curls reaching just below his shoulders.

He did not stand on ceremony, but burst into the house.

I shifted my gaze back to the window to see Claude-Michel stand.

“Lucio,” the old woman said gently. “This is—”

“Claudio du Fresne,” Claude-Michel finished. “I’m—”

“My father?” Lucio said, removing his hat. “Yes, I can see that is probably true. Did

you know you are the one person besides Mama who can ruin my reputation by telling

the world I’m half Gypsy?” He sauntered over to Claude-Michel and looked him over. “I

would kill you on the spot if I gave a damn about anything,” he said, and turned on his

heel toward the servant-girl, who had suddenly blanched. “Esperanza,” he said, “where

is my Chartreuse, eh?”

“I’m sorry,
Signore
,” the girl said, and fled the room.

“I told you what would happen the next time you forgot!” he called after her, then

spun back on his toe with a devilish grin. “Poor thing, she’s frightened to death of me, but

I haven’t the slightest idea why.” To Claude-Michel, he said, “I did very well for myself,

don’t you think? It is very lucky for you I didn’t grow up in squalor.” He moved with a

dangerous, playful energy.

Even from so far away, I could see Claude-Michel blinking rapidly, as he did when he

was caught off-guard. “I didn’t know about you,” he said. “When I discovered you had

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been born, I came immediately.”

“News travels very slowly,” Lucio said as Esperanza hurried back with a tray

containing a bottle of light green liquid and a small glass, which she filled and handed to

Lucio. “Ah,” he said. “Very nice.” He raised the glass to Claude-Michel. “Chartreuse. It’s

the French in me, I suppose,” he said, and drank. “What is my legacy then? No one ever

told me your position in the world. I imagine you failed to mention that to my mother, as

a precaution so that she would not be able to find you. I imagine you married well.”

“Yes,” Claude-Michel said quietly, and glanced briefly at the marchesa, but she was

looking at her son.

“Good,” Lucio said. “Let’s all drink to my stepmother, Mrs. du Fresne—”

Anger flashed across Claude-Michel’s face. “She’s dead,” he said in a low warning

tone. “I loved her very much. You also had a brother named Gabriel, and a sister, Camille.

Also dead. Both of them.”

Lucio stopped in his tracks and the two men regarded each other—father looking

darkly upon son, son regarding father with a look of sobering realization. “I have a

daughter,” he offered. “I married well also. Perhaps in time I will love my wife.”

“A daughter...” Claude-Michel said. “I have a granddaughter?”

“Francesca Katarina. My wife thinks Katarina is a long-lost favorite aunt of Mama’s.

They are staying with her relatives in the country.”

“She’s a beautiful child,” the marchesa said. “I know you will think so.”

Lucio approached Claude-Michel with a grin. “You owe me wine,” he said. “A glass

for each year you waited to find me, eh?” He drank the rest of the Chartreuse and set the

glass on the table, meeting Esperanza’s gaze as he did so. “Expect a visit from me later,”

he said to her. Then he headed for the door with a flourish of his hand. “Come with me to

my favorite tavern. We will decide if we want to be father and son.”

“But of course,” Claude-Michel said. “My man is waiting outside. We will take my

carriage.”

I hurried back through the forest as quickly and quietly as I could.

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“Quickly!” I shouted from the forest, then looked Victoire in the eye before I could

get the rest out. He recoiled against the carriage and looked around, as if some answer

were in the trees. The boy who drove him looked on with wide, curious eyes. “They are

going to Lucio Di’Angelo’s favorite tavern.”

“
La Piuma Nera,
” he said.

“We have to go,” I said. He nodded and came to his senses, climbing into the carriage

and ordering his boy to the tavern.

Once we were traveling, however, he looked at me strangely. “What are you?” he

asked, a lot more matter-of-factly than I would have expected.

“Things have happened,” I said. “There are things you don’t know about your brother,

and about this man who is looking for him. That man’s name is Gunnar, and he is a pirate.

I was his captive for many months. He was going to kill Claude-Michel. I couldn’t let

him do that.”

“So you just…escaped?”

“I am stronger than I look,” I said.

“I think you will owe me an explanation when we are with him.”

“I think you should ask your brother. I don’t owe you anything. I have never seen you

before.”

At the door to
La Piuma Nera,
I held Victoire back. Of course, he was not happy

about being ordered around by a woman, but he was still curious and wary enough to

listen for the moment. “Shh!” I whispered. “I want to listen.”

“Does your young wife know yet of your trysts?” Claudio asked the boy as I slipped

inside and hid myself in nearby shadows. Claudio looked around but did not see me. The

young man soon recaptured his attention. My attention was so captured by the two of

them, I was not able to place the sharp animal tang of sweat that I mistook for the general

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smell of the bar.

Lucio shrugged. Then he smiled wickedly. “Once, she was furious with me for

returning home with my clothes reeking of the whorehouse. She threw a sachet at me.”

He slapped a hand against his chest and spoke in mock indignation.

“Wives do shocking things,” Claude-Michel said with a sly grin I was learning to

love and hate at the same time.

“She was the one shocked. I don’t think she had ever been spanked before that day,

but her bottom was a nice rosy color when I’d finished. I made such love to her afterward.

I find it an effective way to keep her from making demands. A pink bottom will make a

woman forget her jealousies quickly.”

Claude-Michel laughed. It was the first real laugh I had heard him utter. “There is no

doubt about it,” he said, and clapped the boy on the back. “You are my son.”

“Of course,” Lucio said. “And I am very glad to know who bears the blame for this,”

he said, running a finger down the length of his nose. Then he banged on the bar. “Oy!”

He called. “Niko!”

A smiling older man appeared from a back room.

“The devil has returned!” the man said in a Greek accent, coming around the bar to

give Lucio a crushing hug. His gaze fell then on Claudio, and his eyes grew large as he

looked from one to the other. “An older brother?”

“A father,” Lucio said. Lucio square his shoulders with pride as he spoke.

“Raised from the dead!”

Lucio tapped his lips with a finger. “It depends on which story I’ve told you.”

“I’ve known you too long,” Niko said, waddling back around the bar and waving

Lucio away. “I’ve heard all of your stories, even the ones that are true.” He leaned on the

bar toward Claudio. “When he was a little boy, he caused me all kinds of trouble. Such

a little demon.” He shrugged. “But he is good for business. Everyone comes to see what

the devil-boy is up to today—friends, enemies. And now,” he said, pulling down a bottle

of amber-colored liquor and three glasses. “Something on the house. Today, we celebrate

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a reunion between father and son.”

From deeper within the tavern, someone spoke in a voice that was aging, yet resonant,

in an accent dead for many, many generations. “Today...we celebrate many reunions.”

Then Gunnar was in front of Claudio, holding firmly to the blade of his rapier. Behind

me, Victoire lumbered in awkwardly, also with a rapier in hand. I put myself between

Claudio’s brother and the man I had hoped never to see again.

Gunnar’s white eyes stared deeply into Claudio’s black ones as thick rivulets of blood

ran down his arm. “You can’t kill me,” Gunnar said, narrowing his eyes. “But, yes...I can

see you would like to very much.”

He pawed the blade to the side. Claude-Michel went for his heart and found himself

rushing only air as Gunnar stood to the side, laughing.

“What demon is this?” Niko asked, crossing himself. Lucio stood with his hand on the

hilt of his sword, looking around wildly, his wide eyes settling on Claudio’s face. Claudio

stood breathing through his open mouth, paying no attention to the fangs growing past

the concealment of his upper lip.

“What
are
you?” Lucio demanded, as Victoire had demanded of me not half an hour

before.

Gunnar laughed loudly, showing his fangs, bellowing, “He is what I am. A defiler of

all that is pure. But…you haven’t told your long-lost son of your adventures on board my

ship, and how a young French beauty turned you into what you are today.”

I heard Victoire gasp behind me and wondered if he was about to run me through with

his weapon.

Gunnar clicked his tongue. “It isn’t good to have such secrets between father and son.

Especially when you’ve been away for so long.” Then he spoke to me without turning

around. “I know you’re there, Chloe. I know everything that happens around me.”

I couldn’t keep myself from responding. “I should have cut off your head and fed it

to the sharks, as I dreamed of doing every night.”

“What have you done?” Victoire whispered behind me, but to this day I don’t know

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who he was talking to. Himself, perhaps.

In spite of what was happening around him, Claudio looked calm, yet coiled. I knew

even then he was a man accustomed to conflict. The boy, on the other hand, seemed wild

in comparison, though he had managed to slip a dagger from his boot. We all waited to

see what would happen next, watching this terrible white-maned man who seemed so

much more than human—so much more, even, than vampire.

“Oh, yes,” Gunnar said, turning so that his back was no longer to me and Victoire.

“I know about you as well, Claude-Michel. I know all about you. More than you can

imagine. And I know about your friend François, and your children.”

“You don’t know about me,” Lucio spat. Gunnar turned toward him with an arrogant

grin, meeting the flying dagger blade with his eye. He froze, and the confident look fled

his face. His remaining eye went wild as thick, dark bands of blood ran down his cheek.

I could do nothing except watch in shocked horror. With a scream of rage, he groped

blindly at his face, then went down on his knees. He tried to rise, and then slid to a

sitting position, gasped, and fell backward. As he lay twitching, he turned his face toward

Claudio.

“You can’t...kill...me...” he rasped. With a cry of rage, Claudio drove his rapier

into Gunnar’s remaining eye, careful to avoid the spurt of blood. Gunnar screamed and

grabbed the blade, tearing his fingers to ribbons, spraying droplets. Finally, he stopped

moving, and Claudio bent over him.

“Don’t ever underestimate me,” Claudio hissed between his teeth. Then he braced

against Gunnar’s chest with his boot to reclaim his weapon and Lucio’s, wiping the

blades on the fallen man’s breeches as Gunnar moved his hands aimlessly. Lucio gingerly

accepted his dagger, but gave Claudio a suspicious look.

Claudio had already headed for the door by the time Niko started screaming, “Get

out! Get out of here!”

“Come on!” Claudio shouted, without stopping to see if anyone obeyed. Outside,

Lucio challenged him. “That man,” he said. “That man...what was he?”

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“Yes, Diable, who was he?” Victoire echoed.

Claudio looked at both of us darkly. “Vampire,” he said.

“Vampire?” Lucio whispered. “But..it isn’t possible.”

“It is,” Claudio said.

“And you?” Lucio said, leaning in close.

“No,” Claude-Michel said, smiling carefully. “Men say things when they are upset.

Monsters do even more.”

It gave me such a strange feeling to hear him say that, but I blamed it on the

circumstance, assumed he planned to explain everything to his son when emotions were

no longer so violent.

Without warning, Lucio lashed out. Claudio caught his wrists before the boy’s hands

could come in contact with his face, and had him pinned against his carriage. Jean watched

from his driver’s perch, clearly wanting to come down and defend his master.

“Show me,” Lucio demanded. “Show me your teeth.”

Claudio relaxed. His fangs had just started to recede from his encounter with Gunnar.

Now they were long again, ready if need be to sink into Lucio’s flesh.

“Show me!” Lucio shouted.

“No,” Claude-Michel said. The sharp tips revealed themselves even as he spoke.

Lucio tried to struggle away. “It’s true!” he said, terror and rage at war on his face.

Claudio let him go and stood scowling at the boy.

“Is this why you came to see me?” Lucio demanded, eyes and hair wild. “You want