Michele Hauf - The Vampire's Protector

Summer gave the guy a head start. The next town was only a couple kilometers away, and she was in no hurry to slide behind the wheel again for the long drive home. She’d have to take him with her. Couldn’t let some dead guy wander around unsupervised. Especially if he had anything to do with the possibility of Bad Things Happening.

Or even, Bad Things that Had Already Happened.

She sat on the hood of the Audi and slipped on her Ray-Bans. Sunlight beamed over a distant swash of chestnut trees, glittering in white over the leaf canopy. Crickets chirped in the grasses edging the road, and somewhere a cow mooed.

It wasn’t often she heard a cow moo in Paris. She loved these quiet moments out of the city. It served a different sort of adventure. A mental escape. Much as she sought the fast paced, the always moving, the rush and thrill of her job, times like this centered her. Gave her a few moments to appreciate nature. She wasn’t a tree-hugging hippy chick, just a soul who understood she was a part of everything on this planet, as it was a part of her.

So what part of it all had Nicolo Paganini become? He was the furthest thing from a zombie. No body parts falling off. No nasty skin peels or lumbering gait. Hell, the man was good-looking, and she’d noticed the hard muscles beneath the white dress shirt. For some reason he looked fit, beyond what any picture had depicted of his sometimes comically distorted figure in the nineteenth century. According to the history books he’d been tall, gangly and often sickly.

Was it possible he’d been forged differently when rising from the grave? Certainly he must have decayed lying in situ for a hundred and seventy-five years. So he had been renewed. To a marvelous degree. All parts of him were nicely proportioned and muscled. Every bit of him well made.

“But let’s hope he’s not the Beneath-breaking-loose part of the director’s suspicions.”

The musician had seemed innocuous enough. No flashing magic or vicious powers. Though when he’d shoved her away from him, she’d been startled at the force that had landed her far from where she had stood. He had never been that strong in his previous life. No mortal man was, for that matter.

“He is different,” she decided. And that part worried her.

Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed Acquisitions, and the director took her call. “You check out the cemetery?” Ethan Pierce asked.

“I uh, didn’t get that far.”

“I don’t understand. That was part of the mission, Santiago.”

“I found Paganini. Alive. Wandering the roadside.”

The director’s exhale spoke so much more than a curse or a few curt, remanding words.

“I can hardly lure him back to the grave,” she provided. “Unless you need me to do that?” She winced, hoping the answer would not be an affirmative.

“He’s alive. A man from the nineteenth century crawled out of his grave and is now walking the streets of Parma?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure what the protocol is for this. I’ll have to look into it. Does he seem violent, a danger to others?”

“No. Just startled to be in a different time period. It’s like he’s a time traveler flashed forward to the future.”

“Yes, sure. Is he exhibiting any zombie-like tendencies?”

Summer smirked, then winced as she closed her eyes behind the sunglasses. “Define zombie-like.”

“Limbs bluing. Necrosis of the tissue. Parts falling off.”

“Nope. He’s good.”

For now. But she intended to keep a close eye on him for changes. She’d never had to deal with a zombie before, and she did not look forward to starting.

“Keep an eye on him,” the director said. “Do not let him out of your sight. I’ll report back with further instructions.” He clicked off and Summer shoved the phone into her back pocket.

“Keep an eye on him. Sure. No problem.” Not as if she could look away from all that musician numminess, was there?

Twisting at the waist, she could no longer see Paganini’s figure walking along the roadside. He’d put some distance between them. But she’d find him. Shouldn’t be that hard to track a nineteenth-century musician who had just clambered out of his coffin. Had she just thought of him as nummy?

“You need to get laid, Santiago, if the dead guys are starting to look good to you.”

When had she last—? She didn’t even want to think about it.

Paganini had said his blood might be off. Meaning, he probably didn’t know what the heck he was. Either that, or he had been freaked she was a vampire.

Then again, no one ever really wanted to get bitten by a vampire. At least, no one smart.

Thinking of which... Exhaustion clung to her limbs. She needed to drink blood for a burst of renewal until she could steal a few winks for a true refresher.

She hopped off the hood and slid in behind the steering wheel. She suspected Paganini wouldn’t go far because he had to be hungry, too. She had time to find a meal before pursuing the former dead guy.

* * *

The tavern was a welcome respite from the sun’s sweltering heat that had worked up his perspiration during the walk along the black road. Nicolo had removed his coat and folded it over an arm while walking, and now he felt as if he’d walked into a different atmosphere. It was as if a thousand fans blew cool air on him, yet he couldn’t feel the wind of said fans. So refreshing!

No one sat by the long stretch of bar, and the barkeep nodded to him before asking what he wanted.

“Beer?” Nicolo tried. He wasn’t sure what the modern taverns served, but beer had been around for ages. “Have you food, as well?”

“Special is fish-and-chips. Our cook is Irish.” He shrugged and set a glass mug of beer on the bar before Nicolo. “You want that?”

Nicolo nodded. “Yes, please.”

Fish sounded great. But he had no idea what chips were. He would be surprised. The lure of the golden liquid in the glass coaxed him quickly forward. He slid onto a bar stool and tilted back the liquid. Yes, beer. And quite tasty. He downed half in a long swallow.

Looking about, he marveled at the clutter of paintings on the walls. Yet, they weren’t exactly paintings. Done in blacks, grays and whites, they were each framed and depicted people smiling and holding beer mugs. Had they all been composed and painted in this very tavern? Interesting. In the window a sign that said Pull Tabs flashed red light. How was that possible to produce light of such a color with no flames in sight? And overhead, light beamed down from small glass globes. Not in candle form.

“Remarkable.”

He finished the beer and asked for another. “Tell me about that device,” he said to the barkeep and pointed to the framed rectangle above the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar. On it images moved, as if he were witnessing a scene in real life. Men kicked a small white ball across a green field. They wore similar clothing. It must be some sort of sport.

“The TV?” the barkeep asked. “Where are you from anyway?”

Nicolo shrugged. “I’ve...been away from things for a while.”

“One of those hippies who lives in a mountain for ten years?”

He wasn’t sure what a hippie was or why a person would want to live in a mountain, but Nicolo again shrugged and nodded. “Sure.”

“You look it. But the women love the long, messy hair nowadays, eh? That’s the rugby competition. England versus Ireland. The Wolfhounds are givin’ ’em hell. In case you haven’t seen a television for a while, it’s a big screen, digital, HD, all the bells and whistles. I can get a hundred and eighty channels. Pretty fancy, eh?”

Nicolo had no clue what the man had just said, so he instead sipped the beer and nodded subtly. The bells-and-whistles device was like a larger version of the mysterious box Summer kept on her. Must be some sort of knowledge receptacle. Most likely of the devil.