All That Bleeds (41 page)

Cerise approached the Calla Xenakis Center for the Performing Arts. It was a building of alternating blue and white glass with reeds of silver in between. Musical instruments and notes were etched into the frosted panes, making it playful yet elegant.

When Cerise unlocked the door, music floated down to her, and she slowed as she stepped inside. The building was dark. There were no scheduled performances or rehearsals. Sometimes students or staff musicians requested use of the building, but Cerise hadn’t wanted to run into people tonight, so she’d checked the schedule and found it bare.

She ventured deeper inside and opened the door to the main auditorium. The dark stage was empty, but light drifted down from above. She stepped inside and looked up. The illumination was very faint. From a candle or small lamp? In one of the upper boxes? Why would anyone be playing up there?

It’s him,
she realized.
The Etherlin’s version of the Phantom of the Opera.

For months, there had been rumors of a performer who some of the staff called the young maestro. They claimed he played the guitar as well as Hendrix and Clapton, that on sax he was sublime and on violin unparalleled. She knew it had to be an exaggeration, but it made her curious.

The music always came from the upper boxes, and initially, some of Griffin’s fans thought it was his ghost, but Griffin had only played guitar and never as well as Hendrix or Clapton.

So who was the young man who turned up out of nowhere and left the same way, never tripping the building’s alarms? He was suspected to have fixed a hole in the roof caused by a lightning strike. There’d been water all over the floor, but when the workmen went up to patch the leak, there were new shingles nailed in place.

His presence had been confirmed as real rather than fantastical when the center’s director had found a cash-filled donation envelope midstage during the center’s annual fund-raising drive. The note had been done in writing that was more calligraphy than cursive. It read:
The welcome this space offers to music is admirable. A visiting musician offers compliments to the designers and builders of this place.

After the note, the hunt for the center’s young phantom had redoubled, but he was more slippery than ever according to the students who sometimes hid in the upper boxes in hopes of spotting him and getting to listen to him play for more than a few moments. They caught glimpses of him and said he was tall and blond, but they couldn’t tell much else.

Knowing the sound of her boots against the stairs would travel, she sat and removed them. Setting them aside, she ascended in stockinged feet. Three flights up, his playing stopped her. In his hands, a violin was more than a violin. It was the voice of countless generations. It was the soul of the whole world. “Beethoven’s Fifth” transitioned to Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane” which gave way to “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” She crept higher into the building and opened the door. She closed it silently and didn’t dare move farther because she would rather have fallen down the stairs than have him stop playing.

She recognized Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild,” which turned into Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Then a blazing “Flight of the Bumblebees” transitioned into “Dance of the Goblins.” She cocked her head. His lightning speed had such clarity and precision that her jaw dropped. She slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Closing her eyes, she followed the music, not bothering to identify any more songs.

When the music stopped, Cerise had no idea how long she’d been sitting on the floor. And she didn’t care. She
uncoiled her limbs and rose. This mystery man was the most talented violinist she’d ever heard, and she wanted him for an aspirant. No sound that pure and amazing should be played for an empty auditorium. The world had a right to hear it. She would make him understand.

She followed the soft glow, enjoying the smell of sandalwood. She was surprised to find that the candle wasn’t in a box. It was in the middle of a girder. And lying next to it was a book she recognized. There in the center of a steel beam several stories above the stage was Griffin’s lost songbook.

She heard water slosh and turned her head sharply. When she did, she froze. The tall shirtless blond creature drinking from a jug of water was stunning in a host of ways, not the least of which was that she’d met him before.

The meeting had been on Alissa’s last night in the Etherlin when the ventala had infiltrated the muses’ retreat and had murdered ten members of Etherlin Security. including its director, Grant Easton, whose body had never been recovered.

She should have been afraid of the blond intruder, but she wasn’t. No sixth sense warned her to retreat. She actually wanted to crowd him, to challenge him. In was an inexplicable instinct.

“It can’t be you,” Cerise said, staring at him.

He quirked a brow. “It can be me. In fact, it can be none other.” He finished off the gallon of water, his skin glowing from the ferocity of his earlier playing. “And hello. How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine. How did you get in?” she demanded.

His gorgeous smile widened. “I’m not obliged to answer your questions and choose not to.”

Oh right. Now I remember. He’s impossible.
“You’re an incredible musician.”

“I know.”

She fought not to scowl. He might be an arrogant jerk, but for a talent like his, allowances would have to be made.

“Thank you for the compliment,” he added, sliding a large duffel bag from the shadow of a corner and putting the empty water jug into it.

“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 the candle, but what idiotic impulse had caused him to put the candle there in the first place? Maybe he’d gone out there to have a 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 many of them. Mostly thin lines where bladelike cuts had been made, but there were 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. 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.