"It isn't you," I told Raphael as soon as I could pull myself from him.
"What isn't me?" he asked as he peered around us.
"The person who killed Tanya."
He slowly turned to look at me. "I'm delighted to hear you don't think I have a murderous nature."
"I didn't say that. I think you probably could kill someone if you had a reason to, but I happen to know you didn't kill Tanya."
He strode the few steps over to me, grabbing both my arms and staring intently into my eyes. "How do you know that? What did you see?"
"I didn't see who killed her, if that's what you're asking."
He sighed with relief and let go of my arms, continuing to scour the immediate area.
"But I saw her neck. I know who was the only one who could have killed her. With all the... damage that was done, and the fact that there's not a drop of blood to be seen, the only one who could have killed her is a... "
"Vampire?" he asked, squatting down to examine something on the ground.
I nodded, realized he wasn't looking at me, and added, "Yes. I know you don't believe in them - God knows I didn't before I came here and had my mind invaded - but even you have to admit that her death looks like just what you'd expect from a vampire."
"Yes, it is," he agreed as he examined the ground around the tree. I had no idea what he expected to find, since the soft bed of pine needles wasn't conducive to footprints or other helpful clues, but still he looked.
And suddenly that struck me as odd. "What exactly are you doing?"
He ignored my question, tapping his finger on his chin for a moment before marching over to put both hands on my shoulders, his eyes alight with concern and worry. "I know it's asking a lot of you, but could you stay here by yourself for a few minutes until the police arrive?"
I blinked at him. "The police?"
He nodded. "They should be here shortly."
"You called them?"
"Of course. I know it won't be pleasant for you to stay here by yourself, but I have to leave before the police get here. I... er... I have to let Dominic know what's going on." The words were stiff and halting. "You won't be in any danger; I will only be a few minutes."
I stared at him for a moment, then glanced over at Tanya's body. I didn't really want to be alone with her, but it was clearer than ever that Raphael wanted to avoid contact with the police. While I didn't think running from a problem was the answer, now was not the time to give him a lecture about facing up to his past. Or whatever it was that was bothering him. "OK. I'll stay."
He looked a bit surprised by my easy acquiescence. "You don't mind? You won't be frightened?"
I shook my head. "No. Tanya isn't going to do me any harm, and certainly her killer won't." After all, he'd sworn earlier that evening that he'd never hurt me. "Go ahead. I'll wait here for the police."
Raphael opened his mouth to say something, closed it, then opened it again with a little shake of his head. "You and I are going to have a very long talk just as soon as I can manage it."
"Good," I said, wrapping my arms around his waist and giving him a hug. "I have a lot of questions I'd like answered."
He shook his head again, told me what to tell the police when they arrived, and strode off into the night.
As I watched him walk away, the questions kept running through my mind. What were you doing out here instead of watching over things at the fair? What did you pick up off the ground near Tanya? What are you hiding about your past? And how did you find out about poor Christian?
Poor Christian. The words echoed in my head as I glanced over to Tanya's lifeless body. Poor Christian had done that to her. Poor Christian had viciously ripped her throat open and drained her dry. I shuddered at the thought of it, sickened by the stark reality of a Dark One's true nature. His feeding on her wasn't romantically erotic as he described it in his books - Tanya's life had been stolen from her in an act of brutal savagery, animalistic in its butchery. My stomach lurched unpleasantly as I recognized the undeniable truth: Christian was extremely dangerous, a killer without remorse.
And he was insanely jealous of the man I loved.
The police arrived before I worked out a solution of what to do about Christian. Black-and-white police cars swarmed the far end of the hotel parking lot, their lights flashing as they formed a semicircle around the area where I stood. I was surprised to see so many police there, figuring Raphael might only have left a warning that there was a body to be found; then I felt guilty for thinking so poorly of him. He might be no stranger to the police, but that didn't mean he would shirk his duty.
An older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a big mustache sauntered over to me. He asked me something in Czech. I shook my head and pointed to Tanya, answering him in German. "Raphael, the man who called you, told me to stay here with her while he went to the fair to let the owners know what is going on."
"Raphael?" the man asked in heavily accented English. He consulted the notepad one of his cohorts pushed in his hand. "Raphael Saint Johan?"
"St. John," I answered. "It's pronounced 'sinjun' actually. He's British, you see."
The man stared at me.
"They do things like that. With their names, I mean."
He stared a little more, then with deliberate movements pulled a pencil from his pocket, licked the end, and made a notation. "I am familiar with the British, madam. I attended Oxford University in my youth."
"Oh. Sorry."
He inclined his head in acceptance of my apology. "I am Inspector Jan Bartos of the Brno police. Your name?"
I told him. He took down the information that I was staying at the hotel, my home address, and what I was doing in the Czech Republic, then warned me that he would check the information against my passport.
"Fine, I have nothing to hide," I said, glancing over my shoulder to see if Raphael had returned. "I was on my way back to the hotel to take a bath when I found Tanya. Raphael ran into me after calling you guys. That's all."
"Tanya? You know the victim?"
"Just slightly. That is, I've met her, and talked to her a couple of times" - if you could call the threats and curses she tossed at me talking - "but I didn't really know her. She worked at the fair. I'm just here as a tourist."
He made another note. "You do not work with the fair?"
"No." As soon as I said the word, I felt the need to explain, just in case the police questioned people attending the fair who'd had me read the runes for them. "That is, I don't actually work for them, but I did read rune stones there tonight."
"You read - ?"
"Rune stones. They're little stones with runic graphics on them. It's kind of like reading tarot cards, only different. Here, I have my set, I can show you." I pulled the black velvet bag out of my purse and plucked an amethyst stone out. "See? These are amethyst. I was reading these at the fair tonight, but I haven't done it there any other time. Well, except a couple of nights ago, but that was special."
"I see." He didn't look like he understood, he looked like I had a neon light over my head blazing PRIME SUSPECT for everyone to see.
"It was a wager, just a stupid bet my friend had with Tanya."
Inspector Bartos frowned at the tip of his pencil, tucked the pad of paper under his arm, and patted his pockets until he extracted a small black object. Carefully he inserted the tip of the pencil into the sharpener, rotating the pencil with exacting precision. His tongue peeked out of the corner of his mouth as he worked. I had to bite my lip to keep from giggling.
"Now," he said, having finished with the task of sharpening his pencil. I waited for him to lick the sharpened end. He looked like he was going to, then thought better of it. "You will tell me, please, about this wager you had with the victim."
I looked again over my shoulder, hoping to see a large man with beautiful amber eyes charging up the hill from the meadow, but there was nothing but the police swarming the area, roping off a large section around Tanya's body.
"It wasn't my wager, it was my friend Roxy's. Roxanne Benner. We're traveling together. Tanya was saying some nasty things about me, so Roxy bet all of her money that I could read runes. It's as simple as that."
"Is it?" he asked, taking notes. It was a weird feeling knowing that everything I was saying was being taken down.
"Yes."
"Tanya lost a great sum of money to your friend, no? She was angry?"
I gave him a wry smile. "Not with Roxy, no. It wasn't really between the two of them, you see, it was because of - " I closed my mouth on the word "me" and swallowed nervously.
"Yes? Who was the cause of the wager?"
"Um. Well, it really wasn't any one person; there were a bunch of us there at the reading."
"I see."
This time I truly did have the feeling he saw. I had no doubt that he could see right through my pitiful blathering to the ugly fact that Tanya hated my guts. The PRIME SUSPECT light overhead suddenly acquired flaming red arrows that pointed directly down at me.
"I will need to speak with you later," Inspector Bartos told me, making a final note before staring up at me with a cool, assessing look in his eyes. "I will be able to find you at the hotel?"
I hoped the darkness was enough to keep the blush that heated my cheeks from being seen. "Um... well, there or... uh... Raphael has a trailer on the far side of the fair. It's the blue one with a giant red hand painted on the side. If I'm not at the hotel, I'll be there."
He pursed his lips and pulled his notebook back out of his pocket. "You do not work for the fair but you read rune stones for them, you are the subject of wagering with members of the fair, and you are" - he flicked an unreadable look at me - "closely acquainted with a fair employee. Is that correct?"
I curled my toes up inside my shoes and wished I were anywhere else but where I was. "Well, it sounds so suspicious when you say it like that, but really, it's all quite innocent."
"You have known Mr. Raphael St. John for how long?"
"Well, maybe that isn't quite innocent. That is, it's innocent in that we're not doing anything wrong, but it's not innocent because we are... um... doing... not innocent things. Together. With each other, I mean." I cleared my throat and tried to look like I didn't just admit I was a trollop.
"How long have you been acquainted with Mr. St. John?" the inspector asked again.
My blush cranked up another couple of notches. If it got any hotter, I could fry an egg on my cheek. "About four days," I muttered to my shoes.
"I could not hear you."
"About four days," I said louder, staring at his chin. "Four long days. Very long. Action-packed, you could say."
"I see," he said again.
"Can I go now?"
He nodded and moved aside so he was no longer blocking the path to the parking area.
"No, I'll just go back the way I came," I said, pointing through the trees.
He paused in the act of putting his notebook away and shot me a martyred look as he riffled through the notebook pages until he found the notes he'd just taken. "You stated that you were on your way back to the hotel to take a bath when you found the victim."
"Yes. But I don't want a bath any more. I'd rather - " This time my brain stopped me before I admitted any more damning statements.
"I see," he said, just as I knew he would. "Your passport will be held by the police. You may not leave Bransko until it is returned to you."
I nodded that I understood and sidled around him. I'd just made my escape, giving the police a wide berth, and was starting down the slippery pine-carpeted slope when Inspector Bartos called my name. I stopped and looked back at him.
"Who won the wager?"
"I did," I answered.
"Ah. And what was the victim's response when she lost?"
I stared at him, unable to answer. He nodded his head as if I had, and waved me off. I didn't wait for him to change his mind. I hurried down the hill, and raced for the lights and people of the fair.
"Where's Christian?" I asked Roxy a short time later. She was talking with one of the fair workers who had been drafted into Raphael's security force.
"Mmm? Oh, he left a while ago. Said he didn't want to listen to the bands again. I don't blame him. That Six Inches of Slime guy doesn't sound any better for having had his nose broken."
"Damn. Have you seen Raphael?"
"Nope. Did you see Raphael, Henri?" she asked the slightly overweight man who was nervously watching the crowd.
"He was here a few minutes ago. He was looking for Dominic and Milos," Henri said.
I pulled Roxy a little way from Henri and looked around to make sure no one was within listening range. This was the last night of the fair proper, and finding breathing space, let alone somewhere one could talk in private, was difficult. "Come with me," I ordered her, and scooted through the crowds until I was behind a line of portable toilets.
"What's gotten into you? Henri was telling me all the dirt on the bands. Why do we have to stand here?" she asked, glaring at the backs of the toilets.
"Because no one else wants to come here. Listen, I have something to tell you, but you have to promise to keep it a secret, OK?"
"Again? That's two major secrets in as many days. Do you have any idea what this is going to cost you in hush money?"
"This is serious, Rox. Tanya's dead."
She stared at me, her mouth slightly ajar.
I nodded. "Raphael found her, and I found him. He's gone to tell Dominic, I guess. I've already spoken to the police, but the worst thing is" - I looked around again to make sure no one was near enough to hear - "her neck was torn out."
"Tom out? Like an animal attacked her?"
"No," I said, watching her steadily. "Like a vampire killed her. There was no blood, Roxy, nothing. Somebody ripped into her throat and drained the blood from her body."
She put her hand over her mouth as if to keep from screaming. I know I certainly felt like it. "Oh my God, you don't think - Christian?"
"I don't know of any other vampires around here, do you? Oh, Lord, it's all my fault, too. I had no idea he would lose control so easily. I figured if he had lasted nine hundred years, he could last a little longer until we found him his Beloved, but I guess he finally realized that I wasn't she, and he went berserk."
"Oh my God," Roxy said again, her eyes huge. "Christian - who would have thought? He's been so nice to us."
"I have to find him. I have to find him and calm him down, and make him see reason. I have to make sure he doesn't do anything like this again."
"How are you going to do that?"
"I don't know," I wailed, heading back around the toilets toward the mass of humanity. "But I'd better do something pretty damn quick before anyone else figures out what happened, or the famed reclusive author C. J. Dante is going to find himself on the business end of a sharp stake."
Roxy and I searched the fair but did not find Christian. We saw Raphael and Dominic in grim consultation, a silent Milos standing with them. Arielle's tarot-card booth was dark and empty, so I assumed she'd been told of her sister's death. Roxy offered to go sit with her after I borrowed a nice couple's mobile phone and had no luck getting hold of Christian at his home.
"I talked to Demeter," Roxy told me after a quick confab with the aura photography woman. "She says Paal took Arielle to her trailer, and Renee is sitting with her. All the fair employees know about what happened to Tanya."
"It was bound to come out," I said, tapping my lip. I wondered aloud where Christian had gone, and how I was to find him.
"Easy. Call him," Roxy suggested.
"I just tried. His housekeeper, who I think I woke up, said he was gone for the evening and she had no idea when would be back, and could I please not call again this late because she had to be up early to get ready for the festival."
"Not that kind of call. Use your Vulcan mind-meld, or whatever you said you can do with Christian."
A cold chill raced down my arms at the thought of such intimacy with a man who could savagely kill another person. "No, thank you."
Roxy turned to look at me. "Why? What are you afraid of? He swore never to hurt you."
I rubbed my arms. "I'm just afraid, OK?"
She gave me a weak smile. "Do you remember when we were seven and I got my head stuck between the school gym wall and the drainpipe, and I wouldn't go near the gym for months? You went all philosophical on me and told me that it was all right to be afraid of something as long as you didn't let the fear control you."
"I remember," I glared at her. "My mother used to say that to me. Damn, I hate it when you're right. All right, I'll try to see if he's got his receiver on, but it'll be on your head if he swoops down and carries me off because of it."
She held one arm, watching me.
"What?" I asked.
"Are you doing it now?"
"No!"
"Oh." She sounded disappointed. "So are you doing it now?"
"Roxy, it's not a circus act. I'm not going to do it with you watching me."
"Why not?"
"Because, it's something... intimate. I can't do it with people watching me. I have to be somewhere private to do it, where I know I'm not being stared at."
She looked around the fair. People were elbow to elbow in the long aisle leading up to the main tent where the second band was setting up for their session. The tarot-card booth and the palm-reading booth, both empty, offered no privacy. She turned back to me with a faint grin. "I guess there's only one place for you to use."
I nodded. "Raphael's trailer."
She shook her head. "Do you really want to take the chance of having Christian swoop down on you where a bed is handy for that all-important fifth step of the Joining?"
"Oy. You have a point. So what great idea do you have?"
She pointed at the lines before the portable toilets. "Voil¨¤! Instant privacy."
I didn't like it, and spent a good fifteen minutes trying to find an alternative, but in the end I waited in line for an eon to use a toilet, Roxy at my side to keep me from being bored, or so she said. I think she was really just hoping to see me "do it."
"Good luck!" she called as I stepped into the toilet, closing the door on a bunch of startled looks. I decided I'd rather stand than sit, and closed my eyes, trying to clear my mind of everything but the thought of Christian. It was difficult to do, what with all the noise - the second band had started their set - not to mention the unpleasant and aromatic surroundings, but I made a conscious effort to block everything out.
I let my mind stretch and reach out to find him.
Christian?
I caught the image of awareness, of Christian turning to look at me, but he didn't respond. That was followed by a horrible thought. Maybe he didn't know who I was. Maybe he was so far gone in his madness that he had lost his memory of me.
Christian, it's me. Joy. Are you all right?
A distant noise so faint it might have been the wind moaning through the trees swept past me.
I know you're probably hurt and angry right now, Christian, but I'm worried about you. If you could just let me know where you are and that everything is OK, it would make me feel a lot better.
My head was filled with silence.
Christian? Please let me know you're all right.
He did not answer. I tried to contact him again for the next few minutes, but he would not respond to anything I said.
"No luck," I told Roxy as I stepped out of the toilet.
"You should eat more bran," a short, magenta-haired Goth told me in perfect English as she claimed her turn at the toilet.
I ignored Roxy's giggles and headed away from the toilets, drained by my attempt to contact Christian.
"Raphael's looking for you. The police are here, although no one is supposed to know. Raphael said it was business as usual. What are you going to do about Christian?"
I shrugged and searched the crowd for my amber-eyed Romeo. He was standing in the empty tarot-card booth with Dominic and Inspector Bartos. "What can I do? He won't answer me. I know he's out there, I can feel him, but he's ignoring me for some reason. I don't have control over him, Rox. I can't demand he come to me, so there's nothing I can do but hope he's holed up somewhere away from people."
She nodded. "Raphael said the police are going to want to speak with all of us. I've never been interviewed as a witness before. It'll be one for the diary, huh?"
"That's one way of putting it," I said grimly as I headed for the tarot-card booth.
It wasn't until a few hours later that Raphael climbed wearily into his trailer. I was curled up on his bed, fully clothed this time, reading one of the many mysteries he had tucked into a tiny bookshelf.
I set the book down as he locked the door, flipped the lights out, and walked to the bedroom. "Was it bad?" I asked.
He shrugged one shoulder as he peeled his coat off, leaning out of the bedroom to toss it onto the tiny table. "They're police. It's always bad when there's been a murder." He turned back to face me. Both eyebrows lifted as he stood on one leg to pull his boot off. "I liked you better last night."
I looked down at my jeans and sweater. "So did I, but I wasn't sure if you wanted me here after you'd been grilled by the police. I know how you must have been dreading that."
He grunted as he pulled off the second boot, "Baby, the only thing that kept me going tonight was the thought of you waiting for me."
Questions? Yes, I had questions galore about what he'd been doing near Tanya's body, but first things came first, and at that exact moment, Raphael's mental and physical well-being topped my list of priorities. I pushed the book off the bed as I slid down. "Oh, well then, seems to me it's my duty as a humanitarian to render you whatever aid you require."
I got to my feet and wrapped my arms around his neck, wiggling my hips against him as I kissed a trail around his lips. He slid his hands under my sweater and teased my nipples through my bra as his mouth captured mine.
"I am going to require a lot of aid," he said between nips to my lower lip. His hands were burning my breasts, stroking and teasing until I gave in to his demand and parted my lips, welcoming that bossy tongue of his into my mouth with a hum of pleasure. "I will be needing so much aid, it's going to require multiple applications."
"Multiple, hmmm?" I slid my hands down his back, lovingly stroking the hard curves of his behind. "I like the sound of multiple."
He growled as I sucked his tongue into my mouth, tugging his shirt out of his pants. His hands tightened around my breasts as I gently raked my fingernails up his belly until I reached his chest.
"Nipples," I cried in delight. "Imagine finding them here! I must explore more fully."
"That's not fair." His breath was hot and ragged on my neck as he nuzzled me, licking and kissing and nibbling while his hands slid around to my back. "You have bare flesh in your hands. It's only right I should have some as well. I want bare flesh. I need bare flesh!"
I saw the reason in his argument as soon as he got my bra unhooked and his hands had pushed that annoying bit of material away to cup my breasts, his thumbs teasing my nipples mercilessly. Tiny little rivulets of fire started in my toes and worked their way up my body as I gently scored my fingernails up his sides, throwing my head back so he would have better access to my breasts. He peeled my sweater off, tossed my bra after it, his hair brushing against my bare skin as he bent to take a breast in his mouth.
"OK, that's it, I give." The feel of his mouth on my flesh was making my bones turn to jelly. I arched my back and pushed my breast at him in a brazen, shameless sort of manner. "I was going to torment you and tease you and arouse you till you had steam coming out of your ears, but I give. You're just too much for me. I surrender."
"Baby, if you arouse me any more, I'll explode," Raphael growled, the steamy look in his eyes confirming his claim. "As I calculate it now, I have about three more seconds before that happens."
We had our clothes off in record time. Raphael hit the bed first, me following immediately thereafter. I ignored his little grunt when I landed on him rather than the bed. I straddled his waist, sitting up and running my hands over his belly and chest, thinking about all the many and varied things I wanted to do to him.
Raphael swore.
"What?" I froze, wondering what I had done wrong.
"Just a minute." He put both hands on my hips and heaved me off him, rolling over until he was sitting on the side of the bed. "Stay there. Don't move. And don't stop thinking about what you're thinking, because I like that wicked glint in your eye."
I stared at his back for a moment, then figured out what he was doing. "Would you like me to hum a little condom-donning music while you're busy over there? Something in a march, perhaps? Or a Latin beat? Or maybe you prefer skaaaaAAAAAAAA!"
Quicker than you could say "extra personal space" he was on his back again, and had me hoisted over him.
"Wait a minute," I said, looking down from where he held me about a foot and a half above his body. "I see what you're doing, Bob, don't think that I don't. You're not going to impale me with that thing until I'm good and ready to be impaled, and that's not going to be until I do some of those wicked things you saw glinting in my eyes, so let me down nice and slow and no one will get hurt."
He grinned and slowly lowered me until I was sitting on his groin. "It's like sitting on a broomstick," I said, my eyes widening as I wiggled around on him a little, sliding back and forth along his long, hard length. Raphael's hands grabbed my hips, his fingers biting hard into my flesh as his head thrashed side to side on his pillow. "Oh, my! Maybe I'm ready now. Maybe those wicked things can wait. Maybe I was a little overhasty in ruling out an immediate impaling."
"Thank God," Raphael croaked, his voice as harsh as gravel. In one smooth move he lifted me up, positioned himself, and thrust upward as I sank down. His groan of sheer pleasure rang in my ears as my body accepted his. He was heat, he was fire, a very, very hard fire that pushed and shoved and burned its way into my tender flesh, filling me, stretching me, pushing me beyond everything I'd known into some new world inhabited only by us. I ceased to be one person and happily joined myself with him.
The last thing I saw before my eyes rolled up in my head was his back arching up off the bed as I tightened every muscle I had around the hard heat of him.
"Do you know, you're almost panting in time to your heartbeat, which says a lot, considering your pulse rate must be at least in the two hundreds."
Raphael groaned beneath me. I was drawing lazy circles on his chest, enjoying the feeling of his chest hair tickling my face as I pressed occasional kisses onto his flesh. His chest rose and fell quickly beneath me, making me wonder if I was squashing him. I put my hands down onto the bed and levered myself up slightly. Immediately his hands settled onto my bare behind and held me in place. I smiled to myself. We were still physically joined, a testament to his girth that we hadn't parted ways, so to speak.
"What does it feel like when you use a condom? I mean after. Does it feel ooky? I can't imagine it's a terribly comfortable feeling, what with all that... um... just hanging around the end there."
Raphael's hands slid up to rest on my back, but other than that he made no response to my question. A perfectly good question, too, I thought. But perhaps he was embarrassed that he'd only lasted a couple of thrusts before blasting off. Poor man. That was all it had taken for me, too, but unlike women, men invest so much ego in their sexual prowess. I didn't want to make him feel anything less than a stud muffin, so I decided to let the subject drop and talk about something else.
"Did you have a chance to see Arielle after the police questioned her? I was going to sit with her, but that minion of Inspector Bartos... what was his name?... Detective Kovar made me go over the whole evening again. Poor, poor Arielle."
"Why is it women can work just as hard as men while they're making love, but when it's all over, they can still put words together and have them make sense?"
I smiled at his disgruntled frown. "It's called afterglow, sweetheart. Pillow talk is the best kind of talk. Do I take it you'd rather I let you recover in peace than discuss the important topics of the day?"
Raphael moaned an affirmative, his eyes closed tight. I grinned and pushed myself into a sitting position. His eyes shot open when I wiggled just enough to remind him that my cheerleaders were still entertaining him at their homecoming dance.
"Baby, I wish I could oblige you, but I think you killed me a few minutes ago."
I raised up just a little, then sank slowly back down, gripping him as tightly as I could. He bucked beneath me and sucked in half the roomful of air.
"You don't feel dead to me," I said, leaning forward to tease the tip of his little brown nipple with my tongue. "You feel hot and hard and very, very alive. I can feel your pulse deep inside me. Here." I did my best Kegel squeeze.
"Ah, Christ," he groaned, grabbing my hips and holding on as he rolled me onto my back. He scooped my legs up until they rested on his shoulders. Slowly he pulled out of me until just the very tip of him rested inside; then just as slowly he stroked forward, filling me with so much more than just a delicious bit of flesh that tears came to my eyes with the beauty of him.
"You think I killed you?" I gasped, flexing my legs to pull him deeper into me. "You're going to be the death of me if you do that again, you know that, don't you?"
He smiled a wicked, wicked smile so hot it singed my eyebrows. "I'm not going to kill you, baby. Just take you to heaven and back."
Oh, Lord, did he!