The vampire didn't sleep. Calista's words kept resounding in his head. She had called him Garan, and that is a name he shouldn't forget. The red-headed vampire's gift was something not to be taken lightly. And she had savored that name in her lips without skipping a heartbeat and held no deception. That was how she saw him and having lived an uninterrupted lifetime, Lindsey knew she must have been talking about his future ...

The fact that he managed to hold on to his mortal body for so long without giving in to the rot of the curse had made him stronger than most dwellers. Calista knew this. Another name meant a new casing of flesh, abandoning everything he had been for the uncertainty of becoming another. Was it a veiled threat, or a warning? Whatever it was, it terrified him.

As he rose, the musician spent some time delighting in the rich threaded sheets imported from Cairo. Calista knew not to spare, indulging in every pleasure and bestowing it upon those around her as well. She had commanded every request to be met, and foreseen every desire. The sweet young thing that had serviced his bed, leaving as the witching hour marked three, was well instructed.

He took his time entertaining an idea. If they were going to see their Prince, he might as well uncover their earnest intentions. After all, he had been blessed with a touch of magic. Where witches weaved words, he worked on rhythms. Vampires were hard to read. If they had traces of a heartbeat, it was no more than a lazy murmur. But nothing brought passion hidden skin deep forward as music did and he was a music man.

'Will you play?'

Cara Mia stood in the narrow doorway of his bedroom. Had he not been opening the case, he would have sworn she read his mind. The Italian vampire was a vessel of pure madness, a doll of glorious beauty whose eyes spoke of pain, both suffered and inflicted.

'I will, my dear. What about you? What brings you to my quarters?'

'They are on my way downstairs. You see, I'm alone now. A moment ago, I wasn't. I was stealing a kiss. It's a game I play, trying to remember when my skin was one with the Mediterranean sun, but caro, il sole morde! It bites, mercilessly.'

She extended a charred hand for him to kiss. Pieces of lace melted into her skin.

'You are truly insane!' The vampire chuckled, bringing her close.

'And something here smells of almonds ... faintly.'

Lindsey caught her hand before she could touch the case on top of the dresser.

'Yet, not crazed enough to get your way with me, or my violin for that matter.'

'Is it true,' Cara asked, 'that you have kissed the face of Death? Is she as beautiful as I imagined her? Does she remember me, whom she left behind?'

'The answer to all your questions will always be yes. I don't have the heart to contradict you.'

As Lindsey picked up the case, he noticed one of the latches was a little loose. Cursing softly, he made a note of fixing it later. 'Time to go, Cara. Our little exchange has made us late.'

And here they come' Henry marked his words with a rising eyebrow, twirling his lips in scorn. 'I should have known you were hiding in Lindsey's shadow. I had to deal with the manservant you left ... discarded in the terraza.

'Excuse your noble heart. A leech that is on top a Brit can't spare a minute to heal tissue damage without complaint. That's why I thought your cousin would have made a better vampire. He didn't mind laying down his life in Greece for something better than his own interests.'

Cara spat on the floor, always ready to jab at forever young Henry. She uttered nonsense, as they had come to expect, blaming her benefactor. However, she saw not the man, but his stature, truly believing the noble bred worse than the damned. Henry's kind was the one she struggled to accept. She loved and tormented him with equal measure.

They were comrades in blood and yet, when clarity shone through her madness, those angelic features reminded him of those high-born men who had made victims of angels in the permissive streets of Venice. The elder Lord of Byron, however, she had embraced, truly, madly, deeply ... yet never reaching him on time. Death, her eternal rival and ultimate obsession had taken him much too soon.

'George died of sepsis, not by the sword. It could have happened anywhere ...' Cara's hiss intended to drown his remarks, but it was Calista who had the last word.

'Happy about it or not, at least someone knows how to keep the rules of the house. Cattle count, remember? Everyone had a pleasant sleep, I take? Catching up on a lifetime of secrets ...' Her eyes said something other than her smile. A hard stare met Adora as her lips stretched, warm and inviting. 'Are we having an interlude? How sweet! I didn't want to impose on you, Lindsey, but it would mean the world to me if you played Lucio's favorite, in exchange for all to be forgiven. Peace under our roof.'

The vampire nodded and looked at Calista from head to toe with eyes that changed color as they followed the firm curves of her body.

'There you are, the true you,' Adora interrupted. 'I have seen you from afar, splitting the skies with that blue blaze that hides within. I wonder ... if your mistress would be pleased that you shared this with another.'

'Tsk, Tsk! The enemy of fun!' Calista clicked her tongue in mockery, a reaction that brought Lindsey a little too close to New Orleans. The vampire cleared his throat; he was being invaded by a lightheadedness he hadn't experienced since he was human. The hostess continued, lifting her arms in surrender. 'What will the implications be, Adora, if he decides to rosin the bow in front of us? Surely a scandal worth crossing the Atlantic for!'

The Egyptian vampire, silent still, turned eastward and touched his lips, passing unheard words onto his fingers and spreading them to the air. Calista had made a mockery of an avatar of Death, and it begged for a remedy.

'Are we ready?' Henry sat on a broad couch, tapping the fabric lightly and indicating that even after their brief spat, he rather have Cara Mia as company. 'That bastard Lucio had a thousand defects but he had a love for art. I never had the chance to hear you play strings, dear Lindsey, our Prince found it too unravelling. Can't wait!'

'A dance ... a funeral dance. We are after all, a world of contradictions.' For the first time since their arrival, Calista sounded somber. 'A farewell that speaks of perfect moments frozen in time, a prayer that might never be answered. Play Bach for m... for Lucio.'

Music possessed the hall, bringing all but the violinist to a halt. Vampires are creatures that crave savagery and beauty and the union of strings and shifting times found a way to quench their thirst for both.

Lindsey's eyes never ceased to be blue, he scanned those present with an unapologetic urge to see into their souls. Lucio had been kind to him, and although he had no dreams of glory, the vampire wanted to make sure that whoever filled the Prince's shoes would be worthy of the title.

He had known the Dancer for the longest, even before they had joined the Coven. A continent as magnificent as Africa had never been big enough for two of their kind. Introspection had become that vampire's calling card, and one could say that his greatest distinction had become his only vulnerability. So used he had become to body language instead of words, that the vampire was an open book.

When Lindsey looked into his eyes, he saw nothing other than the sway of music. The violinist had connected to a lost sliver of his soul, and saw but the need to be taken far away by the notes and the shift of tempo. No surprise. One who has witnessed true power craves none.

'Who knows, who knows ... maybe that void needs to be filled.' Cara Mia tried to make the musician break his concentration, but the violinist kept steady, as the melody became a bit mournful, before catching up speed once more.

Damned, mad creature of the night. The uninitiated might believe her capable even of sorcery. She might have been deranged, but her observations were sharp. If anything, free of all constraints, she spoke to the madness within them all. Cara knew quite well what Lindsey was trying to do. He was testing their loyalty to Lucio, he'd force a response out of them. No one could lie to a dweller. Loyalty, now there is a thing ...

Adora stood behind Henry, improvising a song for the melody, trying to tame the strings with an element of Spanish cadence. Apart from it all, and at the same time, leaving her stamp upon it. She had the guts, no doubt. Long before being an immortal, she had been a child of rape and murder, and rivers of innocent blood. Her whole continent succumbed to a cry of war, and maybe, just maybe ... she had realized it was the time to stake her claim.

Then there was Henry. If blood could speak, Henry's would be even more eloquent and charming than its vessel. The vampire carried the history of generations gone, kings and princes in their own divine right. Could he make a ruler, or was he just the dead end, umbrageous and spiteful once the mask of gentleness slipped off his face? It was getting harder to keep his composure.

As the melody came to an end, Lindsey walked towards Calista, taking a bow.

'To the mistress of the house, I will ask openly, giving the first opportunity to answer. Is your kindness a peace offering or are you buying time under this roof trying to measure all of us against your achievements? I no doubt know your tears for Lucio to be genuine, but that doesn't mean you don't want to make a grab of power for yourself. Only you seem to know what ails him, after all. Tell us, Calista. What will we find when we get to his chambers?'

Calista couldn't help but part her lips.

'I ... I ....' her words cut short because the vampire in front of her stumbled.

She could feel Lindsey's power of summons free her, as the violinist lost all concentration. A soft cry replaced her words as the vampire collapsed and his beloved violin touched the floor.

'¡Qué carajos!' Adora rushed to the dweller's side as the other circled. One by one, they came to the realization that they were watching one of their own succumb to something as vulgar as death. 'Don't touch the violin, it's poisoned!' the vampire warned the Coven.

'It's ludicrous! He can surely come back from this. I don't see the need to be so dramatic!' Henry pursed his lips as soon as he uttered the words.

Lindsey's skin was growing ashen, and decay was setting in at a fast pace.

'Stop it!'Adora had no time for questions. Death was evident. Her dark eyes pleaded to the dancer. 'This flesh will give. He has no host. Está perdido, lost to us. Oudeis, please!'

'Seal his Ka, his true being inside this rotting body. Send him back to his mistress. There are no gods for me to plead to. The realm of mirrors awaits him.' ... more words than he had uttered in a hundred years. And he found them not as dispassionate as he thought they would be.

Adora broke the seal of a small pouch that hung from her neck. The smell of cayenne and pink pepper was made evident. She sealed Lindsey's lips with a spice paste pronouncing his spirit bound to his mortal body.

'How convenient!' Calista couldn't help wailing. 'What else did you bring in your little woodlands burlap? Something exotic enough to kill the undead?'

'I will forgive you, because I'm under your roof, and because it's not my place to judge if your grief is real, lady Calista. All I know is you should show him the mercy of sending him back. Let Nueva Orleans set the course ...'

Cara Mia also cried, calmly at first, holding onto Henry who was accounting for motives among their peers in silence.

The delusional vampire started laughing in a frenzied manor as if possessed by something ... more than what already is. 'Ciao, Lindsey. If we live enough, we will see you in another face and another body. If we live, because who are we to deny, that if a Prince falls, the Kingdom is not also rendered to ashes?

by LynnS13