Read Online The Vampire's Protector by Michele Hauf - Free Book Online Page B

out with some difficulty.
    He asked after swallowing a good draft, “They issue those plastic cards to everyone?”
    â€œYes, but you have to pay back the money. It’s not free money. And I’m pretty sure you are penniless.”
    â€œYou said my violin was on display in Genoa? If I sold that I would have thousands.”
    â€œMore like millions,” she said. “The Guarnerius Paganini is worth a fortune.”
    â€œJust so?” She nodded at him and took a quaff from the bottle. “Then we should drive right to Genoa and demand they hand it over. It is mine, after all.”
    â€œAnd how are you going to explain who you are? The whole rising-from-the-dead part?”
    â€œI will leave that to you. It seems zombies are common in your modern world. You carry pictures of them in your witchbox.”
    â€œI didn’t take that picture. It was from The Walking Dead . A TV show.”
    â€œI know what a tee-vee is!”
    â€œGood for you. I’ll have to find a music station for you to watch. Until then, I can do this.” She stepped alongside him and held up the device before them. “Smile.”
    Nicolo could not figure what she was doing, but he smiled on command. Of course, he was distracted by the sweep of her hair across his neck. She took liberties with their proximity. He liked that, as well. The device clicked and after adjusting it, she turned it to him for inspection. Their images had been captured. Just now. The two of them standing together. It was...
    â€œMore than witchcraft,” he said on a tense whisper. “Is this the devil’s magic? Is it you who has come to tempt me this time around and see me play the black violin?”
    He backed away from her. Tried to recall the way to hold his fingers to ward off the damned, but making a cross with two fingers was not it, he was sure of that.
    â€œNicolo, don’t worry. And we vamps are not repelled by the holy unless we’ve been baptized. Which I am not. Anyway, the last thing I want you to do is play that violin. A few accidental notes may have raised you from the dead, but I don’t think it was enough to make you evil. I suspect you actually have to play it to get the power promised to you by Himself. You uh...don’t want that power, do you?”
    â€œThe brimstone bargain.” He shook his head. “Never. I swear to it. It is vile. Monstrous. I would become like him. That is the last thing I want. I will not play the black violin, I promise you. But I must know how did you get it to Paris so quickly? If you found it back in Parma?”
    â€œIt was in Cella Monte, actually.” She shrugged, and Nicolo sensed a lie would follow. She looked away from him when speaking a mistruth. “We have our ways of making things happen.”
    â€œWe? That’s right, you said you worked for some organization that retrieves things.” Apparently they could transport items rather quickly. It surprised him, yet it should not, seeing that the world had changed so drastically. “Why was it decided you needed to locate the violin now?”
    â€œI’m assigned my missions. I fulfill them. I’m always off after some kind of magical device or haunted item. Your violin was just another mission.”
    â€œNot my violin,” he reiterated.
    â€œRight. The devil’s violin. Yikes. I touched it. Do you think it will have some kind of residual effect on me?”
    â€œYou are the furthest from a zombie, my lovely blonde cherub.”
    â€œI’m a vampire who sucks blood from people’s necks to survive. Cherub will never be me.”
    â€œPerhaps not. But a vampire named Summer?” He let his eyes stroll across her soft skin and up to those brightly inquisitive blue eyes. There lived a tease in her look that he wanted to entertain. Might his first love affair in this new age be with a vampire? “Just seems a bit too cheery for a creature of the