by Eve Paludan
Her laughter sounded like a thousand plucked harp strings. Literally.
Alarm bells went off in my head. “What was that?”
“Whenever I laugh or sing, I do it in harmony,” she said. “Morrie says I have the most unique voice in all the world. I have a polyphonic singing voice that spills over into my laugh. A few other people can sing chords, too, but I’m an anomaly. I have some sort of birth defect, perhaps a thousand vocal cords. They are harmonically tuned, as well. I can’t sing a bad note.”
I was intrigued. “How unique. Would you sing for me?”
“Sure. Do you have any requests?”
“You do requests?”
She nodded. “I can sing anything. Even instrumentals.”
“You know every song?”
“So far, no one has stumped me. I may have had my brain wiped, but my musical knowledge was preserved and maybe even magically enhanced.”
I laughed in that cavalier way that rushes out when I’m amused at someone’s extreme bullshitting. I stretched one of my trunk-like arms companionably behind her. “How about ‘Summertime’ by Gershwin? It’s one of my favorites.”
She nodded. “Do you want the Louis Armstrong-Ella Fitzgerald version with the strings and trumpet intro?”
I threw up my hands in disbelief. “Sure. Lay it on me.”
Her eyes shone with passion as she stood on the fake rock over the fake alpine meadow view below us. “I stand when I sing.”
“Go for it.”
She opened her mouth, and the familiar trumpet intro came out of her mouth. As promised, there was a string accompaniment. I even detected the tap of a metal brush keeping time.
My mouth dropped open, and I gawked at her as the trumpet solo led into about a hundred Ella Fitzgerald voices singing the lyrics like a choir. Then Jolie launched into a similar chorus of Louis Armstrong voices singing in that rasping, jazz voice.
I stared up at her in wonder. Wonder. It wasn’t just the voices streaming out of her throat. It was the instruments. The impossibility of the whole orchestra-and-choir effect left me spellbound and not even caring about the tears running down my face.
When she was done, she dropped her head modestly.
I kept staring at her, embarrassed that I’d been so moved. “Oh, Jolie.”
She looked up again and grinned. “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet, Kingsley.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Singing covers is a piece of cake. My own compositions are more complex.”
“More complex than Gershwin?”
She laughed again, an intoxicating sound. Molecules of attraction flew between us, but more alarm bells rang in my head, reminding me that I loved Samantha Moon.
“We should leave the chill room. Right now,” I said. I did not want to be this attracted to her. Even though Sam had hung up on me earlier and we were definitely on the outs, I was determined to keep things professional with Jolie Hart. At least, while the case was in progress.
“Why do we have to leave the chill room? Have I done something wrong?”
“No, you haven’t,” I assured her.
“Perhaps you had physical responses caused by my singing? And perhaps you’re also thinking about me in ways you shouldn’t because you’re my lawyer?”
“Yes. And yes.” Did she always say everything that popped into her blonde head?
She beamed. “My singing arouses everyone. Morrie says I’m going to hit the Billboard charts pretty quick and that everyone will be creaming themselves and flooding the download sites with millions of orders. He says my voice is going to put Viagra out of business.”
“It’s probably the only thing that this Morrie and I are ever going to agree on.”
We left the chill room and I made her walk in front of me so she couldn’t see my growing problem. I briefly excused myself to go take care of something personal and urgent. When I returned to my office in a much more relaxed demeanor, she had her guitar out and was plucking the strings. I liked a woman who could amuse herself when I had to leave the room.
“Is that chill room where you go when you turn on the full moon?” she asked.
“I wish, but I’m too destructive to be in that room when I’m the wolf.”
“So, where do you go?”
“I’d rather not say,” I replied, thinking of the room in the basement with its steel door.
“Has your girlfriend ever seen the chill room?” Jolie asked.
“She’s my ex-girlfriend now. And no, she hasn’t.”
“I’m sorry she’s your ex. You seem like such an amazing creature, too amazing to be alone.”
I laughed a bit uncomfortably at her compliment and turned it back on her. “You as well. That’s some voice you’re blessed with.”
“It’s my one true thing. I suck at everything else.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“I actually don’t know what else I’m good at.”
“Because of the memory wipe thing?” I asked.
She nodded. “My memory was wiped, all but things like remembering how to shower, brush my teeth, use a curling iron and walk in high heels… important stuff. And of course, music stuff. I think I was professionally trained.”
“I’d say so.”
“I don’t even know my real name. All I have is my voice.”
She looked so pretty, so vulnerable that, for an instant, my heart was caught between Jolie and Sam. I hadn’t even realized that it had become a choice. Down, boy!
I cleared my throat. I needed to keep this blonde demoness at least ten feet away. “I’d invite you to sit in my gardens, but sun can kill a vampire.”
She held up a hand casually and showed me a ring on her hand. “This magic ring lets me go out into the sun and enjoy it.”
“Do tell.”
She shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. Morrie gave me the ring. It’s stuck on my finger and doesn’t come off. That’s all I know.”
I opened the French doors that led to the gardens. She carried her guitar in one hand and her bottle of Tasmanian Rain in the other. I showed her my fifty varieties of rosebushes, the domed gazebo and the hundred-year-old grapevines growing on lattices over shaded patios. Here and there, Greek and Roman statues dotted the garden.
“Artemis!” she whispered and bent to kiss the feet of a life-sized statue. “I recognize her from…well, it was a long time ago.”
“Goodness,” I said. I didn’t know what to make of that.
“I wish I could talk to her again. I… miss her.”
“How did you know her?”
“I think she might have been my best friend.” Jolie frowned slightly at that. “How do I know that? Maybe it hid in some part of my brain that was inaccessible to Morrie?”
I tried to think about the implications of latent memories. “You’re very old then.”
“I guess so. How old do you think I am?”
“Older than you once were. Younger than you’ll be.” I couldn’t begin to guess.
“How old are you, Kingsley?” she asked, her pink lips parting as she waited for my reply.
I smiled. “When we met, I told my now ex-girlfriend that I was seventy-nine years old. I actually told her my age in canine years. So, at the time, I was three hundred and twenty-nine in human years. That was nine years ago.”
“I don’t do math,” she said, “but you don’t look a day over forty. I’ll keep your age a secret if you keep mine a secret.”
I chuckled and went on with the garden tour. I showed her my mossy fountain filled with koi that I fed by hand each day. I showed her the mirror-like reflecting pool with its black bottom. Lastly, we toured my Zen garden.
“What do you do in here?” she asked, raking the sand in concentric circles like a crop circle expert.
“Whatever I want. You can’t hurt anything. The gardens are even kid-friendly.”
“Do you have kids?” she asked.
“I want to,” I said,
thinking of Samantha Moon’s funny, sweet kids.
“I can’t have children because female vampires don’t have periods.”
My breath caught in my throat. “I’m aware.”
She sat on a marble bench in the sun and stared hard at me.
I was sweating and nearly panting in the sunlight.
“You’re too hot.” She shooed me off. “Go inside and look at the contract. It’s in my guitar case. I’ll be fine out here. Come and get me when you’re done. I have to practice.”
I did as she suggested. When I sat at my desk again, I was pleased to see I had a view of her through my French doors.
While I perused the usurious contract, she sat in the sun, playing her guitar softly and singing in a voice so mesmerizing that birds, rabbits, and squirrels gathered around her to perch on her shoulders and at her feet.
I swallowed hard and tore my gaze away. She might have been a Disney princess personified. I’d never heard anyone sing… chords. And not just two or three. A tabernacle-worthy choir of sound spilled from her mouth and lungs. Her talent astounded me.
After a few minutes, I shut the French doors to block out the sound a bit, so I wouldn’t be just another furry animal rolling over at her feet for a belly scratch. Moisture sprang to my eyes as she wrung an original song from her throat as if she would die when the song ended. So much passion.
Now, for the hard part of my job…
I focused on the parchment in front of me. As I skimmed the contract, each page filled me with more disgust. The bastard who wrote it should have had the flesh flayed from him and eaten by werewolves.
The contract she’d signed was truly diabolical, as if her music publisher had known every nuance of the law to claim ownership of this vulnerable music artist and all that she created. Her price for wanting the fame, fortune and fulfillment of a hit music career was that she had to become a vampire. And eventually, she must become a vampire’s wife.
I knew I had to save Jolie from the clutches of a creature who—if he wasn’t actually the Devil—sure was doing a good impression of him. Hopefully, I would be able to get her out of the clauses that she didn’t want to fulfill. Obviously, she’d wanted that hit song and concert debut at Caesars Palace when she’d signed. So I couldn’t just make her disappear, which would have been simple. I had a safe house in the mountains. But no, I wasn’t about to stash her somewhere. She had a song to sing.
As for the rest of it… some of the things he wanted her to do, contractually, made me want to kill him right now. However, that would be my last resort because if he was the Devil, his powers would trump mine.
But I was a werewolf lawyer, wasn’t I? I would fight for her on paper. I was sorry that Samantha Moon’s ex, Danny, wasn’t around to find the loopholes. As smarmy as he’d been in his personal life, I sure could have used him on this case as a consultant.
I made notes on my legal pad in my square, clean print, with line numbers from the contract and with some legal citations I remembered of other music cases. It helped that I had a photographic memory for case law, opinions and decisions. Of course, her agreement to become a vampire and later, queen of the vampires, in exchange for singing was beyond the scope of any contract I knew of.
The very pages of the contract burned the tips of my fingers—I actually had to blow out flames on my pinkies. I made a photocopy of every page of the sucker contract she’d signed in order to have a hit song equivalent to the success and unique sound of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” The audacity of such a claim in a contract was ludicrous.
When I’d seen enough, I put the original contract back in her guitar case and pried her out of my garden. The bunnies and squirrels scattered when they saw me coming. As well they should. The creatures in my back yard knew what I was.
Back in my office, she said, “I could get used to this beautiful estate. And to you. You smell so good, like rich earth and fast rivers. It’s a pity I can’t breed with you and birth those children you want so badly.”
I stood there, aghast. “Jolie, don’t you have an internal editor?”
She said, “I guess not. Maybe the normal social graces disappeared, along with my memories that were wiped. So, do you think I should I hold back more?”
“I think so.” I chuckled. “Maybe don’t hold back for special people. If you find someone you love, you should reserve all the best of you just for him. In private.”
“He’s not gonna be you?” she asked, disappointed.
Her candidness hit like a blow. “Jolie, you’re my client. It would be highly inappropriate to pursue… anything other than business. Unethical, too.”
“Do you still love your ex-girlfriend? I think you do.”
Unnerved, I put both palms on the table. “Unlike you, I do have an internal editor.”
“See? This is why I need you to speak for me. I don’t know what I’m doing or saying. And I can’t drag poor Fang everywhere with me, but I can’t properly defend myself without some life experience behind me that I actually remember.”
She drags Fang everywhere? I wondered what Fang’s girlfriend had to say about that.
“That’s my job to speak for you on this contract. And to act for you. I’ll take care of you in this matter.”
“Thank you for all this,” she said, obviously relieved to pass the problems to me. She began putting her guitar away.
I tried not to stumble over myself looking at her, smelling her, imagining her in bed—
“One more thing, Kingsley.”
“Name it.”
“I don’t want to end up becoming the bride of Satan, or getting some dark entity shoved into my chest like the other vampires.”
“By the way, why don’t you have one of those?” I asked.
“They tried to put one in, but something protected me and it failed. The thing… it died when they pressed it on my chest. Whatever I am, I think I might be… something evil.”
“Seriously?” Prickles of fear ran down my spine. I shook it off. She could not be evil. This didn’t make sense.
“Cross my heart. The parasite died. But they’ll find a way to do it to me… put one in me. It’s in the contract.” She paused. “That’s the other reason I came to you. If it turns out those specific clauses can’t be broken—that I’ll have to endure an entity successfully implanted in me and be forced to mate with the despicable Morrie and marry him—I want you to kill me with a silver bullet.”
Chapter 4
Samantha Moon had reluctantly agreed to meet me to discuss my new legal case.
We were now sitting in Hero’s. I was drinking espresso. Sam was having white wine, but vampires never got drunk. I was having trouble remembering that Sam and I were not together. Her compelling pull was as strong as ever.
It was totally different than what I’d felt in the presence of Jolie Hart. She was a vampire with a different allure. Jolie was needy and vulnerable. And maybe, not very bright. In contrast, Sam had an edge, a jaded, knowing independent darkness I had a love-hate relationship with. Jolie didn’t have an entity in her as other vampires did. Either way, she had an innocence that Sam didn’t possess. Sam’s dark entity was close to the surface, always ready to stab me with a fork at a moment’s notice. I still had the scar.
“First of all, Sam, how did you leave me that breakup voicemail without my phone ringing?” I asked.
“SlyDial. It’s an app. Now, stop staring at my chest and tell me how I can help you investigate your ‘Stairway to Heaven’ case,” Sam said.
I tore away my eyes from her cleavage. “‘Stairway to Heaven case.’ I like that.”
“I’m as clever as you, I suppose.”
“Indeed. That’s why we’re so good together, Sam. But I’m the comic relief.”
Her mouth quirked. “What do you need from me as an investigator?”
“A kiss?” I suggested.
“Get serious. You didn’t ask me to meet you at Hero’s just so you could kiss me.”
“Kingsley, let’s talk about the case. Or I’m leaving.”
“Please, Sam. It’s not fair that you broke my heart and I have no idea why.”
She nodded slowly. “You’re right. In a nutshell, I still have trust issues.”
This again. “I said I was sorry.” That I cheated. Once.
“I know you did. I forgive, but I don’t forget. It’ll take a long time for us to even get back to the place where we once were as a couple, let alone take this big leap into some dreamy vision you have of ‘the next level.’ You’re rushing me. I’m not even recovered to the point where I was months ago when we both trusted each other implicitly.”
“I trust you, Sam.”
She laughed sarcastically. “I’ve never given you a reason not to trust me. And yet, you leave me a voicemail asking me if there’s someone else.”
Oops. “Point taken. Somehow, I’ll earn your trust back.”
“You have to trust me, too, Kingsley. Who did you even think I would cheat on you with?”
I wasn’t going to even touch that one. “I don’t know,” I said, but I thought: Fang.
“We aren’t ready for the next level,” Sam said.
I stubbornly recited my prepared plea: “I hope you’ll eventually come to a place in your heart where you’re ready to take a leap of faith with me into something greater.”
“Nice speech, but I don’t do such things with my eyes closed,” Sam said. “Or on your schedule.”
I tried not to show that I knew this was going very badly for me.
She said impatiently, “The legal case, Kingsley. Talk about it or I’m making an exit in three, two—”
I said quickly, “I want you to go undercover for me.”
“You mean surveillance?”