Free The Vampire's Protector by Michele Hauf

night. You, with blood drooling out the corner of your mouth, and a pair of white cherub wings stuck on your back.”
    â€œHa! Quite the image. You’ve got a bit of goth to you, I suspect.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œIt means we’ll get along just fine.”
    â€œThanks, Brightness. You like that better than cherub? I do. You are bright as summer.” He tapped her witchbox with the neck of the wine bottle. “Now command it to play some of that hard metal. I like the tones and wild scales those guitars produce. How is it that they sound so different than the guitar I once played?”
    â€œThey are electric. The sound is amplified. Electricity came about after your time, and it’s a long explanation. Get in the car and I’ll crank the tunes.”
    They did so, and the car filled with the raucous tones of the female singer and some strange instruments that he guessed might be guitars, but he’d never heard one so...amplified, as Summer had explained. Amazing. It would serve to distract him from the sudden distrust that had risen when she’d paused after he’d asked about the violin.
    She had it still. She must. But where had she put it? And how to find it?
    * * *
    About two hours east of the Italian/French border Summer stopped the car at a roadside rest stop and got out. She’d had the music on the whole way and not the GPS. Bad idea. She announced, “I’m lost. I don’t recognize this road. I wonder if I took a wrong turn?”
    â€œWhy don’t you ask your witchbox?” the violinist said with weighted sarcasm as he got out of the car. “It seems to have everything you need in it.”
    â€œGood idea.” She tugged out her cell phone and asked Siri for directions.
    â€œThat is utter madness,” an astonished Nicolo said as he joined her in a stroll along the curbed rest area. “Tell me, is it a tiny witch who lives within that box?”
    â€œNo. Not even this day and age could invent something so strange. Are there tiny witches?”
    He shrugged. “You’re the one with the fangs.”
    â€œDoesn’t mean I know everything about witches. I’m going to go with no on the tiny witches. But this?” She waggled the phone between them. “It’s just bits and bytes. Of which, I also know little. I only know that all the information I need is contained in here, and it’s also great for finding a good vintage car supply store in a pinch.”
    â€œVintage. So you do have an interest in the carriages that once conveyed me from city to city?”
    â€œVintage is like 1950s and ’60s. I own a 1960s Bimmer R65 that I’ve been tinkering on for years.”
    â€œI see. So I must be absolutely ancient to you, eh?”
    Summer chuckled. “You are not the oldest of my friends. Trust me on that one.”
    â€œRight. Vampires live very long, as I recall. How old are you again?”
    â€œTwenty-eight.”
    â€œI remember twenty-eight. I was traveling across Europe with il Cannone and Antonia. Such a lovely voice she had.”
    â€œWas she your son’s mother?”
    â€œIndeed. I had no desire to marry, but I was thrilled to become a father. My son, Achille, traveled with me on the concert route, as well.”
    â€œDid you ever play in Paris?”
    â€œA few times. Took me two weeks to travel the same path we now journey. I must have stayed for months following. Couldn’t force myself to get back into that stuffy, wobbly box on wheels. If they would have had that remarkable cold air forced through tiny vents back then. Whew!”
    â€œRight? It’s called air-conditioning. Wait until you learn about the shower and toilets. And computers!”
    â€œIs a shower what I think it is? Because I could use some freshening. I feel as though I’ve gone for almost two centuries without washing.”
    â€œHa. The dead guy made a joke.”
    â€œNo,