Downbeat

By Mary Hughes

Rock-star music director, spy, and deadly vampire Dragan Zajicek takes the podium of a small orchestra near Chicago as a cover to investigate rumors of a monstrous, impossible-to-defeat vampire known as the Soul Stealer. There Dragan meets gorgeous-but-doesn’t-know-it flutist Raquel “Rocky” Hrbek who is investigating the monster vampire herself.

Cruelty made Rocky a shy shadow of herself, except for when performing on her flute. So when shockingly virile, filthy rich, gorgeous Dragan inexplicably pays attention to her, it threatens her protective shell .

After a tragedy killed his family, Dragan walled off his heart, threw out rules and went rampaging with the bad boys. Rocky’s sweet nature threatens to shatter his hard-won defiance. Yet as they track down the rumors the two are drawn closer—until the Soul Stealer appears and zeroes in on Rocky. Now she and Dragan must find a way to destroy an indestructible creature before Rocky is utterly consumed and Chicago is bathed in blood.

Each book in the Biting Love series is a standalone story that can be enjoyed in any order.
Series Order:
Book #1: Bite My Fire
Book #2: Biting Nixie
Book #3: The Bite of Silence novella
Book #4: Biting Me Softly
Book #5: Biting Oz
Book #6: Beauty Bites
Book #7: Downbeat
Book #8: Assassin’s Bite
Book #9: Passion Bites

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jul 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640632295

Mary Hughes

I write wickedly fun romantic adventures and steamy paranormal romances, stories that crackle with action and love. Challenging, smart alpha men--and women not afraid of a challenge. Oh, do the sparks fly when he meets THE woman guaranteed to infuriate and inflame him most.In real life I'm an author, a spouse and mother, a flutist, a computer geek, and a binge-TV-watcher of The Flash, Elementary, NCIS, and Wynonna Earp.~Mary HughesNewsletter: http://www.maryhughesbooks.com/Newsletter.htmlWebsite http://www.maryhughesbooks.com/Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/mary-hughesBlog http://maryhughesbooks.blogspot.com/Group Blog http://www.lustwithalaugh.com/Facebook http://www.facebook.com/MaryHughesAuthorTwitter http://www.twitter.com/MaryHughesBooks

Book preview

Downbeat

a Biting Love novel

Mary Hughes

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

About the Author

Discover more Entangled Select Otherworld titles…

Once Bitten

When Danger Bites

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Mary Hughes. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Select Otherworld is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Christa Soule

Cover design by Fiona Jayde

Cover art from iStock

ISBN 978-1-64063-229-5

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition March 2014

This one is for Mom and Dad, because love goes beyond the grave.

To Gregg Hughes and Christa Soule. Without you, this book would not have been possible.

To my online and in-person friends. Your support and encouragement keep the books coming, especially Victoria, Elizabeth, Erica, Robin, Leigh Morgan and Roxy Mews.

Thanks to everyone who voted in my Name Julian & Nixie’s Baby poll. First choice was Jaxxie, followed closely by Jessie. As you’ll see, I’ve managed to work them both in.

To all the wonderful musicians I’ve known over the years. Every one has been a professional dedicated to making beautiful music. CSUCS and all musician characters in this book are based completely on my imagination and bear absolutely no resemblance to the amazing, talented folk who’ve shared their music with me.

To you, dear reader. Let’s take a break together from reality and have some fun.

Chapter One

The vampire hung by his clawtips from the steel cable, his feet scant inches above a crisscross of laser beams.

What’s taking so long? A human’s harsh whisper, high above in the rotunda, rang bell-loud in the vampire’s ears. The human was impatient, but he couldn’t see the cutting red weave of lasers. The vampire sure as hell could. If he dropped one more inch, all of Paris would wake to the sirens screaming into the October night.

This job had been one fuckup after another. Gear up, arrive at the museum, meet the client’s agent.

First fuckup. The human agent was five minutes late.

Reassess feasibility. Their insertion was carefully timed to thread the needle in the night guards’ schedule. Three walked the upper floor, their rounds half an hour apart. The job was barely possible if the vampire hurried.

Hell yeah. He thrived on risk.

Continue. Bypass the alarm, insert prerecords into the target camera feeds, run up the back stairs, three flights to the rotunda.

Nearly trip over a guard smoking a blunt mid-rounds. Second fuckup, which cost them dearly. By the time the guard moved on, their twenty-five-minute window had narrowed to seven minutes.

Reassess. Possible with significant shortcuts. Shoot the zip line cable into the opposite rotunda wall. No time to anchor the cable properly on this end, so wrap and knot it around the balcony rail. No time to attach a pulley, so mist to the center of the zip line and attach the descent cord directly to the cable.

Third fuckup. The instant the vampire solidified out of mist and grabbed onto the cable, his weight broke the knot he’d tied, and the cable whipped out. Having just snapped back into his natural form he couldn’t mist again so soon. He fell two stories in as many seconds. Only the quick action of the agent—quick for a human—catching the unspooling cable, kept the vampire’s feet from triggering the alarm.

What’s the hold up? The human on the rotunda balcony whispered so loud the vampire winced. Come on, Zajicek. The next guard is due in four minutes, and he’s A-list. Hurry up. ID the thing and let’s go.

Dragan Zajicek, orchestral conductor and sometime international courier glared at the human before tightening his abs to curl into a ball. He slid his toes over the wire and reversed, hanging upside down like a bat. Would’ve been easier to do the job shape-shifted as a bat, but for this he needed his natural eyes. He uncurled slowly, so he wouldn’t disturb the air currents around the display case, until his head hung inches above the bullet-proof glass.

The uncut diamond inside was as big as a child’s fist. If real, it was worth millions. But that was the question, wasn’t it?

He clicked on a very expensive penlight, aiming its beam between the weave of lasers at the rock. Absorption at a certain wavelength was invisible to all but the cleverest of machines—and vampire eyes. He clicked the pen again for shortwave ultraviolet, and studied the fluorescence patterns. Rumor had it this diamond was fake. He’d learned from unfortunate experience not to simply discount rumors, but to prove or disprove them.

When he was satisfied he knew the right answer, he put away the pen and curled up slowly, until he could grab the sagging cable. Mounting it smoothly, he stood with the ease of a high wire artist. He considered running up the cable but speed was of the essence. Flying, then. If he leaped first, any wind from the downbeat of wings wouldn’t trigger the alarm.

He leaped and willed himself into his favorite form, the red-tailed hawk. Half his mass in the bird, half in trailing mist, he glided on spread wings over the balcony railing and was about to shift back to his natural form when a whistle blew.

"Pardonnez-moi. The voice was dangerously soft. We’re closed for the evening."

The man, a broad-shouldered, black-suited security guard, his fade haircut and granite face either ex-military or secret service, was speaking to Dragan’s human associate. The guard slid a compact gun from under his coat with an ease that spoke of long use and aimed it at the associate. Turn around. Raise your hands.

Dragan heard the human’s heart rat-a-tatting like a snare drum. Slowly the man turned, lifting cautious palms. His face was white in the museum’s dim night lighting.

The zip line leaped from his hands and whizzed away. An instant later the thud of the cable hitting the diamond’s case was dog-piled by whooping alarms from every level. In the marble confines of the rotunda, sound waves built a tsunami of noise. Dragan flapped in place, desperate for hands to cover his eardrums.

The security guard spoke into a small wrist radio. Intruder, Three Foxtrot. Backup, now!

A burst of static, then, On our way.

Dragan had mere moments to pull this job out of the shitter. He flew straight at the guard. The man’s hard expression morphed to an O of surprise. The gun swung up but Dragan was already beating his wings in the man’s face. The guard flailed with one hand and shot with the other into the space where Dragan had been.

The first bang was followed by the thud of the human agent’s body hitting the hard balcony floor.

Dragan shrieked a hawk’s rage, talons raking across the guard’s face, blinding him. The man screamed, buried his face in the crook of his arm, and shot until the gun clicked empty. Dragan wheeled on one wing and flew toward his hapless associate as behind him, the guard beat empty air.

The human trembled on elbows and knees, hands laced behind his head. He hadn’t been hit.

Dragan shifted to human form midair, landing lightly on one foot. Up. We’re going. He grabbed the agent by the shoulder and hoisted him to his feet.

The human stared wild-eyed at Dragan’s chest. You…you’re hit.

Dragan spared a glance at his dark shirt, blackened by wet blood. He spat on his hand, shoved it inside the shirt and wiped the wound closed. I’m fine. You won’t be. Go!

He shoved the human into motion, urging him to run. Finally one thing went right. Their planned escape route was clear. Dragan threw open the back door into the alley where a dark sedan waited. He tossed the human in and followed with no wasted motion.

The car peeled out the moment they were inside, hooking a fast corner. Dragan tugged the door shut against the force of their acceleration.

So?

The voice emerged from the darkest corner of the sedan. Red eyes were the only part of the man visible.

Well, not man, but an ancient vampire, one of perhaps a dozen in the world. Enkidu.

The human sat between them, head over knees, panting.

The ancient did not waste words. Neither did Dragan. It’s not real. You’ll have to find another way to finance your children’s hospital.

Pity. The ancient vampire remained no more than a long shadow despite the flash of streetlights as bright as day to Dragan. Supposedly ancient ones could hold a permanent misted state, and while Dragan mistrusted lore until proven, it certainly seemed to be possible with Enkidu. Despite doing several jobs for him over the centuries, Dragan had never seen the ancient’s face.

Between them, the agent’s panting gradually slowed.

Why bother? Dragan said. You’re rich enough to endow that hospital ten times over.

Twenty, Enkidu said. Or possibly a hundred. Why do you bother spying despite all your wealth? The diamond was once mine. It was stolen by a rival. Although I may have originally liberated it from him. Several times. He chuckled dryly.

Dragan glared. All this, for a frat prank?

The long shadow shrugged. One gets bored in seven thousand years. I have another job for you.

If you want entertainment, hire a clown.

This is rather more serious. You know of the Chicago Coterie?

Windy City vampires. Dragan sat back with crossed arms. The buttery leather upholstery didn’t soothe his irritation one iota. Led by Nosferatu, a nasty piece of work. Not rogue, but not far from, the way he bleeds his humans.

Yes. Nosferatu is shy a first lieutenant. Rumor says he’s looking to fill that vacancy.

Isn’t he promoting his second or third loo?

No. This is a new player, completely unknown.

I don’t believe it, Dragan said flatly. We’d have heard of him. It takes three, four hundred years dead before a vampire can even begin to seize power. It’s impossible to stay unknown that long.

Apparently one decoyed and killed the Japanese ancient, Tamayori—after drinking every last drop of her blood. In an instant he became…more.

More?

More powerful. More insane. There is a name for such an atrocity. The ancient paused. Soul Stealer.

Dragan uncrossed his arms. That’s not good. If this soul stealing vampire aligns with Nosferatu… Vampire factions around the globe were carefully balanced, but nowhere was the equilibrium more delicate than between the superpowers of the Iowa Alliance and the Chicago Coterie. It could disrupt the balance of power in the United States. What do you want me to do?

Infiltrate the Chicago vampire scene. Use the deepest cover you can. Discover if the rumors are true, or not.

How much does this pay?

You determine its worth.

Me…? Dragan swore. You don’t expect me to live.

Perhaps. You’re courting destruction anyway, flaunting Elias.

Dragan’s jaw clenched. The esteemed ancient leader of the Iowa Alliance wants me to abandon the podium. He might as well kill me.

He will, if you provoke him enough.

All because I won’t toe the party line? At that, his fists clenched too. Vampire existence was secret; however strong they were, the few million vampires could be crushed by billions of frightened humans. Dragan’s taking the worldwide musical stage fifty years ago—and refusing to age, much less die—supposedly put all vampires at risk, according to the Iowa ancient. Enkidu was right—eventually Elias would get fed up and come after Dragan himself.

So why not go out with a bang? All right. I’ll do it.

A small sigh came from the shadow. Thank you. Not words Enkidu said often. If the rumors are false, there is little danger. But if they are true… Zajicek. Be careful.

Why?

It is said this vampire cannot be killed. Not by humans or vampires.

Between them the human agent straightened, his face slashed with horror. "Vampires? Soul stealers?"

Enkidu sighed. He put a long-fingered hand on the human’s head. "Sleep. The agent instantly slumped. This conversation never happened. Remember only the job."

Dragan shook his head. You haven’t done him any favors. What humans don’t know can still hurt them.

Mass panic would hurt them more. Not to mention what they’d do to us. Get to the bottom of this Soul Stealer rumor, Zajicek. That’s the way to keep us all safe.

Hey, Rocky. Did you hear the rumor? Doreen St. Clair leaned up next to me as I pulled my gold headjoint from the case on my lap and fit it to the body of my flute.

The one about us doing Brahms Four? I blew into the tube to warm it up. Don’t listen, it’s just gossip. Circulates every year, never happens.

She noodled a few notes on her clarinet then leaned up again. Not the Brahms. I heard we’re getting a guest conductor.

To my left, Peter Obois wet his oboe reed by dunking it in a shot glass. Middle-school band director turned symphony wannabe?

We might get lucky and get high school. I scooted my chair toward Peter—a b-foot flute is twenty-eight inches of metal pipe brandished like a baseball bat, and I didn’t want to whack the flute player next to me. We’re a community orchestra, we get community people. That’s what happens when you’re semi-professional.

Emphasis on semi, Peter agreed.

Not a local, Doreen said. "A name."

Peter sniffed. I’d be more impressed if it were a recording contract.

I’d be more impressed if it wasn’t gossip. I stowed my case under my chair, my eyeglasses sliding to the tip of my nose. I straightened, poked the glasses up with one finger, then set out my music. I doubt there’s any truth to it. Why would Hugo give up the podium?

Because he’s a hundred plus? He should have retired years ago, Doreen said.

Please, Peter said. The only way he’ll put down the baton is when it drops from his cold, dead hand.

He’ll try to conduct, even then.

His baton technique won’t look any different.

Be nice. I elbowed Peter in the ribs. The String King commands our attention.

Dr. Walter Vilyn, our concertmaster, mounted the podium as if it were a royal dais, regal in a Prince Philip tweed complete with gold pocket watch. The String King certainly ran the string section like his personal fiefdom. But I had it from several string players that he bowed everything wrong. He pointed imperiously at Peter, ordering the tuning note. Peter took a breath to play.

The door slammed open. Kevin Hutt, the orchestra’s part-time manager, dashed in. Or, since he slings pizzas for a living and lives on the pizzas he slings, he lumbered. Wait! I have an important announcement!

Peter let out his breath on a sigh.

The String King reluctantly relinquished his throne. Huffing, Kevin struggled up. It had to be important for Kevin to interrupt His Stringy Highness. Walter’s revenge was more creative than his solos. Which, considering he played everything like Prokofiev wasn’t saying much, but still.

Kevin was already red-faced; sixty sets of eyes on him turned him purple. I mentally reviewed my CPR while he fumbled in his pockets, getting more and more flustered.

He managed to find the folded paper before he keeled over, a sheet once ivory bond but now stained as if it had been mauled by a sweaty bear. He unfolded it and cleared his throat. As you all know, music director Hugo Banger is our regular conductor. He panted as he read from the paper. I’m happy to report Hugo had a stroke— At the collective gasp, he flushed beet red and scanned the note. "No! I’m sorry to say Hugo had a stroke. I’m happy to report it was mild and that we’ve found a replacement for the period of his recuperation."

Doreen was right, Peter whispered. I shudder to think who they got. His thin face puckered as if he was sucking straight lemon.

Because as everyone knows, guest conductors sleep in coffins and use meat cleavers as batons. Hopefully not Walter, I whispered back. He conducts like a wet seagull flapping his wings.

He leads the section that way too.

From behind, Doreen said, I think it’s somebody from The Symphony. Both Peter and I turned and gaped at her. There was only one symphony for us. Chicago.

Then Peter rolled his eyes. Are you kidding? Not even the third assistant student conductor from The Symphony would guest conduct us. Compared to the big league, we’re a plastic whistle. A baby’s toy piano versus a Steinway.

Come on, now, I said. We’re semi-professional. We’re at least an accordion.

On the podium, Kevin was crinkling his note. Our guest conductor is well-known, having led orchestras all over the country.

Meaning he does grade school clinics, Peter whispered.

More note crinkling. Excuse me. Kevin shot a glance at the doorway, his blue shirt bleeding indigo under his arms. He leads orchestras all over the world.

Meaning the high school strings toured Luxemburg one year, Doreen said.

He’s recorded with the Berlin Phil and the London Symphony, as well as New York and Chicago.

That shut us up.

He’s a name you know well, and I’m sure we’ll be in very good hands while Hugo recovers. Please join me in welcoming Dragan Zajicek. He pronounced it Zah-jeh-seck, turned purple and immediately stuttered, I mean Dragan Zy-check!

Sweet fuck, Peter breathed.

"The Dragan Zajicek?" Doreen said.

I felt faint. Is there more than one?

"Can’t be the Zajicek. The man is bigger than Karijan. Bigger than Ozawa. What the hell would he be doing conducting us?"

My heart rattled my ribs in agreement. Since junior high, I’d followed Dragan Zajicek’s career. Brilliant didn’t begin to describe him. A musical genius, world-renowned in classical circles even as a youngster in the sixties, he’d only gotten more popular, an international celebrity for the last two decades.

I had a stupidly huge bucket crush on him. In high school, when other girls had posters of Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync lining their lockers, I’d had one of Zajicek. And I’d been envied for it.

Why would an international superstar even be in the same room with the Community Symphony of Unaffiliated Chicago Suburbs? CSUCS (affectionately known as See-Sucks) was okay, but hardly in the same league as Juilliard, much less Dragan Zajicek.

Then the man himself entered. All eyes swung to him, instantly, helplessly—and I realized See-Sucks wasn’t even in the same universe.

Six foot five inches tall, sheer muscular elegance in black-on-black, Dragan Zajicek gathered our eyes like an event horizon sucked up galaxies. Glossy ebony hair with one dramatic river of silver flowed past his collar. Jet brows slashed over brilliant black eyes. Strong cheekbones and a sharp jaw combined with a blade of a nose and sculpted lips into a face that was classically handsome, almost beautiful.

In pictures, Zajicek was so good looking he made my eye teeth hurt. In person he made my chest hurt, because I’d stopped breathing.

I knocked a fist into my breastbone and sucked in air.

Then he moved across the room. His elegance was sharpened by a fierce energy, like an apex predator. He was so outrageously sensual, so irresistibly compelling, that if it was the only way to make him touch me, I’d have done the puddle and coat thing with my body.

After a moment’s stunned silence, we applauded like madmen. In that instant if Zajicek wanted us we’d have been his forever, despite Hugo Banger’s hundred years.

Zajicek vaulted onto the podium with athletic grace, displacing Kevin with sheer presence. His dark eyes swept over the orchestra like a rapier. He held up one long-fingered hand. There was instant silence, so quiet I could hear my heart hammer.

Greetings. We have much work to do. We’ll start with ‘Appalachian Spring’ after tuning. Mr. Obois?

Peter gave the A and the woodwinds started to tune. As we matched our As to Peter’s, Zajicek’s head tilted slightly and his dark eyes sharpened, as if he could hear each individual player and was judging their sound, tone and technical ability just from that A.

I barely kept myself from freaking. Hugo hardly heard the melody. I was used to getting away with a few wrong notes in the general cacophony. Not Zajicek. It was almost intimate, how closely the man listened.

But he didn’t comment. Nothing, not even a wince when the brass joined the tuning a quarter step flat, the musical equivalent of merging into traffic in clown cars. He simply tilted his elegant dark head and listened.

After we had all tuned (more or less), Zajicek took up his baton, the white stick as slender and graceful as the man himself.

But before he raised it, he paused. His dark eyes pierced the air over my left shoulder. I glanced back. Bertram Bosun, our principal bassoon, was fumbling through his folder. Reading Bertie like a score, Zajicek said, Can’t find your part, Mr. Bosun?

Um. Bertie clutched his bassoon and turned red. Yes. I mean…no.

Zajicek’s head swiveled to Lila Urtext, fourth-chair cello and also our librarian. Zajicek’s features in profile were even more compelling, acid-etched marble, his black gaze sharp as a bayonet. I hoped like hell that gaze never skewered me. Ms. Urtext. Find another part for Mr. Bosun, if you would.

Lila jumped out of her chair so fast her cello went diving. Fortunately her stand partner was Mr. Miyagi, martial arts teacher in nearby Meiers Corners—and yes, he’s a double for Pat Morita (my small town rocked coincidence like Cabot Cove drew murders). He had the reflexes of a cat and snagged the cello before it smashed into pricey kindling.

Wow. When Hugo asked for music, Lila cracked her gum and told him all the parts had been handed out, and if some people lost theirs it wasn’t her problem. For Zajicek I got the feeling Lila would copy out another part by hand if she had to. Using her own blood as ink. She found the bassoon part and waved it at Zajicek, her face lit with a brilliant smile like a good little girl who’d eaten all her peas and expected a treat. Zajicek inclined his head and Lila’s smile dazzled, as if she’d gotten the best treat in the world.

When Bertie and Lila were both settled, Zajicek lifted his baton. An all-embracing sweep of his black gaze gathered our eyes up to him. We waited, our breath and very hearts in his fine hands, ready to leap to our deaths if he bid it.

He gave the downbeat.

Normally we crank out the first note of a rehearsal like a car grumbling to life on a sub-zero morning. We putter along well enough once we get going, melody recognizable, harmonies not so much.

But with Zajicek, the violas and second violins sang that first note perfectly together. When Doreen joined them, she twined in like a lover. In successive miracles, every entrance was clean and beautifully balanced.

Zajicek pulled music from us. We played better than ever before, better than we knew we could, swept along in a tide of almost perfect music.

Magic. That’s the only word that comes close. From our dross he spun emotional gold using only his fine hands. We responded with everything we had, everything we were.

By break time, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I stumbled out to the drinking fountain. Peter stumbled out after me. We rehearsed in the basement of a church, in the fellowship hall under the nave. The fountain and restrooms were in a back hallway under the chancel—nave and chancel being church-speak for auditorium and stage.

I took a small drink, then stepped back to let the rest of the inevitable line have their sip.

There was only Peter.

I peeked through the doorway at the rehearsal room. All the chairs were empty.

The orchestra, and I mean the entire orchestra, had swarmed Zajicek. The only reason I knew he was at the center of that brightly chattering horde was because he was so incredibly tall. His dark head with that distinctive silver lock floated well above the multicolored sea.

Peter peeked in beside me. Quite a mob. Zajicek must have a magnetic personality.

Well, blood has iron.

Not what I meant. Peter returned to the water fountain with the shot glass he used to keep his reeds wet and dumped the old water out. Why aren’t you among the admiring flock?

With my timid personality? I’d be trampled before I could even get close. I turned the fountain on for him.

He stuck his shot glass under the stream. You’re fearless enough when you play.

Sure, because it’s my job. All principal flutes must have labia of steel and clank when they walk. But you know me. In real life I’m so much a wallflower I have wallpaper paste on my behind and light switches for teeth.

A bubble popped out of the boiling mob—Doreen. Her hair was mussed, her face flushed, and her sweater’s neckline was pulled oddly out of shape. She made a beeline for the drinking fountain and gulped greedily for a full minute before coming up for air. Damn. That man makes my undies vibrate.

Did you get to talk with him? Peter asked with almost puppy-like eagerness.

Doreen snorted. I wish. No, the Wicked Witch got there first.

The Wicked Witch was Wendy Wagner, our associate concertmaster, or to the rest of the world, second chair violin. She claimed to be a descendant of the Wagner—Richard Wagner of the four-opera Ring cycle fame, fifteen hours of screeching sopranos straining to be heard over heavy brass—and boasted she’d inherited his talent. Hopefully she meant his musical talent, since he also had a knack for womanizing and being in debt. Wendy made no secret of the fact that she thought she should be first chair, going so far as to soap Dr. Vilyn’s bow—with Lava.

I wanted to get Zajicek’s autograph. Doreen held up a felt-tip pen. But the Wicked Witch zipped in on her broom, followed by every other first-circle string. They coated him like plastic wrap. Then the second stands double-locked him. We poor wind players didn’t stand a chance.

Where’s your paper? I took off my eyeglasses and polished them on my shirt tail.

Paper?

For Zajicek’s autograph?

"Oh, paper. Her face reddened and she tugged her sweater neckline up. Um, left it on my chair."

I’d like his autograph too. Peter stuck his reed in his mouth and sucked water thoughtfully. Maybe after rehearsal.

Good luck. Doreen took another drink. That mob’s wrapped him like a cocoon. He’ll be immobilized for months.

Peter’s eyes widened. "Unless he takes