Dark Symphony Page 0,134

put down his paintbrush and went over to the side of the palazzo, studying the smooth walls, the wealth of sculptures and stained glass. For a moment his form shimmered, wavered, then he was crouched on the side of the palazzo, clinging with hands and feet, a human spider dressed in black with a webbed mask over his face.

What in the world is he doing?

Byron scanned his nephew's mind and sighed loudly. Vincente and Margurite shared an American comic book with him. He is Spiderman, racing up the side of the building to rescue the maiden in distress.

What maiden? Tasha. She just does not know she is the figment of his boyish dreams. It is not dark enough for him to be trying such a stunt, and he is not able to do more than one thing at a time, so he cannot cloak himself from human eyes. Your grandfather is in the courtyard looking at his flowers. All he has to do is look up, and he would see Josef.

Antonietta studied the images in Byron's mind. Josef moved up the side of the second story, much like Dracula in the movies. His form shimmered, shifted, went from webbed mask to startled horror. He slid down the sheer wall, bumped a window ledge, and plummeted to the courtyard below.

Swearing, Byron bounced airwaves, cushioning the boy's fall. Josef landed hard enough to knock the wind out of him but obviously wasn't seriously hurt. Don Giovanni heard the impact as Josef crashed through a low shrub, breaking several branches.

"What happened, young Josef? Did you trip? Are you hurt?"

Josef climbed gingerly to his feet, rubbing his posterior as he did so. "Just my pride. I can't seem to get anything right these days."

"I had a good look at your painting a few minutes ago, and it seemed quite good to me. I don't know all that much about art, but Tasha does. She'll have to take a look at it for you."

Josef followed the older man over to his easel and picked up a brush. "Do you really think she'll like it?" He splashed more paint on the canvas, choosing a bright, vivid red for droplets that ran over the entire painting.

Don Giovanni frowned and studied the work from various angles. "The picture was very authentic until you did that. What is the reasoning behind the red?"

Oh no.

Byron groaned and covered his face.

Do you mind very much if I strangle the kid and stuff him in the laundry chute?

Antonietta did her best not to laugh. Practicing to maintain invisibility and then giving the entire thing away by laughing wouldn't earn her too many points.

You said the key was not reacting to anything. That was the rule before Josef came into the world. Now it's kill or be killed, the way of the jungle.

"It's blood, of course. See up here, looming over the palazzo, the eyes of a predator? That's the vampire cloaked in darkness. He's made his kill up on the battlements."

Don Giovanni struggled to keep his face blank. "Very imaginative. I have seen few villas with vampires on the battlements."

Josef shrugged his shoulders. "The hunters do a fairly good job of keeping the numbers down. I would make a great hunter, but my mother won't hear of it." For a moment he stared deliberately at Don Giovanni, his eyes glowing red, his face contorting into a mask of evil.

Don Giovanni took a step back, blinked to bring Josef back in focus, and saw only a grinning, boyish face.

Byron waved his hand to veil Don Giovanni's mind, holding him still within a thrall. Positioning himself in front of his nephew, he shifted the shape of his head.

Don't do it.

Antoinetta cautioned, pressing a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing.

It's so undignified to stoop to his level.

Josef reached up with his paintbrush to add a finishing touch to one of the droplets. The muzzle of a wolf came at his face, bared teeth, dripping with saliva, snapped, eyes red and wicked, glowing in the dusk. Josef stumbled backward, stabbing at the wolf's head with his paintbrush as he did so, tripped over his own feet, and fell to the lawn screaming, crab-walking backward.

In the blink of an eye, Byron disappeared, and Don Giovanni was staring down at Josef with a strange expression. "You need to get off the drugs boy, no good comes of using that stuff. You have a good family. You don't want to bring them sorrow."

Josef looked around himself cautiously.