"No, not the details," she answered, her eyes once again moving to the left side of my face, down to my left arm. "It is said the charm backfired, that some trap laid by Asmodeus was triggered when you attempted to unmake it, and both you and a companion were injured."
"You could say that," I said, my breath harsh as I struggled to control it. "If you call death an injury. No, Melissande. I will not help you. You may think I'm your savior, but I assure you I'm not. I bring only destruction, not salvation. I am a murderer, pure and simple." You would think that telling someone you'd killed a person (even accidentally) would be enough to put them off, but alas, Melissande was made of much sterner stuff than I had imagined. Which is why forty minutes after I had informed her that ten years ago I had killed my best friend, I was in a car with her, zipping through the night heading north toward the tiny town of Blansko.
I still wasn't quite sure how she had managed to keep me from walking out of her apartment.
"You've cast a spell over me," I accused her. "There's no way I would be here now unless you had cast a spell."
She took her eyes from the road just long enough to toss an amused glance my way. "I wouldn't know how to even begin to cast a spell."
"You've got that vampire thing - what do they call it - a glamour. You've glamoured me into coming with you, but it'll do you no good, Melissande. I never was a Charmer, not then, and I'm certainly not one now. You might have glamoured me, but it won't help. As my very dead friend would be the first to tell you, I can't charm anything."
Melissande sighed, shifting into fourth as her tiny black sports car zoomed around a large truck. "We've argued this all out, Nell. I've accepted that you feel it's impossible to save my nephew, but you did agree to help me locate him."
"That's what I'm saying - you glamoured me or something. There's just no other explanation for the fact that I didn't walk out of your apartment the minute I saw that..." I rubbed my forehead, staring blankly into the night, tiny pinpoints of lights blurring into meaningless patterns of light and dark as we raced through the dark. "Oh, Lord, I really did see an imp, didn't I? And you really are a vampire. A female vampire. What does that make you, a vampette?"
She laughed, a pleasant, warm laugh that did much to reduce the panic gripping me. "The term is Moravian Dark One, although in truth only the men are called Dark Ones. I'm just Moravian."
"Yeah, right. Somehow I don't think there's any just about you."
Her grin was infectious, even though I hadn't felt the slightest nudge to my funny bone up to that moment. "I didn't use a glamour. It was greed that held you when nothing else would."
"I'd like to dispute that, but unfortunately, the proof is all too evident," I answered, glancing at the back seat where a long, flat wooden case resided. "Brought down by my academic interest. You'll really let me have the breastplate? Free and clear, no strings attached?"
"If you help me locate my nephew, I will gladly give you the piece of armor."
I thought of the object that resided in the heavily padded wooden case. "It's a museum piece, you know. Priceless beyond priceless. No one believes the Graven Plate really exists. What you're offering me is going to rock the world of academic medievalists. I shouldn't be even thinking of accepting such a treasure."
"It comes from Milan," Melissande said, shooting me an occasional glance. "Dating from about 1395, made at the castle of Churburg."
"Italian Tyrol," I said, sighing with pleasure at the thought of it. Every medievalist had cut his or her academic teeth on stories of the Graven Plate. The armory at Churburg was famous for their exports, mostly to Germany."
"The breastplate consists of nine interlocked plates, each of which is etched with what appears to be the history of the knight who bore the armor."
A little thrill went through me at the thought of those inscriptions. Melissande had assured me, in the calls and e-mails that had resulted in me being in the Czech Republic, that no medievalist had yet laid eyes on the breastplate. I would be the first to see it, study it, translate what I hoped would be a detailed history of a knight-errant who rose to claim the throne of Bohemia.
"It is... what is it called - bright armor?"
"White armor," I said absently, my fingers positively itching to touch the breastplate. I'd had nothing more than a glimpse of it before Melissande had bundled it and me into the car. "It was a term used for metal armor that wasn't bound to fabric or leather covering."
Her eyes flicked my way again. "You are very knowledgeable about armor."
I wasn't buying any of her innocent act. I'd already been suckered into doing more than I wanted, all because of that beautiful specimen of armor that sat behind me. "You knew that when you hired me. How did you find out about me, anyway? You didn't do any" - I drew circles around my forehead - "you know, weirdo psychic stuff on me?"
Her lips pursed. "I'm Moravian, Nell, not the Amazing Kreskin."
"Ah. Sorry. I didn't know you couldn't do that sort of thing."
"I can, as a matter of fact, but only under certain circumstances. It's not very easy." She paused for the count of three, then added, "I'm so sorry that I couldn't have done your introduction to our world properly, although really, you were predisposed to believing in Dark Ones and imps. You must have learned something about the dark powers if you were trying to unmake a demon lord's curse." Another of her quick, assessing glances slid my way.
I didn't bite. At least, not the way she anticipated.
"Oh, I don't know. I pretty much had your standard middle-class childhood - divorced parents, school, college, the usual assortment of friends and lovers. There was certainly nothing to warm me about imps and vampires in my future."
"Do you have many friends and lovers?" she asked, her voice polite, but rife with disinterest. I awarded her a few bonus points for not steering the conversation to subjects she really cared about. "A couple of girlfriends, but no boyfriends. Haven't had one of those for a couple of years. All the men I know seem to be so" - I shrugged - "shallow. How about you? Do you have a boy toy stashed away somewhere?"
Her elegantly formed eyebrows rose in astonishment for a few seconds before she gave a little laugh. "I had forgotten how straightforward Americans are. No, I do not currently possess a lover. Like you, I find most men I meet lacking in some way or other."
"Ah." We rode in silence for a few minutes, but it wasn't long before she abandoned the pretense of polite chitchat and went straight to what she wanted to know.