Jokers Wild Page 0,64

you like a drink?"

"No thanks."

Tension filled the room, forming almost-tangible lines between them. Agitated, Roulette rose and roamed about the room. Two walls were covered by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with works in several different languages, and in an alcove formed by an outthrust of the wall and flanked by two windows was what could only be described as an altar. A low table covered by an embroidered gray cloth held a simple but profoundly beautiful flower arrangement, a single candle, a small knife, and a tiny Hopi seed pot holding a long, thin incense stick.

"Is this really for..."

"For worship?" he said, turning from the small efficiency kitchen where he was pouring himself a drink. "Yes. That's that ancestor business I told you about."

That opened a whole set of disturbing memories: singing in the choir at the Methodist church back home, her mother rehearsing the angels for the Christmas pageant, her head bobbing energetically as she pounded out the melody on their old piano, and the children's voices like piping crickets filling the house. Being frightened by a hell-and-damnation sermon by a visiting missionary, and clinging to her father for comfort.

She flung herself to the piano, seating herself on the cushioned bench. A violin, its smooth golden curves softly reflecting back the light from a brace of track lights, lay on the piano. And for the first time she found some disorder in this perfect room. A jumble of scores and music sheets marched across the stand. Roulette frowned and leaned in, studying the notation on one of the hand-scored pieces. The notes seemed to be in the familiar positions, but there were odd notations in the clefs. The piano cover fell back with a thud, and she sightread through the music.

She was very aware when Tachyon came up behind her, for the sense of tingling magnetism increased, and the delicate scent he favored washed over her. Ice tinkled in the glass as he attempted to clap.

"Bravo, you are quite accomplished."

"I should be, my mother's a music teacher."

"Where?"

"Philadelphia public school system."

There was a slight pause, then the Takisian asked, "What did you think?"

"Very Mozartian."

A tiny line appeared between Tachyon's arching brows, and he closed his eves as if in pain. "What a blow"

"I beg your pardon?"

"No artist likes to be told they are derivative."

"Oh, I'm sorry-"

He held up a small hand. Grinned. "Even when they know it's true."

She turned back, and shuffled the sheets, and went on to the second page. "Derivative or not, it's pretty."

"Thank you, I'm glad my small effort pleased you, but let us play a true master. I so rarely find someone I can--" he paused, and shot her a glance alight with mischief "-jam with."

He flipped quickly through the piles of music, and pulled out Beethoven's Sonata for Violin and Piano in F, the so-called Spring sonata.

She watched, held by the way his small, elegant hands caressed the polished surface of the violin, tightening a string here, plucking a single quivering note from another. "Which do you prefer?" she asked, indicating the piano and the violin. "I can't choose. I am partial to this." Another stroke to the wood of the violin. "For it kept me on the edge of the gutter rather than in it for a number of years."

"Pardon?"

"Old history. Shall we tune?"

The A hung trembling in the room matched by a floating tone from the violin.

"Good God, what is that? A Stradivarius?"

"Don't I wish. No, it's a Nagyvary."

"Oh, that chemist in Texas who thinks he discovered the secret of the Cremona school."

The violin dropped from his chin, and he smiled down at her. "What a delight you are. Is there nothing on which you're not informed?"

"I daresay a thousand things," she replied dryly.

His lips pressed against the corner of her mouth, drifted down her neck, the breath puffing gently and warmly across her skin.

"Shall we play?" And she noticed with embarrassment and anger the catch in her voice.

They began in perfect unison, the violin singing the first held note then gliding into the elegant ornamentation. She echoed the phrase, and time ceased and reality withdrew.

Twenty minutes of perfect harmony and graceful genius. Twenty minutes without word or thought or worry. A perfect moment. Tachyon stood transported; eyes closed, lashes brushing at his high cheekbones, metallic red hair curling across the violin, joy on his narrow face.

Roulette laid her hands in her lap, stared down at the keys while Tachyon, also remaining silent, placed the violin in its case. Moments later his hands touched her