A Hidden Fire: Elemental Mysteries Book 1 (25 page)

“You stole the letters from the manuscript room, didn’t you?  You stole them for Lorenzo?”

He snorted.  “They were his to begin with, and it wasn’t difficult.  The combination lock is simple, and I’m such a trustworthy soul, aren’t I?  No one notices me darting around this place.  Just like Ferrara,” he said with a chuckle.  “And he’ll be so pleased to finally have
you
.  He’s been waiting for just the right time.”

A picture of what her father had stumbled into was beginning to form in Beatrice’s mind, but most of her brain was furiously searching for some way to escape the harmless looking old man with the scary black gun.

“Dr. Scalia,” she stopped and turned, desperate to deflect his attention.  “I don’t know anything.  I promise.  You can tell Lorenzo.”  She tried to wear her most innocent expression.  “This is all so confusing.  Even the letters—the letters don’t make sense to me.  I don’t know anything about the books.  I don’t know—”

“Of course you don’t,” he tried to soothe her, “but Stephen does, and he shouldn’t have run.  I know it’s upsetting, but it’s all so much bigger than our own small role.  After all, I was the one that persuaded him to keep your father.” 

Dr. Scalia smiled then, and Beatrice could see the edge of madness in his eyes.  “I told him how knowledgeable Stephen was, what a good scholar, and how many languages he spoke.  I said he would be an asset.” He looked at her and smiled.  “I saved your father!”

She began to lose hope she would be able to elude him when she saw the stairwell approaching.  She began to beg.  “Dr. Scalia, if you could just put the gun away—”

He only walked more quickly.  “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you.  He just needs you to persuade your father to come back.  That’s all.  He promised he wouldn’t hurt you.”

“But—”

“Open the door, and no more talking,” Scalia said in a cold voice.  “We wouldn’t want to echo in the stairwell.”

Beatrice opened the door, praying fervently for some employee to find them as she slowly walked down three flights.  They passed the door to the first floor, and she realized with dread that he was steering her toward the basement.  She began to panic and tears came to her eyes.

“Please, Dr. Scalia, if you just let me go—”

“Quiet, we’re almost there.”

He shoved the gun between her shoulder blades as he forced her to the basement.  The walls began to close in as he guided her down a long hallway with flickering lights.  She’d never been in the basement of the library before; as they turned a corner, she almost ran into a grey metal door.  No window revealed what was on the other side, but she could hear the sound of dripping water echo from somewhere beyond. 

She felt tears begin to leak down her face.

“Please…” Beatrice turned and pleaded again.  “Dr. Scalia, I don’t want to go with—”

He put his fingers to his lips in a hushing gesture.  “We all do things we don’t want to sometimes.”

She heard the door creak behind her, and a cold hand touched her shoulder.  She felt the amnis creep along her collar, but unlike Giovanni’s warm touch, it felt like a cold trickle of water crawling up her spine, until her eyes rolled back and darkness took her.

When she woke, Beatrice was disoriented and slumped in the back of a moving car.  There was a pale vampire sitting next to her and a dark-haired one was driving.  Neither one paid her more than a glance.

“Where are you taking me?”

She looked around, but both acted as if she’d said nothing.  She sat up, just in time to see the car turn into the gates of Giovanni’s home.

“Why—who are you?” she asked her captors.  “Why are we here?” The sick thought of Giovanni being captured or hurt ate at her.  She still felt dizzy, and her stomach was tied in knots.  Nausea, either from the touch of amnis or from sheer panic, threatened to choke her. The only reason she wasn’t sitting in a quivering heap was because she had hoped Giovanni was already planning her rescue.

The two vampires were silent as they parked behind the garage.  They bared their fangs when she slapped at them, ignoring her protests as they pulled her out of the car and across the small courtyard to the kitchen door. 

“Don’t touch me! Don’t—” She broke off with a gasp.

In the shadow of the bubbling fountain, tossed like yesterday’s garbage, were the crumpled bodies of Carl and her other guard, still leaking blood where their necks had been torn open.  Their guns lay scattered around their corpses like discarded toys.

“No—” Beatrice choked out a moment before she emptied her stomach near one of Caspar’s potted plants.  Tears she had smothered in the car leapt to her eyes at the sight of her steady, silent protectors laying broken on the ground. She spit out the gore that coated her mouth, and her captors pulled her inside.

She sniffed and wiped away the tears as they passed through the deserted kitchen and into the living room, where she saw Lorenzo sitting in Giovanni’s chair.  The water vampire had a roaring fire lit, and a glass of Giovanni’s scotch in his hand.

Sitting across from him was Gavin Wallace, the owner of The Night Hawk, who glanced at her with bored eyes.

“How much longer are we going to be here?” Gavin asked, as they shoved Beatrice to the couch where she and Giovanni had watched horror movies the night before as they finished the bottle of champagne.

“I don’t know.”  Lorenzo turned to her.  “Beatrice dear, did your darling Giovanni tell you when he’d be back from feeding and fucking strange women?  So lovely that you’re not bothered by that, by the way, very progressive of you,” he said with a wink.  “Not like these silly girls in romance novels.  I like that he’s trained you so well.”

Beatrice didn’t know where Giovanni was, or how he was going to get them out of their current predicament, but she certainly wasn’t going to give Lorenzo any clues, so she said nothing, curling her lip as tears fell down her face.

“Oh,” Lorenzo said with a condescending smile.  “Look how clever she is.  No useless whining or begging for her.  I like her; she reminds me so much of Stephen.  He never cried or begged, no matter what I did to him.” 

He cocked his blond head, examining her before he smiled again.  “So admirable.  He was one still acquainted with honor.  And that, my dear, is why you’re such a wonderful prize!”

Gavin rolled his eyes.  “Really, Lorenzo, it’s not as if—”

“Oh!  I hear Giovanni,” Lorenzo broke in with an almost childish giggle.  “He’s almost to the gate.  Listen, B—that’s what your friends call you, correct?  You and I get to solve a mystery tonight.”

He scooted over next to Beatrice and put an arm around her, drawing her close to his side and stroking her long hair.

She noticed he made no effort to heat his skin as Giovanni and Carwyn did, and his clammy fingers made her skin crawl.  She heard the soft growl of the car engine as it came up the drive, and she tried to dry the tears on her cheeks.  She sniffed as Lorenzo cocked his head at her.

“Look at her.  She’s trying to be brave.  Do you think she loves him, Gavin?” Lorenzo said.  “It’s so precious.”

Gavin let his head fall back into the chair.  “Shut up, you little prick.  Why do I have to be here?”

“Witnesses, my dear man.”  Suddenly Lorenzo’s tone took on a more serious bent.  “I’m making a deal with my father, and I need an impartial observer.  Everyone knows your reputation, Wallace.  That’s why you’re here.”

“Fine,” the Scotsman huffed.  “But I’m pouring myself another drink.”

The room was quiet, except for the clink of Gavin’s glass, and Beatrice could hear Giovanni’s steps cross the courtyard.  He paused before the door opened, and she wondered what he was planning as he looked at the bodies of the men he had hired to keep her safe.

Lorenzo gave her another giddy smile, and she was reminded of a Botticelli angel again.  She looked away from him and glanced toward the dining room where she and Giovanni had eaten her cake the night before.

Instead of the usual candles that decorated the table, she saw stacks and stacks of books, bound in an assortment of dark leathers, spilling onto the chairs, even some that lay on the ground.  They were assorted sizes and appeared to be different ages.  There were scrolls and stacks of loose vellum, along with a series of large, identical books with a small stack of parchment on top of them.

“
The books
,” she whispered.

Lorenzo followed her eyes.  “Oh, you’ve spotted my surprise!  I thought you’d appreciate them.  I brought all of Papà’s precious books.  Now we will see why he was so excited at the library, won’t we?”

Beatrice looked at the vampire, confusion evident in her face, but he only smiled at her, his eyes burning with delight.

She turned when she heard the door from the kitchen open.  Giovanni walked in, and she could see the flush on his cheeks indicating he had fed.  His eyes swept the two strange vampires in his living room, and he examined the stack of books on the dining room table with only a cocked eyebrow before he turned to Gavin and Lorenzo lounging in front of the fire.

He curled his lip at his son then looked at Gavin, before finally, he let his eyes wander to her.  He wore the same blank expression he’d often worn when they first started working together.  She bit her lip, hoping to quell the tears that threatened to surface.

Giovanni walked to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of scotch before he sat down in his armchair.  Gavin sat across from him, looking bored, but nodding politely toward his host.  Lorenzo sat on the couch, almost bouncing in excitement, and Beatrice sat frozen next to him, willing Giovanni to give her some sign they would be okay.

“Why were you sitting in my chair, Lorenzo?” he finally spoke.  “You know I hate that.”

Lorenzo let out a shrill laugh.  “I know, but I had to try it.  Your scent and the girl’s were all over it.”  He winked at Beatrice.  “Naughty human.”

“What do you want?  I’m tired.”

Lorenzo looked at the clock over the mantel.  “It’s barely nine-thirty!”

“Let me clarify.  I’m tired of your company.”

“Fine,” Lorenzo said.  “But you take all the fun out of everything.”

“What do you—”

“I do wonder,” Lorenzo interrupted, and took a moment to brush the hair away from Beatrice’s neck, keeping his eyes on Giovanni as he leaned closer.  “Where do you bite her?  I’ve been looking and I can’t see a mark on her.”

“None of your business.”

He paused to inhale at her throat and his soft blond curls brushed her chin, making her shudder and tense.

“Because you do bite her, don’t you?  I mean, why else would her scent be all over your house?” Lorenzo ducked his head back to her neck and took another predatory breath.  “And I do mean all over,” he said in a hoarse growl.

Gavin interrupted.  “Lorenzo, I have things to do.  Get on with it.”

Beatrice was still blinking back tears, staring at the motionless Giovanni, who gave her no sign or acknowledgement.  She bit her lip to hold in the cry that wanted to escape when she felt Lorenzo’s hands.  The cold that had started in her stomach when she saw the murdered guards had spread to her chest, and a chill crept across her skin everywhere he touched.

“I’m just wondering where you bite her.  But maybe that’s not your favorite place?”  He smirked and stared into Giovanni’s impassive gaze.  “How about her wrists?”

Lorenzo made a show of checking both wrists.  “Nope, nothing there…and nothing on her neck that I can see.”  A cold finger ran up her neck, starting at her collarbone and reaching her jaw.  She jumped and a small whimper left her throat.

“And what a lovely neck she has,” he whispered.  Beatrice could no longer hold back, and tears began to trace down her cheeks.

“You curly haired git,” Gavin groaned.  “Hands off the blood until you make the deal.  She’s not yours, so stop acting like an ass and get on with it. Or I’m leaving and I’ll let him burn you to a crisp if he wants.”

But Lorenzo didn’t stop, and nausea roiled in her stomach as his cold hand approached her thighs.

“No…”  She gritted her teeth and tried to squirm away, but he held an arm around her shoulders.  “Don’t touch me!”

She kept looking between Lorenzo and Giovanni, expecting him to stop his son—to at least object—but he continued to stare at the vampire next to her with a completely impassive expression.

The tears fell faster when she realized Giovanni wasn’t going to stop him.

“Maybe you like biting her down
here
,” Lorenzo giggled, trailing a finger along her knee.  “Shall we take off her skirt and find—”

“He doesn’t!” Beatrice finally shrieked, pushing him away, unable to take the thought of the vampire’s cold hands touching the skin of her thighs.

“He’s never bitten me!  There are no marks,” she cried as she squirmed out of his grasp and scrambled to the other side of the couch.  “Leave me alone!  Don’t touch me.  Please, don’t touch me again.”

No one answered her.  She began to cry angry tears; she felt like an object in the room.  “Why aren’t you making him stop?”  She sniffed again and pulled her legs into her body, trying to make herself as small and casting her eyes around the room, looking for escape.