The Elemental Mysteries: Complete Series (149 page)

“What? He... he’s—”

Carwyn stepped in and put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “He’ll be fine. We’re going to get him out. It’ll just be—”

Ben shot out of his seat; anger spread across his face. He stalked over to Tenzin. “Where the hell have you been, Tenzin? If you were here, this wouldn’t have happened!”

Beatrice rose. “Ben, she was working on—”

“What does it matter if you find Lorenzo if Gio gets killed? Don’t you care about him?”

Tenzin said nothing, staring at the boy through her dark curtain of hair.

Ziri spoke quietly from the other side of the library. “Lorenzo is here, Benjamin. He’s working with Livia. He’s the reason your uncle was taken.”

Ben eyes darted between Ziri and Beatrice. He looked back at Tenzin. Beatrice could see his anger flee. “Is it true?”

Tenzin only nodded; she stiffened when Ben threw his arms around her. Tenzin waited for a moment, but finally lifted her small arms and hugged the young man back. Beatrice could hear Ben whisper, “Get him back, Tenzin. Please, get him back.” Then he spun on his heel and rushed out of the library. Beatrice could hear him climb the stairs to his room.

They spoke about details for a few more hours. Ziri asked for the use of a bedroom with a desk and some paper to write a few letters. Beatrice was still confused about what, exactly, his part in all this was. She got the impression that there was a lot that Ziri wasn’t telling them. She also got the impression he was waiting for the mysterious Lucien Thrax, who Tenzin thought would wake a few hours after dark. Beatrice was still confused why such an old vampire needed so much sleep.

Matt had already been on the phone with Emil Conti’s people, arranging a meeting with Carwyn and their boss for the following night. Dez and Tenzin were talking about the details of the Bulgarian cosmetics company.

And Beatrice felt lost.

Finally, she realized she would be useless for anything until she could spend some time alone. She climbed the stairs to their room, only to find Ben sitting outside on the floor by the door. He looked up with red eyes.

“I know you usually don’t let anyone in your room, but—”

“Come in.”

Beatrice unlocked the door and she and Ben entered. She fought back the tears when she saw the rumpled bed Giovanni hadn’t made because they were rushing to get ready for the party the night before. A damp towel was tossed on the floor by the couch. She picked it up and inhaled the distinctive smoky smell of her mate’s skin a moment before she crumpled to the floor.

She felt Ben’s hands lifting her and pulling her to the couch. He grabbed a linen handkerchief from his pocket. He had taken to always carrying them, just like his uncle. He joked that it impressed the girls.

“I need to calm down,” she whispered, patting the bloody tears from her eyes. “He needs me to be thinking straight. To be calm and smart and—”

“It’s okay, B. It’s just us, okay?” She could hear the hitch in his voice. “For right now, it’s okay. It’s just me.”

She sniffed and tried to remember when Ben had grown up. It had happened without her even realizing it. The young man threw an arm around her shoulders, and Beatrice allowed herself to lean into him. Ben rocked back and forth, comforting his aunt and sniffing back his own tears.

Beatrice looked over to their bed and knew that she would not lay in it again until her husband returned to her. Ben was murmuring comforting words in her ear, his arms tight around her shoulders. Beatrice finally let herself close her eyes and let go of the sorrow that she’d held back for hours.

Ben was right. It was just them.

Chapter Ten

Crotone

1504

He heard Andros’s heavy step in the hall. Jacopo looked up for a moment, but quickly returned to the translation of the Arabic manuscript he was working on. It was one that his father had rescued from the destruction of the Mongols in Baghdad.

The door swept open and Andros walked over and patted his shoulder. Jacopo heard Paulo follow, carrying a heavy trunk.

“Son, it is good to be home.”

“How was Rome?”

“As expected,” Andros said. “She grows more pompous every century. I can’t imagine why Livia thinks so much of herself when this detestable country is run by thieves, mad priests, and inbreeds.”

Jacopo glanced at Paulo, but the young man only rolled his eyes. Jacopo had been with Andros for almost ten years, Paulo even longer, and both the men were used to the unpredictable moods of the vampire.

A visit to Rome, however, only ever raised Andros’s ire.

“But the trip to Florence was a pleasure. The ugly sculptor finished his statue of David, and it was installed in front of the civic house while we were there. A true masterwork. A pity the human is so detestable in his form. Otherwise, he might be worth turning for his talent.”

Jacopo’s ears perked up. “You went to Florence?”

Andros only glanced at him. “We did.”

Jacopo waited. He had known for years that his uncle’s friend, Poliziano, had died only a few months after Giovanni Pico. Savaranola had met a gruesome end, along with most of his uncle’s collection of books and papers, during Florence’s descent into madness six years before. The only survivor of the four men who had raised him was the poet, Benivieni. But Andros was always careful to dole out only the information he wanted Jacopo to have.

“Benivieni is in good health, from what I heard.”

Jacopo kept his face carefully blank. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Andros began to unpack books and papers from the trunk Paulo had carried in.

“I have more translations for you to do if your current work is up to standard.”

“It is.”

He heard Andros chuckle. “Your confidence pleases me. And your Arabic is quite good. After you have turned, you will start your study of Sanskrit.”

Jacopo’s head jerked up. “After I have turned?”

Though Jacopo had known of his father’s intentions for years, he rarely mentioned it and never referred to it directly. It was implied—an eternal sentence that hung over Jacopo’s shoulders.

“Yes, you have been with me for ten years now. I have started to note some mild deterioration of your physical form. It is time.”

Jacopo’s heart raced, and he cursed internally, knowing that Andros could hear it. The old vampire looked up.

“Have you changed your mind? Would you prefer that I kill you, instead?”

Jacopo looked over Andros’s shoulder and saw the pathetic hope flair on Paulo’s face. He knew the young man wanted immortality in a desperate and hungry way. He also knew that Andros would never turn the young man, whom he considered “defective.” Jacopo forced himself to smile.

“And waste the fine education you have given me, Father? That would be a mistake, would it not?”

Andros watched him with careful eyes. “It would. But, I suppose, I could always find another student.”

Jacopo rose to his feet. In his late twenties, he was taller than his uncle had been, taller than Andros, and far taller than was common for most men of fifteenth century Italy. His shoulders had filled out, and the strict exercise regimen that Andros had forced on him had molded his body into perfect form. Jacopo looked at the ancient statues of demigods that Andros used to decorate the stone fortress where he resided, and he saw a mirror image of himself.

He gave his father an arrogant smile. “You could find another student, Father?” A cold smirk flicked across Andros’s lips as Jacopo continued, “You would never find another like me.”

Castello Furio

Rome, 2012

Giovanni’s eyes opened. For a moment, he was in his father’s fortress in Crotone, the cold, stone walls echoing the damp room he had woken in his last days as a human. He sat up into a crouch and eyed his surroundings.

The room where Livia’s guards had thrown him was surrounded by a thin fall of water, an effective counter to any of his elemental power, which also filled the underground chamber with a pervasive chill. He could heat his skin, but could do nothing to create a spark. The door had no handle, and the walls mimicked the diameter and shape of the tower where he had slept in apparent safety so many years before. In the back of his mind, he wondered if his current prison was built under the very tower that had sheltered him in Livia’s castle. He did not find it hard to imagine.

Though he could not use fire to escape the chamber, he had immediately tested the walls when he had been thrown in the night before. He sensed no weakness and no nearby energy signatures. Giovanni was completely isolated in the cold room. He could hear the rushing of an underground river somewhere close. No doubt, it fed the waterfall that trickled down the walls.

He wished he had fed the night before. He and Beatrice had planned to feed once they returned to Rome after the party, not trusting any of the blood that Livia would provide. Thinking about his wife made his blood rush, and he was more grateful than ever that Carwyn had accompanied them the night before. His friend would protect Beatrice. His mate would be safe.

He detected a familiar signature approaching, so he stood and braced himself against a stone pillar.

The door opened, and Livia strode in, tailed by two guards dressed in the same clothing that he remembered the vampires at the monastery wearing on the night they had slaughtered the monks and ransacked the library with Lorenzo. At least Giovanni finally knew who was backing his son.

She stood in front of him. Gone was any pleasant facade; her disgust lay plain on her face.

“I suppose you think you are quite safe because I was forced to take you in front of witnesses.”

He said nothing, but a small smile touched his lips.

“Your son changed my plans, but did not ruin them, you know. I will still kill you.”

Giovanni still said nothing. Livia smiled back at him and approached.

“You see, Giovanni, I will be very, very fair.” She reached up and ran a finger along his jaw. “I have spent two thousand years manipulating this city into thinking of me as its queen. I know exactly the words to use.” Her hand ran back and tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck.

“There may be some objections, at first. You have plenty of your own allies and a very honorable reputation. But by the time I cut your head off and throw it in the river that flows under this castle, all will think of you as a murderer and a liar. A thief of one of the greatest collections of knowledge our world has ever seen. A greedy vampire who would keep the best interest of our kind for his own profit.”

He opened his mouth to speak and saw her pause, waiting for the words of protest to leave his lips. She was waiting for him to object or defend himself.

Giovanni asked, “How is my wife?”

The flash of fury confirmed that Beatrice was, as he suspected, quite safe from the she-demon in front of him. Giovanni’s smile grew.

“I have no interest in your common wife. She may be seen by some as extraordinary, but it is not evident to me. A human of questionable breeding with little to no grace? I’m still wondering what you see in her.”

The impassive expression blanketed his face again.

“Lorenzo has expressed an interest in using her as a plaything once our plans are complete. I’ll most likely give her to him. She won’t be any use to me.”

Still, he let no expression flicker over his face.

Livia forced his head down and whispered in his ear.

“Let this all be a misunderstanding, my darling boy. Show me your contrition and I will let you live.” He felt her fangs flick along his earlobe. Giovanni reached back to his earliest memories and emptied himself of all emotion, as he had under his father’s sword.

“I would bear you no ill will. I, of all people, understood his temperament. His particular foibles were my friends for a thousand years. Let me free you of him once and for all. Confess to me, my Giovanni.”

He closed his eyes and pulled away, opening them to meet her gaze. Finally, he spoke in a soft voice. “Livia?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know what my father called you?”

Her eyes frosted over. Livia stepped back and pulled the sword from the belt of one of her guards. She ran it into Giovanni’s gut, but he only smiled. Even as the blood spilled out, he smiled.

“He called you the Roman whore, Livia.”

She reached back and pulled the other guard’s sword from his waist. He felt it pierce higher, closer to his heart as she ran the thin blade between his ribs. As his father taught him, he did not even flinch.

“The Roman whore,” he said again, feeling the pull of the blades against his skin and muscle. “That is what your dear husband called you in the privacy of our home.”

“I will kill you, Giovanni di Spada.”

He smiled. “My name is Giovanni Vecchio, son of Niccolo Andros. Mate of Beatrice De Novo. And you will not kill me.”

“Dead man.”

“Whore.”

She raised her hand and slapped him before grabbing a blade from his body and ramming it in again. Giovanni smiled, but said nothing more. She turned on her heel and strode from the room. The silent guards walked over, drew their weapons from his body, and left behind her.