The Elemental Mysteries: Complete Series (179 page)

The ancient smiled. “Now you do.”

Beatrice watched Giovanni as he continued to drink from Saba’s wrist. “Are you really the oldest of us?”

“I think so.”

“Where do we come from, Mother?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes,” Beatrice whispered as she watched her mate. “It matters. The past matters.”

She heard Saba draw a deep breath. “I have spent thousands of years searching for wisdom. I know enough now to know that I will never know everything.”

“Does that mean you’ll stop looking?”

She chuckled. “Of course not. And neither will you.”

For the first time in weeks, she felt Giovanni’s heart give a quiet thump. Saba withdrew her wrist, then paused, looking at Beatrice. She held it out. “Daughter, do you need to be healed?”

Beatrice looked at her, then at Giovanni. His amnis was faint, but it was slowly creeping over his skin. She put her hand to his neck and felt the warmth return. His green eyes flickered open for a second, met hers, then shut as he gave a great sigh and fell into sleep again.

Beatrice smiled. “You’ve already healed me.”

Saba nodded with a smile. “I will rest with Lucien today. Your mate will wake at nightfall.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

She heard the door shut quietly, but she kept staring at Giovanni as the life returned to him. The warmth continued to spread over his skin. His hair, which had been completely burned off, began to grow before her eyes. First his eyelashes. His eyebrows. A faint stubble covered his jaw.

She felt an odd sensation under her fingertips and looked down. She couldn’t stop the smile when she realized that Giovanni had chest hair, probably for the first time in five hundred years. She bit her lip, then laughed and buried her face in his neck. His scent wasn’t exactly right, but his skin was warm. His amnis hummed, and she could feel the lively energy when she put her hands to his temples.

Beatrice laughed more. Then she curled into his side to wait until he rose.

When his eyes flickered open hours later, they immediately sought her own. She sat next to him, grinning down at his confused face.

“Where am I?” His voice was hoarse.

“At the house in Rome.”

He kept blinking, looking around. A curl of hair fell into his eyes, and he frowned in confusion.

“What happened, Tesoro?”

Beatrice leaned down and brushed the hair from his forehead, tangling her fingers in the curls. She traced the shell of his ear before she pressed her lips to his in a gentle kiss. His arms reached up and held her to his chest, and Beatrice could feel the slow, steady beat of his heart.

“You found your way back to me, Jacopo. That’s what happened.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Crotone

Spring 1509

“What is your name?”

He looked up from tightening the fastenings on his leather jerkin. His father was standing at the door observing him as he dressed in the fine traveling clothes he’d been given. Tonight, he would leave the cold stone fortress. He was no longer Andros’s student. He was his son. He no longer wore the clothes of a servant or the scraps of cloth he’d scrounged during his training. His jacket was richly embroidered, and his boots were made of the finest leather. His immortal body was strong and healthy. He had conquered the fire that burned within.

Andros stepped into the room and smiled at him. He asked again, “What is your name?”

The young vampire smiled back, amused by the old game his sire played. “Whatever I want it to be.”

“Why?”

“Because I am superior to mortals.”

Andros smiled at the rote answer and asked another question.

“Where is your home?”

“
‘Ubi bene, ibi patria.
’ Where I prosper is my home.”

“Do not forget.” Andros stepped close to him and put a hand on his cheek, smiling up at the child who towered over him. “Nothing endures, save us and the elements.”

The young vampire smiled, feeling a surge of warmth for his sire. “I remember, Father.”

Andros patted his cheek fondly before he stepped back and walked to the desk, paging through the books piled near his trunk. He carefully placed a few inside.

“You do need a name, though. You’ll be introduced as my son, but the name you choose is up to you. You need something other than your mortal name. It was a peasant name, and you are a prince.”

He ignored the old ache and pushed it aside. “I may choose it?”

“Of course.” His father shrugged. “Haven’t I taught you this? Your name is whatever you want it to be. Keep in mind that you will be introduced into the Roman court, so make sure it is something appropriate.”

Andros began listing names. Aristocratic names. Fine names that would be acceptable for a rich merchant’s son. A faint, human memory rose to his mind. The sweet burst of an apricot and the sound of trickling water in a stone fountain. He heard the buzz of bees in a summer garden and a woman’s tinkling laugh.

“Giovanni! My Giovanni, sing me a song.”

He could hear the echo in his mind. His uncle’s lover teasing in a laughing voice before she was joined by another, who sang a childish tune. A song about a cricket that made a small boy giggle.

“Giovanni!”
She laughed out his name.
“My love…”

The young vampire blinked and looked up. His father was staring at him with calculating eyes.

“My name will be Giovanni,” he said.

Crotone

December 2012

No one visited the cold stone building that jutted into the sea. Old women who passed by made the sign of the cross, and small children peeked at it from behind their parents’ legs. Daring boys climbed the rocks that surrounded it to impress their friends, but no one ventured inside except a lone caretaker who visited the old fortress every few months. He slipped in silently then left after a few hours. The heavy locks that hung in the door were always in good repair.

Giovanni walked down the rocky path leading to his birthplace. The sound of the sea filled his ears, and the salt spray tickled his nose. It was a clear night, and the black outline of Andros’s fortress rose ominously from the waves that rose and fell under the full moon. He walked to the front door, noting the broken lock, and pushed it open. Then he tucked his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and walked in.

He could feel the faint energy trace as soon as he entered. Giovanni took a deep breath and closed his eyes, then he followed the energy down the stone stairs. Down. Down. Until the damp walls around him pressed in and the haunting memories filled his mind. Childish voices seemed to echo off the walls.

“Paulo, give me back that book!”

He followed the hallway toward the ancient classroom, and he heard the mischievous laugh echo off the walls along with his steady footsteps.

“Cook says that I look like an angel.”

“Then I congratulate you on your deception.”

“She gave me a cake, too.”

“Perhaps I need to speak more sweetly to Cook.”

Giovanni turned the corner and passed by the room where his son had slumbered. He pushed it open, but he was not there.

“Will I ever be as tall as you?”

“I do not know. How tall was your father?”

“I never knew my father. I only remember Andros.”

He entered the cold classroom to see his son’s blond head bent over. Lorenzo was sitting in the center of the room, reading a book as the waves crashed against the stone walls.

Giovanni leaned against a stone pillar and watched him.

“What are you reading?”

Lorenzo looked up. “Virgil.
The Aeneid
. Book Four.” He straightened his shoulders and lifted the book. “‘But the queen, wounded by serious love, cherished the wound in her veins, and she was consumed by the hidden fire.’”

Giovanni stared at him. Lorenzo’s face was gaunt. The shining blond hair he had always been so proud of was limp and hung around his face. His clothes were torn and stained with blood.

“She was so bitter with hate,” his son said. “Maybe even more than me. It was easy to convince her that you had plotted to murder Andros.”

“So you told her that I used amnis on you? That I used you to kill him.”

“You
did
use me.”

“You wanted him dead, too.”

“I did.” Lorenzo nodded. “I did. And she always hated you. I saw it even when you didn’t. The way she looked at you when your back was turned. I knew it would not be difficult to fool her.” A loud wave smacked the rocks outside.

Giovanni asked, “Did she know about the book? Did she ever really know the truth about the elixir?”

“I don’t really know. She said that she did. When I went to her—after I knew what it was—she said that Andros had told her about it, but she thought it had been destroyed. She could have been lying. She was a good liar.”

“But you knew?”

“Not at first. I only knew that Andros valued that book. It was one of the reasons I took the library. I heard him questioning Ziri once when we were in Rome. I was young, but I remembered the old vampire. After he was gone, I looked for the book that Andros was asking about. I didn’t understand it. Not then, anyway.”

“But you took it. You took it all.”

“None of it would have been mine. All those years with him, and he would have given it all to you, his precious son.”

Giovanni ignored the ache in his heart. “But you convinced Livia that she was included in his plan.”

Lorenzo shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. I played to her vanity. Told her Andros wanted them to rule the world together. With a weapon like the elixir, they could have subdued their enemies. In a few years, after the effects had taken hold, every immortal leader would have been under their thumb. Even the ancients.”

Giovanni pulled a chair over and sat across from Lorenzo as the waves crashed up the walls. “It sounds like a plan Andros would have concocted. Nicely done.”

Lorenzo cocked an eyebrow. “She’s dead, of course. If you are here, then she is dead. She really was consumed by fire, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I suppose that is good.” Lorenzo sighed. “So all the secrets have come to light.”

“Not all.”

Lorenzo looked at him in surprise. “Not all?” Then he nodded. “Ah, the books. Of course, Andros’s library.”

“Where is it?”

His son shook his head and a bitter smile touched the corners of his lips. “Does your woman live, Father?”

“Yes.”

“How happy you must be. You have everything now. You always did.”

Giovanni’s heart twisted in pain. “I did not kill her, Paulo. I did not kill your woman.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he hissed.

“Yes, it does.”

“No, it—”

“I drank from her, yes. But it was Andros who snapped her neck. He heard she carried your child.”

He saw Lorenzo blink once before he spoke. His mouth opened, then closed again and he looked off into the distance, staring into the past.

“I had an irritating moment of clarity when we were in China,” Lorenzo said. “Do you know what it was?”

“No.”

“That infuriating Elder Lan asked me how many children I had sired.”

“I remember.”

Lorenzo looked up with a glare. “Do you know what my first thought was?
One
.”

Giovanni’s hands clenched in old anger. “Serafina’s child.”

“I sired one child. Her child.”

“Andros never would have allowed her to—”

“She asked me—the night before she died—she asked me to run away with her. To leave this place. I told her I had to think about it. I had to weigh my options.”

Giovanni took a deep breath of the salty air. He could hear the waves growing louder. “Would you have?”

Lorenzo shrugged again. “I like to think that I might have. In my sentimental moments, I think I would have run away. Started a new life. A normal one with her as a wife, raising our child.”

“That’s—”

“But I doubt it.” A sneer lifted his lip. “I have no illusions about who I am, Giovanni. Mortal or immortal. I am who I am. But you and Andros took the one thing that was
mine
. And I wanted revenge.”

“So you killed him, and I sired you. How long would you have waited to kill me?”

“I don’t know.”

“After I was dead, would that have been enough?”

The bitter smile spread. “No.”

“If Livia’s plan had worked? If you had ruled the world with her?”

“Not enough.”

“If you had forced Beatrice to take the elixir so she was your puppet. If you could have taken my lover as yours was taken from you… Enough?”

Lorenzo yelled, “It was never enough!
Nothing
could be enough!”

Giovanni shook his head. “Then you have been consumed by the fire just as Livia was.”