Imitation and Alchemy: An Elemental Legacy Novella (7 page)

Norman
tarì
.

What was so special about these
tarì
that Alfonso would risk disrespecting Tenzin to get them back? Did Tenzin already know where they were? Is that why she’d gone to Switzerland?

Ben felt a twinge of jealousy that she’d abandoned him when he felt the bead of sweat roll down his temple. The beard and longer hair might have been a hit with the girls this summer, but he was tempted to find a barber and a razor that afternoon.

Instead, he went back to the hotel, drank two cold beers, and retreated to the shelter of his air-conditioned room for the remainder of the afternoon. When he emerged, the sun was down, the temperature had cooled, and a vampire wearing high-heeled boots was smoking a slim cigarette in the garden of his hotel.

Filomena smiled and blew out a thin stream of smoke. “You’re awake.”

Ben walked toward her. “So are you.”

She shrugged one lightly muscled shoulder and nodded toward the piazza. “Join me for a drink, will you?”

Ben cocked his elbow out and Filomena rose, her boots putting her just a hair taller than Ben as they walked.

“So, Benjamin Vecchio”—Filomena leaned into his side—“what is the adopted nephew of a famed assassin doing in my city with his uncle’s old partner?”

He really hated when Tenzin was right.

❂

FILOMENA smiled at him in the candlelight, careful to conceal her fangs even when she laughed. “Was yoga instructor her idea or yours?”

“What do you think?”

“I hardly know. I only know Tenzin by reputation.” She gave him another careless shrug. Such a human habit for an immortal. Did she do it out of true habit, or was it an affectation to put her prey at ease? Ben was drawn to her regardless.

They were sitting at a small table outside a quiet restaurant near the waterfront. The moon was high, reflecting off the Bay of Naples as shadowed ships bobbed in the distance. The waterfront was busy, but the restaurant she’d chosen was isolated down a small alley, which meant they didn’t worry about being overheard.

Ben said, “I think everyone knows Tenzin’s reputation.”

“Yes.” She sipped the red wine. A drop lingered on her lips before she licked it away. “Everyone does. And yet you were raised with her?”

Ben shook his head. “Not exactly. I only met Tenzin when I was sixteen.”

“A child.”

“Of a sort.”

Ben couldn’t remember ever feeling like a child. His earliest memory was of his parents in a fistfight, screaming at each other before his father threw his mother into a mirror. It was the sound of shattering glass and the taste of blood in his mouth that had stuck with him. His mother said a shard had sliced his lip. He still bore the tiny scar. And the rest of his “childhood” he simply tried to banish to the murky shadows of history.

“But what a childhood it must have been,” she said. “To be raised among legends.”

“What about your human life, huh?” He leaned forward, keen to take the attention off himself. “Do you remember… the Renaissance?”

Filomena laughed. “No.”

It was a game. Vampires were notoriously secretive about their origins. To reveal their age meant revealing their power. But guessing and riddles were fair game.

“Italian unification?”

“Oh yes,” Filomena said, her eyes flashing. “I remember that quite clearly.”

“Napoleon.”

“You’re getting closer,” she said, leaning a slim arm on the table, propping her chin in her palm. “You know I’m not going to tell you.”

“But you are from Naples.”

She smiled and he saw a hint of fang. “Define
Naples
.”

Ben gave her a good-natured growl and threw up his hands. “I give up.”

Filomena laughed. “You should know better, Benjamin Vecchio.”

“Ben,” he said. “Call me Ben.”

Dark brown eyes appraised him. “And did your friends warn you away from me, Ben?”

“Of course.” He leaned across the table until he heard her draw in his scent. He stared at her lips. “You may be a stunningly beautiful woman, but you’re also a lethal immortal enforcer, second to one of the most dangerous vampire lords in Italy.” He let the corner of his mouth turn up as he raised his eyes to hers. “And I am a mere yoga instructor. I’d be a fool to—”

The breath between them vanished when Filomena took his lips.

Hot
. Ben closed his eyes and took her mouth as she had taken his, raising his hand to cup the nape of her neck. His fingers tangled in her thick, caramel-brown hair.

Filomena heated her skin until it matched the flush of his own. She tasted of wine and chocolate and the indefinable taste that was all her own. A medley of scent and flavor and sensation. Her eyelashes brushed his skin as he eased away from her mouth and trailed his lips along the arch of her cheekbone. He followed the fragrance of her hair and the perfumed skin beneath her ear.

Filomena let out a low, satisfied purr and dragged her nails down his neck.

The sharp bite of pain brought Ben up short.

Blood rushed back to his head as he trailed firm kisses back along her chin and up to her mouth again, luxuriating in her taste and the softness of her lips.

Her fangs were fully aroused.

Ben drew away, gently biting her lower lip before he smiled. “You taste delicious.”

She blinked slowly. “And you are a cautious man.”

He cupped the side of her neck, brushing his thumb over where her pulse would beat.

If she were human. Which she wasn’t.

“Mmm,” he said on a sigh. “Sadly, I have to be. After all, a foolish yoga instructor wouldn’t last long in your world.”

“
My
world?” Filomena raised an eyebrow, clearly still enjoying their flirtation. “Is it not your world as well?”

“That’s an excellent question.”

“One you’re not going to answer.”

“It’s only our first bottle of wine, Filomena. We shouldn’t reveal all our secrets at once.”

“True.”

She shrugged his hand off her neck, so Ben let it fall to the back of the chair in a proprietary gesture that seemed to please the vampire, judging by the smile teasing the corners of her mouth.

“You’re bold.”

“Am I?”
That’s probably why I’m not dead already.

Lucky for him, she only smiled and leaned against it, willing to play his game for the night. “You’re also surprisingly good with your mouth. For a human.”

“Thanks. I got kissing lessons from a three-hundred-year-old French courtesan when I was a teenager. I think it helped.”

Filomena threw her head back and laughed loudly. She even wiped a pink tear from the corner of her eye before she asked, “Is that true?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

She narrowed her eyes, trying to find his tell, but Ben smiled innocently.
 

“What?”

“It’s a shame I cannot take you as a lover. I don’t think either of us would regret it.”

He let his eyes trace her mouth, the delectable cleavage she had bared for the evening, and the sweep of her long, muscled legs. “I think regret would be the last thing on my mind.”

“This life is long.”

He cocked his head. “Not for everyone.”

“All the more reason to seize the night.”

Ben shook his head and poured both of them more wine. “My friends were right. You are a dangerous woman.”

❂

Rome, one week later

BEN kicked the ball back to Enzo, the boy whooping in delight as he ran after it in the courtyard. His mother, Serafina, watched from the bench near the fountain where she chatted quietly with Fabi as Ben and Enzo killed time before Zeno rose for the night.

The old vampire had finally convinced the quiet woman to marry him the Christmas before, though Fina had protested they should wait until her son was grown. Ben was fairly sure his uncle would have a new immortal daughter once Enzo was an adult. Neither Fina nor Zeno had said anything, but Ben could see how devoted they were to each other. Plus they were both under Giovanni’s aegis and invaluable members of his staff.

Fina had brought herself and Enzo to join Zeno in Rome as soon as the boy had finished his school exams for the year. Now the three were residing in Residenza di Spada with Ben and Angie.

Angie, of course, was delighted. Especially since that gave her three human appetites to cook for. Four if you counted Fabi, who ate dinner with them most nights.

“So Fina”—Ben interrupted the women’s quiet conversation—“Zeno said you saw Tenzin at the library before she went north.”

“Only briefly,” Fina said. “I didn’t speak to her. I think she only sheltered for the day before she flew away. Though she did take a fifteenth-century manuscript on metalsmithing. Well, the copy of it. I only have a digital scan because the original resides in—”

“Metalsmithing?” Ben frowned.
Metalsmithing?
But why would Tenzin need a manual on medieval metalsmithing if she already knew where Alfonso’s cache…

Oh, Tenzin.

Shit
.

He should have known.

“Ben,” Fina continued, unaware his thoughts had wandered, “Zeno tells me that you and Tenzin are working for Alfonso in Naples. You are being careful, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” He kicked the ball back to Enzo just before Angie called the boy inside the house to wash up. Ben strolled over to the edge of the fountain and perched on the corner. “What do you know about him?”

“Well”—Fina’s prim voice made him smile—“it is rumored that he was part of the Bourbon court, but that is only a rumor. Like many things in Naples—well, and anything to do with immortals, if we’re honest—rumors of corruption have followed him over the years. Giovanni is fairly certain he was behind the library theft.”

Ben’s eyebrows rose. According to what he’d been able guess from subtle questions to Filomena, much of the unrest in the Neapolitan court was
because
of the library theft. Many of the richest immortals in Naples had lost personal collections that were both valuable and highly confidential. Ben suspected it was one of the reasons Alfonso had risked calling Tenzin.

So if Alfonso himself was somehow behind the theft and hiding it from his own people…

“How sure are you?” Ben asked. “That the theft is because of Alfonso?”

“Fairly sure,” Fina said. “Officially, the authorities arrested the former director of the library. He had very suspicious political connections, and some of the books that made it on the black market were traced back to him. But when I spoke to my friends familiar with the Girolamini Library, they were quite certain there was more to it than one man. There were portions of the collection that had never been catalogued. Parts they were unofficially told to ignore. That had been happening long before the former director came into his position.”

“But why would Alfonso want to steal his own people’s papers and collections?”

Fabi, who’d been listening silently, said, “Power? Paranoia? Didn’t your uncle say he was crazy?”

“Pretty sure Beatrice called him completely bonkers. Gio said something much more polite.”

Fina smiled. “That sounds correct. Naples is… Well, it is different. I have always liked the city, but it is unique. Why wouldn’t the immortal leader also be unique?”

“So if he was behind the theft…,” Ben muttered. “Fina, how much of the theft have you tracked?”

“We’re not tracking the whole theft. There’s no way. Emil Conti asked, but Giovanni said he would only take on individual clients with specific items. And only books, of course. Those who lost antiquities have to rely on the human authorities. And most of them…” Fina shrugged. “Well, you know how secretive vampires are. They won’t trust Italian police or Interpol.”

Ben said, “So if I’m a vampire who lost… a coin collection, let’s say”—Fabi shot eyes at him, but Ben ignored her—“you’re saying there’s no one like Gio who would track that down?”

Serafina shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. No one with your uncle’s reputation anyway. You could hire someone, but we’re speaking about priceless artifacts, Benjamin. Many of which would only be legends or rumors to human sources.”

“And”—a gruff voice broke into their quiet conversation as Zeno entered the courtyard—“we’re paranoid bastards.” He bent to press a hard kiss to Fina’s mouth. “Are you well this night, my love?”

“Yes, Zeno.”

“Good.”

Ben cleared his throat loudly, and Fabi kicked him. He ignored her.

“So Zeno, why don’t you think—?”

“How would one vampire trust another to retrieve an artifact for him or her without stealing it, eh?” Zeno sat next to Fina while she fussed with the collar of the shirt he’d obviously just tossed on. “Even if you did trust another vampire to find it, that immortal would be a target for the opportunistic ones. There are few vampires like your uncle who have trustworthy reputations
and
the ability to back up their word with power.”

“But Gio won’t look for anything but books.”