A Hidden Fire: Elemental Mysteries Book 1 (11 page)

Giovanni decided to shock him, just for good measure.  Carwyn hissed when he felt the sharp sizzle course through his body. 

“Damn it, Sparky!” he yelped.  “Not fair.”

“Yield?”

“Of course, you bloody Italian, I yield.  Now let me up.”

Giovanni stood with a grin, holding his hand out to his old friend who scowled at him and grabbed it in a harder grip than strictly necessary.  Carwyn walked over to the couch to retrieve the vase. 

“See?  Not a scratch.  I was an expert archer, you know.”  He pulled back an arm as if aiming an arrow and sighted Giovanni with one blue eye.  “Sired in my prime.”

“Archery does not translate to tossing Vietnamese ceramics, you idiot,” Giovanni scowled and dusted off the vase before setting on its stand.  “And where is your dog?  It better not be digging anything up.”

Carwyn shrugged his broad shoulders.  “I’m sure he is.  So, where’s the new blood?”

Giovanni nodded to the top of the stairs.

Carwyn looked to the top of the landing where Caspar stood, looking on in amusement.  Beatrice peeked out from behind him, her dark eyes taking in the clearly immortal being now standing in the entryway. 

The new vampire almost tripped up the landing, his wild auburn hair flying and a grin overtaking his face as he peeked at Beatrice, who was still hiding behind Caspar. 

“Now, Cas, tell her I won’t bite, will you?”  Carwyn grinned and shot a wink at her.  Beatrice stepped out from Caspar’s shadow to examine Giovanni’s friend more carefully. 

Carwyn stuck out a hand.  “Father Carwyn ap Bryn, my dear.”

Beatrice shook it tentatively, her small hand dwarfed by the mountain of a man in front of her.  “Father?” she asked skeptically. 

He winked at her before bending to press a kiss her delicate fingers.  “Indeed.”  Carwyn brought her hand up, suddenly twisting it to sniff her wrist.  “No wonder you wanted to hire her, Gio.”  Carwyn smirked and cocked an eyebrow.  “She smells delectable.”

Giovanni caught Beatrice’s quick gasp as he climbed the stairs.  Caspar was chuckling and trying to shove Carwyn toward the library, and Beatrice hung back, her face flushed with embarrassment and her hand still caught in the Welshman’s grip. 

“Give her hand back, old man,” Giovanni muttered in a voice only an immortal would hear. 

Carwyn growled a little and shot him a look, but let Beatrice’s hand drop and walked into the library with Caspar.  Giovanni stepped onto the landing, observing Beatrice’s reaction carefully.  Her heart rate was rapid, but there was no smell of adrenaline in the air, so he knew she wasn’t afraid.  Nevertheless, he approached her cautiously. 

“He’s harmless, really.  Far more harmless than me.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him.  “Really?  Tell that to your vase.”

He chuckled and, reassured of her mood, placed a hand on the small of her back to lead her into the library where Caspar was pouring a drink from a crystal decanter, and Doyle was hissing at the large Welshman who shoved him out of his favorite chair. 

“It’s raining out there, Gio.  I come to your place to escape the rain, for heaven’s sake.  I get enough of this at home.”

Giovanni was curious what Beatrice would make of one of his oldest friends.  Though Carwyn was a priest, he rarely wore any kind of uniform, preferring to dress himself more like a surfer than a man of the cloth when he visited the United States. 

He removed his soggy coat and hung it on the back of his chair, revealing a garish shirt with scantily clad hula girls dancing across the back.  He must have caught Beatrice’s stare, because he only smiled again and sat down, reaching for the drink Caspar held out to him. 

“Thanks, Cas.  We don’t
have
to wear black, you know.”  He nodded toward Giovanni, who had shown Beatrice to the small couch in front of the fire and sat down next to her.  “This one does it because he thinks it makes him look dashing, or he really is that boring.  Haven’t figured that one out.”

“I vote boring,” Caspar quipped.  “God knows I’ve tried to break him out of his shell.”

“Though,” Carwyn shrugged.  “Look at the girl, Cas.  Perhaps he’s met his match in the black wardrobe department.”

“Thanks,” Beatrice finally piped in. 

He winked at her.  “Great boots, my dear.  Do you ride motorcycles?  And if not, would you like to?”

Giovanni leaned into the back of the couch, stretching his arm casually behind Beatrice, unable to completely turn off his territorial instincts around another vampire, even his old and trusted friend. 

“You’re early, Father.  Everything all right in Wales?” he asked nonchalantly. 

The sharp glint in the Welshman’s eye told him they would be having a more private discussion once the humans left, and tension made the blood begin to move in his veins.  He instinctively moved closer to Beatrice, who was listening to a story Carwyn had begun relating about one of their more outrageous exploits in London in the late 1960s when Caspar had been much younger. 

The three friends took turns making the girl laugh with their wild tales and quick, needling humor, and Giovanni took a strange kind of delight in the amused expression that lit Beatrice’s face every time Caspar or Carwyn told a story that proved to be embarrassing to him.  He simply shrugged and took another sip of his whiskey. 

After a couple of hours, he noticed Beatrice’s eyes begin to droop, and she nestled a little more into his side on the small sofa.  He pushed aside the urge to reach down and run a hand along her hair.  “Caspar,” he asked quietly, “could you drive Beatrice home, please?”

She sat up, as if surprised by Giovanni’s question.  She glanced at her watch, not realizing it had been pressed into his leg and was now dead. 

She shook it for a second then glared at him in annoyance. 

He shrugged.  “I’ll buy you a new one tomorrow.”

“Yes, you will.  I’d appreciate a ride home, Cas, it must be late.”

“I’d be happy to drive you.  Let these two old men catch up on their secret vampire business without us.”

She chuckled, having no idea how true the statement was.  “I’m surprised my grandma hasn’t called already.”  She yawned and stretched as she stood, treating Giovanni to a glimpse of the smooth skin at her waist.  He shifted slightly, looking away as she stepped over his long legs. 

Gathering her bags from the desk she used, she quickly followed Caspar out of the library. 

“Good night, everyone.  I’ll see you on Wednesday, Gio.  Carwyn,” she smiled, “very interesting meeting you.”

“Likewise, B.  I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”  The Welshman stretched his long legs in front of him and batted away the cat as they listened to Caspar and Beatrice walk down the stairs.  Only when they had both heard the kitchen door slam shut did Carwyn turn to Giovanni with a grim look on his face. 

“Heard from your son lately?”

Chapter Eight

Houston, Texas

December 2003

B
eatrice and Charlotte stared at the letters Dr. Christiansen spread out on the table like a proud father. 

“This could be the start of a very exciting new collection, ladies.”

“I have to confess, even though they’re thematic orphans in our collection, they are so damn cool,” Charlotte murmured as she examined the old parchment. 

“How old are they?” Beatrice asked. 

The grey-haired director set the letters down on the table in the reading room and pulled out a sheaf of notes from his briefcase.  “They’ve been dated to 1484.  A very important year in the Italian Renaissance—really, what some would consider Florence’s golden age.  It was before Savaranola, and there was a blossoming of art, philosophy, classical studies—”

“James, we know what the Italian Renaissance is,” Charlotte remarked. 

“Well…” The academic blushed a little.  “It’s a very exciting pair of letters.  The translation was done at the University of Ferrara, and the letters were authenticated there as well.”

“Is Renaissance Italian much different from modern Italian?” Beatrice asked, wishing, as she often did, that her father were still around to see some of the treasures she came across in her work.

“Somewhat, but we don’t have to worry about that.  Professor Scalia is practically chomping at the bit to take a look at them, and he’s an expert in the language.  I suspect the whole of the history department, classics department, and the philosophy department will be our very eager visitors for quite some time.”

“Philosophy department?” Beatrice asked, still examining the well-preserved letters on the table.  She couldn’t help but admire how clean the edges of the parchment were.  They look liked they had been preserved by a professional archivist when they were first written. 

“Oh yes, the letters are written from Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, a notable philosopher, to his friend, Angelo Poliziano, who was a scholar and poet in Florence.  The two men had quite a correspondence and were known to be part of a close group of friends, all great thinkers and some quite controversial.  Indeed, one of their circle was Savonarola himself.”

“The crazy priest that burned all the books?” Beatrice asked. 

Charlotte chuckled.  “There was a lot more to him than that.  He was a fascinating individual, despite the bonfires.”  She looked over at Dr. Christiansen.  “Do the letters mention Savonarola?”

“Only briefly.  Feel free to take a look at the translations.  They’re mainly personal letters.  Pico spends some of the first letter talking about an orphan—or an illegitimate child of some sort, either is likely—that Poliziano had found in Florence; Pico had taken the child into his house.  The count had no children of his own.  The first letter is mostly discussing the boy’s education, but there is some mention of Poliziano introducing Pico to Lorenzo de Medici for the first time, and that is very significant.”

Beatrice stared at the document, examining the curl of the ancient script and the old, yellowing parchment. 

“Firenze, 1484

Caro Giovanni ...”

1484
, she thought.  Was it a coincidence? 
Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
.  She shook her head.  It was ridiculous to think he would have kept the same name for over 500 years. 

A faint memory of their meeting at the museum stirred in the back of her mind. 

“All the men in my family are named Giovanni.”

“Well, ladies, much to do today!  We’ll have to enjoy these treasures later.  Charlotte, how are the preparations for the History of Physics exhibit coming?”

Charlotte and Dr. Christiansen began discussing the exhibit the department was helping curate the following month, and Beatrice packed away the recently acquired documents and wandered back to the stacks to set the Florentine letters in the spot Dr.  Christiansen had mentioned to her earlier.  He seemed to think that more of the historical correspondence might be given to the university in the future. 

Beatrice wondered again who the generous anonymous donor could be, and why exactly he had chosen a relatively obscure state university in Texas to be the recipient of such a generous gift.  Thinking about the strange turn her life had taken in the previous two months, she wondered where to draw the line between coincidence and calculation.

She went about her duties preoccupied with the mysterious letters, finally escaping to the stacks that afternoon to examine them and look over the translation of the first letter.

Most of it detailed the new addition to the Pico household, a boy of seven named Jacopo, who the Count adopted and intended to educate.  It sounded like he was the illegitimate child of one of the Pico brothers, though the letter didn’t say which.

One passage seemed to leap from the page:

“Lorenzo has mentioned you several times since your visit with him.  He was amused by your sometimes outrageous statements; and I believe, were you to find yourself back in Florence anytime soon, he would be most delighted to continue your acquaintance.”

Wow,
she thought,
Lorenzo de Medici. Lorenzo the Magnificent.
  Could Giovanni have met him?  If he was really over five hundred years old, it was possible.

There was mention of city gossip: a strange man named Niccolo Andros, something about Lorenzo’s children, and finally, a mention of some sort of scandal Pico was involved in with a married woman.

That brought a flush to her cheeks, and she set the notes down.  It was hard not to imagine a woman being attracted to Giovanni.  Despite his brusque demeanor, she still couldn’t seem to help the growing attraction she had to the vampire.

She read the letter four times, making notes and jotting down names and dates.  She examined the second letter, but decided to do some research on the two men before reading it.  She had little background in the Italian Renaissance, and the person she knew was most knowledgeable was the one person she couldn’t ask.  She snorted as she imagined how the conversation would go:

“Oh, hey, Gio.  Do you happen to be a fifteenth century philosopher named Giovanni Pico? Oh, and what does all this have to do with my father, by the way?

“Please go back to searching through endlessly boring auction catalogues, Beatrice.  I’m far smarter than you are and too stuck-up to answer your questions.  Also, I’m very good-looking and can get away with being an asshole.”

Beatrice sighed and slipped the notes into her messenger bag.  She would have time to go online at home after she took her grandmother to dinner with her friends that night. 

“Beatrice, you must get a picture of Giovanni for the girls!”

She scowled at her grandmother’s voice from the kitchen as she finished putting on her make-up for their night out.  Isadora and her closest friends had kept a long-standing dinner engagement every Tuesday night for as long as she could remember.  It used to be the time that Beatrice and her grandfather would spend in his workshop or watching old horror movies together, but since his death she had joined her grandmother for the weekly outings. 

At first, it was simply so she wouldn’t feel the aching loss of her grandfather, but now she enjoyed the evenings with the interesting group of women. 

“Grandma, I’m not going to ask my boss for a picture to show your friends.  It’s embarrassing.”

“But he’s so handsome!  Maybe with your phone camera?”

“No!  That’s creepy.  I don’t think he likes getting his picture taken anyway.”

Probably not a good idea when you’ve been around for over 500 years
, she thought as she lined her eyes in black. 

“Well, it’s very exciting.  You must tell everyone about the thrilling book mysteries you’re helping to solve now.”

Beatrice snorted.  “I’ve been searching online auction catalogues for a single document for almost a month, Grandma.  It’s not as glamorous as it sounds.”

“Still,” Isadora smiled as she walked into the bathroom to check her hair in the mirror.  “The library sounds beautiful.  Can you imagine how jealous your father would be?  He’d be so proud of you.”

Beatrice fell silent as she thought about her father.  She’d been reluctant to bring him up to Giovanni since the night she agreed to work for him, still unsure of what the vampire really wanted with her.  Though she’d been reassured by meeting Caspar, she still had the uneasy feeling that there was a lot about Giovanni Vecchio she didn’t know.

And maybe a lot she didn’t
want
to know. 

“Always be grateful for unexpected opportunities, Mariposa.  You never know where a job like this might lead.”  Isadora turned and patted her granddaughter’s cheek.  “Imagine what exciting things might be in your future!”

Beatrice sighed.  “It’s just a research job, Grandma.  But it’s a good one, and I have no complaints about my boss.  He’s demanding, but it’s not anything I didn’t sign up for.”

“You said he has an interesting friend visiting from overseas?  Who is he?  Is he a book dealer as well?”

She grinned when she thought of Carwyn.  Since their meeting, the unusual priest had charmed her, although she didn’t know what to make of him at first.  He looked like he had been turned in his thirties, but had the personality and humor of a teenager.  He wore the ugliest Hawaiian shirts she had ever seen, but still seemed to attract more than his share of female attention when he and Giovanni had visited the library together. 

He was as boisterous as Giovanni was taciturn, yet the friendly affection between them was obvious and she had started to see a slightly softer side to the aloof vampire.  

“No, Carwyn’s not a book dealer; he’s a priest of some sort.  He’s Welsh, I think.  I guess he usually comes out this time of year.  I think they’re working on a project together.”

“Well, that sounds lovely.  It’s so nice to have friends with the same interests.”

Like drinking blood, avoiding electronic equipment, and staying out of sunlight so you don’t burn to a crisp,
she mused silently as she pulled her long hair into a low ponytail. 

She grabbed her purse and helped Isadora to the car.  Her grandmother immediately began texting her friends that they were on their way and Beatrice took advantage of the silence to think about the past week. 

The two vampires had been working on something they didn’t want anyone to know about; she was sure of it.  Carwyn had come to the library with Giovanni the previous Wednesday, but they spent more time speaking in furtive whispers than they had transcribing characters for the mysterious Tenzin.  When she went to the house on Thursday the odd mood had continued. 

Even Caspar seemed out of the loop, and she had no idea what they would hide from someone they seemed to trust so much.  Giovanni had been secretive before, and Carwyn’s appearance seemed to have done nothing but intensified his mood. 

Their veiled references to their friend in China also caught her attention.  She knew Tenzin was another immortal that had been friends with them for presumably hundreds of years, but anytime her name was mentioned an odd sense of foreboding fell over the two men. 

“Oh, Beatrice, there it is!”

She brushed her concerns away when she spotted the small restaurant where her grandmother’s three closest friends were waiting outside.  As she pulled into the parking lot, her grandmother waved like a school girl and Beatrice smiled, wondering for the thousandth time why she couldn’t be more like her grandmother when it came to making friends. 

Beatrice hadn’t always been antisocial.  When she was younger, she’d had lots of friends.  Even after her father died, she’d been a happy child, wrapped in the comfort of her grandparents’ home.  It wasn’t until the summer she had seen her father again that her social life began to collapse.  It had never really recovered.

She tried to shove back the bitterness that reared its head when she thought about the cause of her depression.  The self-destructive choices she’d made still haunted her at times.  During that dark period, she mostly found solace in books.  Never an avid reader before, she pulled herself out of depression by escaping into the other worlds books offered.

She realized it probably wasn’t the healthiest way to cope, but between the library and her grandfather, she had managed to make it through high school.  After that, she had buried herself in her college studies, and it wasn’t until she’d begun working at the university library that she felt like she found her niche. 

“B, honey, you just look more gorgeous every time I see you!” she heard her grandmother’s friend, Sally Devereaux, call across the parking lot.  Sally was the epitome of a Texas matriarch, complete with the requisite giant hair, heavy twang, and big personality.  The others in the group, Marta Voorhies and Laura Gambetti, were quieter.