A Hidden Fire: Elemental Mysteries Book 1 (4 page)

Beatrice let out a breath, oddly disturbed by their conversation.  After another half an hour, he stood and began to pack up his materials to leave. 

She watched him in amusement, his deliberate movements somehow reminding her of her late grandfather when he came home from work for the day.  She flashed for a moment to the image of her Grandpa Hector emptying his pockets and setting his old-fashioned pocket watch on the dresser in her grandparents’ room. 

Beatrice walked over to collect the manuscript and return it to the locked stacks.  By the time she came back, she caught only a glimpse of Giovanni as he rushed out the door with a quick, “Goodnight, Beatrice,” called over his shoulder.

She watched him walk out the door with an admiring look, reminded again that there was nothing haphazard about the way Dr. Giovanni Vecchio moved.  He walked with a fluid and silent grace that seemed as effortless as it was swift. 

Beatrice exited the room a few moments after him, locking up behind her and making sure all the lights were off.  She no longer expected to see him waiting for the slow elevator, and she thought she heard the click of the stairwell door as it closed down the darkened hall. 

“Five flights of stairs?” she wondered quietly.  “No wonder he has such a great ass.”  The elevator dinged just as she pushed the button to go down. 

Chapter Three

Houston, Texas

October 2003

“
G
oing out this evening?”

Giovanni looked up from buttoning his shirt to see Caspar standing at the door to his large suite of rooms on the third floor of the house.  The heavy drapes were still drawn to protect the room from the setting sun, but Giovanni was feeling uncharacteristically light as he finished his evening preparations. 

“Yes.”  His voice was clipped, but cheerful, as he answered.  “Daylight savings time, Caspar.”

Though most of his existence without sunlight did not bother him, Giovanni did envy the mortal freedom of movement during daylight hours.  Thus, the short days of winter and the early dark was always something he considered cause for celebration. 

Caspar chuckled at the boyish excitement on his friend’s face.  He went to hang the dry cleaning in the large walk-in closet at the back of the room. 

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” he sang, while instinctively dodging the balled up socks Giovanni threw at him.  A large grey cat sitting quietly in the corner of the bed unfolded itself and went to investigate the socks. 

“Still a smart ass,” Giovanni chuckled. 

“Still a dark and twisted demon of the night,” Caspar retorted as he hung the pressed shirts on the racks. 

He grinned.  “Don’t tell the priest.”

Caspar looked over in surprise.  “Is Carwyn coming to town?”

Giovanni nodded and bent to tie his charcoal grey shoes.  “December, most likely.  He said he’ll make a proper visit and stay for a few months.”

“Excellent,” Caspar replied.  “I’ll make sure his rooms are ready for him.”

“I think he’s bringing one of his beasts, as well.”

The cat curled around Caspar’s legs and chirped until he reached down to stroke its thick grey fur. 

“Sorry, Doyle.  I guess you’ll have to sleep inside for a bit while the wolfhound is in town.”

Doyle made his displeasure known by lifting his tail and leaping back onto the bed. 

Giovanni glanced at the cat as it tiptoed across his pillows.  “Make sure the gardeners check the fences, as well.  I know his dogs are well-trained, but I’d hate to have one wander off like last year.  Also, prepare them for the massacre that will no doubt ensue in the flower beds.”

“Of course.”  Caspar paused, quietly observing his friend’s evening preparations and looking at his watch to check the time.  “It will be pleasant to see him for a longer visit this time.  More like the old days.”

“Yes, it will.”  He trailed off, his mind already darting to his agenda for the evening. 

Caspar noted his friend straightening the collar of his white shirt.  “You shouldn’t wear white, you know.  It washes you out, and you’re already pale as a corpse.”

Giovanni frowned and turned to him.  “Funny.  You’ve been watching the English women again, the ones with the clothing show, haven’t you?”  He shook his head in mock sorrow
tsk’
ing his friend as he looked in the mirror, trying to tame his hair. 

Caspar sighed.  “I can’t help it.  Their sardonic British humor and impeccable fashion sense lures me in every time.  I do love an ironic woman.”

Giovanni snorted and turned, grabbing his black coat from the chair by the dressing table and checking it for cat hair.  “When was the last time you had a date with a woman who wasn’t on the television?”

“Six months.  When was the last time you did?”

“Last week.”  Giovanni shrugged on his jacket, satisfied it was free of grey fur. 

Caspar scowled.  “That doesn’t count and you know it.”

Giovanni walked toward the door, chuckling.  “That didn’t seem to be her opinion, or at least, she wasn’t complaining.”

Caspar listened to his steps recede down the hallway and turned to Doyle.  He looked into the cat’s thoughtful copper-colored eyes.  “It doesn’t count if they can’t remember, Doyle.”

Doyle looked at Caspar critically, curled into a ball, and began purring on Giovanni’s pillow. 

“Last week?” Caspar muttered as he left the room, turning out the lights behind him.  “More like thirty years.”

Giovanni walked down the stairs, pausing to grab his car keys from a drawer in the kitchen before he walked into the dim light of the evening.  Unwilling to waste the dark, he sped over surface streets, hoping to reach his destination before closing. 

When he pulled the Mustang into the parking spot near the University of St. Thomas, he looked at the clock on the dashboard of his car.  He only had fifteen minutes left before the chapel closed, so he strode across the green lawn and headed toward the octagonal brick building which housed Mark Rothko’s black canvases. 

As he entered the deserted chapel he had not been able to visit in months, he nodded at the docent, bypassed the various books of worship near the door, and took a seat on one of the plain wooden benches.  He quieted his mind and allowed his senses to reach outward as he stared at the seemingly static paintings that lined the white walls. 

His skin prickled in awareness of the lone human by the door.  He allowed himself to concentrate on the solid beat of the man’s heart as his ears filtered the myriad noises flowing in and around the small building. 

Giovanni’s eyes rested on the black canvas in front of him.  The longer he stared, the more the texture and subtle swirls of paint leapt out from its depths.  No longer merely black, the paintings whirled and grew, taking on dimension never noticed by the casual observer. 

He sat completely still and let his soul rest in the simplicity of the quiet room.  Too soon, he heard the guard’s heartbeat approaching.  He stood and turned, not willing to have his peace interrupted by the words of the docent asking him to leave. 

As he exited the chapel, he saw the cover of the Holy Bible sitting on the shelf by the door.  He was reminded of his phone call that afternoon with one of his oldest friends. 

“I’m coming for a visit,” the priest had informed him.  “A proper one.”

“Out of whiskey or deer?”

“Neither, Sparky.  You’re getting in one of your moods again, I can tell.”  Carwyn’s Welsh accent tripped across the phone line. 

“Oh, you can tell from across an ocean?  You must be old,” Giovanni quipped in the library as he spoke on the old rotary phone.  “I don’t need last rites yet, Father.”

“No, but you do need a bit of fun.  That’s why I’m interrupting my very busy drinking and eating regimen to come for a visit.”

“Has Caspar been tattling on me again?  Irritating child.  And I’m not getting in a mood.”

“Just the way your voice sounds right now tells me you’re already in one,” Carwyn lectured him all the way from his remote home in Northern Wales.  “I’m coming for a visit, and I’m bringing one of the dogs.  Lock your demon cat up.”

“I have a project going right now.”  He attempted to distract his friend as he stared at the flickering candle on his desk, repeatedly passing his fingers through its flame.  The fire leaned toward him, dancing in the still air of the library.  “And Caspar’s cat is not a demon.”

“The cat is yours; and you know it’s far more demonic than we are.  I’ll not have it sleeping on my head again.”

“It’s not like you can suffocate.”

“No, but I can get cat hair up my nose, which is not a pleasant way to wake up.  What’s your project?”

“Do you remember the job I did for that London banker about five years ago?” Giovanni lifted his fingers, pinching the air and drawing the candle flame upward. 

“Not really, you know I find most of that dreadfully boring.”

“It was a Dante thing.”

“Oh yes, the Dante thing.  Not much, I remember you mentioning it, that’s all.”

“Mmmhmm.  There was an expert I heard rumors about—one of us.  He was young but sounded like he was worth tracking down.  In the end, I couldn’t find him.  Didn’t need him anyway, but a mutual acquaintance mentioned a Boccaccio manuscript he had.”  Giovanni let the flame grow to a foot tall before he began manipulating it to curve and twist before his eyes. 

“How very fascin—”

“It was a rare copy.  Florentine.”

“Why is this interesting to me?”

“Because I think it was one of mine.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“From your library?”

“Yes.”

“Who was he?”

“An American, turned in Italy around ten years ago while he was there working.  I looked for him, but he vanished quite admirably.”

“What does this have to do with your project?”

“I think I may have met the Dante expert’s daughter at the library where I’ve been doing that transcription for Tenzin.”

He would have chuckled at the sudden silence on the phone, but he was distracted by the perfect circle the flame formed.  It reminded him of the ancient symbol of a snake eating its tail.  It bent to his will, turning continuously in front of his eyes as he waited for Carwyn’s response. 

“That’s quite a coincidence.”

“It would be, if either of us believed in coincidence,” he murmured as he let the flame unfurl and return to its home at the tip of the candle, shrinking until it was no larger than his fingertip. 

“How would anyone newly sired have access to your library?  The rumors have swirled for years, but there’s been no actual proof.”

“Yet I am in Houston.  And if I’m correct, I met the daughter of an immortal who was rumored to have a book I haven’t seen for over five hundred years.”

“What do you think—”

“I don’t know what to think right now, Father.  I need more information.  I’ve already sent a letter to Livia.  As for the girl?  I’m proceeding as if it’s of no consequence at the moment.  She’s…interesting.”

“’Interesting’?  I can’t remember the last time—”

“Did you know daylight savings time started this week?  I’ll be able to visit the museum again.”

“Your phone manners are abysmal, Gio.  It’s not polite to interrupt someone, you know, even if you’re not in the same room.”

Giovanni smirked into the darkened room.  “I knew what you were going to say, and I didn’t want to talk about it.  They’re hosting a lecture next week at the museum about Dali, I—”

“What a fascinating subject change.  We’re going to forget about the daughter?”

He smiled at the priest’s interruption.  “For now, yes.  I see her every week at the library.  I even saw her last night.  So far, nothing leads me to believe she knows anything about our kind, which means her father, if he is the immortal I want, hasn’t been in contact.  So, there’s nothing to be done at the moment.  I need to investigate more.”

“Fine.  Let me know when the pieces move.”

Giovanni paused, staring into the turning flame in front of him.  “Maybe they won’t.  Maybe it is just a coincidence.”

Carwyn’s voice was soft when he replied, “Do you really believe that?”

“No.”

“Dr. Vecchio?” a familiar voice asked.  “What are you doing here?”

He turned, surprised to see Beatrice De Novo standing in front of a Leger painting in one of the contemporary rooms; an older woman standing next to her.  The young student’s typical uniform of black was broken by the deep red shirt she wore and demure black flats replaced her combat boots, as he thought of them. 

“Beatrice?  How unexpected to see you here.”  He wasn’t sure why seeing her at the museum caught him off guard.  It was a popular destination for students, and he tried to convince himself it was purely serendipitous she was here on the evening after he had been speaking about her.  “A pleasant surprise, of course.”

The older woman looking at the Leger painting turned, and he saw the history of Beatrice’s slight accent in front of him as he examined the older woman.  Spanish blood seemed dominant in her handsome features, and he looked into a pair of clear green eyes.  She smiled and took Beatrice’s arm. 

“¿Es el profesor guapo, Beatriz?”

Her accent, he noted, was educated, and from the Guadalajara region of Mexico. 

Beatrice laughed nervously at her grandmother’s question.  He smiled, happy that the girl had referred to him as ‘the handsome professor.’  Blushing, she smiled at Giovanni.  “Dr. Vecchio, this is my grandmother, Isadora.”