Imitation and Alchemy: An Elemental Legacy Novella (13 page)

“Yes, but—”

She took off again. Ben tried to make himself invisible while still keeping an eye on the fight.

It was clear that Filomena’s allies had come prepared. Most were cutting down Alfonso’s friends with quick chops and sweeping strokes from blades while many of Alfonso’s allies were unarmed. It was an ambush. Ben saw mostly European blades, but Filomena carried a katana, and Ben even saw a few battle-axes.

Retro.

A few took the time to feed from their enemies, but most of the carnage was practical. Cut down. Take head. Go for the next one.

The second vampire who attacked him tried to grab him from the side. She launched in Ben’s direction and latched on with all four limbs, slamming him to the ground before she attempted to dig in with clawlike fingernails. Ben twisted away, grappling with her superior strength while tossing away a butcher knife she’d stowed on her back.

He managed to roll far enough away to put a hard boot in her neck. The impact stunned her enough that Ben got in another couple of kicks before she hissed and ran away.

He crawled to another corner, dragging the damned briefcase with him. Tenzin was swooping over the heads of the fighters, one of the few air vampires in the room. Most of Filomena’s people were, like herself, water vampires. Isolated from easy access to their element, the battle was dirty and bloody and crude.

It was hard to tell how long it lasted. All Ben knew was, by the time the third vampire attacked, he was sick. The smell of blood was thick in the air; he could taste it on his lips. He saw the vampire running and aimed a throwing knife at one eye. He threw it, hit the target, then sent three more into the twitching body before he walked away. He hadn’t killed it, but it was on the ground and one knife had gotten close enough to the thing’s neck that Ben doubted it would chase him.

“Tenzin!” he shouted.

She landed a few minutes later, her face flushed like a child coming in from play. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Is the gold safe?”

“Yes.”

She frowned. “Then what’s wrong?”

His throat was tight. “Is this almost done? I want to turn over this gold, collect our fee, and go home. Unless someone else is planning to attack us.”

Tenzin’s eyes took a slow sweep around the room, then she poked her head around the corner and reported, “Filomena has almost killed Alfonso. I think this is close to done.”

Ben joined her, craning his neck around the pillar to see Filomena roar, her blouse drenched in blood, two swords in her hands. She whirled and struck at Alfonso, who parried with surprising speed. Alfonso had brute strength going for him, but it was clear who was the better swordsman. Filomena worked Alfonso across the dais until he was bent back over his throne.

“How does the throne feel now, you mad Spanish bastard?” Filomena screamed.

Alfonso tried to roll away, but she brought her blade down on his neck before he could escape. Unfortunately, the blade didn’t go clear through, and Alfonso’s head listed to the side but didn’t quite detach.

Ben winced and looked away.

“Unfortunate,” Tenzin said. “She hit him at a difficult angle. She’ll get it on the next—ah. Gone now.”

The roar of the crowd told him that Filomena’s allies clearly considered their side victorious. Since Ben didn’t know which bodies belonged to which side, he couldn’t judge just by looking at the carnage.

“We done now?” Ben said.

“I believe so.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against what was now his favorite pillar, his boot resting on the edge of the briefcase with all the gold tarì. A thought struck him. “Hey, Tiny?”

“Yes?”

“Was Alfonso the only one who ever saw the original coins?”

Tenzin leaned against the pillar next to him. “Other than me, I believe he was.”

“So there is now no one who’ll be able to…”

“Correct.”

He let out a slow breath. “Did you plan this out in advance?”

She shrugged. “Let’s just say that it was time for Naples to leap into the twenty-first century. We just gave it a little nudge.”

Ben heard Filomena giving some kind of inspirational speech in the background about the new Neapolitan republic and the end of foreign oppression as she stood over the bodies of the vampires she’d killed.

And Ben felt… exhausted.

He picked up the briefcase full of gold, handed it to Tenzin, and walked toward the stairs.

“Where are you going?” she called.

“Home.”

The problem was, Ben wasn’t quite sure where home was at the moment.

So he went to Tuscany.

Chapter Nine

THE HOUSE IN TUSCANY WAS out in the country, surrounded by olive groves and grapevines. The vines in midsummer were laden with thick-skinned purple fruit and lush green leaves. He walked through the vineyard during the day and ate the sweet, seedy grapes. He brought a blanket into the olive grove and lay in the afternoon shade, reading a book or napping. He ate sandwiches made from the bread and cheese he bought when he rode his old bike into town. He opened cans of salty sardines stored in the pantry and picked tomatoes from the garden the caretaker tended.

He drank a lot of wine.

When the sun set, Ben locked himself in his room and slept. He slept long and hard, and he tried not to think about blood or gold or pretty girls with deadly fangs. He stayed in the primitive wing of the house with no electricity and let his phone die. When it was dark, he slept. When the sun rose, he woke.

Ben knew he’d have to go back to Los Angeles eventually, but he wanted to take some time to think about his life.

What the hell was he doing?

Who was he?

A human? A vampire in training? A lackey or a leader?

Could he walk through a world where he was always seen as inferior because of his mortality? Would he be satisfied living in the human world again?

Was living in the human world even an option at this point?

Ben thought it would be Tenzin who found him eventually, but it was his uncle. Giovanni waited for him one morning a week or so after Ben had arrived in Tuscany, taking shelter in the library before Ben dragged himself out of bed.

His uncle said nothing at first. Then he stood, patted Ben’s cheek, and said, “We’ll talk tonight. I’m tired,” before he left the room.

❂

BEN took a nap that afternoon and woke to the smell of steak smoking on the grill. He walked out and saw Giovanni manipulating the flame around two thick cuts of beef, searing them from the outside before he warmed the coals underneath them and left the steaks on the grill to finish cooking. There was an open bottle of wine on the table and two full glasses.

“Sit,” his uncle said. “The meat is almost done.”

The dinner was simple, which was all he’d ever expect from Giovanni, who had not learned how to cook more than the basics in over five hundred years of life. Meat, bread, wine, and a few tomatoes sliced from the garden, with olive oil poured over them. Ben sat and drank his wine, staring out over the orchards at twilight.

Ben looked at his uncle.

Giovanni was, objectively speaking, the most handsome man Ben had ever seen. When he was in high school, all the girls had a crush on his Uncle Giovanni. Every girlfriend he’d brought home had angled for a hint of a smile. It had annoyed him until his last girlfriend said Ben and Giovanni looked more like brothers than uncle and nephew. That had made his chest puff up at the time, but now it freaked him out.

Because it was true. His uncle used clothes and hair and glasses to age himself for humans, but if you looked carefully, Giovanni didn’t look a day over thirty. He’d stay that way forever, and Ben was quickly catching up.

“I talked with Tenzin in Rome,” Giovanni said. “You have both made a friend in Emil Conti.”

“Huh.”

“The new regime in Naples is decidedly more open and willing to work with him. Added to that, they’ve already been able to shed more light on the library theft. Zeno was invited down to examine the documents they were keeping from Emil’s people. Emil believes Zeno’s status as a native Neapolitan and former clergy will be of benefit in building trust.”

“You must have agreed to let him go,” Ben said. “He’s under your aegis.”

Giovanni drank some wine and shrugged. “It will help clear things up for my clients.”

“Right.”

“And Emil is a good ally. Filomena could be as well.”

“She’s something, all right.”

Giovanni was silent.

“It’s not that she used me,” Ben said. “It’s that I was oblivious to it. I thought I was a bishop when I was a pawn.”

Giovanni nodded. “I understand. But you won’t be oblivious next time.”

“
If
there’s a next time.”

They were both silent for a long time.

“There doesn’t have to be,” Giovanni said. “Not for any of this. You know that, don’t you?”

Ben cleared his throat. “Be honest. Has living a normal life ever really been an option for me?”

Giovanni paused. “I talked to Matt and Dez before I left.”

“Yeah?” Ben sipped his wine. “How are they? I haven’t been by for dinner in too long. How’s Carina?”

“Growing quickly,” Giovanni said with a smile. “She starts school in the fall. Soccer too. She already has her first set of cleats and her very own ball. It’s purple. She’s very excited.”

Ben felt his throat close up. He remembered when Carina had been born. Had listened to her hummingbird heartbeat when Dez had been in the hospital in Rome. And now Carina was buying cleats and starting school.

His heart began to race. It was all happening too quickly. His uncle looked like his brother. Babies were growing up and Ben was graduating. Casper was slower every year, and Isadora’s hearing was beginning to go.

“Gio—”

“I talked to Matt and Dez before I left LA,” Giovanni said softly. “The apartment over their garage is empty right now. You could rent it if you wanted. Matt has an opening at the company in his online security division. You are more than qualified for it. You could—”

“It’s not the job thing,” Ben said in a rough voice. “I’m not worried about… It’s not the job.”

“I know.” Giovanni stood and took the meat off the grill. “I know it’s not about a job.”

Giovanni sat down again and poured more wine while the meat rested and the temperature in the hills dropped. A cool breeze drifted over the tops of the trees, sending a shush of sound through the valley.

“Who am I?” Ben asked. “Benjamin Amir Rios, bastard pickpocket? Ben Vecchio, ward of the famous vampire? Your son? Tenzin’s… butler?”

“You’re none of those things,” Giovanni said. “Or maybe you’re a bit of all of them. What is important is that you have the choice.” His uncle leaned across the table and squeezed his shoulder. “The man you are, Benjamin, the man you’re becoming… I am privileged to know him. Whatever you choose—whatever you do—I will be there. Beatrice will be there. You are ours. Maybe you don’t have our blood, but—”

“What if I wanted to be an immortal?”

Giovanni’s hand tightened, and Ben realized for the first time how much his uncle truly wanted him to say yes.

“Either of us,” Giovanni said. “You know this. Either of us would consider it a privilege to sire you.”

Ben blinked hard. “And if I wanted to get an office job, find a nice wife, and raise fifteen kids?”

“I’d be godfather to every single one,” Giovanni said. “And we would watch them always. Protect them always.”

“Why are you making it so easy?” Ben sniffed.

“Because I love you. I want you to be happy.”

Ben started to laugh. “And yet I hear a ‘but.’”

“But I also want you to be challenged. Excited and driven about whatever you do. Because you won’t be happy unless you’re challenged.”

Ben put his head in his hands and gripped his hair. “Why can’t you just tell me what to do already?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Sometimes I wish it did.”

“No, you don’t.” Giovanni dropped a slab of steak on his plate and passed the bread. “Besides Ben, if I told you what to do, you’d find a way to do exactly the opposite. Then you’d argue with me that your way was what I should have chosen to begin with.”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Of course I’m right. Now eat your dinner. I didn’t ruin it this time.”

“Thank God for small miracles.”

❂

THEY were kicking a ball back and forth the next night when Ben finally asked about her. “So did she go back to LA?”

Giovanni didn’t need to ask whom he was talking about.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “She told me you needed human time.”

Ben nodded.

“She also told me not to leave you alone too long because you’re a brooder.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m fairly sure Tenzin thinks any reaction time over five minutes long is brooding.”