Ben was well on the way to breaking a few hearts, and Beatrice absolutely adored him.
“Tell Dez I said ‘Hi’ and let her know I’m here when she gets tired of the old fart.”
“She told the old fart she’d marry him, so I have a feeling you’re out of luck.”
He leaned down and winked. “Engaged is not married, B. There’s hope until there’s a ring on her finger.”
She shook her head. “You’re shameless.”
“Yep. But I’m cute, too. See ya!” He slapped the top of the car and walked into the warehouse, whistling.
“Shameless,” she said as she pulled away.
She turned at El Molina Avenue and parked on the street, glad to have found a parking spot so near the cafe where she and Dez met on Thursday nights. She could already hear a new band warming up inside, and no one was sitting on the patio, so she grabbed a table, glad for the clear night sky. Dez arrived a few minutes later, and Beatrice shoved down the instinctive hunger that tickled the back of her throat.
Though she was used to the scents of her family, close contact with other humans still awakened her instincts. She could easily control it, but that did require some concentration. Her best friend, for whatever reason, smelled particularly appealing that night.
“How are you, hon?” Dez chattered as they both settled into their seats. A waiter came out and they both ordered a coffee and dessert. “How was your week? Matt and Gio are both at that thing at your grandfather’s tonight, right? What’s Ben up to?”
“Other than still plotting how to steal you from Matt?”
She giggled. “Of course.”
“He and Tenzin are practicing tonight.”
“How’s school going?”
Beatrice nodded. “Good, he seems to have swung right back into his classes since we’ve been back. Of course, Gio’s way more demanding than his high school teachers, so that’s not really a surprise.”
“Of course.”
“The boy could probably pass most college level classes at this point.”
“Has he thought about early admission anywhere?”
Beatrice shrugged. “It’s not a priority for him. He likes his friends the most now. He still does most of his learning at home with Gio. He only goes to school for girls, basketball, and to have something to do during the day.”
They paused to let a group enter the cafe. The lively music spilled out as the door opened, quiet to Dez, but almost distractingly loud to Beatrice’s immortal ears.
They chatted as they sipped their coffee, Dez happily filling Beatrice in on her wedding plans. She and Matt had been engaged the previous summer, but had waited until Giovanni and Beatrice had returned from Chile to get married. The wedding was only a few weeks away.
“—so the guests will have the option to eat either chicken or beef. I liked the idea. Of course, the cake looks amazing, but then, it’s chocolate, so how it looks isn’t all that important. B?”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been staring at my neck for the past couple minutes, hon.”
She blinked. “Oh, sorry.”
“No problem. Did you forget to eat before you came? You haven’t touched your coffee.”
Beatrice wrinkled her nose. “It’s really strong. Are you wearing a new perfume or something?”
“No, nothing different.”
“Are you...” Beatrice struggled, trying to determine what it was that was triggering her awareness. Scent had taken on an entirely new dimension for her since becoming a vampire. Everything smelled. She had quickly learned to block out as much as possible, so as not to become overwhelmed, but there was something about Dez that night...
“You’re pregnant.”
Her best friend’s mouth gaped, just a little. “Uh... what?”
“I think that’s it. You smell... more. I don’t know what else it could be. You don’t smell sick, and I know you went off birth control a while back, so—”
“How did you know that?” Dez almost looked offended.
Beatrice just shrugged. “Your scent changed. Matt liked it; I could tell.”
Dez rolled her eyes. “And I thought being your friend was weird before... and I’m not pregnant. It’s only been a couple months, and I haven’t even missed my period.”
“Well, you will. I’m pretty sure that’s it.”
Dez just shook her head. “How... I mean, what—”
“I told you, you smell different.” Beatrice shrugged again and sipped at her coffee. It really did smell better than it tasted now. Unless she was at home and she could make it watered down, it was overwhelming. “You don’t smell bad. You smell more... female, if that makes sense. I’m sure it’s the hormones. Matt’s probably been going nuts around you lately, huh? Humans react to that stuff even if they don’t know what it is.”
Dez cocked an eyebrow. “Humans, huh?”
“Yup.” Beatrice smiled. “So you believe me?”
She shrugged. “Well, since you’re a big, bad vampire with a super-strong nose, I guess I have to, though I think I’ll still wait for the pathetic human doctor to confirm before I tell my fiancé.”
She grinned. “Congratulations! So were you trying?”
Dez flushed. “We weren’t not trying, if you know what I mean. Matt’s older than me; he didn’t want to wait. I was game for whatever. I knew I wanted kids and I’ll be thirty next month. We’re getting married in a couple weeks. No one will care we started a tiny bit backwards.”
“I bet Matt’s going to be really excited.”
“I bet he’ll be surprised. I don’t think he thought it would happen this fast.” She paused. “Heck, I didn’t think it would happen this fast, but I suppose this is the logical result of all that sex.”
Beatrice snorted. “You’re so smart for a human.”
Dez narrowed her eyes. “‘For a human,’ huh? I’m smart for a human?” She tossed her hair, picking up a menu and waving her scent toward Beatrice. “Oh, look at the poor, pathetic human tempting the big, bad vampire. Poor vampire. Hungry are we?”
Beatrice growled low in her throat, feeling her fangs descend, even though she knew she wasn’t hungry. “Thtop it.”
“Oh!” Dez gasped in mock surprise. “Are those your fangs? How embarrassing. Is there anything you can do about that little situation?”
“You fink you’re tho funny.”
“I am funny.” Dez grinned. “Know what else is funny? Your lisp when you talk around your fangs.”
Beatrice swallowed the burn in her throat and willed her teeth to ascend. “One of these days, I’m going to bite you. Then you won’t think it’s so funny.”
“You better not. According to your accounts, I might like it a little too much.”
“Haha.”
Dez cackled. “It’s hilarious, you look like you should be blushing, but you can’t.”
“Why am I still friends with you?”
“Because I’m awesome. And you're going to be an auntie.”
Beatrice couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face and the tug at her heart. Though she had no desire for children, she was thrilled for her friend. “You’re going to be an amazing mom, Dez.”
“Oh…” Her face fell. “I’m going to get totally fat now. And you’ll never get fat. I kind of hate you for that. I wonder if Matt’s going to get totally grossed out.”
Beatrice shook her head. “Please. Matt adores you. He’s going to be thrilled—”
“B?”
She halted at the familiar voice of her ex-boyfriend.
“Beatrice?” She heard him again, but she didn’t turn around. Beatrice looked across at Dez, who just looked panicked. “Dez, is that you?”
She could hear Mano approaching the table. Before he could get a good look at her, Beatrice reached out and grabbed his hand, clasping his bare skin in her cool palm and letting her amnis crawl up his arm. She stood and faced him, never easing her grip.
“Hi, Mano,” she whispere
d. She looked over his shoulder, but he appeared to be alone. She looked back into the eyes of the man who had loved her. Who had seen her through one of the loneliest parts of her life with caring and self-sacrifice.
He blinked at her, his eyes already swimming with her influence. “You look different, baby.”
“I know.”
“You need some sun. Let’s go out on the boat tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “No, Mano. I’m fine.”
“Where have you been? I’ve missed you.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat, searching his face, pained at the loneliness she found. The longing. “I’m fine. And so are you.”
“I am?”
“Yes. You saw me and you realized that you had moved on.”
“But I love you.”
Beatrice gripped his hand, stroking her thumb along the calluses on his palm “No, you’ve moved on. And you’re ready to meet someone new. Someone who will love you as much as you love her.”
“I am?” He blinked at her.
“Yep. You saw me, and we caught up. And you heard that Gio and I are married and really happy now, and you were happy, too. Because you realized that you don’t love me anymore.”
He shook his head, and she forced her influence further into his mind, pushing back the tears at his familiar scent. Mano still smelled like sunshine and the sea.
“Right,” he finally said with a small smile. “You look great. I don’t love you anymore.”
“Nope,” she choked out. “And you’re going to meet someone great. And you’re going to fall in love.”
“I am?”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’ve missed you, baby.” He smiled at her again, the soft smile he wore when he was sleepy.
“I missed you, too.” It wasn’t a lie. She had missed Mano, even though she loved Giovanni with all her heart. She forced out a smile. “Bye, Mano. You’re going to go home now.”
He nodded and leaned down as if to kiss her, but she backed away. He still smiled.
“Bye, B.”
She finally let go of his warm hand, and he turned and walked away down the dark street. Beatrice turned back to Dez, pulled her wallet out of her pocket, and threw down some cash. Dez reached over and squeezed her hand. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I need to go.”
“That the first time?”
She nodded, forcing back the tears that threatened her eyes. “Yeah, it was just a surprise, you know? I was surprised.”
“Well, you did great. And you were really kind to do that. He, um, he called Matt for months. He was worried about you. Will he remember anything?”
Beatrice waved her hand as Dez stood. “Just... vague stuff. He should remember he saw me, but the exact memories will be kind of cloudy. Hopefully, I did it right.”
“Are you going to tell Gio you saw him?”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t try to hide it. And he’ll smell him anyway.”
Dez just stared at her before she walked down the street, Beatrice following after. “Vampires are weird.”
“I’ll remind you of that when you have a giant human parasite sucking the life out of you and making you ill.”
“Shut up, bloodsucker.”
Beatrice walked into the kitchen behind Ben, who immediately ran upstairs to shower and call one of the girls who had been texting him during his practice.
“Ben,” she called, “it’s eleven o’clock, and you practiced hard. You better get some sleep.”
“Sure thing, B!”
“Goodnight.”
“‘Night! Night, Isadora!”
She glanced at her grandmother, who was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a book. “Good night, Benjamin.”
Beatrice leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her grandmother’s delicate cheek. At age seventy-eight, Isadora Alvarez De Novo Davidson had lost none of the liveliness from her vivid green eyes; though her step was slower, her mind was not.
“And how is Dez?”
“Pregnant, but don’t tell anyone. It’s early.”
“Oh!” Isadora smiled. “How wonderful. And the Kirbys will be thrilled.”
“It’s really early, so Matt doesn’t even know. That’s why you can’t tell anyone.”
Isadora frowned. “How early? Matt doesn’t know?”
“Nope. I just told her tonight.” Beatrice munched on an almond from the bowl her grandmother had out. “She smelled different. I got all fang-y.”
Isadora was quiet for a minute. “You know, sometimes it’s easy to forget you are a vampire, and sometimes, it’s not.”
Beatrice grinned and let her fangs run down. Isadora slapped at her shoulder. “Stop it, Mariposa!”
She giggled and took two almonds, sticking them on her fangs and muttering around them. “Yep, thcary, thcary vampire here.”
They both broke into giggles, until Beatrice finally calmed down. “Where’s Caspar?”
“He drove Matt and Gio to the meeting at Ernesto’s.”
“Ah.”
“I’m going to go to sleep soon. I just thought I’d stay up to say hello. I missed you this afternoon.”
“I was in the library.”
“Looking at Geber’s journals?”
“Yup.” The journals, which her father had left in Tywyll’s care, were all written in the alchemist’s own strange code. In addition to learning Old Persian, Beatrice was also trying to decipher the peculiar phrases and code words the medieval scientist had used to disguise his research. If she could decode them, they might learn the identity of Geber’s original test subjects and be that much closer to solving the mystery of the elixir. Though they hadn’t heard a peep from Lorenzo, his presence lurked in her mind, teasing her that the book Stephen had taken was in his possession again.
“Mariposa?”
“Hmm?” She looked up at her grandmother.
“I said I’m going to bed now.”
“Oh.” She rose and kissed Isadora’s cheek. “Night, Grandma.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’ll probably be in the library around ten or so.”
“Have a good night.”
Isadora shuffled through the door and down the hall toward the ground floor rooms that Giovanni had converted into a suite for Caspar and Isadora. She could hear Ben walking around upstairs and felt the quiet hum of the electrical currents and waves of Wi-Fi that Matt had installed for Ben. The house may have been quiet, but it was never really still the way their house in Cochamó was, and Beatrice realized why Giovanni would get frustrated if he was surrounded by technology for too long. The modern world, to the senses of an immortal, was relentlessly noisy.
She was happily lost in a novel and curled up in the living room when the sound of the Mercedes broke through. She smiled at Caspar when he walked through the door. The clock on the wall pointed toward one and the old man bent down to kiss her cheek.
“Good night, my dear. I’ll see you in the morning. This old man is exhausted.”
“Night, Cas.”
“What time did she turn in?”
“A few hours ago.”
“I’ll be joining her. Have fun with him.”
“Oh?” She said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Caspar shrugged. “Don’t ask me. He’s being terribly silent tonight.”
“Huh, weird. He was fine earlier. Did everything go all right with Ernesto?”
“I believe so. He didn’t seem upset. Just... quiet.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning. Night.”
He gave her a small salute and walked down the hall just as Giovanni walked through the door. He wore a strange expression and sat beside her. She stared at him as he looked off into the distance. Finally, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a thick, cream envelope with a broken wax seal. The interior was filigreed in gold leaf, and she could see a swirl of calligraphy peeking out from the letter inside.
“Hi. What’s this? Caspar sai
d you were doing the moody, silent thing. What’s up?”
Giovanni tossed the envelope on her lap and leaned back, throwing an arm around her on the couch.
“Beatrice, how do you feel about Rome in the springtime?”
Chapter Two
Crotone, Italy
1494
“Where am I?”
“Your new home.”
Jacopo looked around the room, blinking. It looked nothing like the warm chambers of his uncle’s villa in Ferrara or the bustling of Benevieni’s house in Florence. The dim room where he woke was dark and damp. Though there were clean rushes that littered the floor, the chill of the air seemed to seep in through his bare feet and the smell of the ocean was everywhere. He sat on the edge of a small bed that smelled of sweet straw and herbs.
“This is not my home.”
Signore Andros only smiled at him indulgently. The strange man had always bothered Jacopo, though never the same way as the teasing courtiers of Florence or Rome. He had learned at a young age to escape their stealthy hands and avoid their attention, but from the beginning, Niccolo Andros had seemed to be a different sort. Jacopo had never understood his uncle’s fascination with the Greek, despite his wealth, knowledge, and connections.
“This is your home. And will be until I decide you are ready to move on.”
“And when will that be?”
Andros only shrugged. “There is no rush. We must complete your education first. You are very young, even for a human. You have not yet reached your prime. That is why I have chosen you to be my student.”
Jacopo may have been young, but he watched Andros with canny eyes. The boy had managed his uncle’s servants for many years and had been an observer of human nature for far longer. Jacopo had never mingled with the other young men at court or even the servants his own age. He had always felt most comfortable among his uncle’s books or in the company of Giovanni’s friends.
He sat up a little straighter. “I am already well-educated. My uncle saw to my education. You know this, Signore.”
“I do. That is why I chose you. You are extremely bright for a human.” Andros stepped back, examining Jacopo as if he was an animal for sale. “Of fine form. Healthy. Yes, I’m very satisfied with my choice.”