She still owned the warehouse. He knew because they still received a bill from the city every month. There were odd artifacts of her existence scattered around the place, but the alcove where she’d once spent her days was empty. Her books were gone except for an old museum program from a special exhibit they’d attended ten years before.
“The sky was so black I lost track of time. I didn’t realize I was starting to dream, that the sun was coming up. I saw you.” He leaned his head against the mirrors and looked at the ceiling. “Or a vision of you, I guess. You talked to me, but obviously you didn’t. So I guess I was talking to myself.”
He fingered the black sash he’d tied around his wrist. It was something he’d found in his dresser at the San Marino house. A simple strip of cotton, one of the many she’d used to tie her hair back one of those countless nights they’d shared. She must have dropped it and he’d picked it up. When he held it to his nose, he could smell a hint of her skin.
“You whispered to me that I was a monster.” He stared at the knot he’d tied over the inhumanly pale skin of his wrist. His skin didn’t get brown anymore. It would never see the sun again. “Zhang found me right when I passed out. I probably would have been in a world of pain if he hadn’t. Maybe burned up. I don’t know, maybe not. That storm lasted for two nights. Do rain clouds protect you from burning?” He looked up. “Either way, I would have had a fun time recovering from those injuries.”
Ben stood and walked along the empty racks, running his finger along the dusty wood. “I miss you, Tenzin. Maybe I miss who I thought you were. Maybe I miss who I thought I was too.” He looked around the warehouse studio where he’d learned to fight with swords. He’d sparred with vampires and humans. He’d sharpened knives and debated combat like a seasoned soldier.
Like a boy.
He’d known nothing.
“Golden boy.” He looked around the warehouse. “You used to call me that. I heard you. Was it an insult? I could never figure that part out.” He walked along the mirrored wall, his feet sinking into the training mats. “For the longest time, I thought my childhood ended in Rome when I killed that man. I don’t know why I thought that, like taking someone’s life was a kind of graduation in the vampire world.” He paused and looked at his reflection, staring into his inhuman brown-and-silver eyes. “I was still a boy. Just a boy with blood on my hands. Killing never made me any smarter or any harder.” He blinked. “Death did.”
Ben walked away from the mirror, turning his back to his reflection.
“I know you’re still keeping tabs on me. I smelled you in Xining. I’m pretty sure I saw you in the market in Seoul. I know you were in Kashgar, and I know you followed me here.” He stooped and picked up a bag of her things she’d left around the San Marino house. “I’m leaving your stuff.” He flew up to the alcove where she’d once rested. “Stop following me.”
He tossed the bag into the nook and floated back down to the ground. “I’ll even say please. If you ever really cared about me, Tenzin, please stop following me.”
Tenzin listened to him from the roof, absorbing every painful word.
My Benjamin, anger still eats your soul.
She wanted to hold him. Wanted to comfort him. Wanted to whisper in his ear that nothing could make him the monster he feared he’d become. He might be a little less shiny, but he was still her golden boy. He was still the light to her darkness; the only one she’d found in thousands of years. Was she selfish for wanting to keep it?
Yes.
Oh well.
He wanted her to stop following him? Fine. That was an easy one. She’d stop following him. She’d only done it because she was worried that he’d become careless about his own safety.
Now that he’d come home—his true home, not Penglai—and he’d seen his baby sister, seen his family, she felt more confident that he would take care of the life she’d paid for.
Because she had paid for it, though it was a price she never wanted him to know. Tenzin wanted nothing between them. No debts and no anger. Now that Ben was immortal, he could finally have the life he was meant to.
And when he came to her, it would be as her equal.
9
Bucharest, Romania
One week later
Ben woke to the unfamiliar. He smelled cinnamon and vanilla. Flour. Road tar. Someone was baking and it was raining outside.
He rose from the borrowed bed in Gavin’s safe house, which lay in a luxurious basement below his whiskey bar. The whiskey bar was a newer establishment, trying to capitalize on the rich and growing international crowd in Romania’s capital.
It reminded Ben of Gavin’s bar in Houston. The lighting was low, the menu was extensive, and the vampire-to-human ratio was fairly even.
Romania and Ukraine fell in the slightly grey area of vampire territory between Saba’s domain in the Mediterranean and the influence of Oleg in Russia with Romania being slightly more Saba’s and Ukraine being slightly more Oleg’s. Both earth vampires watched over the countries, but not closely, leaving local influencers with more power and less oversight. In situations like that, businessmen like Gavin and Radu became de facto authorities, offering safety to immortals who frequented their businesses.
Ben stretched and spent a few minutes practicing the tai chi forms Beatrice had reminded him were so important for focus. He closed his eyes and centered himself as he took stock of his immortal body.
Hunger, sated. He’d fed the night before from one of the paid donors in Gavin’s bar as well as topping off right before dawn with a large glass of blood-wine.
Mind, focused. He was in Romania to meet Radu. He had a goal and three avenues to investigate that they’d identified before they left Los Angeles.
Amnis… uncertain. He kept waking in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar scents and energy around him. While human Ben was a longtime friend of Gavin’s, vampire Ben’s amnis was still becoming accustomed to the other immortal’s energy, which Ben could only describe as… slippery.
Gavin was impossible to pin down, and Ben’s instincts couldn’t decide if he was a friend or a foe yet. Logically, Ben knew that was probably part of what made Gavin so successful in his business. He could set more powerful vampires at ease… but only so much. There was something fundamentally uncertain about Gavin’s amnis.
Yep. Slippery.
Chloe, thank God, was a steadying factor. When the three of them were together, Ben could be at ease.
He punched in the security code with the stylus next to the PIN pad, and the doors unsealed. He walked out to the small living area outside his secure day chamber. Since the bar and the safe house were new, they had the most recent Nocht-compatible technology installed.
Ben woke his tablet. “Good evening, Cara.”
“Good evening, Ben Vecchio. Your voice ID has registered with this device. You have enabled two-factor authentication. Please speak or enter your ID code now.”
Ben spoke his code in an obscure Mongolian dialect Zhang was teaching him.
“Authentication recognized. How can I help you tonight?”
“Do I have any new messages from today?”