“I promise it hasn’t. But it has spoiled my appetite.”
Isadora dearly loved cooking gigantic meals for Ben when he was growing up. He ate like a horse, and Isadora delighted in feeding him.
“Then I will only say that it is a very good thing that Zain moved in.” Isadora clasped his hand in her fine fingers. “I’m teaching him all my recipes, and he eats like a grown man and not a vampire.”
“Good.” Ben smiled. “What have you been painting?”
“Tenzin sent us a lovely picture of your birds, so I’m painting a watercolor for Sadia’s room since she likes them so much.”
Ben knew Isadora knew the whole story. He lowered his voice. “Why does everyone keep referring to them as my birds?”
Isadora smiled slowly. “Because they are.”
Hours later, with dinner dishes clean and small girls tucked into bed, Ben, Beatrice, and Giovanni sat in the family library, drinking scotch and talking about work.
Of course, it wasn’t the main Vecchio library. That was in Perugia and contained a treasure trove of classical manuscripts and alchemical literature by humans and vampire scholars.
And it wasn’t the Alvarez New World library that Beatrice had recently been consulting for. That would be a similar collection of historical literature and accounts from North, Central, and South America sponsored by Beatrice’s many-times-great-grandfather, Don Ernesto Alvarez.
No, it was just their small family library that took up nearly the entire second floor of the mansion in San Marino.
What could he say? Ben came from a family of book nerds. Giovanni Vecchio might have once been a feared assassin, a fire vampire of ancient lineage and remarkable power, and Beatrice might have been renowned for her wits and political acumen at vampire courts all over the world, but in the end?
Giant, giant book nerds.
Giovanni was examining the three letters from Radu, the Romanian vampire who wanted to hire Ben. “You do realize he thinks he’s getting both you and Tenzin, don’t you?”
Ben bristled. “I realize that, but I’m hoping that with a little of your help, I can do the job myself and not need her.”
Giovanni raised an eyebrow but didn’t lift his eyes from the letters. “I did a little research on this icon when the job first came up. I confess, it’s more interesting than most of the antiquities you and Tenzin go after.”
He had to stop reacting to her name. It was everywhere, and he wasn’t going to stop people from using it. She was too integrated into his family. “You’re telling me Radu’s icon is more interesting than a ninth-century sword preserved perfectly in blown glass, sitting at the bottom of the ocean for a thousand years?”
Beatrice let out a longing sigh. “I really need to see this thing.”
Ben turned to her. “It’s incredible. Seriously. Incredible.”
“The icon” —Giovanni tried to steer them back on course— “is a rare one. I will give Radu that. But Russian icons—normally speaking—would not fetch the kind of money he’s offering, which tells me that this job is more about sentiment than profit.”
“Good.” Ben paged through the file Beatrice slid across the table. “He won’t quit paying until I find it.”
“Not good,” Giovanni said. “That means he won’t be rational about it if you don’t. It’s personal. And from my initial research, there’s a reason no one has been able to find it in a couple hundred years.”
“Look.” Beatrice nodded toward the closest library wall where a screen was slowly lowering. “I taught him to use PowerPoint presentations.”
Ben frowned. “Did you give him a laser pointer?”
“Yep.”
“Then may God have mercy on us all.”
“Do not let Radu fool you.” Giovanni continued, completely ignoring them both. “This job is far from the ordinary smash and grab you and Tenzin enjoy.”
Ben looked at his aunt. “He’s trying to use slang again.”
“I know,” Beatrice whispered. “Just let him. He thinks it makes him more relatable.”
Giovanni switched on the projector with a long stylus that wouldn’t short out the machine. “The icon Radu wants is the oldest known depiction of Saint Sara-la-Kali.”
“Not familiar with her.”
“She’s not well known outside of a few rather insular communities. Sara’s story goes back to the legend of the Three Marys in Southern France. Sara was supposedly their servant but a saint in her own right as well. This icon Radu is looking for was a double-sided icon.” He tapped the stylus on his tablet, and a picture came up of a gold-laden icon of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. “On one side, an Eleusa-type icon of the Madonna, supposedly painted by Saint Luke the Evangelist. This isn’t the one on your icon. It’s a picture of something similar painted in the same style, also purportedly by Saint Luke.”
“Wait, the Saint Luke? The one from the Bible?”
“The exact one.” Giovanni tapped the stylus and another image popped up. “And on the other side—added far later, you’d have to suppose—was an icon of Saint Sara. This is a painting of the icon included in an art inventory dating back to the eighteenth century, but as you can see, the depiction is very detailed.”
Ben leaned forward to examine the painting. The woman’s skin was a dark reddish brown, and her hair was depicted in tight black curls clipped close to her head. She was beautiful and had the large, peaceful eyes of many Orthodox icons. But there was something familiar about her features…
“I’ve seen this before.”
“I very much doubt that,” Giovanni said. “The last time anyone saw the icon of Saint Sara-la-Kali was in Budapest in 1835.” He flipped to the next slide, showing a picture of a gold-robed man draped in a red sash. “Before it was taken from the treasury of this man, Francis the Second, the last Holy Roman Emperor and later King of Hungary and Bohemia.”
Ben leaned back and crossed his arms. “Okay, so maybe I haven’t seen this exact icon.”
5
“I think you should take the plane.” Giovanni sipped a glass of golden scotch in front of the fire. “I know you can fly now, but the plane is faster. Plus it gives you a safe haven and a quick exit should anything become complicated.”
The idea of flying around in his uncle’s plane irked Ben, and he didn’t understand why. He’d been touchy ever since he arrived home. It didn’t make sense. Ben felt like a teenager again, overreacting to everything. Offended by the slightest suggestion he wasn’t doing things right.
They were sitting in the library, having a drink and talking about life and work. It was a thing they had done a hundred—maybe a thousand—times before. And yet Ben couldn’t relax. He felt uneasy. Constantly on edge.
He rubbed a hand over his beard and glanced at his uncle. “I know what you’re saying is right, but—”
“But you don’t want to.” Giovanni smiled a little. “Because the plane is an extension of my territory.”
Oh. Ben blinked. “Is that… Is that what’s going on?”