Dawn Caravan

by Elizabeth Hunter

  He’d be fine. The human would wake the next day with a hell of a headache and a nasty bruise on his neck.

  And no knife.

  Since Ben was feeling petty, he crouched down in front of the man and systematically sliced off every other medal on the jacket. Then he pocketed the trinkets, took the knife, and launched himself into the air.

  He flew over the city, grateful for the cloud cover, and perched on the roof of an art nouveau palace with glass domes that overlooked a new building project made of tall, sweeping mirrored glass.

  What a weird and wonderful city.

  Ben decided that Bucharest fit his mood. He couldn’t decide if he was happy, angry, or bitter most nights. He loved being with Chloe and Gavin again. It almost made him feel like himself. But he wasn’t himself. Not anymore. And the people he thought would understand that, like Chloe and Gavin, didn’t seem to.

  He tossed the mugger’s knife across the roof and dumped the cheap medals out of his pocket. Then he pulled out the heavy-cased phone he had to use now, and a wave of bitterness spilled into him.

  He missed sleek electronics.

  He missed driving whatever car he wanted.

  He missed eating a giant chicken burrito and taking a nap afterward in a sun-warmed hammock. He’d never feel that again, and it pissed him off.

  He rubbed an ache in his chest. Was it possible for vampires to get heartburn? It would serve him right for drinking vodka-infused blood from a wannabe-be mugger.

  He pushed the button on his giant phone. “Cara, check the time in Dublin.”

  “Voice command accepted, Ben Vecchio. Checking time in Dublin, Ireland.” Cara came back a second later. “The time in Dublin is 4:26 in the morning.”

  “Call Brigid.”

  “Do you want to call Brigid Connor’s mobile number?”

  “Yes.”

  “Calling Brigid Connor mobile.”

  The phone rang as Ben willed Brigid to pick up. The Irish fire vampire was the one person who seemed to understand his kaleidoscope moods. She was also the only other vampire Ben knew who’d been changed against her will.

  “Ben Vecchio,” she answered. “You’re not in China, lad.”

  “No, I’m closer to your neck of the woods.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Romania.”

  “Working again?” She muttered something to someone. “Sorry, I’m in the office. Give me a moment.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt.”

  “No, it’s grand.” She was walking. “I’ll step outside for a moment. It’s been a few weeks. Romania, eh? Is this the Radu thing? I’m glad you’re getting that taken care of. I think it’s been hanging on your mind.”

  “I know.” He ran a hand over his forehead; the drizzle was turning to rain. “Am I ever not going to be angry about this, Brig?”

  “About…?”

  “Being a vampire. Missing the sun. Missing food. Having to drink human blood to survive.”

  “Ah.” She closed a door. “Short answer? Yes. I have every confidence you will eventually not be angry about this.”

  That wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. He kicked at a pebble on the roof. “I saw her tonight.”

  “Who?

  “Tenzin.”

  “What? How?” Brigid sounded appropriately shocked. “Are you working with her?”

  “She kind of… showed up in Bucharest before me.”

  Brigid snorted. “Savage bitch.”

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “I mean… I know you’re angry with her, I just can’t help it. She’s so fecking rude. Part of me has to admire it.”

  “Good to know you can find the humor in the situation.”

  Brigid took a deep breath. “Did she say why she’s there? It seemed like she was keeping her distance.”

  “She was following me constantly.”

  “But from a distance.” Brigid sighed. “What do you expect? You’re one of her people.”

  “She decided that. Not me.”

  “Doesn’t make much of a difference,” Brigid said. “You’re going to learn that. Some of that is just territorial instincts. You have them too.”

  Ben thought about his uneasiness in his own home with Giovanni and the itching under his skin on his uncle’s private plane. “I know. I felt them in LA.”

  “And you’ll adapt to it soon enough. Be able to understand when to ignore things and when to pay attention to them. So…”

  “So what? That doesn’t mean Tenzin can just barge into my life when I don’t want her there.”

  “No, you are correct. You get to decide who is part of your life whether you’re human or immortal. Well, other than your sire. You don’t get much say about that. But she’s not your sire.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Why thank God?” Brigid said. “Because you’re in love with her? Or because you hate her?”

  “I don’t—”

  “It can be both, by the way. You can hate someone you love.”

  Ben stared at the lights over the city, enjoying the drip of cold water that fell down his neck. “She said that she needed to be here. That the job is dangerous and something about it feels off.”

  “Okay.” Brigid hummed a little. “Are you wanting my advice?”

  Ben took a long breath and let it out. “Yes.” He trusted Brigid. On a personal and a professional level.

  “My advice is that if she thinks something is sideways about the job, you work with her. It’s not personal, to quote a gangster movie, it’s business. As far as your security goes, is there anyone you trust more?”

  That was a loaded question. “Now that I have fangs, I guess not.”

  “Then you have your answer. You don’t go into a fight with one hand tied—don’t go into this job without all your assets. And she’s an asset. As for what’s between you two personally?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Set a boundary. This job and then you’re quit. Make her agree to it, and don’t budge. This is the last job that was a holdover from before. She’s got until the end of it to sort things out between you or say goodbye.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “I mean, you’re going to live for who knows how many years, Ben. Might be worth it to keep a little bit of the bridge unburned if you know what I mean.”

  He shook his head. “How do you deal with it?”

  “Which part?”

  “The living-forever thing.” Ben felt his throat closing up. “I never—”

  “Aye, that was a sticking point for me too.” Her voice got soft. “All I can say is… there’s one or two things about your life that remind me of mine. And avoiding my problems never did me much good in the end.”

  “You think I’m avoiding something?”

  “Yes, and before you ask, it’s not my job to tell you. You probably need a therapist.”

  “Thanks for the advice I won’t take.”

  “You’re welcome.” Someone called her name in the background. “Need to go. Call me in a week, lad, or you’ll have me following you too. By the way, the fella and I may be heading to New York in the fall. Right! Laters.”

  Brigid hung up before he could get another word in. Ben stuffed his phone in his pocket and stared across the city.

  Trying to have a conversation with Brigid was usually like jumping into a minor tornado for a moment, then jumping out naked and trying to figure out where all your clothes had blown off to.

  Work with Tenzin for this job. Check. Fine. He could compartmentalize as well as the next guy.

  Set boundaries, but don’t burn bridges. Fine. That was all fine. Good advice.

  Brigid thought he was avoiding something?

  Tenzin. He was avoiding Tenzin.

  Because you love her or you hate her?

  Both?

  How about because she’d betrayed him? She’d broken a promise.

  Were we supposed to be disappointed that she saved your life?

  B
en knew why everyone was happy. Even his closest friends and family understood why Tenzin had done what she did. And most of them, if they were being honest, were glad. They didn’t understand why he’d been so reluctant to be a vampire in the first place.

  But Ben had stared into monsters’ eyes, human and immortal, and he knew what evil looked like. He saw the darkness in himself. He’d seen it flash hot and bright over the years. In Rome. In Shanghai. In New York. He’d felt the oozing blackness that crept through the darkest parts of himself and he knew—he knew—that taming that would be far harder than taming his thirst for blood.

  You’re a little bastard. His mother’s slurred words across the kitchen haunted him. Five-year-old Ben didn’t understand what it all meant, why his mom was lying on the floor with red eyes, her speech nearly unintelligible, but he understood what hate sounded like.

  You’re such a little bastard.

  No. Done. She was gone and he was a different person. Ben Rios was well and truly dead now. He’d taken his last breath in a little stone house outside of Shanghai.

  The Ben he would become? He was still working on that.

  12

  Ben woke the next night to the sound of Chloe in his anteroom and the smell of delicious Romanian coffee and some savory pastry. His mouth watered. He sat up and reached for the half-empty bottle of blood-wine on the table next to him. He’d drunk half the night before, trying to wash the taste of the Romanian mugger out of his mouth before he fell into day rest.

  After finishing the bottle, he rose and pulled on a pair of loose-knit pants and a tank top. Unsealing his door, he walked straight to Chloe, who was already working on her laptop.

  “I know you’ve probably got plans for the evening but—”

  Ben pulled her up from the sofa and into his arms. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  She hugged him hard. “I don’t want to make light of your feelings. I know it must have been a shock to see her.”

  Ben released her and sat in the chair across the table before he reached for the coffee thermos. “You could say that.”

  Chloe stared at him. “I don’t know how you want me to react. It’s harder to read you now.”

  Ben sighed. “It’s harder to read myself now.” He shrugged. “I don’t always understand my mood swings.”

  “Okay.” Chloe closed her laptop. “Just to give you a little perspective, I want you to imagine, for a minute, what it would have been like if it was me. If you’d gotten news from Gavin on the other side of the world that I’d been stabbed in the back—literally stabbed in the back—and there was nothing you could do to help. There was nothing you or Tenzin could do and Gavin was taking me to… his sister.”

  Ben made a face. Gavin hated his sister.

  “Exactly,” Chloe said. “And you didn’t get any news for an entire day. Nothing. And then you found out that I was alive and a vampire and that was the only way to save my life.”

  “But that wasn’t the only—”

  “Stop.” She raised a hand. “You don’t know any of that. You only know that I was dying and now I’m okay. How would you feel?”

  “Happy.”

  “But I hadn’t decided that I want to be a vampire, Ben. It’s a big decision, and I hadn’t decided yet.”

  “Haven’t decided is different than having your wishes overruled.”

  Chloe blinked shine from her eyes. “Gavin’s right. You expect a hell of a lot from her.”

  “Yeah, I did.” He woke his tablet. “Guess she’s not the person I thought she was.”

  “That might be truer than you know.” She opened her laptop. “I’m forwarding an email Tenzin sent me about the Corsican gang. Also, she wants to meet you at the club at ten if you have time.”

  “Radu’s club?”

  “No, the one here.” She pointed down. “I think she may already be here.”

  “And yet she didn’t barge into my room,” he muttered. “Wow, she really has changed.”

  “Ben.”

  “Fine.” He poured a cup of coffee. “I’ll be nice.”

  Chloe looked skeptical. “If you really want to be nice, you’ll share some of that coffee.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “This coffee is part of my immortal territory now. You’re going to have to get your own.”

  He stared at the clothes in his suitcase, debating what to wear.

  What the fuck does it matter, Vecchio? You don’t care what she thinks.

  Except he did. It was foolish and petty, but he wanted her to want him. Wanted her to miss him and hunger for him like he hungered for her.

  Had she taken a lover? Had she gone back to Cheng in Shanghai? Maybe she’d looked up René DuPont.

  Ben picked out a pair of slim black slacks and a dark grey shirt that brought out the stone colors in his weird eyes. He rolled up the sleeves to show off his forearms. Tenzin liked his forearms.

  He’d always kind of wanted a tattoo, but he never got one. Too late now.

  Ben left his apartment and walked down to the club on the first floor, entering from the owner’s hallway behind the bar.

  It was the exact opposite of Radu’s place, though the clubs were within walking distance of each other. Green velvet cushions softened the seats in the wood-paneled club. The long bar was burnished wood, no doubt bought from some establishment that had been in business for a hundred years. Soft music drifted overhead instead of pounding from speakers in every corner.

  Human servers moved among vampire and mortal patrons, serving whiskey, blood-wine, and other cocktails. A small red pin on the collar of their button-down shirts identified which waiters or waitresses were available as donors if a patron requested it. He turned his head as one particularly attractive server passed him. She smelled like dark roses with a layer of something heady underneath.

  Divorce your hungers, one from the others. Blood hunger. Sexual hunger. Social hunger. Emotional hunger. His sire’s voice echoed through his mind. All these are needs you must meet in their turn, but learning to understand their subtle flavors is vital to taming them.

  In a large booth halfway down the bar, Tenzin sat alone, reading something in a manila folder. She looked up and nodded as soon as he entered the room.

  What good does it do to tie sexual hunger and blood hunger together? Does it promote control? No. It only leads to loss of control when either appetite is whetted.

  Seeing Tenzin—being near her—caused nothing less than a cascade of hungers, one after the other.

  Sexual hunger. He hadn’t taken another lover since they had parted ways, and he was not suited to monasticism.

  Blood hunger. His throat burned at the memory of her blood. He’d sampled humans across Asia and Europe now, and none of them touched the taste of her.

  Emotional hunger. Maybe the deepest hunger of all. Seeing her the night before had been excruciating. Part of Ben wanted everything to be the same when nothing was. He wanted his best friend back. He wanted Tenzin to be the one guiding him through the complexities of this new body and new life. He wanted his partner.

  Instead, the sight of her produced burning resentment and wave after wave of hunger.

  Be nice.

  Nice wasn’t the word that came to mind.

  It’s not personal. It’s business.

  Ben sat and examined her openly.

  Unlike the previous night, Tenzin was dressed for business. Gone was the blood-red dress and lipstick. She wore a tailored jacket the color of caramel over a maroon tunic. Chocolate-brown leggings and knee-high boots completed a look that Ben knew she had not picked for herself.

  “You look professional,” he said. “Did Arthur pick it out?”

  She nodded. “I told him I had an important business trip to Europe, and he told me I was not allowed to pick my clothes.”

  “Sounds like Arthur.”

  She looked down with a small frown. “He did not give me any black clothes. I had to sneak some into my bag.”

  “Well, he does
n’t know about flying and the—”

  “Bugs.” She smiled. “See? You know now.”

  Before he could respond to that, she said, “I ordered a whisky for you. I saw one on the menu that I remembered you ordering at Gavin’s bar in New York.” She looked up. “I ordered it neat with a glass of ice water on the side.”

  What was she doing to him? “That was thoughtful. Thank you.”

  She folded her hands on the table, and Ben dragged his eyes from the nape of her neck, which was freshly shorn. She’d trimmed her hair again, the heavy black silk cut at a modern angle from her nape to just below her chin. He watched her hair brush her cheek as the server put two drinks down on the table.

  When the server left, she said, “Thank you for meeting me.”

  “Thanks for giving me the option this time.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t have agreed to meet with me if I hadn’t ambushed you last night.”

  Ben reached for his drink and the ice water, carefully pouring three fingers of cold water into his whiskey. He normally drank it with only a hint of water, but since he’d turned, whiskey was too intense without watering it down. Not that he’d be able to taste much after the rocket fuel he’d ingested last night with Radu.

  “At least you admit it was an ambush.”

  “Of course it was.”

  Ben leaned an elbow on the table. “Do you have an abachee set with you?”

  “That game.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “How many times did he make you play?”

  “I lost count.”

  Tenzin leaned forward and her eyes sparked with amusement. “I bet you lead with your horsemen.”

  She was right. “It’s the swiftest offense. I bet you lead with your archers.”

  “Always. A long-distance attack endangers the fewest pieces on the board.”

  “Archer-led campaigns take forever.”

  “I am comfortable playing the long game.”

  Yes, you are. Ben cleared his throat and focused. It would do no one any good for them to fall back into old patterns and friendly banter. That wasn’t who they were anymore. “So who wins? You or Zhang?”

  She reached for her drink. “I capture his sun god every time.”