Midnight Labyrinth: An Elemental Legacy Novel

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “You work with Mr. Wallace also, do you not?”

  “I help out at the pub, yes.”

  “I thought you looked familiar.”

  Gavin finally spoke. “Chloe is also a very talented dancer, my lady. She’s working with a new choreographer on a modern ballet scheduled for production next spring.” He walked over and handed Chloe a glass of wine, ushering her into the chaise at Adele’s right hand. “Perhaps the next time you visit New York, you’ll be able to see her perform.”

  “I am a great lover and patron of the arts,” Adele said. “It is how I believe my brother would have wanted me to spend my eternity. I would be most interested in hearing more about your show.”

  Ben let Gavin and Chloe talk to Adele about the ballet as Cormac sidled up next to him.

  “No Tenzin tonight?”

  “You know how she is.”

  “I do.” Cormac sipped a glass filled with amber liquor. “Your explanation to Adele was very… politic.”

  “I try.”

  A flash of anger in Cormac’s eyes. “Don’t test me, boy.”

  Ben’s smile faded. “I’m not trying to test you. I never was. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

  “Just remember, there’s nothing more dangerous than a man who knows half the truth.”

  Ben blinked. “That was almost wise, Cormac.”

  The vampire downed the rest of his whiskey. “Now you’re trying to piss me off.”

  “No, it was.” Ben glanced down at the glass. “Can I get a drink?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t like you.”

  “How’s Ennis these days?” Ben asked. Since Cormac already didn’t like him, he might as well go for broke. “I haven’t heard much about him.”

  Cormac’s face went eerily still. “That’s because he’s dead.”

  Ben felt the cold radiating from the vampire. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  “All in all,” Emmanuel said, “you’ll make a very tidy profit.”

  “How much?”

  “With the pieces you bought and the current market frenzy, I’d anticipate your profit at around two million euros.”

  For oil paint and canvas? Tenzin shook her head. The world truly was an odd place.

  Emmanuel was still talking. “The prices of the Samsons have gone through the roof. I don’t know how you anticipated it, but I’d love to share the tip with my other clients. Perhaps those more interested in long-term growth.”

  Tenzin tapped her chin. “Give the paintings one more month. I think the price will peak at that point and then arrange to sell them. After that, you can tell anyone you want.”

  “As always, you’re an extremely savvy buyer, my dear.”

  “Fine.” She’d already become bored with the conversation. “Convert the money to gold when you’re finished, then send it to me.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to hear about the other opportunity I mention—”

  “Goodbye.” She hung up the call. He was so chatty.

  Ben sat on the couch in the loft with a glass of bourbon warming in his hand. He was… drunk. Not as bad as champagne drunk, but moving well past buzzed. He stared at the wall of weapons that decorated his home. Weapons from China and Iran. Weapons from Chile and Kenya and Romania.

  He took a long sip of bourbon. “My uncle’s house is full of books.”

  “I remember.” Chloe spoke from the kitchen. She’d been mellow all night, glowing and happy since their reception at Rothman House. Both Adele and Cormac had been enchanted with her, though Gavin had clearly staked a claim. They talked about dance and theater. Gavin had smiled more than Ben could ever remember seeing.

  Ben was happy for her. He was happy she was happy. Chloe was an amazing person who deserved to be happy. She deserved to have people appreciate her. She deserved to be a star if she wanted to be.

  He’d never felt more conflicted about bringing her into his world.

  “My uncle’s house is full of books,” he said. “And my house is full of weapons.”

  Chloe took a deep breath. “It is. But they’re… historic weapons. They’re like art.”

  “Every single one of those weapons has probably killed someone,” he said. “Have you ever thought about that when you walk through a museum with an arms and armory display? Every one of those historic swords has probably killed someone. Maybe a lot of people. And if they haven’t, that’s what they were designed to do. Art designed to kill things.”

  “No, I haven’t thought about that,” Chloe said. “But you’re right.”

  “I was designed to kill things.” He finished his drink and set the glass down on the table. “You know that, right? My aunt taught me the fastest way to kill someone with a sword when I was fifteen. We used dead pigs because they’re the closest to human flesh and bone.”

  “Ben—”

  “That wasn’t even the beginning. Not really. She taught me to steal first.”

  “Your aunt?”

  “No, my mom.” He desperately needed another drink.

  Which meant he really didn’t need another drink. Not if he didn’t want to end up like his dad.

  Chloe asked, “Your mom taught you to steal?”

  “And pickpocket. I was good at it.” He brought his hand up and waved. “Long fingers. I bought the groceries. She paid the rent with what she stole, and I bought the groceries with what I could get.”

  “So if you didn’t pick pockets—”

  “We didn’t eat.” He closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the sofa. “Don’t worry. I didn’t go hungry very often.”

  Chloe said nothing. What could she say? He’d dumped all his baggage on her when she’d been having a nice night.

  He was a shit friend.

  “How did I get here?” he murmured.

  Chloe sat next to him on the couch. “We took a cab.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” she said. “And I don’t. This is all new to me, Ben. It still feels fantastic and forbidden. Like I’m in a special club. You’ve been living this life for longer than you’ve known me.”

  “I’ve been putting up with this… bullshit”—he spat out the word—“for thirteen years now. I’m tired of it. Walking on eggshells. Watching every word. Weighing every move.”

  “Sounds exhausting.”

  “It is.” Ben stretched out, putting his head in Chloe’s lap after she scooted down the couch. “I don’t like fighting.”

  “I know you don’t.” She stroked his hair. “In school, you were always the guy with the joke. Make ’em laugh when tempers and egos get hot. Do you know how many kids probably didn’t get beat up because of you?”

  “No.” He closed his eyes. “I never thought about it.”

  She kept stroking his hair, lulling him into relaxation as he drifted in an alcohol haze.

  “You talk about being designed to kill things,” Chloe said, “but that’s not what I see. Maybe life has thrown that at you—put you in horrible situations where you had to fight to survive—but that just made you less violent, not more.”

  “I know things…” He closed his eyes and saw vomit and gore. He saw headless bodies and blood. So much blood. “I just know things I wish I didn’t, Chloe. And you will too. Not now, but you will. Please don’t hate me. I’m really afraid you’ll hate me.”

  “If I promise I won’t, will you believe me?”

  It was a valid question. “I’ll try.”

  “Then I promise I won’t hate you, Ben Vecchio.” She bent down and kissed his cheek. “I don’t think I could ever hate you. You saved my life.”

  “You saved yourself. You were the one who walked away.”

  “Yeah, I did,” she said. “But I could only walk away from Tom because I knew you’d give me a safe place to land. That’s what you do, Ben. You help people.”

  Ben felt the rush of guilt rise up and choke him. “I was
trying to do the right thing.”

  “With Emilie?”

  He hated that name now. Hated her. Hated feeling like a complete fool. “Yeah.”

  “I know you were trying to do that right thing,” Chloe said. “I think everyone knows that.”

  “But I fucked everything up.”

  “And then you fixed it.”

  “With Tenzin.” He rubbed his eyes. “Once again, she bails me out of trouble.”

  Chloe took a deep breath. “From what I hear, half the time you’re the one bailing her out.”

  “Half’s probably… a really high estimate.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Know why?”

  “Why?”

  She put her hand on his cheek. “Because no one is keeping score. That’s not what friends do. That’s not how it works.” She lifted his head and stood up, propping a pillow under him before she rose. “I’m exhausted, Benny. Bed for me. You gonna be okay?”

  “Yeah.” He closed his eyes. “Just gonna sleep here, I think.”

  “You need a new couch.”

  “I know.” He tried to get comfortable. “This one sucks, but it looks cool.”

  He heard her laugh as she walked downstairs, turning off the lights behind her.

  Ben lay in the dark, thinking about Chloe’s words.

  “…no one is keeping score. That’s not how it works.”

  Right.

  That was always how it worked, whether people wanted to admit it or not.

  Ben woke when she flew him up to her loft. She’d grabbed him under the armpits and was dragging him because he was completely dead weight, but she laid him down gently.

  “Tenzin?”

  “Go back to sleep.”

  “But why—?”

  “I don’t sleep,” she said, arranging pillows around him. “And you’re inebriated. Stay on your side. I will watch you to make sure you don’t get sick.”

  He wasn’t drunk. In fact, he was mostly sober since he’d slept a few hours. But he wasn’t going to tell Tenzin that. Ben rolled over and turned into pillows that smelled like her. Cardamom and honey.

  The bitterness that rested on the tip of his tongue melted away at her scent, and he stretched his arm out. “Come here.”

  Her voice was soft. “I’m reading.”

  “Then read next to me,” he said with his eyes closed.

  Tenzin said nothing, but she went and lay next to him, resting her head on Ben’s arm.

  “Read to me,” he said.

  “I’m in the middle of the story. If I read to you, you’ll be lost.”

  “So start over.”

  “Selfish.”

  “If it’s a really good story,” Ben murmured, “you won’t mind reading it again.”

  Tenzin paused for a moment, and he heard her turning the pages.

  “‘There was once a witch who desired to know everything,’” she read. “‘But the wiser a witch is, the harder she knocks her head against the wall when she comes to it. Her name was Watho, and she had a wolf in her mind. She cared for nothing in itself, only for knowing it. She was not naturally cruel, but the wolf had made her cruel.’”

  Ben drifted to sleep as Tenzin read. He dreamt of full moons and labyrinths made of tangled branches that grabbed his legs and shredded his skin, leaving him bloody. He dreamt of the burning sun and heat so intense it seared the flesh from his body. He heard the rumbles of wolves and thunderstorms. Felt the brush of flower petals against his skin.

  When he woke in the blue light of early morning, Tenzin was lying with her back to him, still reading aloud in a soft voice:

  “‘No, no,’ persisted Nycteris, ‘we must go now. And you must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave. I have begun already—not to fight your sun, but to try to get at peace with him and understand what he really is and what he means with me—whether to hurt me or to make the best of me. You must do the same with my darkness.’”

  It was dawn and the sun was rising, but no light reached the loft where they hid. Ben reached over and ran a finger up Tenzin’s spine, playing with the velvet hair that lay against her nape.

  Tenzin stopped reading. She lay completely still as Ben touched her, her amnis prickling against his fingertips.

  “‘To be trusted,’” he whispered, “‘is a greater compliment than being loved.’”

  “Wrong book.”

  “Right author.” He was only half awake; his eyes fluttered open, then closed again. “What did you call me once? Your shining boy?”

  “Yes, I called you that.”

  “Not so shiny anymore.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Ben’s hand froze when he felt Tenzin’s amnis reach toward him. It was a tentative touch, like the lick of summer wind against his skin.

  “I have been a hero and a villain in the same moment,” she said. “If you live long enough, you’ll understand what that means.” She reached back and lifted Ben’s arm, drawing it over her waist. “Sleep, my Benjamin. I’ll stay with you until nightfall.”

  Ben tucked Tenzin against his chest and relaxed into the pillow, letting himself fall back into darkness as daylight breached the horizon.

  Epilogue

  Ben stood at the counter and sorted through the mail, ignoring the huffing and loud flip of pages coming from Tenzin’s loft.

  If she starts throwing my books again…

  More huffing. More page flipping.

  Ben’s irritation mounted with every passive-aggressive huff.

  Chloe looked up from where she was working at the research table. She had her laptop open, but she glanced between the loft and the kitchen, her eyes getting wider as the tension in the room built.

  “You know, I think I’m going to go into the pub early tonight.” She stood and closed her laptop. “I think Gavin wanted to do inventory tonight, so… yeah. That sounds like a really good idea.” Then she muttered under her breath, “Please don’t let there be bloodshed.”

  Tenzin shouted, “There wouldn’t be any bloodshed if Ben would just be reasonable!”

  “Damn it,” Chloe hissed. “It is freakish how good her ears are.”

  “Gavin’s are probably just as good,” Ben said. “Might want to keep that in mind.”

  Without another word, Chloe fled the loft.

  “I do not care how many times you suggest it,” he said calmly. “I am not going to Puerto Rico.”

  Tenzin flew out of the loft and hovered over him, tossing the glossy travel magazine to the ground. “Pirate. Treasure! How hard is that to understand?”

  “Not interested,” Ben said.

  “How can you not be interested in Spanish treasure?”

  “There are a hundred easier ways to get gold than running around after fictional treasure.”

  Tenzin glared at him. “Who said it’s fictional?”

  “Me.”

  “Is this because of your grandmother?”

  Ben’s mouth fell open. “How did you… No, I don’t care. And it’s not— This has nothing to do with my family, Tenzin!”

  “I went with you on the stupid painting thing—even though art is a completely fabricated market that depends on—”

  “—on the whims of a handful of self-important collectors,” Ben repeated the tired phrase. “Yes, I’ve heard that argument from you before. I’d still rather chase a lost Renoir than Spanish pirate treasure.”

  “But this is gold, Benjamin. Gold. With actual monetary value in the millions of dollars.”

  And it’s pretty and shiny, he mouthed.

  “Yes, it is pretty and shiny!”

  He slammed down the stack of mail, no longer trying to feign disinterest. “You are suggesting we follow a treasure map, Tenzin. A treasure map to some caves on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A treasure map.”

  She crossed her arms. “And?”

  “Do you not hear how insane that sounds? It’s a treasure map!”

&n
bsp; “That your uncle has authenticated.”

  “All that means is that it was produced during that era; it does not mean that whoever drew the map was sane. Or that he or she possessed any treasure. Or that if there was a treasure that it’s still there and hasn’t been looted!”

  She hovered over him, her mouth set in a grim line. “I am going to Puerto Rico. You know you’re going to come with me, or I’m liable to cause an international incident.” With that, Tenzin flew back to her loft and pulled up the rope ladder.

  Every curse his father had ever taught him flew through his mind. “So pendejo!”

  “I know what that means!” she yelled from the loft. “I’m still going.”

  Ben grabbed his phone and wished he could still punch in numbers, because punching anything sounded really satisfying in that moment. Giovanni’s phone rang three times before his uncle picked up.

  “Hello, Benjamin.”

  “I cannot believe you told her about that damn map.”

  “I didn’t think she’d become so enamored with the idea,” his uncle said with a laugh. “I’ve told her about other treasure maps in the past and she’s been completely uninterested. There’s no predicting her.”

  Tenzin shouted, “Tell him to send us the map!”

  “I’m not sending you the map,” Giovanni said. “Tell Tenzin the map doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to a cartography collector, and he would never allow me to loan it to someone.”

  “Sorry, Tiny, we can’t get the map,” Ben said. “Guess we’re not going.”

  Tenzin said, “Send us a copy of the map!” at the same time Giovanni said, “I suppose I could make you a copy.”

  Ben closed his eyes, drew in a long breath, and let it out.

  “Fine,” he said. “Send us a copy. I guess we’re going to Puerto Rico.”

  THE END

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