A Hidden Fire

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “Where were you last night?”

  “I was—um, I was…”

  Having cake with a five hundred-year-old vampire that I think I might be falling in love with. Oh, and drinking really expensive champagne. And talking about my dead father…who isn’t actually dead.

  “She was having dinner with me,” she heard from behind the police detective’s back.

  The officer turned and looked at the tall man approaching him, no doubt taking in Giovanni’s professional appearance and friendly smile. He was wearing a white oxford shirt that night, a pair of studious looking glasses, and some of his seemingly endless supply of black slacks.

  “And who are you?”

  Giovanni smiled and held out his hand. “Dr. Giovanni Vecchio. I deal in rare books and I’m doing research here at the library. Beatrice and I are seeing each other.”

  Really? she thought. Thanks for letting me know, Gio. Is that what we’re doing? Strictly speaking, she supposed it was true. They saw each other every day.

  The police officer looked at Giovanni’s extended hand for a moment before reaching his own out and shaking it. Beatrice watched to see if there was any physical evidence of the influence she knew he was using that very second—some sort of shimmer or spark—but there wasn’t.

  “I think you realize that Miss De Novo had nothing to do with this theft, don’t you, Detective Rose?”

  “Of course she didn’t. What a ridiculous thought,” the officer said in a warm voice, far more relaxed than he had been only a second before.

  “And you were completely satisfied with her explanation.”

  “I was. She’s a lovely girl.”

  Giovanni nodded and cocked his head, looking into the officer’s dazed eyes. “She is. No further investigation of her will be necessary.”

  The detective shook his head and turned to Beatrice. “Nope. I think we’re done here.” He folded up his notebook and saluted her with a small wave before he went to join his partner, who was talking to Dr. Christiansen.

  She looked at Giovanni, whose face was grim as he watched the retreating officer.

  “Not going to lie, that was more than a little creepy, Batman.”

  “Whatever keeps you out of this mess.”

  “Was it Lorenzo?”

  He pursed his lips. “I imagine so. I have no idea how he got in, but you’re right; this place has very little security. Anyone with a bit of skill could break in.”

  She hesitated, not wanting to voice the thought she’d had when she first learned of the theft, but feeling compelled, all the same time. “It wasn’t you, was it?”

  Giovanni frowned when he looked at her, but she forced herself to continue, “It’s just…I know they are your letters. And I gave you my combination that time Lorenzo came here, and I would totally—”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  She felt horrible, as if she had betrayed him by even thinking it was a possibility. “Okay. I mean, I believe you. I don’t know why…I just know how much you want them back. And I’d understand if you took them.”

  He cocked his head again, looking at her with a suddenly blank expression.

  “I need to go feed.”

  She looked around, worried that someone had overheard, but Dr. Christiansen was still talking to the police officers, and Charlotte was talking with Dr. Scalia, who had come into the reading room while she and Giovanni had been speaking with the detective.

  “Okay. Are you all right?” she whispered. “I mean, it’s not Friday, and I know you—”

  “It’s best if I feed more.” He glanced at the door. “If there is any sort of trouble, I’ll be at my most effective if I’ve fed recently.”

  Beatrice swallowed, trying to ignore the tightness in her chest. She didn’t know exactly what Giovanni did with the “donors” he fed from, but she had smelled perfume on him more than once when returned on Friday nights.

  His eyes raked over her face. “Unless you’re offering, of course,” he said in a low voice. Giovanni stepped closer to her in the bright, florescent lights of the reading room, and she could feel herself react to him.

  The small hairs on her body reached toward him as she fought their growing attraction. She felt the flush start in her face and her heart picked up, he had probably already sensed the hint of arousal his suggestion had produced.

  She cleared her throat and shook her head. “That’s all right. I need to…I’ll see you later.”

  He paused, opening his mouth as if he wanted to say more, but then straightened and stepped back a little. “I’ll make sure Carl is waiting with the car when your shift is over.”

  She nodded and looked at her hands, twisting them together as he turned to go.

  “See you,” she called, but he was already halfway out the door.

  Charlotte wandered over to her and gave her a small hug. “Can you believe this? What a mess! And poor Dr. Scalia, he’s so upset.”

  Beatrice looked over Charlotte’s shoulder and glanced at the small professor. He did look troubled, and Beatrice had the fleeting thought that sometimes academics put too high a price on old parchment. Then she shook her head and reminded herself she was supposed to be a librarian. Charlotte perched on the edge of the table next to her.

  “I don’t think there’s any reason for you to stay.”

  “Why not?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “We’re just going to be talking to these guys most of the night. And Dr. Vecchio left. Dr. Scalia is hanging around, but he’ll go in a few.” She nodded toward the door. “Go on. Head home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Beatrice thought for a moment, but then decided she didn’t really want to hang around the police detective who was questioning her earlier, even if Giovanni had worked his mind voodoo on him. “Okay. I might hang around downstairs for a while, but I’ll clock out.”

  “Good, and don’t hang out too long. Go do something fun. See if you can track down Dr. Handsome,” she said with a wink.

  “Right,” she laughed. “Right.”

  Beatrice gathered her bag and book from behind the reference desk and checked her phone. As she waited by the elevator, she heard someone behind her. She glanced over, but realized it was only Dr. Scalia, who gave her a sad smile. She nodded at him before she dialed Carl’s number. She was waiting for it to ring when the elevator doors opened. She frowned, knowing she would lose reception if she stepped inside, but not wanting to wait for the next unpredictable car. Beatrice hit the ‘end’ button on her phone and decided she could call Carl from the lobby and wait for him there.

  They had just passed the fourth floor when Dr. Scalia reached forward and pushed the button for the third. She turned to him, startled by the interruption, and saw him standing in the corner, pointing a small handgun at her. His smile and his eyes were still sad.

  “You are so perceptive, my dear. So very much like your father.”

  Her mouth gaped. “Dr. Scalia?”

  The elevator door opened on the next floor and he scooted over to peer out.

  “Come now, my dear. No need to linger in the elevator.”

  “W—what’s going on?” She peered into the darkened hallway on the third floor. Beatrice knew that few students, if any, would be on the floor this time of night. It contained an old section of the law library, and hardly anyone ever used it.

  “You and I are going to meet some friends, Miss De Novo. Off the elevator now. I don’t want to force you.”

  Her mind was reeling, and she kept looking between Dr. Scalia’s sad smile and the gun, unable to comprehend why he was pointing it at her. “But Dr. Scalia—”

  “No arguing,” he said in a sharp voice, motioning toward the empty hallway with the dull, black weapon.

  She stumbled out, her eyes glued to his hand. He propelled her forward, bypassing the main stairwell and heading into the stacks. Dr. Scalia walked close to her, making sure the barrel of his gun brushed against her if she slowed her pace.

  “Did you know yo
ur father and I knew each other? We knew each other in school; we even worked together, for a time. It made everything so much harder. He never should have found those books in Ferrara.”

  She looked around, her heart beginning to beat in panic. The old law library was so seldom used, the staff didn’t even keep the lights on through most of the floor, so the tall bookcases seemed to twist into a dark maze as they walked through them.

  “Books? In Ferrara? Dr. Scalia, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What are you saying about my dad?”

  “You look so much like him, too. Something about your eyes, I think.” Halting for a moment, he looked at her with pity. “I hated to do it…but he had seen them, and he was asking so many questions. He knew they didn’t belong there. I had to tell Lorenzo he had found the books. It was my responsibility to report him. You understand about responsibility, don’t you?”

  She nodded, trying to calm her racing heart as she clutched her phone. “Sure. Sure, I understand.” She didn’t understand. Beatrice didn’t understand a word he was saying. She didn’t know what was in Ferrara, except the—

  “Wait, are you talking about the university where the letters were translated?” She spun around to look at him, halting in the middle of the stacks, totally forgetting about the gun. “So, you work for Lorenzo? Are you saying my father found Lorenzo’s—I mean Gio’s—books in Ferrara? He was in Florence, Dr. Scalia, he was killed—”

  She broke off with a gasp when the small professor stepped forward and raised the gun to her chest. Her stomach dropped. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” she choked out, suddenly looking around and realizing no one could help her. There wasn’t a soul stirring on the third floor that night.

  Dr. Scalia spoke in a soothing voice. “I know it’s confusing, my dear. Hand me your phone, will you? I don’t want to have to shoot you.” He held out his hand, and Beatrice tried to think of a way to stall him so she could call Carl, but the gun seemed to grow larger in his hand the longer she stared at it. Eventually, she handed the small professor her mobile phone, and he stuck it in his pocket.

  “It was such an honor to be asked to care for those books. You’re a librarian, so you must understand. And no one seemed to mind me in the old building. I knew it like the back of my hand. The books never should have been found, I had taken such pains to hide them.”

  He continued to look at her with sympathy, but she noticed his hand never trembled on the gun. He pointed her toward the back staircase as they continued to weave their way through the bookshelves. The back stairs were rarely used, even by the maintenance staff.

  “You stole the letters from the manuscript room, didn’t you? You stole them for Lorenzo?”

  He snorted. “They were his to begin with, and it wasn’t difficult. The combination lock is simple, and I’m such a trustworthy soul, aren’t I? No one notices me darting around this place. Just like Ferrara,” he said with a chuckle. “And he’ll be so pleased to finally have you. He’s been waiting for just the right time.”

  A picture of what her father had stumbled into was beginning to form in Beatrice’s mind, but most of her brain was furiously searching for some way to escape the harmless looking old man with the scary black gun.

  “Dr. Scalia,” she stopped and turned, desperate to deflect his attention. “I don’t know anything. I promise. You can tell Lorenzo.” She tried to wear her most innocent expression. “This is all so confusing. Even the letters—the letters don’t make sense to me. I don’t know anything about the books. I don’t know—”

  “Of course you don’t,” he tried to soothe her, “but Stephen does, and he shouldn’t have run. I know it’s upsetting, but it’s all so much bigger than our own small role. After all, I was the one that persuaded him to keep your father.”

  Dr. Scalia smiled then, and Beatrice could see the edge of madness in his eyes. “I told him how knowledgeable Stephen was, what a good scholar, and how many languages he spoke. I said he would be an asset.” He looked at her and smiled. “I saved your father!”

  She began to lose hope she would be able to elude him when she saw the stairwell approaching. She began to beg. “Dr. Scalia, if you could just put the gun away—”

  He only walked more quickly. “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you. He just needs you to persuade your father to come back. That’s all. He promised he wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “But—”

  “Open the door, and no more talking,” Scalia said in a cold voice. “We wouldn’t want to echo in the stairwell.”

  Beatrice opened the door, praying fervently for some employee to find them as she slowly walked down three flights. They passed the door to the first floor, and she realized with dread that he was steering her toward the basement. She began to panic and tears came to her eyes.

  “Please, Dr. Scalia, if you just let me go—”

  “Quiet, we’re almost there.”

  He shoved the gun between her shoulder blades as he forced her to the basement. The walls began to close in as he guided her down a long hallway with flickering lights. She’d never been in the basement of the library before; as they turned a corner, she almost ran into a grey metal door. No window revealed what was on the other side, but she could hear the sound of dripping water echo from somewhere beyond.

  She felt tears begin to leak down her face.

  “Please…” Beatrice turned and pleaded again. “Dr. Scalia, I don’t want to go with—”

  He put his fingers to his lips in a hushing gesture. “We all do things we don’t want to sometimes.”

  She heard the door creak behind her, and a cold hand touched her shoulder. She felt the amnis creep along her collar, but unlike Giovanni’s warm touch, it felt like a cold trickle of water crawling up her spine, until her eyes rolled back and darkness took her.

  When she woke, Beatrice was disoriented and slumped in the back of a moving car. There was a pale vampire sitting next to her and a dark-haired one was driving. Neither one paid her more than a glance.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  She looked around, but both acted as if she’d said nothing. She sat up, just in time to see the car turn into the gates of Giovanni’s home.

  “Why—who are you?” she asked her captors. “Why are we here?” The sick thought of Giovanni being captured or hurt ate at her. She still felt dizzy, and her stomach was tied in knots. Nausea, either from the touch of amnis or from sheer panic, threatened to choke her. The only reason she wasn’t sitting in a quivering heap was because she had hoped Giovanni was already planning her rescue.

  The two vampires were silent as they parked behind the garage. They bared their fangs when she slapped at them, ignoring her protests as they pulled her out of the car and across the small courtyard to the kitchen door.

  “Don’t touch me! Don’t—” She broke off with a gasp.

  In the shadow of the bubbling fountain, tossed like yesterday’s garbage, were the crumpled bodies of Carl and her other guard, still leaking blood where their necks had been torn open. Their guns lay scattered around their corpses like discarded toys.

  “No—” Beatrice choked out a moment before she emptied her stomach near one of Caspar’s potted plants. Tears she had smothered in the car leapt to her eyes at the sight of her steady, silent protectors laying broken on the ground. She spit out the gore that coated her mouth, and her captors pulled her inside.

  She sniffed and wiped away the tears as they passed through the deserted kitchen and into the living room, where she saw Lorenzo sitting in Giovanni’s chair. The water vampire had a roaring fire lit, and a glass of Giovanni’s scotch in his hand.

  Sitting across from him was Gavin Wallace, the owner of The Night Hawk, who glanced at her with bored eyes.

  “How much longer are we going to be here?” Gavin asked, as they shoved Beatrice to the couch where she and Giovanni had watched horror movies the night before as they finished the bottle of champagne.

  “I don’t know.” L
orenzo turned to her. “Beatrice dear, did your darling Giovanni tell you when he’d be back from feeding and fucking strange women? So lovely that you’re not bothered by that, by the way, very progressive of you,” he said with a wink. “Not like these silly girls in romance novels. I like that he’s trained you so well.”

  Beatrice didn’t know where Giovanni was, or how he was going to get them out of their current predicament, but she certainly wasn’t going to give Lorenzo any clues, so she said nothing, curling her lip as tears fell down her face.

  “Oh,” Lorenzo said with a condescending smile. “Look how clever she is. No useless whining or begging for her. I like her; she reminds me so much of Stephen. He never cried or begged, no matter what I did to him.”

  He cocked his blond head, examining her before he smiled again. “So admirable. He was one still acquainted with honor. And that, my dear, is why you’re such a wonderful prize!”

  Gavin rolled his eyes. “Really, Lorenzo, it’s not as if—”

  “Oh! I hear Giovanni,” Lorenzo broke in with an almost childish giggle. “He’s almost to the gate. Listen, B—that’s what your friends call you, correct? You and I get to solve a mystery tonight.”

  He scooted over next to Beatrice and put an arm around her, drawing her close to his side and stroking her long hair.

  She noticed he made no effort to heat his skin as Giovanni and Carwyn did, and his clammy fingers made her skin crawl. She heard the soft growl of the car engine as it came up the drive, and she tried to dry the tears on her cheeks. She sniffed as Lorenzo cocked his head at her.

  “Look at her. She’s trying to be brave. Do you think she loves him, Gavin?” Lorenzo said. “It’s so precious.”

  Gavin let his head fall back into the chair. “Shut up, you little prick. Why do I have to be here?”

  “Witnesses, my dear man.” Suddenly Lorenzo’s tone took on a more serious bent. “I’m making a deal with my father, and I need an impartial observer. Everyone knows your reputation, Wallace. That’s why you’re here.”