“She orchestrated it, Lucien. I heard it from her own soldier’s mouth. She gave the order; she took his choice from him.” Tenzin had always had every intention of persuading Ben into immortality, but she’d wanted him to choose it. In the end, he had not, and Tenzin had made the choice for him. The rift it had caused led to over two years of resentment they had only recently overcome.
Lucien took a deep breath. “I’m disappointed but not surprised. You know I have little to no influence over my mother, Tenzin. I don’t know what you want me to—”
“She wronged him. She stole his life after he saved yours.” Ben had once pulled Lucien from the sunlight, saving his immortal life and allowing Saba to heal him.
“I know.” Lucien looked more than embarrassed; he looked pained. “I’m sure she doesn’t see it that way,” he said. “Saba doesn’t think like us; you know this.”
Tenzin said nothing.
“Does Ben know?” Lucien asked. “About my mother?”
“No.”
“He needs to know, Tenzin.” Lucien shook his head. “Don’t make the mistakes I have. Don’t try to hide the truth from the ones you love, even if you think it’s for their own good.”
“He can’t…” She took a breath. “He’s powerful, Lucien, but compared to Saba—”
“There is no comparison.”
The ancient mother was more of an elemental force than an individual power. No one knew when she had come into being, not even Saba herself. Her elemental force could literally reshape the earth and wipe out their kind if she wanted it.
“Give him a little credit for wisdom,” Lucien said. “Ben is the son of Giovanni Vecchio; he knows what discipline is, and he deserves to know.”
Tenzin let the subject lie. It wasn’t the true reason she’d come. “Something is happening in the old world,” Tenzin said. “My father came to give me a message in New York.”
Lucien blinked. “Zhang came to New York?”
“He told me Arosh had found the bone scroll in Aksum.” Arosh, the ancient Fire King of the Near East, was one of the Council of Alitea and Saba’s consort much of the time. As such, Lucien knew him about as well as any living vampire Tenzin could think of.
“Zhang thinks Arosh has the bone scroll?” Lucien closed his eyes and shook his head a little. “Your father thinks the bone scroll is real?”
“He says he knows it is. He says he saw it in the possession of a Manichaean missionary in the sixth century.”
“And he didn’t take it?”
“He didn’t realize what it was at the time. It was just an old scroll written in a language no one could decipher. I’d heard about the bone scroll, but only as a myth. Zhang had no idea.”
“It’s practically a vampire urban legend,” Lucien said. “I don’t think it exists. And if it did, why would it be in Aksum?”
Tenzin spread her hands out. “How did the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant end up there? I don’t know, Lucien. People like to hide things in Ethiopia.” That wasn’t how it ended up there, but she didn’t have any obligation to share her research with Saba’s son.
“The Ark…” Lucien waved a hand. “Longer story. Tenzin, if the bone scroll exists, and if it does what the stories say it does, then I am confident that Arosh does not have it. He probably put out that rumor for political reasons or something. It’s petty posturing.”
“How are you so sure?”
Lucien pursed his lips. “Has he overtaken the immortal world in the past few months and no one told me?”
Tenzin narrowed her eyes. “No.”
“There you are.” Lucien shrugged. “He doesn’t have it.”
2
Ben didn’t wait for Tenzin to arrive at the restaurant to place an order; he’d known the woman for over a decade, and he knew what she’d want to eat. He ordered a bowl of noodles and a bowl of polo from the dark-haired waiter, then settled into the corner booth, sipping a glass of Coke and soda water. The older he got as a vampire, the more he disliked how sweet most sodas were. He found most flavors intense, but sweetness bothered him more than most.
The Central Asian restaurant was open twenty-four hours, owned by a grumpy Kazakh earth vampire, and served an eclectic clientele. Most of the patrons that night were young vampires like Ben, taking advantage of a discreet location to meet humans or fellow immortals without dishing out the money for pricier vampire clubs.
One of the things that Ben had learned quickly was a lot of vampires—especially young ones—were remarkably cheap. While some immortals came from wealthy families like Ben did, a lot of them were what his father would have called “working stiffs.”
Kind of literally, in a vampire’s case.
If you were newly turned and under the aegis of a powerful vampire, you weren’t likely to have a lot of money unless your sire was particularly generous. Those who ascended the hierarchy in clans gained power, influence, and cash. Those just starting out had to earn their keep.
Unlike Ben, most of these younger vampires didn’t have to consciously put a mental blanket over their amnis so they wouldn’t start a fight when they went out for middle-of-the-night noodles.
Ben was watching the two a.m. traffic pass when he felt her approach. Tenzin and he had shared blood a few times, but Ben was cautious. He didn’t know what all was involved in a blood bond, and he didn’t want to form one without talking to Tenzin, who didn’t seem interested in discussing the subject.
Rock, meet hard place. They hadn’t shared blood in months. A bed? Absolutely. But not blood.
As Tenzin walked through the door and headed toward him, he thought about an old joke he’d heard from his uncle’s butler, Caspar.
Question: How do porcupines mate?
Answer: Very carefully.
She sat down, and she was soaking wet.
Ben blinked. “Did you go swimming in the bay?”
“No.” Tenzin leaned over and wrung out her hair on the floor next to the booth. The Kazakh in the opposite corner started muttering at her in a language Ben didn’t understand. Tenzin turned and said something in the same language before giving the man a gesture Ben didn’t need to translate.
“Are you trying to get us kicked out? I like the food here.”
“I know him.” She shrugged one shoulder. “His wife is wonderful and likes me. She’s too good for him, and I remind him of it regularly.”
“Vampire or human?” He shoved a half-full glass of tea toward her. “Do you want a towel?”
She reached for the tea. “For what?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. How did the meeting go?”
“Lucien doesn’t think he has it.”
Mindful of vampire hearing around them, Ben kept things vague. “Really?”
“Really.” She sipped her tea, then added sugar. “He says if he’d had it, he’d have used it by now, so he must not have it. I don’t think Lucien even believes in it.”
Ben reached for the sugar before she could go overboard. “But you do?”
“Of course. If my father says it’s real, it’s real.”
Ben still didn’t have the full picture on this scroll made of bones, but he knew enough to know it was considered a magical artifact, and Ben treated anything purporting to be magical with a huge degree of skepticism.
Sure, he was a vampire, but that was all explainable when you understood amnis.
And where amnis came from? Maybe they didn’t quite understand that yet, but what animated any kind of life really? Magic scrolls of power, on the other hand, seemed about as realistic as werewolves, zombies, and witches who flew on broomsticks.
“Tenzin?”
“Hmm?” She sipped her tea, seemingly lost in thought.
“Do you believe in witches and werewolves?”
“Witches? Of course. Werewolves are biologically ridiculous.”
He smiled but didn’t ask more. He was sure she’d have an explanation if he asked, but their food was coming; he could smell the lamb and cumin
from the kitchen. He set a plate in front of her, along with some chopsticks and a large spoon.
Their food arrived, and he spooned some of the polo onto her plate, then a portion of noodles. Tenzin was still staring into space.
“Hey, good-lookin’.” He nudged her foot with his. “You come here often?”
Tenzin blinked and refocused on him. “What?”
Ben picked up his spoon and started on the polo. “I was just wondering if you ate here often. It’s my first time at this place. Do you live in the neighborhood? I just moved here. We could go for coffee sometime if you want, get to know each other.” He winked at her confused expression.
Tenzin cocked her head, staring at Ben as if he’d grown two heads. “Did something happen to your memory?”
He couldn’t help it. Ben broke into a grin. “I’m teasing you, Tenzin.”
“How is that teasing?”
He reached across the table and cleaned the corner of her mouth with his napkin as she frowned at him. “You had a piece of parsley—”
“Did you sustain a head injury of some kind? If you have, we need to contact—”
“Tenzin, I’m teasing you.” He leaned his chin on his hand and didn’t try to stop the smile. “I was pretending you were a pretty girl in a restaurant I was just meeting. I was playing with you. There’s nothing wrong with my memory.”
“You were playing?”
“Yes.” He reached for the chopsticks their waiter had set on the table. “The noodles are good here. You should have some.” He couldn’t wait; it had been ages since he’d had hand-pulled noodles cooked this way.
Tenzin was still staring at him. “Is this your way of suggesting we incorporate role-play into our sexual practices?”
Ben nearly spit out the mouthful of noodles he’d just stuffed in his mouth. He tried to swallow as quickly as possible while simultaneously reaching across the table to cover Tenzin’s mouth.
“I don’t have any objections to that, though there are some scenarios that I would not find arousing, such as—”
“Oh my God, please be quiet.” Ben finally managed to speak. “No, this was not a suggestion to incorporate… You know what? Let’s change the subject. I should tell you about my meeting too.”
“Props might be fun, but we’d want to be careful with any fully functional weapons, because we both tend to forget our strength sometimes when we’re—”
“Blueprints! I think I can get them for the house. Good news, right?” Ben had to get her off the subject before all of immortal San Francisco had a clear picture of Tenzin’s particular sexual proclivities, which were wide, varied, and none of their damn business. “Remember the meeting I had?”
Tenzin frowned, then nodded. “Right. And we didn’t finish talking about Lucien.”
“He doesn’t believe in it and doesn’t think the guy has it, right?”
“Right.” She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Yes. I suppose those are the main points of the conversation.”
She was keeping something back, which exasperated him, but he was learning to be patient. Since they’d reunited, Tenzin had been learning to open up, but she was a five-thousand-year-old creature who’d survived by secrecy and evasion; hiding things was second nature. She was making an effort to share more with him, but it took some practice.
Ben let the silence hang for a moment. “So that was it? He doesn’t think the guy has it?”
“Yes. That was what we talked about.” She ate some polo. “And they were at Giovanni and Beatrice’s for Christmas.”
He glanced at her since it was a sore spot. “We were invited.”
“Your aunt is very… polite.” Tenzin focused on her food, very deliberately not looking at Ben. “I’m not going to do that.”
“B is going to get over it.” His aunt, who had once been like family with Tenzin, had been furious when Ben had turned. He knew Beatrice had been angry that Tenzin had taken the choice of turning away from him, but he thought things had been getting better. “One step at a time. She smiled at you in Rome.”
“Because Sadia was there.” Tenzin was concentrating on her noodles. “Beatrice can carry a grudge longer than you or Giovanni. It will likely be some time before we are friends again.” She turned her head. “Aldiyar, your noodles are better than ever.”
The brooding vampire in the corner grunted but didn’t say anything.
“So you think she’s going to avoid the house all next week?” Ben asked. “That doesn’t sound practical.”
“No, she will be very” —Tenzin bristled at the word— “polite.”
Since they were working on the West Coast, they’d planned a visit for Ben to see his family in Los Angeles. His aunt, uncle, and their adopted daughter Sadia—who was Ben’s baby sister in all ways but blood—were excited to see him. Giovanni and Sadia were also excited to see Tenzin, but Beatrice was notably silent when Ben called to tell the family they’d both be coming.
Ben tipped up her chin and forced Tenzin’s eyes to his. “Hey.”
She met his eyes with her own stormy grey ones, incongruous in a face that hailed from Northern Asia. “Benjamin.”
“She loves you. We’ll get past this.”
Her ever-present fangs appeared behind her lips. “I want to leave now.”
“I’ll have them pack up the food.” He nodded toward the door. “Do you want to head out first?” Two vampires flying were considerably more noticeable than one, even at night.
She nodded. “Don’t take too long.” She stood and headed for the door. “We will try the role-playing sex later.”
At least everyone in the diner waited for Tenzin to leave before they chuckled.
As Ben was leaving, the gruff Aldiyar waved him over.
Ben smiled. “Everything tasted great. Thanks for—”
“They warned you, yes?” Aldiyar nodded toward the door. “About that one?”
Ben struck an innocent expression. “Warned me about what?”
Aldiyar narrowed his eyes and waved a dismissive hand at Ben, who smiled and headed out the door.
Since Tenzin had collected a wide variety of residences in her nearly five thousand years of life, when she told Ben she “had a place” in San Francisco to stay, he simply assumed he was going to find out about another real estate purchase.
In fact, Tenzin’s “place” was the attic of an enormous Victorian house off of Alamo Square, owned by an elderly woman who didn’t realize the attic window was easily accessed by someone flying outside.
While Ben couldn’t complain about the spacious attic or the light-safe modifications Tenzin had made over the years, he felt distinctly uncomfortable with what was basically a squatting situation.
He was lying back on the comfortable king-sized mattress she’d somehow gotten into the place. “I just don’t know how you believe she’d be comfortable with this arrangement if she found out about it. She doesn’t even know about vampires, Tenzin.”
“I realize that, but I’ve met her. I pretended I was a new neighbor once, and she invited me in for a glass of wine.” Tenzin lay next to him, snuggling into the crook of his arm. “Mavis is very generous, and I wanted to get a look inside the house.”
“Are you warm enough?”
“I’m completely dry.” Tenzin leaned in and kissed his neck. “Stop fussing.”
Kiss, don’t bite. He felt his body react to her. Like an electrical current, all it took was a moment of contact. Ben closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of Tenzin’s hand sneaking under his shirt. It would be gone shortly, but he’d discovered that she liked to disrobe him and take her time.
“Mavis is generous because she thought you were her new neighbor, Tenzin, not because you wanted to steal her attic.”
“I contributed to the foundation work several years ago, Ben. I made a deal with the contractor and paid for most of it. Don’t insinuate I’m a leech. If you want to talk about parasites, those are her children.” She muttered something in Mandari
n that would likely make the old woman’s ears bleed. “They’re waiting for her to die. I hate them.”
“You are not allowed to kill them, Tenzin.”
“I knew you were going to say that.” She rolled on her back. “I have considered insinuating myself into Mavis’s life in order to disinherit them though. They don’t deserve her money. She and Walter worked very hard for it. I know what her favorite charities are. I would keep the house, obviously.”
“Tenzin, you’re not allowed to disinherit Mavis’s children. That’s not the kind of con we do.”
She pouted. “We could do it just once though.”
“No.” It was the kind of thing his biological mother had liked to do, and Ben had made a vow long ago not to poach from the vulnerable. He wasn’t like her. He worked hard to create his own identity, even in eternity, and now he belonged only to himself.
Well, himself and the tiny, slightly sociopathic vampire he loved.
“I’m just saying that there is an argument to be made to remove the second generation.” Tenzin clearly wasn’t ready to let the subject go. “The grandchildren seem quite nice and visit her regularly. There are five of them, and they are redeemable. The oldest girl is studying to be a teacher, which is a very honorable profession.”
He had to distract her somehow, otherwise Mavis’s unsuspecting grandchildren might end up orphans. “So what did you have in mind for role-playing sex?”
She popped up and looked at him, her eyes alight. “I read something on the internet that sounded highly erotic. It’s probably good Mavis doesn’t hear well.”
Ben bit back a laugh. “I absolutely adore you.”
“I know.”
3
Visiting Ben’s family should have been simple, but it wasn’t. They landed a few blocks away from the house so as not to trigger the extensive electronic surveillance that surrounded the compound in San Marino. The exclusive enclave in Southern California was home to more than one immortal—along with business leaders and celebrities—so the patchwork of human and immortal security was a minefield for wind vampires. It was really best to just walk a few blocks and avoid the drama.
The Bone Scroll: An Elemental Legacy Novel Page 2