Ben and Tenzin went to change into more casual clothes. Tenzin brushed her hair into a smooth black curtain and applied a light perfume. Ben changed from a suit into simple black pants and a black button-down shirt. Over that, he wore a black trench coat with discreet pockets.
Within a half hour, they were walking to Blythe-Bickman’s car where Ben performed a cursory check. This would be interesting. The car had more electronics than any vehicle he’d ever ridden in. If it managed to start with two vampires inside, it would be a miracle.
Ben patted the hood and looked up. “It’s clear,” he said to Tenzin and the Englishman.
It was clear, but it didn’t start.
Trevor tried starting it a number of times. “I just don’t understand.”
Tenzin and Ben attempted their most innocent expressions.
“Technology,” Ben said. “It’s a mystery.”
At the end of the day, they ended up calling a private car for themselves while Blythe-Bickman called a tow truck. Ben could tell he was embarrassed when they arrived at his house.
Good. He’d be even more motivated to impress Ming.
The massive Tudor mansion in Pacific Heights was on the corner of a block of similarly massive houses. A high wall surrounded the property, and a guard stood at the gate, waiting to open it when they pulled up. They rolled through the automatic gate and entered the immaculately lit yard. Potted plants bloomed in neat rows along the drive and softened the front of the dark brick house.
“What a lovely home,” Tenzin said. “Has it been in your family a long time?”
“Not long. I bought it when I sold my first start-up.” Trevor smiled, already back in his groove. “It’s a good investment, and it has plenty of room for my collection.”
Ben remained silent in the back of the car while Tenzin flirted mildly with the Englishman. Subtlety was the rule of the night with this man, and she was playing it perfectly. She was impressed, but not too impressed. Interested, but also checking her phone for messages.
They entered through carved wooden doors, and Ben took a station outside a small sitting room where Blythe-Bickman’s cook served the couple a light dinner. The maid offered to take his coat, but he demurred and kept his attention fixed on Tenzin and her human admirer.
Who really liked to talk about himself.
Ben tried not to be annoyed; if the man had lived alone, the job would already be done. They could have used amnis to enthrall him and he’d have handed over the keys to his safe, the family silver, and his watch collection with a smile. Sadly, there appeared to be at least two servants in residence, and they didn’t want to attempt to wipe three minds if they could avoid it.
Although…
As he watched the cook and the housekeeper bustle around the house, he realized that neither of them ever headed upstairs. Maybe that was the key. If Tenzin could get Blythe-Bickman upstairs, she’d have him under her command.
They finished their small meal, and Ben watched the Englishman start showing Tenzin around the house. They entered the room with the manuscripts that Ben had seen in the architectural magazine, and he followed them at a discreet distance, examining the pieces but finding nothing like the eighth-century illuminated devotional they were looking for. Ben was scanning the shelves for a distinctive type of chain stitching on the binding that his uncle told him would mark the manuscript as Ethiopian.
Nothing in the library matched the description that Giovanni had given him or the pictures he’d seen, though he did see a cross that he knew was Ethiopian sitting in a corner of the bookshelves, tossed in with other Orthodox crosses. It was carved wood and painted in rich colors, with the twelve distinct spikes at the top that denoted a typical Lalibela-style cross.
As the Englishman and Tenzin headed out of the library, he slipped the relic in his pocket. The man probably wouldn’t even notice it was missing.
As they worked their way through the downstairs rooms, Ben noticed Blythe-Bickman’s body language changing. He was more possessive, more personal. As they moved back toward the foyer, Ben knew exactly where the man was heading.
They turned toward him at the base of the stairs, and Tenzin looked him in the eye. “Amir, Trevor is going to show me his private gallery upstairs. You’ll wait here.”
Ben put his arms behind his back and stood at attention. “Are there any outdoor exits?”
“No,” Blythe-Bickman said. “There is a large balcony, but there aren’t any exits from it. The only way in and out is this staircase, okay?” He was patronizing now. “So just… make yourself at home.” He smirked. “Downstairs.”
Ben met Tenzin’s eyes and saw nothing but wolfish excitement in her gaze.
Oh, my adorable, greedy little magpie.
Ben nodded at her and turned to take up a position in the foyer while Tenzin followed the Englishman up the stairs. He heard low, excited whispers and knew that whatever Tenzin had planned for the Englishman, it was not at all what the human was expecting.
9
Human men were so predictable. Trevor was so excited to get Ming alone he nearly assaulted her on the upstairs landing. If Tenzin hadn’t slipped away, she never would have drawn him farther into the house.
“Now Trevor, I really did want to see your art collection.” She pressed a finger to his searching lips. “Don’t worry. Amir knows what his directions are. We have plenty of time.”
The man was flushed and his heartbeat was pounding. “Ming, you’re so beautiful. Smart. Intriguing…”
She allowed her lips to hover over his. “Patience.”
He shook his head. “You are so mysterious, darling.”
And you are so obvious. She took his hand and led him farther along the corridor, turning left into what looked like a long gallery. She could see french doors leading out to the wide covered balcony she’d seen from the front entrance of the house.
She turned to Trevor, allowing her voice to become slightly breathless. “Are we alone up here? Really alone?”
“Yes.” He put a hand on her waist and tried to draw her closer. “The staff doesn’t come up to the second floor except on Tuesdays when they clean. It’s my sanctuary.”
“One must have… privacy.” She allowed him to draw her close. “I envy you, Trevor. Your family doesn’t control you. You are free.”
His eyes were dark and greedy. “Let me make you free.” He tried to kiss her, and she flooded his senses with amnis.
Unfortunately, Tenzin might have overshot the goal, because the man’s eyes rolled back and his head landed with a thud on her shoulder. He slumped against her, pushing her into a wall.
“Oops.” She pulled back some of her power as she guided him toward a chaise under a window in the gallery. “Let’s just set you here for a moment.” She looked at him sleeping soundly and then looked to the right toward the stairwell. “Benjamin is not going to like this.”
She walked back toward the landing and whispered, just loud enough for Ben to hear. “He’s out.”
She heard his light footsteps floating up the stairs.
His eyes were guarded. “The servants—”
“Only come up here on Tuesday.” She waved him into the gallery and stood in front of Trevor, her head cocked as she watched him sleep. “It’s his ‘sanctuary.’”
“Did you find out where his safe is?”
“Ah…” She pursed her lips. “The thing is—”
“You overdid it on the amnis, didn’t you?”
“He was trying to kiss me.” She wrinkled her nose. “I only let you do that, remember?”
“And I’m very glad, Tiny, but did you have to put him quite so far out?” Ben knelt and patted Trevor’s cheek. “He’s barely breathing.”
“You know, I think he was really stressed.” Tenzin put her fists on her hips. “He probably needed this.”
“Well, we need to get his combination.” Ben reached down and hoisted the man over his shoulder. “Are we guessing the safe is in the bedroom?”
“He seems unimaginative, so yes.”
Ben carried the Englishman down the gallery and back toward the hall where several rooms branched off. There were two empty bedrooms, but none of them looked like the main suite. They walked back through the gallery, and Tenzin paused in front of a particularly beautiful silver necklace hanging on the wall.
“I think it’s Hmong,” she said. “And several hundred years old. Can I—?”
“Safe first,” Ben said. “Then you can browse.”
That was definitely not a no. Ben was being surprisingly larcenous, and she planned to take full advantage. “Tell me why you don’t mind stealing from this one,” she said. “Is it because he wanted to have sex with me?”
Ben and Tenzin followed Blythe-Bickman’s scent, which led them to a vast bedroom suite with a sitting area, small office, and shelves and shelves of books. He tossed the sleeping man on the massive four-poster bed in the middle of the room. Tenzin noticed the barely concealed hooks in the posts but didn’t say anything.
Apparently Blythe-Bickman wasn’t quite as predictable as she’d imagined.
“I don’t mind stealing from this one” —Ben scanned the luxurious room hung with art from all over the world— “because do you have any doubt that his family ripped off ninety percent of these things under the aegis of the British Crown?” He walked over to a silk-matted painting. “This watercolor is from Jodhpur, I guarantee you. I’m guessing eighteenth century. He has at least five similar paintings in the house. You think he bought them legitimately or paid a fair price?”
Ben walked to another artifact. “This mask looks West African, and I’d say from the paint condition, it’s at least two or three hundred years old. Why does he even own this? It belongs in a museum.”
He walked to a figure that looked Native American. “This is from the Pacific Northwest, so maybe he bought this on the legitimate market, but where do you think all his family’s fucking money came from? Exploiting poor people.” He curled his lip. “This guy is the walking, talking definition of aristocratic privilege. So yeah, you can rob the shit out of him. He’ll survive.”
Tenzin walked over and patted Ben’s shoulder. “Well, he’s not walking and talking right now. And we have no idea where his safe is.”
Ben turned in circles in the center of the room. “You know what? I don’t think this bastard would keep the manuscript locked up. He likes to show off too much, and according to the information we got, this book is beautiful.”
“I didn’t see it in that gallery.”
“I bet he doesn’t have a safe; I bet he has another gallery.” Ben narrowed his eyes. “A personal one.”
Tenzin took a breath and filtered through the myriad scents in the room. For Ben, whose senses were strong but unstudied, it probably just smelled musty. But for Tenzin…
“It would have to be in a case,” she said. “San Francisco has too much sea air for the book to be unprotected.” She walked out of the bedroom, following her nose through the whole second floor, but she found nothing that indicated a priceless manuscript was being stored anywhere. She wasn’t sniffing for vellum or gum arabic, she was searching for the faint scent of mold.
She walked back to the bedroom, where Ben was staring at a sleeping Trevor Blythe-Bickman. “He’d need a dehumidifying case, and I don’t see one anywhere.”
“And it would be noticeable,” Ben said. “There was nothing like that in the library downstairs.”
“The house is air-conditioned,” Tenzin said. “The conditions in the library are probably sufficient for the majority of his collection because there are no windows.”
“So where does he keep…?” Ben floated to the middle of the bedroom, looking back and forth out the windows on either side of the bed. “I’m getting that weird sense again.”
Tenzin floated toward him. “You’re right, it’s subtle, but you’re right. It’s nothing like the mansion in Hungary, but…”
They both said it at the same time. “It’s bigger on the outside.”
Ben walked to the window and looked to the right. “There’s a hidden room up here.”
Tenzin walked to a silk tapestry hanging just to the right of the bathroom door and pulled it aside. “I told you,” she said. “Unimaginative.”
Ben walked to the window and looked out. “There are windows on the outside. I think he might have enclosed a balcony somehow.” He looked at the door. “Let’s see if we can find a way in.”
Tenzin pressed an electronic panel set into the wall, and a set of numbers started to glow.
“Don’t forget gloves.”
Ben tossed her a sleek pair of leather gloves, and Tenzin put them on, quickly wiping the panel she’d just pressed. The last thing they needed was their fingerprints on file in some computer database.
“Okay, here’s where we need him to wake up,” Tenzin said. “We need the combination.”
“But he’s so quiet and dumb-looking right now.” Ben cocked his head, watching the sleeping Englishman. “Try his birthday.”
Tenzin snorted. “He wouldn’t.”
Ben shrugged. “He might.” He reached in the man’s pocket and found a slim billfold. “March sixth, nineteen eighty-nine.”
Tenzin tried it, but the panel glowed red. “No.”
“Did you try American or European dates?”
“Oh.” She’d been in the United States too long. She reversed the month and day and tried again.
The panel glowed green; then a section of the wall popped out and slid to the side, revealing a thoroughly modern private gallery that positively glittered.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Tenzin was giddy.
She walked into the hidden room and marveled. There were precious stones sitting in one case and a treasury of Byzantine jewelry in another. There was a mosaic framed on one wall that was a dead ringer for some of the Pompeiian mosaics she’d seen in a museum in Naples.
And standing alone at the end of the room was a white-marble-and-glass case holding a small manuscript open on a silk-covered book rest. The devotional was under another thick glass case, and Tenzin could hear the quiet hum of the dehumidifier working in the windowless room. She walked over and looked at the priceless work of art that had been Desta of Aksum’s last and most personal work.
“Is that it?” Ben was at her shoulder.
“Yes.” Tenzin had seen some other pieces that Lucien held dear, and this book had the same sublime beauty. But despite its age, the pages were even more colorful and well preserved than Lucien’s examples.
“She was the scribe?” Ben stared at the book.
“No, the gospel was commissioned; Desta did the artwork.”
Desta, most beloved daughter of Saba and sister of Lucien Thrax, had not only been an earth vampire, an accomplished scholar, and a famed beauty. She’d also been an artist of immense talent. The vampire commissioned the devotional written in Ge’ez when she converted to Christianity in the late sixth century, and she’d spent nearly fifty years completing the illuminations in the traditional Aksumite style of her human ancestors. The devotional was intended to be a gift for her mother Saba, but the ancient rejected it, unimpressed with her daughter’s new faith.
“Are we certain this is it?” Ben asked. “Makeda’s father—”
“Is a scholar of immense reputation, backed up by Desta’s only living brother. Dr. Abel showed the pictures to Lucien, and Lucien says it’s genuine.” She couldn’t pull her eyes away from it. “In addition, look at the style. Look at the binding.” She placed her hands on the sides of the glass. “I don’t feel any sensors, do you?”
“No, I don’t think it’s alarmed.” Ben looked around the room. “He depended on a birthday combination lock for all this.”
“Idiot.”
“Arrogant.”
Oh well, easier for them. “Did you bring the glass cutter?”
Ben’s eyes went wide. “You said you were bringing it.”
“Oh
right.” Her grin was impish. “You looked so panicked. It’s in my purse.”
“I’ll pay you back later for that one,” he muttered and walked out of the room while Tenzin perused the other offerings in Trevor Blythe-Bickman’s gallery.
There was another artifact from Jodhpur that she’d be relieving him of, an intricately jeweled dagger that would look perfect in her collection. The paintings on the wall were primarily from European masters and held little interest for her.
“Oil, pigment, and canvas,” she muttered.
“What’s that?” Ben asked, returning with the glass cutter and immediately getting to work on the manuscript case.
“Paintings are fundamentally worthless.”
“The market determines the value, Tenzin. They have worth because of their rarity and the skill involved. How can you devalue paintings but value manuscripts?”
“Because manuscripts contain knowledge.”
“So does an e-book.”
“Fine. Manuscripts are prettier. And they have gold.”
“And they have gold,” he muttered. “So did the Florentine masters.”
It was an old argument, but one that reared its head at least once or twice a year. “When you’re done with Desta’s book, I want that dagger.”
Ben glanced at her and smiled. “I knew you had your eye on that one.”
They could only take what would fit in their pockets. They didn’t need extra scrutiny when they made their exit. Luckily, Ben had brought a big coat.
“Did you mess up the sheets?” Tenzin asked.
“Oh, I thought I’d leave that to your vivid imagination,” Ben murmured. “Almost done here…” A wide circle of glass popped out of the side of the case. “Hello, gorgeous.” Ben pulled an acid-free roll of paper from his inside coat pocket and quickly bent it to fit the dimensions of the manuscript. Then he removed his gloves and opened a sealed hand wipe Giovanni had given him. He thoroughly washed his hands and waved them in the air until they were dry.
“This is better than gloves?” Tenzin asked.
Ben rolled his eyes. “I’m listening to my uncle here. He says gloves can do more harm than good with pieces this old.”
The Bone Scroll: An Elemental Legacy Novel Page 7