The Bone Scroll: An Elemental Legacy Novel

by Hunter, Elizabeth

  But as her mate? She’d had a mate before, and he’d died. Was it fair to ask her for that again? Ben knew that Tenzin was possessive of him—that he was hers—but he was still trying to wrap human ideas of a relationship around her. He didn’t know how else to define what he felt for her.

  He loved her. He wanted her to belong to him. In his human life that would mean marriage and commitment, but he didn’t know what that meant for a five-thousand-year-old vampire, and he didn’t know how to bring it up.

  He felt his anger starting to rise.

  Tenzin kept her eyes on the dark house. A few windows were glowing on the west side, and she watched them intently for movement.

  It wasn’t fair. Ben had been human only a few short years ago, and he thought he was doing pretty damn well at adapting to immortality, but if Tenzin thought they could have a partnership—romantic or personal—where she just took off and disappeared for who-knows-how-long and he had to wait and see—

  “You could come with me when I go.” She turned to him. “If you’d like. I’d like to show you the valley in Tibet where I go to rest.”

  Ben blinked. “Oh.”

  “You thought I wanted to go alone.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “I could feel you getting angry.”

  He didn’t apologize for it. “You do that sometimes.”

  “And if I need time alone, I will tell you.” She reached for his hand and pressed their palms together. “But I don’t need time away from you. I just need time away.”

  His fingers squeezed hers once, then held them loosely as he and Tenzin watched the house. “I’d love to see Tibet.”

  She smiled. “Good.”

  18

  Tenzin sipped her third cup of Ethiopian coffee that night.

  Ben watched her with narrowed eyes. “Are you sure caffeine has no effect on immortal systems?”

  They were sitting in a restaurant near a busy intersection. Fruit vendors hawked their wares on the street outside, trying to empty their carts as people sped home from work.

  She looked at him and raised her empty cup. “What do you think this coffee is going to do? Keep me awake all day?”

  Tenzin still hadn’t told Ben she’d been sleeping a little bit. It was one of the secrets she had a hard time admitting because sleeping made her feel vulnerable. It was also one of the reasons she refrained from taking Ben’s blood, especially when they were in Saba’s territory.

  Ben would only think about taking her blood if she took his, and she resisted anything that might make her more vulnerable, especially here. Even the drifting sleep she experienced from the blood she’d already taken was more sleep than she’d had in thousands of years.

  “Tenzin?” Ben snapped his fingers in front of her nose. “Come back.”

  “I don’t remember when I stopped sleeping.” She met his eyes that saw too much. Perhaps she could bare this part of herself without becoming too vulnerable. “I think I stopped because bad things happened when I slept.”

  Ben reached for her hand but said nothing.

  “When I was young, I could not control it. You understand that.” She looked away and set down her empty cup. “But over time I was able to stay awake longer and longer. Eventually I didn’t sleep at all, so I learned to meditate to rest my mind.”

  “And you still meditate.”

  She nodded. “For hours.” That was still true. Most of her days were spent in meditation, the only way her mind could rest since her body did not.

  “So that’s good.” He squeezed her hand. “Maybe in time—when you feel safe—your body will learn how to sleep again.”

  Was that why? Tenzin blinked. She had not considered that Ben’s amnis—that his bond with her—had made her feel… safe.

  She leaned toward him and touched his jaw, feeling the strong bone beneath the skin. Her fingers trailed down to the delicate skin covering his neck. “You are beautiful and strong, my Benjamin. But if I never sleep—”

  “I’ll try not to take it personally.” He leaned over and brushed a kiss against her mouth. “I know.”

  “I am a very old woman, after all.” There was a human saying about old dogs and new tricks, but it was actually a very bad saying because old dogs were just as intelligent as puppies and could respond to human training with the proper motivation.

  So perhaps… her body could learn to respond to new instincts as well.

  Ben smiled and brushed a thumb along Tenzin’s cheek. “Chloe’s friend is coming.”

  “I see.” Tenzin sat up and looked around the restaurant where they had eaten a small meal.

  Well, as small a meal as was possible to get in Ethiopia, which seemed to specialize in filling entire tables with colorful dishes. It was delightful to have so much variety, but she hoped someone was eating the food left over.

  The restaurant was a popular one with open-air seating, short tables and chairs, and loud traditional music. The crowd was mostly local, but a large tour group in matching blue shirts filled one corner, and a few other foreigners—faranji as the locals called them—filled other tables, sometimes with Ethiopian companions and sometimes on their own.

  “I have not seen any other East Asian women in this country,” Tenzin said. “All the Chinese businesspeople are male.”

  “I noticed that.” Ben waved at a woman walking down the stairs into the dining room. “I’ve seen a few Indian women though.”

  “Yes. I did notice that. This is Chloe’s friend?” Tenzin found herself feeling possessive and attracted at the same time. The woman walking toward them was absolutely beautiful. Tenzin scooted slightly closer to Ben as the human approached.

  Her cheeks were full, and two dimples showed when she smiled. Her hair curled in spirals around her head, and her eyes reminded Tenzin of the iconic art she’d seen in churches and museums. Dark brown and thickly lashed, the woman’s eyes dominated a heart-shaped face decorated by a bowed mouth.

  Tenzin spoke in Mandarin. “Are all the women in this country so beautiful?”

  The corner of Ben’s mouth turned up. “You’re asking me?” He lowered his mouth to her ear and whispered, “They are beautiful, so why can’t I keep my eyes off you?”

  She wasn’t able to respond before the gorgeous woman sat.

  “Hello.” She reached her hand across to shake Tenzin’s as she put her purse on a spare chair. “You must be Tenzin. I’m Liya, and it’s so nice to meet you.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you as well. Your country is a fascinating place.”

  “Thank you!” She was still smiling. “Ben and Chloe told me that you’re a dealer in Asian art, is that correct? You must travel a great deal.”

  They had decided that Tenzin being an Asian antiquities dealer was less suspicious than calling her a treasure hunter and admitting she liked all shiny, valuable things from anywhere in the world.

  “Yes. Most of my experience is in Asia, though Ben and I currently work in New York.” That was all true. New Year’s resolutions intact. “And you are an archaeologist, is that correct?”

  “It is.” Liya eyed a platter of food that passed.

  “Are you hungry?” Ben asked. “I can’t thank you enough for recommending this place. It’s fantastic. We already ate, but if you’re hungry—”

  “If you don’t mind.” Liya said, “I’m going to order some shiro. I was supposed to get dinner with a colleague, and then I was delayed, so we had to cancel.”

  “Please,” Tenzin said. “Order food. We will be happy to watch you eat.”

  Ben covered his laugh with a cough. “Tenzin and I are still trying to get the hang of how Ethiopians manage to eat without making a mess with the injera.”

  Liya waved a server to the table. “Practice, you know? You’ll get the hang of it.” The woman ordered in Amharic and asked Ben and Tenzin if they wanted anything else to drink. Ben decided to order a beer, and Tenzin ordered a bottle of the local sparkling water.

  “Chloe mentioned that you might have
a customer who was interested in funding my Nile River dig?” Liya said. “I have to admit I’m surprised and a little skeptical, but even if you wanted to pass along a phone number, I’d appreciate it.”

  “They are very interested,” Tenzin said. “And I can say that with certainty because the client is actually me.”

  Ben and Liya were both silent, which didn’t surprise Tenzin. This conversation was not going as she and Ben had rehearsed, but Tenzin’d had a sudden instinct that Dr. Liya Tegegne would respond better to directness.

  And she did not appear to be overly charmed by Ben, which was to his disadvantage. He would probably try to flirt with Liya during negotiations, and that wasn’t going to work.

  Tenzin leaned across the small table. “Let me be very clear: I am opposed to the theft of indigenous art and antiquities that rob a country of its culture even in the name of so-called preservation. I think most of those arguments are poorly thought out and selfishly motivated.”

  Liya was still blinking. “Okay. Cool. On the same page there.”

  “But Ben and I have very good reason to believe that a Near Eastern scroll is located in this country and was brought during the Aksumite period. It is not an Ethiopian artifact, and we are trying to find it. It is very important that we do, because others are looking for it too, and they would likely not be as respectful or ethical as we are.”

  Okay, that might not have been fair to Arosh, but the vampire was really kind of an asshole, and she’d thought so for years.

  Liya sat back in her seat. “Okay. Um… Wow. I don’t really know what to say.”

  “What we are proposing is access to information you likely have regarding the location of possible Aksumite sites that have not been well explored. We would use as soft an approach as possible in exploring those sites and would guarantee no removal of any artifacts that are Ethiopian or Aksumite in origin.”

  Lila held up her hands. “Wait. What? What are you saying? You’re telling me—”

  “That there is an artifact of Persian origin that multiple parties will be looking for, and we’re trying to find it first. That’s why we are offering to help. We will be exploring sites, but we could look more intelligently and more carefully if you helped us with information.”

  Liya looked skeptical. Tenzin could hardly blame her.

  “And in exchange for this… information,” she said, “you’d fund my excavation on the Blue Nile.”

  “I would be willing to fully fund you for five years no matter the outcome of our search. Not only do I want the information from you about this scroll, but I also admire the work you are trying to do. Early humans had complex lives and communities, and I think it’s important for modern humans to understand them.”

  Ben put his arm around Tenzin and cleared his throat. “I, for one, am often confused by the motivations of early humans. I find some of their choices… baffling.”

  Liya frowned. “I don’t know what to say. I mean… yes, I know some sites that could be Aksumite in origin, but what you’re proposing—”

  “Is far less invasive than what others might do searching for this item.” Tenzin waved her hand. “Which again, I want to emphasize is not Ethiopian. Or Aksumite. Or Sabaean.”

  The archaeologist huffed out a breath. “Can you tell me anything about it?”

  “It was created in Persia sometime in the early second century and was written in an unknown language. At some point—I’m not sure when—it passed into the hands of a Manichaean sect that specialized in collecting manuscripts and other religious wisdom. It was taken to Kucha, a city in Central Asia along the northern Silk Road, because the Manichaean priests in that city were renowned for their language and translation skills.”

  “So they were able to translate this unknown language? What was it?”

  “They never found out.” Tenzin could tell the woman’s natural curiosity had taken over. “But prior to World War I, there was a German expedition to Kucha and over five thousand manuscripts including letters were found, one of which speaks of an unusual scroll from the West with unknown writing. They thought it might be an early form of Akkadian, and the best scholars of the time—”

  “When was it dated?”

  “Eighth century,” Ben said. “Though the scroll itself is much older.”

  Tenzin continued, “They sent it to the Aksumite court because they believed the scholars there would be able to translate it.”

  “And after that?” Liya was clearly into the story now. “There’s no further record of it?”

  “Nothing. The last mention we have is from Kucha.”

  “And we know the scroll was in Kucha for some time before they sent it to Aksum,” Ben said. “They must have been really stumped.”

  “It’s possible…” Liya was considering. “I mean, Akkadian was an Eastern Semitic language and Ge’ez is a Southern Semitic language, but it’s possible that there were Aksumite scholars at the time who might have had some kind of knowledge of this earlier language that we’ve lost.”

  “I’m sure that’s what the Manichaeans were counting on,” Tenzin said. “The question is: Can you help us?”

  Liya had moved from uncertainty to suspicion. “What do you want this scroll for?”

  “We believe it belongs in a research library.” Ben took over. “There’s one in Italy that specializes in Near Eastern manuscripts. We’re not locking it away in some private collection or selling it.” He handed Liya a card. “I promise. You can check them out. Research the library. It’s private but open to scholars from around the world, and their focus is the Ancient Mediterranean, Near East, and Levant.”

  Liya sat back in her seat, the food the server had brought to the table seemingly forgotten. “I’m going to check this out.”

  “That’s all we’re asking.”

  “And if they’re legitimately a research library, then… yes, I will help you. But only because you’ve said that other people are looking for this.”

  “We have no interest in taking anything from the country that is part of Ethiopian heritage,” Tenzin said. “This is something entirely different, and it needs to be analyzed under very special conditions.”

  Liya nodded. “I appreciate your honesty.” She started eating. “You know, if you’d just tried to bribe me with the dig money, I probably would have reported you.”

  Tenzin looked at Ben. Was her expression smug? Maybe a little.

  The woman looked up. “Do you guys want to order coffee or anything? We still have a lot to talk about, and coffee is usually a good idea.”

  Tenzin nodded. She was really starting to love this country.

  19

  Tenzin squirmed like an unruly child. “I do not like wearing a pack on my back. I feel like a donkey.”

  Ben glanced over his shoulder. “You don’t look like one, and it’s practical. Stop complaining.”

  They were sitting on the same perch they’d chosen the night before that overlooked the back of the ambassador’s house at the British embassy. They were trying to provoke the dogs, but so far they weren’t having any luck.

  “I’m starting to feel like it was a bad idea to leave Daniel at home,” Ben said. “If anyone could provoke a couple of canines, it would be him.”

  They wanted the dogs to start barking so the guard would get annoyed with them and lock them in the kennel. So far, the dogs had been reluctant to leave the covered veranda that sheltered them from the rain.

  “Are you sure Daniel didn’t follow us?” She looked over her shoulder to the woods beyond the embassy walls. “He was very intent on seeing that leopard.”

  “I hear movement behind the wall, but I have no idea if it’s a vampire or hyenas.” He shook his head. “This storm is messing with my senses.”

  “Electrical storms will do that.” Tenzin floated up and returned with something clutched in her hand. “Let’s see if this helps.” She showed him a handful of the small pods off the eucalyptus tree.

  “Good thinking
.”

  Tenzin searched for a target and found a handy one on a metal trash can near the rear kitchen entrance. She flew over and aimed a pod at the cans.

  Ping!

  It wouldn’t have been loud enough for a human to hear, but the dogs perked up immediately. Tenzin pitched another one at the cans, and the dogs went crazy.

  The two German shepherds flew off the verandah and across the muddy yard, barking their heads off in the direction of the trash cans. They barked until the guard came running and shushed them. He ordered them back to the verandah but didn’t lock them up.

  Tenzin flew back to their tree. “They’re still loose?”

  “I think this guard is a little more patient than the last one.” He held his hand out. “Let me try.”

  Barking at trash cans was one thing, but waking up the house was another. Ben aimed the pod at a window that had been the last one in the house to go dark.

  Ping!

  The dogs lost their heads again, running around and jumping into the flower beds underneath the window, barking at the suspicious noise.

  This time the guard railed at them, yelling at them until, cowed, they went back to the verandah. He herded them into the covered kennel, muttering at them and shaking his head. The rifle he carried was slung casually on one shoulder, and though he glanced into the woods, he didn’t walk out to examine the trees.

  “Excellent.” Ben nodded. “Now we wait for the dogs to sleep and the guard to do one more round. Then we go in.”

  “I found where the electricity cutoff switch is.”

  Ben had decided that the number of times the power went out in Addis—particularly when it was storming—made a simple power outage the easiest way of breaching the house alarms. He figured at night, when everyone was sleeping, they’d have at least a half an hour before the guard noticed that anything was amiss.

  Ben and Tenzin remained in the shelter of the trees, getting progressively more soaked as they waited for the house to go completely quiet. Ben could hear the dogs snoring, all the lights were out in the ambassador’s house, and the guard was nodding off near the front entrance when they finally decided to go in.