The Bone Scroll: An Elemental Legacy Novel

by Hunter, Elizabeth

  “Shit shit shit shit shit.” The Englishman was panicking. “I didn’t sign up for a battle, Vecchio. This is not what I was hired—”

  “Shut it,” Tenzin said tersely. “You think they can’t hear you?”

  Ben kept an eye out, but the fire didn’t come again. Still, the air crackled with energy as they landed on the far side of the mountain. Silence lay like a blanket across the hilltop and no one moved, save Daniel, who wriggled out of Ben’s hold and stepped behind Tenzin.

  “You may be small, but I will use you as a shield,” he muttered.

  “Fine.” Tenzin started forward and Ben followed, taking position just behind her left side. Daniel trailed behind them both.

  “Son of Vecchio!”

  The voice rang out clear in the night, speaking in English. Ben recognized the owner; it was Arosh, ancient Fire King of Central Asia, legendary warrior, elder of the Council of Alitea.

  “Small daughter of Zhang!”

  Tenzin curled her lip. “Ugh. This asshole.”

  Arosh’s laughter rang through the night. “Tenzin, it has been too long since we have parlayed. My harem misses you.”

  Tenzin smiled. “You’re welcome…” She let the pause hang. “…for our work retrieving the Laylat al Hisab. It truly was the finest blade I have ever seen. I am so glad that you and my father have finally put an end to your long war.”

  If you didn’t know Tenzin, the sarcasm would be nearly undetectable. Ben did his best not to smile. His partner truly was the queen of courtly doublespeak.

  “Ah yes. The Night’s Reckoning. A fitting gift to end a war.”

  Was it though? “Interesting perspective,” Ben muttered.

  Tenzin and Arosh had been shouting into the darkness. While Ben could sense three strong immortals and two lesser ones, he couldn’t see anything other than faint outlines from this distance.

  “Harun was a friend of mine,” Arosh said. “I have many of his blades.”

  Rub it in, why don’t you? Ben saw Tenzin’s lip curl. “Congratulations.”

  “Son of Vecchio, you are well grown in power.”

  “Son of Zhang.” Ben corrected the elder. “Though I am still allied with my uncle, aunt, and their immortal lines.” It was a subtle nod to his uncle’s relationship with the fourth elder in Alitea, Kato of the Mediterranean, the elder who was not present that night. “How is my uncle’s grandsire?”

  “Not here,” Tenzin said under her breath. “But probably the reason he hasn’t tried to burn us yet.”

  “He hasn’t tried to burn us yet?” Daniel whispered back. “What do you call that giant column of fire he shot at us five minutes ago?”

  “A friendly greeting.” Ben stepped forward and started walking toward the voices. “Arosh, sired to fire, king of the West, we have business on this mountain,” he said carefully. “We seek an object of great wisdom.”

  “You seek an object of power,” Arosh said. “Just as I do.”

  Ben was getting closer now, and he could see more of what was happening. An earth vampire he didn’t know was moving the ground, faster than Daniel had worked, as Ziri and Saba sat on a large boulder some distance away. Arosh stood on the edge of the digging site, his hands braced on his hips.

  Ben could sense a fifth vampire somewhere, but the way the amnis drifted, he knew it was a wind vampire like him and Tenzin. The scent of her amnis was too diffuse, too ephemeral to be anything other than one of their kind.

  He could sense the tension from Arosh, but what did he feel from Saba? His eyes turned toward her shadow in the distance. There was something there…

  Amusement?

  It couldn’t be. That made no sense.

  Ben tried not to react to any of the emotional currents floating in the air. “I see that you have already started excavation at this site.”

  “Leave, son of Vecchio,” Arosh said. “I have no wish to harm the son of an ally.”

  Whether he was talking about Giovanni or Zhang, it didn’t really make a difference.

  “We can’t,” Ben said. “We have taken an assignment from a client to retrieve this object of great wisdom, and we cannot abandon a commitment.”

  “Children.” A new voice called from the boulder. It was Ziri. “I beg you to reconsider this quest. Be wise.”

  Tenzin had cocked her head at the word children.

  “Interesting,” she whispered. “It’s been some time since I’ve heard that.”

  “I imagine.” Ben continued walking and raised his voice. “We have made a commitment to our client. We cannot stop looking.”

  “Interesting.”

  Movement in the pit had stopped, and a dark head peeked over the edge of the hole. “Arosh?”

  “Keep digging, Gedeyon. These… visitors have no claim on this site.”

  “Do you?” Tenzin barked.

  Saba rose, and Ben was once again floored by her sheer presence. She was a small woman with a massive energy signature, fitting for the oldest vampire known to human or immortal knowledge.

  “Son of Vecchio,” she said. “You are truly a beautiful sight.”

  Ben didn’t know what to feel. He was unquestionably drawn to her amnis; it was nearly irresistible. But he also knew that this was the vampire who’d ended his human life and taken the choice of immortality from him.

  And yet…

  He couldn’t bring himself to feel bitterness or hate. Frustration was his dominant emotion.

  “Saba—”

  “Don’t.” Tenzin reached for his hand and squeezed it tightly. “Not now. Not right now.”

  “Tenzin, I don’t—”

  “Open your senses,” she bit out. “Don’t you feel it?”

  “What are you…?” He sucked in a breath when he felt what she was talking about.

  Arosh stalked toward them, fire burning in the palms of his hands. His hair was braided into a long thick rope behind him, and dark markings on his face lent him a sinister air.

  “Leave.” It was a single command. “Leave this quest. Leave this land.”

  Shit.

  Ben slowly shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t do that.”

  Arosh cocked his head, incredulous that anyone would disobey his command. “Foolish child.”

  It stung, and Ben couldn’t pretend it didn’t. Here was a creature of immense power and years, telling him he was an ignorant kid. Still, Ben wasn’t willing to back down.

  “We have as much right to search for this object as you.”

  “Nonsense,” Arosh said.

  Saba laughed. “I want to hear his reason, my love. What right is yours, young Vecchio?”

  Ben turned to Saba and addressed her only. “Mother, does your blood run through me?”

  Saba looked at him with keen interest, her eyes bright in the moonlight. “It does.”

  “And is this land your territory?”

  That question she took longer to answer. Saba’s gaze turned inward, and she closed her eyes a moment before she opened them and stared into Ben’s eyes. “This land has been mine, it is mine, and it will be mine always.”

  “So,” Ben said. “I find myself in my mother’s land.” He turned to Arosh. “And you?”

  The vampire’s lip curled a second before the energy he’d been drawing to himself, energy Tenzin had sensed and warned Ben about, exploded like a bomb.

  28

  Daniel threw out his hands and shoved both of them back as he raised a giant wall of stone from the ground. The fire went on and on; pressed against the rock wall, Ben could feel the heat creeping toward them.

  “He’s melting the rock.” Ben gasped at the sheer power of the fire. He’d felt his uncle’s power, but it was nothing to Arosh’s inferno. “What do we do? The instant we fly away, he’ll turn it on us.”

  Tenzin was angry. “Who does he think he is?”

  She reached out and gathered the air around her, spinning it into a whipping tornado that picked up the dust and rock on the top of the mountain. She spun
it up and over the wall, catching the firestorm on the other side before she extended up and flung the fiery torrent off the edge of the cliff.

  “My God,” Daniel breathed out, still pressed against the rock. “Was that a fire tornado?”

  Arosh sent another column of flame against them. “A clever trick!” he yelled. “But you cannot hide forever, small daughter of Zhang.”

  “It’s just petty,” Tenzin grumbled. “There’s no reason to bring up my size.”

  “Maybe it’s just how he remembers you,” Ben said. “You’re small and he’s old.”

  “Can we maybe do something about the fucking fire that’s turning this rock to lava?” Daniel said. “And debate nicknames later?”

  “Fine.” Tenzin called another whirlwind, but this time she caught the edge of Arosh’s fire and drew it into the tornado like a ribbon into a fan. The Fire King kept pouring flames into the wind, and the firestorm grew in size until the column of the fire seemed to stretch into eternity.

  Sparks flew out, singeing Ben’s face and falling on his back. Daniel yelled when a large lick of flame fell on the back of his shirt.

  “Ben!” He fell to the ground, rolling in the dirt. “Make it stop!”

  Despite Daniel rolling on the ground, his clothes wouldn’t stop burning. There was no water, no ready fire extinguisher available. He was pressed against a rock wall on the top of a mountain with a literal firestorm over his head.

  So create a bubble without air.

  Desperation charging his amnis, Ben reached out, imagining a field around his friend, and pulled the air away with a violent jerk. Daniel’s hand went to his throat at the air was sucked from his lungs, but the sudden vacuum starved the fire that was burning his clothes and the flames died instantly.

  Tenzin was watching the column of fire turn in her hands, her face alight with destructive fascination.

  “Tenzin!” Ben tried to break through. “Do something!”

  Her head cocked as she watched the column grow wider and wider. She spun it on the tips of her fingers like a trickster spinning a plate. A small smile played on her lips and she tossed it over the wall, flinging it back toward Saba and Arosh before she grabbed Daniel and Ben by the hand, launching herself off the rock wall and into the black night.

  Ben heard a short scream and an angry roar.

  Tenzin flung Daniel toward Ben and yelled, “Get him back to Lalibela!”

  “What are you doing?”

  She turned and waited, drawing a sickle-shaped sword from her tunic. “Waiting for Ziri. If he comes, I’ll draw him away. Get Daniel back to the compound.”

  Every instinct in Ben told him to put Daniel down and help Tenzin, but two things stopped him.

  His partner was far deadlier in air-to-air combat.

  Daniel had burns all over his back.

  Burns couldn’t kill a vampire unless they completely destroyed them, but they could weaken them precariously and took a very long time to heal unless the immortal took in a substantial amount of blood and the surface wounds were treated with vampire blood too.

  “Go!” she yelled. “It won’t be the first time the old man and I have locked blades. If he comes, I’ll be fine.”

  If he comes?

  “Ben…”

  Daniel’s pained voice ended Ben’s internal debate. He flew south, and he didn’t look back.

  Giovanni had Daniel stretched out on a bed in a light-safe room. He’d cut his own hand and poured the blood into the angry burns on Daniel’s back while Beatrice rounded up every human servant in the house that was able to donate fresh blood to the wounded vampire.

  “Ben?”

  He turned from his station at Daniel’s side to see Dema in the doorway. Her face was pale, and her lips were pressed together. She pulled up the sleeve of her tunic and bared her wrist. “I’ll go first.”

  Ben nodded and let her kneel beside Daniel.

  “Dema?”

  “What mess have you started now, Danny?” Though her words were harsh, her voice was soft. She brushed a singed piece of hair away from Daniel’s forehead with her right hand while she pressed her left wrist to his mouth. “Take it. You know I’m strong.”

  “I finally put my fangs in you and we have an audience?” His voice was still pained, but it carried an edge of his normal humor. “Just my luck.”

  “Shut up and drink, you ridiculous old man.” Her fingers never stopped stroking his hair. “You’re going to need more than me.”

  “This time it wasn’t my fault, Dee. Promise.” His mouth closed over her wrist, and Ben saw Dema’s tiny flinch when his fangs hit.

  Ben remembered that feeling, the mixed ecstasy of pleasure and pain from an immortal’s bite. He’d only experienced it with Tenzin, and she hadn’t always been gentle about it. Daniel was hurting. He would never purposely hurt Dema, but he could get a little lost in hunger, so Ben watched him and watched her.

  Tenzin. Where was she? It had been over an hour since they’d returned and she hadn’t appeared yet. He’d told Beatrice to tell him the minute she arrived.

  Daniel released Dema’s wrist, and she leaned over and kissed his temple. “I’m going to find someone else to donate.”

  “Forget it.” Daniel’s voice was rough. “I want your taste to live in my mouth.”

  “Romantic notion.” Giovanni’s voice was droll. “But you need at least three more donors. Dema?”

  “I’ll get them.” She rose and, without another look at Daniel, headed out the door.

  “She’s an incredible woman,” Giovanni said. “How did you manage to fuck it up?”

  “Why are you assuming it was me?” Daniel asked.

  Ben and Giovanni exchanged a glance but said nothing.

  “Okay yes, it was me. It was about five years ago, and let’s just say I wasn’t the thoughtful and patient person that I am now.”

  “Thoughtful and patient?” Ben frowned.

  “Fuck you.”

  Beatrice stuck her head in the door. “Ben, she’s back.”

  He abandoned Daniel without a backward glance.

  “I see how it is!” Daniel yelled. “See if I raise a rock wall for you the next time a fire vampire attacks us, Vecchio.”

  Ben strode out of the room and into the courtyard to see Tenzin sitting on the edge of the fountain, her blade sitting beside her and a spatter of blood across her face.

  He ran to her and knelt down. “What happened?”

  “It was a short fight,” Tenzin said, instinctively reaching for her sword. “Inaya, not Ziri. She lived. I lived. It was amusing, but it mostly felt like a distraction.”

  “Do you think your firestorm hurt one of the elders?”

  She cocked her head to the side as Ben took a handkerchief from his pocket and wet it in the fountain.

  He started cleaning the blood off Tenzin’s face. “Yours?”

  “Inaya’s.” She pursed her lips. “Why didn’t Ziri come himself?”

  “I don’t know. Are you insulted?”

  “A little bit. Inaya and I parried for a short time, but it was… a distraction, as I said.”

  “Ziri was getting the others away.”

  She nodded. “Probably.”

  “You didn’t say whether you think your fire tornado hurt anyone.”

  “I suspect if anyone was injured, it was the earth vampire who was digging for them.”

  “Expendable?”

  “For them? Perhaps.”

  “Saba wasn’t the one doing the digging,” Ben said. “Why would they get someone else when the world’s most powerful earth vampire is on your team?”

  Tenzin snorted. “I’m sorry, were you expecting Saba to dig in the ground like a commoner?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I guess you’re right.”

  “You really don’t understand royalty, do you?”

  “I’m American,” he said. “And I don’t even watch The Crown. I really don’t get the fascination, to be honest.”

  Tenzi
n pushed his hand away. He’d cleaned up the blood and was just fussing over her. He knew that; it didn’t make him want to fuss any less.

  “They’re searching for Aksumite treasuries,” she said. “Just as we are.”

  “So neither Saba nor Arosh knows where the bone scroll is.”

  “No.” Tenzin sat up straight. “What if it was destroyed?”

  “How?”

  “Saba and Arosh destroyed all the Aksumite treasuries they could find. They killed the princes who could claim the throne and even burned churches after they ransacked them. What if one of the things they burned was the bone scroll?”

  Ben sat back on his heels. “So we’re wasting our time?”

  “No, that doesn’t make sense. She would have taken anything of real value before Arosh started the fires.” Tenzin shook her head. “I’m feeling lost, Benjamin. There is something we are not seeing, some purpose behind all this that doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe you’re just tired.” Ben tucked her hair behind her ear and lowered his voice. “Take some of my blood, Tenzin. Get some rest. Maybe you’ll think more clearly if you sleep, even for just a few hours.”

  Tenzin shook her head. “She knows where we are.”

  “She can’t get to us during the day. Even Saba isn’t immune to sunlight.”

  She turned her head. “Beatrice has discovered something.”

  Ben followed her eyes and saw his aunt waiting on the edge of the courtyard, leaning against a stone pillar. “What’s up, B?”

  “Come into the library,” his aunt said. “I have a theory.”

  Ben waited in the library while Tenzin went to change out of her bloodstained clothes. He stared at the books his aunt had laid open, mulling over what Tenzin had said.

  Saba and Arosh were searching for old treasuries too, but wouldn’t Saba know where all of them were?

  Unless she’d simply forgotten. It had been well over a thousand years since she’d sat on the Ethiopian throne.

  Or perhaps there were treasuries that she’d missed; that was probably the most likely. The one they’d found in Amba Guba was obviously untouched, and it was definitely Aksumite. There could be more.