Night's Reckoning

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “I have learned to evolve,” Zhang said. “Have you?”

  Tenzin straightened her garments. “That would imply that I need to change.” Like Ben and the Italian woman, she wore a traditional robe that wrapped around her body. Unlike theirs, hers had a square, notched collar like her father’s.

  “Don’t you need to change?” Zhang’s eyes had never looked older. “Don’t we all?”

  “I suppose that is a kind of wisdom, but it is not mine.” She rose to her feet. “I’ll fetch Benjamin. You want to meet with him here?”

  “No, take him to my personal quarters. I want to put him at ease. I’ll tell the servants to prepare a meal.”

  “He likes burritos,” Tenzin said. “You can bribe him to do anything with spicy chicken.”

  Zhang frowned. “What is a burrito?”

  “Never mind.” She walked toward the panels that led to the garden.

  “Tenzin.”

  She turned.

  “Should I forget this quest?” he asked. “Find some other way to formalize peace with Arosh?”

  Her father’s eyes had lost the hard edge he wore in public settings, but that didn’t make them any easier for Tenzin to read.

  He was her sire.

  Her murderer.

  Her warden.

  Her savior.

  She could live in the space between truths because he was the one who had led her there. She could be the hero and the villain in the same breath because she had learned it from him.

  “We will find it,” Tenzin said. “And then this ancient war will finally be over.”

  “But will anything change?”

  “Does anything ever change?” She walked into the darkness. “Twenty minutes. I will bring him to you.”

  9

  Fabia turned to him in the doorway of the lavish bathroom in their guest apartment and held up a hand. “I don’t care what you do right now. I don’t care where we are. I don’t care which bedroom you take. They’re both fine, and either will do. But right now you will leave me alone in this spacious and beautiful bathroom. You will give me silence and peace from your brooding. And you will not open this door for at least an hour.”

  Ben smiled. “I feel like you want some alone time.”

  “Out.” She pointed toward the door. “I don’t like spending this amount of time with anyone I’m not sleeping with, and I am definitely not sleeping with you. Go find a drink. Go find Tenzin, for pity’s sake. But go away from here.”

  “Fine.” He could use the bathroom in the reception area if he needed it. Penglai had what amounted to a small hotel on the second level of the island. It was where human guests, visiting scholars, and other mortals stayed if they didn’t live in the monastery.

  The highest level of the island held the halls and personal apartments of the Eight Immortals and their retinue. The second level was for visitors and scholars. The third and largest level—the one closest to the ocean—was the monastery and human village.

  Taoist monks were the guardians of the island, and if they did not allow you access to the immortals, you would not pass. Priests and their families lived and worked among the others on the island, farming, building, and generally serving the immortals who had made it their home for over a thousand years.

  As Ben strolled through the manicured gardens that covered the second level, he saw many monks and priests dressed in brown, black, and saffron-yellow robes, going about their evenings. Some were serving in the great hall. Some would be serving visitors. All were quiet, pleasant, and nodded to Ben as he passed.

  He’d taken off his formal zhiduo and put on the more casual clothing that had been delivered to their guest quarters. His tunics and pants were all in shades of black and grey, and Fabi’s were in various shades of green. Nothing fancy. Everything comfortable and practical.

  Ben found himself eased by the simplicity. Loose, comfortable clothing. Flat shoes. No one was competing about fashion here. There were no electric lights. Only torches, gas, and firelight. In the distance, he saw a group of humans and what might have been a few vampires practicing tai chi on a softly undulating lawn.

  Yield and overcome; bend and be straight.

  In the peace and silence of the night, he felt her approaching. She was in the air above him, hovering over the garden. Ben didn’t have amnis. He didn’t know how he could sense her, but he could. He’d been able to detect her for years. Some instinct at the core of his being recognized her presence drawing close.

  “I know you’re there,” he said quietly.

  A flutter of silk in the night.

  Ben stopped at the base of a massive taihu stone, the twisting, pockmarked limestone pleasantly familiar from the Chinese garden at the Huntington Botanical Garden. Giovanni and Beatrice’s house in California was only a few blocks from the Huntington, and Ben had grown up wandering among the stones and marveling at their height and age. He placed a hand on it and looked through the naturally formed crevices and holes.

  She landed on the other side. Through the stone, he saw her eyes.

  “Hello, Tenzin.”

  She said nothing.

  Ben looked away. “I’m here, and I know it’s because you want me here. So can you at least talk to me?”

  “Why did you bring the Italian woman?”

  Ben frowned and looked back at Tenzin, who was still on the other side of the taihu stone. “What?”

  “Is something wrong with your ears?”

  “Nothing is wrong with my ears.” Was she serious? Ben crossed his arms over his chest. “I brought Fabia—who you’ve known for about seven years now, by the way—because she’s an archaeologist who did postgraduate work on a dive in Calabria for two years and she’s a certified diver.”

  “Oh.” Tenzin flew up and perched on top of the rock. “That makes sense.”

  He looked up. “I thought so, yes.”

  He examined her in the torchlight. Her hair was a smooth sweep of black silk that brushed her chin, and she was still wearing the red silk robes from the Hall. Her skin glowed gold in the light.

  I missed you.

  You’re so beautiful.

  You make me insane.

  “How were the mountains?” he asked quietly.

  Her grey eyes met his and they looked a little sad. “I never made it. I stopped in Shanghai and Cheng told me about this job. I haven’t been able to think about anything since.”

  “Really?” She hadn’t thought about anything since then? Not him? Not New York? Not their fight? Or what happened between them in Puerto Rico?

  “Yes, really.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  Ben stuck his hands in his pockets and kept walking. If she wanted to talk to him, she could follow along.

  She didn’t follow, but she did fly to the next rock along the path. “My father wants to see you.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out after the fourth letter.” He glanced sideways at her. “Thanks for that, by the way. Giovanni had a fun time chewing me out when he heard I didn’t jump into service.”

  “What took you so long?”

  How was it possible for her to piss him off so quickly? Ben stopped and waited for her to grow impatient enough to fly off the top of the rock. Within seconds, she flew down and stood in front of him. Ben glared at her, holding himself perfectly still.

  “I said, what took you—?”

  Ben’s hand flew out and gripped the side of Tenzin’s neck, pulling her toward him. A fraction of a second later, he felt her fingers digging into his throat. She was in his face, her fangs bared.

  He waited, eyes locked with hers. The corner of her lip twitched in an instinctive snarl. Their bodies were so close he could feel the hair on his arms reach toward her. He could feel her cool breath on his lips.

  “You left me.” Ben drew the words out. Gave each one the weight it deserved. “You’re the one who ran away.”

  He saw the battle in her eyes. She pushed back the predatory instincts and her f
angs shrank back. They didn’t disappear; they never disappeared.

  She swallowed, but she didn’t let go of his throat. “I wrote you letters.”

  “They were from Penglai.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  He shoved her away. “What do you want, Tenzin?”

  “Come to my father’s quarters,” she said. “He wants to brief you about the job.”

  Of course. The job. The only reason he was there.

  “Fine,” he said. “Does he want Fabi there? She asked for some time alone to chill out.”

  “Is she working for you? Or is she an independent contractor?”

  “I’m paying her to be my assistant on this.”

  Tenzin shrugged. “Then it’s up to you. You don’t need to bring her.”

  “Fine.” He started walking. “I know you know where I’m staying. Meet me at the front gate in ten minutes.”

  “I always know where you are.”

  Ben turned and a bitter smile crossed his lips. “That’s creepy, Tenzin. Just so you know, that’s something a stalker would say. Don’t be a stalker.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I only stalk people when I want to kill them.”

  He pursed his lips. “Again, very creepy. And also kind of proving my point.”

  Ben turned around and kept walking back to his room. Tenzin hovered in the air over him. He heard her fly away. Then she flew back. She landed on the path in front of him. She didn’t look at him, but he heard her words perfectly.

  “I would never kill you, Benjamin.” Her voice was so soft it was barely audible. “I would sooner kill myself.”

  Without another word—before Ben could even open his mouth—she disappeared in the night.

  “The Fire King and I were always rivals.” Zhang sat on a low cushion at the head of a long table laden with food. “Arosh sent spies to my court. I sent spies to his. We fought sporadically for thousands of years.”

  “What did you fight over?” Ben took two slices of duck from the platter that was held out to him. Fabia, sitting next to him, also took two.

  When he’d returned to the rooms and told her where he was going, she’d insisted on accompanying him. What had she called herself? A glutton for knowledge?

  “We fought for all the reasons empires have always fought. Land. Human capital. Wealth. Knowledge.”

  “Knowledge is power,” Ben said quietly. He didn’t know how many times his uncle had drilled the idea into him.

  “What do you hold in your hands?”

  “It’s a book.”

  “No, it’s knowledge. Knowledge humans and immortals have pursued for centuries. Knowledge they kill and die for.”

  “Die for a book?”

  “It is not a book.”

  “Right. It’s knowledge.”

  “And knowledge is power. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, we fought for power.” Zhang took a drink of red wine from a glass goblet. “But in the end, Arosh and I fought because it was expected. Our people expected it. Our courts expected it. We had warriors, armies, advisers who expected it.”

  “And then one day,” Tenzin said. “You didn’t.”

  Ben watched Tenzin sitting to the left of her father’s seat, across from Fabia, who sat at his right. Tenzin kept her eyes trained on her dish when she wasn’t quietly instructing the servants in the room.

  Commander of the Altan Wind.

  Ben would bet money that Tenzin had been one of those people expecting her sire to continue fighting. Had she been disappointed when he stopped? Relieved?

  Fabia asked, “Why did you do it?”

  “Why make peace?” Zhang smiled a little. “I wanted to live a balanced life. Penglai Island already existed, but for thousands of years I had led a dual life. I flew to one court and made war while in the other I tried to promote peace. On Penglai, I had built a place where the wisest could be consulted so that humans and vampires no longer had to suffer blood and combat over conflicts that could be resolved with conversation. But I was still holding on to some of my territories with an iron fist.”

  “And now some of those territories are lawless,” Tenzin said quietly.

  “When they want peace, they will find it.”

  “Or Arosh will rise and make the decision for them.”

  Zhang stared at Tenzin, but Ben couldn’t understand the look they exchanged. He didn’t understand a lot of things about their relationship.

  Zhang turned to Fabia. “I built Penglai because I wanted a place where scholars were respected and honored. For thousands of years, vampires collected human scholars for our courts, human poets and artists to amuse us, but we had none of our own.” He shook his head. “What a waste. So many artists, poets, and scholars turned into immortals and then forced to be warriors when they only wanted to create.”

  Tenzin said, “But isn’t there an art to war?”

  Ben said, “Sun Tzu would say yes. But he’d also say that it is better to win without fighting. You could win hearts through poetry that you could never win in battle.”

  Zhang said, “An excellent point, Benjamin.”

  “I suppose Sun Tzu might say that.” Tenzin smiled. “But I’m alive and he is dead. So you should probably take that into account.” She twisted a long string of noodles around her chopsticks. “Zhang made peace with Arosh because my father was running out of good generals and he convinced his people that it made more economic sense to settle things with alliances rather than armies.”

  “There was that as well,” Zhang said. “Whatever our reasons, we both wanted the fighting to stop. I sent emissaries to the Fire King’s court. He sent some of his own back with mine. We negotiated for decades.”

  “Decades?” Fabia’s eyes went wide. “Decades?”

  “It isn’t that long,” Tenzin said. “Decades mean little to beings as old as Arosh and my sire.”

  “We finally settled at the beginning of the ninth century. We had signed treaties and exchanged hostages—”

  “Hostages?” Fabia said. “You kept hostages?”

  “During negotiations, one of Arosh’s children came and stayed in my court as a gesture of good faith.”

  Ben looked at Zhang. “You only have one child.”

  “Arosh annoys me,” Tenzin said. “Luckily, his palace was comfortable and he was rarely in residence. His harem kept me very entertained.”

  “The only thing left to do was a ceremonial exchange of gifts,” Zhang continued. “I sent a caravan of silk, jade, and porcelain to Arosh. He was to send me a sword.”

  Ben said, “The Laylat al Hisab.”

  “The Night’s Reckoning, a saber of unmatched beauty and strength,” Zhang said, “made by the most famous swordsmith in immortal history. A vampire who lived in Arosh’s territory, though never under his aegis.”

  “Harun al Ilāh,” Tenzin said.

  Ben didn’t think he’d ever seen Tenzin speak of anyone with the awe with which she said Harun’s name. “Who was he?”

  “The sword master of Durūz.” Zhang motioned for a servant to come closer. “Can you bring bowls to wash our hands, please?”

  “Of course, master.”

  “Harun al Ilāh was a fire vampire.” Tenzin’s eyes glowed with admiration. “A legend. Not as old as Arosh, but still very ancient. An artist who did miraculous things with metal and glass. I have only one piece of his, a dagger. I treasure it. It is my personal dream to own one of his swords.”

  “They are sold for millions of American dollars,” Zhang said. “When they are sold, which is only once every few centuries. It is not the cost that is prohibitive. Most vampires would never part with a Harun blade since so few remain now that he is dead.”

  “He is dead?” Fabia said. “But he was a vampire. What happened? Why would anyone kill an artist who was so well-respected?”

  “He wasn’t killed.” Zhang turned his attention to Ben. “The Laylat al Hisab was one of his final creations, making it that much more valuable. In a
letter to his wife, he said it was the most beautiful sword he had ever created, and the strongest.”

  “Damascus steel?” Ben asked.

  Zhang nodded.

  “No wonder they go for millions.”

  Fabia frowned. “They make Damascus steel now, don’t they?”

  “It’s not the same,” Tenzin said. “They have re-created it to a point, but nothing will ever match true Damascus steel, and Harun was its master.”

  Zhang continued. “The Laylat al Hisab was sent on a ship called the Qamar Jadid along with other riches from Arosh’s palace, but none of it ever reached Penglai Island. A storm drove the ship off course, and it was lost. Until last year, we didn’t even have a rumor of where it might be.”

  “Even from water vampires?” Ben asked.

  “Not even them. And I sent many to look for it. And without the sword…”

  “The treaty was never formally complete,” Ben said. “You and Arosh have been in a cold war for centuries.”

  “Not exactly,” Tenzin said. “Until Giovanni went to Rome and revealed the truth about Kato, the whole vampire world had assumed Arosh and Kato killed each other in the ninth century.”

  Ben’s mouth dropped open. “That’s right. Up until… what? Ten years ago? This was a dead issue, so to speak.”

  Fabia frowned. “What happened ten years ago?”

  Zhang said, “The origin of the Elixir virus was revealed in Rome by Ben’s uncle, your patron, Giovanni Vecchio. In the course of that discovery, it became known that Kato and Arosh had not killed each other, as the entire immortal world had believed. They were in hiding because the Elixir had broken Kato’s mind and Arosh guarded him.”

  “So you thought Arosh was dead for a thousand years,” Fabia said. “Which would mean the war was over. No need to recover the treaty sword because no treaty was necessary.”

  “Until Arosh came back to life,” Ben said. “Meaning the war did too.”

  Zhang dipped his fingers in the rose-scented bowl of water one of his servants held for him. “Which is where you and Tenzin must play a role, Benjamin Vecchio. Arosh and I will jointly fund this recovery effort so that we may finally settle this. Cheng is the one who first heard of this shipwreck that matches details of the wreck of the Qamar Jadid. It is in territory where he has deep influence. He will be granted a rich finder’s fee, but this sword is beyond priceless at this point. Many would kill to recover it. I need someone I can trust in Shanghai.”