A Hidden Fire

Chapter Five

Houston, Texas

November 2003

Giovanni’s gaze was steady and his voice soothing as he looked at her in the pulsing blue light.

“Remember, Beatrice-remember when you told me at the fair that nothing was inexplicable, just not explained yet?”

She nodded, wondering if he could hear the race of her pulse. Her eyes darted around the compartment, instinctively looking for an escape from the strange, fire-wielding…whatever he was standing across from her. But there was no way out of the steel box, and she had no idea when anyone would notice the notoriously defective elevator wasn’t running if there was no alarm.

“I’m not asking you to believe in magic, Beatrice. I’m asking you to believe that there are things in this world you don’t understand yet. Things that none of us do.”

Beatrice stared back at the strange blue fire and asked again, “What are you?”

“Many human myths are created as an attempt to explain the inexplicable.”

Beatrice shrank into the corner of the elevator, glaring at him as he spoke. She felt her legs begin to shake, so she slid to the ground and folded them under her. Giovanni followed, sitting slowly so as not to upset the flaming blue orb still hovering over his hand.

“Thor, the Norse god of thunder,” he said. “Pele, the fire god who created the Hawaiian volcanoes.”

She was shaking her head in disbelief, glancing between his face and the ball of blue fire he held. Panic seemed to well up in her throat, choking her. She tried to take deep, calming breaths, but she wasn’t very successful.

He spoke more quickly, “Dinosaur skeletons led to myths about dragons. Prehistoric basalt formations became the Giant’s Causeway.”

“What are you?” she asked in a stronger voice, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

He fell silent, his eyes left hers as he stared down at the blue fire in his hand. “What do you think I am?” he asked in low voice. “Think.”

“I don’t remember any particular myths about pyrokinetic book dealers!”

He flicked his fingers and the flaming orb spun to the top of the compartment where it hung and twisted, still illuminating the small space. Giovanni pulled his long legs toward his body and rested his arms on his knees, his long graceful fingers loosely knit together in front of him.

“Forget the fire for a moment,” he said in what she thought of as his “professor voice.” She normally found it annoying but, at that moment, it was oddly comforting. “There are other myths. Other stories. What do you think I am?”

She remembered the first night they had met, and his inhuman speed that beat her elevator to the lobby.

“You-you’re fast.”

He nodded. “I’m very fast. And very strong.”

She thought back to his pale face glowing on Dia de los Muertos.

“Your skin…it’s pale. Really pale. And I’ve never seen you during the day.”

“And you never will,” he murmured in the pulsing blue light.

Her breathing picked up as a growing suspicion began to take shape. Her voice wavered a little as she continued, “I’ve never seen you eat or drink…anything.”

Her heart pounded when he looked at her through the dark hair that had fallen into his eyes. “I can eat, a little, but I don’t need food to survive.”

“Because,” she swallowed, “you drink…I mean, you’re a…”

Giovanni slowly parted his lips and the tip of his tongue peeked out as he ran it slowly along his top teeth, two of which were now noticeably elongated into very sharp, white fangs.

“You’re a vampire,” she whispered.

He nodded slowly, and they sat across from each other in the small compartment, both seeming to gauge the other’s reaction.

“You’re afraid,” he said.

“Yeah, well…duh.”

He smiled a little at her exclamation, and it revealed his long canines even more clearly.

She leaned forward and rested her forehead on her hands. “I’m dreaming. Or crazy. I’m probably crazy, right?”

“You know you’re not.”

She looked up and barked out a sharp laugh. “Oh, you really have no idea.” She stared at him, then back to the blue orb hovering above them. Then she looked down at the scuffed messenger bag he always carried, and the dark hair he brushed out of his face as he stared at her with inscrutable eyes.

“Are you going to kill me?”

His eyebrows furrowed together, and he almost looked offended. “No, of course not.”

“Why ‘of course not’? How do I know? Don’t you drink human blood?”

“Not unless you’re offering, but I’m really not all that hungry. And I wouldn’t kill you if I did. I’m not young and I don’t have to drink much.”

“Well, that’s…comforting.” She cocked her head at him.

“It should be.”

She eyed his chest for a moment, and then her eyes darted to the wooden bar that ran around the elevator. She heard him snicker.

“On the off chance you were able to break that railing, and make a stake, and drive it into my chest-which is harder than it looks, trust me-it wouldn’t do anything more than give me a rather nasty chest wound and ruin one of my favorite shirts. Relax, I have no interest in hurting you.”

Her eyes met his and she could feel the blush coloring her face. She suddenly felt embarrassed that she’d thought about killing him when she’d been in his company for weeks and he’d never so much as said a rude word.

“What if I don’t believe you? What if I run screaming to the security guard when we get out of here and tell him you’re a vampire?”

He chuckled a little, and then he stretched his feet across the elevator and crossed his ankles. “Feel free. After all, who would believe a crazy story like that, Beatrice?”

“Right,” she frowned. “Right. No one would believe me because vampires aren’t real.”

He chuckled in amusement. “Everyone knows that.”

She swallowed audibly and nodded. “Of course they do.”

“Besides.” There was a blur in the elevator, and she gasped as he seemed to materialize sitting beside her.

“How-how did you-”

“Shhhh.”

Beatrice could feel his whisper like a caress along her skin and her entire body reacted to him. Her heart raced. Her skin prickled. As she sucked in a breath, she realized even the air around her felt charged. He leaned in and his hand reached up to trace her cheek. It felt as if an electrical current ran along her skin when his fingertip touched it, and she shivered.

“All it would take is a few moments,” he murmured, “and you wouldn’t remember a thing about me.”

She felt a tingle at the nape of her neck, and she realized it felt like something was vibrating under her skin. She gasped again and scrambled a foot away from him, shoving his hand away.

“What was that?”

“Amnis,” his accent was strong as the word curled from his lips.

“Uh…” Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Is that Latin? It’s been a while, I don’t remember-”

“Current. I call it ‘amnis.’ Some immortals who believe in magic call it ‘glamour’ or ‘thrall,’ but it’s not magic. It’s simply energy manipulated by the current that runs under our skin.”

His logical voice spurred her natural curiosity. “Really? That’s…weird, and kind of fascinating. So really? You can just make me forget all this? Because I can tell you, that’s not sounding real likely at the moment.”

Giovanni smiled. “Yes, I can tap into your cerebral cortex and manipulate your memories, your senses, even the words that come out of your mouth.”

For some reason, the thought of him messing with her brain suddenly scared her far more than the idea of him getting hungry.

“Have you done that to me before?” she whispered. “Did you make me trust you?” A thought occurred to her and her temper flared. “Did you use that on my grandma?”

“No, Beatrice,” he spoke calmly. “Trust is an emotion, and I can’t manipulate emotion. Those are centered in the limbic system, and amnis doesn’t seem to affect that. That’s also why some long-term memories are harder to erase or change.”

She stared at him as he sat next to her with the same academic expression he wore when transcribing documents. “You’re talking about all this like it’s some kind of science experiment.”

“I’m not a scientist. Though, I suppose it is a kind of science experiment,” he mused quietly. “One I’ve been working on for many years.”

He shrugged as he settled into the corner next to her, and that familiar gesture did more than anything else to set her at ease. Her logical brain told her he probably wouldn’t bother explaining any of this if he was planning to kill her and drink her blood. Besides that, she couldn’t really imagine Dr. Giovanni Vecchio doing anything quite that rude.

The blue flame continued to swirl above them without any apparent effort on his part, though she knew from its inception he must be manipulating it. It was the same way he had shorted out the elevator, killed her phone, and made the hair on her body stand at attention when he got too close. He controlled this electric current, this…“amnis.”

“So you don’t think it’s magic? It seems like magic.” She cocked her head. “And I always thought of vampires as magic.” She suddenly sat up in excitement. “Are there other creatures? Werewolves? Demons? Fairies?”

He snorted at her and looked down his nose a little. “Fairies?”

She was a little pissed off he seemed so dismissive. “Hey, you’re the one with the glowing blue fire and suddenly pointy teeth, mister. Don’t give me that look. Doesn’t seem that far-fetched to me.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “My teeth are stimulated by a certain set of physical triggers related to blood flow, Beatrice. It’s perfectly natural.”

“Natural for you,” she muttered.

“Yes. Besides,” he picked up her phone where it had fallen on the floor of the elevator and tossed it to her. She fumbled a little but picked it up. “What do you think humanity would have called this two or three hundred years ago? You don’t think they would have thought mobile phones were magic? What about laser surgery? Basic medicines?” He shook his head and said something in Latin.

“How old are you?”

He cocked his head but remained silent.

“I’m sorry, is that a rude question? My grandmother would probably say it was.”

His face softened into a smile. “It’s not something we talk about. We guard our origins carefully.” He paused before he continued. “I’m over five hundred years old.”

“Renaissance? Wow…I was almost wondering if you were born during the late middle ages because of the Dante interest.”

He shifted and cleared his throat. “No, Dante wasn’t fashionable in my day. Too coarse. Too medieval. My father was all about the classics.”

“So why all the questions about my dad? I gotta tell you, that was kinda…”

The smile dropped from her face. She put her head between her knees as a thought nudged the back of her mind.

“Why were you asking about my father, Gio?” Beatrice asked quietly.

“What do you mean?”

She looked up at him, no longer afraid and wanting answers from the pale man whose face haunted her dreams.

Just like another face she’d tried so hard to forget.

“Why were you asking about my father? Did you…know him? Before he died?” A sudden thought struck her. “Do you know who killed him? Was he killed by a-a vampire?”

He didn’t say anything, but continued to stare at her as her heart rate rose.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” She gulped and tears came to her eyes. “Did you…you didn’t…I mean-”

“I didn’t kill your father, Beatrice. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Then why were you…”

As she trailed off, she closed her eyes and it was as if puzzle pieces began to fall in the darkness. A quiet gasp left her throat.

Giovanni’s pale face in her dreams.

A familiar tingle along her spine.

A throbbing began to take root at the base of her skull, but she pushed through it and a quiet and familiar voice whispered in her mind.

“Just forget, Mariposa. I’m so sorry. I love you. I’m sorry…”

She swallowed the lump in her throat as the tears trailed down her cheeks. “Oh…oh,” she whispered. “My father’s like you, isn’t he? My father’s a vampire.”

Giovanni remained still and silent as the rest of the puzzle took shape.

Her confusing dreams the summer she turned fifteen. Followed by an inexplicable depression that seemed to drag her under despite the loving support of her grandparents. Her withdrawal. The strange and inexplicable moods.

She heard Giovanni murmur from across the compartment, “You are an extraordinarily perceptive girl, Beatrice De Novo.”

A memory from a night in her grandfather’s garage pushed its way to the front of her mind.

“Sometimes, I wish I could just forget him, Grandpa.”

Tears fell hot on her cheeks. “Oh, he is…and he tried to make me forget him,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

She saw him lean forward, suddenly alert. “What do you-”

“The summer I was fifteen, I saw my father. He was sitting on a bench in a park across from the library where I had a summer job. It was just a flash,” she whispered and snapped her fingers. “Like that. I thought I was going crazy. He didn’t look how I remembered him. He was too thin, and his face…that pale face, just like yours.”

He leaned back and reached into his bag to hand her a linen handkerchief. “If you were fifteen, it would have been about three years after he was sired. He would have been in control of his senses and his bloodlust by then. So it’s entirely possible, yes. Many newly sired vampires make the mistake of trying to contact their family.”

“I kept seeing him for months.” She looked as she took the handkerchief and held it in twisted fingers. “I really thought I was going crazy. I stopped going out with my friends. I stopped…everything. My grandparents didn’t know what was going on. I thought I was losing it. And there were these crazy dreams.”

She frowned, dabbing her eyes and trying to access memories she now suspected had been tampered with. She kept feeling the strange itch at the nape of her neck every time she tried to recall more, and the headache began to pound.

“He might have tried to talk to you, and you didn’t react well. If he did, it’s possible he tried to wipe the memories from your mind.” He didn’t try to comfort her, but his presence was soothing nonetheless.

“But he was my father.”

He nodded. “Exactly. Your memories of him would be very firmly entrenched. You would have noticed if he manipulated them. Not consciously…not at the time, anyway. You may have been depressed, withdrawn, and you wouldn’t have understood why.”

“I was depressed,” she whispered. “My grandparents had no idea what was wrong with me. I had handled his death as well as could be expected and this happened years later. I went to counselors, therapists…no one could figure it out. Why would he do that?”

He shook his head. “He was young, Beatrice. He probably had no idea how it could affect you.”

She remained silent for a few minutes, sitting still in the blue light of the broken elevator.

“Why are you telling me all this?” she finally asked.

He paused and she tried to read his expression in the dim light.

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

“That’s not true. You should tell me if it’s about my father. Why were you asking about-”

He glanced away, but not before she noticed the sudden light in his green eyes.

“You want something. You want something from me.”

He looked back, this time wearing a carefully blank expression.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She shook her head. “No, not me. You want something from him. From my father. That’s why you were asking about him.”

Giovanni’s stillness made him seem even more inhuman than his fangs, which had slipped behind his lips and out of sight.

“You want what he was looking for in Italy, don’t you? You’re a book dealer. Do you want what he was after?”

She knew she was correct when she saw a minute flicker in his eyes. She laughed ruefully. “Why in the world do you think I can help you with that?”

“Would you like to see your father again, Beatrice? I know he’d like to see you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you know where he is? He’s in Europe, isn’t he? There were phone calls-”

“I don’t know. Not exactly. And I wouldn’t go knocking on his door if I did. That’s not how it’s done.”

She frowned. “Then how is it done? I want to see him.”

He rolled his eyes, whispering some sort of foreign curse before he looked at her again. “Vampires are private. Secretive. Otherwise we don’t last very long.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t seem all that private and secretive to me.”

“Yes, and I’m sure Caspar will have something very clever to say about that,” he muttered.

“Your butler knows?”

“Caspar’s been with me since he was a boy. He knows everything.”

“How-”

“That’s his story to tell.”

The sat in silence for a few more minutes, the blue fire still rotating above them. She clutched the linen handkerchief he had given her and tried to calm the swirl of emotions threatening her stomach. Pushing past the shock of revelation, she was relieved to know her father was alive, in some way, and had tried to contact her.

Even though he’d apparently messed up her cerebral cortex in the process.

“Giovanni?”

“Yes?”

“Now that I know all your superhero secrets, can you maybe get us out of here?”

His eyebrows lifted. “Oh, of course. No reason not to, I suppose.”

More quickly than she could imagine, he stood, jumped up, knocked the center panel away from the ceiling and, with a flick of his hand, sent the blue fire out the top of the elevator compartment.

“Oh…wow,” she murmured.

“Do you have all your things?” he asked, not even a little out of breath as he stood before her.

She quickly gathered her useless phone and made sure all her belongings were tucked securely into her shoulder bag. She stood before him, suddenly much more aware of how tall he was.

“Okay. Got it.”

“All right. Put your arms around my waist and hold on tightly. Squeeze in, the panel is somewhat narrow.”

“Okay.”

She wrapped her arms around Giovanni’s waist and tucked her body into his. She still felt the strange energy that seemed to radiate from him, and she tried to calm her reaction. She also tried not to think about the muscular torso she could feel beneath his clothes or the grip of his large hand at her waist.

“And Beatrice?”

“Yeah?” She looked up to see him wearing a playful grin.

“You’ll never know all my superhero secrets.”

And in what felt like a quick hop, she was jerked along with him as he leapt from the floor of the elevator to the top of the steel box which hung from thick cables in the dark shaft.

“Hang on.”

“Planning on it,” she gasped.

The blue flame still hovered over them as he swung her onto his back and, using only his hands, climbed the walls of the elevator shaft back up to the fifth floor. She held on to his neck, suddenly grateful he didn’t need to breathe.

Actually, she realized, she wasn’t sure about that.

“Do you need to breathe?”

He made a somewhat strangled noise that sounded negative, so she just kept holding tight. Using one hand to hang onto the service ladder, he pried open the elevator doors with the other, opening them enough to swing her onto the landing. She watched him disappear back down the elevator shaft, only to return a moment later holding his belongings. He flicked his finger, and the blue flame returned to his palm before he spread his hand gracefully, and the flames appeared to soak into his skin.

“And that,” he commented as if he was making a remark about the weather, “is why I prefer the stairs.”

She snorted a little and smiled at him, still speechless from his clearly inhuman show of strength. He turned back to the doors, and slid them closed with the palms of his hands before he turned back to her.

“Care to join me?” A smile twitched the corner of his mouth.

She nodded. “Yeah, stairs sound good.”

He opened to the door to the stairwell and held up a hand as he appeared to listen for a moment. Seemingly satisfied, he motioned her toward the open door.

Her mind started to compile a list of reasons she should not enter an empty stairwell with a vampire, but she shoved them aside, reminding herself he’d just rescued her from an even more confined space.

“I’m doing pretty well with the not-freaking-out-thing, right?”

“Very well.” He nodded. “Quite impressive.”

They walked in silence the rest of the way, both of them sneaking measuring glances at each other as they descended. When they reached the first floor, he held the door open for her again. She hesitated, knowing somehow when she walked through the doors, she would be different-fundamentally changed by the knowledge she now possessed.

She took a deep breath and walked through the door. Giovanni put a hand on the small of her back in a gesture she normally would have found too personal but, considering the circumstances, she didn’t mind. They walked quickly out the front doors and into the dark night together.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said.

“That’s really not necessary.”

He rolled his eyes. “Beatrice, I’ve just told you that mythological creatures exist, and that your father-who you thought was killed-is probably one of them. Please, allow me to drive you home so I don’t have to worry about you crashing your car into a guardrail.”

She paused, but couldn’t think of a comeback.

“Good point.”

“Thank you.”

“You’d worry?”

His eyes darted to the side, but he continued walking. “I’ll have Caspar pick you up in the morning in time for your first class. I promise you won’t be late.”

She realized she would rather have time to think on the drive home anyway. Plus, she decided she might have one or two questions for Batman’s butler.

“Fine, you can drive me home.”

“That’s my car over there.” Giovanni nodded toward the grey Mustang near the rear of the parking lot.

“Nice.”

A small smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “I like it.”

“I do, too.” Her eyes raked over the sleek lines of the vintage car. “How can you drive this if you can’t even ride in an elevator?”

“Good question.” He shrugged. “Older cars don’t seem to be bothered by me, though I always wear gloves when I drive. New cars, however…” He shook his head. “Far too many electronics. I can hardly ride in one without breaking it. Caspar makes me sit in the back seat of his car now.”

“That’s got to be really inconvenient.”

“Let’s just say, sometimes, I really miss horses.”

Beatrice smirked as she sat back in the burnished leather seat of the Mustang, and she examined his face in the sporadic light of the street lamps as he started the car and backed out. His car smelled like leather and smoke, and she realized the odd scent she often caught from him was the same as the air after an electrical storm, which suddenly made much more sense.

“Gio?” she asked after they had merged on the highway.

“Hmm?” He had returned to his more taciturn demeanor since entering the car.

“Do all vampires do the fire thing?”

He glanced at her before turning his face back to the road. “No, we all have some sort of affinity for one of the elements, though. No one seems to know why.”

“Elements? Not like chemistry, though, right?”

He shook his head. “The classical elements: fire, earth, wind, and water.”

“And you can make fire?”

“Not precisely. I can manipulate fire. I use my amnis to make a spark from static electricity, and then I can make that spark grow into whatever shape or type of fire I want.”

She responded dryly. “So you can make fire.”

He shrugged. “Basically, yes.”

“That seems kind of dangerous.”

He nodded as he took the exit off the freeway headed to her grandmother’s small house. “It is. It’s quite hard to control. Not many fire immortals grow to be as old as me.”

“Why not?”

He sighed as if explaining something to a small child. “Well, when you are young and clumsy, it’s rather easy to set yourself on fire.”

A quick laugh escaped her, and she slapped a hand over her mouth before she looked at him, embarrassed by her amusement. Giovanni did not look amused.

She cleared her throat. “Sorry. It’s not funny. I mean, it kind of is, but not really.”

“It’s really not.”

“Of course not,” she replied seriously.

“Fire is one of the few ways we can die.”

“Sorry.”

They drove silently for a few more minutes.

“So I guess that would make you kind of a bad-ass.”

He smirked a little and nodded. “Yes, that would be another reason not many of us grow as old as me. We tend to be targeted by those who feel threatened.”

“Have you been targeted?”

He looked at her as the car was stopped at a red light. “Not in a long time.”

She stared at him for a few more minutes before she faced forward again.

“Good.”

They continued driving down Greenbriar Street, and she realized she hadn’t given him a single direction.

“Gio?”

“Yes?”

“You know exactly where my grandmother lives, don’t you?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”

She chewed on her lip a little, trying to calmly absorb this new knowledge.

“You know when my birthday is, too, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

They continued down the dark streets.

“Childhood pet?”

He cleared his throat in what she guessed was a purely habitual gesture.

“I’ve never understood the appeal of Chihuahuas, to be honest.”

She nodded, trying to brush aside the flutter of panic that started to well up. “Well, it was a long-haired one. They’re kind of cute. And Frito was really more my grandma’s dog anyway.”

The awkward silence stretched on as she continued to wonder just how extensively he had pried into her background. She felt like, if she asked, he might just know the contents of her refrigerator.

“I have a cat,” he blurted out. “A chartreux. They chirp instead of meow. His name is Doyle.”

“Oh.” She was strangely relieved by his odd, personal confession. “I don’t know anything about cats. Is that a breed?”

“Yes, technically the cat is Caspar’s, but Doyle likes me best,” he said this proudly, as if it was a personal distinction.

“Well…cool.”

They were turning onto her grandmother’s street, and she began to wonder how this strange, but illuminating, night would end.

“Gio?”

“Yes?” He pulled up in front of the house, and waited with the engine idling.

“We’re still kind of friends, right?”

She saw the corner of his mouth turn up in a smile. “I’d like to think so. I hope so.”

“You’re not going to break into my room and mess with my memories tonight, are you?”

He paused before answering softly, “No, Beatrice. I won’t do that.”

She hesitated. “Will you ever?”

He wore an unreadable expression when he answered.

“I don’t know.”

She felt a catch in her throat. “I don’t understand this, not really. Part of me is still wondering whether I’m going to wake up and realize it was all a weird nightmare.”

He frowned for a moment before leaning toward her, and she felt the strange buzz of energy again. He lifted a hand and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

“We’ll talk tomorrow night.”

Beatrice felt a sudden, overwhelming swell of panic, but she nodded before she slipped from the car. As she stood on the path, the dark night seemed to close around her and formerly familiar shadows grew ominous. She almost ran toward the front door, locking it behind her as she heard the Mustang pull away.