A Hidden Fire

Chapter Fifteen

Houston, Texas

April 2004

“Papà? As in-what the hell?”

Giovanni ignored Beatrice, keeping his eyes and his hands on his son, who was still hanging a foot off the ground and laughing at him. Insolent boy, he thought. Siring Lorenzo, while it had seemed the most honorable thing at the time, remained Giovanni’s biggest regret in five hundred years.

“Papà, don’t you want to introduce me to your little toy?” Lorenzo sniffed the air. “She smells delicious when she’s afraid. Her father was, too, you know. Such a perceptive human he was. Clever, clever man. Is she clever, too?”

“Stay quiet and stay still,” Giovanni growled. He had always been stronger than Lorenzo; even when they were human, the boy could never have bested him. With their comparative elements and the strength of their blood now, it was still no contest.

“Hey, vampires,” he heard Beatrice say. “Just letting you know that the library is still open. Granted, this isn’t the most hopping place on the fifth floor, but there are people who could just walk in.”

The two vampires continued to stare at each other, and small flames burst out periodically over Giovanni’s hands and were quickly extinguished by Lorenzo as he manipulated the moisture in the air.

“She’s lovely, too. Is she good in bed? She’s American, I bet she is.”

Giovanni tightened his grip on the other man’s throat as he held him up, but Lorenzo only let out a rasping laugh. “They can be so feisty. But she’s young! I can’t imagine she knows what she’s doing yet,” he choked out.

He snarled at the laughing man, part of him wishing he could simply tear his son’s head of and be rid of the problem. Until he had his books, however, it wasn’t something he wanted to risk.

“Seriously,” Beatrice spoke again. He could hear her voice shaking. “I think I heard the elevator ding just now. So either kill him quick, Gio, or let him down so no one calls security.”

Her words finally registered, and he lowered Lorenzo to the ground, but didn’t release him from his grip.

“By the way, ‘Dad,’ can I just say, thanks a bunch for living in this lovely humid climate?” Lorenzo affected a flat Middle American accent. “Makes it so much easier for me to put out the little love sparks you throw off. Whatever you do, don’t move to the desert, it would just throw me off.”

Giovanni angled himself so he was between the delicate blond man and Beatrice and the letters. “Why are you here?”

“Can’t I just come for a visit? It’s been-what? One hundred years or so? Time just flies when you’re building a business empire. Sorry I forgot to send Christmas cards.”

“He’s really your son?” he heard Beatrice ask.

“In a manner of speaking,” Giovanni muttered, glaring at the mocking vampire.

“That hurts, Dad. Really, it does.”

“Shut up.”

Lorenzo peeked over Giovanni’s shoulder and winked at Beatrice. “He can just be so cross about sharing, you know? Hello, by the way. I’m Lorenzo. You must be the lovely Beatrice. I’ve heard so much about you, my dear.”

“You killed my father, didn’t you?” Beatrice whispered.

Giovanni wondered when she had figured it out. He was betting that Lorenzo’s words tonight had only confirmed her suspicions. He had suspected that his son was Stephen’s sire months ago, but hadn’t wanted to say anything to her.

“Kill is such a harsh term. And not really all that accurate; after all, I sired him as well. He’s alive and well…I think. Naughty boy, that Stephen, running away from me like that.”

Though his tone was teasing, Giovanni recognized the cold light in Lorenzo’s eyes that had only grown stronger in the last hundred years.

“I want to know why you’re in Houston. I’m assuming you sent the letters, didn’t you?”

“Oh,” Lorenzo’s eyes lit up, “are we telling old stories? Does she know all about us? Did you tell her our little secret? Does she know about old Nic?” He grinned slowly when he saw the slow burn in Giovanni’s eyes. “Oh, I just bet she doesn’t, does she?”

“Why are you here?” he roared in Italian. Blue flames flared on his arms, and he felt the scraps of his sleeves turn to ash and drift to the ground. “Is this some sick game to you? Tell me your purpose, boy, and leave!”

Lorenzo looked as if he had won a prize. “Oh, she’s wonderful…or is it your books? What has finally caused Niccolo’s perfect boy to lose his temper? It’s too beautiful for words.” A sick, dulcet laugh burbled from his throat.

“Gio?”

He tensed when he heard the tremor in Beatrice’s voice. He could tell she was terrified and trying to hide it. He wished he could reach out and calm the race of her pulse. Its frantic beat was starting to distract even him, and he knew that if he could feel the delicious burn in his throat, then Lorenzo must have been aching to feed from her.

He took an unnecessary breath, hoping the habitual action would calm him, and slowly the blue flames were absorbed by his skin. Lorenzo also took a deep breath, and his nostrils flared as he scented the air. A slow smile grew on his son’s face, and his eyes closed in satisfaction.

“She does smell like her father,” he purred. “You would have loved his taste, Giovanni. So pure-like a cool drink of water on a hot day. Do you remember that? So refreshing. But again, I spend too much time reminiscing.”

Lorenzo opened his eyes and attempted to straighten his charred jacket. “I do believe I have an appointment at seven o’clock. If you could allow Beatrice to get my document for me, there’s no need for you to linger.”

“Go to hell,” Giovanni said in a calm voice. “Why are you here? I obviously know you have my books, you lying bastard. So what else do you want?”

“The girl, of course. I need her to get her father; he’s become quite the problem child.” Lorenzo clucked his tongue and shook his head. “So typical for adolescents, I’m afraid. You were lucky with me, Giovanni. I waited almost fifty years before I began to give you headaches.”

Lorenzo looked over his shoulder again and winked at the terrified girl. “It’s just a phase, my dear. No need to worry about your father. I’ll have him back into the fold in no time.”

Giovanni stepped away from Lorenzo and went to position himself closer to Beatrice, who stood guarding the letters on the table like a mother hen. “The girl is mine. Leave.”

“Is she?” Lorenzo cocked his head. “Is she really, Giovanni? That would be something, wouldn’t it? Quite out of character for you, keeping a human. Whatever could be the attraction?” The vampire eyed Beatrice with new interest, and another feral growl issued from Giovanni’s throat.

Lorenzo looked at him hopefully. “I’ll pay you, of course. Especially if she’s that much fun. I’m not expecting something for nothing. I’d even be willing to trade.”

Giovanni’s eyes narrowed. “Not expecting something for nothing? Now that’s out of character for you, Lorenzo.”

The blond vampire rolled his eyes. “Now, really, you act as if you got nothing out of the deal, Papà. And we both know that’s not true. What are a few old books and letters between father and son, hmm?” Then he slipped closer to them, twisting his neck around to peer at Beatrice before he looked up at Giovanni again. “Then again, maybe they’re worth more than I thought.”

Lorenzo brushed the blond curls from his forehead and flicked a bit of ash from his sleeve. Giovanni could see the outline of the burns his hands left on his throat already healing, but he wouldn’t be able to wear his jacket again. He stood in front of his son, fuming silently.

“Well, Giovanni, talkative as ever, I see.” Lorenzo sighed. “I suppose I’ll just have to make an appointment for another time. Maybe one of my associates can come take a look during the day when it’s more convenient.”

He winked at Beatrice. “Either way, I’ll see my letters again. It was really more of a loan to pique your curiosity.”

“Get out,” Giovanni said.

“I can see that it worked even better than I’d hoped,” he sang as he turned and left the room. “I’ll be seeing you! Both of you. Soon.” He sailed out of the reading room with a flourish, and in a second he was down the hallway. They heard the door to the stairwell click behind him.

Giovanni took a deep breath and finally turned to Beatrice. He had been able to smell the waves of adrenaline rolling off her during Lorenzo’s visit and he could hear her heartbeat pounding, but he was not prepared for the tears that poured down her face.

“Beatrice?”

She choked and waved a hand in front of her face, trying to turn so he wouldn’t see her crying, but he placed his hands on her shoulders to examine her, looking her up and down her to make sure she wasn’t hurt. It didn’t seem possible that she could be, but her reaction startled him.

She finally choked out. “He-he wants me. He wants my father. I can’t…I’ve never been more-” She panted and tried to pull away from him. “I need a bathroom. I’m going to throw up.”

“I’ll take you.”

“I don’t need someone to take me to the bathroom,” she shouted.

“And I’m not letting you out of my sight while he’s around,” he shouted back.

She lifted her hands and shoved him back. “This is your fault! I wish I’d never met you. He’s going to kill me and it’s your fault!”

He felt a twist in his heart and it gave a quick thump. He took a deep breath and tried to remain calm.

“One, he doesn’t want to kill you. Two, the only one in the wrong is Lorenzo. Don’t blame me-”

“Why didn’t you just kill him?”

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “So eager to collaborate in a murder? Ready to explain a rather large burn mark on the floor? It’s a small room. Not that attached to your eyebrows, are you?”

She wiped the angry tears from her eyes and sniffed, her upset stomach apparently settled. “Well-”

“You have no idea what you speak of. I can’t say I’m not impressed by your blood lust, tesoro, but you really must learn to pick your battleground.” He rolled his eyes and walked to the table to pack the Pico letters away. Next he walked over to the scroll and closed the large document box it lay in.

“What are you doing?”

“These need to be put away, you need to lock up, and we need to go to my house. We’ll stop on the way and get your grandmother.”

“But it’s not nine o’clock.”

He turned to her, his irritation finally spilling over. “Are you serious? I’m going to assume you’re still in some kind of shock, Beatrice, because I refuse to believe that after being threatened by a rather powerful, centuries-old, water vampire-who we just confirmed killed and turned your father, and now seems to have a sick fascination with you-you’re not arguing with me about closing the reading room a couple of hours early!”

The color drained from her face before she turned and ran down the hall. He heard her throwing up in the bathroom and sighed, quickly packed up the documents and placed them on the counter before he walked down to stand outside the door.

Giving her a few moments to collect herself, he waited in the hallway and thought about his son’s appearance at the library.

He had thought of the girl first.

It was…unexpected, even with his earlier reaction to Lorenzo’s scent on her. He had been thinking defensively as his son entered the room, but his first instinct had been to protect the girl and not his letters.

He could still hear her sniffling alone in the bathroom. The urge to walk in and comfort her was also unexpected, though with his growing attraction it probably shouldn’t have been. He had avoided long-term attachments to women for this reason. Once his protective instincts were triggered, he became much less rational.

He needed to call Carwyn and Tenzin. He would have to leave a message for the priest, as he would still be traveling. Hopefully, Tenzin was talking again, but he had no idea whether her airy visions would allow her to travel.

Then there was Livia in Rome. She had been brushing him off, and he needed to know what exactly had happened to Stephen De Novo. There was no longer time to put up with her dawdling attempts to draw him into a visit, which was no doubt her aim in putting him off in the first place.

He needed to talk to Gavin Wallace. For the right price, the Scot could tell him everyone who was new in town and who they belonged to. The man could probably tell him what their favorite drink was as well, but Giovanni didn’t know if he really wanted to spend that much.

He needed to get Caspar out of Houston and up to the house in the hill country, along with Isadora. The last thing he needed to worry about was their well-being in this mess. Lorenzo had a passionate disgust for the elderly, so hopefully they hadn’t even registered his attention.

Giovanni heard the sink running and knew Beatrice would be out in a minute. She had surprised him with her tears, but he sensed more anger than fear from her. He had dealt with this kind of danger for so many hundreds of years, he’d forgotten how shocking it was for someone so young.

She opened the door, and he saw her without the mask of her make-up for the first time. She must have washed it off, and a faint smudge of black mascara still marred the bottom of her right eyelid.

He had thought of her first. He crossed his arms and pushed down the urge to embrace her.

“Better?”

She nodded silently and walked back to the reading room. He sped by her, and quickly checked it to make sure no one had entered while his mind had been elsewhere.

“Let me shut down the computers and I’ll lock up.”

“Can I do anything to help?”

“Put the documents away. The combination to the stacks is the last four numbers of my social security number.” She didn’t ask if he knew it, and he would have laughed at her correct presumption if only she had not looked so shaken.

He quickly put everything back in its place, keeping an ear open to listen for anyone entering the reading room while he was out of sight. He noted the meticulous organization of the document shelves and the empty spaces where the boxes needed to be placed and the faint honeysuckle scent of her that lingered in the small room. For a brief moment, he considered simply taking the letters that were his, but he brushed the temptation aside and focused on the present danger. By the time he slipped out of the stacks, Beatrice had shut down the computers, grabbed her bag, and turned off the lights.

They walked down the hall together and silently made their way downstairs. She let him guide her toward his Mustang, and he unlocked the door for her, pausing before he opened it.

“Beatrice-”

“I know it’s not really your fault,” she murmured. “If anyone’s, it’s my dad’s, though I’m sure he didn’t plan on being attacked by a vampire when he went to Italy. You were just the closest one here, so it was easy to blame you.”

He was surprised by her apology, but felt an unfamiliar tension ease when he heard it.

“Are you really sorry you met me?” he asked in a low voice.

She paused and glanced up at him in the dim lights of the parking lot before she reached out to grab the door handle, opening it for herself.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

He took surface streets to her grandmother’s house, trying to give her time to collect herself before she saw Isadora.

“So he’s really your son?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Why on earth did you turn him? Was he always so awful?”

Giovanni frowned. “He wasn’t-no, he wasn’t always like this. As a child, he was almost timid. He hadn’t had an easy life. I thought I was doing the right thing when I did it. There was a time that I had a kind of affection for him. I had hoped with guidance, he would… Well, he had his own ideas about immortal life at a very young age. We only stayed together for around five years before we parted ways.”

“Has he done this before? Has he tried to, I don’t know, provoke you?”

“No. I know his reputation, of course, but we’ve spent hundreds of years avoiding each other. I’m starting to realize what a mistake that was.”

“And he has your books? Your own son stole your books and letters from you?”

Giovanni nodded. “Before I turned him, he told me they had been lost. He told me that my properties were intact, but that my library had been ransacked and destroyed. It was during the time of Savaranola in Florence. It wasn’t hard to believe. There was so much lost. I had to trust him. There was a time that I couldn’t be around people like I can now.”

“Why? The blood thing or the fire thing?”

He hesitated before he answered. “Either. Both. There were…many reasons. Can we talk about something other than my past, please?”

He saw her cross her arms from the corner of his eyes and angry tears came to her eyes. “Well, it seems like your past is affecting a lot of my future, Gio. So maybe I feel like it’s kind of my business at this point.”

Biting back a curse, he gripped the steering wheel a little harder too hard and heard the plastic crack. Damn.

“I’ll tell you what you need to know, just not right now. I’ll take care of this, Beatrice, but you’re staying with me for a while.”

She snorted. “I am not. I have finals and classes and all sorts of shit to do. You’re not locking me up in your house.”

He frowned, irritated that she had predicted him so accurately. She was probably correct, and he didn’t want to interfere with her completing her classes unless it was absolutely necessary. He had no doubt Lorenzo would linger in the city for some time, watching them and securing support before he made any sort of move.

In his mind, he recalled the small boy sitting in front of a basket, dangling a mouse by its tail. The rodent was intended to be a meal for the snake that was kept in the classroom, but the boy always asked to be the one to feed it. Not wanting to handle the task himself, Giovanni always let him, but soon became disturbed by how the angelic looking child taunted both the snake and the mouse before he finally offered the serpent its meal.

“Gio?”

“Hmm?” He broke out of his reverie to glance at Beatrice. “We’ll figure something out. It would be best if you stayed at my house after dark. There’s plenty of room. I’ll increase your security during the daytime, as well.”

“What about my grandmother?”

“There’s a house that Caspar loves, up in the hill country around Kerrville. It’s isolated and Caspar knows the area extremely well. He can take her there. I don’t think it’s in Lorenzo’s interest to follow them. They aren’t what he’s after.”

“He’s after me?” she asked in a small voice. “I guess I knew that, but it hadn’t really sunk in until today.”

She seemed to shrink into the seat next to him as they made their way through the winding streets of Houston. He scented the air, pleased that the adrenaline had ceased pumping through her bloodstream and satisfied she wouldn’t alarm Isadora.

“I really hate my dad right now,” she whispered.

He wasn’t shocked by her admission, but it saddened him. He felt the urge to hold her again, but he shoved it to the side.

“I understand why you feel that way, but you have to know I do not blame him for running from Lorenzo.”

“You can’t? Even though it’s now messing with your life, too?”

Giovanni shrugged. “I’m the one who created the monster, Beatrice. And trust me, Lorenzo is a monster. Life as his child would be horrendous.”

“Why? I don’t get it. Carwyn told me he can’t make his kids do anything they don’t want to, so why would it be so horrible?”

He frowned at her. “It’s not a mental compulsion, it’s sheer physical strength most of the time. Strength for us is determined by age, mostly-though the age of your sire has some significance, as well. I’m old, but my sire was ancient. Combine that strength with my physical strength at the time of my change and my natural element-that makes me very strong.

“Lorenzo was never as strong as me when he was human, but my blood was very strong because of my sire and that was passed onto him. He has also trained himself particularly well in his elemental strength, though he’ll never be quite as strong as I am.

“Your father-though very strong now by human standards-would be no match for either of us. He would never beat Lorenzo in a fight, and I’m sure my son probably tortured him in all sorts of inventive ways when your father didn’t do exactly what he wanted.”

He saw her eyes widen in horror, but he didn’t want to soften the truth for her. “You have no idea how much power he would have over him, especially in those first few years when he was learning to control his bloodlust. Your father is almost five hundred years younger than his sire. And he could conceivably be under his control for eternity. You must not blame your father for running.”

She seemed to shrink in her seat. “How about your sire?” she almost whispered. “Does he-I mean, was he good like Carwyn?”

Giovanni frowned. “My father…was a complicated vampire. And he’s dead, so it doesn’t have any effect on me now.”

“Oh.”

“Is there a proper anger, my son?”

“Aristotle said ‘anyone can become angry, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree, and at the right time. For the right purpose and in the right way-is not within every man’s power. ’”

“Are you the ‘every man’ that the philosopher spoke of?”

“No, Father, I am better than other mortals, and will be better still.”

“Therefore, you must master your anger so you control it always.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Giovanni?”

“Hmm?” His eyes dropped their hollow stare as he glanced at Beatrice again.

“You missed the turn to my house.”

He quickly turned the car around and made the right onto the street he had missed. As he pulled up in front of Isadora’s small home, he noticed that all the lights lit up the first floor. He parked and walked around the car to help Beatrice out. Half way up the walk, the first scent of blood hit him, and he turned to Beatrice, pushing her back toward the Mustang.

“Go back to the car,” he said firmly.

“What? No! What the hell-” Her eyes widened when she saw his face. She ran up the front walk, but Giovanni beat her to the door, blocking her path.

“Grandma!”