A Hidden Fire

Chapter Four

Houston, Texas

November 2003

“Why do you dye your hair black?”

Beatrice looked up from the computer screen to see Giovanni staring at her again from his seat in the reading room.

“What?”

“It must be dark brown anyway; why do you dye it black?” he asked again, his eyes narrowed intently on her face.

She wanted to laugh at his confused expression but kept a straight face as she answered, “Because it’s almost black, but not quite.”

“I don’t understand.”

She looked at him over the reference desk, a small smile flirting at the corner of her mouth. “I just felt like it hadn’t really committed to a color, Gio. I don’t do things half-assed. I don’t want my hair to, either.”

He set his pencil down and leaned back in his chair. “So, you’re saying you dye your hair because you think it’s…lazy?”

He cocked his head in amusement.

She shrugged. “Not lazy, more indecisive.”

He smiled. “You realize that makes no sense, of course. Your hair color is determined by your genetic make-up and has no reflection on your personality or work ethic.”

She glared at Giovanni playfully before sticking her tongue out at him.

He looked at her in astonishment for a moment before he burst into laughter. She was startled by the unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, sound and joined him before she looked at the clock on the wall. It was already ten to nine.

Still chuckling, she said, “All right, hand over the book. I’ve got to lock up.”

He smiled at her and began to pack the manuscript for storage. She walked over, picked it up, and began her nightly closing ritual.

In the weeks since he’d joined her and her grandmother at the festival, Giovanni had become surprisingly friendly. She found him lingering around the student union on random nights of the week, holding cups of coffee he never drank and wandering through the student-study area in the library. He made a point of chatting with her, but she found his intentions as puzzling as his profession.

She had searched his name online, and though she found a myriad of rare books and antiquities dealers, his name never appeared. She found a copy of his business card with Charlotte Martin’s notes, but the only contact information on it was a phone number she was reluctant to call, though she did program it into her phone.

When she asked her grandmother about the intriguing bookseller, she was shrugged off.

“It’s like he’s from another planet, Grandma.”

“He’s old-fashioned…and European. Maybe he just doesn’t advertise online. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“But not even a public telephone listing for his business? Not a single mention? It just seems odd.” She sat at the breakfast table, drinking coffee and watching her grandmother start the chili verde for dinner that night.

“Do you feel unsafe with him?” Isadora turned to her, a look of concern evident on her face. “You’re alone with him in that reading room for hours every week. I won’t have you feeling unsafe.”

Beatrice shook her head. “No, it’s not that. There’s just something…”

Isadora turned back to the stove. “You’re creating a mystery where there is none, Mariposa. I think he’s a nice man. Just old-fashioned.” Her grandmother fell silent, and from her expression, Beatrice could tell she was reliving some of the dark times that had marked her granddaughter’s teenage years. Not wanting her grandmother to worry about her strange fascination, Beatrice attempted to lighten the mood.

“Do you know he doesn’t even have a mobile phone? Can you imagine?”

“Really?” Isadora may have not been as fond of technology as her granddaughter was, but she’d jumped at the chance to have a mobile phone when she realized she could talk with her circle of friends almost nonstop.

“Nope. I’ve never seen him with one. Come to think of it, he doesn’t have a laptop, either.” She frowned again. “And what researcher doesn’t have a laptop these days? It’s just odd.”

Her grandmother laughed. “Maybe he’s allergic to technology, mija.”

In the weeks that followed, Dr. Giovanni Vecchio became a small obsession to her.

He was rich, she determined, after noticing a silver-haired man hold open the back door of a Mercedes sedan for him on more than one occasion when they left the library. Giovanni had taken to walking her to her small, hand-me-down Civic some evenings when she got off of work, most often to continue a conversation they were in the middle of. He’d also tried to convince her that a brisk walk down five flights of stairs was the key to good health. She sometimes joined him and sometimes simply waited near the elevators. He was an unusually fast walker.

She also determined he was in his early thirties. He looked younger but had casually mentioned too many foreign universities for her to think he had seen them all in less than that.

What bothered her the most was that something about his appearance stirred memories of a time in her life she had tried very hard to forget, and reminded her of a face she had relegated to the back of her mind. She’d tried for years to put that dark chapter of her teenage years behind her, but the more time she spent with the mysterious book dealer, the more thoughts and memories began to surface.

He stood before her now, his soft smile and beautiful eyes the very picture of politeness. He was wearing a moss-green sweater that evening which made his eyes look both green and grey at once.

“Can I walk you to your car?”

She paused, and he must have been confused by the odd look on her face because he stepped away.

“I…sorry, kind of lost in thought.” She smiled. “You know, thinking about my indecisive hair.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, embarrassed that she’d used thinking about her hair as an excuse for her quizzical expression.

He frowned. “Did you want-”

“Sure,” she continued. “I’d like the company. Just let me shut the computers down. Can you get the lights by the door?”

He paused almost imperceptibly but turned to walk toward the doorway. As she waited to log out of the library’s system, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He slipped his hand into his messenger bag and pulled out a pencil to flick the lights off before he tucked it back in his bag. His movements were smooth and practiced, and if she hadn’t been observing him, she realized she never would have noticed.

She forced herself to look back at the computer and stood up straight when she heard the electronic sigh that indicated the machine was off. Gathering her bag, Beatrice plastered a smile on her face and walked toward the doorway to meet him.

“Join me on the stairs tonight?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. My feet are killing me. Join me in the elevator?”

He looked at her for a second, surprised by her question. She’d never asked him to join her before and was curious how he would respond.

“No, thank you. You know me-I like the exercise.”

She chuckled a little and smiled. “Right.”

“I’ll meet you downstairs.”

He turned and loped toward the stairwell, his quick feet almost noiseless in the dim corridor. She muttered under her breath as she watched him.

“Right…sure I know you.”

She ran into him again two nights later while she was working on a paper for her Medieval Literature class. She’d just finished her paper on the role of illuminations in devotional manuscripts when she saw him watching her from the archway by the coffee shop. She caught a glimpse of his pale face and was immediately thrown back to a memory from the summer she turned fifteen.

“Grandpa, I think I saw him again tonight, by the movie theater.”

Her grandfather sat at his workbench in the garage, working on a small carving of a butterfly for his wife. He set his knife down and brushed off his gnarled hands, holding one out to her. She took it and came to stand next to him, her purple shirt brushing against the bench and picking up small shavings of wood she flicked away with pink-tinted nails.

“Mariposa,” he squeezed her hand, “my butterfly girl, I see him too. I still see him sitting at the kitchen table in the mornings, or tinkering with me in the garage. The memories, they’re natural, mija. It’s normal to remember him that way.”

She frowned and shook her head, unable or unwilling to share her growing fears with her down-to-earth grandfather. The dreams were getting worse, and it was becoming more difficult to spend time with her friends who only seemed to want to talk about boys, clothes, or the latest music. She looked up into her grandfather’s loving and concerned face.

Hector de Nova had handled the loss of his son as well as could be expected, flying to Italy to return with a coffin he had been warned not to open. His deep sorrow had been subsumed by the need to care for his grief-stricken wife and granddaughter.

“But he-he doesn’t look the same when I see him. He’s too thin, and his skin… it’s not the way I remember.” She felt her heart begin to race. “Am I going crazy?”

He pulled her into a fierce hug. “No, you’re not crazy. Do you hear me? You’re one of the most levelheaded people I know, but you need to stop thinking about him so much. It’s not healthy, mija. Get out with your friends more. Have some fun.”

She whispered into his collar, “Okay, Grandpa.”

“And you don’t tell Grandma, okay? She’ll just get upset.”

“I know.”

“When things start to bother you, just come talk to me.”

He pulled away to look into dark eyes that matched his own, the same eyes her father had. “We’ll be okay, B. We’ll get past this.”

Her hands clenched. “Sometimes, I wish I could just forget him, Grandpa. I know that’s horrible.”

He kissed her forehead. “It’s okay, Beatrice. It’s going to be okay…”

“Beatrice?” Giovanni stood before her, wearing a grey tweed jacket and holding two cups of steaming coffee. “May I join you?”

Shaking her head slightly to clear her mind, she motioned to the red-cushioned seat across from her. “Of course. What are you doing here?”

Working out your glorious backside by walking the ten-storied staircase of the architecture building?

Stealing secret documents for the Russians? Plotting to assassinate my U.S. Foreign Policy professor? Please let it be that. Stalking me for some completely mind-boggling and inexplicable reason?

“Just meeting a friend for coffee.”

“Oh really? What time are you supposed to meet him?” She looked at her watch as he frowned and cocked his head at her.

“Oh,” she said in sudden realization. “Oh, me?”

He chuckled and sat across from her. “I was doing some research in the stacks and I saw you leave. I thought I might take a break.”

“What are you working on?”

He looked at her for a moment, as if judging whether she was worth confiding in. She raised her eyebrow when he remained silent, shrugged, and returned to typing on her laptop.

“Researching some documents for a client.”

She looked up, surprised he had spoken. “That sounds interesting. What kind of documents?”

His slightly pained expression had her waving a hand.

“Never mind,” she added. “None of my business.”

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re trustworthy,” he said quickly. “This collector is very private. I haven’t even shared the specifics with Caspar.”

“Caspar?”

“Oh,” he paused. “Caspar is my…”

“Is he the guy that picks you up from the library sometimes?”

“Yes, he’s my butler, I guess you could say. He works for me, but runs my house, as well. He also helps me in my work.”

She raised her eyebrows and nodded. “I have never met anyone with a butler before.”

“Well,” he shrugged. “I suppose you have now.”

“Tell the truth, Giovanni Vecchio.” A mischievous look came to her eye. “You have a butler, a cool car, and I’ve only ever seen you at night…”

He froze, tension suddenly evident in the set of his shoulders. Beatrice leaned closer and whispered, “You’re Batman, aren’t you?”

His mouth dropped open in surprise before the grin overtook his face.

She smiled back at him, chuckling until he joined in. Soon, they were both laughing.

“You looked so serious for a second! What did you think I was going to say? A spy? Vampire? Hired killer?”

He shook his head in amusement. “You’re confounding. No, I was just surprised you guessed. I am, in fact, Batman. I would appreciate your discretion.”

She nodded with a smirk, and took another sip of the coffee he’d brought her. It had just a touch of cream, exactly the way she liked it. “Sure you are. I’m a skeptic until I see the rubber suit. You’re not fooling me.”

He looked at her, smiling mischievously. “You really want to see me in a rubber suit?”

His seductive grin brought her to a halt. “What?” She blushed. “No, I was just-joking, Gio. Sheesh.”

He laughed at her uncomfortable expression. Giovanni blew on his coffee, holding it in his hands and smiling at her over the edge.

“What are you working on?” he asked, setting down his drink.

She shrugged. “Medieval Lit paper.”

“Dante, by any chance?”

She cocked her head. “Not my area.”

“Sorry.”

They looked at each other for a few moments before she relaxed again. “It’s fine. Valid question, I guess. A lot of people thought I would follow in my dad’s footsteps.”

“But you chose not to.”

She shrugged at him. “I like the library. Information science is…kind of like solving mysteries.”

“So you’re a detective?” he asked with a smile. “Do you like mysteries?”

She rolled her eyes. “I have no illusions of grandeur. People need information. I find out what they need to know and help them find it. It’s satisfying.”

“That’s somewhat like your father. Isn’t that what he was doing in Italy? Solving mysteries?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe. You’re awfully interested in ten-year-old research.”

“I’m quite fond of Dante. I am Italian, after all.”

“That’s true.” She paused. “I don’t know what he was looking for.” She took another sip of her coffee and couldn’t help but notice the avid interest he was trying hard not to show. “He told my grandfather he thought he had a line on some previously unknown letters connected with the Alighieri family. Some missing collection of correspondence. You know how they used to take a collection of letters and bind them in correspondence books? I think he was looking for some of those.”

“What? From Dante himself?”

Beatrice looked down at her computer. “Maybe. He wasn’t specific. No one in the family was really as interested in literature as he was. I mean, I am now, but at the time…” She smiled as she remembered the last call her father had made to her from Italy. He had run into an old friend from school and was bubbling with excitement.

“You were twelve when he died?” Giovanni asked.

She looked up sharply. “How do you know how old I am?”

“I just assumed,” he said. “You mentioned you were a senior.”

She didn’t know why, but she felt like he wanted something from her. She had an uneasy feeling prickling at the back of her neck and a strange energy suddenly seemed to buzz around her. She didn’t feel unsafe, just like there was some piece of a puzzle she was missing, an angle to him she couldn’t quite see. She looked at the pale hands he had folded across his chest and a headache began to grow behind her eyes.

“Of course,” she said. Pausing for a moment, she took another drink of her coffee, noting his cup still remained untouched on the table. “Don’t like your coffee?”

He shifted slightly. “It’s just not the way I ordered it.”

“So take it back,” she said quietly. “Not that you’ll drink that one, either.”

He stared at her. “Why do you say that?”

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. A slight vibration filled the air and he looked down, seemingly fascinated by the back of her laptop as his eyebrows furrowed together.

She felt a strange pressure around her, like the air right before an electrical storm. “You just don’t seem to like coffee all that much.”

“I don’t,” he said in a low voice, still staring at her computer.

“So why do you always order it?”

He looked up at her, his green eyes seemed darker the longer she stared into them. Beatrice saw his arms unfold and a hand began to creep across the table toward hers. The hairs on her wrist rose.

“Gio?” she whispered, confused by his odd behavior.

He sat back suddenly, as if shaking himself out of a trance. “I like the way it smells-coffee, I mean. I just don’t like the taste.” He stood, grabbing his messenger bag from the floor. “I should be going.”

“Oh?” she asked, still confused by the strange exchange and the sudden clearing of the air. She felt her ears pop as when she spoke to him.

“Yes, I need to speak with Caspar. I forgot.”

“Well,” she cleared her throat, attempting to lighten the mood, “have fun at the bat cave.”

“Excuse me?” he asked, frowning.

She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“Oh yes, the bat cave.” He chuckled. “I’ll be sure to tell Alfred you said hello.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

He paused as if he had something else to say before he smiled crookedly.

“Good night, Beatrice.”

They stared at each other for a few more moments before he turned to leave.

“Good night, Batman,” she called. Beatrice heard him laugh as he walked through the doorway, but she sat there, drinking her coffee and staring in the direction he had gone, disturbed by something she couldn’t quite grasp.

She dreamed that night: dark, twisted dreams haunted by the pale moon face of her father. Unlike her dreams as a teenager, in these she wasn’t alone; Giovanni stood next to her, and soft blue flames licked along his skin.

He wasn’t in the library the next week; in fact, she didn’t see him at all until two weeks later when he came into the reading room for his regular evening hours. He set his messenger bag down, silently filled out the call slip, and sat patiently waiting for her to bring the Tibetan manuscript to him at the dark wood table.

She went to fetch it, her eyes flashing in annoyance at his calm demeanor. Beatrice knew it wasn’t rational, but she felt as if she’d been stood up when he hadn’t come to the library the previous Wednesday at his usual time. She’d wanted to see him after their odd conversation at the student union, but she hadn’t.

Her vivid imagination kept tying him to her dead father so their faces overlapped in her dreams. She recalled memories she had tried to forget: a pale face glimpsed in the background at her high school graduation, strange phone calls from foreign numbers that only ended in silence and a click, and a prickling feeling along the back of her neck every time she tried to remember more from that dark period of her youth.

For some reason, she linked this mental turmoil to Dr. Giovanni Vecchio’s appearance in her life, and she felt a strange resentment begin to swell toward the quiet man. They worked in silence for the next two hours, and a dull headache began to pound behind her eyes.

He walked over to her at quarter to nine, handing over the manuscript and tucking his notes away in his bag. He left ten minutes early which made her unaccountably angry. Beatrice bit her lip, smothering a frustrated scream as she waited at the reference desk for nine o’clock to come.

She walked into the hallway after her shift ended, turning to lock the reading room behind her.

“Beatrice.”

She gasped when she heard Giovanni speak her name and turned to see him standing, still as a statue, in the hallway leading to the stairwell. He had dressed from head to toe in black that night, and his fair skin and strange eyes almost glowed in the dim light of the fifth floor.

“Good,” she muttered. “I wanted to talk to you.”

She pressed the button to call the elevator, waiting for him to join her.

“Will you walk downstairs with me?” he asked, nodding toward the stairs.

“I don’t think so.”

He paused. “I really don’t like elevators.”

“Well, I really don’t like friends who have odd conversations with me, then disappear for two weeks without a word. So I’m not feeling very inclined to walk down five flights of stairs with you. If you want to talk to me, you can take the elevator like a normal person.”

He tensed but didn’t leave, not even when the elevator chimed and the doors opened revealing an empty compartment. She walked in, turning to look at him in challenge. Finally, he tucked his hands in his pockets and walked into the elevator, standing in the exact center of the car and staring at the doors as they closed.

Rolling her eyes, she reached forward from the back corner and pushed the button for the first floor.

“Why are you angry with me?” he asked quietly.

“You’re the one that vanished for two weeks. And I’m not angry with you.”

He chuckled. “I disagree.”

“Why were you asking about my father?”

“I was curious.”

“I disagree.”

He remained silent as the elevator slid down to the first floor. Suddenly, the elevator jerked harshly and he threw out his left hand to steady himself. He reached for the wooden rail that ran around the compartment, but his pale hand brushed near the control panel and she saw a current arc from his finger to the metal panel. There was a bright blue flash, a small crack, and Beatrice felt a surge of electricity go through the compartment as her hair lifted. The lights went out, and the elevator came to an abrupt halt.

“What just happened?” Beatrice asked nervously. “What the hell was that? Is your hand okay? Why are we stopped?”

“I think the elevator shorted out.”

“Push the alarm. Isn’t there an alarm?” She leaned forward, reaching for the panel blindly, but her hands only touched his tense arm as he braced himself against the side of the elevator.

“Beatrice-”

“Isn’t there supposed to be a light or something?” She scowled, irritated at being stuck in a dark elevator with him.

“I don’t think-”

“Shit! How long is it going to take to get out of here? My grandma’s going to be worried sick. She hates it when I get home late on Wednesdays. Oh, wait…” She began rummaging through her bag, searching blindly for her mobile phone. Reception was sketchy at best in this part of the library, but at least she could use it as a flashlight so she didn’t stumble into him in the darkened car.

“I don’t think your phone will work.”

“Well, I won’t get reception, but-”

“No, I highly doubt it will even turn on with that surge. Did you leave your laptop in your car tonight?”

She frowned at his odd question. “Yes, but-”

“Good, at least you won’t lose that. I’ll just buy you a new phone.”

“A new phone? What the-”

“Now to figure out how to get out of here-”

“Giovanni!” she finally yelled. She felt blind, and she was starting to panic. “What the hell is going on? Why won’t my phone work? And what was that flash that stopped the elevator?”

She stood in the pitch black, waiting for him to speak-for him to do anything. She couldn’t even hear him breathing. He was so still, she almost thought she was imagining his presence in the elevator earlier. Beatrice was halfway convinced if she threw her arm out, she would meet nothing but dead air. The charged air in the elevator seemed to press against her, and she heart began to pound.

Finally, she heard a pop, as if someone had plugged an old lamp into a socket. A small blue light shone across from her and her eyes were drawn to it immediately.

It grew until it was the size of a lighter flame, then it got bigger, and rounder, its soft blue-green light illuminating the large hand it hovered over. She couldn’t look away as it swirled and grew, slowly becoming the size of a glowing softball, held hovering over the palm of Giovanni’s pale hand.

She finally dragged her eyes away from the ball of blue-green flame that now resembled the color of his unusual eyes. Her gaze tracked up his arm, the buttons of his black shirt, the still, white column of his neck, and over his grim mouth. Finally, she met his intense stare in the low light of the broken elevator.

Beatrice held her breath and stared in astonishment as the terrifying fire in his hand pulsed and swirled. She could only manage a hoarse whisper.

“What are you?”