Dawn Caravan

by Elizabeth Hunter

  * * *

  “All branches grow from the same root.” Zhang was pruning his grape vines in Penglai. “Cut off this branch, and the new bud comes. But it all comes from the same root. The root never changes. Will this branch have different grapes than the old one? Of course not. The root stays true.”

  * * *

  Ben walked along the path above the creek, through the dark canopy of camellia bushes, toward the Chinese garden in the distance.

  “You are still you.”

  She didn’t know. How could she? She was so old, the idea of her mortal life so remote it was a myth. The man Ben had been was dead, and the vampire he was now…

  He didn’t know who he was.

  Ben passed through the camellias and walked under the cloudy sky again, the night sounds muffled by the clouds and the trees and the gurgle of running water.

  He ducked under the round gate leading to the Chinese garden and took his shoes off, flexing his toes on the intricately patterned pebble mosaics that made up the garden.

  A flash from the corner of his eye.

  Ben froze as his eyes followed the moving shadow. He held his breath and listened.

  Something was overhead. Something other than bats. Something…

  A hint of amnis trickled through the air, the taste of cardamom and honey.

  “Tenzin.” Rage punched through him and he rose into the sky, arrowing toward the shadow, but it was gone.

  The scrape of tile near the teahouse.

  “Tenzin!” Ben snarled as he raced in that direction, only to see the shadow fly from the curving roof and toward the pavilion that overlooked the lake. The shadow darted under the bridge, the water rippling out from the speed of her flight.

  “Dammit.” She was too fast. “I know it’s you!”

  Why haunt him? Why follow him?

  The shadow flew over the gates of the garden and through the night. Ben followed, the wind tearing through his hair as he raced behind. He wasn’t fast enough; his control was too shaky. He felt the wind fighting him.

  He thought he heard the echo of laughter as he passed through the alley of giant camellias leading toward a trickling stone fountain.

  Ben hovered over the garden, listening to the water and the wind sweeping through the palm trees. The bats were back, flapping through the night as they feasted on insects.

  “I know you’re there.” He didn’t need to speak loudly. “And I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’m not interested. Leave me alone.”

  Ben landed softly on the wet grass, realizing too late that he’d left his shoes back in the Chinese garden.

  Shit.

  Tenzin watched from her perch in the king palm tree near the desert garden as he took flight. He was getting faster and faster. His control was growing. She was glad he’d finally left Asia. Keeping tabs on him had been exhausting. He was far more adept at disappearing than she’d imagined.

  It both frustrated and delighted her. Ben had never been boring in his human life, and he was proving to be a skilled opponent in his immortal one.

  Very enjoyable.

  Opponent for now, partner eventually.

  She glanced at the bat eating a piece of fruit next to her. “He insists he wants to be left alone, but if that was truly the case, why did he chase me?”

  The bat didn’t answer her.

  “Agreed.” She drew up her knees and rested her chin on them. “He doesn’t know what he wants.” She glanced at the bat. “No, you’re right. He does know, he just doesn’t want to admit it.”

  He wanted her. For what, he was probably unsure. But he wanted her, and that was a place to start. Maybe at first he would only want her help. Maybe he thought he wanted revenge.

  He’d see the truth eventually. She would be patient.

  She had all the time she needed now.

  7

  Gavin was drinking a glass of whiskey in the front yard when Ben landed back at the house.

  “I always forget how warm it is here,” he said. “There’s still snow in New York. Snow.” He curled his lip. “I’ve got to convince Chloe to move. Houston. Los Angeles. Capri. I have a new bar in Spain she’d like.”

  “She loves New York.” Ben fought to get his emotions under control.

  “I know.” He finished his drink. “How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Yes, clearly.” Gavin raised an eyebrow. “Funny, you have that enraged look you usually only get when you’ve been around your partner.”

  “Tenzin isn’t my partner anymore.”

  “And yet you knew exactly who I was talking about,” Gavin said. “She’s still your partner, and you’re fooling yourself if you think you can just avoid her.”

  “Did she fly to LA with you?”

  “With me?” Gavin frowned. “Of course not. Do you know how fast she flies? It’s ridiculous and irritating.” He muttered, “You’ll probably be as fast as her eventually, you irritating knob.”

  “Missed you too.” Ben stalked past the Scottish vampire.

  “Giovanni wants us in the library,” Gavin yelled. “You need some background on Radu.”

  “I already got the briefing on the icon.”

  “The icon?” Gavin smiled. “You still amuse me, sweet lamb. You think this is only about an icon? Everyone underestimates Radu.” Gavin joined him. “It’s not a mistake I’ve made.”

  “So?” Ben shook off the irritation Tenzin had provoked and focused on work. “He’s offering way more than market value to find it. We knew it was sentimental.”

  “Sentimental is one way of putting it.”

  They walked in the house and past the empty kitchen.

  Ben glanced at the clock. “It’s late.”

  “Yes, that darling little mite was quite perturbed you weren’t here to wish her good night.” Gavin looked amused. “She’s quite funny for a small human.”

  “I know.”

  “Does she ask everyone to see their fangs? I find her ease with vampires disconcerting.”

  Ben pushed through the swinging kitchen door. “Sadia has no fear.”

  “That explains her fascination with Tenzin.”

  Ben wiped a hand over his face and paused at the foot of the stairs. “Can I just go even one night without her being thrown in my face? I’m about ready to go back to Kashgar.”

  “Is that where you were?” Gavin nodded. “Good choice. What made you come out of hiding?”

  “A woman.”

  Gavin lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Not like that.” He walked to the second floor. “She was watching me. She knew my name. Left me a note.”

  “Ah. Which said?”

  “‘Answer your fucking mail.’ That’s it. No name. No address. Just answer your fucking mail.”

  Gavin laughed as they walked into the library. “What did she look like? Little pixie of a thing with big eyes and too much hair?”

  Ben froze. “How did you know that?”

  Gavin took a seat near Chloe, who was sitting at the library table with Beatrice. Chloe had her laptop open, and Beatrice was pointing to something on a tablet.

  “I would bet you a case of sixty-year-old Macallan that the woman watching you in Kashgar was Kezia. She’s Radu’s sister.”

  “Biological or immortal?” Giovanni spoke from the other end of the library.

  “Maybe both,” Gavin said. “The Poshani tend to keep the same bloodlines in the terrin.”

  Ben sat down near the fire. “And now you’re speaking a completely different language.”

  “Yes he is.” Giovanni walked toward them, holding a book he handed to Ben.

  Ben looked at it. It was written in a Cyrillic alphabet. He handed it back to Giovanni. “I don’t read Russian.”

  “It’s not Russian; they just borrowed the alphabet. It became more accessible than the original Brahmi script.” Giovanni sat across from him.

  “Brahmi?” Ben asked. “As in ancient Indian?” He pointed to th
e Russian book. “And the connection between Cyrillic and Brahmi would be…?”

  “Poshani.”

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “No,” Beatrice chimed in. “Not unless you’d spent a lot of time studying immortal history in Eastern Europe.”

  “Fancy that,” Ben said. “I haven’t.”

  Giovanni said, “A now-obvious hole in your education that I’ll have to correct with Sadia.”

  That poor girl. Ben winced on his baby sister’s behalf.

  Giovanni continued, “Gavin confirmed something for me that I suspected about Radu but wasn’t sure.”

  “Which is?”

  “Radu isn’t your average vampire,” Beatrice said. “He belongs to a particular community of Romani people who came from Northern India with the main branches of—”

  “Romani?” Ben asked. “You mean gyp—”

  “No.” Beatrice threw a balled-up wad of paper at Ben. “Most Romani consider that word a slur; do not use it.”

  “It’s also incorrect,” Giovanni said. “Europeans didn’t understand the origins of the Roma people and thought they were from Egypt, which is a mistake of course. They are Northern Indian both linguistically and ethnically.”

  “So Radu is a… Romani vampire?”

  “Kind of.” Beatrice flipped her tablet around to show Ben a sort of family tree. “He’s Poshani, a completely separate branch. The Poshani origins are more myth than history as they don’t follow a written tradition.” She scrolled through slides that showed paintings of men playing lutes and pipes. “Some branches broke off over time—those were the human Romani people—but one group, the Poshani, were led by a man who was turned into a wind vampire.”

  Giovanni said, “The Poshani initially feared their leader, but he convinced them that this new form was a gift of Shiva and Kali, whom the Poshani revere.”

  “Shiva.” Ben tapped his pencil. “The Destroyer. That fits with being a vampire, I guess.”

  “Shiva is often conflated with Rudra, a Vedic god associated with storms. More than one vampire believes Rudra was actually the first wind vampire, so that would be significant to the Poshani.”

  “Radu’s a wind vampire?” Ben asked.

  Gavin nodded. “He’s cagey about it, but yes. He’ll sometimes tell people he’s earth.”

  “Okay, the Poshani are wind vampires.” Ben wrote that down. “But why does Radu want the icon if the Poshani worship Shiva?”

  “They have a blended religion,” Beatrice said. “The Shiva and Kali connection is very old, but it threads through. The icon is a depiction of Saint Sara-la-Kali.”

  Giovanni said, “Whatever the individual sect or community, Poshani of all religions value purity of the elements and balance in all forms of life.”

  “Which fits with vampires,” Ben said. “Okay, I’m seeing it.”

  “A note.” Gavin held up a hand. “The Poshani as a community are both vampire and human. But all are ruled by wind vampires. Three, to be exact.”

  Ben scratched out his notes and corrected them. “Kind of confusing.”

  “It’s complicated by design,” Gavin said. “They don’t talk about themselves with outsiders. They want to be misunderstood.”

  “Why?” Ben was fascinated.

  “Human societies are not kind to those who don’t conform to mainstream values,” Gavin said. “The Poshani have a very strict code of conduct, but it wouldn’t make sense to those outside the group.”

  Ben glanced at Gavin. “Reminds me of a vampire or two I know of.”

  “Our interests have overlapped at times, and I respect them,” Gavin said, “even if I don’t understand them. Their hospitality laws are sacrosanct, much like mine. The caravan, for example.”

  “The caravan?”

  Beatrice showed him another picture on her tablet, a round wooden wagon painted with elaborate floral patterns, with no windows and only one small door. “The proper name is the kamvasa.”

  Ben reached for the tablet, but the picture started to waver. “Dammit.”

  “Gloves.” Chloe threw some silk gloves at him. “The Dawn Caravan is the Poshani tradition of sheltering any vampire who meets their rules and pays their price.”

  Ben looked at the picture. “In one of those?” The wagon looked like a relic.

  Gavin said, “Those are old-fashioned vardos. They have been updated and modernized, of course, but the idea remains the same. The Poshani run a moving safe house called the Dawn Caravan.”

  Ben frowned. “How have I never heard of this?”

  “It’s intended to be something of an urban legend,” Giovanni said. “Until Gavin confirmed it for me, I didn’t really believe it existed.”

  Ben turned to Gavin. “And how do you know it’s real?”

  “Because I was a guest for a short time,” Gavin said. “And that is all I will say.”

  Come on, really? Ben looked at Gavin.

  Gavin shook his head slowly and decisively.

  “From what I’ve been able to gather,” Beatrice said, “if you want to disappear—and I mean disappear off the face of the earth…”

  “Poof,” Chloe said. “You don’t exist anymore.”

  “…you come to an agreement with one of the terrin—the ruling vampires of the Poshani—and they name a price. There is no negotiation. There is no appeal. You tell them how long you want to hide—”

  “Up to six months,” Gavin said quietly. “But not any longer.”

  “—and they tell you the price. They have complete discretion and there is no set price. They can accept anyone or no one. There are no guarantees.”

  Gavin said, “Except—”

  “Except,” Giovanni said, “that if they take you in as part of the caravan, they will guard you during the day and keep you safe at night. They are brutal in their protection and have never lost a guest.”

  Ben’s eyebrows went up. “Ever?”

  “Ever.” Gavin’s tone was firm. “The agreement is nonnegotiable for both parties. Once you join, you do not leave unless they kick you out for violating their terms. You are there for the agreed-on contract. No more. No less.”

  “What’s to stop someone from leaving?”

  “You walk away, they keep their money and you can never seek their protection again,” Gavin said. “And you forget they exist because you no longer exist to them.”

  Ben looked between Gavin and Giovanni. “Vampires abide by this?”

  “How much is a sanctuary worth?” Giovanni asked. “The Poshani provide one, and our kind are willing to pay.”

  “And no one knows where you are?”

  “Guests don’t even know where they are,” Beatrice said. “They pick you up and transport you to the caravan during the day. If you don’t know where you are, you can’t give yourself away.”

  Ben scrolled through the pictures on Beatrice’s tablet, starting with the scanned letters from Radu, the pictures of the icon, and the pictures and sketches gathered about the Poshani. “Okay,” he said. “What does the Dawn Caravan have to do with the icon?”

  Gavin and Giovanni exchanged looks.

  “When was the first time Radu contacted you?” Gavin asked.

  “I’m honestly not sure,” Ben said.

  “Fall,” Giovanni said. “And every time he sent a reminder or a courier, it was in the fall.”

  Gavin said, “Radu isn’t predictable, but he does have some habits. And one of them is that you don’t see him in the spring.”

  “Because the Dawn Caravan starts in the spring,” Beatrice said.

  Gavin said, “But now he’s sending you reminders a few weeks before spring begins in Eastern Europe about an icon he’s been missing for years.”

  “You don’t think this is about a missing icon,” Ben said.

  “No, Radu isn’t a liar. And he is missing this icon,” Gavin said. “But let’s say I don’t think this is only about an icon.”

  “Can I ask something?” Ben l
ooked at Giovanni and Beatrice. “Why did you both say Radu was such a pain in the ass? I kind of wrote him off as a nuisance. So did… everyone. Now you’re telling me he’s a lot more than that.”

  “Oh no,” Gavin said. “Radu is a complete pain in the ass. But he’s not stupid and you can’t underestimate him. He’s very clever. He comes across as something of a jovial fool because that’s the persona he’s created to set immortals at ease.”

  Ben noticed something in Gavin’s posture. “You don’t want me to take this job.”

  Gavin shrugged. “If you take it and you succeed, Radu will owe you a favor, and so will the Poshani. That’s no small way to start off immortal life.”

  “And if I don’t succeed?”

  “Not really an option,” Giovanni said quietly. “I told you the amount he’s paying?” He shook his head. “Once you take this job, Radu won’t accept a refund.”

  Ben mulled over the choices, and for the first time in years, he actually felt excited about a job. He wanted this. He wanted the challenge. Wanted the intrigue. And maybe, just maybe, he was spoiling for a fight.

  “You can send the gold back,” Gavin said. “Tell him things have changed. At this point, he’d have to accept that. Especially with you being newly turned.”

  “And if I want to take it?”

  The Scot leaned forward. “Then I’m telling you—for yer own fucking health—to get over yer attitude and call yer damn partner.”

  8

  Ben sat against a wall in an old warehouse in South Pasadena. He allowed his weight to rest on the ground, enjoying the memory of his human body in this place. How heavy it was. How it moved. How it ached after a long workout. How it thrilled with every duel.

  Mirrors lined one wall, and empty weapon racks stood opposite. The training mats remained, a relic of an earlier and simpler time.

  “I almost died once,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to. It was in Kentii, when I was learning how to fight in the air. Tai and I finished, but I stayed in the mountains. There was a storm. It was one of those early-spring storms that happen when you go high in the mountains. Ice and rain mixed together. The sky was so black, and I was so hungry. I hadn’t eaten for three days. Stupid, I know.”