He took his glass and lifted it. “Good fortune and safe roads.” He waited for Radu to drink; then he drank after him. “None of this makes sense. You got your icon. I wasn’t asking for any more money. Why am I here?”
“In a way, your own cleverness compelled it.” Radu sipped his wine. “The icon was a puzzle, Benjamin Vecchio. One that others had not been able to master. The real reason I wanted to hire you is far more complicated.”
“You have another job for me?”
“Yes. One much more profitable than the first.”
Seeing as Radu hadn’t gone cheap on the icon job, Ben was intrigued. “Details?”
Radu examined him. “I must have your confidentiality.”
“I don’t know what the job is yet.”
“I’m not asking for a commitment, I’m asking for your assurance that—no matter what you decide—what is spoken between us will go no further.”
Ben could live with that. “Unless it endangers me or anyone under my aegis, you have my word.” Technically, he didn’t have anyone under vampire aegis—he was way too young—but he might have someone someday, and vampire commitments and promises didn’t have expiration dates.
“That is a fair promise,” Radu said. “I accept your assurance.” He finished his glass of wine and poured another. “How much do you know about my people, the Poshani?”
“My aunt filled me in on the basics of your history.”
“Half of what she told you is probably wrong.” He waved his hand. “We often seed stories among scholars to obscure the truth. We’re very private.”
“Are you the leader of the Poshani?”
“I am one of three.” Radu took a drink. “Remember that. We Poshani are highly suspicious of authority. No one person is given everything. The three terrin are chosen by the previous terrin, but if confidence is lost at any time, the mortal and immortal members of the Poshaniya will overthrow that member and choose another.”
“Okay.” Ben drank his wine. “So your leadership is in trouble somehow in a way that I can help. What valuable cultural treasure did you lose?”
Radu grinned. “See? I knew I chose the correct man.”
“I find things, Radu. The only reason you’d need my help is if you’d lost something that the terrin is supposed to guard and people would be majorly pissed about it. It’s not a hard guess.”
“You are correct of course, but I did not lose this particular artifact. It was stolen from me.”
“I’m going to guess that doesn’t help your position.” Ben set his glass down. “Lost it or let it get stolen. Either way, you didn’t guard it well enough.”
“You are correct. And this is where the kamvasa comes in.”
“The Dawn Caravan?” Ben had to admit he was intrigued.
“The Dawn Caravan was my idea. We were always so effective at staying hidden, I thought. If we could hide in plain sight, why not offer this service—a safe house—to others willing to pay?”
“Makes sense.”
“My sister and my brother—the other terrin—were not in favor of this. They eventually gave me their support because too many of our mortal families were struggling in the human world.”
“Among the Poshani, the mortal and immortal members are equally supported?”
“Of course.” Radu spread his hands. “We are helpless during the day without our darigan. And the mortals would be vulnerable to predators, both human and immortal, without the Hazar.”
“You only employ Poshani?”
“We are the only ones we truly trust,” Radu said. “Even about you, I have reservations.”
“I understand.”
“But your position makes you the most trustworthy outsider capable of this task. You represent two great houses, neither of which would own you if you were not a man of your word.”
“Thank you.” He examined Radu’s expression. “Why not find this yourself?”
“I have tried for many years. I have narrowed the search, but I am at an impasse and need an outside perspective.”
“I’m also guessing that you don’t want your brother and sister to know that you lost whatever it is that was stolen.”
Radu raised an eyebrow. “My sister knows something was stolen—she’s the one who helped me test you—but she does not know all the details. My brother knows nothing, and it must remain that way.”
Ben had a feeling there was no love lost between Radu and his brother. He poured another glass of wine from the bottle. “Okay, I’m intrigued. What is it you need to find?”
“It’s a goblet,” Radu said. “Carved in the ninth century from a single giant emerald.”
Ben set his glass down and sighed.
Dammit. An emerald goblet? There was no way he could fly away now. That was just too cool and unique.
“Okay. Tell me the rest.”
They hovered over a picturesque clearing in the middle of a dense forest. The landscape was made of empty hills for as far as the human eye could see. Dirt roads snaked through the countryside along with the occasional mobile phone tower.
Twenty state-of-the-art luxury campers and trailers circled the clearing in the forest. There were trucks and vans. A large fire was burning in the center of the circle, smaller ones in the outer loop, and in the distance, Ben saw a dozen air vampires hovering over the encampment.
“This is the Dawn Caravan?” Ben kept his voice low. “Where are we?”
“Don’t ask questions I cannot answer. The location of the caravan is known only to the head of the darigan. It is the humans who decide where we go every day, not the vampires. The caravan moves every night from the spring to the fall. It ends when the snow starts to fall and we retreat to our winter camps.”
“And anyone who has been sheltering with you—?”
“The longest any immortal is permitted to stay is a season,” Radu said. “We will not take responsibility for them during the winter, and the location of our winter camps remains a secret for the Eastern Poshani alone.”
“There are different clans?”
“Three clans, but we cooperate and travel in each other’s territory.”
“Okay.”
“The Eastern Poshani, my people, run the kamvasa. We have not lost a guest in over five hundred years.”
“Impressive.” Ben scanned the camp. “So a vampire pays you a set amount—”
“Payment depends on the vampire,” Radu said. “Sometimes payment is in treasure, sometimes in favors. It depends on the individual.”
“But you make a contract. A set period of time and a set amount. Total protection during that time?”
“We provide a comfortable caravan” —Radu pointed to the silver-grey vehicles in the distance— “protection, blood, and a level of entertainment.”
“What kind of entertainment?”
“Stories, dancing, music.” Radu shrugged. “The normal amusements.”
“What about modern electronics?” Ben was already thinking about how he was going to communicate with Chloe so she didn’t completely freak out when he wasn’t there in Rome.
“Patrick Murphy in Ireland isn’t one of us,” Radu said. “But he comes from Travellers. He understood our unique needs and created a mobile network with security.”
Probably some kind of virtual private network users could access that wouldn’t reveal location. It was ingenious really. If guests didn’t know where they were, they couldn’t inadvertently reveal it to anyone, even someone they trusted.
“I’ll need access to the internet,” Ben said. “I don’t work alone. The icon? I had help finding it.” From Beatrice and from Tenzin.
Tenzin.
Of all the times for her to take off, this one was not ideal.
“Of course,” Radu said. “I expected that you had research assistance from your uncle’s clan. That will not be a problem, though I need the exact nature of the theft to remain confidential.”
“I should be able to manage that.”
&
nbsp; “The nature of this mystery will be a bit different.”
Ben was really wishing Tenzin hadn’t taken off. From a work perspective, her insight would be invaluable. Plus he had a feeling that Radu’s friendly demeanor masked a ruthless leader if a threat emerged against his people.
Note to self: don’t become a threat to the Poshani.
“When was the goblet stolen?”
“Between eighty to ninety years ago.”
Ben blinked. “You can’t narrow it down more?”
“It stays in my personal treasury.” Radu pointed to the traditional vardo being pulled to the edge of the clearing by a pickup truck. “I’m not a greedy gadjo who spends his nights counting my treasure. I had no reason to examine it when I assumed it was secure.”
“Not even a glance?”
“There was a replica put in its place. Good enough that a glance wasn’t enough to register a forgery.”
“I see. Do you still have the forgery?”
“Yes.”
Ben was already narrowing down his options. A forgery meant this wasn’t a crime of opportunity. Someone hadn’t stumbled across an emerald goblet and not been able to help themselves. This was planned, deliberate, and familiar.
“You said you’d narrowed it down,” Ben said. “How?”
“I have pursued every guest we had during that window of time. Most were easy to eliminate, but there were five who stood out. Five who would know the value of the item they stole and the significance.”
“And what is the significance?”
For the first time, Ben saw Radu’s anger simmering behind his dark brown eyes.
“The emerald goblet is one of three that were given to the oldest of our people, a chief who was turned into a vampire by an ancient immortal king. The goblets were a gift from a Persian ruler to our chief, and they passed to his three immortal children. One made of emerald, one of citrine, and one of ruby.”
“Three terrin. Three goblets. I’m getting the idea.”
“My sister is the keeper of the citrine, and my brother is the keeper of the ruby. The Poshani will host the Vashana festival in three weeks’ time, but this year is the Vashana Zata, which only happens every hundred years. The current terrin must present their goblets to the Poshaniya, and if they choose a successor—as I have considered doing this year—they must pass their goblet to them as a sign of leadership passing from one power to the next.”
Oh shit. “Did you say three weeks?”
Radu nodded slowly. “As I mentioned earlier, Benjamin Vecchio, I am running out of options.”
21
Ben and Radu strolled through the camp, the Poshani leader nodding to groups as he passed. In the background, a band of musicians played traditional music nearly to the point of being too loud.
“The volume of the music and position of the players provides a level of privacy,” Radu said softly. “But know that ears are everywhere.”
“I understand.”
Two vampires were playing a game of chess on a table set up near the fire. Another was watching as a group of human men and women practiced an elaborate dance.
The camp had the feeling of a traveling village, with cooking smells drifting through the air and music ringing through the night. A few children played along the outskirts, and a lazy dog lounged near a fire.
“It’s very welcoming,” Ben said. It was the highest compliment he could think to give Radu, who valued hospitality so much.
“Thank you.” The vampire beamed. “We like to think of ourselves as providing an important service to our guests.”
“Do you hide anyone?” He kept his voice nearly silent.
“Yes and no. Do we hide those whom some might consider criminals? Perhaps. It is not our way to judge others. If you have done our people no harm, no harm will come to you. But all three of us—Kezia, Vano, and myself—have discretion to choose or reject guests. The safety of our people, including the vampires who stay with us, is our top priority.”
Ben glanced around. “So according to everyone here, who am I?”
“You are another guest who has paid me a great deal to make him disappear.” Radu’s voice remained low. “You wouldn’t be the first powerful newborn who has sought our protection while they come to terms with their new life. We don’t take the bloodthirsty of course. But after the first year, some find shelter with us.”
“Good to know.” Ben saw a familiar face across the camp, the strange woman who’d been following him in Kashgar, along with her plain-faced vampire guard.
Oh, hello.
Her eyes rose as if she could hear him, and the corner of her mouth turned up. She was even more enchanting in firelight, a sphinx of a woman with mysterious dark eyes and an enigmatic expression.
Radu followed his eyes. “I believe you met Kezia in Xinjiang.”
“Met is stretching it.” He pulled his eyes away and continued scanning the campsite. “Is there anyone else I know?”
Radu’s mouth turned up at the corner. “I cannot tell you that.”
“Why not?”
His face was all innocence. “How could I possibly know all your associates?”
Of course he’d answer that way. “Do I have my own caravan?”
“Only the finest,” Radu said. “Very private and equipped with the latest technology for the Nocht platform.”
“Great.”
“It is also soundproof and secure from listening devices. We provide a bug sweeper if you want to verify. Feel free to conduct business there. Or… entertain guests. It will be your home while you are here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Ben wasn’t planning on doing any entertaining while he was working, but he appreciated the privacy nonetheless. “I need to call Chloe, my uncle, and my assistant in Rome tonight. She’s expecting me.”
“Of course.”
“Where’s my bag?”
“In your caravan. I’m afraid we had to remove the tablet computer, but it’s being kept safe for you. We’ve also provided some more clothing than what you had with you.”
“Seriously, Radu?”
“We are only considering your comfort. You’ll have the latest equipment to work on. The best blood and wine.” Radu patted his shoulder. “Everything in your caravan is for sale. We can negotiate a fair price should you want to keep anything.”
He was very good at what he did. Ben almost forgot he’d been kidnapped.
They walked to a long travel caravan that was built on the chassis of a Mercedes truck. As they approached, steps extended toward them and lights switched on from invisible motion sensors along the side of the bus.
“This will be your home for the next three weeks.” Radu walked ahead of Ben into the caravan. “This is our newest unit. You’re only the third guest who has used it.”
Ben couldn’t not be impressed. The bus was equipped with leather interior and wood cabinets lining the sides. Sections of the caravan had been expanded to create more floor space in the living area. The windows had been blocked by modern art canvases and bookcases lined by plastic to keep the books from shifting when the bus moved.
“The day chamber is in the rear.” Radu pointed toward it. “Completely secured from the interior.”
“And what’s to stop someone from taking a chain saw to it in during the day?”
“That’s where the darigan come in.” Radu continued to push buttons and move levers to exhibit the amenities of the caravan. “You’re welcome to meet them if you want, but meet them or not, they will do their job, protecting you with force if necessary.”
“Great.” He sensed something nagging the edge of his amnis. There was someone nearby whom he’d met before. Radu’s sister? No, he didn’t know her well enough.
Radu was explaining the engine with great enthusiasm when Ben held up a hand.
“Yes?”
“Who else is here? Which vampires?”
“The vampire—?”
“The five you narrowed it down
to. Which vampires are we talking about here? I must know one of them.”
Radu leaned against a leather couch. “Let’s see. There is Tatyana, who is not old enough to have stolen it, but she’s inexplicably wealthy and currently hiding from Oleg. Not a likely suspect.”
“And who are the other four?”
“If we are counting Tatyana, there are six guests, but only five real suspects. It took quite some wrangling to arrange their visits all at the same time.”
“Who else?”
“Madina is the first suspect. She’s been recently ousted from power in Central Europe, but she stayed with us in the 1930s.”
He didn’t know a Madina. “Who else?”
“Fynn. He’s German, but he’s been living in Argentina since the Second World War for exactly the reasons you imagine. He visited the caravan in the 1940s, and his character is despicable.”
“But you invited him back?”
Radu looked surprised. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Okay, who else?”
“Darius is the oldest vampire here and not likely as a suspect, but I included him because he knows more about the history of the goblets than we do, and he stayed here during the same period. He’s Persian and very, very secretive.”
“Sounds like Darius is a man who knows things,” Ben muttered. “Who else?”
“A French thief, René DuPont. He was with us—”
“He did it.” Ben blurted it out, then regretted it. “I mean, I’ve run into René before. He’s a very likely suspect.”
Fuck. He didn’t really feel like tangling with René. Not only was the thief clever, he knew how to spark Ben’s temper, which had grown far more hair-trigger since he’d become immortal.
Plus René was an asshole.
“Okay,” Ben said. “That’s four suspects, and who’s the fifth?”
Radu pursed his lips together. “A degree of impartiality will be needed for the last suspect.”
“Okay.” So he definitely knew this one. That was probably why his amnis was starting to go haywire. He was nearly coming out of his skin, and Radu—
“It’s Tenzin.”
“Tenzin what?” Ben flexed his back; his amnis was crawling up and down his spine.
Dawn Caravan: Elemental Legacy Book Four (Elemental Legacy Novels 4) Page 16
