He followed Tenzin, throwing Filomena one more smile over his shoulder. She returned it before he lost her in the crowd.
“Careful,” Tenzin said.
“What?” He stopped looking for Filomena in the mass of people. “Careful what?”
“She’s powerful. Ambitious too. And she’s playing you.”
Ben felt a bite of annoyance. “Listen, Tiny, I’m not a teenager—”
“If you think she doesn’t know who you are, you’re kidding yourself.” Tenzin didn’t look angry, only amused. “You don’t actually think Alfonso’s second believes I brought my yoga instructor to Naples, do you?”
Well, yeah, but he decided to play it off. “Good. That means I won’t have to worry about bending into impossible shapes when we hook up.”
Tenzin laughed. “‘Hook up?’ You act as if you’d be catching a fish on a line. Trust me, if anyone is the hunter in this situation, it is not you.”
His cheeks burned. “This really isn’t any of your business.”
“On the contrary, it is certainly my business.” Her face grew serious. “Human girls are one thing, but she’s a three-hundred-year-old immortal. Have you had sex with a vampire before?”
He clenched his jaw in an effort to rein in his temper. It worked. Some. “That’s none of your business either.”
They walked into Piazza Bellini, the crowds of young people no less dense than they had been outside Alfonso’s club. Tenzin walked Ben to the gates of his hotel and turned to face him.
“Sex is one thing, Benjamin. Don’t let her bite you. We get possessive when we bite.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
She shrugged. “You’ll do what you want. Just remember, don’t sabotage this deal with your ignorant libido. Alfonso wants me to find his coins. You help me and you’ll get twenty percent of the finder’s fee, which is not insignificant.”
Sex he didn’t want to discuss, but money was always on the table. “Forty percent and I’m an altar boy until after we deliver the coins.”
“Twenty-five. You may flirt, but you’d end up being an altar boy anyway. You’re too smart to be her plaything.”
“Who said I wouldn’t be playing her? Thirty percent.”
She cocked her head. “Done. I’m going to Switzerland tomorrow night. Go back to Rome and look busy. Help Zeno in the library. Maybe head to Perugia for a few days of research. I’ll be in touch when I need you.”
“Sounds like a plan, Tiny.” Ben grinned. “Switzerland, huh? Don’t forget to take a sweater.”
Chapter Four
BEN SLEPT UNTIL NOON THE next day, then decided to wander around Naples and enjoy some of the street art the city was known for. More than one artist who’d gotten his or her start in graffiti had been signed by major agents in the past few years. It was fascinating to see the blend of styles. Art of any kind fascinated him, but street art, with its inherently fleeting nature, touched something in Ben’s soul.
He stood at the mouth of an alley, staring down at a small white figure painted on the soot-black stone of an alleyway corner. The figure was holding a tiny sword high against a flying dragon. A red feather was perched in his cap.
The painting might have been there for months or hours. Who knew when city workers might come and paint over it? Another artist could come and wipe it away with something darker or brighter or coarser or more colorful. But the artist had taken the time, probably in the dead of night, to put her mark on that wall, hoping to touch a passerby. For the moment Ben looked at that tiny figure fighting off the dragon, Ben and the artist were in the same space.
Fleeting.
Like the painting.
Here today. Gone tomorrow.
He was the tiny hero with the feather in his cap, fighting things impossibly powerful. He was the painting on the wall. No grand masterpiece preserved and admired for eternity. His life would be a blink. A quick glance from the immortal pedestrians of history.
No wonder the little figure flew a red feather in his cap. No wonder his sword was held so high.
Tiny hope. Foolish courage.
Ben pulled out his phone and snapped a picture before he continued to walk down the Spaccanapoli, the narrow road splitting the heart of old Naples. He stopped for some gelato, then wandered some more. Bought a few trinkets in a shop. Watched a drummer when he finally arrived back in Piazza del Gesù Nuovo, the spiked facade of the church a reminder of his meeting the previous night.
Naples was… odd. Fiercely different from other Italian cities he knew. Gloriously excessive. He wished that Beatrice could visit. He knew she’d love it.
His phone buzzed in his pocket with a text message from Fabi.
T called the house. She said to make sure you go to the archeological museum before you meet your new girlfriend.
Ben texted back: Ha-ha.
??? Do I need to be jealous?
He shook his head. Leave it to Tenzin to try to cause trouble.
No, he texted back. And don’t you have a boyfriend?
Never hurts to keep your options open. ;) I want details when you get back. Stay safe.
Always.
He pushed away from the wall where he’d been searching for shade and wandered back to the Piazza Bellini. The Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli was only a few blocks from his hotel, and while he’d heard about the mosaic collection there—famous for its detailed relics from Pompeii—Ben had a feeling it was the coins and medals exhibit Tenzin wanted him to visit.
He wandered the grand halls, fanning himself with the museum map. The marble-clad museum was shady, but not particularly cool in the sweltering June heat. Still, he didn’t hurry. It was better than fighting the crowds for shade outside.
The Pompeii mosaics really were everything the guidebooks said they’d be, but as he walked up the stairs to reach the gems room, he wondered what exactly Tenzin had wanted him to see. He’d seen more than his share of old currency. What was special about Naples?
The front desk had told him he was fortunate the rare coins exhibit was even open. As he entered, Ben was struck by the sheer number in the collection. Everything from Greek and Roman coins to medieval and modern. One room even contained dies from the old mint in Naples.
Norman tarì, Alfonso had said. Ben had looked up Norman tarì as soon as he’d arrived back at the hotel, but he didn’t notice any in the collection. What he saw was a mix of metals in all different states and a whole lot of empty space as museum visitors took in the more dazzling treasures of the museum.
Norman tarì.
What was so special about these tarì that Alfonso would risk disrespecting Tenzin to get them back? Did Tenzin already know where they were? Is that why she’d gone to Switzerland?
Ben felt a twinge of jealousy that she’d abandoned him when he felt the bead of sweat roll down his temple. The beard and longer hair might have been a hit with the girls this summer, but he was tempted to find a barber and a razor that afternoon.
Instead, he went back to the hotel, drank two cold beers, and retreated to the shelter of his air-conditioned room for the remainder of the afternoon. When he emerged, the sun was down, the temperature had cooled, and a vampire wearing high-heeled boots was smoking a slim cigarette in the garden of his hotel.
Filomena smiled and blew out a thin stream of smoke. “You’re awake.”
Ben walked toward her. “So are you.”
She shrugged one lightly muscled shoulder and nodded toward the piazza. “Join me for a drink, will you?”
Ben cocked his elbow out and Filomena rose, her boots putting her just a hair taller than Ben as they walked.
“So, Benjamin Vecchio”—Filomena leaned into his side—“what is the adopted nephew of a famed assassin doing in my city with his uncle’s old partner?”
He really hated when Tenzin was right.
❂
FILOMENA smiled at him in the candlelight, careful to conceal her fangs even when she laughed. “Was yoga instructor her idea o
r yours?”
“What do you think?”
“I hardly know. I only know Tenzin by reputation.” She gave him another careless shrug. Such a human habit for an immortal. Did she do it out of true habit, or was it an affectation to put her prey at ease? Ben was drawn to her regardless.
They were sitting at a small table outside a quiet restaurant near the waterfront. The moon was high, reflecting off the Bay of Naples as shadowed ships bobbed in the distance. The waterfront was busy, but the restaurant she’d chosen was isolated down a small alley, which meant they didn’t worry about being overheard.
Ben said, “I think everyone knows Tenzin’s reputation.”
“Yes.” She sipped the red wine. A drop lingered on her lips before she licked it away. “Everyone does. And yet you were raised with her?”
Ben shook his head. “Not exactly. I only met Tenzin when I was sixteen.”
“A child.”
“Of a sort.”
Ben couldn’t remember ever feeling like a child. His earliest memory was of his parents in a fistfight, screaming at each other before his father threw his mother into a mirror. It was the sound of shattering glass and the taste of blood in his mouth that had stuck with him. His mother said a shard had sliced his lip. He still bore the tiny scar. And the rest of his “childhood” he simply tried to banish to the murky shadows of history.
“But what a childhood it must have been,” she said. “To be raised among legends.”
“What about your human life, huh?” He leaned forward, keen to take the attention off himself. “Do you remember… the Renaissance?”
Filomena laughed. “No.”
It was a game. Vampires were notoriously secretive about their origins. To reveal their age meant revealing their power. But guessing and riddles were fair game.
“Italian unification?”
“Oh yes,” Filomena said, her eyes flashing. “I remember that quite clearly.”
“Napoleon.”
“You’re getting closer,” she said, leaning a slim arm on the table, propping her chin in her palm. “You know I’m not going to tell you.”
“But you are from Naples.”
She smiled and he saw a hint of fang. “Define Naples.”
Ben gave her a good-natured growl and threw up his hands. “I give up.”
Filomena laughed. “You should know better, Benjamin Vecchio.”
“Ben,” he said. “Call me Ben.”
Dark brown eyes appraised him. “And did your friends warn you away from me, Ben?”
“Of course.” He leaned across the table until he heard her draw in his scent. He stared at her lips. “You may be a stunningly beautiful woman, but you’re also a lethal immortal enforcer, second to one of the most dangerous vampire lords in Italy.” He let the corner of his mouth turn up as he raised his eyes to hers. “And I am a mere yoga instructor. I’d be a fool to—”
The breath between them vanished when Filomena took his lips.
Hot. Ben closed his eyes and took her mouth as she had taken his, raising his hand to cup the nape of her neck. His fingers tangled in her thick, caramel-brown hair.
Filomena heated her skin until it matched the flush of his own. She tasted of wine and chocolate and the indefinable taste that was all her own. A medley of scent and flavor and sensation. Her eyelashes brushed his skin as he eased away from her mouth and trailed his lips along the arch of her cheekbone. He followed the fragrance of her hair and the perfumed skin beneath her ear.
Filomena let out a low, satisfied purr and dragged her nails down his neck.
The sharp bite of pain brought Ben up short.
Blood rushed back to his head as he trailed firm kisses back along her chin and up to her mouth again, luxuriating in her taste and the softness of her lips.
Her fangs were fully aroused.
Ben drew away, gently biting her lower lip before he smiled. “You taste delicious.”
She blinked slowly. “And you are a cautious man.”
He cupped the side of her neck, brushing his thumb over where her pulse would beat.
If she were human. Which she wasn’t.
“Mmm,” he said on a sigh. “Sadly, I have to be. After all, a foolish yoga instructor wouldn’t last long in your world.”
“My world?” Filomena raised an eyebrow, clearly still enjoying their flirtation. “Is it not your world as well?”
“That’s an excellent question.”
“One you’re not going to answer.”
“It’s only our first bottle of wine, Filomena. We shouldn’t reveal all our secrets at once.”
“True.”
She shrugged his hand off her neck, so Ben let it fall to the back of the chair in a proprietary gesture that seemed to please the vampire, judging by the smile teasing the corners of her mouth.
“You’re bold.”
“Am I?” That’s probably why I’m not dead already.
Lucky for him, she only smiled and leaned against it, willing to play his game for the night. “You’re also surprisingly good with your mouth. For a human.”
“Thanks. I got kissing lessons from a three-hundred-year-old French courtesan when I was a teenager. I think it helped.”
Filomena threw her head back and laughed loudly. She even wiped a pink tear from the corner of her eye before she asked, “Is that true?”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
She narrowed her eyes, trying to find his tell, but Ben smiled innocently.
“What?”
“It’s a shame I cannot take you as a lover. I don’t think either of us would regret it.”
He let his eyes trace her mouth, the delectable cleavage she had bared for the evening, and the sweep of her long, muscled legs. “I think regret would be the last thing on my mind.”
“This life is long.”
He cocked his head. “Not for everyone.”
“All the more reason to seize the night.”
Ben shook his head and poured both of them more wine. “My friends were right. You are a dangerous woman.”
❂
Rome, one week later
BEN kicked the ball back to Enzo, the boy whooping in delight as he ran after it in the courtyard. His mother, Serafina, watched from the bench near the fountain where she chatted quietly with Fabi as Ben and Enzo killed time before Zeno rose for the night.
The old vampire had finally convinced the quiet woman to marry him the Christmas before, though Fina had protested they should wait until her son was grown. Ben was fairly sure his uncle would have a new immortal daughter once Enzo was an adult. Neither Fina nor Zeno had said anything, but Ben could see how devoted they were to each other. Plus they were both under Giovanni’s aegis and invaluable members of his staff.
Fina had brought herself and Enzo to join Zeno in Rome as soon as the boy had finished his school exams for the year. Now the three were residing in Residenza di Spada with Ben and Angie.
Angie, of course, was delighted. Especially since that gave her three human appetites to cook for. Four if you counted Fabi, who ate dinner with them most nights.
“So Fina”—Ben interrupted the women’s quiet conversation—“Zeno said you saw Tenzin at the library before she went north.”
“Only briefly,” Fina said. “I didn’t speak to her. I think she only sheltered for the day before she flew away. Though she did take a fifteenth-century manuscript on metalsmithing. Well, the copy of it. I only have a digital scan because the original resides in—”
“Metalsmithing?” Ben frowned. Metalsmithing? But why would Tenzin need a manual on medieval metalsmithing if she already knew where Alfonso’s cache…
Oh, Tenzin.
Shit.
He should have known.
“Ben,” Fina continued, unaware his thoughts had wandered, “Zeno tells me that you and Tenzin are working for Alfonso in Naples. You are being careful, aren’t you?”
“Of course.” He kicked the ball back to Enzo just before
Angie called the boy inside the house to wash up. Ben strolled over to the edge of the fountain and perched on the corner. “What do you know about him?”
“Well”—Fina’s prim voice made him smile—“it is rumored that he was part of the Bourbon court, but that is only a rumor. Like many things in Naples—well, and anything to do with immortals, if we’re honest—rumors of corruption have followed him over the years. Giovanni is fairly certain he was behind the library theft.”
Ben’s eyebrows rose. According to what he’d been able guess from subtle questions to Filomena, much of the unrest in the Neapolitan court was because of the library theft. Many of the richest immortals in Naples had lost personal collections that were both valuable and highly confidential. Ben suspected it was one of the reasons Alfonso had risked calling Tenzin.
So if Alfonso himself was somehow behind the theft and hiding it from his own people…
“How sure are you?” Ben asked. “That the theft is because of Alfonso?”
“Fairly sure,” Fina said. “Officially, the authorities arrested the former director of the library. He had very suspicious political connections, and some of the books that made it on the black market were traced back to him. But when I spoke to my friends familiar with the Girolamini Library, they were quite certain there was more to it than one man. There were portions of the collection that had never been catalogued. Parts they were unofficially told to ignore. That had been happening long before the former director came into his position.”
“But why would Alfonso want to steal his own people’s papers and collections?”
Fabi, who’d been listening silently, said, “Power? Paranoia? Didn’t your uncle say he was crazy?”
“Pretty sure Beatrice called him completely bonkers. Gio said something much more polite.”
Fina smiled. “That sounds correct. Naples is… Well, it is different. I have always liked the city, but it is unique. Why wouldn’t the immortal leader also be unique?”
“So if he was behind the theft…,” Ben muttered. “Fina, how much of the theft have you tracked?”
“We’re not tracking the whole theft. There’s no way. Emil Conti asked, but Giovanni said he would only take on individual clients with specific items. And only books, of course. Those who lost antiquities have to rely on the human authorities. And most of them…” Fina shrugged. “Well, you know how secretive vampires are. They won’t trust Italian police or Interpol.”
Imitation and Alchemy Page 5
