Night's Reckoning

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “How am I supposed to know what she’s thinking, Fabi? I’m not her minder.”

  “Just don’t expect the rest of the vampire world to understand that. You’ve been her partner for like ten years or something.”

  “That’s nothing to them. And I wasn’t her partner,” he muttered. “Obviously.”

  “Oh, bullshit.” Fabia measured the water levels in a tank that had just had new artifacts put in. “You have one fight—”

  “It’s not one fight. It’s years of constant fighting. Constant bickering. Her constantly ignoring my advice—”

  “And you ignore her advice too,” Fabia said. “You’re like an old married couple. I don’t know what changed.”

  “Puerto Rico changed it.” He shook his head. “I changed, and she won’t. I’m human, and she’s not, and I finally realized why this is all doomed to failure, so I’m cutting my losses and getting out.”

  Fabia was crouched on the deck, looking at a broken jar through the clear plastic. She looked up. “She has changed, Ben. You spend most of your time with her, so you don’t see it. But she’s changed. She’s different now. She doesn’t scare me anymore.”

  “She should.”

  Fabia snorted. “Now you just sound like an ass. You sound like the guy who breaks up with his girlfriend and then tells everyone she’s crazy.”

  “You do realize—” Ben cut himself off. He knew Tenzin was mentally unstable, and she had been for years. She only had a tenuous grip on reality at times, and her moral code was forged in prehistory. But he didn’t need to share that with Fabia. “Let’s just focus on this. How much of the cargo would you estimate has been removed?”

  Fabia shook her head. “Honestly, it’s very hard to tell. If the ship was packed evenly—”

  “Cheng said to assume that it was. Balance thing.”

  Fabia nodded. “That makes sense. Then I’d say that in one night, they’ve removed approximately a third of the remaining cargo.” She stood. “Which is just… superhuman.”

  “Considering they are superhuman, that makes sense.”

  Her voice dropped. “That third is counting the parts that are not showing up in the official record, by the way.”

  Ben looked up from his notebook.

  “Come on,” Fabia said quietly. “I told you they were documenting the location of each jar. I can see the gaps. Did you think no one would notice? It was fairly clear that artifacts had been removed, even before they started the actual excavation.”

  Ben kept his voice soft. “I have been told that nothing of unique historical significance—”

  “And do you believe them?” Fabia cocked her head. “Really? I mean, you’re taking their word for it. How do you know that Cheng and his men—”

  “Stop.” Ben drew her away to a far corner of the aft deck where the wind carried their words away. “Okay, continue.”

  “How do you know that Cheng is being honest? He could have his own aims in all this.”

  “He was hired because Tenzin trusts him.”

  “And is that a good idea? Is he worthy of that trust? I am honestly asking because I do not know. You said that the loss of this artifact—this priceless sword—could mean war between the East and the West. Do we know that war would not benefit Cheng?”

  Ben had been working on the assumption that Tenzin could trust Cheng, but maybe that was a mistake.

  “I’m just saying,” Fabia said. “I like Cheng. I like Kadek. Cheng is very charming and very respectful to me and all the human crew. And Kadek is gruff, but I’ve never felt unsafe with him. He’s very competent. But if Penglai is involved in a larger dispute with foreign vampire powers, then they’re not going to be looking his direction. That works to his advantage.”

  “So does Zhang owing him a favor.”

  “True.” Fabia lifted her hands up. “I don’t know, Ben. You know about all this far more than I do. I am just saying that if they’re willing to hide some things, they could be willing to hide others.”

  “You’re not wrong.” Ben took a deep breath. “I need to talk to Zhang, but I don’t know how to get in touch with him. And Tenzin will be pissed off if I even imply I don’t trust Cheng, because she’ll see it as a personal insult.”

  “You can contact Zhang,” Fabia said. “Call Andrew. The guy with the plane, remember? Didn’t Zhang’s letter say Andrew reported to him directly? Tenzin wouldn’t even have to know if you didn’t want her to know. Though if I were you, I’d tell her you were contacting—”

  “I’ll talk to Andrew first,” he said. “Tell her later.”

  Fabia pursed her lips. “Whatever you think.”

  “You think I should check with her first?”

  “That’s not—”

  “Not likely.” Tenzin might think Ben was working for her, but that wasn’t actually the case. He was working for Zhang. He’d given Zhang his word, not Tenzin. “Thanks for the suggestion, Fabi.” He patted her shoulder. “I’m just relieved there’s someone here I can trust.”

  Ben waited for daylight to call Andrew. He went up to the operations room where much of the university team had stored their equipment and borrowed one of the desks. The university team was on the deck, welcoming additional divers from a university in Shantou, who had arrived by helicopter that morning.

  Ben had decided that unless Professor Chou asked about the rapid removal of artifacts, he would offer nothing in explanation. The students had oohed and aahed over the collection of storage jars secured carefully in tanks while they had slept. He was sure some of them wondered how the mysterious night crew worked so fast, but since all jars had been documented and marked with a location, they could say nothing. The work had been done to proper specifications.

  He spun in the chair as the phone rang and watched the students and new divers chattering as they prepared for the day’s work. Fabia stood at the railing with Professor Chou, probably detailing the steps she’d taken overnight. She might have been asking for more tanks from the university too. The ones on the Jīnshé weren’t going to be enough.

  “Hello?” Andrew Leu’s voice startled Ben out of his thoughts.

  “Andrew, good morning. This is Ben Vecchio.”

  “I recognized your number, Mr. Vecchio. How may I help you? Is everything going smoothly on the ship?”

  “Things are progressing very well, but…” How to frame this? Zhang must know that Ben and Tenzin weren’t on the best terms. Maybe he should just throw it out there. “I’m going to be completely honest, Mr. Leu.”

  “That is always a good idea when it comes to Elder Zhang.”

  “I understand the ramifications of this job and how important the Laylat al Hisab is. I understand why Tenzin approached Cheng to complete this job. I also know they have their own history. For that reason—and I hope Zhang understands I am working solely for him in this matter—I would like to know if Zhang is aware that Cheng is reserving some of the wreck artifacts as his own. Not the sword, but other artifacts.”

  The line was silent for a long while. “I do not know the answer to that question.”

  “This may be customary or expected since Cheng is doing the work to retrieve the treasure. It may be something they have already discussed that I was not informed of. But since I am working for Zhang on this job, I wanted to speak to him about it directly.”

  “I understand, Mr. Vecchio. Thank you for contacting me in this matter, and I will pass your question on to Zhang. I expect you will hear from him within twenty-four hours.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Leu.”

  “Call me Andrew,” the man said. “I suspect we will be speaking again.”

  22

  Something was wrong. Tenzin could feel it. She could sense it.

  She roused herself from her daylight torpor and sat up. “Cara?”

  The computer voice responded. “Yes, Tenzin.”

  “What is the time?”

  “It is 6:30 p.m. local time.”

  The sun had been down
for nearly an hour. She could hear the hum of human activity on the boat, the amnis of waking vampires, and something else.

  “Cara, call Ben Vecchio.”

  A few seconds passed and Tenzin heard a phone ringing.

  A second later, Ben’s gravelly voice came on the line. “Tenzin, I’m slee—”

  “Something is wrong on the ship.”

  His voice lost all annoyance. “What is it?”

  “I heard something.”

  “Something?”

  “Meet me in the hold.” She rose to her feet and pulled on leggings, then slid into the flat shoes parked near the door and opened the hatch. After poking her head out, she scanned the area. She smelled humans. Other vampires. Engine oil. Blood. Seawater—

  Blood.

  Senses on alert, she stepped into the passageway and focused on the scent of blood. She was a vampire, and blood drew her even if it was old. This blood was not old. It was fresh, and it was human.

  The passageway from the hold led her through the lower deck where storerooms lined either side. Footsteps approached from the top deck. They came down the stairs. Ben appeared, wearing basketball shorts, a T-shirt, and no shoes.

  “Tenzin?”

  She put a finger to her lips. She pointed to a storeroom door on the port side, and Ben walked silently toward her. She knew what they’d find before Ben pushed open the hatch.

  The body was lying on the floor, the neck mangled and limbs splayed at unnatural angles. It was a young woman—one of the university divers—but Tenzin didn’t know her name.

  “Meili.” Ben crouched down and put a finger to her neck.

  “She’s dead, Benjamin. I don’t hear even a weak heartbeat.”

  “Dammit.” He stood and gripped his hair in his hands. “Dammit! She was one of the first divers on the wreck. It was her first maritime site. She was working on her PhD. She learned to dive so she could complete her dissertation with original research.”

  Meili’s eyes were wide and lifeless. She was also soaking wet. The seawater overpowered every other scent except the blood. Her clothes were soaked in it, as was her hair.

  “Fabia is going to be heartbroken. She and Meili had already exchanged email addresses. Meili wanted to work on her English, and Fabi wanted to consult on her paper. Fuck, Tenzin, this is awful.”

  Tenzin had a difficult time feeling grief for most humans. Their lives were so short—it made little difference to her that this one had only lived for twenty-some years instead of eighty. Many humans received far less than that. But the violence of the young woman’s attack did anger her.

  “She wasn’t attacked in her sleep,” Tenzin said. “Her eyes are open.”

  “Whoever killed her probably used amnis.”

  Tenzin leaned against the bulkhead. “The list of suspects isn’t long. It’s not longer than one name for me.”

  Ben stood. “Who?”

  “Johari.”

  “Johari?”

  Tenzin shrugged. “Who else?”

  “How about Kadek? Or Cheng?”

  Tenzin cocked her head. Really?

  Ben grimaced and shrugged. Okay, probably not Cheng.

  He asked, “Can you sense any particular amnis on her?”

  “No. Look at all the water. No scents are going to survive over that. Maybe a water vampire could get something, but I can’t sense it.”

  “Okay,” Ben said. “Why don’t we call everyone down here and see what they say? Maybe Cheng will get something.”

  Tenzin raised her eyes. “You want to invite everyone down to a murder scene to see what they have to say?”

  “It’s not her murder scene. I guarantee she was killed somewhere else.” Ben knelt next to her again. “How much blood is gone? Can you tell?”

  “Does it matter?” Tenzin was disgusted by the waste.

  It was completely unnecessary to kill a human to feed. No vampire, not even a newborn, needed that much blood. Sometimes, if a human had other health problems, the shock of blood loss could trigger a heart attack or stroke. And newborns often killed purely by accident because they could pierce arteries and didn’t understand how to seal wounds. But there were no newborns on the ship.

  Whoever had done this was careless, vicious, or both.

  This human was no threat and had harmed no one. She was working for Zhang, and her safety should have been guaranteed by that alone.

  “Sure, why not?” Tenzin said. “Call them.”

  Johari, Kadek, Cheng, Tenzin, and Ben stood around Meili’s body. Ben watched all of them, but they were nearly impossible to read. The poker face had been invented by vampires.

  Ben knew whom he suspected. Kadek’s face was ruddier than normal, a clear signal that he’d fed recently. While all the vampires had all been instructed to feed on bagged blood for the duration of the job, Kadek had grumbled about it, complaining that they would be less effective if they couldn’t feed from the ready supply of humans on the boat.

  Now a human had been fed on and killed. Had she struggled? Had Kadek been afraid his amnis wouldn’t wipe her memory?

  Johari—the only other option in Ben’s mind—was watching the body with more sympathy than he’d expected. Her eyes were trained on the young woman, and she nearly looked sad.

  “Did she have a family?” Johari asked.

  Ben said, “Yes.”

  “Very unfortunate.” A line formed between her elegantly arched eyebrows.

  “This is not good,” Cheng said. “Kadek, you’ll need to take care of this. She can’t simply disappear or the humans will be distracted. They’ve made very good progress in the past week, and we can’t interrupt that. Can you make it look like a drowning or shark attack?”

  “Of course. I’ll wait for Professor Chou to bring up her disappearance. Then we will conduct a thorough search before we find her body in the ocean.”

  Tenzin nodded. “The best solution.”

  “Agreed,” Johari said.

  “Wait a minute!” Ben said. “That is not the best solution.” He looked around the room at the impassive immortals. “One of you did this. You can’t just cover it up.”

  Kadek turned his eyes on Ben. “Are you accusing one of us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  Ben looked at Kadek, not wanting to give away his suspicion if he was the only one who suspected Kadek. He turned to Cheng. “This was a human working under the protection of Elder Zhang Guo and you.”

  Cheng said, “I hired them. I never offered my protection. This is unfortunate, but—”

  “Unfortunate?” He struggled to keep his ire in check. “Meili’s death requires more than a carefully constructed cover-up. She was twenty-seven. She was the only child of her parents. The first in her family to go to university. This is more than fucking unfortunate.”

  Cheng nodded seriously. “I understand your concern, and her parents will be compensated for their loss.”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  Cheng narrowed his eyes. “What would you have me do, Ben Vecchio? I cannot bring her back from the dead. There is no court that will hear her case. That is not the world we belong to.”

  Tenzin spoke. “Cheng, I think we would all agree that you are the least likely to have killed this young woman. Do you—”

  “Not even exempting yourself from suspicion, are you?” Cheng smiled. “You’re one of a kind, Cricket.”

  Ben hated that Cheng called her Cricket. Absolutely hated it. But he didn’t say a word.

  “Why would I exempt myself?” Tenzin asked. “I have killed thousands. Why would any of you assume I wouldn’t kill this woman? You all know my reputation.”

  The number shouldn’t have shocked Ben, but it did.

  I have killed thousands.

  She’d been alive, at his best guess, between four and five thousand years. The idea of her killing thousands would be logical. She’d killed enemies, worked as an assassin, and been in numerous wars.

  “You never
kill without reason,” Cheng said.

  Kadek muttered, “Though her reasons don’t always make sense to anyone but herself.”

  Tenzin cocked her head. “That’s fair.”

  Cheng glared at his child and barked at him in a language that Ben didn’t recognize.

  “He has every right to resent me, Cheng.” Tenzin knelt by Meili’s body. “If we all agree that Cheng is the least likely to have killed this woman, we should all trust him to answer. Do you scent any immortal on her?”

  Cheng crouched down across from Tenzin and picked Meili’s body up. He was far gentler than Ben would have expected. He put his face in front of the bloody wound and inhaled deeply on both sides of her neck, both the bitten and intact sides.

  “Nothing,” he said. “She was killed recently and her body washed in the ocean. Other than that, I sense no trace of her killer.” He rose. “Is there anything else?”

  Ben said, “Yes.”

  Tenzin said, “No.”

  Ben turned on Tenzin. “Her killer is standing over her body right now.”

  “And we have no way of determining who it was,” Cheng said. “Look around you, Vecchio. No one is going to confess, and I suspect we all have different suspects. Finger-pointing is useless. Suspicion without evidence is useless. Wasting time on an investigation is not in anyone’s best interest.”

  Ben pointed to Meili’s body. “It’s in her best interest.”

  “She is dead.” Cheng’s expression held a hint of pity. “It does not matter to her.”

  “Her parents then.”

  Cheng spoke quietly. “No confession will bring their daughter back. And I promise you”—he cleared his throat—“that is the only thing they will want.”

  Tenzin put a hand on his arm. “Leave it, Benjamin. Her soul has left this body and will be born again. Nothing is ever truly lost.”

  “Unbelievable.” Ben shook off Tenzin’s arm and strode out of the room, leaving Meili with the uncaring monsters who had killed her. Maybe not all of them had drained her blood, but all of them were willing to let the perpetrator walk free.