The Elemental Mysteries: Complete Series (61 page)

“Um…of the top college in the country, which I will be getting into with no problem because I already finished my math and my Latin translation?”

“Reading?”

“Done before you woke up tonight.”

“History?”

“Well, not quite…”

“Composition?”

“You know, you’re back a lot sooner than I thought you’d be.”

“How about piano?”

Ben’s mouth gaped open and his shoulders slumped. “It hasn’t even been delivered yet!”

Giovanni frowned. “I forgot that part. Did you call the movers today?”

Ben nodded. “Yep, they said that it’d be here next Thursday at the latest and to make sure that we had room for the truck.”

“Excellent. Toss me the ball then.”

“Pass, Gio.
Pass
the ball.”

“Fine, whatever,” he muttered as Ben passed the ball to him. He dribbled it, then tossed it toward the backboard, where it bounced off the rim before Ben ran over to catch it. He bounced it back to Giovanni.

“Okay, you need to square up your shoulders with the basket before you shoot. Try again.”

Giovanni dribbled the ball a few more times before he tried again, squaring his shoulders like Ben had directed. “You know, if you put half the concentration into your composition that you do into this game—”

“Game, Gio. Remember? We’re supposed to talk about non-school stuff when we play.”

He rolled his eyes and shot again, this time getting slightly closer to the square behind the hoop.

“There,” Ben encouraged. “That’s better.” The boy rebounded the shot and took some time dribbling it before he tossed it toward the hoop, where it sailed in. “So, did you talk to her?”

Giovanni watched as the boy ran around the small court, shooting baskets and chasing rebounds. His lanky limbs and awkward gait seemed to disappear on the basketball court, as he exhibited the natural confidence that had brought him to Giovanni’s attention when he’d seen the boy in New York over a year ago.

“I did.”

“Is she really mad at you?”

He nodded as Ben passed him the ball. “Yes, she’s…fairly angry.”

“Did you tell her about me yet?” he asked in a small voice.

“Not yet,” he smiled. “I told you, Beatrice is far more apt to like you than me at the moment. Don’t worry about that.”

Ben gave a nonchalant shrug. “Girls always like me more, G. It’s ‘cause I’m so good-looking.”

Giovanni laughed and passed the ball back to him. “I worry about your self-esteem, Benjamin. Really, I do. Have you eaten dinner yet?”

“Just a few more minutes?” His eyes pleaded. “Then I’ll go in.”

“Fine. But after that, you’re finishing your homework.”

“Sweet!” Ben shot a few rapid baskets. “So how long do you think it’s going to be before she’s not mad at you anymore?”

“How long was it before you started liking me after I took you off the streets and made you start bathing regularly?”

Ben snickered and passed the ball back to Giovanni. “Not as long as I acted. The food was a lot better at your house.”

“Better than the randomly purloined hot dog? I should hope even
my
cooking beat that.”

“Well, it was close, but—hey!” Ben dodged the ball that Giovanni threw at him. It hit the wall of the garage and bounced back toward Ben. Giovanni grinned at the boy’s sharp reflexes, which had been part of the reason he’d been such a successful pickpocket until a little over a year before.

“I’ll go start dinner. Come to the kitchen in a few minutes.”

Giovanni walked back in the house and went to start a pot of water to boil. He had little interest in food that night, but because he was determined to civilize Benjamin as much as possible for a twelve-year-old boy, he had made nightly dinner at the table a priority.

When he’d found the boy in New York, Giovanni had spotted his wasted potential almost immediately. The urchin had stolen his wallet, and if Giovanni hadn’t had preternatural senses, he would have easily gotten away with it. As it was, he’d let the boy have the wallet, followed him, and done some investigating.
 

Ben was the illegitimate son of a con woman and a cabbie. After looking into both parents and talking to the boy, Giovanni decided that neither one of them was deserving of his help—or their own child. One physically abusive and the other a manipulator, they had passed on to Ben little more than the ability to fend for himself and lie convincingly to authorities.

Giovanni, however, had seen the sharp intelligence and survival instinct the boy exhibited and decided he deserved more than to be chewed up on the streets of the city. On paper, Ben had become Giovanni’s nephew, the son of his deceased brother and his wife, who had died in a tragic car accident the year before. They had spent the previous year resolving the details of the adoption and catching Ben up on the realities of his new world.

The boy barreled into the kitchen just as Giovanni finished putting the jar of sauce on the spaghetti. He set it on the table along with a salad he’d put together from a bag and a bowl of olives.

“Spaghetti again?”

He cocked an eyebrow at the boy. “Tomorrow night you can cook. Besides,” he said as he flicked the back of the boy’s ear as he sat at the table, “you’re an Italian now, you need to eat lots of pasta.”

Ben snorted and dug into the food. Giovanni watched him scarf down his food with gusto; it reminded him of how much Caspar had eaten at that age. It had been harder to find food for Caspar in postwar Britain, but with the proliferation of American all-night markets and Ben’s natural independence, the two of them managed just fine.

“I’m not Italian, really,” Ben said between bites. “I’m Leba-Rican.”

Giovanni smiled at the boy’s quick wit. Ben was half Lebanese and half Puerto Rican, but their coloring was close enough that no one questioned their relation. The only difference was Ben’s dark brown eyes, which had always reminded Giovanni of Beatrice.

“You might have to be the one to convince her,” he mused.

“Convince who? Beatrice?”

“Mmmhmm. You’ll have to convince her I’m not a complete bastard.”

“Well, technically,” Ben said between bites, “we both are.”

Giovanni flicked the boy’s ear again. “You know what I mean.”

Ben paused and set down his fork. “You know, if we were friends and then you went away and I didn’t see you for five years, I’d be pretty mad, too.”

“You don’t have to worry about me leaving you, Ben.”

“I know, but she—”

“It was important for her to have time on her own. Without all the vampire stuff, as you like to call it. That’s part of why she came here.” He paused. “It’s complicated, Benjamin.”

Ben smirked before he began eating again. “That’s always what grown-ups say when they’re not sure they’re right. So did she decide all that? Or did you? ‘Cause you’re pretty bossy, you know.”

He decided to change the subject. “It’s a good thing I am, or you’d never finish school. Finish up your dinner, then go upstairs and do the rest of your work. Do you need help with anything?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“If you do, I’ll be on the patio talking to Carwyn.”

“Okay.”

“No video games until after your work is finished. None.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “I got it, I got it.”

Taking the bowl of olives and a glass of wine with him, he went outside to the large covered patio that spread across the back of the house. He’d set up a rotary phone connection there, which he used to dial his friend in Northern Wales.

“Uncle Gio!” Carwyn answered. “How’s the boy doing?”

“Well,” Giovanni sipped his wine. “Very well. His studies are coming along, and he hasn’t run away since the last time I called you.”

“That’s progress. I knew he’d come around.”

“He still runs off on his bike during the day, though. He had to talk himself out of a truancy ticket last week.”

“I doubt that was a problem for him. He’s got quite the smart mouth.”

“He’s conniving in the best way.”

They both chuckled a little but quickly fell silent.
 

Giovanni took a deep breath. “I saw her today.”

Carwyn made no response for a few moments. “How did it go?”

“About as well as I deserve, I suppose.”

Carwyn was quiet as Giovanni sipped his wine.
 

“How did she look?”

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Stunning. Angry.”

“I told you—”

“I know what you told me.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “And you know I had my reasons for staying away.”

Carwyn said, “You wanted her to have her own life? She does. She’s got a damn good one, as a matter of fact.”

“Tell me about the boyfriend.”

“I realize you’d like Mano to be some kind of miscreant, but he’s not. He’s a very good man, and he absolutely adores her.”

Giovanni sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell me about the boyfriend.”

Carwyn took a deep breath. “Ex-navy diver. Has his own business with one of his military mates. Does fairly well for himself. He’s a hard worker and very well-respected. Not much family of his own, but talks about wanting one with our girl.”

Giovanni had the sudden vision of Beatrice swollen with child, her face full and glowing as she smiled. His breath caught, knowing that if she chose him, it would never be his child she would carry, and for the first time in five hundred years, he regretted that. Then, thinking of the boy upstairs and a small boy hiding in an attic many years before, he reminded himself that family came in many forms.

“She’s too smart to be with anyone for that long if he wasn’t a good man,” he muttered. “How does she feel about him? Really? Does she love him?”

“I can’t answer that,” the priest said. “I’m sure she does, but she’s been half in love with your memory for more than five years now. I doubt she knows how to feel about either of you at this point.”

He pulled the picture of her riding the horse in Cochamó out of his pocket and looked at it. The sun glinted off her hair and a huge smile spread across her face. “I’ll just have to convince her then.”

He heard Carwyn clear his throat and Giovanni could almost sense the lecture from his old friend approaching. “Gio, you have been my friend for over three hundred years, and I love you dearly, but that girl is precious to me.”

“I know.”

“Her father isn’t here to ask you, so I will. What are your intentions toward her?
 
She has a good life now. She has friends, and a career, and a good man that loves her, so—”

“He can’t—” Giovanni cleared his throat and closed his eyes. “He can’t love her like I do, Carwyn. He can’t. Because I promise you, he doesn’t know her like I do.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “That doesn’t mean she’ll agree with you, my friend. What you’re asking of her…it’s not a small thing. She may not want to give up her life, even if it means forever with you.”

He shrugged, though no one could see in the dark yard. “She may not. It’s her decision, but I wouldn’t bet against me.” His thumb brushed over her cheek as he stared at the photograph. “I’ve given her time. Time to grow however she needed, free from the complications of our world. You may not have agreed with me, but I did what I felt like I needed to. For her.”

“And now?”

He lifted the picture to stare into her dark, smiling eyes, wishing she was next to him, as he had for the past five years. He took a deep breath.

“Now I plan to convince her she wants eternity with me.”

Chapter Three

Los Angeles, California

October 2009

“I know, but Dr. Stevens didn’t really give me a choice, Mano.”

She heard her boyfriend sigh over the phone. “Well, I suppose I’ll just tell Dan that I can’t handle the morning dives for a while. On my schedule right now, we’re never going to see each other.”

“I know.”

“How long is this guy going to be doing research? And why does he have to do it in the evenings? Are you going to miss judo and kickboxing, too?”

She curled her lip; she’d forgotten about her martial arts classes that met twice a week. Damn vampire.
 

“I think he has to do nights because of his other job or something. It’s probably only going to be a couple of weeks.”
 

It better only be that long. Giovanni had two weeks to convince her of…she wasn’t sure what, but two weeks was her limit. She clenched her eyes in frustration. She felt as if the careful wall she’d constructed between her past and her present, between the supernatural world and the normal one, was starting to crumble, and she didn’t know where to draw the lines.
 

Mano was still talking. “I know it’s not your choice. And it’s great that this guy requested you specifically. I’m really proud of you, B.”

Her heart twisted, and she couldn’t help feeling like she was deceiving him by not telling her boyfriend that Giovanni was the scholar she was helping with translation. Mano knew an even more abbreviated version of the Giovanni and Beatrice story than she had told Dez, and she had never told him she’d been romantically involved with her former employer.