Venice Vampyr - The Beginning (27 page)

“Find yourself a seat,” Raphael instructed. “We started without you. You’ll just have to catch up.”

Lorenzo beamed. “Not necessary.”

Several sets of eyes landed on him, curiosity flashing in them. Lorenzo didn’t wait for their questions, too excited to impart his news. “I’ve purchased a house.”

He could tell that Dante wanted to jump up from his seat, but Viola, his lovely wife, put her hand on his thigh. “Congratulations, Lorenzo!” she said and smiled.

“Thank you, Viola. That’s very kind of you to say.”

“Well, don’t keep us on tenterhooks,” Nico complained. “Where is it located?”

Lorenzo smirked and motioned his head toward the East. “Two doors down.”

Suddenly Dante’s apprehensive face turned to admiration. “How did you manage that? If I’m not mistaken, the owner only died three days ago. I was going to approach his heirs in the next few days.”

“Beat you to it, my old friend. It turns out that I’d purchased one of the man’s markers.”

“He was a gambler?” Raphael interjected.

Lorenzo nodded. “A bad one at that. As soon as he died, I approached his solicitor and made it clear that it would be most beneficial to the heir if I received the house in exchange for my marker, considering the marker was for more than the house was worth. I threw in a small sum to pacify the solicitor and a slightly larger one for the heir.”

“And the heir agreed?” Dante asked, raising an eyebrow in inquiry.

Lorenzo folded his arms across his chest, fully satisfied with his achievement. “She has no choice. There is nothing for her to inherit other than her father’s debts, which I’ve now taken care of. The solicitor will explain it to her when she arrives in Venice. I’m sure it’ll pose no problem. In any case, the solicitor had authorization to execute the contract.”

“Excellent!” Dante stood and slapped him on the shoulder. “I applaud you on your initiative.” Then he turned to the other men in the room. “That’s exactly what I expect from the rest of you. Don’t wait until a house is being offered for sale. Make an offer. We have the funds to make it happen. There are twenty-eight houses on this block and the one behind us. We need to own each and every one of them if we want to make sure we’re protected from the Guardians.”

All heads nodded enthusiastically.

“When are you moving in?” Nico asked.

“This Friday night.”

Nico and Dante exchanged a conspiratorial look.

“I’m sure we’ll find a suitable housewarming gift for you, won’t we, Nico?” Dante grinned from one ear to the next and received the same wicked grin in response from Nico.

Lorenzo merely shook his head. He could be sure that whatever his friends had in mind would be either sinful or entertaining, and if he was lucky, both.

Chapter Two

Bianca Greco looked over her shoulder once more before she turned the key in the rusted lock and prayed for the first time in many years. The clicking sound announced that her prayer had been answered: the old key still worked. Nobody had changed the locks yet.

Before her luck could change, she slid inside her old home and shut the door behind her. Finally, she was able to breathe again.

As soon as she’d received the news of her father’s sudden death, Bianca had packed her bags and traveled to Venice. But despite her hasty departure, her trip had taken several days, the muddy road conditions being to blame. She’d arrived too late.

The solicitor, Signore Mancini, had informed her with a beaming smile that he’d managed to sell her father’s home and even extracted a little money from the buyer, who’d graciously paid off all of her father’s debts. According to the solicitor, she should be happy to have received anything, particularly since the debts had far exceeded the value of the house.

But Bianca was fuming. And Signore Mancini had merely assumed that she was upset because this had once been her home and she had happy memories there. Bah! The few happy memories she’d had in her home were from her early childhood. Later, as soon as she’d developed into a young woman with a slim waist, wide child-bearing hips, and a generous bosom, her father had ferried in the suitors by the boatload.

It had turned into a cattle auction. She being the cattle to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. She could still taste the disappointment on her lips when she’d begged her father to choose a kind husband for her. He’d only looked at her with his cold eyes and ordered her to be quiet. Nothing of the gentle father on whose lap she’d sat for hours as a child was left. He’d become consumed with rising in Venetian society, and he was going to do it on Bianca’s back by marrying her off to the most influential suitor.

She’d done the only thing she could: she’d fled.

After stealing sufficient coin from her father’s purse to see her safely to the mainland, Bianca had made it as far as Florence before her money had run out. With no skills or talents to support herself, she’d done the one thing her father had tried to do for her: she sold her body.

Thanks to her refined manners and her beauty, she’d attracted the attention of a wealthy benefactor who’d made her his courtesan. Once he’d tired of her, he’d handed her off to one of his friends. While the men Bianca had been with had treated her well and provided her with a good lifestyle, essentially she was what she was: a whore.

The fact that she didn’t ply her trade in the dark streets and in dingy rooms that rented by the hour didn’t diminish her feeling of being dirty. And despite the fact that she found relations with men enjoyable and had learned a great deal about how to please a man, and how a man could please a woman, she’d never loved any of them. Nobody had ever seen who was beneath the surface of the beautiful courtesan or had touched her heart. Because all they saw was the shell, the body that blinded them, the façade she’d erected in order to protect herself and the girl within. The girl whose father had betrayed her.

No, Bianca didn’t want the house. But she wanted what it contained: the treasure her father had spoken of so many years ago. She remembered his words well.

“It’s a great treasure,” he’d claimed as she’d sat on his lap as a little girl. “And if I sold it to the right person, it would bring us more money than we could ever get for this house.”

“More than for our house?” she’d gawked. “But it’s a huge house!”

He’d smiled at her. “Yes, but the treasure is worth more.”

“It must be big then, the treasure.”

Her father had shaken his head. “No, it’s small. That’s why it’s so easy to hide.”

“Where is it?” she’d blurted.

“It’s a secret. Nobody can know it even exists. If they do, they will hurt us.”

“Shh,” she’d hummed. “You can whisper it to me.”

But her father had never divulged the hiding place, nor what the treasure even consisted of. And maybe it had just been a story to keep a ten-year old girl entertained. But she couldn’t dismiss it. If the treasure really existed, then it still had to be in the house. And she needed to find it. It was her only way out of her current life. She wasn’t going to remain a courtesan forever and give her body to men she didn’t love.

Bianca set her bag onto the floor beside her and ventured into the house. Everything was still the same: the furniture, the paintings, the rugs. Even the crystal glasses in the parlor where her father had liked to drink his Grappa were still at the same place as always. Signore Mancini had told her that the man who’d purchased the house had insisted on keeping the furniture and everything else. When she’d asked him when the new owner was going to move into the property, he’d shrugged and declared that the man had seemed in no particular hurry.

Well, considering that the purchase had only been recorded in the city’s ledgers this afternoon, Bianca figured the new owner would most likely wait until Monday to hire workers to clean the place and bring his own personal items into the home. No Italian liked to work on weekends, not even the poorer classes. This meant she’d have the weekend to search the house from top to bottom and take everything apart to find what her father had been referring to as the “treasure.”

Bianca walked up the creaking staircase, her long dress picking up the dust on the way up. Clearly, her father’s servants had neglected the house even before his death, because there was no way this much dust could accumulate in merely a week. Now the house was quiet, devoid of any life. The servants were gone, most likely glad that their back wages had been paid by the solicitor. It wouldn’t surprise her if they’d taken some of the silver with them.

In a way she was glad this was how it had happened. Had her father’s servants still occupied the house, she would have had to sneak around trying to hide what she was doing. With the house empty, she could conduct her search openly.

Bianca shivered as she reached the upstairs corridor. It had been an overcast day, and now that the sun was about to set, the dampness crept into the house and took hold. If she wanted to stay in the house for the weekend, she would have to get at least one or two fires going. She passed by the door to her father’s chamber, but decided not to enter it. She had no wish to be reminded of him so intensely.

Instead, she opened the next door and stepped into her mother’s old room. It was like she’d only died yesterday, yet it had been over ten years since she was gone. Her father had always made sure the servants cleaned and aired her room at least once a week, as if he was expecting her to come back. She glanced around. Fresh linen adorned the large four-poster bed, and wood was stacked next to the fireplace, ready for a maid to start a fire.

The remaining light entering through the window was sufficient for Bianca to see herself in the mirror. She looked a fright. Traveling all day, first on a dirty coach, then on a rocking boat, had shaken her. She hadn’t had time to clean up since. The neat bun her long dark hair had been tamed into was no longer the elegant coiffure it had once been. Little strands of black curls tumbled down her neck and shoulders. Her dark blue dress was dusty, and its hem was caked with mud. Lifting her dress slightly, she noticed that her boots weren’t faring any better.

As much as she wanted to start the search right now, Bianca couldn’t help but yearn for a hot bath to take the grime of the trip off her body. Plus she needed to get a fire going to warm up the room so she wouldn’t freeze to death at night.

With a heavy sigh, she approached the fireplace and knelt down. Despite her sheltered upbringing, she knew how to kindle a fire. Her early time in Florence had made sure she’d learned everything she needed to survive. It didn’t take long for her to get a fire going. She placed two large logs onto the flames and stepped back. In an hour, the room would be pleasantly warm.

In the meantime, she went back downstairs and made her way to the kitchen. The stove was an old cast iron one. She had to get a fire started there as well if she wanted hot water for a quick bath. Pumping the water from the hand pump, she filled several large cooking pots and placed them onto the surface of the stove. Then she went about to light a fire in it.

Sweat already accumulated on her brow from heaving the heavy pots onto the stove. It would be even harder to lift them off once the water was boiling. There was no way she would carry them all the way upstairs into the small bathing chamber next to her mother’s room. Instead, she would use the tub that was located in the room next to the kitchen where the servants used to do the laundry. It would do for the night.

Chapter Three

Lorenzo had planned on arriving at his new home just after sunset, however his friends had thwarted his efforts to take possession of his new residence by calling another meeting to discuss more details about the acquisition of the remaining twenty-six homes. He’d only listened half-heartedly, eager to inspect his new place. After all, he’d bought it sight unseen. He’d never stepped foot inside. For all he knew, the place was in shambles.

However, the solicitor had assured him the property was habitable and only needed some cleaning. It didn’t matter much to Lorenzo. He was going to change the interior anyway. For starters, hidden exits would have to be incorporated into the layout of the home, and once the house between his and that of the brothers Dante and Raphael was in vampire hands, connecting tunnels would be built between the homes (all above the level of the canals of course). Well, they wouldn’t really be tunnels, merely covered walkways that would allow them to move around during the day.