Shadows and Gold

  Contents

  Shadows and Gold

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Letter from the Author

  About the Author

  Also by Elizabeth Hunter

  Lost Letters and Christmas Lights

  The Elemental Mysteries

  Copyright

  The first novella in the Elemental Legacy series:

  SHADOWS AND GOLD

  Failing grades. Misleading wind vampires. And a fortune in forgotten gold.

  Traveling to the most remote region of China certainly wasn’t what Ben Vecchio had in mind for his summer vacation, but when Tenzin suggested a quick trip, he could hardly turn down a chance to keep her out of trouble and practice the Mandarin he still struggled with in class.

  Of course, Tenzin might not have been clear about everything travel entailed.

  Driving a truck full of rotting vegetables and twenty million in gold from Kashgar to Shanghai was only the start. If Ben can keep the treasure away from grasping immortals, the reward will be more than worth the effort. But when has travel with a five-thousand-year-old wind vampire ever been simple?

  “What’s on the agenda for tonight?”

  “I thought we’d go into Shanghai. Eat some fish. See the lights.”

  “Okay.”

  “Then maybe lure a traitor into the open before he steals my gold.”

  Ben paused, thought, then gave her a nod. “Sure, sounds like fun.”

  At least he was practicing his Chinese.

  Right?

  SHADOWS AND GOLD

  An Elemental Legacy novella

  By Elizabeth Hunter

  For Morgan and Lori

  Love always,

  E.

  For the beginning seems to be more than

  half of the whole…

  —Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

  PROLOGUE

  “Argh!”

  Tenzin looked up from her book to see Ben tearing at his hair, his elbows planted on either side of what she knew was his Mandarin textbook.

  “I’m never going to get this,” he said.

  “Yes, you will.”

  “No, I’m not. It’s the tones. I can’t seem to get the tones right, and they’re going to kick me out of my next class if I can’t get them right.”

  She knew that wasn’t good. Chinese was his minor field of study. Political science was his major at the university, and Chinese was his minor. At least she thought that was how it worked.

  “You need to practice more.” She spoke to him in Mandarin. “From now on, I’ll only speak to you in Chinese. That will help.”

  “Please don’t,” he said in English.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she answered, smiling. “I do not understand English when you are speaking it.”

  “You are full of shit,” he said in Mandarin. Or at least, that’s what he was trying to say. Ben was right. He really needed practice.

  Just then, an image on the television caught her eye.

  “Ben, turn that up.”

  He glanced up, confused. “What?”

  “The television! What is this program? Turn the volume up.”

  She stared as the sound grew on the screen in front of her. Images of crumbled brick and construction equipment filled the screen. Men wearing hard hats and pouring concrete.

  “Where is that?” Ben asked.

  She whispered, “Kashgar.”

  This was not good.

  “Where?”

  Familiar mud roofs and bright doorways. Streets filled with colorful dresses. The images on the screen flipped through her memories along with the fragrance of saffron, charred lamb, and dust.

  “Where’s Kashgar?”

  She leaned forward, ignoring Ben and listening to the narrator.

  “In the old town, ancient mud brick homes are making way for modern reconstruction, though the government is quick to reassure both citizens and visitors alike that the unique character of this historic city is central to the improvement plans for the special economic zone that is planned.”

  “Shit.”

  Ben frowned at her as an image of collapsed walls flashed across the screen. “Why are you so freaked out? It looks like those places were about ready to fall in. Can you imagine how many people might get hurt? Kids might live in those houses.”

  Tenzin stared at the familiar old streets, tapping her foot. How safe was it? She hadn’t moved that cache in several hundred years, but if they started tearing up enough old streets…

  Plumbing lines. Foundations. Modern wiring went underground, didn’t it?

  “Shit,” she muttered again.

  If only Nima was still alive. She was always better at making these arrangements. She’d need Cheng’s help, but he owed her more than one favor. Nobody moved things by horse or wagon anymore. She’d need… What? A truck? A boat? Cheng had many boats. He could probably get her a truck, too. Then there was the new government to deal with. Human governments liked forms and fees. Tariffs and taxes. There would probably be checkpoints, but she could deal with those.

  Irritating humans.

  “Tenzin, what are you scowling about?”

  She glanced at Ben. Back at the screen. A government spokesman was speaking to a reporter.

  Speaking Mandarin.

  She would need a truck, a boat…

  And a human.

  What was the American phrase? Something about a lightbulb?

  Tenzin looked at Ben. Then she looked at his textbook, still lying open on the table in the den. A smile turned up the corner of her mouth.

  She asked, “When does your school start?”

  Ben was looking at that book again, chewing on his thumbnail. “Next semester starts… uh, middle of August.”

  That was months away. Plenty of time. She stood and walked over to him, slapping his book closed.

  “Hey! I was trying to—”

  “Study, yes. Admirable. But you know what would be better?”

  His eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “Practicing Chinese with real Chinese people.”

  “Aren’t you a real Chinese person?”

  “Define Chinese. And person.”

  He paused. “I see your point. Why are you—”

  “I need to make a quick trip to Xinjiang.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a province in China. You can come along.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Really?”

  “Really. Don’t you think that would be better than studying from books?”

  He sat back, suspicion written clearly on his face. “I guess I could stand to practice—”

  “Excellent! Just see to your visa and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  She walked from the room, mentally composing a note for Caspar to send to Cheng’s secretary. She’d need to tread carefully. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the old pirate’s debt.

  “Tenzin?” Ben called from down the hall. “What are we doing?”

  “Going to China.”

  “For?”

  “To practice your Chinese, of course!”

  Ben muttered something she was pretty sure he had not learned in a textbook.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ben Vecchio landed in the Ürümqi Diwopu International Airport at ten in the morning, not knowing what time it was or what time it was suppo
sed to be. Despite its vast territory, the entire People’s Republic of China was on one time zone. Beijing time. You might be in Yunan province, Xi’an, or the Tibetan plateau, but you were still on Beijing time.

  He roused himself and, ignoring his snoring seatmate, shoved his way into the aisle to grab his bag from the overhead bin. Personal space, he had quickly learned when he landed in Asia, was not a universal value. He stretched his cramped legs and barely winced when the formidable grandmother in front of him knocked him on the jaw with her suitcase.

  She said something to him in what he guessed was Uyghur. She said it again, scowling at his clueless look.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” he said in Mandarin, the language he’d been practicing for three years.

  Three years and he was still struggling. For the perfectionist he’d become under the training of his adopted uncle, Giovanni Vecchio, it was unacceptable. Ben was hoping this trip would finally cement the language in his mind. Flip whatever switch was holding him back from true fluency.

  The old woman gave him an odd look. She cocked her head and looked him up and down. Frowned again, then turned her back. Ben cautiously glanced around the plane, only to realize something astonishing.

  He blended in. That’s why the old woman had given him a strange look. She had expected him to understand her.

  Taking a deep breath, the tension in his shoulders relaxed, and Ben felt more at ease than he had in days.

  “Xièxiè,” he murmured to the pretty flight attendant as he shuffled off the plane, hiking his backpack on his shoulder. He strode through the heated tube of the jetway, wondering how hot it would be outside.

  It was late summer, and Beijing had been an oven he was happy to leave. He wanted to go back to the city when he had more time—the energy had been intoxicating—but maybe he’d pick spring. Or fall. Maybe even the dead of winter. Anything but the end of June. But Ürümqi was higher elevation and inland. According to what he could find online, Ben was expecting weather a lot like Los Angeles. Warm during the day, but cooler at night. Nothing near the sauna-like conditions of the Chinese coast.

  He checked the forecast on his phone as he walked. Mobile phones were as common in China as they were in Southern California, and everyone he’d seen, from the flirting schoolgirl to the Buddhist monk in saffron robes, had one. The vampires, of course, would not.

  But so far, he hadn’t seen too many of them.

  Being a human raised by vampires had its perks. He had sole access to the computer and assorted electronic gadgets in the household. He had little to no supervision during the daytime. And he’d been raised in the kind of luxury since the age of twelve that most of the world could only dream of.

  Of course, he’d been under threat of death from his aunt and uncle’s enemies for just as long.

  By the time he was fourteen, Ben Vecchio knew how to wrestle an opponent twice his size to the ground. By the time he was fifteen, he could shoot an array of firearms, fence with reasonable skill, and use a knife to kill someone in complete and utter silence.

  He’d killed a man at sixteen, but it hadn’t been silent.

  In the five years since it happened, Ben managed to avoid violence whenever possible. And other than an unfortunate run-in with some Russian-Mexican earth vampires, he’d managed pretty well. He liked the rush, but at heart, part of him was still his mother’s son. Being noticed made him squirm. He enjoyed surprising people. Flirting around the corners of their awareness until he won. It didn’t much matter what he won. Money. Girls. A stupid bet. Ben liked winning, but he didn’t like attention.

  Which made traveling in Asia something of a shock.

  As he walked to collect his bag, he noticed it again. No one looked. No one stared.

  “Maybe my favorite place in China so far,” he muttered.

  It was an uncomfortable thing for him, to be so visible. And in China, he was visible in more than one world. Being the adopted son of two prominent immortals required a visa of a completely different sort than the official government variety. His Aunt Beatrice was the one who’d contacted the Elders at Penglai Island with the information he’d be traveling in their territory “for educational purposes.” Since his aunt had been given the title of scribe on Penglai Island, her word was good enough.

  Giovanni had still warned him.

  “That region is unstable in the immortal world. It always has been. Be careful. Even the Elders keep vampires in Xinjiang on a very long leash. Don’t draw any attention to yourself and don’t piss anyone off.”

  He’d only spotted two vampires since he’d arrived. Once at the airport in Beijing and once outside his hotel. Then he’d caught a plane for Ürümqi and hadn’t seen one since.

  Of course, the sun hadn’t gone down yet.

  He wasn’t quite sure what anyone knew about Tenzin. Tenzin was, as always, vague in her movements. But Ben knew her sire was one of the Elders, so he figured she’d be okay.

  For once, it wasn’t the vampires making him feel out of place for being human.

  His looks—fair skin with an olive undertone, dark curly hair, the thick-lashed brown eyes his mother had given him—marked him from everywhere and nowhere when he was traveling in much of the world. He could be Italian, French, or Middle Eastern. South American or Greek. It was a convenient appearance he’d come to appreciate as he grew older.

  He’d been stuck just around six feet for two years, so he figured he’d finished the growth spurt that hit him in high school. Not bad, considering his bastard of a father was a midget. His mother had claimed her brothers were tall, regal men who charmed the beauties of Beirut.

  His mother had claimed a lot of things.

  But Ben’s everyman appearance did nothing for him in China. He was a Westerner. Everyone looked at him. Many gawked. A few even took pictures of him instead of the old palaces the one day he’d spared to visit the Forbidden City.

  But in Xinjiang…

  The more he looked around as he waited by the luggage claim, the more he realized that many of the men here didn’t look Chinese. There were plenty of Eastern Asian looks, but there were Central Asian features, too.

  A lot of them.

  And… a lot of the Uyghur language.

  He’d been sleeping most of the flight, but the more he listened, the more he heard a language he had no idea how to decode.

  “Well shit,” he muttered. He’d come to practice his Chinese, only to find out half the population didn’t seem to be speaking it. As he walked through the arrivals gate, he heard very little Mandarin at all. The people greeting friends and relatives appeared to be predominately Uyghur. A few Chinese. A few foreign business people. But his flight seemed to be mostly a mix of Central Asian looks and languages.

  He sighed. “Tenzin.”

  Go to Xinjiang to practice his Mandarin, huh? Typical.

  Ben grabbed his bag and walked toward the exit doors.

  He should have known better. After all, Xinjiang was the Uyghur Autonomous Region. For some reason, he figured everyone would still be speaking Mandarin. Because it was China, and everyone spoke Mandarin, right?

  His aunt and uncle would say this was why proper prior research was so important.

  Lesson learned, Gio.

  The intense summer sun hit him the minute he stepped outside. Ben knew Tenzin was in the city, but he had no idea where she was staying. She’d left him a note the day after she suggested he come to Xinjiang with her. The note was… well, also typical Tenzin.

  Ben—

  Meet me in Ürümqi in two weeks.

  Stay at the Sheraton. The beds won’t be horrible.

  I’ll meet you there.

  Tenzin never signed her notes because he knew her handwriting—when she wasn’t forging something—and who else would suggest he randomly fly to the most remote city in Asia?

  Three old women carrying lighters approached him as he walked down the steps.

  “Lighter?” they asked. “Five kuai.�€
 One asked in Chinese, the others in what he could only assume was Uyghur.

  He shook his head. He wasn’t even a smoker and he knew that was a rip-off. He might blend in more in Xinjiang, but he still had “foreigner” written all over him to the street merchants.

  Street merchants were smarter than most. The former thief in him knew that.

  Two of the women wandered off when he shook his head, but one cackled at him and said in Chinese, “One then. Just one kuai.”

  “One, I’ll buy.” He pulled a small bill from his pocket. Having fire came in handy whether you smoked or not.

  “You speak Chinese?” she asked, handing him one of the less worn lighters. “You are young! You are American?” She glanced at his bag. “English? Where are you staying? You need a car?”

  “I speak Chinese,” he said. “I’ll take a taxi, thank you.” He took another step toward the taxi line.

  “Bah.” She frowned and stepped to block him. Not too forceful, but just forceful enough. She was good. “Bad drivers, every one of them. My grandson is here. He’ll take you in his car. Only twenty kuai.”

  “You don’t know where I’m staying.”

  “You stay in the city center?”

  He didn’t want to tell her exactly where, but he scanned the parking lot and saw a young man in a newer car watching them hopefully. He was about Ben’s age and didn’t look Chinese.

  “I’m staying downtown,” he said.

  She nodded. “Twenty. It’s very fair.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. He is a good driver. You will call him if you need a car again in Ürümqi.”

  Ben glanced at the boy again. He didn’t know how long he’d be staying. Didn’t know where he’d be going. A taxi would take him to the hotel and drop him off after he paid the meter, but someone his own age looking to make some extra money might be a good resource. Money he had. Familiarity with the city, he didn’t.