Dawn Caravan, Page 2

  Ben Vecchio was the son of an ancient king, the only son of Zhang Guo, the first child he had sired in over four thousand years.

  Raw power flooded out of him and onto the woman, making her gasp and arch her back in pleasure. An involuntary cry left her lips.

  Ben took his mouth away. “Be quiet.”

  She didn’t say a word, but she nodded. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips swollen. Her chest above the modestly cut dress she wore was red.

  He put his mouth back to her wrist and licked up the drips of blood that had run down her arm, careful not to make a mess. Then he latched onto her vein and drank in leisurely sips, his eyes still locked on the woman across the courtyard.

  I see you. You see me. What do you want?

  The only response the vampire had was to raise a carefully groomed eyebrow in his direction. She watched Ben feeding from the human with clear interest, a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

  The woman he fed from was silent next to him, but she twisted in pleasure, her body heavy against his. She was panting and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. Her body shook with silent tremors of climax as Ben slowly fed.

  Carefully. Deliberately. He felt the living blood splash against his throat like water tossed on a fire. Her taste reminded him of port wine. Rich. Sweet. He focused on the physical act of drinking. He focused on the sensation of his throat relaxing as the blood quenched his burning hunger. He fought the rising sexual desire that was inevitable.

  He glanced at the woman who fed him from the corner of his eye. Watching her pleasure was the only release he allowed himself.

  Was it a power trip? Yes. He gave humans pleasure and took nothing but sustenance. It was a trade he could live with. The woman gave her blood freely and received sexual pleasure and financial compensation in return.

  She was exhausted by the time he finished feeding. She slid down to the cushions and tried to lay her head on his lap, but Ben nudged her onto a pillow.

  The woman looked up. “Nothing?”

  “I’m fine.” He licked his lips and ran a thumb over them. He couldn’t abide dried blood on his lips. “Would you like some tea?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll order some.” He looked back across the courtyard, but he didn’t see his watcher or her guard. A sweep of his eyes around the dark veranda proved fruitless.

  She was gone.

  “Sir?”

  Ben looked up to see the server standing next to him. He gestured to the woman next to him. “She needs tea.”

  “Of course.” The server held out a tray. “The lady left this for you.”

  A cream-colored linen envelope sat on the tray. On the front was written a single name.

  Vecchio. Not Rios, the name he was currently traveling under.

  Ben snatched the envelope from the tray. “Thank you.” He unfolded his legs and rose to his feet. “I’m finished here,” he said to the woman. “Have a good night.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  Ben walked away without answering, the letter burning his fingers. He walked to the center of the courtyard where the fire was burning and opened it. Three words were written in the center of the page in thick blue ink.

  Answer your mail.

  No name. No address. No way of contacting the sender.

  Ben read it again, looked at the paper through the light of the fire, and held it up to the heat, feeling a surge of satisfaction when the fire revealed a hidden message.

  Seriously, Mr. Vecchio. Answer your fucking mail.

  A smile threatened the corner of his mouth. He looked at the handwriting and committed it to memory, then threw the envelope and the letter into the fire.

  “Cara, what’s the time in New York?”

  He didn’t need to shout for his digital assistant to hear him. Cara was an artificial intelligence program designed for vampires who couldn’t use more delicate human technology without shorting it out.

  “It is 12:46 in the afternoon,” Cara said.

  “Place video call.” He sat on the chaise next to the bed in his reinforced room and opened the heavy cover of his tablet.

  “Encryption on?”

  “Yes.”

  He missed the sleek electronics he’d used as a human, but vampire amnis was electrical in nature, a current running beneath the skin of vampires that connected them to their elements and interfered with modern electronic signals. For vampires to use technology, heavy cases and voice controls were essential.

  “Video calling with encryption activated.” Cara’s smooth tones were as familiar as a friend’s. “What number?”

  “Chloe, mobile.”

  “You want to video call Chloe on her main mobile device. Is that correct?”

  “Correct.” He kicked up his legs and stretched.

  The vampire body was different from the human one. On many levels, it was far more sensitive, but in other ways his nerves felt dulled. He no longer felt any soreness from a hard run or physical exertion. His muscles did not experience the minute tears that broke them slowly to be built up stronger with recovery. He was frozen in the exact physical state he had been two years before.

  His lungs didn’t pump when he climbed the side of a building or lifted something heavy. In fact, he didn’t need to breathe at all.

  But the brush of a callus against his skin could be excruciating. The temperature of the wind cut through his body like knives or caressed him like warm silk.

  An electronic chime told him the call was connecting. He carefully arranged his face to speak to his assistant in New York.

  “Ben?” Chloe’s smiling face filled the screen. Her curly hair was tied back in a colorful scarf, and she was sitting outside in the sun. “Hey! I didn’t expect to hear from you today. I’m having lunch with Arthur.”

  The small designer poked his head into the viewing screen and Ben angled his head so his transformed eyes weren’t obvious.

  “Come home!” Arthur said. “Everyone misses you like crazy. I know you and Tenzin had a fight, but stop being stubborn or you’re going to give me wrinkles, and you know I’m too beautiful for wrinkles.”

  Ben couldn’t help but smile. “I miss you too, Arthur.”

  Chloe shoved him away. “Are you calling for work?”

  “Yes, but nothing related to a current client.” He took a deep, unnecessary breath and did the thing he’d been avoiding for two full years. “Do you still have my last mailing address?”

  Chloe’s eyebrows went up. “Yes.”

  The last mailing address she had was directed to a box that was regularly delivered by courier to Penglai Island, the home of Ben’s vampire sire.

  “I think you need to send my mail.”

  2

  The first time Ben had traveled to Penglai Island, he’d been a resentful human, pissed off at his vampire partner for dragging him into another job where he might end up dead.

  In the end, he hadn’t been killed, but only because Tenzin had taken it upon herself to fly his mortally wounded body to her sire and had convinced Zhang to change him.

  How? He still didn’t know.

  This time, instead of coming by boat, he flew through the air toward the golden jewel of an island set in the fog-covered sea. He was met by his sire’s guards at the air perimeter of the island, and the guards stopped and bowed midair when they realized who approached.

  “Master Vecchio.” A guard with a familiar face moved toward him. “This marshal greets you with joy on your return. The wind is strong tonight.”

  “The wind is very strong.” Ben searched his mind for the guard’s name. “Duan Liping, it’s good to see you again. Is my sire well?”

  The man beamed. “The elder is in excellent health.”

  “Thank you for your greeting.” It was far more than a greeting. Zhang Guo and Zhongli Quan were the two wind vampires among the Eight Immortal elders of Penglai Island, and they were responsible for marshaling the air guard that protected the islan
d, just as water vampires protected the seas. No one passed them without permission or invitation.

  Well, Ben didn’t need an invitation. Not anymore.

  Though most of the elders had immortal children collected over many centuries, Zhang had only two. For thousands of years, he’d had only one. Tenzin had been it.

  And now there was Ben.

  As the immortal son of the founder of the island, Ben could come and go at any time, though he’d only spent a little time there since he’d turned. The first year of his immortal life had been spent training in Mongolia, and the second year had mostly consisted of him wandering wherever the hell he wanted, learning the limits and extent of his flying while he tried to avoid thinking too deeply about anything else.

  He flew past the marshals and toward the large, square palace on the highest summit of Penglai Island. The traditional structure was divided between the eight immortals with Zhang holding the north-northwest corner as his own. Half the rooms had once belonged to Tenzin, but Tai had apportioned off several of them for Ben’s use when he was there.

  He flew to a training room with a retractable roof and saw a human servant stand up straight as he landed.

  “Master Vecchio.”

  “Just Ben,” he murmured, knowing it was useless to correct them. A part of him liked the formality. In a world that could be radically confusing, the structure of Penglai Island was blessedly welcome. Every type of vampire wore a different color robe, schedules were ruthlessly adhered to, and titles were respected. Servants addressed all vampires with respect and were respected in turn.

  Everyone had their role, including him.

  He’d landed in Penglai as the human, Benjamin Amir Santiago Vecchio, adopted son of Giovanni Vecchio, friend of Rome and Master of Iron in Lothian. He returned as Benjamin Amir Santiago Rios, Gan Jochi of the Kentii Mountains, Marshal of Penglai Island, bearer of the Laylat al Hisab, and Master of Iron in Lothian.

  He walked to the bedroom Tai had made for him and dropped off the backpack he’d brought from Kashgar before stepping behind a screen and removing the dark pants and shirt he’d been wearing when he flew from Kashgar.

  He used to think that Tenzin wore black as a statement, and maybe she did. Maybe that was part of it.

  The other part was bugs.

  So. Many. Bugs.

  Flying, he’d discovered early on, was messy. Sure, once you got high enough, the bugs kind of died off, but takeoffs and landings? Lower elevations? They could be a nightmare. No one had warned him about that part, though he had a feeling that Tai and Zhang were laughing on the inside the one time he flew too low over a cabbage field in the middle of summer.

  The black clothes went into the laundry that would be cleaned by silent servants, and Ben donned a simple grey robe. It was a uniform, but Ben didn’t mind.

  In this place, uniformity was comforting.

  He stared at his grey robes in the bathroom mirror. Zhang wore white; all the elders did. The first time Ben had visited Penglai, he’d worn black. It wasn’t only a warrior’s color, it was the color of water, identifying him with his aunt and uncle’s clan.

  Now he wore grey like Tai. A concession maybe? He was Zhang’s son but also Giovanni’s. Or was grey simply the color Zhang had chosen for his household?

  I have no desire to separate you from your uncle or aunt. I respect family. Nevertheless, you will not be permitted to return to them right now… You are not a water vampire or a fire vampire. You command the air.

  Ben hadn’t seen his family on anything other than a screen in over two years.

  And Tenzin?

  He hadn’t seen her at all.

  Memories of his human life were complicated. In the liminal space between waking and sleeping, they flooded through him, clearer than they’d ever been to his mortal mind. He remembered things from his childhood he’d never remembered as a human, facets of memories he’d hidden and locked away. Yet when he woke, even recent memories could be cloudy.

  * * *

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “Tell me later.”

  “No, I need to tell you now. I need to tell you now, Tenzin.”

  * * *

  A tap came at the door.

  “Enter.”

  It was Tai. The gracious vampire bowed and smiled when he saw Ben. “It’s good to see you. How was Kashgar?”

  “Does he know where I am all the time?” Ben buttoned his robe and straightened his collar in the mirror. Some humans thought vampires didn’t cast reflections. Ha! Most vampires were incredibly vain. They’d languish in despair without mirrors.

  Tai glanced around the room. “Zhang knows many people in many places.”

  “There was a woman there, at the oasis. She was watching me. She knew my name.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I thought so.” He jerked his head toward Zhang’s rooms. “So she wasn’t one of his people?”

  “Not that I know of, but he doesn’t tell me everything.”

  “She told me to answer my mail.”

  “Ah.” Tai raised a finger. “That I can help you with. It arrived yesterday.” He paused and looked at Ben. “It’s… substantial.”

  “I told Chloe just to send the important stuff.”

  “And I believe she did.” Tai pursed his lips. “But you have to remember, you knew many vampires in your human life, and you were sired unexpectedly to a very powerful ancient.”

  And rumors flew fast and loose among the immortal. “Okay…?”

  “Try to remember what our world runs on, Ben.”

  Ben shook his head. “Money?”

  “Power,” Tai said. “And favors. Both of which you are a source of now.”

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Just how many letters am I looking at here?”

  “Two hundred and thirty-seven?” Ben tried not to yell into the phone. “Chloe, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Excuse me?” Her tone said she wasn’t having even a little bit of it. “If you recall, I tried talking to you about your mail on a weekly basis. I said something every time I talked to you, and you kept brushing me off. Fabi’s been sending things from Rome. Caspar’s new guy… uh, Zan?”

  “Zain.”

  “Yeah. He’s been sending stuff too. You’ve been getting mail here, in LA, and in Rome. And it all comes to me, okay? I’ve been paying all your bills and dealing with your shit here, but it’s not my job to answer things addressed to you. Did you even notice the piles were organized in chronological order?”

  “I did notice that,” he muttered. “Thank you. Did she take care of any of them?” He stopped short of asking if Tenzin was in New York. He didn’t want to know.

  Probably. Maybe. Maybe he wanted to know just so he could avoid her.

  “Tenzin took care of anything addressed to the two of you or to the business.” Chloe huffed out a breath. “But she’s not going to touch your personal mail, Ben.”

  “Oh, now she respects boundaries?”

  “I am not getting into this with you! Do not put me in the middle of your relationship issues.”

  “We don’t have relationship issues because we don’t have a relationship.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” Chloe let out a long breath. “Seriously, every time I talked to you. Every single time I told you—”

  “Yes, I know. You told me I had mail.” Ben looked at the boxes of correspondence that had been delivered to the communications room in Penglai. “I just had no idea how much.”

  “One thing I noticed was that there were multiple letters from the same people. So it’s possible that when you sort things out, it’ll just be a lot of the same people writing you about one thing. It’s not necessarily two hundred thirty-seven different things on your to-do list.”

  He murmured, “It’s a good thing I’m in Penglai.”

  “Why? Because you have servants you can order around?”

  “Yes.” Zhang had many servants, and while Ben was usually retic
ent to ask for their help, this time he wasn’t going to be shy. “My skin is delicate now, Chloe. I might get a paper cut.”

  She snorted. “Right. One suggestion?”

  “Fire away. I promise I won’t ignore you ever again.”

  “Promises, promises.” He heard her shuffling papers. “There are probably tons of random requests. Tenzin explained that some of this is the vampire version of you winning the lottery. Every vampire you’ve ever met who thinks you like them—”

  “Sadly, there’s probably a lot of those.”

  “You weren’t exactly known for being a standoffish human. Most of them are probably going to be ‘Hey, my brother needs a kidney’ kinds of things.”

  “Who needs a kidney?”

  “No one probably. I just don’t know what lottery winners hear. I’m guessing. Sort through the randoms, but the one you really, really need to deal with is Radu.”

  “Radu?”

  “He sent a letter by private courier about six months after you went to Mongolia.”

  That stupid icon. Ben had forgotten all about it. “Don’t you think she could deal with it?”

  “He addressed it to you because you’re the one who responded to him in the first place.”

  “Because Giovanni referred him to me.” Ben didn’t get headaches anymore, but if he did, he would name his headache Radu. The Romanian vampire had been trying to hire him for something like three years now to find a lost Russian icon.

  But first they’d had to go to Puerto Rico to look for pirate treasure.

  And then they’d had to go to the East China Sea to help out Tenzin’s sire.

  And then… Well, life—or undeath—happened.

  “I’ll deal with Radu,” Ben said. “I may just lay things out for him and tell him we’re not—”

  “One thing you should know.” Chloe cut him off. “With his last letter, he sent a down payment.”

  Okay, that was interesting. “How much of a down payment?”

  “I’m not sure. But whatever the down payment is weighs about seven pounds and it makes Tenzin’s eyes light up.”