Apparently they’re both being silent lately.”
“She usually only does that when she’s meditating.”
“Yes, I know.”
The silence stretched again. “Well, if there’s something to know-”
“She’ll send word.”
“Yes.”
Both were silent on the line again as they gathered their thoughts.
“I’m glad I’m coming, too, if for no other reason than to eat Caspar’s food. He’s a much better cook than Sister Maggie.”
“Be careful how loud you say that, Father. Gruel for a month if she hears you.”
Carwyn chuckled. “She’s happy to get rid of me for a while. She’s going to visit her sister’s family in Kerry while I’m gone.”
“We’re looking forward to seeing you. Doyle especially.”
“And on that note, I’m hanging up. Don’t call me again unless there’s an emergency. I’ll be there in two weeks, for heaven’s sake. Oh, have you ordered the match already?”
“Of course. It’s on the night after you get here.”
“Excellent. Goodbye.”
“I’ll see you next week.”
Giovanni hung up the phone and picked up the printouts Caspar had made of his e-mails from the previous day. Looking through them, he noticed they were still being put off by Livia’s people in Rome, and his client for the Lincoln documents was making a fuss again. He was bored by the whole matter and wondered whether he should just return the rude human’s retainer and move on to something more interesting.
Then again, he realized, the case might be a good one to give to Beatrice. It was sure to keep her busy. The client was human, so the consequences of missing something or failing to find the requested document were negligible. Yes, he thought, it might be a good first project for the persistent Miss De Novo.
He almost overlooked the last email in the stack. It was short, cryptic, and had clearly come from an immortal, as it was sent to the e-mail address he gave only to vampire clients. The message was brief, and the sender used an obviously false address.
He looked at the date and time the e-mail was received and stared at the final initial. Giovanni opened the locked drawer on the top right-hand side of his desk and slid the paper inside. Then he leaned back, sipped his whiskey, and let his thoughts wander to the past.
“It’s there somewhere.”
“I’ve looked, Gio. It’s not.”
“Yes, Beatrice, it is. The client has been waiting for this document for months now. It is your job to find it. We know it was sold at auction in 1993. We know it’s in a private collection somewhere on the Eastern seaboard,” he lectured her as he pored over one of his journals he had taken from his locked cabinet. “Put the pieces together. There are only so many auction houses that deal with that kind of document on the East coast, and most of them keep old catalogues online now.”
“From ten years ago?”
He shrugged as he sat at the dark oak table in the middle of the room. “Well, that’s what I hired you for. I tracked it to the auction. The rest is the easy part. Look at the list I gave you.”
He had put her on the trail of the boring Lincoln document earlier that night while he looked over some of his past clients, trying to ascertain who, exactly, the mysterious ‘L’ might be who had sent the cryptic e-mail. He wasn’t wasting energy on speculating what he or she might have sent, as there was wasn’t enough information yet. Whoever it was, he was certain it was related to Stephen De Novo and his lost books.
“This is going to take forever.”
“Forever is a very relative term when you’re talking to me. It’s going to take more time than you’ve spent on previous projects your insipid professors at the university have assigned you. Not forever.”
“Old man,” she muttered under her breath.
“Warned you, B,” Caspar called from the doorway.
“I should have listened; his looks are deceiving,” she grumbled as she turned her eyes away from him to blink at the glowing monitor.
He ignored them both and took out one of his journals from the period before he was turned, when Savaranola’s bonfires tore through the city of his birth.
Caspar walked over and set a mug of hot tea in front of Beatrice before taking a whiskey to Giovanni. The butler set the tray down on the coffee table and picked up his own book to read in his favorite chair by the fire. It was Beatrice’s third week working at the house, and the three of them had already fallen into a comfortable rhythm.
Giovanni darted around the library, often moving so quickly he startled Beatrice as she sat behind the computer, clicking the keys as she stared at the monitor, searching the vast digital territory he could not access. Giovanni would call out search terms as he worked, and she shooed him away if he got too close to the electronic equipment.
Caspar joined them to read halfway through the evening, often bantering about favorite horror films with Beatrice or needling Giovanni in various languages.
Doyle moved almost as quickly as the vampire, jumping from lap to lap and looking for any imminent treats to be dropped or sneaked behind Giovanni’s back.
“Seriously, Gio. I see one of these houses you list with catalogues online, the rest-”
The kitchen door slammed, and they all started at the sound. Giovanni held up a hand for silence, but didn’t hear any additional noise. Caspar walked swiftly to Beatrice’s desk and stood next to her, looking far more dangerous than one might expect from a sixty-seven-year-old butler.
Giovanni, on the other hand, let out a low growl and slipped out the door in the blink of an eye.
He paused on the stairs, sniffed the air, and relaxed.
“You can hide, Carwyn, but your wet wolfhound cannot. I have company. Stop scaring the guest.”
All of a sudden, something pounced on his back, and Giovanni and the silent intruder tumbled down the stairs in a blur. They rolled toward the entry way, knocking over a green vase that stood in the exquisitely appointed room. A pale white hand shot out, catching the vase before it hit the ground and tossing it toward the plush sofa.
“That is turn of the century Bien Hoa. If you break
“Oh, it’s fine, Gio! You’re such a prissy bastard sometimes.” Carwyn twisted around, trying to capture his friend’s leg in a lock, but failed. Carwyn had never been faster than him. His only advantage lay in his broad shoulders, heavily muscled arms, and the element of surprise, which he had lost.
Giovanni twisted around, finally getting out of the choke-hold and flipping backward over Carwyn’s head to leap on his back. In no time, the Welshman was flat on his face with one arm twisted behind him, and a long leg bent his knees at angles that would have broken a mortal man.
Giovanni decided to shock him, just for good measure. Carwyn hissed when he felt the sharp sizzle course through his body.
“Damn it, Sparky!” he yelped. “Not fair.”
“Yield?”
“Of course, you bloody Italian, I yield. Now let me up.”
Giovanni stood with a grin, holding his hand out to his old friend who scowled at him and grabbed it in a harder grip than strictly necessary. Carwyn walked over to the couch to retrieve the vase.
“See? Not a scratch. I was an expert archer, you know.” He pulled back an arm as if aiming an arrow and sighted Giovanni with one blue eye. “Sired in my prime.”
