“You know, I already know I have a short attention span, you obnoxious git. You don’t have to rub it in.”
Giovanni took a deep breath, and laid a hand on Caspar’s shoulder. “The point is, she’s at an impulsive age, and if she has feelings for me, they are…infatuation. It wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of that.”
“But you’ll use her to find her father, won’t you? No problem taking advantage of that.”
He stiffened and pulled away. “You said yourself, she wants to find him, too.”
Tears pricked Caspar’s eyes when he looked at him.
“You’re a good man, Giovanni Vecchio. Don’t forget that in this mad search.”
Caspar turned and walked back to the sofa, sitting and picking up his drink. He stared into the fire and Giovanni watched the calm settle over him.
“You know, I don’t remember much from my life before you. I was so young when you took me in. I remember hiding in that attic in Rotterdam with my father. I remember how hot it was, how stifling. I remember the smell of dust and old paper from the books my father saved.”
“You were such a quiet child.”
“I remember seeing you for the first time,” he continued, “and my father holding me and telling me I could trust you because you were an old friend. That you weren’t one of the bad men, even though you were a stranger. That you would take care of me.”
Giovanni sat down in his chair and took a sip of scotch.
“Were you scared? When I took you to England? When you had to be locked up during the day in the house when you were little? I tried to explain it the best way I could, but you were only four or five, you must have been confused.”
Caspar shrugged. “Children are so adaptable. I don’t remember being afraid. I remember being a little older and realizing that most children didn’t sleep during the day and that most went to school, but by then I understood what you were. And then, there were all our adventures.”
Giovanni had taken Caspar on many trips as the boy had grown older and more useful. He had always been a wonderful companion. At first, he had called him his son, then his nephew, then eventually his brother as their appearances became more similar and Caspar aged.
In his long life, the boy he had rescued remained the human Giovanni had loved the most, and it had broken his heart when Caspar told him in his forties he had decided he didn’t want to be turned. He was the first human the vampire had truly wanted to sire.
He looked at the old man. “Has it been a good life with me, Caspar? Do you regret never marrying or having children? Did I keep you from that?”
Caspar shook his head. “I never felt like, had I wanted a family, they would have been unwelcome to you. And I know how fond you are of children. No, I just never found the right woman, I suppose.”
“Isadora?” Giovanni asked with a smirk.
He shook his head, a smile creeping across his face. “She’s one of a kind, Gio. My lord, she’s so bloody adorable. I want to steal her away and monopolize her every moment.”
“You are smitten, old friend.”
“Completely. You’ve met her, can you blame me?”
Giovanni smiled thinking of Isadora and Beatrice. He thought about the two women, grey hair against black, with their heads together, smiling on Dia de los Muertos. He thought of the way they laughed and teased each other, and the ease and love between them. In his mind, he saw Beatrice as she aged, her dramatic features slowly taking on the handsome dignity of her grandmother and her eyes exhibiting the unique wisdom that was only evident from a life well lived.
“No, I certainly can’t blame you, Caspar. They’re stunning.”
Caspar cocked an eyebrow, but Giovanni continued. “If things get dangerous in the city, take Isadora to the house in Kerrville. You’ll both be out of the way there. I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
“What about B?”
“No, she stays here. I’ll need her.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to her.”
“Because you need her?”
He glanced at Casper in the flickering light. The fire had started to die down, and he could feel the dawn beginning to tug at him after his long journey.
“You need her,” Caspar repeated, “so you’ll keep her safe?”
“Of course.”
Caspar nodded and finished his drink, setting it down on the coffee table and standing up from the sofa. “Of course.”
The old man walked upstairs, his step slightly slower than the year before as he climbed to the second floor. The next year would be slower still, until it would be necessary to move his old friend to one of the rooms on the ground floor. Though he knew Caspar was in excellent health, he also knew that the passing of time carried inevitability and with that would come loss.
He spent another hour staring into the fire before he finally banked it and climbed the stairs. He entered his walk-in closet, took off his old watch and put it on the dresser before he stripped out of his clothes and placed them in the laundry basket for Caspar to tend in the morning. He punched in the code to his sleeping chamber and walked through the reinforced door.
As he entered, he looked around at the spartan furniture that decorated the space. There was only a small bed; despite his tall frame, his body would hardly move while in its day rest, a desk where he kept some writing paper, the older fountain pens he still preferred, and a rotary phone. The one piece of decoration was the photograph of the Arno River that flowed through the heart of Florence and the arches of the Ponte Vecchio that spanned it. The picture had been taken in the middle of the day, and the shops along the bridge glowed vividly in the searing Italian sun.
On the wall opposite the framed photograph, there was a large bookcase filled with his collection of journals. In them were the collected memories of five hundred years; no one had ever read them besides himself. As he lay in bed and waited for the pull of day, he tried to imagine Beatrice in this small, confined room.
He could not.
Giovanni heard her before he scented her, and he scented her when she walked in the house. He forced himself to sit at the table in his library and examine the fifth letter as Beatrice chatted with Caspar in the kitchen. It was a lighthearted letter; with Poliziano teasing about the debates in Rome and warning his friend to not speak publicly about the mystic texts Andros had given him.
The debates, he remembered, had not been successful, and the Pope had only been angered. He smiled when he saw the closing paragraph.
He paused in his examination when he heard Beatrice climb the stairs. He couldn’t help but notice her step did not have its usual exuberance.
“Hey.”
He looked up to meet her dark eyes, immediately tempted to throw away every stern admonition he had given himself when he saw her form-fitting black shirt and slim burgundy skirt. He glanced at her feet and smiled when he saw she was wearing her combat boots again, but he forced himself to stay seated.
