Walking behind him came Ben’s uncle, Giovanni Vecchio.
“Baba!” Sadia wiggled down and ran to her father to be picked up, carefully swerving around Caspar as Ben walked to meet him.
Caspar had been Giovanni’s child once. Then his ward, his driver, his day person. His security and confidant. His friend. And one of the few people in the world Ben had trusted almost immediately, not that he’d made it easy on Caspar when he’d been a punk twelve-year-old convinced everyone was out to get him.
“I missed you.” Ben stood in front of Caspar and the old man looked up. Once, Ben had been the one looking up.
Caspar clapped him on the shoulders and looked him directly in the eyes. “It’s a fine thing.”
Is it? Ben said nothing.
The old man patted his cheek as if he’d been reading Ben’s mind. “A fine thing,” he said slowly. “In the end you’ll see.”
“I really missed you.” Ben put his arm around Caspar’s shoulders and guided him toward the kitchen table.
Beatrice rose and took the glass pan of enchiladas to the kitchen, sliding them in the oven as Giovanni moved to her and greeted her with a kiss. “Can I help?”
“Oh, please don’t.” Beatrice smiled. “We’d like dinner to be edible for Ben’s first night home.”
Sadia leaned on Giovanni’s shoulder. “Baba made me macaroni and cheese last night.”
“Did he?”
“Yes,” Giovanni said pertly. “I did.”
“Was it from a box?” Beatrice asked.
“Yes. A blue box. And it was this big” —Sadia held out her hands— “and I ate the whole thing.”
Ben sat next to Isadora and leaned over to kiss her cheek.
“It’s about time you said hello to me,” she said. “Turning into an immortal better not have ruined your manners.”
“I promise it hasn’t. But it has spoiled my appetite.”
Isadora dearly loved cooking gigantic meals for Ben when he was growing up. He ate like a horse, and Isadora delighted in feeding him.
“Then I will only say that it is a very good thing that Zain moved in.” Isadora clasped his hand in her fine fingers. “I’m teaching him all my recipes, and he eats like a grown man and not a vampire.”
“Good.” Ben smiled. “What have you been painting?”
“Tenzin sent us a lovely picture of your birds, so I’m painting a watercolor for Sadia’s room since she likes them so much.”
Ben knew Isadora knew the whole story. He lowered his voice. “Why does everyone keep referring to them as my birds?”
Isadora smiled slowly. “Because they are.”
* * *
Hours later, with dinner dishes clean and small girls tucked into bed, Ben, Beatrice, and Giovanni sat in the family library, drinking scotch and talking about work.
Of course, it wasn’t the main Vecchio library. That was in Perugia and contained a treasure trove of classical manuscripts and alchemical literature by humans and vampire scholars.
And it wasn’t the Alvarez New World library that Beatrice had recently been consulting for. That would be a similar collection of historical literature and accounts from North, Central, and South America sponsored by Beatrice’s many-times-great-grandfather, Don Ernesto Alvarez.
No, it was just their small family library that took up nearly the entire second floor of the mansion in San Marino.
What could he say? Ben came from a family of book nerds. Giovanni Vecchio might have once been a feared assassin, a fire vampire of ancient lineage and remarkable power, and Beatrice might have been renowned for her wits and political acumen at vampire courts all over the world, but in the end?
Giant, giant book nerds.
Giovanni was examining the three letters from Radu, the Romanian vampire who wanted to hire Ben. “You do realize he thinks he’s getting both you and Tenzin, don’t you?”
Ben bristled. “I realize that, but I’m hoping that with a little of your help, I can do the job myself and not need her.”
Giovanni raised an eyebrow but didn’t lift his eyes from the letters. “I did a little research on this icon when the job first came up. I confess, it’s more interesting than most of the antiquities you and Tenzin go after.”
He had to stop reacting to her name. It was everywhere, and he wasn’t going to stop people from using it. She was too integrated into his family. “You’re telling me Radu’s icon is more interesting than a ninth-century sword preserved perfectly in blown glass, sitting at the bottom of the ocean for a thousand years?”
Beatrice let out a longing sigh. “I really need to see this thing.”
Ben turned to her. “It’s incredible. Seriously. Incredible.”
“The icon” —Giovanni tried to steer them back on course— “is a rare one. I will give Radu that. But Russian icons—normally speaking—would not fetch the kind of money he’s offering, which tells me that this job is more about sentiment than profit.”
“Good.” Ben paged through the file Beatrice slid across the table. “He won’t quit paying until I find it.”
“Not good,” Giovanni said. “That means he won’t be rational about it if you don’t. It’s personal. And from my initial research, there’s a reason no one has been able to find it in a couple hundred years.”
“Look.” Beatrice nodded toward the closest library wall where a screen was slowly lowering. “I taught him to use PowerPoint presentations.”
Ben frowned. “Did you give him a laser pointer?”
“Yep.”
“Then may God have mercy on us all.”
“Do not let Radu fool you.” Giovanni continued, completely ignoring them both. “This job is far from the ordinary smash and grab you and Tenzin enjoy.”
Ben looked at his aunt. “He’s trying to use slang again.”
“I know,” Beatrice whispered. “Just let him. He thinks it makes him more relatable.”
Giovanni switched on the projector with a long stylus that wouldn’t short out the machine. “The icon Radu wants is the oldest known depiction of Saint Sara-la-Kali.”
“Not familiar with her.”
“She’s not well known outside of a few rather insular communities. Sara’s story goes back to the legend of the Three
