She spoke her will into the still night air. “He is young. We will change his mind.”
Ben stretched out on the bed, which he’d dragged to the window overlooking the street. He propped the blinds open and listened to the morning call to prayer as it echoed down the narrow street in the old city. Though part of the new reconstruction, the neighborhood still held the flavor of the mud houses he’d seen on the road into town. So much of the old city was being demolished to widen roads and create safer housing. He hoped the character of this unique place could remain, because he already loved it.
It smelled of dust and roasted mutton. Bread and sesame hung in the early morning air. He closed his eyes against the grey light and took a deep breath. The tentative morning sounds started when the call to prayer died down.
As the city started to wake, he dozed.
He’d woken the young Chinese man who ran the hostel with a friend, begging a place to stay for a few days and offering enough yuan to make it worth his time. It was a hostel, but Ben had a private room and a bath, so he couldn’t complain. It was basic, but comfortable. And the quiet courtyard outside his room was lined with low tables and rugs. A comfortable place to remain anonymous.
Plus, you could never complain about free Wi-Fi.
He closed his eyes and dropped off to sleep. When he woke, it was already dark, and Tenzin sat in the window, perched on the wide ledge. He wondered if she’d flown up to it and if anyone had seen her. She made a picture, sitting there, her tangled braids wild from the wind. Black tunic and leggings. She was darkness in vampire form, her face the pale moon against the black night of her hair.
Ben reached under his pillow and grabbed his phone, snapping a picture of her before she could object.
“Don’t.”
“Too late.” He hid the phone under the sheet that covered him from the waist down. “Did you fly?” he asked, his voice rasping with sleep.
She shook her head. “Dropped from the roof. The roofs here are wonderful. Very easy to run across. If they don’t fall in when you land on them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Just avoid the older ones,” she said. “You were tired.”
He stretched up his arms, then absently scratched the line of hair that ran down the center of his stomach. “Exhausted.”
Tenzin cocked her head. “You have grown so tall. I forget sometimes that you cannot curl up as I can. The truck must have been uncomfortable.”
“It was fine. I’m not that tall.”
“Far taller than me.”
He was. But then Tenzin was barely five foot.
“What’s the plan?” He grabbed his shirt from the floor by the bed where he’d dropped it and held it to his nose before he grimaced. Nope. Wasn’t going to get another day out of that one. The drizzle of a shower last night had cleaned his body, but his clothes were another matter. There were clotheslines in the courtyard, but he didn’t know if he had time to do laundry.
“We can walk to the house from here. We’ll have to sneak into the old town. Only residents are supposed to go in there.”
“Is it that dangerous?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll see. There’s no question it will be demolished when the government finally gets to it, and the cache is buried beneath a house. It must be moved. There is no telling what the condition of anything will be.”
He rubbed his eyes and started to think practically. “Transportation?”
“We won’t be able to get a truck in, but we might be able to pay some locals to help us. Handcarts and the like.”
Ben shook his head. “Nothing goes without one of us accompanying it. You saw the crates in back of the truck. What’s your estimate?”
“To pack everything?” She mulled it over. “I think… ten. They can’t be too heavy because we’ll have to carry them.”
“That’s it?”
Tenzin grinned. “The most valuable things are often the smallest. Size is no guarantee of quality.”
He left that one alone. She probably wouldn’t get the joke anyway.
“Okay, so we could carry things out with a large cart. I’m guessing small, but heavy. How far to a main road?”
“Not far. A few blocks only. I’ll find a driver and… persuade him to stay with the truck while we’re loading everything up.”
“Persuade” likely meant she’d brainwash one with amnis. He didn’t have the inclination to argue. To accomplish this, they’d need all vampire tricks available.
“Okay, so tonight we’ll—”
“Grab the crates from the warehouse.”
“We crate up the gold,” Ben said, “then haul it to the truck.”
Tenzin nodded. “I’ll stay with the truck through the day. You stay here and enjoy a human-sized bed as long as you can. We can leave tomorrow night.”
“Fair enough.” There was something he wasn’t… Damn it, why did she always have to hit him with stuff when he was sleepy or distracted? She did that shit on purpose.
“It’s settled.” She leaned toward the street. “I’ll give you a few minutes to—”
“Wait!” He rubbed his eyes, racking his brain for the tail of the problem he’d detected. There was something…
“Anyone local will be watching hotels…”
“Tenzin, who’s the VIC here?” It was his own shorthand for Vampire In Charge. Because there was always a vampire in charge. Some areas had quiet vamps who looked the other way on pretty much anything. Other areas had micromanagers. But if there were people and resources, there was a VIC. And Ben had a feeling that this far west, it wasn’t Cheng.