“Good night, Benjamin.”
He shut the double doors behind him and leaned back, letting out a long breath before he walked to his bedroom. “How much you want to bet…?”
❂
THE next night, he was working with Tenzin at her warehouse in East Pasadena. She’d converted most of the old building to a training area, complete with one full wall of weapons. The only personal space was a loft in the rafters with no ground access.
Because the only person allowed up there could fly.
The windows were blacked out, which made life easier when you didn’t sleep. At all. Ben didn’t know how she stayed sane. Then again, the state of Tenzin’s sanity was never a settled subject.
“Look at that.” She leaned over his shoulder and reached her finger toward the computer screen, which began to flicker before he slapped her hand away.
“Don’t touch.”
They were watching a video about Kalaripayattu, an obscure Indian martial art, that someone had posted on YouTube. Tenzin adored YouTube.
“But look at those forms,” she said. “So much similarity to modern yoga. But more…”
“Martial.”
“Yes, exactly. If you could isolate pressure points…”
She started muttering in her own language, which no one but Tenzin and her sire spoke anymore, though Ben thought he was starting to pick up some words. Giovanni theorized it was a proto-Mongolian dialect of some kind, but Ben only spoke Mandarin. He hadn’t delved into Central or Northern Asian languages yet.
“If you watch…” She frowned. “The balance. That is key. This is very good. We’ll incorporate some of the balance exercises for you since you are top-heavy now.”
“It’s called muscular, and it’s a product of testosterone. I refuse to apologize for that.”
“Look.” She slapped his arm. “The short-stick fighting. We can incorporate some of those techniques too.”
“Are you saying I have a short stick?”
She frowned, still staring at the computer screen. “What are you talking about?”
Ben tried to stifle a smile. She could be so adorably clueless for a woman with thousands of years behind her. “Nothing. Ignore me.”
“Oh!” She laughed. “Was that a sexual joke? That was funny. But your stick is not short, Benjamin.” She patted his arm. “You have nothing to be worried about.”
“Thanks. That’s… comforting.” He cleared his throat. “So, I told Gio I was heading to Italy for the summer. He said the house in Rome is mine as long as I help Zeno out with some stuff at the Vatican while I’m there.”
“That’s good.” She cocked her head, her eyes still stuck on the video playing. “Can you skip ahead to the dagger fighting?”
“Yeah.” He found the section that was her favorite. “So, Tiny, when you said that we’d be looking for Sicilian coins, did you mean we’ll be going to Sicily?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, leaning closer to the screen. “We’re going to Naples. That’s where the gold is. Or where it was.”
“Of course it is.”
“Is Naples going to be a problem?”
“With you, Tenzin?” Ben leaned back and crossed his arms. “There’s really no way of knowing.”
Chapter One
BEN FELT HIS SHOULDERS RELAX as soon as he stepped into the terminal of Leonardo da Vinci International Airport. He walked quickly through the crowd, making his way past the slow-moving early-summer tourists. He’d skipped a checked suitcase—the notes and journal Giovanni had given him were wrapped in the bottom of his messenger bag—so if he timed things right…
He arrived at passport control just before an enormous tour group of Chinese visitors flooded the line. With a few quick stamps and another few rote questions, the girl checking his passport stamped it and waved him through.
“Benvenuto a Roma, Signor Vecchio.”
“Grazie. Ciao.”
With his name and near-impeccable accent, she probably figured Ben for an Italian despite his American passport.
It wouldn’t be far off.
Though his blood was an even mix between Puerto Rican and Lebanese, he could easily pass for an Italian, especially when he grew out his beard, which he’d done as soon as his semester had ended.
Slipping on his sunglasses, Ben grabbed a cab and relaxed into the backseat, letting out a long breath as the taxi wound its way through the traffic of midday Rome. The driver hummed along with the quick jazz on the radio but didn’t try to talk to him. Ben gave him an address near the Pantheon and leaned back to close his eyes.
Rome.
Ben smiled. It was good to be back.
Home had always been a fluid concept to Ben. It consisted far more of the people present than any particular location. Home was Giovanni and Beatrice. Caspar and Isadora. Dez and Matt. But home was also Angela, Giovanni’s longtime housekeeper in Rome. If there was any city that felt more like home than Los Angeles, it was probably Rome. Some of his happiest and most terrible memories were here.
He started awake from his snooze when the driver stopped in the tiny Piazza di Santa Chiara. Ben paid him and grabbed his bag, then waited for the driver to pull away before he made his way up the side street that led to the house.
After punching in the code for the giant wooden door that shielded the property from prying eyes, he pulled it open, wondering how Angela was coping with the gate when she ran errands. His uncle, being a five-hundred-year-old vampire, tended to forget about things like human frailties and arthritis.