Tenzin realized that if it came down to alienating Cheng or Benjamin, she’d alienate Cheng first.
“Hmm.”
Ben heard her and asked, “What?”
“Nothing.”
He muttered something under his breath, but she couldn’t be bothered to listen.
Ben was an amusing human, but why would she alienate Cheng for Ben’s benefit?
Well, Cheng was immortal. If he became angry with her, she had plenty of time to make amends.
Ben was not immortal. And he belonged to Giovanni, who was hers.
Giovanni, who had also extracted a silly promise from her years ago about not turning Ben if he didn’t wish it.
She’d promised them both. Silly boys. Didn’t they know she lied when it suited her? That was the thing about having mostly immortal friends. You had lots of time to assuage their anger should it ever crop up. Ben, for instance, could barely remain angry with her for a week.
A week was nothing. Giovanni hadn’t spoken to her for five years once. It had been mildly annoying, but she forgave him.
The next night, Ben took Tenzin’s directions when they finally left the main highway and drove to an industrial area south of Shanghai. He could see the lights of the city in the distance, but Tenzin said the ship would leave from the commercial port and not the city that sat on the mouth of the Yangtze River. He was itching to see the city, but he was also eager to hand over control of the cache to someone who’d get it on a ship heading to the States.
“Turn right here,” she said, looking at the directions Kesan had given her in Ürümqi. “And then left at the light.”
“Are we meeting Cheng here?”
“No. We’re dropping off his truck. His manager will see that it gets on the cargo ship once we do. I’ll inspect it before the container is sealed. Do you still have the inventory?”
“Yep. And pictures.” They’d done a proper inventory just outside of Jiuquan. He’d intended to do it sooner, but Tenzin didn’t want to take any extra time when she didn’t know who they might have pissed off in Xinjiang. Jiuquan was well within her sire’s territory.
“Pictures?” She smiled. “How convenient. It will be much harder for him to lie to me then.”
“Do you expect him to lie to you?”
“Of course.”
“Maybe you need to reevaluate your friendships, Tiny.”
“Why?”
Ben shook his head and just kept driving. Far be it from him to question the twisted morality of vampires.
After he made the left at the light, he was forced to stop. The turn had taken him into a bank of warehouses, and there was a human guard standing by a locked gate.
Tenzin popped her head out the window and barked, “It’s Tenzin. Open the gate. Jonathan is expecting me.”
The guard either recognized her face or her name, because the human reached back into the small booth and pressed something that made the gate swing out. Within minutes, they were driving through the warehouses.
“Where to?”
“I have no idea. Just keep driving. I think these are all Cheng’s. Jonathan will find us.”
He didn’t look like a “Jonathan,” but a wind vampire swooped down and hovered next to the truck, motioning Tenzin to follow him. He led them down a narrow alley until Ben could see a figure looming at the end of one row. Tall and lean, the vampire had the glowing pallor of a man who’d been light skinned in life and was almost translucent in immortality. He was definitely not Chinese.
“Is that Jonathan?”
She nodded.
Jonathan wore a black trench coat despite the heat, and a thin blue scarf around his neck.
“He always wears the scarf. Don’t ask,” Tenzin said.
“Got it.”
Vampires were, almost to a fault, eccentric in some way or another. A scarf in tropical humidity was hardly the weirdest thing he’d ever seen.
Then she said, “Don’t speak.”
“Okay. Don’t kill anyone.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “I suppose we’ll both have to just do our best.”
Ben had to smile. And he was still smiling when he stopped the truck and climbed out. Jonathan raised a single eyebrow, the hollows of his cheeks shadowed in the glow of the headlights. He was handsome in that thin, European way a lot of vampires had. Tall and dark haired, the vampire’s eyes were shockingly blue, even in the low light of the industrial complex. He glanced at Ben for only a second before he turned his eyes to Tenzin. Beyond the facade of indifference, Ben could see the wary intelligence in his eyes. This was no overconfident flunky.
“Tenzin,” he said in a perfect British accent. “How lovely to see you again.”
“You too.” She jumped up and executed a few somersaults in the air, stretching herself after the cramped truck. Jonathan looked at Ben. Ben looked back, glanced at Tenzin flipping herself end over end in the air.
Ben shrugged. “She doesn’t like vehicles.”
“I imagine not. And you are?”
“Speechless until she kills someone.”
“Dear Lord,” Jonathan said. “You must be Vecchio’s ward.”
“I couldn’t say.”
Tenzin flew down and landed on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck from behind and her legs around his waist, careless as a kid asking for a piggyback ride.
“He’s mine,” Tenzin said. “Don’t try to steal him.”