“Don’t scare the boy. I can fly back if time gets short.”
Tenzin floated out of the boat and Ben leapt across to the closest dry step.
“Thanks, Claudio.”
“See you later,” the young man called in English.
Tenzin took Ben’s hand and led him down narrow pitch-black streets. Within minutes they were standing outside a small warehouse, its high windows glowing with a red-gold light.
Tenzin knocked once, then pushed the door open. They walked in to see a large, open workshop with a glowing-red forge at one end, racks of tools and equipment across the opposite wall, and a large worktable at the other. A worktable where a black-haired vampire held a woman sprawled. She was half-undressed and her hand clutched his long hair.
“Oscar!” Tenzin yelled.
The vampire’s head rose, blood dripping from his lips and his fangs bared.
“You’re late,” he growled. His hands still pinned the woman down, but she was struggling.
Ben’s lip curled and he reached for the knife at his waist. Tenzin put a hand out, halting him.
“I’m paying you to mint coins, not have sex with your engraver. Let Ruby go and show me what’s finished.”
Chapter Six
RUBY SMACKED OSCAR’S MASSIVE SHOULDER. “Let me up, you beast. And get your hands out of my knickers. You got no sense of propriety, you don’t. Sorry, Tenzin!”
Ben turned and faced the forge. “Maybe we should have waited for them to answer the door, huh, Tiny?”
“Why?”
“I forget I ask this of the woman who regularly climbs in my bed to stare at me while I sleep.”
“You make it sound creepy, when really I’m just impatient.”
Ruby continued to berate Oscar as she dressed. The old vampire muttered something under his breath and she quieted. Then he walked to the forge and waved them over.
“This gold,” he said, motioning to a small table. “It’s very soft.”
“It should be the same composition as the originals,” Tenzin said, picking up a button of gold from a shallow pan of sand where a row of buttons had been poured. She dropped it in the bucket nearby.
“It is,” Oscar said.
Ben couldn’t quite place Oscar’s accent. He didn’t sound or look Italian. Ben was guessing Spanish, but what would a Spanish glassmaker be doing in Murano? He had a large, smooth scar up the side of his neck, and his head was square as a block. Heavy black hair curtained a face that wasn’t handsome but might be called compelling.
Oscar took a pair of clippers and snipped at the row of gold buttons, trimming them into neat rounds as he dropped them in the water. “The softness of this particular alloy means we’ll have to do more deformation with the finished pieces than I originally planned.”
“You saw the originals I brought. I trust your skills.”
“I want some of the trimmings from the reproductions.”
Tenzin cocked her head and watched him work. “No.”
“I want them,” Oscar said, dropping the trimmed gold into a small crucible where he’d melt it down again to make more buttons. Ben could see another pan of sand with round indentations where the smith would pour the next batch of molten gold. “I’m willing to subtract the value out of my fee. I’ll even pay above market.”
Now Tenzin looked curious. “Why?”
“I want it for a project. That’s all you need to know,” Oscar said. “Can we work something out or not?”
Tenzin said, “Fine. I’ll talk to you about it when the coins are done.”
“Good.” He nodded toward Ruby and continued trimming. “She has the last two die sets done.”
“Excellent.”
Ben and Tenzin walked back to the worktable where Ruby was still tucking in her shirt. “Sorry about that, Tenzin.”
“Forget about it,” Tenzin said. “Ruby, Ben. Ben, Ruby.”
“Oh, oi,” Ruby said, dark brown eyes sparkling in her round face. She looked African, but every syllable she spoke screamed London. Ben liked her smile, even when he caught the edge of tiny fangs peeking from her lips. “Pleasure to meet you, Ben.”
Not a human. Interesting.
“Nice to meet you too.” He held out a hand and she took it immediately. Ben was guessing Ruby was fairly young. Her mannerisms and slang said newly turned, and her hair was cut in a stylish, short afro held back with a deep purple scarf.
“So you’re the engraver?” he asked.
“I am now!” She grinned. “Oscar taught me the engraving bit. I was an art student before… before.”
“She’s good,” Oscar growled across the room. “She’ll be better than me with practice.”
“And this was very good practice,” she said, pulling up the heavy metal dies with intricate carvings on the face. “Now keep in mind, the actual dies would have degraded over years of use, but we don’t have time for that. These are the new ones, but like the other two sets, Oscar’ll heat ’em and cool ’em a few times to soften up the edges before we strike the actual coins.”
Tenzin nodded as if that all made sense. Ben was quickly catching up.
The original coins were over eight hundred years old. They would be scarred and deformed from time. Though gold didn’t deteriorate like silver or bronze, some marks of age would be inevitable. The original coin dies used to strike them would have had variations too. So after producing the imitations, Ruby and Oscar were going to have to age them. Each coin would have to be just a little different, or the ruse would be obvious.