And with the females… Tenzin couldn’t stop the smile.
Every girl Ben met fell half in love with him whether she wanted to or not. He was handsome, yes, but even more, she knew he truly enjoyed women and all their facets.
He caught her smiling at him.
“What?” he whispered.
Tenzin switched to Mandarin. “It was good for you to come here. You will see things more clearly.”
“What things?”
She didn’t answer him but leaned close and brushed a cool kiss over his bearded cheek. “I told you the beard was a good look for you. All the girls in the restaurant want to have sex with you.”
He shook his head. “Seriously, Tiny—”
“I’m going to go. You’re going to see Zeno tomorrow night?”
He nodded.
“I’ll find you. Good night, my Benjamin.”
“Night.”
She waved to the others but slipped away without another word. She stepped lightly through the crowd, marking the humans and few vampires who were patronizing the festival that night. She kept her head down, and within moments, she was past the lights of the riverbank. Past the clatter of humanity.
Tenzin melted into the comforting shadows and disappeared.
Chapter Two
THE VATICAN LIBRARY MIGHT HAVE been the most famed, mysterious library in the Western world, but Ben still thought it smelled like most libraries everywhere. Dust. Mold. A stale smell he associated with institutional cleaners. He leaned back at the table in Zeno Ferrera’s workroom and kicked his feet—newly shod in the best Italian leather thanks to his shopping trip with Fabi—on the table.
Zeno knocked them down. “Don’t make me beat you.”
The surly immortal had worked for his uncle over a year now, but he still held his connections with the church. Zeno had been a priest, and he was relatively young for an immortal, though he had been middle-aged when he’d been turned. He was just over one hundred years or something like that. Ben knew better than to ask.
“Grumpy old man,” Ben muttered. “And after I brought you presents too.”
Zeno waved a dismissive hand. “The journal will get at least one of our more… persistent clients off my back. He showed up at the library unannounced last week and surprised Fina. She wasn’t pleased.”
“I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
“Yes.” Zeno drew out the word. “I think he is too.”
The grumpy vampire had married the human librarian who ran Giovanni’s library in Perugia, and he was rabidly possessive of both the woman and her young son.
“Fina and Enzo coming to Rome?”
“And swelter in this heat?” Zeno asked. “It’s cooler at home. And Enzo’s still finishing his school term. I think we’ll take a holiday to the mountains if the weather doesn’t let up. She’s been asking for one, and the Naples theft…” Zeno shook his head and muttered under his breath. “It’s been driving both of us crazy.”
“Was it that bad?” Ben had a hard time understanding his family’s obsession with books.
It wasn’t that Ben didn’t love books. He’d been a voracious reader since before he’d met Giovanni. Books were one of the few cheap and available escapes he’d had as a child. Alcohol made his mother cry. Drugs were expensive and dangerous.
But stories…
He’d split any time he could get away from his mother between the public library and the Metropolitan museum. But he couldn’t understand the overriding desire to preserve medieval tax records or Renaissance-era farming manuals like they were made of precious metal.
“We don’t know how big the Naples theft was,” Zeno said. “That’s part of the problem. And it wasn’t just books.”
“What does that mean?”
Zeno raised an eyebrow. “Valuables, my friend. Artifacts.”
Okay, now his interest was piqued. Ben leaned forward. “I didn’t hear Gio mention any artifacts. What’s missing?”
“We don’t know unless a client tells us. And your uncle doesn’t deal in antiquities. Only books.”
Ben’s excitement fled. Bummer. Artifacts would have been interesting.
“A large portion of the library was uncatalogued,” Zeno continued, paging through Giovanni’s notes. “Partly because it’s so old, and partly because many immortals used it like their own personal storage unit.”
“That seems… unusual.”
Zeno shrugged. “It’s Naples. They’re crazy down there.”
Ben laughed.
“I can say that,” Zeno said, “because I was born there. It’s the truth.” He tapped his temple. “Everyone from Naples… We’re a little off, yes? We like it that way. Keeps life interesting.”
“Makes me think I should be hanging out in Naples more.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” Zeno said, shutting him down. “Maybe in another hundred years when there’s a different vampire in power.”
Ben pursed his lips. “So… when I’m dead.”
Zeno frowned. “Why?”
“What?”
“I always assumed Giovanni would sire you. Why wouldn’t he? You’re his son.”
“I’m his nephew.”
“So?”
“And I don’t want to be a vampire.”
Zeno shook his head. “You’re a fool.”