Elizabeth Hunter - A Hidden Fire

Beatrice had been captive a week and fallen into a monotonous rhythm. She woke. She took a quick shower and dressed herself in the white clothes, dumping the towel and dirty linens in a basket by the ocean door where another silent servant would carry them away at some point in the morning. No one ever talked to her. Her guard would open the door and she would sit in one of the chaises that faced the ocean, waiting for something to happen.

Nothing ever did.

When darkness fell, she could hear scurrying movements farther along the cliff to her left, but she never made any attempt to investigate the sick laughter or sounds of revelry that drifted to her room. Darkness meant vampires, and Beatrice may not have liked her human guard, but at least she didn’t think tall, dark and silent was going to rip her throat out if he got hungry.

Her door wasn’t shut until well after dark, so she often sat staring at the moon as it reflected off the dark water below her.

One night, about a week and a half after she’d been taken, she heard footsteps approaching. She tensed, but refused to run back to the corner, knowing that anything that came after her would just consider that an easier and more private meal.

To her surprise, it was Lorenzo who peeked his head around the corner.

“Hello, my dear. How are you enjoying your stay?”

Eying him warily, she took a moment to answer. Her own voice sounded strange to her ears.

“Well, I have no privacy, no human contact, and nothing to read or listen to other than the ocean. But at least your prison decorating skills are top notch, Lorenzo.”

He walked over to her and stretched out on another chaise, dressed from head to toe in loose white linen that made his inhuman skin glow in the moonlight. “You like it? I’m so glad my home meets your approval.”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, it’s just so…white. And white . And with all those white accents.”

Lorenzo smiled, his fangs dropping down. “Is this why Giovanni kept you around? To make him laugh? You smell as lovely as your father, so I’m sure he must have had to control himself if he didn’t bite you. It does make me wonder.”

She clenched her jaw for a moment. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Because he traded you?” Lorenzo shrugged. “Giovanni never cared for much besides his books and himself, to be honest. Don’t take it personally.”

Her mind flashed to a hundred different moments of kindness between them, but she didn’t want to dwell on those memories when the reality had turned out to be so much different. “I just have better things to think about.”

“I was expecting him to show up. I was so sure it was you he was smoking about in the library that day…but he hasn’t by now, so he probably won’t. If he cared for you at all, he’d be far more territorial.”

She stared at the ocean, remembering Giovanni’s fiercely protective behavior around Carwyn and Gavin. It had annoyed her at the time; but the moment she’d really wanted him to protect her, it had fallen away to nothing, so she didn’t know what to think.

“Something tells me he still has something up his sleeve.” Lorenzo flicked at a bug on his pants. “After all, one doesn’t hire expensive security for dinner. So…yes, I’m expecting something.”

“Yeah?” she muttered. “I’m not.”

She suddenly remembered him laughing over a bite of lemon cake she’d forced him to try. He’d made the most hilarious face, and she had leaned over and kissed his cheek in delight, laughing at his disgust and tugging the ends of his hair.

“You need a haircut.”

“I do not. Do you know how long it takes my hair to grow?”

“It falls in your eyes all the time and annoys you. Just a trim. I’ll do it for you; I used to cut my grandfather’s hair for him sometimes.”

“You’d cut my hair for me?”

“Sure.”

She felt tears come to her eyes, and she bit her lip until it bled, forgetting for a moment about the vampire sitting next to her in the dark. She glanced at him, worried he would try to bite, but he only handed her a white linen handkerchief and chuckled at her expression.

“I’ve had requests for you to join us in the evenings, but I doubt you’ll do that. But there’s a full library for you to enjoy, as well as plenty of music. I even have a music player you may borrow, if you like.”

“What’s the catch?”

His delighted laughter pealed out. “No catch, my dear. Xenos can come with you. He’s your personal guard, you know, chosen by me. No one will touch you or harm you in any way. After all,” he winked, “I need to have you in good condition when your father arrives.”

Her heart dropped. “My father’s coming? When?”

“I have no idea.” He shrugged. “Crafty little boy to have eluded me for so long. I’d really find it quite endearing if I didn’t want to kill him so much.”

Beatrice shuddered at his matter-of-fact tone. “Why? Why do you want to kill him? You made him a vampire, now you want to kill him?” Her frustration boiled over. “I don’t understand any of this! I feel like I got caught in some giant game all of you are playing, and I don’t even know why.”

Lorenzo’s head cocked; he almost looked amused. “I suppose it would be confusing to a human-even a bright girl like you.”

“So why don’t you enlighten me, Lorenzo? Since I’m here and no one seems to be coming to my rescue.”

He stared at her with the inhuman stillness she had come to associate with them. Finally, his lips cracked into a smile.

“You met my little mouse at the library, didn’t you? Scalia has been my mouse for many years, long before you were born, and long before he met your father in Houston when they were in school. It was pure chance that they met again in Ferrara.”

“My father wasn’t in Ferrara, he was in-”

“Yes, he was in Ferrara, researching some correspondence about Dante, of all people, and his exile in Ravenna, blah, blah, blah. Very boring. He was in the old library and had the unfortunate luck to stumble upon some books of mine. Books I had hidden there.” Lorenzo’s expression darkened. “Books that my little mouse was supposed to be guarding for me.”

“So you killed him? For finding some books?” She felt the tears slide down her cheeks. “He probably didn’t even know what he was looking at. Why did he have to die? Why-”

“It didn’t matter that he didn’t know, Beatrice. Scalia found him and your father began asking questions of his old school chum-questions I didn’t want any human asking. When Scalia told me about it, like the good little mouse he was, I decided to get rid of him. It seemed like the simplest thing.” Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “It’s my own fault I let myself be swayed to turn him. I thought he could be a replacement for Scalia, who had disappointed me, but sadly, your father was too bright.”

“And he ran away.”

“Yes, he did.” Lorenzo grimaced. “Though not before taking some books he knew I valued.”

“What books? Some of Giovanni’s?”

His eyes narrowed. “Some of mine . Our father-yes, we had the same father, I only call Giovanni ‘Papà’ because it annoys him-and it is technically accurate. Our father left them to him, when he should have left them to me. It didn’t matter what Giovanni thought. I was the one who had earned them.”

Lorenzo broke off, making a disgusted noise and flipping his long hair over his shoulder. “The fool was so trusting.”

“Who? Giovanni?” Beatrice was still confused. Was Lorenzo Giovanni’s brother ? His son ? She wanted to ask, but wanted to know about the books more.