Elizabeth Hunter - This Same Earth

“I need you here, Giovanni di Spada. I need you in Ireland. It’s Ioan…my son is missing.”

En route to Dublin, Ireland

December 2009

Giovanni pulled Beatrice close as the plane took off, both of them glancing out the window to see Ben waving at the plane with a frightened look on his face. Her grandmother had one hand on the boy’s shoulder and Caspar stood behind them. The three were leaving directly for the safe house in the Hill Country as soon as the plane was off the ground.

She huddled into Giovanni’s side and buried her face in his collar. They had fought horribly about her going with him, but he finally relented when she threatened to fly to Dublin on her own if he left her behind.

Giovanni gripped her arm as the plane took off, and she was almost afraid he would leave bruises. She was beginning to realize he hated flying. He never said anything, but every time they flew together, he looked distinctly uncomfortable at takeoff.

“Tell me about Ioan,” she said to distract him. She wondered whether he would break his usually reticent behavior to tell her anything specific.

“Ioan is…he’s Carwyn’s oldest son, and his biological great-grandson, I believe.”

“Really?”

“Great or great-great grandson, yes. He’s only about one hundred years younger than Carwyn. He’s very powerful and very smart. His wife, Deirdre, is Irish and they’ve lived in the Wicklow Mountains for the last two hundred years or so, though they’ve been married for much longer.”

“And they’re both Carwyn’s children?”

He nodded. “Yes, Ioan asked his father to change Deirdre. They met when she was human. I believe he was around five hundred years old at the time.”

Beatrice fell into silence, contemplating a couple that seemed suddenly very familiar.

“So, if he’s so powerful, how did he disappear?” she asked in a low voice. “Is it Lorenzo?”

Giovanni shook his head. “I don’t know. I think it has to be, but this attack doesn’t make sense. Ioan is not political. He’s one of the most compassionate vampires I’ve ever met. He’s also a superb scientist. Some of our conversations…” His face fell, and Beatrice realized that not only had Carwyn lost a son, but Giovanni had lost a friend if they couldn’t find Ioan.

“He has studied medicine for around three hundred years,” he finally continued. “And he will periodically go into Dublin for free clinics at night. He treats poor families, drug users, prostitutes…He has a very deep compassion for those on the fringes of society.”

“But how does that-”

“Carwyn said he disappeared from Dublin during one of these clinics. He’s weaker in the city. Earth vampires usually are. They draw their strength from the ground. And if he was put into a position where humans might have been hurt if he didn’t comply, Ioan would let them take him.” Giovanni sighed and closed his eyes. “He wouldn’t even hesitate.”

She swallowed and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Do you think he’s already dead?”

He shook his head. “Deirdre would know. They’ve shared blood for over four hundred years. She would know if he was dead.”

Beatrice fell silent, suddenly aware she knew nothing of the intimacies of vampire relationships. Though she had spent months with Isabel and Gustavo, it wasn’t something they discussed, and she suddenly felt like an awkward school girl.

As if sensing her discomfort, Giovanni looked down and smiled a little. “I tried to explain once…about the biting. There are different kinds of bites, Beatrice. It’s not always just to drink.”

“Oh,” she blushed, but he just pulled her closer, refusing to let her squirm away. “Well, I know that when you bit me…I mean, it didn’t hurt. It felt…good,” she said in a small voice. It had felt more than ‘good,’ but she didn’t want to dwell on the details when she was stuck in a plane with him for the next eight hours. “I guess I always assumed that if vampires bit each other, it was just for, you know, siring someone.”

When he spoke again, his voice was oddly formal, and it made her more comfortable to hear his “professor voice” when he was discussing something so intimate. “There are two different kinds of bonds that vampires will form with each other. Siring and, to use an old term, mating. When a vampire is sired, their blood is drained and replaced-”

“Does it hurt?”

He shrugged. “Not unless the sire wishes it. Andros had the odd theory, based only on his own madness, that a child sired in anger or pain would become unstable, but I’ve never seen any reason to believe that.”

“So it didn’t hurt when you were turned?”

Giovanni smiled and stroked her cheek. “No, tesoro . I knew what was going to happen. I can’t say I was eager to drink blood, but I didn’t want to die. Andros drained me…I don’t remember much after that. I woke up the next night as an immortal. It was…an adjustment. I had to get used to my new senses and abilities, and I felt a very strong attachment to Andros.”

He drifted off, lost in his own thoughts, and Beatrice took a chance on his talkative mood to ask something that had bothered her for years. “You seem like you have such complicated feelings for Andros; when you talk about him, it’s almost like you love him.”

“I did love him.”

“But you bartered with Lorenzo to kill him.”

“Yes,” he said, and his eyes shuttered.

She rose onto her knees and straddled his lap on the couch, forcing him to look at her.

“I don’t understand.”

He began several times but paused before he could speak. Finally, he continued in a whisper, “He would have used me. He was already planning something. I don’t know exactly what. You see, he never counted on me controlling fire. Once he knew…I think the temptation to use me for his own ends was too great.”

She stroked his face and ran her fingers through his hair. He almost seemed like a large, fierce cat as he pushed into her palm and sought comfort in her touch.

“You had him killed so he wouldn’t use you.”

He nodded, but his eyes were still haunted. “I loved him, but whatever he was planning I wanted no part of. And I knew…I knew he would have been able to convince me.”

“You can’t feel guilty, Jacopo,” she said gently, using his childhood name. “He was crazy. He murdered your uncle. He held you captive for ten years.”

Giovanni nodded. “Yes, and without him doing all that, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you. I would never have known Carwyn or Tenzin. No one would have been there to save Caspar. Benjamin would probably never have known a better life. So how can I hate him? His cruelty brought me to the people I love, Beatrice. What price can I put on that?”

She leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, smoothing the lines he created with his frown. Beatrice pulled his face into the crook of her neck and he wrapped his arms around her waist. He held her for hours until she drifted to sleep.

Wicklow Mountains, Ireland

December 2009

They arrived by car at the small lodge tucked into the Wicklow Mountains a few hours after dusk the next night. There was a grouping of low, whitewashed houses around a central open courtyard, where small children ran and laughed. A large farmhouse spread out from the rear of the courtyard and a sheep dog sat by the doorway. She could see two human women walking across the garden, speaking and gesturing with their hands, as they corralled the children into the glowing houses.

“There are a lot of humans here,” she said quietly to Giovanni, who had grabbed their bags and began walking toward the large farmhouse.