Elizabeth Hunter - This Same Earth

“Yes,” he finally said. “It is difficult to think that someone so powerful could be cut down.”

“This is Lorenzo, isn’t it? He did this. Or someone he hired.”

He pushed back the useless well of guilt. “It has to be. First he attacked someone important to you, then the child he knew would pain Carwyn the most.”

“Is he-I don’t know the right term-herding us? We were spread out before and now Carwyn, you, and I are together. If he wanted to attack us-”

“He won’t be that direct, I don’t think. He’s not strong enough. He’s going after the people we care about to distract us and throw me off balance.”

“Should we warn Tenzin?”

He snorted. “Tenzin has four beings she cares for enough that Lorenzo might target them. Three are in this house, and the other is more protected than you could imagine. Don’t worry about Tenzin. Lorenzo should be the one worried. Tenzin was…fond of Ioan.”

He broke off, overwhelmed as grief ambushed him again. He gripped Beatrice against his chest, more afraid of loss than he had been in hundreds of years. If he could have allowed himself to weep, he would have at that moment. “I should call Caspar and check in, make sure everything is all right,” he said hoarsely.

“I called my grandma a few hours ago,” she said. “They’re fine. In the mountains and hidden. Ben isn’t causing any problems.”

He relaxed a little. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to do everything yourself, you know.”

He smiled ruefully. “I’m not used to asking for help.”

“Well…” She faltered a little before she continued in a quiet voice, “Get used to it.”

He wanted to see her eyes in that moment, when her heart was racing and her face was flushed, but she was turned away, so he simply kissed the top of her head.

“Beatrice-”

Suddenly the air churned with the scent of power, and Giovanni turned toward the flurry of activity in the hall. He leapt up and opened the door. Beatrice peered out from underneath his cautious arm.

“Deirdre, wait!” Carwyn shouted in the corridor.

The scent of blood and dirt hit his nose as he saw Deirdre stride toward them, carrying what was left of Ioan’s body wrapped in a dusty sheet. She walked down the narrow hall, still naked and covered with earth as she headed toward the chamber she had shared with her husband for over two hundred years.

She paused briefly and her eyes glanced over his shoulder where Beatrice stood behind him in the small stone room. The widow’s eyes searched his out, and he shuddered at the utter desolation.

So quiet even he could barely hear her, Deirdre breathed out, “Are you sure?” Then she turned the corner, and he heard a door slam shut. Soon afterward, Carwyn walked down the hall and Giovanni could hear him enter the room. Then the low keening wail started again, and he pressed the door closed.

Four days later, the majority of Ioan’s clan, his friends, and those who had known him had gathered on the small mountain. Carwyn and his daughter emerged the night after she brought Ioan’s body home, the priest carrying the small wooden box of earth that contained all that was left of the nine-hundred-year-old vampire he had sired.

The mood on the mountain was cautious and confused. Ioan had been known not only as a powerful and ancient earth vampire, but as a scholar and a humanitarian. The idea of any immortal targeting him was seen by most of his friends and allies as supremely wasteful and far from shrewd, considering his alliances.

The moon was almost full, and the night was crisp and clear when Carwyn returned the remains of his last blood relative to the earth. Giovanni stood silently, grieving as his friend spoke the ancient rite over his child, and all those gathered felt the surge of energy as the clan reached down and touched the mountain together as the earth he had loved became Ioan’s final resting place.

The following night, the clan of Ioan ap Carywn and Deirdre Mac Cuille gathered on the hilltop to grieve, as Carwyn and Giovanni met in the library of the main house with Deirdre and Beatrice to talk about what steps they needed to take. Deirdre had found Ioan’s beheaded remains on the bank of the Liffey River, dumped by whoever had killed him.

“Murphy still has his people looking in the city and the port, and my people are scouring the coast of Wales to make sure they didn’t escape in that direction,” Carwyn said.

“The humans whose memories were tampered with were here,” Giovanni pointed to a location on the map of Dublin spread out before them. “But the warehouse is here. Now that warehouse backs up to the port, so it’s also likely that Murphy is right, and whoever did this is already out of our reach for right now. Beatrice?”

“Yes?”

“Is it possible for you to search online to see what ships were in the port the night Ioan died and where they went?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded. “I just need an internet connection.”

“Good, you do that and I’ll give you the number of Murphy’s day people so you can contact them if you run into any problems. He’s offered the use of any of his resources-”

“Damn right he has,” Carwyn muttered, obviously still unhappy with the water vampire who controlled the city where his son had been killed.

“-to catch whoever took Ioan.”

“We know who took him,” Deirdre said with a sigh. “We know who it is, Gio. Why are you wasting time?”

Giovanni’s shoulders tensed when he heard her hollow voice; he braced himself for her recrimination, but her empty gaze was fixated on a canvas she had painted of Ioan, which hung on the wall near the small fireplace in the corner of the library. He looked at the painting, which had captured his friend’s lively smile and the wicked humor he had inherited from his father.

“Deirdre-”

“I’ll not be leaving the mountain, Gio. Not right now. There is too much to do and too many defenses to shore up. Our people need me here, so I’ll depend on you and Father to kill him for me.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

“Though I’d rip his heart out of his body and feed it to the dogs,” Deirdre said in a low voice, “just to rip it out again when it grew back.”

The intense guilt from his son’s actions almost threatened to overwhelm him, but Giovanni stood, stoically meeting Deirdre’s vicious gaze.

“Kill him, Giovanni di Spada. I will not have you take his sin on your shoulders, but I do expect you to rid the world of this monster.”

“I will,” he whispered, as he fixed her burning blue eyes in his mind.

“I demand it of you.”

“The right is yours, Deirdre, and I will honor it.”

“For me, for Ioan, and for your woman as well.”

He saw Beatrice’s lip twitch minutely when Deirdre called her “his woman” and the grieving widow must have seen it as well, because she turned to Beatrice.

“Do I offend your modern sensibilities, Beatrice De Novo, to call you ‘his woman?’”

An embarrassed flush rose in Beatrice’s cheeks, and she opened her mouth to speak, but Deirdre continued, scorn dripping from her words.

“This immortal ,” she said, pointing to Giovanni, “who has never claimed a human woman in five hundred years, is not worthy of calling you ‘his?’ This vampire who wields the fiercest of elements with iron control is the one you dismiss?”

“Deirdre,” Giovanni cautioned, but she brushed him aside with a careless wave.

“ You foolish girl !” she bit out. “Why do you hesitate?”

“I know you’re grieving,” Beatrice said as she glared at Deirdre, “but our lives are none-”

“Do you think you have forever?” Deirdre finally choked and blood tinged tears rolled down her face. “Not even we had forever. And I only seek to live now that I may care for my people, otherwise I would join my husband in the grave.”