Elizabeth Hunter - This Same Earth

“Never mind,” he said. “It’s not my business. It’s your-”

“Yes.”

Giovanni cocked his head, as if surprised she had responded.

“I was bored without you,” she continued. “I had a good life, but it wasn’t anything…” It was monochrome instead of color .

“I hated being away from you, Beatrice. Even when I convinced myself it was necessary.”

She blinked away the tears that tried to surface and pulled away from him. He still lay in her lap, looking up at her with an unguarded expression.

“What are we doing, Gio? I had so many questions for so many years. Why is everything suddenly not a secret?”

“Don’t you know?” he murmured.

She looked into his eyes, which had once been veiled and enigmatic. Now, they were open, and Beatrice was beginning to realize that everything she thought she knew about the previous five years might have been wrong.

“I think…I’m starting to know,” she finally said.

He shook his head; she could see the disappointment.

“Tell me more,” she begged. “When did you meet Carwyn?”

A smile touched the corner of his mouth.

“I was a little over two hundred years old. Tenzin and I were still working together, but I had grown weary of it, no matter how efficient we were.”

“You were tired of killing vampires.”

“I was tired of killing anything . I mentioned a contract that Tenzin found. We’d taken a job from the old guard, the vampires that used to control London. There was a band of rogues that was terrorizing the human population in Cornwall, and we were hired to get rid of them and clean up the mess they’d left. By the time we got there, Carwyn and Ioan had already taken care of most of the problem. Carwyn had killed the young vampires and Ioan was altering all the memories of their human victims and healing those he could. It had been going on for quite some time, so there was still a lot we were able to do.

“Tenzin and I offered to share the bounty with them for the vampires they had killed, but they both refused. It intrigued us both, and we went to spend some time with them in Wales. Eventually, I decided to stay with them and leave mercenary work. I was exhausted.”

“Was Tenzin mad?”

“Not really. She had begun to attract more attention than she normally liked, so she was ready to lie low for a few hundred years to let the rumors die down.”

Beatrice snorted. “Just a little while, huh?”

He smiled. “I told you, she’s very old. I stayed with Carwyn’s family for a time and slowly remembered what it was like not to spend every night looking for who would attack me next. I remembered how much I loved books, and music, and quiet. Eventually, I became convinced that I could choose to live another way. Carwyn and Ioan helped me see that.”

“I’m sorry I’ll never meet him,” she whispered and rested her hand against his cheek.

“I’m sorry too.”

“What happens when vampires die? The book was kind of vague.”

He took her hand and knit their fingers together before he rested them on his chest. “If we’re not burned, we return to our elements. What was left of Ioan’s body lingered for a few days and then crumbled into earth. Water vampires almost melt away, but again, it’s not instantaneous. And wind…well, they just disintegrate. Eventually, there is no trace of them.”

“And fire?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never beheaded a fire vampire. I don’t know. Usually, we burn.”

She paused. “Why did you leave me your journals in Cochamó?”

“I wanted you to know everything. Like when I told you to tell Dez about your life. There can be no future with that many secrets, tesoro .”

“But why didn’t you tell me all that before?” she asked gently. “You always held back with me.”

He sat up and moved to her side, looking into her eyes when he answered.

“When we first met, I didn’t know if I could trust you. And when you left for Los Angeles, I wasn’t sure you wanted to be part of my world. Which I understood. So I tried to shield you, Beatrice. There was no reason for you to be burdened with all of this if you were only going to touch the edges of it.”

“Gio.” She shook her head. “I think it’s pretty obvious at this point…”

She didn’t finish, and he leaned forward. “What? What’s obvious?”

She stopped short of admitting she loved him. She still wondered, when the current mystery was solved, whether he would disappear from her life again. This time, she knew the hole she felt from his absence when she was younger would be dwarfed by the immense vacuum another departure would leave.

He reached over to nudge her chin toward him so she was forced to meet his eyes. “I take nothing for granted, but I will not have you make any decision blindly. I’ll not have you resent me for hiding things from you.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Then why-”

“Are you going to leave me again?”

He drew back as if she had struck him. “What?”

“If we find Lorenzo-”

“ When we find him.”

Beatrice looked away. “Fine, when we find him. After he’s been killed. After you find my father, will you leave again? What if you decide you don’t want to feel grief like Deirdre’s? What if I choose not to become a vampire? What if-”

“You’ll have to be far better at evasion than even your father to lose me at this point, Beatrice De Novo.”

She looked at him, and his eyes begged for her to believe him. She wanted to, she realized. More than anything, but five years still hung between them. “Are you sure ? About me? About this?”

He cocked his head.

“What?” she looked down nervously, wondering at his expression.

“Deirdre asked me the same question,” he said softly. “When she brought Ioan’s body back. She asked me, ‘Are you sure?’ I didn’t really understand what she meant at the time.”

A memory of the fearsome woman carrying the body of her husband flashed to Beatrice’s mind. “What did you answer her?”

“I never got the chance.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Will you answer me?”

Giovanni grasped the back of her neck and pulled her into a hard kiss; she felt the force of it down to her toes. Finally, his mouth traveled to her ear and there was no mistaking his answer.

“I am sure of the fire that runs through me. I am sure of the earth I stand on. And I am sure of you.”

Northern Wales

January 2010

“When are you coming home?”

“I’m not sure yet, Benjamin. I want to come home, but it’s more important that I make everyone safe first.”

“From Lorenzo?”

“Yes.”

He heard the boy sigh over the telephone and knew that he was probably rolling his eyes as well.

“Tell me what you and Caspar and Isadora have been doing,” Giovanni said to distract him.

“Lots of stuff. They’re pretty cool for old people.”

He chuckled. “They are. Has Caspar taught you how to shoot yet? He thought it would be good for you to learn. He’s a very good shot, so make sure you pay attention when he teaches you.”

“At first I thought it was going to be really cool, but then he made me clean all the rifles after we finished.” Giovanni grinned. “And that wasn’t cool at all. But we shot some cans for target practice, and he said I was pretty good.”

“Excellent. And how is the rest of your schooling?”

Ben huffed on the other end of the line. “Dude, Caspar isn’t very good at Latin anymore, Gio.”

“Well,” he said and laughed, “you can be his teacher then. And how is Beatrice’s grandmother? Are you getting along?”