Elizabeth Hunter - This Same Earth

“Or so arrogant?” Terry added.

Jean was staring at Giovanni. “You have been fooling yourself, di Spada, hiding away in your books. Your son has many powerful friends. In the last ten years, his influence has grown. I do not know why. It is a testament to your connections that you were given the girl five years ago.” He nodded toward Beatrice. “You think you damaged him? He is still more powerful and connected than you know.”

“What do you mean? What do you know?” Giovanni asked.

Jean only shook his head. “You think you have allies? Everyone has an agenda. Everyone.”

“What’s yours?” Beatrice asked.

The Frenchman turned. “My family. Nothing remains except family. Power. Wealth. All these change, but my family remains. My daughter was distraught. Her family lost faith in us. My own reputation was damaged to have lost one under my protection. Trust me.” He looked around the room. “None in my company bear Lorenzo any goodwill.”

“And I vouch for my people,” Terry said.

“So where does that leave us?” Carwyn asked, looking around the room in frustration. “Someone told him. One of our humans? Someone manipulated? Bribed?”

Jean shrugged. “I will have the port checked immediately. If there is any indication where the containers went or who arranged the shipment, I will find it. I have many people in La Havre.”

“Don’t most shipping containers have GPS now?” Beatrice asked.

“These wouldn’t,” Giovanni muttered. “I think you taught him a lesson about technology, tesoro . It would be easy enough to make them untraceable, and since there were three containers-”

“He could be on any one of three trucks going to any one of three locations,” Gemma sighed.

Beatrice looked around the room. “But there has to be a way of finding out more.”

Everyone was silent, standing around the room with the strange blank expressions she hated, each vampire lost in their own thoughts.

“Gio?”

“Beatrice-”

“Who told you?”

He frowned. “What?”

“ Who ? Who told you that Lorenzo had taken me? You knew what ship I was on; Jean’s team found the boat too fast for you to be looking very long. Someone told you which one I was on. I was barely there for a day. Whoever told you knew where I was and had to know you were coming for me, so who told you ?”

“That little bastard,” Gemma murmured.

She felt Giovanni’s skin heat.

“Tywyll.”

Gravesend, England

Beatrice looked around with a poorly veiled look of disdain.

“This is the dirtiest pub I’ve ever seen.”

“It definitely ranks quite high, tesoro .”

“Is it…floating?”

Beatrice looked at the floor, which seemed to rock and sway under their feet. She saw a beer bottle roll in the corner as the pub near the mouth of the River Thames rose with the swell of the water. Then she looked into Giovanni’s taciturn face.

“Are you going to kill him? Can you?”

He thought for a long moment before he shrugged. “Doubtful, and definitely not until you get your information. I have a feeling that Tywyll has a bit to tell us.”

“He’s really old, isn’t he?”

“I believe so. No one knows. I’ve never met anyone that claimed to know him before he became what he is now.”

She frowned and pulled his arm to sit next to her in the dark booth with its cracked leather seats. Giovanni sat with his back to the wall and his eyes on the door as the dark pub rose and fell.

When they had returned to London just before dawn the night before, they were met at the door of the Mayfair house with a handwritten note.

Mariposa-

Come to The Cockleshell in Gravesend with the Italian tonight at nine o’clock. I have information for you.

– Tywyll

“What is he?”

“A trader. A conduit. And apparently, someone who knew your father.”

She whispered, “My dad and my grandma are the only ones that have ever called me ‘Mariposa.’ And it’s not something he would have shared with just anyone.”

“Which is why we are meeting him alone at the dirtiest pub in Gravesend, instead of being accompanied by twenty of Terry’s most vicious minions.”

She smiled and tried to lighten his mood as she slipped an arm around his waist. “You should totally get some minions.”

He smirked despite himself. “Isn’t that what Benjamin is for? He’s a minion-in-training.”

She snickered and pulled him down for a kiss. Between rushing back to London, seeing a doctor for her injuries, and questioning Terry’s human staff, Beatrice had little to no time alone with Giovanni, and she could tell the stress of the previous three nights was wearing on them both.

“I’m exhausted,” she whispered as she laid her head on his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I know.”

His restless eyes continued to scan the dark, almost empty, pub. She sat next to him and left a hand on his knee, needing the connection. Giovanni had been eager to escape the city, wanting to whisk her away somewhere safe and away from prying eyes and ears as soon as they had returned. But after they received the note, Beatrice and Carwyn had insisted it was important to meet the mysterious water vampire-even if he was the source of the betrayal-and Giovanni had reluctantly agreed.

She heard the door open and an electric current radiated up her arm. She could feel Giovanni’s skin heat against hers.

“Tywyll,” he said in a low voice.

“This is Stephen’s girl then.” She looked up. “Ay, ye’ are. Look at the eyes. Just like yer father.”

She stared at the unassuming man wearing dirty work clothes. To anyone else, he would have fit right in, a hardworking middle-aged man out for a pint at the pub after work. Beatrice, however, took note of his inhuman paleness, the energy that seemed to vibrate off him, and the fangs that peeked from the corners of his mouth.

“How do you know my father?”

“Can I sit without fear for meself, fire-starter? Do I have yer word?”

She could tell it was a struggle for him, but she saw Giovanni give a slight nod out of the corner of her eye.

“For now, yes.”

“Fer now’ll do fine.” He sat across from them and raised three fingers toward the bar. “I reckon we’ll stay out of each other’s way after that, eh?”

“It depends very much on what you say, waterman.”

“How do you know my father?” Beatrice asked again.

The old vampire turned his eyes toward her.

“Yer father is a fine one, miss. I don’t like many, but I liked him. Met him at this very pub.”

A shiver crossed her neck and she felt Giovanni’s hand squeeze hers under the table. “My father was here?”

Tywyll paused as an old man came to set three dark pints on the table in front of them. Tywyll took his and drank before he answered.

“He was. Ten years ago. He’d just come from the North and he was makin’ his way out of the country. Needed a bit of help. Someone gave him my name. Had gold and he didn’t talk too much. I like that in a vampire.”

Giovanni leaned forward and passed one of the pints to Beatrice as he set the other in front of himself. The glasses were surprisingly clean.

“I heard rumors about him ten years ago,” Giovanni said. “About the books he had. He was referred to me for a job, but no one seemed to be able to find him.”

Tywyll’s eyes almost twinkled. “Well now, that might ha’ been my doin’. He was awful young then, and he didn’t know much. I may ha’ kept him out of the way for a bit from those lookin’ for him.”

“Why?” Beatrice asked. “You protected him? Why? And if you protected my father, why would you sell us out to Lorenzo?”