“I don’t know,” Pirro finally croaked out of his dusty throat. Giovanni thought he could see a faint puff of smoke as the vampire spoke.

“I don’t believe you.” He hit him with another wave of fire, and the smoke poured out of the assassin’s scream.

“I don’t know!” he shrieked. “He was in Tripoli three months ago. We all knew he was meeting with the master, but none of us saw him.”

Giovanni released the vampire’s shoulder and allowed him to slump to the ground, where he curled into a small, smoking ball of pain.

“Tripoli?” he mused to Baojia.

The stoic vampire nodded. “I’ll be able to find out who was traveling then. It’s enough.”

“Are you sure? I’m happy to take the time for further questioning.”

Pirro whimpered on the floor, delirious from pain.

“We’ve been busy for quite some time. Do you know how much my father wants your human?” Baojia shook his head. “He knows you’re going to take her soon. How hard do you think he’s trying to persuade her to join us right now.”

Giovanni’s eyes darted up, as if he could see through the steel layers of the ship to the top deck where he had left Beatrice. He looked back to Ernesto’s enforcer. “Why do you want her? Why is he so set on having her in his family?”

Baojia shrugged. “I have watched her these years—” The vampire was cut off by Giovanni’s snarl. “—and I understand her appeal. She has a certain type of perception that is rare. Her eyes see through the layers of things, don’t they? That is a very valuable trait.”

Giovanni’s lips curled. “She is mine.”

The enforcer’s eyes locked with his. “Is she? Really? I think Beatrice De Novo belongs to no one but herself, di Spada, no matter who may taste her blood.”

A feral sound crawled up from his throat and he reached down to pick up Lorenzo’s assassin, pummeling him until he was a lump of smoking flesh.

“Do you have any more use for him?” he asked Baojia.

The vampire frowned and shook his head, so Giovanni threw the lump to the floor, where it was quickly engulfed in blue flames that turned the body to ash. Baojia opened the doors leading to the small balcony and turned on a fan that slowly sucked the remains of Lorenzo’s assassin into the wet night air.

Houston, Texas

Christmas Eve 2009

“Da nobis quæsumus Dómine Deus noster: ut qui Navitátem Dómini nostri Jesu Christi mystériis nos frequentáre gaudémus; dignis conversatiónibus ad ejus mereámur perveníre consórtium. Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sæcula sæculórum. Amen.”

The familiar Latin of the priest poured over him like a balm as he sat next to Ben and Beatrice late on Christmas Eve. Isadora had insisted that the five of them celebrate midnight mass together, and Giovanni surprised himself by asking if there was one being celebrated anywhere in the old language.

He sat with his arm around Ben, who had slumped to the side in exhaustion, and his gaze rested on Beatrice’s profile as she watched the priest deliver the last of the liturgy. Giovanni flashed back to the many human days he’d spent with his uncle listening to the same words spoken by ancient men who had taken the same vows as the young Irish priest standing in front of him.

It was good to remember that even some things in the human world did not change.

He may not have practiced regularly, but he had been Catholic in his human life, and in the deepest part of himself, Giovanni still considered it a part of his identity. There was little doubt in his mind that in two hundred years, he could sit in another church, thousands of miles away from this one, and listen to the same words spoken in a slightly different accent.

He heard the last of the ancient mass ring through in the stone church, and he gently shook Ben awake.

“Is it over?” he whispered.

“Yes, time to go home.”

“It feels like home, even without a basketball hoop,” he muttered. “That’s kind of weird, huh?”

He smiled and mussed Ben’s hair as the boy stood. “No. I don’t think so. Home is about people.” He saw Beatrice glance at him and knew she had heard him.

Caspar, Isadora, Beatrice, Ben, and Giovanni all drove back to the house in River Oaks where the humans quickly retired for the night. He went to the library and started a fire, content to sit on the couch and enjoy the quiet with Doyle, who was curled onto a chair. If he concentrated, he could still smell Beatrice’s scent that seemed to linger everywhere.

The longer he concentrated, the stronger it grew until he realized he was ignoring the sound of quiet steps coming down the hall.

Beatrice entered the room, barefaced and beautiful, looking very young as she stood in the doorway. She was wearing an old Houston University t-shirt and what he thought might have been a pair of his boxers he’d left at the house years ago. He couldn’t stop the smile that came to his face when he saw her.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she murmured before she walked over to the couch and lay down next to him, resting her head on his thigh as she stared into the fire with sleepy eyes. “I still miss you, even though I’m mad at you.”

“I’ll wear you down eventually.”

“You do have forever, don’t you?”

But you don’t, he thought. “I can be patient. I told you to take as long as you need.”