Night's Reckoning Read online

  Darkness comes for everyone,

  and some fates are inescapable.

  * * *

  NIGHT’S RECKONING

  For over a thousand years, the legendary sword Laylat al Hisab—the Night’s Reckoning—has been lost in the waters of the East China Sea. Forged as a peace offering between two ancient vampires, the sword has eluded treasure hunters, human and immortal alike.

  But in time, even the deep gives up its secrets.

  When Tenzin’s sire hears about the ninth-century shipwreck found off the coast of southern China, Zhang Guo realizes he’ll need the help of an upstart pirate from Shanghai to retrieve it. And since that pirate has no desire to be in the middle of an ancient war, he calls the only allies who might be able to help him avoid it.

  Unfortunately, Tenzin is on one side of the globe and Ben is on the other.

  Tenzin knows she’ll need Ben’s keen mind and political skills to complete the job. She also knows gaining Ben’s cooperation won’t be an easy task. She’ll have to drag him back into the darkness he’s been avoiding.

  Whether Ben knows it or not, his fate is balanced on the edge of a thousand-year-old blade, and one stumble could break everything Tenzin has worked toward.

  Night’s Reckoning is the third novel in the Elemental Legacy series, a paranormal mystery by Elizabeth Hunter, USA Today best-selling author of the Elemental Mysteries.

  Praise for Elizabeth Hunter

  [Hunter] writes mysteries that, beyond vampires and elemental powers, capture a human truth brought into perfect focus not despite the paranormal elements but because of them.

  Kendrai Meeks, bestselling author of the Red Hood Chronicles

  While the treasure hunt is very entertaining, it's the emotions between these two, what's being said and left unsaid that is very powerful. ...this is Elizabeth Hunter at her best.

  Nocturnal Book Reviews

  Ms. Hunter delivers. Every. Single. Time. I have the majority of her books and I am in awe of every book that she has penned and every book she has brought to life and here it is no different.

  Kate’s Corner

  Night’s Reckoning

  An Elemental Legacy Novel

  Elizabeth Hunter

  Contents

  Glossary

  Wind Speaks

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Preview: Valley of the Shadow

  The Elemental Legacy Series

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Elizabeth Hunter

  Night’s Reckoning

  Copyright © 2019

  Elizabeth Hunter

  ISBN: 978-1-941674-44-4

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover: Damonza

  Content Editor: Amy Cissell, Cissell Ink

  Line Editor: Anne Victory

  Proofreader: Linda, Victory Editing

  If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, please delete it and purchase your own copy from an authorized retailer. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Recurve Press LLC

  PO Box 4034

  Visalia, California

  USA

  ElizabethHunterWrites.com

  Glossary

  Alitea—former island of the Greek immortal court, seat of the newly formed Council of the Ancients, which comprises Saba, Arosh, Kato, and Ziri; largest seat of power in the Mediterranean Sea, Europe, Africa, and Western Asia

  Arosh—fire vampire, age and origin unknown, ancient king in Eastern Europe/Central Asia, sits on Council of the Ancients, consort of Saba, former rival of Zhang Guo

  Benjamin Vecchio—human, midtwenties, born in New York City, antiquities dealer, antiquities locator, adopted nephew of Giovanni Vecchio

  Cheng—water vampire, born late eighteenth century in Guangdong, current governor of Shanghai, entrepreneur, former pirate, Kadek’s sire

  Chloe Reardon—human, midtwenties, born in Los Angeles, dancer, romantic partner of Gavin Wallace

  Emil Conti—water vampire, born second century BC in Rome, governor of Rome, sire of Ronan

  Filomena—water vampire, born in Naples, age unknown, governor of Naples

  Gavin Wallace—wind vampire, born in Scotland, age unknown, entrepreneur, currently based in New York City, romantic partner of Chloe Reardon

  Harun al Ilāh—fire vampire, origin and age unknown, master of damascene steel and glasswork, deceased

  Jinpa—human, midseventies, born in Tibet, servant of Tenzin

  Jīnshé—boat, a scientific research vessel out of Shanghai

  Jimmu—water vampire, age and origin unknown, immortal lord of Japanese archipelago

  Johari—earth vampire (formerly a water vampire), born in Zanzibar, daughter of Saba

  Kadek—water vampire, born in Indonesia, sea captain, son of Cheng

  Kato—water vampire, born in Greece, age unknown, sits on Council of the Ancients, grandsire of Giovanni Vecchio

  Laylat al Hisab—the Night’s Reckoning, a sword made in the ninth century by famed fire vampire and swordsmith Harun al Ilāh

  Mr. Lu—human, Kadek’s second-in-command, day captain of the Jīnshé research vessel

  Penglai Island—immortal island in Bohai Sea, seat of the Eight Immortals, largest seat of power in Eastern Asia

  Professor Chou—human, university professor in charge of the underwater archaeology team

  Qamar Jadid—ninth-century Arab dhow carrying ceremonial gifts from Arosh to Zhang Guo to finalize the Treaty of Kashgar

  Saba—earth vampire, born in Ethiopia, age unknown, eldest known immortal, “mother of vampires,” current queen of Alitea, Johari’s sire

  Sina—water vampire, age and origin unknown, ancient queen of the South Pacific Sea

  Tai—wind vampire, age and origin unknown, son of deceased Zhongli Quan, current servant of Zhang Guo

  Tenzin—wind vampire, born approximately five thousand years ago in Central Asia, former assassin, former mercenary, former military commander, daughter of Zhang Guo

  Zhang Guo—wind vampire, born over five thousand years ago in Central Asia, eldest of the Eight Immortal Elders of Penglai Island, Tenzin’s sire

  Ziri—wind vampire, born in North Africa, age unknown, sits on Council of the Ancients

  Wind Speaks

  You say you want to know me.

  I don’t think you do.

  I am old.

  You don’t want to know the things I have seen.

  Have you watched a tree grow from seed to leaf? Days and nights passing as you rest in a shadow
ed place. Light and dark flickering by like one of the film reels you love to watch. Have you seen this?

  I have.

  I am as old as the wind I walk upon.

  I am a mother. A daughter. A sister to murdered kin.

  A friend. A lover. An enemy.

  A hero?

  I have been a hero and a villain in the same moment. If you grow old enough, you might understand what that means.

  I dream in a tongue that died a thousand years before time was counted. I no longer count time. It is meaningless. There is only the light and the dark. Hot. Cold. I am a creature of sense.

  A murderer.

  A liar.

  A thief.

  I hold myself subject to no man’s law. The laws came after me. There is only one law I recognize.

  I survive. I protect what is mine.

  * * *

  You say you want to know me. Maybe you do.

  Do you want to see rivers change course? See mountains fall and islands rise? Do you want to see waves of humanity ebb and flow as civilizations grow? When they die?

  Both are equal in my eyes.

  Humanity grows like a canyon cut by rivers of blood and conquest. Leaders rise and are swept away. I have seen it. I will see it again.

  * * *

  Are you sure you want to see it?

  It might make you mad.

  I have been mad. It was… freeing.

  * * *

  I have been mad and wise. One is only a shadow of the other. I have been fueled by rage and love in the same breath.

  When I choose to breathe.

  I have loved. And love has made me mad.

  I have loved, and the loss of it made me rage.

  I have killed those I loved.

  Love is more dangerous than madness. More fickle than rage.

  * * *

  Love.

  The Greeks had many names for it. Foolish humans divide everything, as if the dissection of an emotion will let them understand its power.

  Love is larger than their divisions. I have loved. I will love again. There is only that. The love I hold has lasted as I have. It lives in my blood.

  Don’t pretend to understand, human. You cannot.

  We are immortal. We are the elements. Earth. Water. Wind. Fire.

  Other.

  We are born of them. We feed on them. We return to them when our bodies are slain. That is our eternity. We will be born again.

  * * *

  You say you want to know me, but what do you want to know?

  I have killed thousands of your kind.

  Thousands.

  Did you want to know that?

  I cannot hide among you. I don’t even try. If you met me, I would only be a shadow that your brain chooses to forget. A trick of the darkness. I am only known to those whom I choose. I lie when it suits me. I might be lying now.

  I probably am.

  * * *

  You want to know what I see when I look at him?

  I see a shining boy with shadows in his eyes. A shallow pool that grows deeper with every footstep. One day he will be infinite.

  You see only the edge of a shadow of who he will become.

  Do you see visions?

  I do.

  Don’t pretend to understand. You’re lying now. Like me.

  You say you want to see a happy ending, but what does that mean for me? I have no ending.

  You say I deserve to find love?

  I don’t.

  Love has been handed to me, and I threw it away. I deserve nothing.

  Do I want it?

  I take what I want.

  * * *

  You say you want to know me. I don’t think you do.

  I am not what you can understand. The span of your life is a speck of dust in the wind of my existence. I exist outside this world. They call me a wind-walker. There is truth in that. The wind travels over the world untethered. It has many names.

  Zephyros.

  Vardar.

  Taku.

  Bora.

  Mistral.

  Nashi.

  They are all the same air. Like me. I am all of them and none of them. I chose my name.

  Tenzin.

  Holder of teachings.

  I will choose another someday when I am tired of this one.

  * * *

  I have had many names.

  Mother. Daughter. Sister. Lover. Friend.

  I am all of those, but none of them define me.

  Maybe you do understand.

  * * *

  No.

  The truth is not always beautiful

  nor beautiful words the truth.

  —Lao Tzu

  1

  Ben was expecting the punch, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. It landed on his jaw, snapping his head back. His skull cracked on the edge of the metal chair where they’d tied him up.

  He was sitting in an old warehouse on the run-down edges of Genoa, taking their vicious punches with his ears open, ignoring the taunts of the humans around him. The men had grabbed him when he’d been snooping around the warehouse near the railroad tracks.

  Exactly as he’d planned it.

  One vampire stood with the humans, silently watching Ben as he tried to ignore her. The humans he wasn’t worried about. The vampire was another story.

  “I hear she keeps him on a tight leash,” one of the men said. “I’m surprised he got this far out of Napoli.”

  The vampire was female and petite. In Ben’s experience, a vicious combination. She stared while Ben tried to look beaten and miserable.

  “Poor boy.” Her voice purred. “Little puppies who wander too far get kicked by the bigger dogs.” Her voice was a whisper that begged for his attention, drawing him in, seducing him, exactly as she wanted it to.

  Ben narrowed the one eye that wasn’t already swelling shut and concentrated on the pain to resist the lure of her voice. Hits to the face he’d put up with for the job. Kicks to the ribs were hardly anything new. But if the vampire touched him, she would be able to use amnis, the electric current that gave her elemental power and control over humans if she wished it. Ben would do nearly anything to escape his brain being messed with. It had happened before, and he wasn’t a fan.

  He’d been told he had natural resistance to amnis, but resistance wasn’t immunity.

  “What does Piero want with him?”

  The vampire’s purring voice turned hard. “Shut your mouth if you want to keep your tongue, human.”

  Ben tried to see which man was talking. It was the bombastic one, the tallest in the group with three days’ worth of beard and a sweat-stained polo shirt clinging to his chest. The man had fists the size of Iberian hams, and they felt just as solid.

  It didn’t matter. Piero. Ben had a name. One down, one to go.

  The human puffed out his chest and angled his shoulders back. His chin went up. “I don’t work for you.”

  “You stupid mortal,” the vampire muttered. “Of course you do.”

  “Piero gives me orders. I don’t even know why he brought you to Finale—”

  The man’s voice cut off with a strangled gurgle.

  And a place. The corner of Ben’s mouth turned up. That was quicker than he’d thought. Gotcha.

  The humans in the gang started shouting at the vampire, who released the man’s throat from her iron grip and let him slide to the floor.

  Ben silently released his wrists from the restraints he’d loosened an hour before, minutes after they’d tied him up. The humans weren’t very good with knots.

  As the men shouted at the small vampire in defense of their friend, Ben moved, slipping from his bonds and easing into the shadows between stacked pallets in the warehouse. The whole place smelled of sardines and motor oil, not a good combination.

  “Stefano, where’s the kid?”

  More shouting in loud Italian. Their accents didn’t sound like Genoa. Much farther south if Ben had to guess. Not Naples. Sicily? Calab
ria maybe. His client would want to know. The vampire wasn’t Italian. Ben was guessing French.

  As he crept away, he listened for her movements. She was the only one who presented a real threat. The floor was cold against his feet—hard-packed dirt with cracked concrete near the door. They’d taken his shoes, and he had no idea where they’d put them.

  “You idiot!” another yelled. “Piero is going to take your balls!”

  “He’s a skinny foreigner. Find him, you shit! He can’t have gotten far.”

  Ben slipped into a shadowed corner and climbed up the plastic-covered pallets, clinging with his fingertips and toes to the edges of the wrapped cans and waiting for the first man to come to him.

  A dark-haired human looked into the narrow corner but didn’t notice Ben halfway up the wall. He turned around, and Ben immediately fell on his back.

  Ben locked his elbow around the guy’s neck and slapped a hand over his mouth to block his muffled yell. Once his mouth was covered, Ben chopped the edge of his hand against the man’s throat in a swift slicing gesture, bringing him to his knees and driving the breath from his lungs.