All the Stars Look Down: A Duo of Christmas Romances Read online

His expression changed, turned beatific as if he’d been lit from within. He rolled them across the bed until Claire lay beneath him. “Forever is a long time,” he said after several drugging kisses.

  She wrapped her arms and legs around him to hold him close. “No it isn’t. It’s just a notion.”

  EPILOGUE

  Andor had finished his last Christmas delivery for Nicholas well before dawn. While he couldn’t be with a disappointed Claire on Christmas Eve, he had promised nothing would stop him from being with her and Jake on Christmas Day.

  He’d returned to her small house in the small hours and found her sound asleep, curled around his pillow. The monitor by her bed emitted shuffling noises, but she didn’t awaken. Andor padded to Jake’s bedroom and found him sitting up in bed, stopping, rewinding and restarting a favorite section in a Wiggles CD. The TV screen flickered in the otherwise dark room.

  Jake’s gaze slid briefly to Andor before returning to the TV. “Hi, elf,” he said.

  Andor grinned and sat down on the bed beside the little boy. In a few hours, Jake’s deep Sight, inherited from his mother, would no longer see the accentuated elfin features and pointed ears Andor hid behind his glamour. “Hey Jake, you’re up early.”

  Jake didn’t answer, just continued the repeated play of the single scene on his DVD. Andor pulled Jake’s coat and a pair of sandals out of the closet adjacent to the bed. “Come on, Jake. Let’s go outside. I have something to show you.

  Dressed in Christmas-themed pajamas, socks, sandals and a light coat, his tablet clutched in his hands, Jake followed Andor quietly through the house and out the back door. The sky was still dark, a thin line of gray edging the eastern horizon. Claire’s backyard though was ablaze with light.

  Tiny fairy sparks shot through the trees, swirling and diving across the lawn before curling around Jake in a luminescent spiral. The boy looked up from his tablet and pointed. The glowing lights bounced off his fingers before flying out into the yard once more. Jake followed, pointing and grasping at the lights by turn, his young features wreathed in a rare smile.

  Andor sat down on the patio bench and watched. Firefly season was long past, but it was still dark, and he still possessed his magic for now. He could give Jake fireflies in December.

  “That’s a fine thing you did. He may never tell you so, but he’ll remember this all his days.” Nicholas sat down next to Andor. His vestments were travel-stained; there was a crack in his crosier, and sometime during the night he’d lost his mitre. His white hair stood out in all directions, as if he’d been caught in a whirlwind.

  Andor looked him up and down. “Did you get in a fight with a jötunn during your deliveries?”

  The saint settled back on the bench with a tired sigh, his gaze following Jake who still hunted Andor’s fireflies. “No. A djinn.”

  “Ugh. Nasty piece of work.”

  “Always.”

  The two men sat silent for a moment before Andor spoke again. “You’re finished early. Don’t you have a few million more houses to visit?”

  Nicholas spun his cracked crosier in his palms. “Eh, I’m not worried. I’ll make it. Besides, this is your last time acting as my overgrown nisse. We should have a few commemorative words, don’t you think?”

  “Twas the night before Christmas—”

  “Enough. I hate that poem. My stomach doesn’t roll like a bowl full of jelly.” Nicholas patted his belly. Despite modern popular depictions, Nicholas was a slight, diminutive man. He did sport a luxurious white beard—something to counterbalance his balding pate with its fringe of spiky, windblown hair. What he lacked in stature, he made up for in presence—a blaze of power, magic and wonder all combined into a compassionate heart and soul that shone brighter than any star.

  Andor couldn’t resist a final dig. “Your dimples are merry.”

  Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. “Son, don’t make me close our time together by turning you into a slug.”

  They both laughed. Nicholas held out his arms. The two men embraced briefly. “Are you sure you want to do this? I can get you to Ljósálfrheimr well before dawn and with plenty of time to deliver my last gifts.”

  “I’m very sure.” Andor had never been so certain of anything in his long existence.

  “It’s been a good thousand years for me, son. I wasn’t too sure at first, but I’m glad Dagrun sent you to me.”

  Andor rubbed his neck. “And I’m fond of keeping my head attached.” The gray line in the east had widened and was now edged in pink. Christmas dawn. The rise of Solis Invicti. “You’ll still visit? Remember, Claire may no longer believe, but Jake and I do.” He turned to the saint and watched, a little saddened, as his mentor’s figure began to fade.

  Nicholas grinned. “Every year, my boy.” He grew more translucent every second, his words softer, fainter. “Look for me beyond the gloaming.” Firefly lights danced behind him, lending a halo to his fading image. “When the darkness falls and the moon sails high...”

  Andor touched the air where the saint disappeared completely. One firefly light lingered. “And all the stars look down,” he replied. “Until next year, my friend.”

  ~!~!~!~!~

  LOST LETTERS

  AND

  CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

  An Elemental Mysteries novella

  By Elizabeth Hunter

  For my family this holiday season:

  To those I was born to

  And to those I chose

  I love you all.

  Merry Christmas.

  PROLOGUE

  Los Angeles, California

  “Beatrice?” Giovanni raised his voice only slightly when he entered the house, knowing that despite the massive square footage of the house in San Marino, his mate would be able to hear him.

  There was no response.

  He pulled off the scarf he’d wrapped around his neck when he’d left the house earlier that evening. The weather in Southern California was mildly cool that December, which meant every native Californian had broken out their warmest wraps. It was so hard following winter fashion when there simply was no winter. Nevertheless, the humans tried.

  “Beatrice?” he called again, wondering if she’d left the house. He reached out with his senses.

  A hint of chicken mole in the air. Caspar had cooked it yesterday.

  Doyle, his grey cat, purred near a fire someone had lit in the downstairs sitting room.

  No sign of Ben, but that was hardly remarkable this time of night.

  He inhaled again.

  Vanilla. Acid. Almonds. And a very faint waft of mold.

  Giovanni smiled. Beatrice was in the library.

  The unmistakable trace of her amnis permeated the air. She’d been in the kitchen recently. Other immortals wouldn’t sense it, but Beatrice De Novo wasn’t only his wife by human law, she was his vampire mate by tradition. The blood they shared bound them on an elemental level. He always knew when she was near.

  Her preternatural senses would have picked up the smallest sound, which meant she was ignoring him. Ignoring him meant one of two things. He calmly walked up the stairs to the second floor, stroking a finger along the side of the Vietnamese vase she’d found for him in Hong Kong the Christmas before.

  Beatrice ignoring his call meant she was feeling playful or…

  He nudged open the door to the library, leaning against it as he watched her muttering over a table piled with file boxes.

  She was in the middle of a project.

  “Ciao bella, Tesoro.”

  She waved one hand, covered in a silk glove because she was handling documents. She didn’t lift her head. “Hey. Why are you…” Her mind drifted off before she could finish the question.

  “Back so soon?” Giovanni finished for her. “The client wanted the impossible. I refuse to break something out of the National Archives.”

  “You have before.”

  “There were multiple copies of that particular item.” He stepped closer, careful not to touch any
of the materials spread over the table. “This item is unique. I’m not interested in depriving a nation of its history—meager though it may be—to satisfy a vampire’s whim.”

  “So kind of you,” she muttered, not even rising to the American history taunt. She’d continued her personal research project of documenting daily life in the Mission period of California history that she’d started in graduate school. Giovanni had continued to acquire difficult-to-obtain books and documents for immortal clientele and discreet human collectors. Beatrice helped him when she wanted to, and both kept as busy as they wanted.

  It was a good life. Others might think Giovanni longed for the excitement of his nights as an assassin or was jealous of the power others wielded in vampire politics. Power he had handed to them before he stepped away.

  But Giovanni Vecchio had no longing for violence. No desire for power. He had spent hundreds of years with both thrust upon him. Now he had found his peace.

  He and his mate flew around the world as they liked, visiting their homes and perusing their books. Working when they wanted. Keeping in touch with friends and occasionally assisting with a problem when help was requested.

  But for the most part, they lived a quiet life.

  “How’s the new pub?” She had put down the letter she’d been examining, sliding the acid-free envelope into the file before she pulled out another. “Ben says Gavin’s happy as a clam in New York. He’s considering making the move permanent. Keeps making noises about the O’Brians, but nothing serious.”

  “Gavin would gripe about Mother Theresa if he’d spent any time with her. The O’Brians aren’t causing him any trouble. And I don’t like the manager of Gavin’s pub. I miss the one in Houston.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “We should go back for a visit.”

  “To the pub?”

  He laughed a little. “To Houston. We could make a visit of it. See Gavin. Charlotte. There’s a manuscript exhibit at the Carmichael that I did some work for. I think you’d like it. Looks fascinating.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He sat down and leaned his head in his hand. “We could break into the Rothko Chapel. Finally steal the black canvases you like.”

  “Yeah… sounds good,” she responded, clearly not paying attention. Beatrice was occupied with the letter she held.

  It looked like part of the Mission correspondence she’d been collecting.

  “What is it?” he asked, giving up on discussing anything other than work.

  “Remember the Hungarian you shoved in my direction?”

  “The wine collector?”

  “Winemaker,” she corrected. “Rabidly private. Old. I think I may have a lead on that project.”

  “I thought you’d given up on it.”

  “No. Put it on the back burner for a bit, but he was getting rude.”

  Giovanni’s head came up. “Explain rude.”

  Beatrice smiled as he stood and walked to the table. “Nothing I can’t handle, handsome. I told him to back off, but then I ran across something when I was helping one of Katya’s archivists. There was a mention in a letter from Father Ignacio…”

  She trailed off again, but Giovanni started paging through the box of letters, each one a carefully preserved missive from one of the Franciscan priests or secular clergy at California’s twenty-one original missions. Over the years, Beatrice had come to know many of the more prolific letter writers by name. Father Ignacio was a favorite.

  “He mentions a young priest around San Jose who was an expert in wine-making and had begun sending out ‘un informe.’ I think I have some letters that priest exchanged with another in Rome. Odd, I thought at the time, because why Rome? Why not Spain?”

  “If he was a member of the clergy, it’s possible he—”

  “Had connections with someone in the in the church there. I figure that’s why. Anyway, I’d misread ‘informe’ as a verb, not a noun. But un informe would be a… report. An account of some kind. Something written down. At least that’s what the context would imply from what I remember.”

  He paid half a mind to what she was saying and the other half to the excitement in her voice. The animated way her eyes lit up as she tugged the thread of history hidden within the papers before her.

  It was almost ridiculous how he loved her.

  “So if this priest was writing down his practices and sending them to his contemporaries in the other missions, it might not be just a report, but maybe a journal? A book? Which is exactly what the Hungarian wants and I thought didn’t exist. But I think it does! Now I just need to find out how many copies he made of this thing and pray one survived. If I can figure out where he sent them… I’m hoping there’s something in the letters to Rome that will give me some more to go on.”

  Giovanni pursed his lips when he realized what letters she was referring to. “The letters? The… Roman ones? Written from the Vatican?”

  “Yes.” She closed one box and opened another. “Well, they were written in Rome but were sent to a California Franciscan. So they should be in here. All my Mission correspondence—I just… can’t…” She sighed. “This is driving me crazy. I’ve been looking for hours.”

  It really was too bad that he hadn’t skipped the meeting with the impossible vampire and come home hours ago. “My love, I think I know the letters you’re speaking of.”

  “I know!” Beatrice threw up her hands, and they landed on her hips. “I remember cataloguing them last fall. They should be in this box, but they aren’t.”

  “Well…”

  “Gio?” She must have caught the look on his face. “What did you do with my letters?”

  “They were written from Rome.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, but they were written to a priest in California. Clearly, they needed to be with the Mission letters.”

  “One could argue—” he cleared his throat “—they were more properly filed with Vatican correspondence. Since they were written from the Vatican.”

  Beatrice’s mouth dropped open. “You did not.”

  He shrugged. “You were in the middle of some research with Lucien, and I was having a number of things transferred to the Perugian library, so—”

  “Gio, you didn’t!” Her hands gripped her hair. “You sent my letters to Fina?”

  The library that Giovanni’s deceased son had established in Perugia had continued to be run by Serafina Rossi, the human Lorenzo hired to curate the collection in his absence. She truly was a very competent human who had proven to be trustworthy, despite having been chosen by his scheming son. Gradually, Giovanni and Beatrice had enlightened Fina and her son, Enzo, about the immortal world they’d been dragged into unawares. Both had come under Giovanni’s protection, and he did not take the responsibility lightly. Plus, Fina was a superb archivist with a background in art history.

  “The Perugia library has far more room than this one, Tesoro. And you know I’ve been transferring materials there when they fit the collection—”

  “But they’re not Vatican letters! They’re Mission letters! I cannot believe you lost my materials—”

  He drew up, slightly offended. “I did not ‘lose’ them. They remain catalogued here, and I put a notation in the files that they were being stored in Perugia with the Vatican papers there.”

  Slightly mollified, Beatrice stopped yelling, but her angry expression did not wane.

  “You took Mission letters.”

  “I took Vatican letters.”

  “Sent to a mission. My mission.”

  He bit back a laugh. “I do not believe you have a greater claim than the church, my love.”

  “And I know there’s a reference in those letters to this journal or book about wine-making that the Hungarian wants. And it’s all the way in Perugia! And I can’t ask Fina to dig through all that stuff—”

  “There is no ‘digging’ necessary.” He felt his skin heat in anger. “Beatrice, you’re acting as if I threw them in a cardboard box and to
ssed them in a suitcase. I would never—”

  “You’re right.” Her expression softened. “You’re right. That was out of line. You would never treat original documents that way.”

  “Thank you.” He was still a bit put out. To think she’d accuse him of being that careless…

  “Well,” she said. “There’s really only one thing to do.”

  “What?”

  Her frown turned to an impish grin. “Clearly, we’re spending Christmas in Italy this year.”

  Christmas in Italy? Away from both of their families and all their employees?

  Giovanni tugged Beatrice to him, and her silk-covered hands came up to brush his cheeks as he took her mouth in a lingering kiss.

  “What a truly—” he nipped Beatrice’s lips and pulled her toward the low couches at one end of the room “—truly excellent idea.”

  “I know.” She grabbed his perfectly pressed dress shirt and tore the buttons off as she pulled it open. “I’m brilliant that way.”

  His fangs dropped as he licked up her neck, murmuring, “Buon natale to me.”

  “Wait!” She pulled away from his kiss. “Is Italy one of those countries that doesn’t exchange presents until January?”

  “Yes, January 6th. The Epiphany.”

  “No!”

  “You’ll survive. Now kiss me.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Citta di Castello, Perugia

  Italy

  Serafina Rossi carefully sorted the letters her employers had asked her to find from within the mass of correspondence recently added to the Vecchio Library. Though she understood Dr. Vecchio’s reasons, she had to agree with Ms. De Novo’s somewhat frantic e-mail. The letters, despite being written from Rome, appeared to belong within De Novo Library in Los Angeles, which specialized in early Californian—particularly Spanish-era—history.

  Fina walked around the massive library tables that occupied the floor in the central quadrangle of bookcases. Soft lights illuminated the letters from discreetly hidden sources in the walls of the villa. She reached a long arm to straighten two of the letters, nudging them into a perfect line in chronological order.