Page 16 of Night's Reckoning
The idea wasn’t all bad. “What would I do for Emil Conti?”
Ronan shrugged. “What do any of us do, really? We make life move. With your skills, I imagine you’d be doing many of the same things you’re doing now. Just with… more resources.”
So Emil wanted him as a spy. Interesting.
“And of course I’m sure you’d continue working with your uncle. There would be no need to end your part in the family business.”
And the “family business” was a little safer than the freelance work that Ben had been doing on his own.
He watched a group of young people pour out of a club on the far side of the Piazza. They were joking and laughing with each other. Shouting about going back to someone’s house for drinks.
Ronan noticed. “You could have a life here, Ben. It would be exciting enough to keep your interest but settled enough to build something real.”
Something real.
Something… settled. Or settled enough.
You don’t know me.
It was the opposite of the life he’d been living. And… it wasn’t unappealing.
“Just think about it,” Ronan said. “This isn’t a formal offer to accept or turn down. This is an idea from a friend.”
“Just from a friend?”
Ronan smiled. “And from his employer who respects you a great deal.”
“Understood.” Ben nodded. “Thanks, Ronan. I’ll think about it.”
“Good.”
5
Shanghai, China
Cheng spread a map of the coastline across the table. “The fisherman said the boat was a dhow, as was theQamar Jadid. It would have stayed relatively close to shore. Traders during that period rarely risked sailing too far out.”
Tenzin glanced at the area marked on the map. “The wreck isn’t very close to the mainland.”
Cheng looked up, his eyes alight with enjoyment. “Currents. Storms. All sorts of reasons it could have ended up there.”
Tenzin tried to act interested, but she was bored. Bored in China. Bored with this treasure hunt. Just… bored.
Bored without him.
She told the voices inside her to be quiet. “If so many people have been looking for this shipwreck for so long, why is it just now turning up?”
“Because it’s a big ocean.” Cheng straightened and put his hands on his hips. “And even water vampires like me are not her master. If the ocean wants to keep a secret, it does.”
He was a beautiful man. His black hair was longer than Tenzin’s now. It brushed his shoulders and fell in his eyes when he was distracted. He was dressed in what Tenzin thought of as his house clothes, loose fisherman’s pants and a tunic that fell to his hips. He looked like a pirate, which made sense because he was one. Or he had been.
Cheng had a luxurious office building of his own in the Pudong district of Shanghai that housed the majority of his operations, but he didn’t live there. He lived on a converted barge that floated off the coast.
While technically the council of the Eight Immortals where her sire sat ruled all of China, in Shanghai, Cheng was king. Any immortal looking to do business in the city or use its port had to get permission and pay a hefty toll to operate in Cheng’s territory.
It was a situation the elders in Penglai had allowed to happen, even if they weren’t thrilled with Cheng’s power. He gave them lip service when they required it and they received a healthy share of his profits. In return, they left him alone. Mostly.
Cheng was in his element, grabbing this map and that chart, extolling the modern capabilities of the university research vessel he’d secured to allow them to search for the wreck of theQamar Jadid.
