Page 41 of Night's Reckoning
Ben kept his arms crossed over his chest—a defensive human gesture—and remained silent. She tried to read his face, but he’d become nearly as accomplished at hiding his true thoughts as his uncle was.
“You left me,” he said quietly. “I was honest with you, which wasn’t easy. I was expecting you to be angry. I was prepared to fight with you—God knows it wouldn’t be the first time—but I was prepared for that. Instead, you just… left.”
She shook her head. “That had nothing to do with—”
“Bullshit.”
She glanced back at the conference room. “Do you really want to talk about this now?”
“Should we schedule an appointment instead?”
Tenzin nodded. “Yes. That is a good idea.”
He dropped his arms. “I was being facetious, Tiny.”
“I don’t know why you’d make a joke about that. It’s a good idea.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay, I can’t believe I’m doing this. What’s your schedule like tomorrow night?”
She frowned. “Very busy. I need to fly to my house tomorrow night.”
“For?”
“There’s a book in the library I think might be useful.”
“What about? Most of your books in the Shanghai house are European.”
“I know, and there is an Italian one about the glass trade that I think might prove useful, but I can’t remember where it is.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Does it have a blue dust jacket?”
“Yes!”
“Take me with you and I’ll help you find it. I think I know the one you’re talking about.”
“I was going to fly.”
He shrugged. “So? Fly me with you.”
She looked him up and down. “You’re large.”
“Are you saying you’re not strong enough to do it? You going to drop me?”
If you continue to be this irritating, maybe.“No.”
“So take me with you. We can look for the book and have our… meeting at the same time.”
Talking while occupied in some other task did have its advantages. If Ben brought up things she didn’t want to talk about, she could distract him. She was very good at distracting him.
“Fine.” She walked back toward the doors. “I’ll take you tomorrow. Now come meet the team.”
* * *
Ben sat backat his seat and picked at the remnants of food left on his plate while Cheng introduced the two other vampire members of the team.
“Kadek is one of my oldest sons,” Cheng said. “He is an experienced sea captain and will be in charge of theJinshé.He will also be coordinating with the crew from the university. Our client, Elder Zhang, was quite adamant that he wanted more than a direct salvage operation and was interested in scholars documenting this historic site, which is why we will have the university research vessel and not a smaller ship.”
Fabia raised her hand. “For the purpose of clarity, are Ben and I considered part of the vampire crew or the human crew in this context?”
