Page 65 of Night's Reckoning
She nodded. “Good.”
“Who is Kadek?”
“He’s a pirate, like Cheng. Only… not like Cheng. Cheng is mostly legitimate now.”
“Mostly?”
She looked up. “Kadek takes care of the parts that aren’t in the mostly.”
“So he’s a pirate?”
Tenzin shrugged. “Are we looters if we find a thing that belongs to a vampire and retrieve it, even if we ruin an archaeological site? Your Italian girl might say yes, but we’ve done that plenty of times. It all depends on how you look at these things. Kadek has done many recoveries. Much of Cheng’s original wealth came from ships like the one we’re looking for.”
“Shipwrecks, you mean?”
“It’s an easy way of picking up wealth when you’re young and ambitious.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Not all of us have rich uncles.”
“Ha ha. And Johari?”
Tenzin’s demeanor immediately changed.
“Watch her,” she said. “I don’t trust anyone who changes loyalties like she has.”
Ben scoffed. “She had to, Tiny. She was dying and she took Saba’s cure. What else was she supposed to do?”
“Die.” Tenzin tossed the ball toward the basket. It sailed through the hoop with a whisper. “That was her fate.”
“Harsh.”
Tenzin cocked her head. “We aren’t really immortal, you know. Am I supposed to be horrified that she might only have lived five hundred years instead of a thousand? Or more?”
“So you wouldn’t take Saba’s cure if you had to?”
“Never.” Tenzin rolled the basketball back to her feet. “Denying my element would be denying who I am. But Johari did take Saba’s cure, which means she values her life above anything else, which means we cannot trust her.”
“But she belongs to Saba now.”
Tenzin passed the ball to him. “Do you think Saba is an ally of anyone but herself?”
Ben frowned and squared his shoulders to the basket before he released the ball. “I thought… I don’t know. I thought Saba was one of the good guys. Giovanni—”
“Giovanni didn’t tell you she was good, did he?” Tenzin’s laugh made Ben bristle. “Trying to define any of us as good or bad is difficult. With Saba, it is impossible.” She flew to the ball and grabbed it.
Boy, you are faithful. Few know such strength so young. Go to sleep. Your time is not now.
She’d told Ben that once when he was young. Saba, the mother of vampires. Saba, the oldest of their kind. Saba, most ancient of earth vampires. She’d been the most beautiful woman Ben had ever seen, appearing out of the shadows like a goddess. She’d healed his uncle, brought peace to his aunt, and disappeared in the night like a thief.
In those moments when she’d spoken directly to Ben in the hall, she’d made him feel special. Like maybe everything in his life—the abuse, the violence, the loss—it had all been for something bigger than himself. That he could be—that hewassomething more.
Ben said, “If she healed Johari and sent her here, she must want to find the Laylat al Hisab too. You’re being cynical.”
“Of course I am.” She flew up and perched on the edge of the basket. “Johari might be trustworthy, but there will be no assumption from me. Watch her and wait. Don’t suppose that we are all working toward the same goal, Benjamin.”
* * *
It wasnightfall the next time he saw her. They had returned to the wreck site that afternoon and performed something Fabia called a multibeam sonar that provided a better 3-D map of the wreck site before they dropped anchor. And while Fabia and the university team had plans to send down the submersible robot the next morning with some student divers, Cheng and Kadek had other plans.
The wreck was located on a relatively shallow shelf where a reef jutted upward from the ocean floor. The wreck of theQamar Jadidappeared to be lying on its side, its bow overtaken by coral, with much of the wreck buried in sand or sediment.
