“I don’t think your phone will work.”

“Well, I won’t get reception, but—”

“No, I highly doubt it will even turn on with that surge.  Did you leave your laptop in your car tonight?”

She frowned at his odd question.  “Yes, but—”

“Good, at least you won’t lose that.  I’ll just buy you a new phone.”

“A new phone?  What the—”

“Now to figure out how to get out of here—”

“Giovanni!” she finally yelled.  She felt blind, and she was starting to panic.  “What the hell is going on?  Why won’t my phone work?  And what was that flash that stopped the elevator?”

She stood in the pitch black, waiting for him to speak—for him to do anything.  She couldn’t even hear him breathing.  He was so still, she almost thought she was imagining his presence in the elevator earlier.  Beatrice was halfway convinced if she threw her arm out, she would meet nothing but dead air.  The charged air in the elevator seemed to press against her, and she heart began to pound.

Finally, she heard a pop, as if someone had plugged an old lamp into a socket.  A small blue light shone across from her and her eyes were drawn to it immediately.

It grew until it was the size of a lighter flame, then it got bigger, and rounder, its soft blue-green light illuminating the large hand it hovered over.  She couldn’t look away as it swirled and grew, slowly becoming the size of a glowing softball, held hovering over the palm of Giovanni’s pale hand.

She finally dragged her eyes away from the ball of blue-green flame that now resembled the color of his unusual eyes.  Her gaze tracked up his arm, the buttons of his black shirt, the still, white column of his neck, and over his grim mouth.  Finally, she met his intense stare in the low light of the broken elevator.

Beatrice held her breath and stared in astonishment as the terrifying fire in his hand pulsed and swirled.  She could only manage a hoarse whisper.

“What are you?”

Chapter Five

Houston, Texas

November 2003

Giovanni’s gaze was steady and his voice soothing as he looked at her in the pulsing blue light.

“Remember, Beatrice—remember when you told me at the fair that nothing was inexplicable, just not explained yet?”

She nodded, wondering if he could hear the race of her pulse.  Her eyes darted around the compartment, instinctively looking for an escape from the strange, fire-wielding…whatever he was standing across from her.  But there was no way out of the steel box, and she had no idea when anyone would notice the notoriously defective elevator wasn’t running if there was no alarm.

“I’m not asking you to believe in magic, Beatrice.  I’m asking you to believe that there are things in this world you don’t understand yet.  Things that none of us do.”

Beatrice stared back at the strange blue fire and asked again, “What are you?”

“Many human myths are created as an attempt to explain the inexplicable.”

Beatrice shrank into the corner of the elevator, glaring at him as he spoke.  She felt her legs begin to shake, so she slid to the ground and folded them under her.  Giovanni followed, sitting slowly so as not to upset the flaming blue orb still hovering over his hand.

“Thor, the Norse god of thunder,” he said.  “Pele, the fire god who created the Hawaiian volcanoes.”

She was shaking her head in disbelief, glancing between his face and the ball of blue fire he held.  Panic seemed to well up in her throat, choking her.  She tried to take deep, calming breaths, but she wasn’t very successful.

He spoke more quickly, “Dinosaur skeletons led to myths about dragons.  Prehistoric basalt formations became the Giant’s Causeway.”

“What are you?” she asked in a stronger voice, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

He fell silent, his eyes left hers as he stared down at the blue fire in his hand.  “What do you think I am?” he asked in low voice.  “Think.”

“I don’t remember any particular myths about pyrokinetic book dealers!”

He flicked his fingers and the flaming orb spun to the top of the compartment where it hung and twisted, still illuminating the small space.  Giovanni pulled his long legs toward his body and rested his arms on his knees, his long graceful fingers loosely knit together in front of him.

“Forget the fire for a moment,” he said in what she thought of as his “professor voice.”  She normally found it annoying but, at that moment, it was oddly comforting.  “There are other myths.  Other stories.  What do you think I am?”

She remembered the first night they had met, and his inhuman speed that beat her elevator to the lobby.

“You—you’re fast.”

He nodded.  “I’m very fast.  And very strong.”

She thought back to his pale face glowing on Dia de los Muertos.

“Your skin…it’s pale.  Really pale.  And I’ve never seen you during the day.”

“And you never will,” he murmured in the pulsing blue light.

Her breathing picked up as a growing suspicion began to take shape.  Her voice wavered a little as she continued, “I’ve never seen you eat or drink…anything.”

Her heart pounded when he looked at her through the dark hair that had fallen into his eyes.  “I can eat, a little, but I don’t need food to survive.”