The Book of Life Read online

  My mind was dizzy with half-remembered words spoken by Louisa de Clermont and Bridget Bishop, snatches of alchemical poetry from the Aurora Consurgens, and the steady flood of information from the Book of Life.

  A new page grew out of the spine of the book, extending itself like Corra's wing, unfurling like a leaf on the bough of a tree. Sarah gasped.

  An illumination, the colors shining with silver, gold, and precious stones crushed into the pigment, bloomed from the page.

  "Jack's emblem!" Sarah cried.

  It was the tenth knot, fashioned from a firedrake and an orobouros eternally bound. The landscape that surrounded them was fertile with flowers and greenery so lush that it might have been paradise.

  The page turned, and more words flowed forth from their hidden source.

  Here continues the lineage of the most ancient Bright Born.

  The unseen hand paused, as if dipping a pen in fresh ink.

  Rebecca Arielle Emily Marthe Bishop-Clairmont, daughter of Diana Bishop, last of her line, and Matthew Gabriel Philippe Bertrand Sebastien de Clermont, first of his line. Born under the rule of the serpent.

  Philip Michael Addison Sorley Bishop-Clairmont, son of the same Diana and Matthew. Born under the protection of the archer.

  Before the ink could possibly be dry, the pages flipped madly back to the beginning.

  While we watched, a new branch sprouted from the trunk of the tree at the center of the first image. Leaves, flowers, and fruit burst forth along its length.

  The Book of Life clapped shut, the clasps engaging. The chattering ceased, leaving the library silent. I felt power surge within me, rising to unprecedented levels.

  "Wait," I said, scrambling to open the book again so that I could study the new image more closely. The Book of Life resisted me at first, but it sprang open once I wrestled with it.

  It was empty. Blank. Panic swept through me.

  "Where did it all go?" I turned the pages. "I need the book to get Matthew back!" I looked up at Sarah. "What did I do wrong?"

  "Oh, Christ." Gallowglass was white as snow. "Her eyes."

  I twisted to glance over my shoulder, expecting to see some spectral librarian glaring at me.

  "There's nothing behind you, honey. And the book hasn't gone far." Sarah swallowed hard. "It's inside you."

  I was the Book of Life.

  You are so pathetically predictable." Benjamin's voice penetrated the dull fog that had settled over Matthew's brain. "I can only pray that your wife is equally easy to manipulate."

  A searing pain shot through his arm, and Matthew cried out, unable to stop himself. The reaction only encouraged Benjamin. Matthew pressed his lips together, determined not to give his son further satisfaction.

  A hammer struck iron--a familiar, homely sound he remembered from his childhood. Matthew felt the ring of the metal as a vibration in the marrow of his bones.

  "There. That should hold you." Cold fingers gripped his chin. "Open your eyes, Father. If I have to open them for you, I don't think you will like it."

  Matthew forced his lids open. Benjamin's inscrutable face was inches away. His son made a soft, regretful sound.

  "Too bad. I'd hoped you would resist me. Still, this is only the first act." Benjamin twisted Matthew's head down.

  A long, red-hot iron spike was driven through Matthew's right forearm and into the wooden chair beneath him. As it cooled, the stench of burning flesh and bone lessened somewhat. He did not have to see the other arm to know that it had undergone a similar treatment.

  "Smile. We don't want the family back home to miss a minute of our reunion." Benjamin grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head up. Matthew heard the whirring of a camera.

  "A few warnings: First, that spike has been positioned carefully between the ulna and the radius. The hot metal will have fused to the surrounding bones just enough that if you struggle, they will splinter. I'm led to believe it's quite painful." Benjamin kicked the chair leg, and Matthew's jaw clamped shut as a terrible pain shot down into his hand. "See? Second, I have no interest in killing you. There is nothing you can do, say, or threaten that will make me deliver you into death's gentler hands. I want to banquet on your agony and savor it."

  Matthew knew that Benjamin was expecting him to ask a particular question, but his thick tongue would not obey his brain's commands. Still he persisted. Everything depended on it.

  "Where. Is. Diana?"

  "Peter tells me she is in Oxford. Knox may not be the most powerful witch to have ever lived, but he has ways of tracking her location. I would let you talk to him directly, but that would spoil the unfolding drama for our viewers back home. By the way, they can't hear you. Yet. I'm saving that for when you break down and beg." Benjamin had carefully positioned himself so his back was to the camera. That way, his lips couldn't be read. But Matthew's face was visible.

  "Diana. Not. Here?" Matthew formed each syllable carefully. He needed whoever might be watching to know that his wife was still free.

  "The Diana you saw was a mirage, Matthew," Benjamin chortled. "Knox cast a spell, projecting an image of her into that empty room upstairs. Had you watched for a bit longer, you would have seen it loop back to the beginning, like a film."

  Matthew had known it was an illusion. The image of Diana was blond, for Knox had not seen his wife since they'd returned from the past. Even had the hair color been right, Matthew would have known that it was not really Diana, for no spark of animation or warmth drew him to her. Matthew had entered Benjamin's compound knowing he would be taken. It was the only way to force Benjamin to make his next move and bring his twisted game to a close.

  "If only you had been immune to love, you might have been a great man. Instead you are ruled by that worthless emotion." Benjamin leaned closer, and Matthew could smell the scent of blood on his lips. "It is your great weakness, Father."

  Matthew's hand clenched reflexively at the insult, and his forearm paid the price, the ulna cracking like arid clay beneath a baking sun.

  "That was foolish, wasn't it? You accomplished nothing. Your body is already suffering enormous stress, your mind filled with anxieties about your wife and children. It will take you twice as long to heal under these conditions." Benjamin forced Matthew's jaws open, studying his gums and tongue. "You're thirsty. Hungry, too. I have a child downstairs--a girl, three or four. When you're ready to feed on her, let me know. I'm trying to determine if the blood of virgins is more restorative than the blood of whores. So far the data is inconclusive." Benjamin made a note on a medical chart attached to a clipboard.

  "Never."

  "Never is a long time. Philippe taught me that," Benjamin said. "We'll see how you feel later. No matter what you decide, your responses will help me answer another research question: How long does it take to starve the piety out of a vampire so that he stops believing that God will save him?"

  A very long time, Matthew thought.

  "Your vital signs are still surprisingly strong, considering all the drugs I've pumped into your system. I like the disorientation and sluggishness they provoke. Most prey experience acute anxiety when their reactions and instincts are dulled. I see some evidence of that here, but not enough for my purposes. I'll have to up the dose." Benjamin threw the clipboard onto a small metal cabinet on wheels. It looked to be from World War II. Matthew noticed the metal chair next to the cabinet. The coat on it looked familiar.

  His nostrils flared.

  Peter Knox. He wasn't in the room now, but he was nearby. Benjamin was not lying about that.

  "I'd like to get to know you better, Father. Observation can only help me to discover surface truths. Even ordinary vampires keep so many secrets. And you, my sire, are anything but ordinary." Benjamin advanced on him. He tore open Matthew's shirt, exposing his neck and shoulders. "Over the years I've learned how to maximize the information I glean from a creature's blood. It's all about the pace, you see. One must not rush. Or be too greedy."

  "No." Matthew ha
d expected that Benjamin would violate his mind, but it was impossible not to react instinctively against the intrusion. He scrambled against the chair. One forearm snapped. Then the other.

  "If you break the same bones over and over, they never heal. Think about that, Matthew, before you try to escape from me again. It's futile. And I can drive spikes between your tibia and fibula to prove it."

  Benjamin's sharp nail scored Matthew's skin. The blood welled to the surface, cold and wet.

  "Before we are done, Matthew, I will know everything about you and your witch. Given enough time--and vampires have plenty of that--I will be able to witness every touch you've bestowed upon her. I will know what brings her pleasure as well as pain. I will know the power she wields and the secrets of her body. Her vulnerabilities will be as open to me as if her soul were a book." Benjamin stroked Matthew's skin, gradually increasing the circulation to his neck. "I could smell her fear in the Bodleian, of course, but now I want to understand it. So afraid, yet so remarkably brave. It will be thrilling to break her."

  Hearts cannot be broken, Matthew reminded himself. He managed to croak out a single word. "Why?"

  "Why?" Benjamin's voice crackled with fury. "Because you didn't have the courage to kill me outright. Instead, you destroyed me one day, one drop of blood at a time. Rather than confess to Philippe that you had failed him and revealed the de Clermonts' secret plans for Outremer, you made me a vampire and flung me out into the streets of a city crowded with warmbloods. Do you remember what it's like to feel a hunger for blood that cuts you in two with longing and desire? Do you remember how strong the blood rage is when you are first changed?"

  Matthew did remember. And he had hoped--no. God help him, Matthew had prayed that Benjamin would be cursed with blood rage.

  "You cared more for Philippe's good opinion than you cared for your own child." Benjamin's voice shook with rage, his eyes black as night. "Since the moment I was made a vampire, I have lived to destroy you and Philippe and all of the de Clermonts. My revenge gave me purpose, and time has been my friend. I've waited. I've planned. I've made my own children and taught them how to survive as I learned to survive: by raping and killing. It was the only path you left for me to follow."

  Matthew's eyes closed in an attempt to blot out not only Benjamin's face but also the knowledge of his failures as a son and a father. But Benjamin would not allow it.

  "Open your eyes," his son snarled. "Soon, you will have no more secrets from me."

  Matthew's eyes flew open in alarm.

  "As I learn about your mate, I will discover so much about you as well," Benjamin continued. "There is no better way to know a man than to understand his woman. I learned that from Philippe, as well."

  The gears in Matthew's brain clinked and clunked. Some awful truth was fighting to make itself known.

  "Was Philippe able to tell you about the time he and I spent together during the war? It didn't go according to my plans. Philippe spoiled so many of them when he visited the witch in the camp--an old Gypsy woman," Benjamin explained. "Someone tipped him off to my presence, and as usual Philippe took matters into his own hands. The witch stole most of his thoughts, scrambled the rest like eggs, and then hanged herself. It was a setback, to be sure. He had always had such an orderly mind. I had been looking forward to exploring it, in all its complex beauty."

  Matthew's roar of protest came out as a croak, but the screaming in his head went on and on. This he had not expected.

  It had been Benjamin--his son--who had tortured Philippe during the war and not some Nazi functionary.

  Benjamin struck Matthew across the face, breaking his cheekbone.

  "Quiet. I am telling you a bedtime story." Benjamin's fingers pressed into the broken bones of Matthew's face, playing them like an instrument whose only music was pain. "By the time the commander at Auschwitz released Philippe into my custody, it was too late. After the witch there was only one coherent thing left in that once-brilliant mind: Ysabeau. She can be surprisingly sensual, I discovered, for someone so cold."

  As much as Matthew wanted to stop his ears against the words, there was no way to do so.

  "Philippe hated his own weakness, but he could not let her go," Benjamin continued. "Even in the midst of his madness, weeping like a baby, he thought of Ysabeau--all the while knowing I was sharing in his pleasure." Benjamin smiled, displaying his sharp teeth. "But that's enough family talk for now. Prepare yourself, Matthew. This is going to hurt."

  On the plane home, Gallowglass had warned Marcus that something unexpected had happened to me at the Bodleian.

  "You will find Diana . . . altered," Gallowglass said carefully into the phone.

  Altered. It was an apt description for a creature who was composed of knots, cords, chains, wings, seals, weapons, and now, words and a tree. I didn't know what that made me, but it was a far cry from what I had been before.

  Even though he'd been warned of the change, Marcus was visibly shocked when I climbed out of the car at Sept-Tours. Phoebe accepted my metamorphosis with greater equanimity, as she did most things.

  "No questions, Marcus," Hamish said, taking my elbow. He'd seen on the plane what questions did to me. No disguising spell could hide the way my eyes went milky white and displayed letters and symbols at even the hint of a query, more letters appearing on my forearms and the backs of my hands.

  I expressed silent thanks that my children would never know me any different and would therefore think it normal to have a palimpsest for a mother.

  "No questions," Marcus quickly agreed.

  "The children are in Matthew's study with Marthe. They have been restless for the past hour, as if they knew you were coming," Phoebe said, following me into the house.

  "I'll see Becca and Philip first." In my eagerness I flew up the stairs rather than walking. There seemed little point in doing anything else.

  My time with the children was soul shaking. On the one hand, they made me feel closer to Matthew. But with my husband in danger, I couldn't help noticing how much the shape of Philip's blue eyes resembled that of his father's. There was a similarly stubborn cast to his chin, too, young and immature though it was. And Becca's coloring--her hair as dark as a raven's wing, eyes that were not the usual baby blue but already a brilliant gray-green, milky skin--was eerily like Matthew's. I cuddled them close, whispering promises into their ears about what their father would do with them when he returned home.

  When I had spent as much time with them as I dared, I returned downstairs, slowly and on foot this time, and demanded to see the video feed from Benjamin.

  "Ysabeau is in the family library, watching it now." Miriam's palpable worry made my blood run colder than anything had since Gallowglass materialized at the Bodleian.

  I steeled myself for the sight, but Ysabeau slammed the laptop shut as soon as I entered the room.

  "I told you not to bring her here, Miriam."

  "Diana has a right to know," Miriam said.

  "Miriam is right, Granny." Gallowglass gave his grandmother a quick kiss in greeting. "Besides, Auntie won't obey your orders any more than you obeyed Baldwin when he tried to keep you from Philippe until his wounds healed." He pried the laptop from Ysabeau's fingers and opened the lid.

  What I saw made me utter a strangled sound of horror. Were it not for Matthew's distinctive gray-green eyes and black hair, I might not have known him.

  "Diana." Baldwin strode into the room, his expression carefully schooled to show no reaction to my appearance. But he was a soldier, and he understood that pretending something hadn't happened didn't make it go away. He reached out with surprising gentleness and touched my hairline. "Does it hurt?"

  "No." When my body had absorbed the Book of Life, a tree had appeared on it as well. Its trunk covered the back of my neck, perfectly aligned with the column of my spine. Its roots spread across my shoulders. The tree's branches fanned out under my hair, covering my scalp. The tips of the branches peeked out along my hairline, behind
my ears, and around the edges of my face. Like the tree on my spell box, the roots and branches were strangely intertwined along the sides of my neck in a pattern resembling Celtic knotwork.

  "Why are you here?" I asked. We hadn't heard from Baldwin since the christening.

  "Baldwin was the first to see Benjamin's message," Gallowglass explained. "He contacted me straightaway, then shared the news with Marcus."

  "Nathaniel had beaten me to it. He traced Matthew's last cell communication--a call made to you--to a location inside Poland," Baldwin said.

  "Addie saw Matthew in Dresden, en route to Berlin," Miriam reported. "He asked her for information about Benjamin. While he was with her, Matthew got a text. He left immediately."

  "Verin joined Addie there. They've picked up Matthew's trail. One of Marcus's knights spotted him leaving what we used to call Breslau." Baldwin glanced at Ysabeau. "He was traveling southeast. Matthew must have wandered into a trap."

  "He was going north until then. Why did he change direction?" Marcus frowned.

  "Matthew may have gone to Hungary," I said, trying to envision all this on the map. "We found a letter from Godfrey that mentioned Benjamin's connections there."

  Marcus's phone rang.

  "What do you have?" Marcus listened for a moment, then went to one of the other laptops dotting the surface of the library table. Once the screen illuminated, he keyed in a Web address. Close-up shots from the video feed appeared, the images enhanced to provide greater clarity. One was of a clipboard. Another, a corner of fabric draped over a chair. The third, a window. Marcus put down his cell phone and turned on the speaker.

  "Explain, Nathaniel," he ordered, sounding more like Nathaniel's commanding officer than his friend.

  "The room is pretty barren--there's not much in the way of clues that might help us get a better fix on Matthew's location. These items seemed to have the most potential."

  "Can you zoom in on the clipboard?"

  On the other side of the world, Nathaniel manipulated the image.

  "That's the kind we used for medical charts. They were on every hospital ward, hanging on the bed rails." Marcus tilted his head. "It's an intake form. Benjamin's done what any doctor would--taken Matthew's height, weight, blood pressure, pulse." Marcus paused. "And he's indicated the medications Matthew is on."