The Book of Life Read online

  I looked down at my arms. In a kind of magical Scrabble, letters rose and arranged themselves into a name: JANET GOWDIE, DAUGHTER OF ISOBEL GOWDIE AND BENJAMIN FOX. Janet's grandmother had been one of the Bright Born.

  "When was your grandmother conceived?" An account of a Bright Born's life might tell me something about my own children's futures.

  "In 1662," Janet said. "Granny Janet died in 1912, bless her, at the age of two hundred and fifty. She kept her beauty right until the end, but then, unlike me, Granny Janet was more vampire than witch. She was proud to have inspired the legends of the baobhan sith, having lured many a man to her bed only to cause each of them death and ruin. And it was fearful to behold Granny Janet's temper when she was crossed."

  "But that would make you . . ." My eyes were round.

  "I'll be one hundred and seventy next year," Janet said. She murmured a few words and her white hair was revealed to be a dusky black. Another murmured spell showed her skin was a luminous, pearly white.

  Janet Gowdie looked no more than thirty. My children's lives began to take shape in my imagination.

  "And your mother?" I asked.

  "My mam lived for a full two hundred years. With each passing generation, our lives get shorter."

  "How do you hide what you are from the humans?" Osamu asked.

  "Same way the vampires do, I suppose. A bit of luck. A bit of help from our fellow witches. A bit of human willingness to turn away from the truth," Janet replied.

  "This is utter nonsense," Sidonie said hotly. "You are a famous witch, Janet. Your spell-casting ability is renowned. And you come from a distinguished line of witches. Why you would want to sully your family's reputation with this story is beyond me."

  "And there it is," I said, my voice soft.

  "There what is?" Sidonie sounded like a testy schoolmarm.

  "The disgust. The fear. The dislike of anybody who doesn't conform to your simpleminded expectations of the world and how it should work."

  "Listen to me, Diana Bishop--"

  But I was through listening to Sidonie or anybody else who used the covenant as a shield to hide their own inner darkness.

  "No. You listen to me," I said. "My parents were witches. I'm the blood-sworn daughter of a vampire. My husband, and the father of my children, is a vampire. Janet, too, is descended from a witch and a vampire. When will you stop pretending that there's some pure-blooded witch ideal in the world?"

  Sidonie stiffened. "There is such an ideal. It is how our power has been maintained."

  "No. It's how our power has died," I retorted. "If we keep abiding by the covenant, in a few generations we won't have any power left. The whole purpose of that agreement was to keep the species from mixing and reproducing."

  "More nonsense!" Sidonie cried. "The covenant's purpose is first and foremost to keep us safe."

  "Wrong. The covenant was drawn up to prevent the birth of children like Janet: powerful, long-lived, neither witch nor vampire nor daemon but something in between," I said. "It's what all creatures have feared. It's what Benjamin wants to control. We cannot let him."

  "In between?" Janet arched her brows. They were, now that I was seeing her clearly, as black as night. "Is that the answer, then?"

  "Answer to what?" Domenico demanded.

  But I was not ready to share that secret from the Book of Life. Not until Miriam and Chris had found the scientific evidence to back up what the manuscript had revealed to me. Once again I was saved from answering by the ringing of Celestina's bells.

  "It is nearly midnight. We must adjourn--for now," Agatha Wilson said, her eyes shining. "I call the question. Will the Congregation support the de Clermonts in their efforts to rid the world of Benjamin Fox?"

  Everyone returned to their seats and we went around the table one by one, casting our votes.

  This time the vote was more encouraging: four in favor and five opposed. I had made progress in the second vote, earning the support of Agatha, Osamu, and Janet, but not enough to guarantee the outcome when the third, and final, vote was taken tomorrow. Especially not when my old enemies, Gerbert, Domenico, and Satu, were among the holdouts.

  "The meeting will resume tomorrow afternoon at five o'clock." Aware of every minute that Matthew was spending in Benjamin's custody, I had argued once more for an earlier meeting time. And once more, my request had been denied.

  Wearily I gathered up my leather folio--which I'd never opened--and the Book of Life. The past seven hours had been grueling. I couldn't stop thinking about Matthew and what he was enduring while the Congregation hemmed and hawed. And I was worried about the children, too, who were without both of their parents. I waited for the room to empty. Janet Gowdie and Gerbert were the last to leave.

  "Gerbert?" I called.

  He stopped on his way out the door, his back to me.

  "I haven't forgotten what happened in May," I said, the power burning brightly in my hands. "One day you will answer to me for Emily Mather's death."

  Gerbert's head swung around. "Peter said you and Matthew were hiding something. I should have listened to him."

  "Didn't Benjamin already tip you off about what the witches discovered?" I asked.

  But Gerbert hadn't lived so long to be caught so easily. His lip curled.

  "Until next evening," he said, giving Janet and me a small, formal bow.

  "We should call him Nickie-Bertie," Janet commented. "He and Benjamin would make a right pair of devils."

  "They would indeed," I replied uneasily.

  "Are you free tomorrow for lunch?" Janet Gowdie asked as we walked out of the meeting chamber and into the cloister, her musical Scots voice reminding me of Gallowglass.

  "Me?" Even after all that had happened tonight, I was surprised she would be seen with a de Clermont.

  "Neither of us fits into one of the Congregation's tiny boxes, Diana," Janet said, her smooth skin dimpling with amusement.

  Gallowglass and Fernando were waiting for me under the cloister's arcade. Gallowglass frowned to see me in a witch's company.

  "All right, Auntie?" he asked, worried. "We should go. It's getting late."

  "I just want to have a quick word with Janet before we leave." I searched Janet's face, looking for a sign that she might be trying to win my friendship for some nefarious purpose, but all I saw was concern. "Why are you helping me?" I asked bluntly.

  "I promised Philippe I would," Janet said. She dropped her knitting bag at her feet and drew up the sleeve of her shirt. "You are not the only one whose skin tells a tale, Diana Bishop."

  Tattooed on her arm was a number. Gallowglass swore. I gasped. "Were you at Auschwitz with Philippe?" My heart was in my mouth.

  "No. I was at Ravensbruck," she said. "I was working in France for the SOE--the Special Operations Executive--when I was captured. Philippe was trying to liberate the camp. He managed to get a few of us out before the Nazis caught him."

  "Do you know where Philippe was held after Auschwitz?" I asked, my tone urgent.

  "No, though we did look for him. Was it Nickie-Ben who had him?" Janet's eyes were dark with sympathy.

  "Yes," I replied. "We think he was somewhere near Chelm."

  "Benjamin had witches working for him then, too. I remember wondering at the time why everything within fifty miles of Chelm was lost in a dense fog. We couldn't find our way through it, no matter how we tried." Janet's eyes filled. "I am sorry we failed Philippe. We will do better this time. 'Tis a matter of Bishop-Clairmont family honor. And I am Matthew de Clermont's kin, after all."

  "Tatiana will be the easiest to sway," I said.

  "Not Tatiana," Janet said with a shake of her head. "She is infatuated with Domenico. Her sweater does more than enhance her figure. It also hides Domenico's bites. We must persuade Satu instead."

  "Satu Jarvinen will never help me," I said, thinking of the time we'd spent together at La Pierre.

  "Oh, I think she will," Janet said. "Once we explain that we'll offer her up to Benjami
n in exchange for Matthew if she doesn't. Satu is a weaver like you, after all. Perhaps Finnish weavers are more fertile than those from Chelm."

  *

  Satu was staying at a small establishment on a quiet campo on the opposite side of the Grand Canal from Ca' Chiaromonte. It looked perfectly ordinary from the outside, with brightly painted flower boxes and stickers on the windows indicating its rating relative to other area establishments (four stars) and the credit cards it accepted (all of them).

  Inside, however, the veneer of normalcy proved thin.

  The proprietress, Laura Malipiero, sat behind a desk in the front lobby swathed in purple and black velvet, shuffling a tarot deck. Her hair was wild and curly, with streaks of white through the black. A garland of black paper bats was draped over the mailboxes, and the scent of sage and dragon's-blood incense hung in the air.

  "We're full," she said, not looking up from her cards. A cigarette was clasped in the corner of her mouth. It was purple and black, just like her outfit. At first I didn't think it was lit. Signorina Malipiero was sitting under a sign that read VIETATO FUMARE, after all. But then the witch took a deep drag on it. There was indeed no smoke, though the tip glowed.

  "They say she's the richest witch in Venice. She made her fortune selling enchanted cigarettes." Janet eyed her with disapproval. She had donned her disguising spell again and to the casual observer looked to be a frail nonagenarian rather than a slender thirty-something.

  "I'm sorry, sisters, but the Regata delle Befane is this week, and there isn't a room to be had in this part of Venice." Signorina Malipiero's attention remained on her cards.

  I'd seen notices all over town announcing the annual Epiphany gondola race to see who could get from San Toma to the Rialto the fastest. There were two races, of course: the official regatta in the morning and the far more exciting and dangerous one at midnight that involved not just brute strength but magic, too.

  "We aren't interested in a room, Signorina Malipiero. I'm Janet Gowdie, and this is Diana Bishop. We're here to see Satu Jarvinen on Congregation business--if she's not practicing for the gondola race, that is."

  The Venetian witch looked up in shock, her dark eyes huge and her cigarette dangling.

  "Room 17, is it? No need to trouble yourself. We can show ourselves up." Janet beamed at the stunned witch and bundled me off in the direction of the stairs.

  "You, Janet Gowdie, are a bulldozer," I said breathlessly as she hustled me down the corridor. "Not to mention a mind reader." It was such a useful magical talent.

  "What a lovely thing to say, Diana." Janet knocked on the door. "Cameriera!"

  There was no answer. And after yesterday's marathon Congregation meeting, I was tired of waiting. I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob and murmured an opening spell. The door swung open. Satu Jarvinen was waiting for us inside, both hands up, ready to work magic.

  I snared the threads that surrounded her and pulled them tight, binding her arms to her sides. Satu gasped.

  "What do you know about weavers?" I demanded.

  "Not as much as you do," Satu replied.

  "Is this why you treated me so badly at La Pierre?" I asked.

  Satu's expression was steely. Her actions then had been taken in the interest of self-preservation. She felt no remorse. "I won't let you expose me. They'll kill us all if they find out what weavers can do," Satu said.

  "They'll kill me anyway for loving Matthew. What do I have to lose?"

  "Your children," Satu spit.

  That, it turned out, was going too far.

  "You are unfit to possess a witch's gifts. I bind thee, Satu Jarvinen, delivering you into the hands of the goddess without power or craft." With the index finger of my left hand, I pulled the threads one more inch and knotted them tight. My finger flared darkly purple. It was, I had discovered, the color of justice.

  Satu's power left her in a whoosh, sucking the air out of the room.

  "You can't spellbind me!" she cried. "It's forbidden!"

  "Report me to the Congregation," I said. "But before you do, know this: Nobody will be able to break the knot that binds you--except me. And what use will you be to the Congregation in this state? If you want to keep your seat, you'll have to keep your silence--and hope that Sidonie von Borcke doesn't notice."

  "You will pay for this, Diana Bishop!" Satu promised.

  "I already have," I said. "Or have you forgotten what you did to me in the name of sisterly solidarity?"

  I advanced on her slowly. "Being spellbound is nothing compared to what Benjamin will do to you if he discovers that you are a weaver. You'll have no way to defend yourself and will be entirely at his mercy. I've seen what Benjamin does to the witches he tries to impregnate. Not even you deserve that."

  Satu's eyes flickered with fear.

  "Vote for the de Clermont motion this afternoon." I released Satu's arms, but not the binding spell that limited her power. "For your own sake, if not for Matthew."

  Satu tried and failed to use her magic against me.

  "Your power is gone. I wasn't lying, sister." I turned and stalked away. At the doorway I stopped and turned. "And don't ever threaten my children again. If you do, you'll be begging me to throw you down a hole and forget about you."

  *

  Gerbert tried to delay the final vote on procedural grounds, arguing that the current constitution of the governing council did not meet the criteria set out in foundational documents dating from the Crusader period. These stipulated the presence of three vampires, three witches, and three daemons.

  Janet stopped me from strangling the creature by quickly explaining that since she and I were both part vampire and part witch, the Congregation was equally balanced. While she argued percentages, I examined Gerbert's so-called foundational documents and discovered words such as "unalienable" that were decidedly eighteenth-century in their tone. Presented with a list of the linguistic anachronisms in this supposedly Crusader document, Gerbert scowled at Domenico and said these were obviously later transcriptions of lost originals.

  No one believed him.

  Janet and I won the vote: six to three. Satu voted as we told her to do, her attitude subdued and defeated. Even Tatiana joined our ranks thanks to Osamu, who had devoted his morning to mapping the precise location of not only Chelm but every Russian city beginning with Ch just to prove that the Polish city's witches had nothing to do with her grandmother's skin affliction. When the two entered the council chamber hand in hand, I figured she might have switched not only sides but boyfriends.

  Once the vote was tallied and recorded, we didn't linger to celebrate. Instead Gallowglass, Janet, Fernando, and I took off in the de Clermont launch, headed across the lagoon for the airport.

  As planned, I sent a three-letter text to Hamish with the results of the vote: QGA. It stood for Queen's Gambit Accepted, a code to indicate that the Congregation had been persuaded to support Matthew's rescue. We did not know if anyone was monitoring our communications, but we'd decided to be cautious.

  His response was immediate.

  Well done. Standing by for your arrival.

  I checked in with Marcus, who reported that the twins were always hungry and had completely monopolized Phoebe's attention. As for Jack, Marcus said he was as well as could be expected.

  After my exchange with Marcus, I sent a text to Ysabeau.

  Worried about the bishop pair.

  It was another chess reference. We had dubbed Gerbert, onetime bishop of Rome, and his sidekick Domenico the "bishop pair" because they always seemed to be working together. After their latest defeat, they were bound to retaliate. Gerbert might already have warned Knox that I had won the vote and we were on our way.

  Ysabeau took longer to reply than Marcus had.

  The bishop pair cannot checkmate our king unless the queen and her rook allow it.

  There was a long pause, then another message.

  And I will die first.

  The air bit through my thick cloa
k, making me withdraw from the blast of wind that threatened to split me in two. I had never experienced cold like this and wondered how anyone survived a winter in Chelm.

  "There." Baldwin pointed to a low huddle of buildings in the valley below.

  "Benjamin has at least a dozen of his children with him." Verin stood at my elbow, a pair of binoculars in her fingers. She offered them to me, in case my warmblooded eyes weren't strong enough to see where my husband was being kept, but I refused them.

  I knew exactly where Matthew was. The closer I got to him, the more agitated my power became, leaping to the surface of my skin in an attempt to escape. That, and my witch's third eye, more than made up for any warmblooded deficiencies.

  "We'll wait until twilight to strike. That's when a detail of Benjamin's children go out to hunt." Baldwin looked grim. "They've been preying on Chelm and Lublin, bringing back the homeless and the weak for their father to feed on."

  "Wait?" I'd done nothing but for three days. "I'm not going to wait another moment!"

  "He is still alive, Diana." Ysabeau's response should have brought me comfort, but it only made the ice around my heart thicken at the thought of what Matthew would continue to suffer for the next six hours as we waited for darkness to fall.

  "We can't attack the compound when it's at full strength," Baldwin said. "We must be strategic about this, Diana--not emotional."

  Think--and stay alive. Reluctantly, I turned away from dreams of Matthew's quick release to focus on the challenges before us. "Janet said Knox put wards around the main building."

  Baldwin nodded. "We were waiting for you to disarm them."

  "How will the knights get into position without Benjamin knowing?" I asked.

  "Tonight the Knights of Lazarus will use the tunnels to enter Benjamin's compound from below." Fernando's expression was calculating. "Twenty, maybe thirty, should be enough."

  "Chelm is built on chalk, you see, and the ground beneath it is honeycombed with tunnels," Hamish explained, unrolling a small, crudely drawn map. "The Nazis destroyed some of them, but Benjamin kept these open. They connect his compound and the town and provide a way for him and his children to prey on the city without ever appearing aboveground."