A Discovery of Witches (78 page)

“
Dieu
, why can’t they keep their mouths shut?” He ran his fingers through his hair, his regret at concealing all this from me clear in his eyes. “At first I was sure this was about the manuscript. Then I supposed it was all about you. Now I’ll be damned if I can figure out
what
it’s about. Some old, powerful secret is unraveling, and we’re caught up in it.”

“Is Miriam right to wonder how many other creatures are tangled in it, too?” I stared at the moon as if she might answer my question. Matthew did instead.

“It’s doubtful we’re the first creatures to love those we should not, and we surely won’t be the last.” He took my arm. “Let’s go inside. We have some explaining to do.”

On our way up the drive, Matthew observed that explanations, like medicines, go down easier when accompanied by liquid refreshment. We entered the house through the back door to pick up the necessary supplies. While I arranged a tray, Matthew’s eyes rested on me.

“What?” I looked up. “Did I forget something?”

A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “No,
ma lionne.
I’m just trying to figure out how I acquired such a fierce wife. Even putting cups on a tray, you look formidable.”

“I’m not formidable,” I said, tightening my ponytail self-consciously.

“Yes, you are.” Matthew smiled. “Miriam wouldn’t be in such a state otherwise.”

When we reached the door between the dining room and the family room, we listened for sounds of a battle within, but there was nothing except quiet murmurs and low conversation. The house unlocked the door and opened it for us.

“We thought you might be thirsty,” I said, putting the tray on the table.

A multitude of eyes turned in our direction—vampires, witches, ghosts. My grandmother had a whole flock of Bishops at her back, all of them rustling and shifting as they tried to adjust to having vampires in the dining room.

“Whiskey, Sarah?” Matthew asked, picking up a tumbler from the tray.

She gave him a long look. “Miriam says that by accepting your relationship we invite war. My father fought in World War II.”

“So did mine,” Matthew said, pouring the whiskey. So had he, no doubt, but he was silent on that point.

“He always said whiskey made it possible to close your eyes at night without hating yourself for everything you’d been ordered to do that day.”

“It’s no guarantee, but it helps.” Matthew held out the glass.

Sarah took it. “Would you kill your own son if you thought he was a threat to Diana?”

He nodded. “Without hesitation.”

“That’s what he said.” Sarah nodded at Marcus. “Get him a drink, too. It can’t be easy, knowing your own father could kill you.”

Matthew got Marcus his whiskey and poured Miriam a glass of wine. I made Em a cup of milky coffee. She’d been crying and looked more fragile than usual.

“I just don’t know if I can handle this, Diana,” she whispered when she took the mug. “Marcus explained what Gillian and Peter Knox had planned. But when I think of Barbara Chamberlain and what she must be feeling now that her daughter is dead—” Em shuddered to a stop.

“Gillian Chamberlain was an ambitious woman, Emily,” said Matthew. “All she ever wanted was a seat at the Congregation’s table.”

“But you didn’t have to kill her,” Em insisted.

“Gillian believed absolutely that witches and vampires should remain apart. The Congregation has never been satisfied that they fully understood Stephen Proctor’s power and asked her to watch Diana. She wouldn’t have rested until both Ashmole 782 and Diana were in the Congregation’s control.”

“But it was just a picture.” Em wiped at her eyes.

“It was a threat. The Congregation had to understand that I was not going to stand by and let them take Diana.”

“Satu took her anyway,” Em pointed out, her voice unusually sharp.

“That’s enough, Em.” I reached over and covered her hand with mine.

“What about this issue of children?” Sarah asked, gesturing with her glass. “Surely you two won’t do something so risky?”

“That’s enough,” I repeated, standing and banging my hand on the table. Everyone but Matthew and my grandmother jumped in surprise. “If we are at war, we’re not fighting for a bewitched alchemical manuscript, or for my safety, or for our right to marry and have children. This is about the future of all of us.” I saw that future for just a moment, its bright potential spooling away in a thousand different directions. “If our children don’t take the next evolutionary steps, it will be someone else’s children. And whiskey isn’t going to make it possible for me to close my eyes and forget that. No one else will go through this kind of hell because they love someone they’re not supposed to love. I won’t allow it.”

My grandmother gave me a slow, sweet smile.
There’s my girl. Spoken like a Bishop.

“We don’t expect anyone else to fight with us. But understand this: our army has one general. Matthew. If you don’t like it, don’t enlist.”

In the front hall, the old case clock began to strike midnight.

The witching hour.
My grandmother nodded.

Sarah looked at Em. “Well, honey? Are we going to stand with Diana and join Matthew’s army or let the devil take the hindmost?”

“I don’t understand what you all mean by war. Will there be battles? Will vampires and witches come here?” Em asked Matthew in a shaky voice.

“The Congregation believes Diana holds answers to their questions. They won’t stop looking for her.”

“But Matthew and I don’t have to stay,” I said. “We can be gone by morning.”

“My mother always said my life wouldn’t be worth living once it was tangled up with the Bishops,” Em said with a wan smile.

“Thank you, Em,” Sarah said simply, although her face spoke volumes.

The clock tolled a final time. Its gears whirred into place, ready to strike the next hour when it came.

“Miriam?” Matthew asked. “Are you staying here or are you going back to Oxford?”

“My place is with the de Clermonts.”

“Diana is a de Clermont now.” His tone was icy.

“I understand, Matthew.” Miriam directed a level gaze at me. “It won’t happen again.”

“How strange,” Marcus murmured, his eyes sweeping the room. “First it was a shared secret. Now three witches and three vampires have pledged loyalty to one another. If we had a trio of daemons, we’d be a shadow Congregation.”

“We’re unlikely to run into three daemons in downtown Madison,” Matthew said drily. “And whatever happens, what we’ve talked about tonight remains among the six of us—understood? Diana’s DNA is no one else’s business.”

There were nods all around the table as Matthew’s motley army fell into line behind him, ready to face an enemy we didn’t know and couldn’t name.

We said our good-nights and went upstairs. Matthew kept his arm around me, guiding me through the doorframe and into the bedroom when I found it impossible to navigate the turn on my own. I slid between the icy sheets, teeth chattering. When his cool body pressed against mine, the chattering ceased.

I slept heavily, waking only once. Matthew’s eyes glittered in the darkness, and he pulled me back so that we lay like spoons.

“Sleep,” he said, kissing me behind the ear. “I’m here.” His cold hand curved over my belly, already protecting children yet to be born.

Chapter 37

O
ver the next several days, Matthew’s tiny army learned the first requirement of war: allies must not kill each other.

Difficult as it was for my aunts to accept vampires into their house, it was the vampires who had the real trouble adjusting. It wasn’t just the ghosts and the cat. More than nuts would have to be kept in the house if vampires and warmbloods were to live in such close quarters. The very next day Marcus and Miriam had a conversation with Matthew in the driveway, then left in the Range Rover. Several hours later they returned bearing a small refrigerator marked with a red cross and enough blood and medical supplies to outfit an army field hospital. At Matthew’s request, Sarah selected a corner of the stillroom to serve as the blood bank.

“It’s just a precaution,” Matthew assured her.

“In case Miriam gets the munchies?” Sarah picked up a bag of O-negative blood.

“I ate before I left England,” Miriam said primly, her tiny bare feet slipping quietly over the stone floors as she put items away.

The deliveries also included a blister pack of birth-control pills inside a hideous yellow plastic case with a flower molded into the lid. Matthew presented them to me at bedtime.

“You can start them now or wait a few days until your period starts.”

“How do you know when my period is going to start?” I’d finished my last cycle the day before Mabon—the day before I’d met Matthew.

“I know when you’re planning on jumping a paddock fence. You can imagine how easy it is for me to know when you’re about to bleed.”

“Can you be around me while I’m menstruating?” I held the case gingerly as if it might explode.

Matthew looked surprised, then chuckled. “
Dieu,
Diana. There wouldn’t be a woman alive if I couldn’t.” He shook his head. “It’s not the same thing.”

I started the pills that night.

As we adjusted to the close quarters, new patterns of activity developed in the house—many of them around me. I was never alone and never more than ten feet away from the nearest vampire. It was perfect pack behavior. The vampires were closing ranks around me.

My day was divided into zones of activity punctuated by meals, which Matthew insisted I needed at regular intervals to fully recover from La Pierre. He joined me in yoga between breakfast and lunch, and after lunch Sarah and Em tried to teach me how to use my magic and perform spells. When I was tearing my hair out with frustration, Matthew would whisk me off for a long walk before dinner. We lingered around the table in the family room after the warmbloods had eaten, talking about current events and old movies. Marcus unearthed a chessboard, and he and his father often played together while Em and I cleaned up.

Sarah, Marcus, and Miriam shared a fondness for film noir, which now dominated the house’s TV-viewing schedule. Sarah had discovered this happy coincidence when, during one of her habitual bouts of insomnia, she went downstairs in the middle of the night and found Miriam and Marcus watching
Out of the Past.
The three also shared a love of Scrabble and popcorn. By the time the rest of the house awoke, they’d transformed the family room into a cinema and everything had been swept off the coffee table save a game board, a cracked bowl full of lettered tiles, and two battered dictionaries.

Miriam proved to be a genius at remembering archaic seven-letter words.

“‘Smoored’!” Sarah was exclaiming one morning when I came downstairs. “What the hell kind of word is ‘smoored’? If you mean those campfire desserts with marshmallows and graham crackers, you’ve spelled it wrong.”

“It means ‘smothered,’” Miriam explained. “It’s what we did to fires to keep them banked overnight. We smoored them. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

Sarah grumbled and retreated to the kitchen for coffee.

“Who’s winning?” I inquired.

“You need to ask?” The vampire smiled with satisfaction.

When not playing Scrabble or watching old movies, Miriam held classes covering Vampires 101. In the space of a few afternoons, she managed to teach Em the importance of names, pack behavior, possessive rituals, preternatural senses, and dining habits. Lately talk had turned to more advanced topics, such as how to slay a vampire.

“No, not even slicing our necks open is foolproof, Em,” Miriam told her patiently. The two were sitting in the family room while I made tea in the kitchen. “You want to cause as much blood loss as possible. Go for the groin as well.”

Matthew shook his head at the exchange and took the opportunity (since everyone else was otherwise engaged) to pin me behind the refrigerator door. My shirt was askew and my hair tumbling around my ears when our son came into the room with an armload of wood.

“Did you lose something behind the refrigerator, Matthew?” Marcus’s face was the picture of innocence.

“No,” Matthew purred. He buried his face in my hair so he could drink in the scent of my arousal. I swatted ineffectually at his shoulders, but he just held me tighter.

“Thanks for replenishing the firewood, Marcus,” I said breathlessly.

“Should I go get more?” One blond eyebrow arched up in perfect imitation of his father.

“Good idea. It will be cold tonight.” I twisted my head to reason with Matthew, but he mistook it as an invitation to kiss me again. Marcus and the wood supply faded into inconsequence.

When not lying in wait in dark corners, Matthew joined Sarah and Marcus in the most unholy trio of potion brewers since Shakespeare put three witches around a cauldron. The vapor Sarah and Matthew brewed up for the picture of the chemical wedding hadn’t revealed anything, but this didn’t deter them. They occupied the stillroom at all hours, consulting the Bishop grimoire and making strange concoctions that smelled bad, exploded, or both. On one occasion Em and I investigated a loud bang followed by the sound of rolling thunder.

“What are you three up to?” Em asked, hands on hips. Sarah’s face was covered in gray soot, and debris was falling down the chimney.

“Nothing,” Sarah grumbled. “I was trying to cleave the air and the spell got bent out of shape, that’s all.”

“Cleaving?” I looked at the mess, astonished.

Matthew and Marcus nodded solemnly.

“You’d better clean up this room before dinner, Sarah Bishop, or I’ll show you cleaving!” Em sputtered.

Of course, not all encounters between residents were happy ones. Marcus and Matthew walked together at sunrise, leaving me to the tender care of Miriam, Sarah, and the teapot. They never went far. They were always visible from the kitchen window, their heads bent together in conversation. One morning Marcus turned on his heel and stormed back to the house, leaving his father alone in the old apple orchard.