The Book of Life

by Deborah Harkness

  "I'm your best friend--or I was until Clairmont came along. Surely you trust me enough to come out to me," Chris said. "No matter what it is, it won't change anything between us."

  Beyond Chris's shoulder a green smudge trailed off toward the Blasted Tree. The green smudge became the indistinct form of Bridget Bishop, with her embroidered bodice and full skirts.

  Be canny, daughter. The wind blows from the north, a sign of a battle to come. Who will stand with you, and who will stand against you?

  I had plenty of enemies. I couldn't afford to lose a single friend.

  "Maybe you don't trust me enough," Chris said softly when I didn't immediately respond.

  "I'm a witch." My words were barely audible.

  "Okay." Chris waited. "And?"

  "And what?"

  "That's it? That's what you've been afraid to tell me?"

  "I'm not talking neo-pagan, Chris--though I am pagan, of course. I'm talking an abracadabra, spell-casting, potion-making witch." In this case Chris's love of prime-time TV might actually prove useful.

  "Do you have a wand?"

  "No. But I do have a firedrake. That's a kind of dragon."

  "Cool." Chris grinned. "Very, very cool. Is that why you've stayed out of New Haven? Were you taking it to dragon obedience class or something?"

  "Matthew and I had to get out of town quickly, that's all. I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

  "Where were you?"

  "In 1590."

  "Did you get any research done?" Chris looked thoughtful. "I suppose that would cause all kinds of citation problems. What would you put in your footnotes? 'Personal conversation with William Shakespeare'?" He laughed.

  "I never met Shakespeare. Matthew's friends didn't approve of him." I paused. "I did meet the queen."

  "Even better," Chris said, nodding. "Equally impossible to footnote, however."

  "You're supposed to be shocked!" This was not at all what I'd expected. "Don't you want proof?"

  "I haven't been shocked by anything since the MacArthur Foundation called me. If that can happen, anything is possible." Chris shook his head. "Vampires and witches. Wow."

  "There are daemons, too. But their eyes don't glow and they're not evil. Well, no more so than any other species."

  "Other species?" Chris's tone sharpened with interest. "Are there werewolves?"

  "Absolutely not!" Matthew shouted in the distance.

  "Touchy subject." I gave Chris a tentative smile. "So you're really fine with this?"

  "Why wouldn't I be? The government spends millions searching for aliens in outer space, and it turns out you're right here. Think of all the grant money this could free up." Chris was always looking for a way to diminish the importance of the physics department.

  "You can't tell anybody," I said hastily. "Not many humans know about us, and we need to keep it that way."

  "We're bound to find out eventually," Chris said. "Besides, most people would be thrilled."

  "You think? The dean of Yale College would be thrilled to know that they'd tenured a witch?" I raised my eyebrows. "My students' parents would be happy to discover that their beloved children are learning about the Scientific Revolution from a witch?"

  "Well, maybe not the dean." Chris's voice dropped. "Matthew isn't going to bite me to keep me quiet?"

  "No," I assured him.

  Fernando inserted his foot between the keeping-room doors and nudged them open.

  "I'd be happy to bite you instead, but only if you ask very nicely." Fernando put a tray on the table. "Sarah thought you might like coffee. Or something stronger. Call me if you need anything else. No need to shout." He gave Chris the kind of dazzling smile he'd bestowed on the coven's female membership at the Lughnasadh potluck.

  "Saddling the wrong horse, Fernando," I warned as he departed.

  "He's a vampire, too?" Chris whispered.

  "Yep. Matthew's brother-in-law." I held up the whiskey bottle and the coffeepot. "Coffee? Whiskey?"

  "Both," said Chris, reaching for a mug. He looked at me in alarm. "You haven't kept this witch business from your aunt, have you?"

  "Sarah's a witch, too. So was Em." I poured a healthy slug of whiskey in his mug and topped it off with a bit of coffee. "This is the third or fourth pot of the day, so it's mostly decaf. Otherwise we have to scrape Sarah off the ceiling."

  "Coffee makes her fly?" Chris took a sip, considered a moment, and added more whiskey.

  "In a manner of speaking," I said, uncapping the water and taking a swig. The babies fluttered, and I gave my abdomen a gentle pat.

  "I can't believe you're pregnant." For the first time, Chris sounded amazed.

  "You've just learned that I spent most of last year in the sixteenth century, I have a pet dragon, and that you're surrounded by daemons, vampires, and witches, but it's my pregnancy that you find implausible?"

  "Trust me, honey," Chris said, pulling out his best Alabama drawl. "It's way more implausible."

  When the phone rang, it was pitch black outside. I shook myself from sleep, reaching across the bed to jostle Matthew awake. He wasn't there.

  I rolled over and picked up his mobile from the bedside table. The name MIRIAM was displayed, along with the time. Three o'clock Monday morning. My heart thudded in alarm. Only an emergency would have induced her to call at such an hour.

  "Miriam?" I said after pushing the answer button.

  "Where is he?" Miriam's voice shook. "I need to speak with Matthew."

  "I'll find him. He must be downstairs, or outside hunting." I threw off the covers. "Is something wrong?"

  "Yes," Miriam said abruptly. Then she switched to another language, one I didn't understand. The cadence was unmistakable, though. Miriam Shephard was praying.

  Matthew burst through the door, Fernando behind him.

  "Here's Matthew." I hit the speaker button and handed him the phone. He was not going to have this conversation in private.

  "What is it, Miriam?" Matthew said.

  "There was a note. In the mailbox. A Web address was typed on it." There was a curse, a jagged sob, and Miriam's prayer resumed.

  "Text me the address, Miriam," Matthew said calmly.

  "It's him, Matthew. It's Benjamin," Miriam whispered. "And there was no stamp on the envelope. He must still be here. In Oxford."

  I leaped out of bed, shivering in the predawn darkness.

  "Text me the address," Matthew repeated.

  A light came on in the hallway.

  "What's going on?" Chris joined Fernando at the threshold, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  "It's one of Matthew's colleagues from Oxford, Miriam Shephard. Something's happened at the lab," I told him.

  "Oh," Chris said with a yawn. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and frowned. "Not the Miriam Shephard who wrote the classic article about how inbreeding among zoo animals leads to a loss of heterozygosity?" I'd spent a lot of time around scientists, but it seldom helped me to understand what they were talking about.

  "The same," Matthew murmured.

  "I thought she was dead," Chris said.

  "Not quite," said Miriam in her piercing soprano. "To whom am I speaking?"

  "Chris--Christopher Roberts. Yale University," Chris stammered. He sounded like a graduate student introducing himself at his first conference.

  "Oh. I liked your last piece in Science. Your research model is impressive, even though the conclusions are all wrong." Miriam sounded more like herself now that she was criticizing a fellow researcher. Matthew noticed the positive change, too.

  "Keep her talking," Matthew encouraged Chris before issuing a quiet command to Fernando.

  "Is that Miriam?" Sarah asked, shoving her arms through the sleeves of her bathrobe. "Don't vampires have clocks? It's three in the morning!"

  "What's wrong with my conclusions?" Chris asked, his expression thunderous.

  Fernando was back, and he handed Matthew his laptop. It was already on, the screen's glow illuminating the room. Sarah
reached around the door frame and flicked the light switch, banishing the remaining darkness. Even so I could feel the shadows pressing down on the house.

  Matthew perched on the edge of the bed, his laptop on his knee. Fernando tossed him another cell phone, and Matthew tethered it to the computer.

  "Have you seen Benjamin's message?" Miriam sounded calmer than before, but fear kept her voice keen.

  "I'm calling it up now," Matthew said.

  "Don't use Sarah's Internet connection!" Her agitation was palpable. "He's monitoring traffic to the site. He might be able to locate you from your IP address."

  "It's all right, Miriam," Matthew said, his voice soothing. "I'm using Fernando's mobile. And Baldwin's computer people made sure that no one can trace my location from it."

  Now I understood why Baldwin had supplied us with new cell phones when we left Sept-Tours, changed all our phone plans, and canceled Sarah's Internet service.

  An image of an empty room appeared on the screen. It was white-tiled and barren except for an old sink with exposed plumbing and an examination table. There was a drain in the floor. The date and time were in the lower left corner, the numbers on the clock whirring forward as each second passed.

  "What's that lump?" Chris pointed to a pile of rags on the floor. It stirred.

  "A woman," Miriam said. "She's been lying there since I got on the site ten minutes ago." As soon as Miriam said it, I could make out her thin arms and legs, the curve of her breast and belly. The scrap of cloth over her wasn't large enough to protect her from the cold. She shivered and whimpered.

  "And Benjamin?" Matthew said, his eyes glued to the screen.

  "He walked through the room and said something to her. Then he looked straight at the camera--and smiled."

  "Did he say anything else?" Matthew asked.

  "Yes. 'Hello, Miriam.'"

  Chris leaned over Matthew's shoulder and touched the computer's trackpad. The image grew larger.

  "There's blood on the floor. And she's chained to the wall." Chris stared at me. "Who's Benjamin?"

  "My son." Matthew's glance flickered to Chris, then returned to the screen.

  Chris crossed his arms over his chest and stared, unblinking, at the image.

  Soft strains of music came out of the computer speakers. The woman shrank against the wall, her eyes wide.

  "No," she moaned. "Not again. Please. No." She stared straight at the camera. "Help me."

  My hands flashed with colors, and the knots on my wrists burned. I felt a tingle, dull but unmistakable.

  "She's a witch. That woman is a witch." I touched the screen. When I drew my finger away, a thin green thread was attached to the tip.

  The thread snapped.

  "Can she hear us?" I asked Matthew.

  "No," Matthew said grimly. "I don't believe so. Benjamin wants me to listen to him."

  "No talking to our guests." There was no sign of Matthew's son, but I knew that cold voice. The woman instantly subsided, hugging her arms around her body.

  Benjamin approached the camera until his face filled most of the screen. The woman was still visible over his shoulder. He'd staged this performance carefully.

  "Another visitor has joined us--Matthew, no doubt. How clever of you to mask your location. And dear Miriam is still with us, I see." Benjamin smiled again. No wonder Miriam was shaken. It was a horrifying sight: those curved lips and the dead eyes I remembered from Prague. Even after more than four centuries, Benjamin was recognizable as the man whom Rabbi Loew had called Herr Fuchs.

  "How do you like my laboratory?" Benjamin's arm swept the room. "Not as well equipped as yours, Matthew, but I don't need much. Experience is really the best teacher. All I require is a cooperative research subject. And warmbloods are so much more revealing than animals."

  "Christ," Matthew murmured.

  "I'd hoped the next time we talked it would be to discuss my latest successful experiment. But things haven't worked out quite as planned." Benjamin turned his head, and his voice became menacing. "Have they?"

  The music grew louder, and the woman on the floor moaned and tried to block her ears.

  "She used to love Bach," Benjamin reported with mock sadness. "The St. Matthew Passion in particular. I'm careful to play it whenever I take her. Now the witch becomes unaccountably distressed as soon as she hears the first strains." He hummed along with the next bars of music.

  "Does he mean what I think he means?" Sarah asked uneasily.

  "Benjamin is repeatedly raping that woman," Fernando said with barely controlled fury. It was the first time I'd seen the vampire beneath his easygoing facade.

  "Why?" Chris asked. Before anyone could answer, Benjamin resumed.

  "As soon as she shows signs of being pregnant, the music stops. It's the witch's reward for doing her job and pleasing me. Sometimes nature has other ideas, though."

  The implications of Benjamin's words sank in. As in long-ago Jerusalem, this witch had to be a weaver. I covered my mouth as the bile rose.

  The glint in Benjamin's eye intensified. He adjusted the angle of the camera and zoomed in on the blood that stained the woman's legs and the floor.

  "Unfortunately, the witch miscarried." Benjamin's voice had the detachment of any scientist reporting his research findings. "It was the fourth month--the longest she's been able to sustain a pregnancy. So far. My son impregnated her last December, but that time she miscarried in the eighth week."

  Matthew and I had conceived our first child in December, too. I'd miscarried early in that pregnancy, around the same time as Benjamin's witch. I started to shake at this new connection between me and the woman on the floor. Matthew's arm hooked around my hips, steadying me.

  "I was so sure my ability to father a child was linked to the blood rage you gave me--a gift that I've shared with many of my own children. After the witch miscarried the first time, my sons and I tried impregnating daemons and humans without success. I concluded there must be some special reproductive affinity between vampires with blood rage and witches. But these failures mean I'll have to reexamine my hypothesis." Benjamin pulled a stool up to the camera and sat, oblivious to the growing agitation of the woman behind him. In the background the Bach continued to play.

  "And there is another piece of information that I'll also have to factor into my deliberations: your marriage. Has your new wife replaced Eleanor in your affections? Mad Juliette? Poor Celia? That fascinating witch I met in Prague?" Benjamin snapped his fingers as if trying to remember something. "What was her name? Diana?"

  Fernando hissed. Chris's skin broke out in raised bumps. He stared at Fernando and stepped away.

  "I'm told your new wife is a witch, too. Why don't you ever share your ideas with me? You must know I'd understand." Benjamin leaned closer as if sharing a confidence. "We're both driven by the same things, after all: a lust for power, an unquenchable thirst for blood, a desire for revenge."

  The music reached a crescendo, and the woman began to rock back and forth in an attempt to soothe herself.

  "I can't help wondering how long you've known about the power in our blood. The witches surely knew. What other secret could the Book of Life possibly contain?" Benjamin paused as if waiting for an answer. "Not going to tell me, eh? Well, then. I have no choice but to go back to my own experiment. Don't worry. I'll figure out how to breed this witch eventually--or kill her trying. Then I'll look for a new witch. Maybe yours will suit."

  Benjamin smiled. I drew away from Matthew, not wanting him to sense my fear. But his expression told me that he knew.

  "Bye for now." Benjamin gave a jaunty wave. "Sometimes I let people watch me work, but I'm not in the mood for an audience today. I'll be sure to let you know if anything interesting develops. Meanwhile you might want to think about sharing what you know. It might save me from having to ask your wife."

  With that, Benjamin switched off the lens and the sound. It left a black screen, with the clock still ticking down the seconds in the corner.<
br />
  "What are we going to do?" Miriam asked.

  "Rescue that woman," Matthew said, his fury evident, "for a start."

  "Benjamin wants you to rush into the open and expose yourself," Fernando warned. "Your attack will have to be well planned and perfectly executed."

  "Fernando's right," Miriam said. "You can't go after Benjamin until you're sure you can destroy him. Otherwise you put Diana at risk."

  "That witch won't survive much longer!" Matthew exclaimed.

  "If you are hasty and fail to bring Benjamin to heel, he will simply take another and the nightmare will begin again for some other unsuspecting creature," Fernando said, his hand clasped around Matthew's arm.

  "You're right." Matthew dragged his eyes away from the screen. "Can you warn Amira, Miriam? She needs to know that Benjamin has one witch already and is likely to kidnap again."

  "Amira isn't a weaver. She wouldn't be able to conceive Benjamin's child," I observed.

  "I don't think Benjamin knows about weavers. Yet." Matthew rubbed at his jaw.

  "What's a weaver?" Miriam and Chris said at the same moment. I opened my mouth to reply, but the slight shake of Matthew's head made me close it again.

  "I'll tell you later, Miriam. Will you do what I asked?"

  "Sure, Matthew," Miriam agreed.

  "Call me later and check in." Matthew's worried glance settled on me.

  "Stifle Diana with your excessive attention if you must, but I don't need a babysitter. Besides, I've got work to do." Miriam hung up.

  A second later Chris delivered a powerful uppercut to Matthew's jaw. He followed it with a left hook. Matthew intercepted that blow with a raised palm.

  "I took one punch, for Diana's sake." Matthew closed his fist around Chris's clenched hand. "My wife does, after all, bring out the protective instincts in people. But don't press your luck."

  Chris didn't budge. Fernando sighed.

  "Let it go, Roberts. You will not win a physical contest with a vampire." Fernando put his hand on Chris's shoulder, prepared to pull him away if necessary.

  "If you let that bastard within fifty miles of Diana, you won't see another sunrise--vampire or no vampire. Are we clear on that?" Chris demanded, his attention locked on Matthew.

  "Crystal," Matthew replied. Chris pulled his arm back, and Matthew released his fist.

  "Nobody's getting any more sleep tonight. Not after this," Sarah said. "We need to talk. And lots of coffee--and don't you dare use decaf, Diana. But first I'm going outside to have a cigarette, no matter what Fernando says." Sarah marched out of the room. "See you in the kitchen," she shot over her shoulder.