A Discovery of Witches

  “Matthew Clairmont can call the manuscript himself if he wants it so badly.” The idea that he might be doing so now was unaccountably chilling.

  “When you get it back,” she said urgently, grabbing my arm, “promise me you’ll remember that you aren’t the only ones who need to know its secrets. Daemons are part of the story, too. Promise me.”

  I felt a flicker of panic at her touch, felt suddenly aware of the heat of the room and the press of people in it. Instinctively I searched for the nearest exit while focusing on my breathing, trying to curb the beginnings of a fight-or-flight response.

  “I promise,” I murmured hesitantly, not sure what it was I was agreeing to.

  “Good,” she said absently, dropping my arm. Her eyes drifted away. “It was good of you to speak with me.” Agatha was staring at the carpet once more. “We’ll see each other again. Remember, some promises matter more than others.”

  I dropped my teapot and cup into the gray plastic tub on top of the trash and threw away the bag from my sandwich. When I glanced over my shoulder, Agatha was reading the sports section of the historian’s discarded London daily.

  On my way out of Blackwell’s, I didn’t see Miriam, but I could feel her eyes.

  The Selden End had filled with ordinary human beings while I was gone, all of them busy with their own work and completely oblivious to the creature convention around them. Envious of their ignorance, I took up a manuscript, determined to concentrate, but instead found myself reviewing my conversation in Blackwell’s and the events of the past few days. On an immediate level, the illustrations in Ashmole 782 didn’t seem related to what Agatha Wilson had said the book was about. And if Matthew Clairmont and the daemon were so interested in the manuscript, why didn’t they request it?

  I closed my eyes, recalling the details of my encounter with the manuscript and trying to make some pattern of the events of the past few days by emptying my mind and imagining the problem as a jigsaw puzzle sitting on a white table, then rearranging the colorful shapes. But no matter where they were placed, no clear picture emerged. Frustrated, I pushed my chair away from my desk and walked toward the exit.

  “Any requests?” Sean asked as he took the manuscripts from my arms. I handed him a bunch of freshly filled-out call slips. He smiled at the stack’s thickness but didn’t say a word.

  Before leaving, I needed to do two things. The first was a matter of simple courtesy. I wasn’t sure how they’d done it, but the vampires had kept me from being distracted by an endless stream of creatures in the Selden End. Witches and vampires didn’t often have occasion to thank one another, but Clairmont had protected me twice in two days. I was determined not to be ungrateful, or bigoted like Sarah and her friends in the Madison coven.

  “Professor Clairmont?”

  The vampire looked up.

  “Thank you,” I said simply, meeting his gaze and holding it until he looked away.

  “You’re welcome,” he murmured, a note of surprise in his voice.

  The second was more calculated. If Matthew Clairmont needed me, I needed him, too. I wanted him to tell me why Ashmole 782 was attracting so much attention.

  “Perhaps you should call me Diana,” I said quickly, before I lost my nerve.

  Matthew Clairmont smiled.

  My heart stopped beating for a fraction of a second. This was not the small, polite smile with which I was now familiar. His lips curved toward his eyes, making his whole face sparkle. God, he was beautiful, I thought again, slightly dazzled.

  “All right,” he said softly, “but then you must call me Matthew.”

  I nodded in agreement, my heart still beating in erratic syncopation. Something spread through my body, loosening the vestiges of anxiety that remained after the unexpected meeting with Agatha Wilson.

  Matthew’s nose flared delicately. His smile grew a bit wider. Whatever my body was doing, he had smelled it. What’s more, he seemed to have identified it.

  I flushed.

  “Have a pleasant evening, Diana.” His voice lingered on my name, making it sound exotic and strange.

  “Good night, Matthew,” I replied, beating a hasty retreat.

  That evening, rowing on the quiet river as sunset turned to dusk, I saw an occasional smoky smudge on the towpath, always slightly ahead of me, like a dark star guiding me home.

  Chapter 7

  At two-fifteen I was ripped from sleep by a terrible sensation of drowning. Flailing my way out from under the covers, transformed into heavy, wet seaweed by the power of the dream, I moved toward the lighter water above me. Just when I was making progress, something grabbed me by the ankle and pulled me down deeper.

  As usual with nightmares, I awoke with a start before finding out who had caught me. For several minutes I lay disoriented, my body drenched with sweat and my heart sounding a staccato beat that reverberated through my rib cage. Gingerly, I sat up.

  A white face stared at me from the window with dark, hollow eyes.

  Too late I realized that it was just my reflection in the glass. I barely made it to the bathroom before being sick. Then I spent the next thirty minutes curled into a ball on the cold tile floor, blaming Matthew Clairmont and the other, gathering creatures for my unease. Finally I crawled back into bed and slept for a few hours. At dawn I dragged myself into rowing gear.

  When I got to the lodge, the porter gave me an amazed look. “You’re not going out at this hour in the fog, Dr. Bishop? You look like you’ve been burning the candle at both ends, if you don’t mind me saying so. Wouldn’t a nice lie-in be a better idea? The river will still be there tomorrow.”

  After considering Fred’s advice, I shook my head. “No, I’ll feel better for it.” He looked doubtful. “And the students are back this weekend.”

  The pavement was slick with moisture, so I ran more slowly than usual to make allowances for the weather as well as my fatigue. My familiar route took me past Oriel College and to the tall, black iron gates between Merton and Corpus Christi. They were locked from dusk until dawn to keep people out of the meadows that bordered the river, but the first thing you learned when you rowed at Oxford was how to scale them. I climbed them with ease.

  The familiar ritual of putting the boat in the water did its work. By the time it slipped away from the dock and into the fog, I felt almost normal.

  When it’s foggy, rowing feels even more like flying. The air muffles the normal sounds of birds and automobiles and amplifies the soft thwack of oars in the water and the swoosh of the boat seats. With no shorelines and familiar landmarks to orient you, there’s nothing to steer by but your instincts.

  I fell into an easy, swinging rhythm in the scull, my ears and eyes tuned to the slightest change in the sound of my oars that would tell me I was getting too close to the banks or a shadow that would indicate the approach of another boat. The fog was so thick that I considered turning back, but the prospect of a long, straight stretch of river was too enticing.

  Just shy of the tavern, I carefully turned the boat. Two rowers were downstream, engaged in a heated discussion about competing strategies for winning the idiosyncratic Oxbridge style of racing known as “bumps.”

  “Do you want to go ahead of me?” I called.

  “Sure!” came the quick response. The pair shot past, never breaking their stroke.

  The sound of their oars faded. I decided to row back to the boathouse and call it quits. It was a short workout, but the stiffness from my third consecutive night of little sleep had lessened.

  The equipment put away, I locked the boathouse and walked slowly along the path toward town. It was so quiet in the early-morning mist that time and place receded. I closed my eyes, imagining that I was nowhere—not in Oxford, nor anywhere that had a name.

  When I opened them, a dark outline had risen up in front of me. I gasped in fear. The shape shot toward me, and my hands instinctively warded off the danger.

  “Diana, I’m so sorry. I thought you had seen me.” It was Matth
ew Clairmont, his face creased with concern.

  “I was walking with my eyes closed.” I grabbed at the neck of my fleece, and he backed away slightly. I propped myself against a tree until my breathing slowed.

  “Can you tell me something?” Clairmont asked once my heart stopped pounding.

  “Not if you plan to ask why I’m out on the river in the fog when there are vampires and daemons and witches following me.” I wasn’t up for a lecture—not this morning.

  “No”—his voice held a touch of acid—“although that’s an excellent question. I was going to ask why you walk with your eyes closed.”

  I laughed. “What—you don’t?”

  Matthew shook his head. “Vampires have only five senses. We find it best to use all of them,” he said sardonically.

  “There’s nothing magical about it, Matthew. It’s a game I’ve played since I was a child. It made my aunt crazy. I was always coming home with bruised legs and scratches from running into bushes and trees.”

  The vampire looked thoughtful. He shoved his hands into his slate gray trouser pockets and gazed off into the fog. Today he was wearing a blue-gray sweater that made his hair appear darker, but no coat. It was a striking omission, given the weather. Suddenly feeling unkempt, I wished my rowing tights didn’t have a hole in the back of the left thigh from catching on the boat’s rigging.

  “How was your row this morning?” Clairmont asked finally, as if he didn’t already know. He wasn’t out for a morning stroll.

  “Good,” I said shortly.

  “There aren’t many people here this early.”

  “No, but I like it when the river isn’t crowded.”

  “Isn’t it risky to row in this kind of weather, when so few people are out?” His tone was mild, and had he not been a vampire watching my every move, I might have taken his inquiry for an awkward attempt at conversation.

  “Risky how?”

  “If something were to happen, it’s possible nobody would see it.”

  I’d never been afraid before on the river, but he had a point. Nevertheless, I shrugged it off. “The students will be here on Monday. I’m enjoying the peace while it lasts.”

  “Does term really start next week?” Clairmont sounded genuinely surprised.

  “You are on the faculty, aren’t you?” I laughed.

  “Technically, but I don’t really see students. I’m here in more of a research capacity.” His mouth tightened. He didn’t like being laughed at.

  “Must be nice.” I thought of my three-hundred-seat introductory lecture class and all those anxious freshmen.

  “It’s quiet. My laboratory equipment doesn’t ask questions about my long hours. And I have Dr. Shephard and another assistant, Dr. Whitmore, so I’m not entirely alone.”

  It was damp, and I was cold. Besides, there was something unnatural about exchanging pleasantries with a vampire in the pea-soup gloom. “I really should go home.”

  “Would you like a ride?”

  Four days ago I wouldn’t have accepted a ride home from a vampire, but this morning it seemed like an excellent idea. Besides, it gave me an opportunity to ask why a biochemist might be interested in a seventeenth-century alchemical manuscript.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Clairmont’s shy, pleased look was utterly disarming. “My car’s parked nearby,” he said, gesturing in the direction of Christ Church College. We walked in silence for a few minutes, wrapped up in the gray fog and the strangeness of being alone, witch and vampire. He deliberately shortened his stride to keep in step with me, and he seemed more relaxed outdoors than he had in the library.

  “Is this your college?”

  “No, I’ve never been a member here.” The way he phrased it made me wonder what colleges he had been a member of. Then I began to consider how long his life had been. Sometimes he seemed as old as Oxford itself.

  “Diana?” Clairmont had stopped.

  “Hmm?” I’d started to wander off toward the college’s parking area.

  “It’s this way,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction.

  Matthew led me to a tiny walled enclave. A low-slung black Jaguar was parked under a bright yellow sign that proclaimed POSITIVELY NO PARKING HERE. The car had a John Radcliffe Hospital permit hanging from the rearview mirror.

  “I see,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “You park pretty much wherever you want.”

  “Normally I’m a good citizen when it comes to parking, but this morning’s weather suggested that an exception might be made,” Matthew said defensively. He reached a long arm around me to unlock the door. The Jaguar was an older model, without the latest technology of keyless entries and navigation systems, but it looked as if it had just rolled off the show-room floor. He pulled the door open, and I climbed in, the caramel-colored leather upholstery fitting itself to my body.

  I’d never been in a car so luxurious. Sarah’s worst suspicions about vampires would be confirmed if she knew they drove Jaguars while she drove a broken-down purple Honda Civic that had oxidized to the brownish lavender of roasted eggplant.

  Clairmont rolled along the drive to the gates of Christ Church, where he waited for an opening in the early-morning traffic dominated by delivery trucks, buses, and bicycles. “Would you like some breakfast before I take you home?” he asked casually, gripping the polished steering wheel. “You must be hungry after all that exercise.”

  This was the second meal Clairmont had invited me to (not) share with him. Was this a vampire thing? Did they like to watch other people eat?

  The combination of vampires and eating turned my mind to the vampire’s dietary habits. Everyone on the planet knew that vampires fed on human blood. But was that all they ate? No longer sure that driving around in a car with a vampire was a good idea, I zipped up the neck of my fleece pullover and moved an inch closer to the door.

  “Diana?” he prompted.

  “I could eat,” I admitted hesitantly, “and I’d kill for some tea.”

  He nodded, his eyes back on the traffic. “I know just the place.”

  Clairmont steered up the hill and took a right down the High Street. We passed the statue of George II’s wife standing under the cupola at The Queen’s College, then headed toward Oxford’s botanical gardens. The hushed confines of the car made Oxford seem even more otherworldly than usual, its spires and towers appearing suddenly out of the quiet and fog.

  We didn’t talk, and his stillness made me realize how much I moved, constantly blinking, breathing, and rearranging myself. Not Clairmont. He never blinked and seldom breathed, and his every turn of the steering wheel or push of the pedals was as small and efficient as possible, as if his long life required him to conserve energy. I wondered again how old Matthew Clairmont was.

  The vampire darted down a side street, pulling up in front of a tiny café that was packed with locals bolting down plates of food. Some were reading the newspaper; others were chatting with their neighbors at adjoining tables. All of them, I noted with pleasure, were drinking huge mugs of tea.

  “I didn’t know about this place,” I said.

  “It’s a well-kept secret,” he said mischievously. “They don’t want university dons ruining the atmosphere.”

  I automatically turned to open my car door, but before I could touch the handle, Clairmont was there, opening it for me.

  “How did you get here so fast?” I grumbled.

  “Magic,” he replied through pursed lips. Apparently Clairmont did not approve of women who opened their own car doors any more than he reportedly approved of women who argued with him.

  “I am capable of opening my own door,” I said, getting out of the car.

  “Why do today’s women think it’s important to open a door themselves?” he said sharply. “Do you believe it’s a testament to your physical power?”

  “No, but it is a sign of our independence.” I stood with my arms crossed, daring him to contradict me and remembering what Chris had said about Clai
rmont’s behavior toward a woman who’d asked too many questions at a conference.

  Wordlessly he closed the car’s door behind me and opened the café door. I stood resolutely in place, waiting for him to enter. A gust of warm, humid air carried the smell of bacon fat and toasted bread. My mouth started to water.

  “You’re impossibly old-fashioned,” I said with a sigh, deciding not to fight it. He could open doors for me this morning so long as he was prepared to buy me a hot breakfast.

  “After you,” he murmured.

  Once inside, we wended our way through the crowded tables. Clairmont’s skin, which had looked almost normal in the fog, was conspicuously pale under the café’s stark overhead lighting. A couple of humans stared as we passed. The vampire stiffened.

  This wasn’t a good idea, I thought uneasily as more human eyes studied us.

  “Hiya, Matthew,” a cheerful female voice called from behind the counter. “Two for breakfast?”

  His face lightened. “Two, Mary. How’s Dan?”

  “Well enough to complain that he’s fed up being in bed. I’d say he’s definitely on the mend.”

  “That’s wonderful news,” Clairmont said. “Can you get this lady some tea when you have a chance? She’s threatened to kill for it.”

  “Won’t be necessary, dearie,” Mary told me with a smile. “We serve