All souls trilogy, p.60
All Souls Trilogy, page 60
“She’s the queen. Maybe the unicorn, too.” Marcus gently pried the page from my aunt’s fingers and went back to amphibians. “In certain situations, the female spadefoot toad will mate with a different—though not completely unrelated—species of toad. Her offspring benefit from new traits, like faster development, that help them survive.”
“Vampires and witches are not spadefoot toads, Marcus,” Matthew said coldly. “And not all of the changes that result are positive.”
“Why are you so resistant?” Miriam asked impatiently. “Cross-species breeding is the next evolutionary step.”
“Genetic supercombinations—like those that would occur if a witch and a vampire were to have children—lead to accelerated evolutionary developments. All species take such leaps. It’s your own findings we’re reporting back to you, Matthew,” said Marcus apologetically.
“You’re both ignoring the high mortality associated with genetic super-combinations. And if you think we’re going to test those odds with Diana, you are very much mistaken.” Matthew’s voice was dangerously soft.
“Because she’s a chimera—and AB-positive as well—she may be less likely to reject a fetus that’s half vampire. She’s a universal blood recipient and has already absorbed foreign DNA into her body. Like the spadefoot toad, she might have been led to you by the pressures of survival.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of conjecture, Marcus.”
“Diana is different, Matthew. She’s not like other witches.” Marcus’s eyes flickered from Matthew to me. “You haven’t looked at her mtDNA report.”
Matthew shuffled the pages. His breath came out in a hiss.
The sheet was covered in brightly covered hoops. Miriam had written across the top in red ink “Unknown Clan,” accompanied by a symbol that looked like a backward E set at an angle with a long tail. Matthew’s eyes darted over the page, and the next.
“I knew you’d question the findings, so I brought comparatives,” Miriam said quietly.
“What’s a clan?” I watched Matthew carefully for a sign of what he was feeling.
“A genetic lineage. Through a witch’s mitochondrial DNA, we can trace descent back to one of four women who were the female ancestors of every witch we’ve studied.”
“Except you,” Marcus said to me. “You and Sarah aren’t descended from any of them.”
“What does this mean?” I touched the backward E.
“It’s an ancient glyph for heh, the Hebrew number five.” Matthew directed his next words to Miriam. “How old is it?”
Miriam considered her words carefully. “Clan Heh is old—no matter which mitochondrial-clock theory you adhere to.”
“Older than Clan Gimel?” Matthew asked, referring to the Hebrew word for the number three.
“Yes.” Miriam hesitated. “And to answer your next question, there are two possibilities. Clan Heh could just be another line of descent from mtLilith.”
Sarah opened her mouth to ask a question, and I quieted her with a shake of my head.
“Or Clan Heh could descend from a sister of mtLilith—which would make Diana’s ancestor a clan mother, but not the witches’ equivalent of mtEve. In either case it’s possible that without Diana’s issue Clan Heh will die out in this generation.”
I slid the brown envelope from my mother in Matthew’s direction. “Could you draw a picture?” No one in the room was going to understand this without visual assistance.
Matthew’s hand sped over the page, sketching out two sprawling diagrams. One looked like a snake, the other branched out like the brackets for a sports tournament. Matthew pointed to the snake. “These are the seven known daughters of mitochondrial Eve—mtEve for short. Scientists consider them to be the most recent common matrilineal ancestors of every human of Western European descent. Each woman appears in the DNA record at a different point in history and in a different region of the globe. They once shared a common female ancestor, though.”
“That would be mtEve,” I said.
“Yes.” He pointed at the tournament bracket. “This is what we’ve uncovered about the matrilineal descent of witches. There are four lines of descent, or clans. We numbered them in the order we found them, although the woman who was mother to Clan Aleph—the first clan we discovered—lived more recently than the others.”
“Define ‘recently,’ please,” Em requested.
“Aleph lived about seven thousand years ago.”
“Seven thousand years ago?” Sarah said incredulously. “But the Bishops can only trace our female ancestors back to 1617.”
“Gimel lived about forty thousand years ago,” Matthew said grimly. “So if Miriam is right, and Clan Heh is older, you’ll be well beyond that.”
“Damn,” Sarah breathed again. “Who’s Lilith?”
“The first witch.” I drew Matthew’s diagrams closer, remembering his cryptic response in Oxford to my asking if he was searching for the first vampire. “Or at least the first witch from whom present-day witches can claim matrilineal descent.”
“Marcus is fond of the Pre-Raphaelites, and Miriam knows a lot of mythology. They picked the name,” Matthew said by way of explanation.
“The Pre-Raphaelites loved Lilith. Dante Gabriel Rossetti described her as the witch Adam loved before Eve.” Marcus’s eyes turned dreamy. “‘So went / Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent / And round his heart one strangling golden hair.’”
“That’s the Song of Songs,” Matthew observed. “‘You have wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, you have wounded my heart with one of your eyes, and with one hair of your neck.’”
“The alchemists admired the same passage,” I murmured with a shake of my head. “It’s in the Aurora Consurgens, too.”
“Other accounts of Lilith are far less rapturous,” Miriam said in stern tones, drawing us back to the matter at hand. “In ancient stories she was a creature of the night, goddess of the wind and the moon, and the mate of Samael, the angel of death.”
“Did the goddess of the moon and the angel of death have children?” Sarah asked, looking at us sharply. Once more the similarities between old stories, alchemical texts, and my relationship with a vampire were uncanny.
“Yes.” Matthew plucked the reports from my hands and put them into a tidy pile.
“So that’s what the Congregation is worried about,” I said softly. “They fear the birth of children that are neither vampire nor witch nor daemon, but mixed. What would they do then?”
“How many other creatures have been in the same position as you and Matthew, over the years?” wondered Marcus.
“How many are there now?” Miriam added.
“The Congregation doesn’t know about these test results—and thank God for that.” Matthew slid the pile of papers back into the center of the table. “But there’s still no evidence that Diana can have my child.”
“So why did your mother’s housekeeper teach Diana how to make that tea?” Sarah asked. “She thinks it’s possible.”
Oh, dear, my grandmother said sympathetically. It’s going to hit the fan now.
Matthew stiffened, and his scent became overpoweringly spicy. “I don’t understand.”
“That tea that Diana and what’s-her-name—Marthe—made in France. It’s full of abortifacients and contraceptive herbs. I smelled them the moment the tin was open.”
“Did you know?” Matthew’s face was white with fury.
“No,” I whispered. “But no harm was done.”
Matthew stood. He pulled his phone from his pocket, avoiding my eyes. “Please excuse me,” he said to Em and Sarah before striding out of the room.
“Sarah, how could you?” I cried after the front door shut behind him.
“He has a right to know—and so do you. No one should take drugs without consenting to it.”
“It’s not your job to tell him.”
“No,” Miriam said with satisfaction. “It was yours.”
“Stay out of this, Miriam.” I was spitting mad, and my hands were twitching.
“I’m already in it, Diana. Your relationship with Matthew puts every creature in this room in danger. It’s going to change everything, whether you two have children or not. And now he’s brought the Knights of Lazarus into it.” Miriam was as furious as I was. “The more creatures who sanction your relationship, the likelier it is that there will be war.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. War?” The marks Satu burned into my back prickled ominously. “Wars break out between nations, not because a witch and a vampire love each other.”
“What Satu did to you was a challenge. Matthew responded just as they hoped he would: by calling on the brotherhood.” Miriam made a sound of disgust. “Since you walked into the Bodleian, he’s lost control of his senses. And the last time he lost his senses over a woman, my husband died.”
The room was quiet as a tomb. Even my grandmother looked startled.
Matthew wasn’t a killer, or so I told myself over and over again. But he killed to feed himself, and he killed in angry, possessive rages. I knew both of these truths and loved him anyway. What did it say about me, that I could love such a creature so completely?
“Calm down, Miriam,” Marcus warned.
“No,” she snarled. “This is my tale. Not yours, Marcus.”
“Then tell it,” I said tersely, gripping the edges of the table.
“Bertrand was Matthew’s best friend. When Eleanor St. Leger was killed, Jerusalem came to the brink of war. The English and the French were at each other’s throats. He called on the Knights of Lazarus to resolve the conflict. We were nearly exposed to the humans as a result.” Miriam’s brittle voice broke. “Someone had to pay for Eleanor’s death. The St. Legers demanded justice. Eleanor died at Matthew’s hands, but he was the grand master then, just as he is now. My husband took the blame—to protect Matthew as well as the order. A Saracen executioner beheaded him.”
“I’m sorry, Miriam—truly sorry—about your husband’s death. But I’m not Eleanor St. Leger, and this isn’t Jerusalem. It was a long time ago, and Matthew’s not the same creature.”
“It seems like yesterday to me,” Miriam said simply. “Once again Matthew de Clermont wants what he cannot have. He hasn’t changed at all.”
The room fell silent. Sarah looked aghast. Miriam’s story had confirmed her worst suspicions about vampires in general and Matthew in particular.
“Perhaps you’ll remain true to him, even after you know him better,” Miriam continued, her voice dead. “But how many more creatures will Matthew destroy on your behalf? Do you think Satu Järvinen will escape Gillian Chamberlain’s fate?”
“What happened to Gillian?” Em asked, her voice rising.
Miriam opened her mouth to respond, and the fingers on my right hand curled instinctively into a loose ball. The index and middle fingers released in her direction with a tiny snap. She grabbed her throat and made a gurgling sound.
That wasn’t very nice, Diana, my grandmother said with a shake of her finger. You need to watch your temper, my girl.
“Stay out of this, Grandma—and you too, Miriam.” I gave both of them withering glances and turned to Em. “Gillian’s dead. She and Peter Knox sent me the picture of Mom and Dad in Nigeria. It was a threat, and Matthew felt he had to protect me. It’s instinctive in him, like breathing. Please try to forgive him.”
Em turned white. “Matthew killed her for delivering a picture?”
“Not just for that,” said Marcus. “She’d been spying on Diana for years. Gillian and Knox broke in to her rooms at New College and ransacked them. They were looking for DNA evidence so they could learn more about her power. If they’d found out what we now know—”
My fate would be far worse than death if Gillian and Knox knew what was in my test results. It was devastating that Matthew hadn’t told me himself, though. I hid my thoughts, trying to close the shutters behind my eyes. My aunts didn’t need to know that my husband kept things from me.
But there was no keeping my grandmother out. Oh, Diana, she whispered. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?
“I want you all out of my house.” Sarah pushed her chair back. “You, too, Diana.”
A long, slow shudder started in the house’s old root cellar under the family room and spread throughout the floorboards. It climbed up the walls and shook the panes of glass in the windows. Sarah’s chair shot forward, pressing her against the table. The door between the dining room and the family room slammed shut.
The house never likes it when Sarah tries to take charge, my grandmother commented.
My own chair pulled back and dumped me unceremoniously onto the floor. I used the table to haul myself up, and when I was on my feet, invisible hands spun me around and pushed me through the door toward the front entrance. The dining-room door crashed behind me, locking two witches, two vampires, and a ghost inside. There were muffled sounds of outrage.
Another ghost—one I’d never seen before—walked out of the keeping room and beckoned me forward. She wore a bodice covered with intricate embroidery atop a dark, full skirt that touched the floor. Her face was creased with age, but the stubborn chin and long nose of the Bishops was unmistakable.
Be careful, daughter. Her voice was low and husky. You are a creature of the crossroads, neither here nor there. ’Tis a dangerous place to be.
“Who are you?”
She looked toward the front door without answering. It opened soundlessly, its usually creaky hinges silent and smooth. I have always known he would come—and come for you. My own mother told me so.
I was torn between the Bishops and the de Clermonts, part of me wanting to return to the dining room, the other part needing to be with Matthew. The ghost smiled at my dilemma.
You have always been a child between, a witch apart. But there is no path forward that does not have him in it. Whichever way you go, you must choose him.
She disappeared, leaving fading traces of phosphorescence. Matthew’s white face and hands were just visible through the open door, a blur of movement in the darkness at the end of the driveway. At the sight of him my decision became easy.
Outside, I drew my sleeves down over my hands to protect them from the chilly air. I picked up one foot . . . and when I put it down, Matthew was directly in front of me, his back turned. It had taken me a single step to travel the length of the driveway.
He was speaking in furiously fast Occitan. Ysabeau must be on the other end.
“Matthew.” I spoke softly, not wanting to startle him.
He whipped around with a frown. “Diana. I didn’t hear you.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. May I speak to Ysabeau, please?” I reached for the phone.
“Diana, it would be better—”
Our families were locked in the dining room, and Sarah was threatening to throw us all out. We had enough problems without severing ties with Ysabeau and Marthe.
“What was it that Abraham Lincoln said about houses?”
“‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’” Matthew said, a puzzled look on his face.
“Exactly. Give me the phone.” Reluctantly he did so.
“Diana?” Ysabeau’s voice had an uncharacteristic edge.
“No matter what Matthew has said, I’m not angry with you. No harm was done.”
“Thank you,” she breathed. “I have been trying to tell him—it was only a feeling that we had, something half remembered from very long ago. Diana was the goddess of fertility then. Your scent reminds me of those times, and of the priestesses who helped women conceive.”
Matthew’s eyes touched me through the darkness.
“You’ll tell Marthe, too?”
“I will, Diana.” She paused. “Matthew has shared your test results and Marcus’s theories with me. It is a sign of how much they have startled him, that he told your tale. I do not know whether to weep with joy or sorrow at the news.”
“It’s early days, Ysabeau—maybe both?”
She laughed softly. “It will not be the first time my children have driven me to tears. But I wouldn’t give up the sorrow if it meant giving up the joy as well.”
“Is everything all right at home?” The words escaped before I thought them through, and Matthew’s eyes softened.
“Home?” The significance of the word was not lost on Ysabeau either. “Yes, we are all well here. It is very . . . quiet since you both left.”
My eyes filled with tears. Despite Ysabeau’s sharp edges, there was something so maternal about her. “Witches are noisier than vampires, I’m afraid.”
“Yes. And happiness is always louder than sadness. There hasn’t been enough happiness in this house.” Her voice grew brisk. “Matthew has said everything to me that he needs to say. We must hope the worst of his anger has been spent. You will take care of each other.” Ysabeau’s last sentence was a statement of fact. It was what the women in her family—my family—did for those they loved.
“Always.” I looked at my vampire, his white skin gleaming in the dark, and pushed the red button to disconnect the line. The fields on either side of the driveway were frost-covered, the ice crystals catching the faint traces of moonlight coming through the clouds.
“Did you suspect, too? Is that why you won’t make love to me?” I asked Matthew.
“I told you my reasons. Making love should be about intimacy, not just physical need.” He sounded frustrated at having to repeat himself.
“If you don’t want to have children with me, I will understand,” I said firmly, though part of me quietly protested.
His hands were rough on my arms. “Christ, Diana, how can you think that I wouldn’t want our children? But it might be dangerous—for you, for them.”
“There’s always risk with pregnancy. Not even you control nature.”
“We have no idea what our children would be. What if they shared my need for blood?”
“All babies are vampires, Matthew. They’re all nourished with their mother’s blood.”
