The Book of Life (26 page)

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.

“What are we going to do?” Miriam asked.

“Rescue that woman,” Matthew said, his fury evident.

“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 won’t hesitate to take another.”

“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. “And I never considered that blood rage may also play a role in vampire-witch reproduction.”

“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 baby-sitter. 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.

“Keep that site online. When Benjamin is turning on the camera, he might do or say something that will give his location away.” Matthew handed his laptop and the still-attached mobile to Fernando.

There was still nothing but a black screen and that horrible clock marking the passage of time. Matthew angled his head toward the door, and Fernando followed Sarah.

“So let me get this straight. Matthew’s Bad Seed is engaged in some down-home genetics research involving a hereditary condition, a kidnapped witch, and some half-baked ideas about eugenics.” Chris folded his arms over his chest. There were a few details missing, but he had sized up the situation in no time at all. “You left some important plot twists out of the fairy tale you told me yesterday, Diana.”

“She didn’t know about Benjamin’s scientific interests. None of us knew.” Matthew stood.

“You must have known that the Bad Seed was as crazy as a shit-house rat. He is your son.” Chris’s eyes narrowed. “According to him you both share this blood-rage thing. That means you’re both a danger to Diana.”

“I knew he was unstable, yes. And his name is Benjamin.” Matthew chose not to respond to the second half of Chris’s remarks.

“Unstable? The man is a fucking psychopath. He’s trying to engineer a master race of vampire witches. So why isn’t the Bad—Benjamin locked up? That way he couldn’t kidnap and rape his way onto the roster of scientific madmen alongside Sims, Verschuer, Mengele, and Stanley.”

“Let’s go to the kitchen.” I urged them both in the direction of the stairs.

“After you,” Matthew murmured, putting his hand on the small of my back. Relieved by his easy acquiescence, I began my descent.

There was a thud, a muffled curse.

Chris was pinned against the door, Matthew’s hand wrapped around his windpipe.

“Based on the profanity that’s come out of your mouth in the past twenty-four hours, I can only conclude that you think of Diana as one of the guys.” Matthew gave me a warning look when I backed up to intervene. “She’s not. She’s my wife. I would appreciate it if you limited your vulgarity in her presence. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.” Chris looked at him with loathing.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Matthew was at my side in a flash, his hand once more on the dip in my spine where the shadowy firedrake had appeared. “Watch the stairs,
mon coeur,
” he murmured.

When we reached the ground floor, I sneaked a backward glance at Chris. He was studying Matthew as though he were a strange new life-form—which I suppose he was. My heart sank. Matthew might have won the first few battles, but the war between my best friend and my husband was far from over.

By the time Sarah joined us in the kitchen, her hair exuded the scents of tobacco and the hop vine that was planted against the porch railings. I waved my hand in front of my nose—cigarette smoke was one of the few things that still triggered nausea this late in my pregnancy—and made coffee. When it was ready, I poured the pot’s steaming contents into mugs for Sarah, Chris, and Fernando. Matthew and I stuck to ordinary water. Chris was the first to break the silence.

“So, Matthew, you and Dr. Shephard have been studying vampire genetics for decades in an effort to understand blood rage.”

“Matthew knew Darwin. He’s been studying creature origins and evolution for more than a few decades.” I wasn’t going to tell Chris how much more, but I didn’t want him to be blindsided by Matthew’s age, as I had been.

“We have. My son has been working with us.” Matthew gave me a quelling look.

“Yes, I saw that,” Chris said, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “Not something I’d boast about, myself.”

“Not Benjamin. My other son, Marcus Whitmore.”

“Marcus Whitmore.” Chris made an amused sound. “Covering all the bases, I see. You handle the evolutionary biology and neuroscience, Miriam Shephard is an expert on population genetics, and Marcus Whitmore is known for his study of functional morphology and efforts to debunk phenotypic plasticity. That’s a hell of a research team you’ve assembled, Clairmont.”

“I’m very fortunate,” Matthew said mildly.

“Wait a minute.” Chris looked at Matthew in amazement. “Evolutionary biology. Evolutionary physiology. Population genetics. Figuring out how blood rage is transmitted isn’t your only research objective. You’re trying to diagram evolutionary descent. You’re working on the Tree of Life—and not just the human branches.”

“Is that what the tree in the fireplace is called?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t think so.” Matthew patted her hand.

“Evolution. I’ll be damned.” Chris pushed away from the island. “So have you discovered the common ancestor for humans and you guys?” He waved in our direction. “If by ‘you guys’ you mean creatures—daemons, vampires, and witches—then no.” Matthew’s brow arched.

“Okay. What are the crucial genetic differences separating us?”

“Vampires and witches have an extra chromosome pair,” Matthew explained. “Daemons have a single extra chromosome.”

“You’ve got a genetic map for these creature chromosomes?”

“Yes,” Matthew said.

“Then you’ve probably been working on this little project since before 1990, just to keep up with the humans.”

“That’s right,” Matthew said. “And I’ve been working since 1968 on how blood rage is inherited, if you must know.”

“Of course. You adapted Donahue’s use of family pedigrees to determine gene transmission between generations.” Chris nodded. “Good call. How far along are you with sequencing? Have you located the blood-rage gene?”

Matthew stared at him without replying.

“Well?” Chris demanded.

“I had a teacher like you once,” Matthew said coldly. “He drove me insane.”

“And I have students like you. They don’t last long in my lab.” Chris leaned across the table. “I take it that not every vampire on the planet has your condition. Have you determined exactly how blood rage is inherited, and why some contract it and some don’t?”

“Not entirely,” Matthew admitted. “It’s a bit more complicated with vampires, considering we have three parents.”

“You need to pick up the pace, my friend. Diana is pregnant. With twins.“ Chris looked at me pointedly. “I assume you’ve drawn up full genetic profiles for the two of you and made predictions for inheritance patterns among your offspring, including but not limited to blood rage?”

“I’ve been in the sixteenth century for the best part of a year.” Matthew really disliked being questioned. “I lacked the opportunity.”

“High time we started, then,” Chris remarked blandly.

“Matthew was working on something.” I looked to Matthew for confirmation. “Remember? I found that paper covered with X’s and O’s.”

“X’s and O’s? Lord God Almighty.” This seemed to confirm Chris’s worst fears. “You tell me you have three parents, but you remain married to a Mendelian inheritance model. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re as old as dirt and knew Darwin.”

“I met Mendel once, too,” Matthew said crisply, sounding like an irritated professor himself.

“Besides, blood rage may be a Mendelian trait. We can’t rule that out.”

“Highly unlikely,” Chris said. “And not just because of this three-parent problem—which I’ll have to consider in more detail. It must create havoc in the data.”

“Explain.” Matthew tented his fingers in front of his face.

“I have to give an overview of non-Mendelian inheritance to a fellow of All Souls?” Chris’s eyebrows rose. “Somebody needs to look at the appointment policies at Oxford University.”

“Do you understand a word they’re saying?” Sarah whispered.

“One in three,” I said apologetically.

“I mean gene conversion. Infectious heredity. Genomic imprinting. Mosaicism.” Chris ticked them off on his finger. “Ring any bells, Professor Clairmont, or would you like me to continue with the lecture I give to my undergraduates?”

“Isn’t mosaicism a form of chimerism?” It was the only word I’d recognized.

Chris nodded at me approvingly.

“I’m a chimera—if that helps.”

“Diana,” Matthew growled.

“Chris is my best friend, Matthew,” I said. “And if he’s going to help you determine how blood rage effects vampire-witch reproduction—not to mention find a cure for the disease—he needs to know everything. That includes my genetic test results, by the way.”

“That information can be deadly in the wrong hands,” Matthew said.

“Matthew is right,” Chris agreed.

“I’m so glad you think so.” Matthew’s words dripped acid.

“Don’t patronize me, Clairmont. I know the dangers of human-subject research. I’m a black man from Alabama and grew up in the shadow of Tuskegee.” Chris turned to me. “Don’t hand over your genetic information to anybody outside this room—even if they’re wearing a white coat. Especially if they’re wearing a white coat, come to think of it.”

“Thanks for your input, Christopher,” Matthew said stiffly. “I’ll be sure to pass your ideas on to the rest of my team.”

“So what are we going to do about all this?” Fernando asked. “There may not have been any urgency before, but now . . .” He looked to Matthew for guidance.

“The Bad Seed’s breeding program changes everything,” Chris proclaimed before Matthew could speak. “First we have to figure out if blood rage really is what makes conception possible or if it’s a combination of factors. And we need to know the likelihood of Diana’s children contracting the disease.

We’ll need the witch and the vampire genetic maps for that.”

“You’ll need my DNA, too,” I said quietly. “Not all witches can reproduce.”

“Do you need to be a good witch? A bad witch?” Chris’s silly jokes usually made me smile, but not tonight.

“You need to be a weaver,” I replied. “You’re going to need to sequence my genome in particular and compare it to that of other witches. And you’ll need to do the same for Matthew and vampires who don’t have blood rage. We have to understand blood rage well enough to cure it, or Benjamin and his children will continue to be a threat.”

“Okay, then.” Chris slapped his thighs. “We need a lab. And help. Plenty of data and computer time, too. I can put my people on this.”

“Absolutely not.” Matthew shot to his feet. “I have a lab, too. Miriam has been working on the problems of blood rage and the creature genomes for some time.”

“Then she should come here immediately and bring her work with her. My students are good, Matthew. The best. They’ll see things you and I have been conditioned not to see.”