The Book of Life

by Deborah Harkness

  "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 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 figure out how vampires and witches can reproduce--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."

  "Yes. Like vampires. And witches." Matthew ran his fingers through his hair. Chris looked alarmed at the transformation in his tidy appearance. "I don't like the idea of more humans knowing about us."

  Matthew's words reminded me who did need to know about Benjamin's latest message. "Marcus. We need to tell Marcus."

  Matthew dialed his number.

  "Matthew? Is everything all right?" Marcus said as soon as he picked up the call.

  "Not really. We have a situation." Matthew quickly told him about Benjamin and the witch he was keeping hostage. Then he told Marcus why.

  "If I send you the Web address, will you have Nathaniel Wilson figure out how to monitor Benjamin's feed 24/7? And if he could find where the signal is originating from, that would save a lot of time," Matthew said.

  "Consider it done," Marcus replied.

  No sooner had Matthew disconnected than my own cell phone rang.

  "Who now?" I said, glancing at the clock. The sun had barely risen. "Hello?"

  "Thank God you're awake," Vivian Harrison said, relieved.

  "What's wrong?" My black thumb prickled.

  "We've got trouble," she said grimly.

  "What kind of trouble?" I asked. Sarah pressed her ear against the receiver next to mine. I tried to flap her away.

  "I received a message from Sidonie von Borcke," Vivian said.

  "Who is Sidonie von Borcke?" I'd never heard the name before.

  "One of the Congregation's witches," Vivian and Sarah said in unison.

  The coven failed the test." Vivian flung her satchel-size purse onto the kitchen island and poured herself a cup of coffee.

  "Is she a witch, too?" Chris asked me in a whisper.

  "I am," Vivian replied instead, noticing Chris for the first time.

  "Oh." He looked at her appraisingly. "Can I take a cheek swab? It's painless."

  "Maybe later." Vivian did a double take. "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

  "This is Chris Roberts, Vivian, my colleague from Yale. He's a molecular biologist." I passed the sugar and gave Chris a pinch on the arm to keep him quiet. "Can we possibly talk in the family room? My head is killing me--and my feet are swelling up like balloons."

  "Somebody complained to the Congregation about covenant violations in Madison County," Vivian told us when we were comfortably ensconced in the sofas and armchairs arranged in front of the TV.

  "Do you know who it was?" Sarah asked.

  "Cassie and Lydia." Vivian stared morosely into her coffee.

  "The cheerleaders narked us out?" Sarah was dumbfounded.

  "Figures," I said. They'd been inseparable since childhood, insufferable since adolescence, and indistinguishable since high school with their softly curling blond hair and blue eyes. Neither Cassie nor Lydia had let her witchy ancestry keep her in the shadows. Together they had co-captained the cheerleading squad and witches credited them with giving Madison its most successful football season in history by inserting victory spells into every chant and routine.

  "And what are the charges--exactly?" Matthew had switched into lawyer mode.

  "That Diana and Sarah have been consorting with vampires," Vivian muttered.

  "Consorting?" Sarah's outrage was clear.

  Vivian flung her hands up in the air. "I know, I know. It sounds positively lewd, but I assure you those were Sidonie's exact words. Happily, Sidonie is in Las Vegas and can't come in person to investigate. The Clark County covens are too heavily invested in real estate, and they're using spells to try to shore up the housing market."

  "So what happens now?" I asked Vivian.

  "I have to respond. In writing."

  "Thank goodness. That means you can lie," I said, relieved.

  "No way, Diana. She's too smart. I saw Sidonie question the SoHo coven two years ago when they opened up that haunted house on Spring Street, right where the Halloween parade lineup begins. It was masterful." Vivian shuddered. "She even got them to divulge how they suspended a bubbling cauldron over their parade float for six hours. After Sidonie's visit the coven was grounded for a full year--no flying, no apparating, and positively no exorcisms. They still haven't recovered."

  "What kind of witch is she?" I asked.

  "A powerful one," Vivian said with a snort. But that's not what I meant.

  "Is her power elemental or based in the craft?"

  "She's got a good grasp of spells, from what I hear," Sarah said.

  "Sidonie can fly, and she's a respected seer, too," Vivian added.

  Chris raised his hand.

  "Yes, Chris?" Sarah sounded like a schoolmarm.

  "Smart, powerful, flying--it doesn't matter. You can't let her find out about Diana's children, what with the Bad Seed's latest research project and this covenant you're all worried about."

  "Bad Seed?" Vivian stared at Chris blankly.

  "Matthew's son knocked up a witch. It seems that reproductive abilities run in the Clairmont family." Chris glared at Matthew. "And about this covenant you've all agreed to. I take it that witches aren't supposed to hang out with vampires?"

  "Or with daemons. It makes humans uncomfortable," Matthew said.

  "Uncomfortable?" Chris looked dubious. "So did blacks sitting on buses next to white people. Segregation isn't the answer."

  "Humans notice creatures if we're in mixed groups," I said, hoping to placate Chris.

  "We notice you, Diana, even when you're walking down Temple Street by yourself at ten o'clock in the morning," Chris said, shattering my last, fragile hope that I appeared to be just like everybody else.

  "The Congregation was established to enforce the covenant, to keep us safe from human attention an
d interference," I said, sticking to my guns nonetheless. "In exchange we all stay out of human politics and religion."

  "Think what you want, but forced segregation--or the covenant if you want to be fancy about it--is often about concerns for racial purity." Chris propped his legs on the coffee table. "Your covenant probably came into being because witches were having vampire babies. Making humans more 'comfortable' was just a convenient excuse."

  Fernando and Matthew exchanged glances.

  "I assumed that Diana's ability to conceive was unique--that this was the goddess at work, not part of some broader pattern." Vivian was aghast. "Scores of long-lived creatures with supernatural powers would be terrifying."

  "Not if you want to engineer a super race. Then such a creature would be quite a genetic coup," Chris observed. "Do we happen to know of any megalomaniacs with an interest in vampire genetics? Oh, wait. We know two of them."

  "I prefer to leave such things to God, Christopher." A dark vein pulsed in Matthew's forehead. "I have no interest in eugenics."

  "I forgot. You're obsessed with species evolution--in other words, history and chemistry. Those are Diana's research interests. What a coincidence." Chris's eyes narrowed. "Based on what I've overheard, I have two questions, Professor Clairmont. Is it just vampires who are dying out, or are witches and daemons going extinct, too? And which of these so-called species cares the most about racial purity?"

  Chris really was a genius. With every insightful question he was delving deeper into the mysteries bound up in the Book of Life, the de Clermont family's secrets, and the mysteries in my own--and Matthew's--blood.

  "Chris is right," Matthew said with suspicious speed. "We can't risk the Congregation discovering Diana's pregnancy. If you have no objection, mon coeur, I think we should go to Fernando's house in Seville without delay. Sarah can come with us, of course. Then the coven's reputation won't be brought into disrepute."

  "I said you can't let the Wicked Witch find out about Diana, not that she should run away," Chris said, disgusted. "Have you forgotten Benjamin?"

  "Let's fight this war on one front at a time, Christopher." Matthew's expression must have matched his tone, because Chris immediately subsided.