Matthew crossed the river Avon, driving over the bridge's high, arched spans. He found the familiar Lanarkshire landscape of craggy hil s, dark sky, and stark contrasts soothing. Little about this part of Scotland was soft or inviting, and its forbidding beauty suited his present mood.
He downshifted through the lime al ey that had once led to a palace and now led nowhere, an odd remnant of a grand life no one wanted to live anymore. Pul ing up to what had been the back entrance of an old hunting lodge, where rough brown stone stood in sharp contrast to the creamy stuccoed front, he climbed out of his Jaguar and lifted his bags from the trunk.
The lodge's welcoming white door opened. "You look like hel ." A wiry daemon with dark hair, twinkling brown eyes, and a hooked nose stood with his hand on the latch and inspected his best friend from head to foot.
Hamish Osborne had met Matthew Clairmont at Oxford nearly twenty years ago. Like most creatures, they'd been taught to fear each other and were uncertain how to behave. The two became inseparable once they'd realized they shared a similar sense of humor and the same passion for ideas.
Matthew's face registered anger and resignation in quick succession. "Nice to see you, too," he said gruffly, dropping his bags by the door. He drank in the house's cold, clear smel , with its nuances of old plaster and aging wood, and Hamish's unique aroma of lavender and peppermint. The vampire was desperate to get the smel of witch out of his nose.
Jordan, Hamish's human butler, appeared silently and brought with him the scent of lemon furniture polish and starch. It didn't drive Diana's honeysuckle and horehound entirely from Matthew's nostrils, but it helped.
"Good to see you, sir," he said before heading for the stairs with Matthew's bags. Jordan was a butler of the old school. Even had he not been paid handsomely to keep his employer's secrets, he would never divulge to a soul that Osborne was a daemon or that he sometimes entertained vampires. It would be as unthinkable as letting slip that he was occasional y asked to serve peanut butter and banana sandwiches at breakfast.
"Thank you, Jordan." Matthew surveyed the downstairs hal so that he wouldn't have to meet Hamish's eyes.
"You've picked up a new Hamilton, I see." He stared raptly at the unfamiliar landscape on the far wal .
"You don't usual y notice my new acquisitions." Like Matthew's, Hamish's accent was mostly Oxbridge with a touch of something else. In his case it was the burr of Glasgow's streets.
"Speaking of new acquisitions, how is Sweet Wil iam?"
Wil iam was Hamish's new lover, a human so adorable and easygoing that Matthew had nicknamed him after a spring flower. It stuck. Now Hamish used it as an endearment, and Wil iam had started bothering florists in the city for pots of it to give to friends.
"Grumpy," Hamish said with a chuckle. "I'd promised him a quiet weekend at home."
"You didn't have to come, you know. I didn't expect it."
Matthew sounded grumpy, too.
"Yes, I know. But it's been awhile since we've seen each other, and Cadzow is beautiful this time of year."
Matthew glowered at Hamish, disbelief evident on his face.
"Christ, you do need to go hunting, don't you?" was al Hamish could say.
"Badly," the vampire replied, his voice clipped.
"Do we have time for a drink first, or do you need to get straight to it?"
"I believe I can manage a drink," Matthew said in a withering tone.
"Excel ent. I've got a bottle of wine for you and some whiskey for me." Hamish had asked Jordan to pul some of the good wine out of the cel ar shortly after he'd received Matthew's dawn cal . He hated to drink alone, and Matthew refused to touch whiskey. "Then you can tel me why you have such an urgent need to go hunting this fine September weekend."
Hamish led the way across the gleaming floors and upstairs to his library. The warm brown paneling had been added in the nineteenth century, ruining the architect's original intention to provide an airy, spacious place for eighteenth-century ladies to wait while their husbands busied themselves with sport. The original white ceiling remained, festooned with plaster garlands and busy angels, a constant reproach to modernity.
The two men settled into the leather chairs that flanked the fireplace, where a cheerful blaze was already taking the edge off the autumn chil . Hamish showed Matthew the bottle of wine, and the vampire made an appreciative sound. "That wil do nicely."
"I should think so. The gentlemen at Berry Brothers and Rudd assured me it was excel ent." Hamish poured the wine and pul ed the stopper from his decanter. Glasses in hand, the two men sat in companionable silence.
"I'm sorry to drag you into al this," Matthew began. "I'm in a difficult situation. It's . . . complicated."
Hamish chuckled. "It always is, with you."
Matthew had been drawn to Hamish Osborne in part because of his directness and in part because, unlike most daemons, he was levelheaded and difficult to unsettle. Over the years a number of the vampire's friends had been daemons, gifted and cursed in equal measure. Hamish was far more comfortable to be around. There were no blazing arguments, bursts of wild activity, or dangerous depressions. Time with Hamish consisted of long stretches of silence, fol owed by blindingly sharp conversation, al colored by his serene approach to life.
Hamish's differences extended to his work, which was not in the usual daemonic pursuits of art or music. Instead he had a gift for money-for making it and for spotting fatal weaknesses in international financial instruments and markets. He took a daemon's characteristic creativity and applied it to spreadsheets rather than sonatas, understanding the intricacies of currency exchange with such remarkable precision that he was consulted by presidents, monarchs, and prime ministers.
The daemon's uncommon predilection for the economy fascinated Matthew, as did his ease among humans.
Hamish loved being around them and found their faults stimulating rather than aggravating. It was a legacy of his childhood, with an insurance broker for a father and a housewife as a mother. Having met the unflappable Osbornes, Matthew could understand Hamish's fondness.
The crackling of the fire and the smooth smel of whiskey in the air began to do their work, and the vampire found himself relaxing. Matthew sat forward, holding his wineglass lightly between his fingers, the red liquid winking in the firelight.
"I don't know where to begin," he said shakily.
"At the end, of course. Why did you pick up the phone and cal me?"
"I needed to get away from a witch."
Hamish watched his friend for a moment, noting Matthew's obvious agitation. Somehow Hamish was certain the witch wasn't male.
"What makes this witch so special?" he asked quietly.
Matthew looked up from under his heavy brows.
"Everything."
"Oh. You are in trouble, aren't you?" Hamish's burr deepened in sympathy and amusement.
Matthew laughed unpleasantly. "You could say that, yes."
"Does this witch have a name?"
"Diana. She's a historian. And American."
"The goddess of the hunt," Hamish said slowly. "Apart from her ancient name, is she an ordinary witch?"
"No," Matthew said abruptly. "She is far from ordinary."
"Ah. The complications." Hamish studied his friend's face for signs that he was calming down but saw that Matthew was spoiling for a fight instead.
"She's a Bishop." Matthew waited. He'd learned it was never a good idea to anticipate that the daemon wouldn't grasp the significance of a reference, no matter how obscure.
Hamish sifted and sorted through his mind and found what he was seeking. "As in Salem, Massachusetts?"
Matthew nodded grimly. "She's the last of the Bishop witches. Her father is a Proctor."
The daemon whistled softly. "A witch twice over, with a distinguished magical lineage. You never do things by half, do you? She must be powerful."
"Her mother is. I don't know much about her father.
Rebecca Bishop, though-that's a different story. She was doing spel s at thirteen that most witches can't manage after a lifetime of study and experience. And her childhood abilities as a seer were astonishing."
"Do you know her, Matt?" Hamish had to ask. Matthew had lived many lives and crossed paths with too many people for his friend to keep track of them al .
Matthew shook his head. "No. There's always talk about her, though-and plenty of envy. You know how witches are," he said, his voice taking on the slightly unpleasant tone it did whenever he referred to the species.
Hamish let the remark about witches pass and eyed Matthew over the rim of his glass.
"And Diana?"
"She claims she doesn't use magic."
There were two threads in that brief sentence that needed pul ing. Hamish tugged on the easier one first.
"What, not for anything? Finding a lost earring? Coloring her hair?" Hamish sounded doubtful.
"She's not the earrings and colored hair type. She's more the three-mile run fol owed by an hour on the river in a dangerously tiny boat type."
"With her background I find it difficult to believe she never uses her power." Hamish was a pragmatist as wel as a dreamer. It was why he was so good with other people's money. "And you don't believe it either, or you wouldn't suggest that she's lying." There was the second thread pul ed.
"She says she only uses magic occasional y-for little things." Matthew hesitated, raked his fingers through his hair so half of it stood on end, and took a gulp of wine. "I've been watching her, though, and she's using it more than that. I can smel it," he said, his voice frank and open for the first time since his arrival. "The scent is like an electrical storm about to break, or summer lightning. There are times when I can see it, too. Diana shimmers when she's angry or lost in her work." And when she's asleep, he thought, frowning. "Christ, there are times when I think I can even taste it."
"She shimmers?"
"It's nothing you would see, though you might sense the energy some other way. The chatoiement-her witch's shimmer-is very faint. Even when I was a young vampire, only the most powerful witches emitted these tiny pulses of light. It's rare to see it today. Diana's unaware she's doing it, and she's oblivious to its significance." Matthew shuddered and bal ed up his fist.
The daemon glanced at his watch. The day was young, but he already knew why his friend was in Scotland.
Matthew Clairmont was fal ing in love.
Jordan came in, his timing impeccable. "The gil ie dropped off the Jeep, sir. I told him you wouldn't need his services today." The butler knew there was little need for a guide to track down deer when you had a vampire in the house.
"Excel ent," Hamish said, rising to his feet and draining his glass. He sorely wanted more whiskey, but it was better to keep his wits about him.
Matthew looked up. "I'l go out by myself, Hamish. I'd rather hunt alone." The vampire didn't like hunting with warmbloods, a category that included humans, daemons, and witches. He usual y made an exception for Hamish, but today he wanted to be on his own while he got his craving for Diana Bishop under control.
"Oh, we're not going hunting," Hamish said with a wicked glint in his eye. "We're going stalking." The daemon had a plan. It involved occupying his friend's mind until he let down his guard and wil ingly shared what was going on in Oxford rather than requiring Hamish to drag it out of him. "Come on, it's a beautiful day. You'l have fun."
Outside, Matthew grimly climbed into Hamish's beat-up Jeep. It was what the two of them preferred to roam around in when they were at Cadzow, even though a Land Rover was the vehicle of choice in grand Scottish hunting lodges.
Matthew didn't mind that it was freezing to drive in, and Hamish found its hypermasculinity amusing.
In the hil s Hamish ground the Jeep's gears-the vampire cringed at the sound each time-as he climbed to where the deer grazed. Matthew spotted a pair of stags on the next crag and told Hamish to stop. He got out of the Jeep quietly and crouched by the front tire, already mesmerized.
Hamish smiled and joined him.