"You'l have to ask him. Vampires don't tel tales. But don't worry," she continued, baring her sharp, white teeth, "these work perfectly, so you've got nothing to fear."
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I clattered down the stairs, pushing through the tourists in the quadrangle. At Blackwel 's, I swal owed a sandwich and a bottle of water.
Miriam caught my eye as I passed by her on the way to the exit. She put aside a murder mystery and fol owed me.
"Diana," she said quietly as we passed through the library's gates, "what are you up to?"
"None of your business," I snapped.
Miriam sighed.
Back in Duke Humfrey's, I located the wizard in brown tweed. Miriam watched intently from the center aisle, stil as a statue.
"Are you in charge?"
He tipped his head to the side in acknowledgment.
"I'm Diana Bishop," I said, sticking out my hand.
"Peter Knox. And I know very wel who you are. You're Rebecca and Stephen's child." He touched my fingertips lightly with his own. There was a nineteenth-century grimoire sitting in front of him, a stack of reference books at his side.
The name was familiar, though I couldn't place it, and hearing my parents' names come out of this wizard's mouth was disquieting. I swal owed, hard. "Please clear your . . .
friends out of the library. The new students arrive today, and we wouldn't want to frighten them."
"If we could have a quiet word, Dr. Bishop, I'm sure we could come to some arrangement." He pushed his glasses up over the bridge of his nose. The closer I was to Knox, the more danger I felt. The skin under my fingernails started to prickle ominously.
"You have nothing to fear from me," he said sorrowful y.
"That vampire, on the other hand-"
"You think I found something that belongs to the witches,"
I interrupted. "I no longer have it. If you want Ashmole 782, there are request slips on the desk in front of you."
"You don't understand the complexity of the situation."
"No, and I don't want to know. Please, leave me alone."
"Physical y you are very like your mother." Knox's eyes swept over my face. "But you have some of Stephen's stubbornness as wel , I see."
I felt the usual combination of envy and irritation that accompanied a witch's references to my parents or family history-as if they had an equal claim to mine.
"I'l try," he continued, "but I don't control those animals."
He waved across the aisle, where one of the Scary Sisters was watching Knox and me with interest. I hesitated, then crossed over to her seat.
"I'm sure you heard our conversation, and you must know I'm under the direct supervision of two vampires already," I said. "You're welcome to stay, if you don't trust Matthew and Miriam. But clear the others out of the Upper Reading Room."
"Witches are hardly ever worth a moment of a vampire's time, but you are ful of surprises today, Diana Bishop. Wait until I tel my sister Clarissa what she's missed." The female vampire's words came out in a lush, unhurried drawl redolent of impeccable breeding and a fine education. She smiled, teeth gleaming in the low light of the medieval wing.
"Chal enging Knox-a child like you? What a tale I'l have to tel ."
I dragged my eyes away from her flawless features and went off in search of a familiar daemonic face.
The latte-loving daemon was drifting around the computer terminals wearing headphones and humming under his breath to some unheard music as the end of the cord was swinging freely around the tops of his thighs.
Once he pul ed the white plastic disks from his ears, I tried to impress upon him the seriousness of the situation.
"Listen, you're welcome to keep surfing the Net up here.
But we've got a problem downstairs. It's not necessary for two dozen daemons to be watching me."
The daemon made an indulgent sound. "You'l know soon enough."
"Could they watch me from farther away? The Sheldonian? The White Horse?" I was trying to be helpful. "If not, the human readers wil start asking questions."
"We're not like you," he said dreamily.
"Does that mean you can't help or you won't?" I tried not to sound impatient.
"It's al the same thing. We need to know, too."
This was impossible. "Whatever you can do to take some of the pressure off the seats would be greatly appreciated."
Miriam was stil watching me. Ignoring her, I returned to my desk.
At the end of the completely unproductive day, I pinched the bridge of my nose, swore under my breath, and packed up my things.
The next morning the Bodleian was far less crowded.
Miriam was scribbling furiously and didn't look up when I passed. There was stil no sign of Clairmont. Even so, everybody was observing the rules that he had clearly, if silently, laid down, and they stayed out of the Selden End.
Gil ian was in the medieval wing, crouched over her papyri, as were both Scary Sisters and a few daemons. With the exception of Gil ian, who was doing real work, the rest went through the motions with perfect respectability. And when I stuck my head around the swinging door into the Upper Reading Room after a hot cup of tea at midmorning, only a few creatures looked up. The musical, coffee-loving daemon was among them. He tipped his fingers and winked at me knowingly.
I got a reasonable amount of work done, although not enough to make up for yesterday. I began by reading alchemical poems-the trickiest of texts-that were attributed to Mary, the sister of Moses. "Three things if you three hours attend," read one part of the poem, "Are chained together in the End." The meaning of the verses remained a mystery, although the most likely subject was the chemical combination of silver, gold, and mercury.
Could Chris produce an experiment from this poem? I wondered, noting the possible chemical processes involved.
When I turned to another, anonymous poem, entitled "Verse on the Threefold Sophic Fire," the similarities between its imagery and an il umination I'd seen yesterday of an alchemical mountain, riddled with mines and miners digging in the ground for precious metals and stones, were unmistakable.
Within this Mine two Stones of old were found, Whence this the Ancients called Holy Ground; Who knew their Value, Power and Extent, And Nature how with Nature to Ferment For these if you Ferment with Natural Gold Or Silver, their hid Treasures they unfold.
I stifled a groan. My research would become exponential y more complicated if I had to connect not only art and science but art and poetry.
"It must be hard to concentrate on your research with vampires watching you."
Gil ian Chamberlain was standing next to me, her hazel eyes sparking with suppressed malevolence.
"What do you want, Gil ian?"
"I'm just being friendly, Diana. We're sisters, remember?"
Gil ian's shiny black hair swung above her col ar. Its smoothness suggested that she was not troubled by surges of static electricity. Her power must be regularly released. I shivered.
"I have no sisters, Gil ian. I'm an only child."
"It's a good thing, too. Your family has caused more than enough trouble. Look at what happened at Salem. It was al Bridget Bishop's fault." Gil ian's tone was vicious.
Here we go again, I thought, closing the volume before me. As usual, the Bishops were proving to be an irresistible topic of conversation.
"What are you talking about, Gil ian?" My voice was sharp. "Bridget Bishop was found guilty of witchcraft and executed. She didn't instigate the witch-hunt-she was a victim of it, just like the others. You know that, as does every other witch in this library."
"Bridget Bishop drew human attention, first with those poppets of hers and then with her provocative clothes and immorality. The human hysteria would have passed if not for her."
"She was found innocent of practicing witchcraft," I retorted, bristling.
"In 1680-but no one believed it. Not after they found the poppets in her cel ar wal , pins stuck through them and the heads ripped off. Afterward Bridget did nothing to protect her fel ow witches from fal ing under suspicion. She was so independent." Gil ian's voice dropped. "That was your mother's fatal flaw, too."
"Stop it, Gil ian." The air around us seemed unnatural y cold and clear.
"Your mother and father were standoffish, just like you, thinking they didn't need the Cambridge coven's support after they got married. They learned, didn't they?"
I shut my eyes, but it was impossible to block out the image I'd spent most of my life trying to forget: my mother and father lying dead in the middle of a chalk-marked circle somewhere in Nigeria, their bodies broken and bloody. My aunt wouldn't share the details of their death at the time, so I'd slipped into the public library to look them up. That's where I'd first seen the picture and the lurid headline that accompanied it. The nightmares had gone on for years afterward.
"There was nothing the Cambridge coven could do to prevent my parents' murder. They were kil ed on another continent by fearful humans." I gripped the arms of my chair, hoping that she wouldn't see my white knuckles.
Gil ian gave an unpleasant laugh. "It wasn't humans, Diana. If it had been, their kil ers would have been caught and dealt with." She crouched down, her face close to mine. "Rebecca Bishop and Stephen Proctor were keeping secrets from other witches. We needed to discover them.
Their deaths were unfortunate, but necessary. Your father had more power than we ever dreamed."
"Stop talking about my family and my parents as though they belong to you," I warned. "They were kil ed by humans."
There was a roaring in my ears, and the coldness that surrounded us was intensifying.
"Are you sure?" Gil ian whispered, sending a fresh chil into my bones. "As a witch, you'd know if I was lying to you."
I governed my features, determined not to show my confusion. What Gil ian said about my parents couldn't be true, and yet there were none of the subtle alarms that typical y accompanied untruths between witches-the spark of anger, an overwhelming feeling of contempt.
"Think about what happened to Bridget Bishop and your parents the next time you turn down an invitation to a coven gathering," Gil ian murmured, her lips so close to my ear that her breath swept against my skin. "A witch shouldn't keep secrets from other witches. Bad things happen when she does."
Gil ian straightened and stared at me for a few seconds, the tingle of her glance growing uncomfortable the longer it lasted. Staring fixedly at the closed manuscript before me, I refused to meet her eyes.
After she left, the air's temperature returned to normal.
When my heart stopped pounding and the roaring in my ears abated, I packed my belongings with shaking hands, badly wanting to be back in my rooms. Adrenaline was coursing through my body, and I wasn't sure how long it would be possible to fend off my panic.
I managed to get out of the library without incident, avoiding Miriam's sharp glance. If Gil ian was right, it was the jealousy of fel ow witches that I needed to be wary of, not human fear. And the mention of my father's hidden powers made something half remembered flit at the edges of my mind, but it eluded me when I tried to fix it in place long enough to see it clearly.
At New Col ege, Fred hailed me from the porter's lodge with a fistful of mail. A creamy envelope, thick with a distinctive woven feeling, lay on top.
It was a note from the warden, summoning me for a drink before dinner.
In my rooms I considered cal ing his secretary and feigning il ness to get out of the invitation. My head was reeling, and there was little chance I could keep down even a drop of sherry in my present state.
But the col ege had behaved handsomely when I'd requested a place to stay. The least I could do was express my thanks personal y. My sense of professional obligation began to supplant the anxiety stirred up by Gil ian. Holding on to my identity as a scholar like a lifeline, I resolved to make my appreciation known.
After changing, I made my way to the warden's lodgings and rang the bel . A member of the col ege staff opened the door and ushered me inside, leading me to the parlor.
"Hel o, Dr. Bishop." Nicholas Marsh's blue eyes crinkled at the corners, and his snowy white hair and round red cheeks made him look like Santa Claus. Soothed by his warmth and armored with a sense of professional duty, I smiled.
"Professor Marsh." I took his outstretched hand. "Thank you for inviting me."
"It's overdue, I'm afraid. I was in Italy, you know."
"Yes, the bursar told me."
"Then you have forgiven me for neglecting you for so long," he said. "I hope to make it up to you by introducing you to an old friend of mine who is in Oxford for a few days.
He's a wel -known author and writes about subjects that might interest you."
Marsh stood aside, giving me a glimpse of a thick head of brown hair peppered with gray and the sleeve of a brown tweed jacket. I froze in confusion.
"Come and meet Peter Knox," the warden said, taking my elbow gently. "He's acquainted with your work."
The wizard stood. Final y I recognized what had been eluding me. Knox's name had been in the newspaper story about vampire murders. He was the expert the police cal ed in to examine deaths that had an occult twist. My fingers started to itch.
"Dr. Bishop," Knox said, holding out his hand. "I've seen you in the Bodleian."
"Yes, I believe you have." I extended my own and was relieved to see that it was not emitting sparks. We clasped hands as briefly as possible.
His right fingertips flickered slightly, a tiny furl and a release of bones and skin that no human would have noticed. It reminded me of my childhood, when my mother's hands had flickered and furled to produce pancakes and fold laundry. Shutting my eyes, I braced for an outpouring of magic.
The phone rang.
"I must get that, I'm afraid," Marsh apologized. "Do sit down."
I sat as far from Knox as possible, perched on a straight- backed wooden chair usual y reserved for disgraced junior members of the col ege.
Knox and I remained silent while Marsh murmured and tutted into the phone. He punched a button on the console and approached me, a glass of sherry in his hand. "That's the vice-chancel or. Two freshers have gone missing," he said, using the university's slang term for new students.
"You two chat while I deal with this in my study. Please excuse me."
Distant doors opened and closed, and muffled voices conferred in the hal before there was silence.
"Missing students?" I said blandly. Surely Knox had magical y engineered both the crisis and the phone cal that had drawn Marsh away.
"I don't understand, Dr. Bishop," Knox murmured. "It seems unfortunate for the university to misplace two children. Besides, this gives us a chance to talk privately."
"What do we have to talk about?" I sniffed my sherry and prayed for the warden's return.
"A great many things."
I glanced at the door.
"Nicholas wil be quite busy until we're through."
"Let's get this over with, then, so that the warden can return to his drink."
"As you wish," Knox said. "Tel me what brought you to Oxford, Dr. Bishop."
"Alchemy." I would answer the man's questions, if only to get Marsh back into the room, but wasn't going to tel him more than was necessary.
"You must have known that Ashmole 782 was bewitched.
No one with even a drop of Bishop blood in her veins could have failed to notice. Why did you send it back?" Knox's brown eyes were sharp. He wanted the manuscript as much as Matthew Clairmont did-if not more.
"I was done with it." It was difficult to keep my voice even.
"Was there nothing about the manuscript that piqued your interest?"
"Nothing."
Peter Knox's mouth twisted into an ugly expression. He knew I was lying. "Have you shared your observations with the vampire?"
"I take it you mean Professor Clairmont." When creatures refused to use proper names, it was a way of denying that those who were not like you were your equals.
Knox's fingers unwound once more. When I thought he might point them at me, he curled them around the arms of his chair instead. "We al respect your family and what you've endured. Nevertheless, questions have been raised about your unorthodox relationship with this creature. You are betraying your ancestral lineage with this self-indulgent behavior. It must stop."
"Professor Clairmont is a professional col eague," I said, steering the conversation away from my family, "and I know nothing about the manuscript. It was in my possession for a matter of minutes. Yes, I knew it was under a spel . But that was immaterial to me, since I'd requested it to study the contents."
"The vampire has wanted that book for more than a century," Knox said, his voice vicious. "He mustn't be al owed to have it."
"Why?" My voice crackled with suppressed anger.
"Because it belongs to the witches? Vampires and daemons can't enchant objects. A witch put that book under a spel , and now it's back under the same spel . What are you worried about?"
"More than you could possibly comprehend, Dr. Bishop."
"I'm confident I can keep up, Mr. Knox," I replied. Knox's mouth tightened with displeasure when I emphasized his position outside the academy. Every time the wizard used my title, his formality sounded like a taunt, as if he were trying to make a point that he, not I, was the real expert. I might not use my power, and I couldn't have conjured up my own lost keys, but being patronized by this wizard was intolerable.
"I am disturbed that you-a Bishop-are associating with a vampire." He held up his hand as a protest bubbled to my lips. "Let's not insult each other with further untruths. Instead of the natural revulsion you should feel for that animal, you feel gratitude."
I remained silent, seething.
"And I'm concerned because we are perilously close to catching human attention," he continued.
"I tried to get the creatures out of the library."
"Ah, but it's not just the library, is it? A vampire is leaving drained, bloodless corpses around Westminster. The daemons are unusual y restless, vulnerable as ever to their own madness and the swings of energy in the world. We can't afford to be noticed."
"You told the reporters that there was nothing supernatural about those deaths."
Knox looked incredulous. "You don't expect me to tel humans everything ?"
"I do, actual y, when they're paying you."
"You're not only self-indulgent, you're foolish. That surprises me, Dr. Bishop. Your father was known for his good sense."
"I've had a long day. Is that al ?" Standing abruptly, I moved toward the door. Even in normal circumstances, it was difficult to listen to anyone but Sarah and Em talking about my parents. Now-after Gil ian's revelations-there was something almost obscene about it.
"No, it is not," said Knox unpleasantly. "What I am most intrigued by, at present, is the question of how an ignorant witch with no training of any sort managed to break a spel that has defied the efforts of those far more adept than you wil ever be."
"So that's why you're al watching me." I sat down, my back pressing against the chair's slats.
"Don't look so pleased with yourself," he said curtly. "Your success may have been a fluke-an anniversary reaction related to when the spel was first cast. The passage of time can interfere with witchcraft, and anniversaries are particularly volatile moments. You haven't tried to recal it yet, but when you do, it may not come as easily as it did the first time."
"And what anniversary would we be celebrating?"
"The sesquicentennial."
I had wondered why a witch would put a spel on the manuscript in the first place. Someone must have been looking for it al those years ago, too. I blanched.
We were back to Matthew Clairmont and his interest in Ashmole 782.
"You are managing to keep up, aren't you? The next time you see your vampire, ask him what he was doing in the autumn of 1859. I doubt he'l tel you the truth, but he might reveal enough for you to figure it out on your own."
"I'm tired. Why don't you tel me, witch to witch, what your interest is in Ashmole 782?" I'd heard why the daemons wanted the manuscript. Even Matthew had given me some explanation. Knox's fascination with it was a missing piece of the puzzle.
"That manuscript belongs to us," Knox said fiercely.
"We're the only creatures who can understand its secrets and the only creatures who can be trusted to keep them."
"What is in the manuscript? " I said, temper flaring at last.
"The first spel s ever constructed. Descriptions of the enchantments that bind the world together." Knox's face grew dreamy. "The secret of immortality. How witches made the first daemon. How vampires can be destroyed, once and for al ." His eyes pierced mine. "It's the source of al our power, past and present. It cannot be al owed to fal into the hands of daemons or vampires-or humans."
The events of the afternoon were catching up with me, and I had to press my knees together to keep them from shaking. "Nobody would put al that information in a single book."
"The first witch did," Knox said. "And her sons and daughters, too, down through time. It's our history, Diana.
Surely you want to protect it from prying eyes."
The warden entered the room as if he'd been waiting by the door. The tension was suffocating, but he seemed blissful y unaware of it.
"What a palaver over nothing." Marsh shook his white head. "The freshers il egal y obtained a punt. They were located, stuck under a bridge and a little worse for wine, utterly content with their situation. A romance may result."
"I'm so glad," I murmured. The clocks struck forty-five minutes past the hour, and I stood. "Is that the time? I have a dinner engagement."
"You won't be joining us for dinner?" the warden asked with a frown. "Peter has been looking forward to talking to you about alchemy."
"Our paths wil cross again. Soon," Knox said smoothly.
"My visit was such a surprise, and of course the lady has better things to do than have dinner with two men our age."
Be careful with Matthew Clairmont. Knox's voice rang in my head. He's a killer.
Marsh smiled. "Yes, of course. I do hope to see you again-when the freshers have settled down."
Ask him about 1859. See if he'll share his secrets with a witch.
It's hardly a secret if you know it. Surprise registered on Knox's face when I replied to his mental warning in kind. It was the sixth time I'd used magic this year, but these were surely extenuating circumstances.
"It would be a pleasure, Warden. And thank you again for letting me stay in col ege this year." I nodded to the wizard.
"Mr. Knox."
Fleeing from the warden's lodgings, I turned toward my old refuge in the cloisters and walked among the pil ars until my pulse stopped racing. My mind was occupied with only one question: what to do now that two witches-my own people-had threatened me in the space of a single afternoon. With sudden clarity I knew the answer.
In my rooms I searched my bag until my fingers found Clairmont's crumpled business card, and then I dialed the first number.
He didn't answer.
After a robotic voice indicated that it was ready to receive my message, I spoke.
"Matthew, it's Diana. I'm sorry to bother you when you're out of town." I took a deep breath, trying to dispel some of the guilt associated with my decision not to tel Clairmont about Gil ian and my parents, but only about Knox. "We need to talk. Something has happened. It's that wizard from the library. His name is Peter Knox. If you get this message, please cal me."
I'd assured Sarah and Em that no vampire would meddle in my life. Gil ian Chamberlain and Peter Knox had changed my mind. With shaking hands I lowered the shades and locked the door, wishing I'd never heard of Ashmole 782.