“Saddling the wrong horse, Fernando,” I warned as he departed.
“He’s a vampire, too?” Chris whispered.
“Yep. Matthew’s brother-in-law.” I held up the whiskey bottle and the coffeepot. “Coffee? Whiskey?”
“Both,” said Chris, reaching for a mug. He looked at me in alarm. “You haven’t kept this witch business from your aunt, have you?”
“Sarah’s a witch, too. So was Em.” I poured a healthy slug of whiskey in his mug and topped it off with a bit of coffee. “This is the third or fourth pot of the day, so it’s mostly decaf. Otherwise we have to scrape Sarah off the ceiling.”
“Coffee makes her fly?” Chris took a sip, considered a moment, and added more whiskey.
“In a manner of speaking,” I said, uncapping the water and taking a swig. The babies fluttered, and I gave my abdomen a gentle pat.
“I can’t believe you’re pregnant.” For the first time, Chris sounded amazed.
“You’ve just learned that I spent most of last year in the sixteenth century, I have a pet dragon, and that you’re surrounded by daemons, vampires, and witches, but it’s my pregnancy that you find implausible?”
“Trust me, honey,” Chris said, pulling out his best Alabama drawl. “It’s way more implausible.”
When the phone rang, it was pitch black outside. I shook myself from sleep, reaching across the bed to jostle Matthew awake. He wasn’t there.
I rolled over and picked up his mobile from the bedside table. The name MIRIAM was displayed, along with the time. Three o’clock Monday morning. My heart thudded in alarm. Only an emergency would have induced her to call at such an hour.
“Miriam?” I said after pushing the answer button.
“Where is he?” Miriam’s voice shook. “I need to speak with Matthew.”
“I’ll find him. He must be downstairs, or outside hunting.” I threw off the covers. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” Miriam said abruptly. Then she switched to another language, one I didn’t understand. The cadence was unmistakable, though. Miriam Shephard was praying.
Matthew burst through the door, Fernando behind him.
“Here’s Matthew.” I hit the speaker button and handed him the phone. He was not going to have this conversation in private.
“What is it, Miriam?” Matthew said.
“There was a note. In the mailbox. A Web address was typed on it.” There was a curse, a jagged sob, and Miriam’s prayer resumed.
“Text me the address, Miriam,” Matthew said calmly.
“It’s him, Matthew. It’s Benjamin,” Miriam whispered. “And there was no stamp on the envelope. He must still be here. In Oxford.”
I leaped out of bed, shivering in the predawn darkness.
“Text me the address,” Matthew repeated.
A light came on in the hallway.
“What’s going on?” Chris joined Fernando at the threshold, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“It’s one of Matthew’s colleagues from Oxford, Miriam Shephard. Something’s happened at the lab,” I told him.
“Oh,” Chris said with a yawn. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and frowned. “Not the Miriam Shephard who wrote the classic article about how inbreeding among zoo animals leads to a loss of heterozygosity?” I’d spent a lot of time around scientists, but it seldom helped me to understand what they were talking about.
“The same,” Matthew murmured.
“I thought she was dead,” Chris said.
“Not quite,” said Miriam in her piercing soprano. “To whom am I speaking?”
“Chris—Christopher Roberts. Yale University,” Chris stammered. He sounded like a graduate student introducing himself at his first conference.
“Oh. I liked your last piece in Science. Your research model is impressive, even though the conclusions are all wrong.” Miriam sounded more like herself now that she was criticizing a fellow researcher. Matthew noticed the positive change, too.
“Keep her talking,” Matthew encouraged Chris before issuing a quiet command to Fernando.
“Is that Miriam?” Sarah asked, shoving her arms through the sleeves of her bathrobe. “Don’t vampires have clocks? It’s three in the morning!”
“What’s wrong with my conclusions?” Chris asked, his expression thunderous.
Fernando was back, and he handed Matthew his laptop. It was already on, the screen’s glow illuminating the room. Sarah reached around the door frame and flicked the light switch, banishing the remaining darkness. Even so I could feel the shadows pressing down on the house.
Matthew perched on the edge of the bed, his laptop on his knee. Fernando tossed him another cell phone, and Matthew tethered it to the computer.
“Have you seen Benjamin’s message?” Miriam sounded calmer than before, but fear kept her voice keen.
“I’m calling it up now,” Matthew said.
“Don’t use Sarah’s Internet connection!” Her agitation was palpable. “He’s monitoring traffic to the site. He might be able to locate you from your IP address.”
“It’s all right, Miriam,” Matthew said, his voice soothing. “I’m using Fernando’s mobile. And Baldwin’s computer people made sure that no one can trace my location from it.”
Now I understood why Baldwin had supplied us with new cell phones when we left Sept-Tours, changed all our phone plans, and canceled Sarah’s Internet service.
An image of an empty room appeared on the screen. It was white-tiled and barren except for an old sink with exposed plumbing and an examination table. There was a drain in the floor. The date and time were in the lower left corner, the numbers on the clock whirring forward as each second passed.
“What’s that lump?” Chris pointed to a pile of rags on the floor. It stirred.
“A woman,” Miriam said. “She’s been lying there since I got on the site ten minutes ago.” As soon as Miriam said it, I could make out her thin arms and legs, the curve of her breast and belly. The scrap of cloth over her wasn’t large enough to protect her from the cold. She shivered and whimpered.
“And Benjamin?” Matthew said, his eyes glued to the screen.
“He walked through the room and said something to her. Then he looked straight at the camera—and smiled.”
“Did he say anything else?” Matthew asked.