The Book of Life (77 page)

No one had dreamed that Matthew would prefer Les Revenants to Sept-Tours, and the house was cold and lifeless when we arrived. He sat in the foyer with Marcus while his brother and I raced around lighting fires and making up a bed for him. Baldwin and I were discussing which room would be best for Matthew given his present physical limitations when the convoy of cars from Sept-Tours filled the courtyard. Not even the vampires could beat Sarah to the door, she was so eager to see us. My aunt knelt in front of Matthew. Her face was soft with compassion and concern.

“You look like hell,” she said.

“Feel worse.” Matthew’s once-beautiful voice was harsh and grating, but I treasured every terse word. “When Marcus says it’s okay, I’d like to put a salve on your skin that will help you heal,” Sarah said, touching the raw skin on his forearm.

The cry of a furious, hungry baby split the air.

“Becca.” My heart leaped at the prospect of seeing the twins again. But Matthew did not seem to share my happiness.

“No.” Matthew’s eyes were wild, and he shook from head to toe. “No. Not now. Not like this.”

Since Benjamin had taken control of Matthew’s mind and body, I insisted that now Matthew was free he should be allowed to set the terms of his own daily existence and even his medical treatment. But this I would not allow. I scooped Rebecca out of Ysabeau’s arms, kissed her smooth cheek, and dropped the baby into the crook of Matthew’s elbow.

The moment Becca saw Matthew’s face, she stopped crying.

The moment Matthew had his daughter in his arms, he stopped shaking, just as I had the night she was born. My eyes filled at his terrified, awestruck expression.

“Good thinking,” Sarah murmured. She gave me the once-over. “You look like hell, too.”

“Mum,” Jack said, kissing me on the cheek. He tried to give me Philip, but the baby squirmed away from me, his face twisting and turning.

“What is it, little man?” I touched Philip’s face with a fingertip. My hands flashed with power, and the letters that now waited under the surface of my skin rose up, arranging themselves into stories that had yet to be told. I nodded and gave the baby a kiss on the forehead, feeling the tingle on my lips that confirmed what the Book of Life had already revealed to me. My son had power—lots of power. “Take him to Matthew, Jack.”

Jack knew full well the horrors Benjamin was capable of committing. He steeled himself to see evidence of them before he turned. I saw Matthew through Jack’s eyes: his hero, home from battle, gaunt and wounded. Jack cleared his throat, and the growling sound had me concerned.

“Don’t leave Philip out of the reunion, Dad.” Jack wedged Philip securely into the crook of Matthew’s other arm.

Matthew’s eyes flickered with surprise at the greeting. It was such a small word—
Dad—
but Jack had never called Matthew anything except Master Roydon and Matthew. Though Andrew Hubbard had insisted that Matthew was Jack’s true father, and although Jack had been quick to call me “Mother,” he had been strangely reluctant to bestow a similar honor on the man he worshipped.

“Philip gets cross when Becca gets all the attention.” Jack’s voice was roughened with suppressed rage, and he made his next words deliberately playful and light. “Granny Sarah has all kinds of advice on how to treat younger brothers and sisters. Most of it involves ice cream and trips to the zoo.” Jack’s banter didn’t fool Matthew.

“Look at me.” Matthew’s voice was weak and raspy, but there was no mistaking that this was an order.

Jack met his eyes.

“Benjamin is dead,” Matthew said.

“I know.” Jack looked away, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other.

“Benjamin can’t hurt you. Not anymore.”

“He hurt you. And he would have hurt my mother.” Jack looked at me, and his eyes filled with darkness.

Fearing that the blood rage would engulf him, I took a step in Jack’s direction. I stopped before taking another, forcing myself to let Matthew handle it.

“Eyes on me, Jack.”

Matthew’s skin was gray with effort. He had uttered more words since Jack’s arrival than he had in a full week, and they were sapping his strength. Jack’s wandering attention returned to the head of his clan.

“Take Rebecca. Give her to Diana. Then come back.”

Jack did as asked, while the rest of us watched warily in case either he or Matthew lost control. With Becca safely in my arms, I kissed her and told her in a whisper what a good girl she was not to fuss at being taken from her father.

Becca frowned, indicating she was playing this game under protest.

Back at Matthew’s side, Jack reached for Philip.

“No. I’ll keep him.” Matthew’s eyes were getting ominously dark, too. “Take Ysabeau home, Jack.

Everybody else go, too.”

“But, Matthieu,” Ysabeau protested. Fernando whispered something in her ear. Reluctantly she nodded. “Come, Jack. On the way to Sept-Tours, I will tell you a story about the time Baldwin attempted to banish me from Jerusalem. Many men died.”

After delivering that thinly veiled warning, Ysabeau swept Jack from the room.

“Thank you,
Maman,
” Matthew murmured. He was still supporting Philip’s weight, and his arms shook alarmingly.

“Call if you need me,” Marcus whispered as he headed out the door.

As soon as it was just the four of us in the house, I took Philip from Matthew’s lap and plunked both babies in the cradle by the fireplace.

“Too heavy,” Matthew said wearily as I tried to lift him from the chair. “Stay here.”

“You will not stay here.” I studied the situation and decided on a solution. I marshaled the air to support my hastily woven levitation spell. “Stand back, I’m going to try magic.” Matthew made a faint sound that might have been an attempt at laughter.

“Don’t. The floor’s okay,” he said, his words slurring with exhaustion.

“The bed’s better,” I replied firmly as we skimmed over the floor to the elevator.

During our first week at Les Revenants, Matthew permitted Ysabeau to come and feed him. He regained some of his strength and a bit more mobility. He still couldn’t walk, but he could stand provided he had assistance, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

“You’re making such quick progress,” I said brightly, as though everything in the world were rosy. Inside my head it was very dark indeed. And I was screaming in anger, fear, and frustration as the man I loved struggled to find his way through the shadows of the past that had overtaken him in Chelm.

41

“I
want some more of my books,” Matthew said with deceptive casualness. He rattled off a list of titles.

“Hamish will know where to find them.” His friend had gone back to London briefly, then returned to France. Hamish had been ensconced in Matthew’s rooms at Sept-Tours ever since. He spent his days trying to keep clueless bureaucrats from ruining the world economy and his nights depleting Baldwin’s wine cellar.

Hamish arrived at Les Revenants with the books, and Matthew asked him to sit and have a glass of Champagne. Hamish seemed to understand that this attempt at normalcy was a turning point in Matthew’s recovery.

“Why not? Man cannot live on claret alone.” With a subtle glance at me, Hamish indicated that he would take care of Matthew.

Hamish was still there three hours later—and the two of them were playing chess. My knees weakened at the unexpected sight of Matthew sitting on the white side of the board, considering his options. Since Matthew’s hands were still useless—the hand was a terribly complicated bit of anatomical engineering, it turned out—Hamish moved the pieces according to Matthew’s encoded commands.

“E4,” Matthew said.

“The Central Variation? How daring of you.” Hamish moved one of the white pawns.

“You accepted the Queen’s Gambit,” Matthew said mildly. “What did you expect?”

“I expect you to mix things up. Once upon a time, you refused to put your queen at risk. Now you do it every game.” Hamish frowned. “It’s a poor strategy.”

“The queen did just fine last time,” I whispered in Matthew’s ear, and he smiled.

When Hamish left, Matthew asked me to read to him. It was now a ritual for us to sit in front of the fire, the snow falling past the windows and one of Matthew’s beloved books in my hand: Abelard, Marlowe, Darwin, Thoreau, Shelley, Rilke. Often Matthew’s lips moved along with the words as I uttered them, proving to me—and, more important, to him—that his mind was as sharp and whole as ever.

“‘I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

And the nursling of the Sky,’”
I read from his battered copy of
Prometheus Unbound.
“‘I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores,’”
Matthew whispered.
“

‘I change, but I cannot die.’”

After Hamish’s visit our society at Les Revenants gradually expanded. Jack was invited to join Matthew and to bring his cello with him. He played Beethoven for hours on end, and not only did the music have positive effects on my husband, it unfailingly put my daughter to sleep as well.

Matthew was improving, but he still had a long way to go. When he rested fitfully, I dozed at his side and hoped that the babies wouldn’t stir. He let me help him bathe and dress, though he hated himself—and me—for it. Whenever I thought I couldn’t endure another moment of watching him struggle, I focused on some patch of skin that had knit itself back together, leaving scars that I prayed would heal in time. Like the shadows of Chelm, I knew they would never fully disappear.

When Sarah came to see him, her worry was palpable. But Matthew was not the cause of her concern.

“How much magic are you using to stay upright?” Accustomed to living with bat-eared vampires, she had waited until I walked her to the car before she asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, opening the car door for her.

“That wasn’t my question. I can see you’re fine. That’s what worries me,” Sarah said. “Why aren’t you at death’s door?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, dismissing her question.

“It will when you collapse,” Sarah retorted. “You can’t possibly keep this up.”

“You forget, Sarah: The Bishop-Clairmont family specializes in the impossible.” I closed the car door to muffle her ongoing protests.

I should have known that my aunt would not be silenced so easily. Baldwin showed up twenty-four hours after her departure—uninvited and unannounced.

“This is a bad habit of yours,” I said, thinking back to the moment he’d returned to Sept-Tours and stripped the sheets from our bed. “Surprise us again and I’ll put enough wards on this house to repel the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

“They haven’t been spotted in Limousin since Hugh died.” Baldwin kissed me on each cheek, taking time in between to make a slow assessment of my scent.

“Matthew isn’t receiving visitors today,” I said, drawing away. “He had a difficult night.”

“I’m not here to see Matthew.” Baldwin fixed eagle eyes on me. “I’m here to warn you that if you don’t start taking care of yourself, I will put myself in charge here.”

“You have no—”

“Oh, but I do. You are my sister. Your husband is not able to look after your welfare at the moment.

Look after it yourself or accept the consequences.” Baldwin’s voice was implacable.

The two of us faced off in silence for a few moments. He sighed when I refused to break my stare.

“It’s really quite simple, Diana. If you collapse—and based on your scent, I’d say you have a week at most before that happens—Matthew’s instincts will demand that he try to protect his mate. That will distract him from his primary job, which is to heal.”

Baldwin had a point.

“The best way to handle a vampire mate—especially one with blood rage like Matthew—is to give him no reason to think you need any protection. Take care of yourself—first and always,” Baldwin said.

“Seeing you healthy and happy will do Matthew more good, mentally and physically, than his maker’s blood or Jack’s music. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so glad.” Baldwin’s mouth lifted into a smile. “Answer your e-mail while you’re at it. I send you messages. You don’t answer. It’s aggravating.”

I nodded, afraid that if I opened my mouth, detailed instructions on just what he could do with his e-mail might pop out.

Baldwin stuck his head into the great hall to check on Matthew. He pronounced him utterly useless because he could not engage in wrestling, warfare, or other brotherly pursuits. Then, mercifully, he left.

Dutifully I opened my laptop.

Hundreds of messages awaited, most from the Congregation demanding explanations and Baldwin giving me orders.

I lowered the lid on my computer and returned to Matthew and my children.

A few nights after Baldwin’s visit, I woke to the sensation of a cold finger jerking against my spine as it traced the trunk of the tree on my neck.

The finger moved in barely controlled fits and starts to my shoulders, where it found the outline left by the goddess’s arrow and the star left by Satu Järvinen.

Slowly the finger traveled down to the dragon that encircled my hips.

Matthew’s hands were working again.

“I needed the first thing I touched to be you,” he said, realizing he’d awakened me.

I was barely able to breathe, and any response on my part was out of the question. But my unspoken words wanted to be set free nevertheless. The magic rose within me, letters forming phrases under my skin.

“The price of power.” Matthew’s hand circled my forearm, his thumb stroking the words as they appeared. The movement was rough and irregular at first, but it grew smoother and steadier with every pass over my skin. He had observed the changes in me since I’d become the Book of Life but never mentioned them until now.

“So much to say,” he murmured, his lips brushing my neck. His fingers delved, parted my flesh, touched my core.