The Book of Life (74 page)

“Satu Järvinen will never help me,” I said, thinking of the time we’d spent together at La Pierre.

“Oh, I think she will,” Janet said. “Once we explain that we’ll offer her up to Benjamin in exchange for Matthew if she doesn’t. Satu is a weaver like you, after all. Perhaps Finnish weavers are more fertile than those from Chelm.”

Satu was staying at a small establishment on a quiet
campo
on the opposite side of the Grand Canal from Ca’ Chiaromonte. It looked perfectly ordinary from the outside, with brightly painted flower boxes and stickers on the windows indicating its rating relative to other area establishments (four stars) and the credit cards it accepted (all of them).

Inside, however, the veneer of normalcy proved thin.

The proprietress, Laura Malipiero, sat behind a desk in the front lobby swathed in purple and black velvet, shuffling a tarot deck. Her hair was wild and curly, with streaks of white through the black. A garland of black paper bats was draped over the mailboxes, and the scent of sage and dragon’s-blood incense hung in the air. “We’re full,” she said, not looking up from her cards. A cigarette was clasped in the corner of her mouth. It was purple and black, just like her outfit. At first I didn’t think it was lit. Signorina Malipiero was sitting under a sign that read
VIETATO FUMARE
, after all. But then the witch took a deep drag on it.

There was indeed no smoke, though the tip glowed.

“They say she’s the richest witch in Venice. She made her fortune selling enchanted cigarettes.”

Janet eyed her with disapproval. She had donned her disguising spell again and to the casual observer looked to be a frail nonagenarian rather than a slender thirty-something.

“I’m sorry, sisters, but the Regata delle Befane is this week, and there isn’t a room to be had in this part of Venice.” Signorina Malipiero’s attention remained on her cards.

I’d seen notices all over town announcing the annual Epiphany gondola race to see who could get from San Tomà to the Rialto the fastest. There were two races, of course: the official regatta in the morning and the far more exciting and dangerous one at midnight that involved not just brute strength but magic, too.

“We aren’t interested in a room, Signorina Malapiero. I’m Janet Gowdie, and this is Diana Bishop.

We’re here to see Satu Järvinen on Congregation business—if she’s not practicing for the gondola race, that is.”

The Venetian witch looked up in shock, her dark eyes huge and her cigarette dangling.

“Room 17, is it? No need to trouble yourself. We can show ourselves up.” Janet beamed at the stunned witch and bundled me off in the direction of the stairs.

“You, Janet Gowdie, are a bulldozer,” I said breathlessly as she hustled me down the corridor. “Not to mention a mind reader.” It was such a useful magical talent.

“What a lovely thing to say, Diana.” Janet knocked on the door.
“Cameriera!”

There was no answer. And after yesterday’s marathon Congregation meeting, I was tired of waiting.

I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob and murmured an opening spell. The door swung open. Satu Järvinen was waiting for us inside, both hands up, ready to work magic. I snared the threads that surrounded her and pulled them tight, binding her arms to her sides. Satu gasped.

“What do you know about being a weaver?” I demanded.

“Not as much as you do,” Satu replied.

“Is this why you treated me so badly at La Pierre?” I asked.

Satu’s expression was steely. Her actions had been taken in the interest of self-preservation. She felt no remorse. “I won’t let you expose me. They’ll kill us all if they find out what weavers can do,” Satu said.

“They’ll kill me anyway for loving Matthew. What do I have to lose?”

“Your children,” Satu spit.

That, it turned out, was going too far.

“I bind thee, Satu Järvinen, delivering you into the hands of the goddess without power or craft, for you have proved yourself unfit to possess them.” With the index finger of my left hand, I pulled the threads one more inch and knotted them tight. My finger flared darkly purple in the color of justice.

Satu’s power left her in a whoosh, sucking the air out of the room.

“You can’t spellbind me!” she cried. “It’s forbidden!”

“Report me to the Congregation,” I said. “But before you do, know this: Nobody will be able to break the knot that binds you—except me. And what use will you be to the Congregation in this state? If you want to keep your seat, you’ll have to keep your silence—and hope that Sidonie von Borcke doesn’t notice.”

“You will pay for this, Diana Bishop!” Satu promised.

“I already have,” I said. “Or have you forgotten what you did to me in the name of sisterly solidarity?”

I advanced on her slowly. “Being spellbound is nothing compared to what Benjamin will do to you if he discovers that you are a weaver. You’ll have no way to defend yourself and will be entirely at his mercy. I’ve seen what Benjamin does to the witches he tries to impregnate. Not even you deserve that.”

Satu’s eyes flickered with fear.

“Vote for the de Clermont motion this afternoon.” I released Satu’s arms, but not the binding spell that limited her power.

Satu tried and failed to use her magic against me.

“Your power is gone. I wasn’t lying. Sister.” I turned and stalked away. At the doorway I stopped and turned. “And don’t ever threaten my children again. If you do, you’ll be begging me to throw you down a hole and forget about you.”

Gerbert tried to delay the final vote on procedural grounds, arguing that the current constitution of the governing council did not meet the criteria set out in foundational documents dating from the Crusader period. These stipulated the presence of three vampires, three witches, and three daemons.

Janet stopped me from strangling the creature by quickly explaining that since she and I were both part vampire and part witch, the Congregation was equally balanced. While she argued percentages, I examined Gerbert’s so-called foundational documents and discovered words such as “unalienable” that were decidedly eighteenth-century in their tone. Presented with a list of the linguistic anachronisms in this supposedly Crusader document, Gerbert scowled at Domenico and said these were obviously later transcriptions of lost originals.

No one believed him.

Janet and I won the vote: six to three. Satu voted as we told her to do, her attitude subdued and defeated. Even Tatiana joined our ranks thanks to Osamu, who had devoted his morning to mapping the precise location of not only Chelm but every Russian city beginning with
Ch
just to prove that the Polish city’s witches had nothing to do with her grandmother’s skin affliction. When the two entered the council chamber hand in hand, I figured she might have switched not only sides but boyfriends.

Once the vote was tallied and recorded, we didn’t linger to celebrate. Instead Gallowglass, Janet, Fernando, and I took off in the de Clermont launch, headed across the lagoon for the airport.

As planned, I sent a three-letter text to Hamish with the results of the vote: QGA. It stood for Queen’s Gambit Accepted, a code to indicate that the Congregation had been persuaded to support Matthew’s rescue. We did not know if anyone was monitoring our communications, but we’d decided to be cautious.

His response was immediate.

Well done. Standing by for your arrival.

I checked in with Marcus, who reported that the twins were always hungry and had completely monopolized Phoebe’s attention. As for Jack, Marcus said he was as well as could be expected.

After my exchange with Marcus, I sent a text to Ysabeau.

Worried about the bishop pair.

It was another chess reference. We had dubbed Gerbert, onetime bishop of Rome, and his sidekick Domenico the “bishop pair” because they always seemed to be working together. After their latest defeat, they were bound to retaliate. Gerbert might already have warned Knox that I had won the vote and we were on our way.

Ysabeau took longer to reply than Marcus had.

The bishop pair cannot checkmate the king unless the queen and her rook allow it.

There was a long pause, then another message.

And I will die first.

39

T
he air bit through my thick cloak, making me withdraw from the blast of wind that threatened to split me in two. I had never experienced cold like this and wondered how anyone survived a winter in Chelm.

“There.” Baldwin pointed to a low huddle of buildings in the valley below.

“Benjamin has at least a dozen of his children with him.” Verin stood at my elbow, a pair of binoculars in her fingers. She offered them to me, in case my warmblooded eyes weren’t strong enough to see where my husband was being kept, but I refused them.

I knew exactly where Matthew was. The closer I got to him, the more agitated my power became, leaping to the surface of my skin in an attempt to escape
.
That, and my witch’s third eye, more than made up for any warmblooded deficiencies.

“We’ll wait until twilight to strike. That’s when a detail of Benjamin’s children go out to hunt.”

Baldwin looked grim. “They’ve been preying on Lublin, bringing back the homeless and the weak for their father to feed on.”

“Wait?” I’d done nothing but for three days. “I’m not going to wait another moment!”

“He is still alive, Diana.” Ysabeau’s response should have brought me comfort, but it only made the ice around my heart thicken at the thought of what Matthew would continue to suffer for the next six hours as we waited for darkness to fall.

“We can’t attack the compound when it’s at full strength,” Baldwin said. “We must be strategic about this, Diana—not emotional.”

Think and stay alive.
Relucantly, I turned away from dreams of Matthew’s quick release to focus on the challenges before us. “Janet said Knox put wards around the main building.”

Baldwin nodded. “We were waiting for you to disarm them.”

“How will the knights get into position without Benjamin knowing?” I asked.

“Tonight the Knights of Lazarus will use the tunnels to enter Benjamin’s compound from below.”

Fernando’s expression was calculating. “Twenty, maybe thirty, should be enough.”

“Chelm is built on chalk, you see, and the ground beneath it is honeycombed with tunnels,”

Hamish explained, unrolling a small, crudely drawn map. “The Nazis destroyed some of them, but Benjamin kept these open. They connect his compound and the town and provide a way for him and his children to prey on the city without ever appearing aboveground.”

“No wonder Benjamin was so hard to track down,” Gallowglass murmured, looking at the underground maze.

“Where are the knights now?” I had yet to see the massing of troops I’d been told were in Chelm.

“Standing by,” Hamish replied.

“Fernando will decide when to send them into the tunnels. As Marcus’s marshal, the decision is his,” Baldwin said, acknowledging Fernando with a nod.

“Actually, it’s mine,” Marcus said, appearing suddenly against the snow.

“Marcus!” I pushed my hood back, terror gripping me. “What’s happened to Rebecca and Philip?

Where are they?”

“Nothing has happened. The twins are at Sept-Tours with Sarah, Phoebe, and three dozen knights— all of them handpicked for their loyalty to the de Clermonts and their dislike of Gerbert and the Congregation. Miriam and Chris are there, too.” Marcus took my hands in his. “I couldn’t sit in France waiting for news. Not when I could be helping to free my father. And Matthew might need my help after that, too.”

Marcus was right. Matthew would need a doctor—a doctor who understood vampires and how to heal them.

“And Jack?” It was all I could squeeze out, though Marcus’s words had helped my heart rate return to something approaching normal.

“He’s fine, too,” Marcus said firmly. “Jack had one bad episode last night when I told him he couldn’t come along, but Marthe turns out to be something of a hellcat when provoked. She threatened to keep Jack from seeing Philip, and that sobered him right up. He never lets the child out of his sight.

Jack says it’s his job to protect his godson, no matter what.” Marcus turned to Fernando. “Walk me through your plan.”

Fernando went over the operation in detail: where the knights would be positioned, when they would move on the compound, the roles that Gallowglass, Baldwin, Hamish, and now Marcus would play.

Even though it all sounded flawless, I was still worried.

“What is it, Diana?” Marcus asked, sensing my concern.

“So much of our strategy relies on the element of surprise,” I said. “What if Gerbert has already tipped off Knox and Benjamin? Or Domenico? Even Satu might have decided she was safer from Benjamin if she could gain Knox’s trust.”

“Don’t worry, Auntie,” Gallowglass assured me, his blue eyes taking on a stormy cast. “Gerbert, Domenico, and Satu are all sitting on Isola della Stella. The Knights of Lazarus have them surrounded.

There’s no way for them to get off the island.”

Gallowglass’s words did little to lessen my concern. The only thing that could help was freeing Matthew and putting an end to Benjamin’s machinations—for good.

“Ready to examine the wards?” Baldwin asked, knowing that giving me something to do would help keep my anxiety in check.

After swapping my highly visible black cloak for a pale gray parka that blended into the snow, Baldwin and Gallowglass took me within shouting distance of Benjamin’s compound. In silence I took stock of the wards that protected the place. There were a few alarm spells, a trigger spell that I suspected would unleash some kind of elemental conflagration or storm, and a handful of diversions that were designed to do nothing more than delay an attacker until a proper defense could be mounted. Knox had used spells that were complicated, but they were old and worn, too. It wouldn’t take much to pick apart the knots and leave the place unguarded.

“I’ll need two hours and Janet,” I whispered to Baldwin as we withdrew.

Together Janet and I freed the compound from its invisible barbed-wire perimeter. There was one alarm spell we had to leave in place, however. It was linked directly back to Knox, and I feared that even tinkering with the knots would alert him to our presence.