"That's too bad," he murmured, a touch of a smile on his lips. "Another time, perhaps. You are in Oxford for the year, aren't you?"
Being around a vampire was always unnerving, and Clairmont's clove scent brought back the strange smel of Ashmole 782. Unable to think straight, I resorted to nodding. It was safer.
"I thought so," said Clairmont. "I'm sure our paths wil cross again. Oxford is such a smal town."
"Very smal ," I agreed, wishing I had taken leave in London instead.
"Until then, Dr. Bishop. It has been a pleasure." Clairmont extended his hand. With the exception of their brief excursion to my col ar, his eyes had not drifted once from mine. I didn't think he had blinked either. I steeled myself not to be the first to look away.
My hand went forward, hesitating for a moment before clasping his. There was a fleeting pressure before he withdrew. He stepped backward, smiled, then disappeared into the darkness of the oldest part of the library.
I stood stil until my chil ed hands could move freely again, then walked back to my desk and switched off my computer. Notes and Queries asked me accusingly why I had bothered to go and get it if I wasn't even going to look at it; my to-do list was equal y ful of reproach. I ripped it off the top of the pad, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the wicker basket under the desk.
"'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" I muttered under my breath.
The reading room's night proctor glanced down at his watch when I returned my manuscripts. "Leaving early, Dr.
Bishop?"
I nodded, my lips closed tightly to keep myself from asking whether he knew there had been a vampire in the paleography reference section.
He picked up the stack of gray cardboard boxes that held the manuscripts. "Wil you need these tomorrow?"
"Yes," I whispered. "Tomorrow."
Having observed the last scholarly propriety of exiting the library, I was free. My feet clattered against the linoleum floors and echoed against the stone wal s as I sped through the reading room's lattice gate, past the books guarded with velvet ropes to keep them from curious fingers, down the worn wooden stairs, and into the enclosed quadrangle on the ground floor. I leaned against the iron railings surrounding the bronze statue of Wil iam Herbert and sucked the chil y air into my lungs, struggling to get the vestiges of clove and cinnamon out of my nostrils.
There were always things that went bump in the night in Oxford, I told myself sternly. So there was one more vampire in town.
No matter what I told myself in the quadrangle, my walk home was faster than usual. The gloom of New Col ege Lane was a spooky proposition at the best of times. I ran my card through the reader at New Col ege's back gate and felt some of the tension leave my body when the gate clicked shut behind me, as if every door and wal I put between me and the library somehow kept me safe. I skirted under the chapel windows and through the narrow passage into the quad that had views of Oxford's only surviving medieval garden, complete with the traditional mound that had once offered a green prospect for students to look upon and contemplate the mysteries of God and nature. Tonight the col ege's spires and archways seemed especial y Gothic, and I was eager to get inside.
When the door of my apartment closed behind me, I let out a sigh of relief. I was living at the top of one of the col ege's faculty staircases, in lodgings reserved for visiting former members. My rooms, which included a bedroom, a sitting room with a round table for dining, and a decent if smal kitchen, were decorated with old prints and warm wainscoting. Al the furniture looked as if it had been cul ed from previous incarnations of the senior common room and the master's house, with down-at-the-heels late-nineteenth- century design predominant.
In the kitchen I put two slices of bread in the toaster and poured myself a cold glass of water. Gulping it down, I opened the window to let cool air into the stuffy rooms.
Carrying my snack back into the sitting room, I kicked off my shoes and turned on the smal stereo. The pure tones of Mozart fil ed the air. When I sat on one of the maroon upholstered sofas, it was with the intention to rest for a few moments, then take a bath and go over my notes from the day.
At half past three in the morning, I woke with a pounding heart, a stiff neck, and the strong taste of cloves in my mouth.
I got a fresh glass of water and closed the kitchen window. It was chil y, and I shivered at the touch of the damp air.
After a glance at my watch and some quick calculations, I decided to cal home. It was only ten-thirty there, and Sarah and Em were as nocturnal as bats. Slipping around the rooms, I turned off al the lights except the one in my bedroom and picked up my mobile. I was out of my grimy clothes in a matter of minutes-how do you get so filthy in a library?-and into a pair of old yoga pants and a black sweater with a stretched-out neck. They were more comfortable than any pajamas.
The bed felt welcoming and firm underneath me, comforting me enough that I almost convinced myself a phone cal home was unnecessary. But the water had not been able to remove the vestiges of cloves from my tongue, and I dialed the number.
"We've been waiting for your cal ," were the first words I heard.
Witches.
I sighed. "Sarah, I'm fine."
"Al signs to the contrary." As usual, my mother's younger sister was not going to pul any punches. "Tabitha has been skittish al evening, Em got a very clear picture of you lost in the woods at night, and I haven't been able to eat anything since breakfast."
The real problem was that damn cat. Tabitha was Sarah's baby and picked up any tension within the family with uncanny precision. "I'm fine. I had an unexpected encounter in the library tonight, that's al ."
A click told me that Em had picked up the extension.
"Why aren't you celebrating Mabon?" she asked.
Emily Mather had been a fixture in my life for as long as I could remember. She and Rebecca Bishop had met as high-school students working in the summer at Plimoth Plantation, where they dug holes and pushed wheel- barrows for the archaeologists. They became best friends, then devoted pen pals when Emily went to Vassar and my mother to Harvard. Later the two reconnected in Cambridge when Em became a children's librarian. After my parents' death, Em's long weekends in Madison soon led to a new job in the local elementary school. She and Sarah became inseparable partners, even though Em had maintained her own apartment in town and the two of them had made a big deal of never being seen heading into a bedroom together while I was growing up. This didn't fool me, the neighbors, or anyone else living in town. Everybody treated them like the couple they were, regardless of where they slept. When I moved out of the Bishop house, Em moved in and had been there ever since. Like my mother and my aunt, Em came from a long line of witches.
"I was invited to the coven's party but worked instead."
"Did the witch from Bryn Mawr ask you to go?" Em was interested in the classicist, mostly (it had turned out over a fair amount of wine one summer night) because she'd once dated Gil ian's mother. "It was the sixties," was al Em would say.
"Yes." I sounded harassed. The two of them were convinced I was going to see the light and begin taking my magic seriously now that I was safely tenured. Nothing cast any doubt on this wishful prognostication, and they were always thril ed when I had any contact with a witch. "But I spent the evening with Elias Ashmole instead."
"Who's he?" Em asked Sarah.
"You know, that dead guy who col ected alchemy books,"
was Sarah's muffled reply.
"Stil here, you two," I cal ed into the phone.
"So who rattled your cage?" Sarah asked.
Given that both were witches, there was no point in trying to hide anything. "I met a vampire in the library. One I've never seen before, named Matthew Clairmont."
There was silence on Em's end as she flipped through her mental card file of notable creatures. Sarah was quiet for a moment, too, deciding whether or not to explode.
"I hope he's easier to get rid of than the daemons you have a habit of attracting," she said sharply.
"Daemons haven't bothered me since I stopped acting."
"No, there was that daemon who fol owed you into the Beinecke Library when you first started working at Yale, too," Em corrected me. "He was just wandering down the street and came looking for you."
"He was mental y unstable," I protested. Like using witchcraft on the washing machine, the fact that I'd somehow caught the attention of a single, curious daemon shouldn't count against me.
"You draw creatures like flowers draw bees, Diana. But daemons aren't half as dangerous as vampires. Stay away from him," Sarah said tightly.
"I have no reason to seek him out." My hands traveled to my neck again. "We have nothing in common."
"That's not the point," Sarah said, voice rising. "Witches, vampires, and daemons aren't supposed to mix. You know that. Humans are more likely to notice us when we do. No daemon or vampire is worth the risk." The only creatures in the world that Sarah took seriously were other witches.
Humans struck her as unfortunate little beings blind to the world around them. Daemons were perpetual teenagers who couldn't be trusted. Vampires were wel below cats and at least one step below mutts within her hierarchy of creatures.
"You've told me the rules before, Sarah."
"Not everyone obeys the rules, honey," Em observed.
"What did he want?"
"He said he was interested in my work. But he's a scientist, so that's hard to believe." My fingers fiddled with the duvet cover on the bed. "He invited me to dinner."
"To dinner?" Sarah was incredulous.
Em just laughed. "There's not much on a restaurant menu that would appeal to a vampire."
"I'm sure I won't see him again. He's running three labs from the look of his business card, and he holds two faculty positions."
"Typical," Sarah muttered. "That's what happens when you have too much time on your hands. And stop picking at that quilt-you'l put a hole in it." She'd switched on her witch's radar ful blast and was now seeing as wel as hearing me.
"It's not as if he's stealing money from old ladies and squandering other people's fortunes on the stock market," I countered. The fact that vampires were reputed to be fabulously wealthy was a sore spot with Sarah. "He's a biochemist and a physician of some sort, interested in the brain."
"I'm sure that's fascinating, Diana, but what did he want?"
Sarah matched my irritation with impatience-the one-two punch mastered by al Bishop women.
"Not dinner," Em said with certainty.
Sarah snorted. "He wanted something. Vampires and witches don't go on dates. Unless he was planning to dine on you, of course. They love nothing more than the taste of a witch's blood."
"Maybe he was just curious. Or maybe he does like your work." Em said it with such doubt that I had to laugh.
"We wouldn't be having this conversation at al if you'd just take some elementary precautions," Sarah said tartly.
"A protection spel , some use of your abilities as a seer, and-"
"I'm not using magic or witchcraft to figure out why a vampire asked me to dinner," I said firmly. "Not negotiable, Sarah."
"Then don't cal us looking for answers when you don't want to hear them," Sarah said, her notoriously short temper flaring. She hung up before I could think of a response.
"Sarah does worry about you, you know," Em said apologetical y. "And she doesn't understand why you won't use your gifts, not even to protect yourself."
Because the gifts had strings attached, as I'd explained before. I tried again.
"It's a slippery slope, Em. I protect myself from a vampire in the library today, and tomorrow I protect myself from a hard question at a lecture. Soon I'l be picking research topics based on knowing how they'l turn out and applying for grants that I'm sure to win. It's important to me that I've made my reputation on my own. If I start using magic, nothing would belong entirely to me. I don't want to be the next Bishop witch." I opened my mouth to tel Em about Ashmole 782, but something made me close it again.
"I know, I know, honey." Em's voice was soothing. "I do understand. But Sarah can't help worrying about your safety. You're al the family she has now."
My fingers slid through my hair and came to rest at my temples. Conversations like this always led back to my mother and father. I hesitated, reluctant to mention my one lingering concern.
"What is it?" Em asked, her sixth sense picking up on my discomfort.
"He knew my name. I've never seen him before, but he knew who I was."
Em considered the possibilities. "Your picture's on the inside of your latest book cover, isn't it?"
My breath, which I hadn't been aware I was holding, came out with a soft whoosh. "Yes. That must be it. I'm just being sil y. Can you give Sarah a kiss from me?"
"You bet. And, Diana? Be careful. English vampires may not be as wel behaved around witches as the American ones are."
I smiled, thinking of Matthew Clairmont's formal bow. "I wil . But don't worry. I probably won't see him again."
Em was quiet.
"Em?" I prompted.
"Time wil tel ."
Em wasn't as good at seeing the future as my mother was reputed to have been, but something was niggling at her. Convincing a witch to share a vague premonition was almost impossible. She wasn't going to tel me what worried her about Matthew Clairmont. Not yet.