A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [146]
“Mark 16, Psalms 55, and Deuteronomy 32, verse 40.” Matthew’s voice cut through the quiet, spouting references like an automated biblical concordance.
“How did you know what I was reading?” I twisted in my chair to get a better view of him.
“Your lips were moving,” he replied, staring fixedly at his computer screen, his fingers clattering on the keys.
Pressing my lips together I returned to the text. The author had drawn on every biblical passage that fit the alchemical story of death and creation, paraphrasing and cobbling them together. I pulled the Bible across the desk. It was bound in black leather and a gold cross adorned the cover. Opening it to the Gospel of Mark, I scanned chapter 16. There it was, Mark 16:3, “And they said one to another: Who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the sepulchre?”
“Find it?” Matthew inquired mildly.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The room grew silent once more.
“Where’s the verse about the morning star?” Sometimes my pagan background was a serious professional liability.
“Revelation 2, verse 28.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” A smothered laugh came from the other desk. I bent my head to the manuscript and ignored it.
After two hours of reading tiny, Gothic handwriting and searching for corresponding biblical references, I was more than ready to go riding when Matthew suggested it was time for a break. As an added bonus, he promised to tell me over lunch how he knew the seventeenth-century physiologist William Harvey.
“It’s not a very interesting story,” Matthew had protested.
“Maybe not to you. But to a historian of science? It’s the closest thing I’ll get to meeting the man who figured out that the heart is a pump.”
We hadn’t seen the sun since we’d arrived at Sept-Tours, but neither of us minded. Matthew seemed more relaxed, and I was surprisingly happy to be out of Oxford. Gillian’s threats, the picture of my parents, even Peter Knox—they all receded with each hour that passed.
As we walked out into the gardens, Matthew chatted animatedly about a problem at work that involved a missing strand of something that should have been present in a blood sample but wasn’t. He sketched out a chromosome in the air in an effort to explain, pointing to the offending area, and I nodded even though what was at stake remained mysterious. The words continued to roll out of his mouth, and he put an arm around my shoulder, drawing me close.
We rounded a line of hedges. A man in black stood outside the gate we’d passed through yesterday on our ride. The way he leaned against a chestnut tree, with the elegance of a leopard on the prowl, suggested he was a vampire.
Matthew scooped me behind him.
The man pulled himself gracefully away from the tree’s rough trunk and strolled toward us. The fact that he was a vampire was now confirmed by his unnaturally white skin and huge, dark eyes, emphasized by his black leather jacket, jeans, and boots. This vampire didn’t care who knew he was different. His wolfish expression was the only imperfection in an otherwise angelic face, with symmetrical features and dark hair worn curling low onto his collar. He was smaller and slighter than Matthew, but the power he exuded was undeniable. His eyes sent coldness deep under my skin, where it spread like a stain.
“Domenico,” Matthew said calmly, though his voice was louder than usual.
“Matthew.” The glance the vampire turned on Matthew was full of hate.
“It’s been years.” Matthew