Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

Hamish sifted and sorted through his mind and found what he was seeking. “As in Salem, Massachusetts?”

Matthew nodded grimly. “She’s the last of the Bishop witches. Her father is a Proctor.”

The daemon whistled softly. “A witch twice over, with a distinguished magical lineage. You never do things by half, do you? She must be powerful.”

“Her mother is. I don’t know much about her father. Rebecca Bishop, though—that’s a different story. She was doing spells at thirteen that most witches can’t manage after a lifetime of study and experience. And her childhood abilities as a seer were astonishing.”

“Do you know her, Matt?” Hamish had to ask. Matthew had lived many lives and crossed paths with too many people for his friend to keep track of them all.

Matthew shook his head. “No. There’s always talk about her, though—and plenty of envy. You know how witches are,” he said, his voice taking on the slightly unpleasant tone it did whenever he referred to the species.

Hamish let the remark about witches pass and eyed Matthew over the rim of his glass.

“And Diana?”

“She claims she doesn’t use magic.”

There were two threads in that brief sentence that needed pulling. Hamish tugged on the easier one first. “What, not for anything? Finding a lost earring? Coloring her hair?” Hamish sounded doubtful.

“She’s not the earrings and colored hair type. She’s more the three-mile run followed by an hour on the river in a dangerously tiny boat type.”

“With her background I find it difficult to believe she never uses her power.” Hamish was a pragmatist as well as a dreamer. It was why he was so good with other people’s money. “And you don’t believe it either, or you wouldn’t suggest that she’s lying.” There was the second thread pulled.

“She says she only uses magic occasionally—for little things.” Matthew hesitated, raked his fingers through his hair so half of it stood on end, and took a gulp of wine. “I’ve been watching her, though, and she’s using it more than that. I can smell it,” he said, his voice frank and open for the first time since his arrival. “The scent is like an electrical storm about to break, or summer lightning. There are times when I can see it, too. Diana shimmers when she’s angry or lost in her work.” And when she’s asleep, he thought, frowning. “Christ, there are times when I think I can even taste it.”

“She shimmers?”

“It’s nothing you would see, though you might sense the energy some other way. The chatoiement—her witch’s shimmer—is very faint. Even when I was a young vampire, only the most powerful witches emitted these tiny pulses of light. It’s rare to see it today. Diana’s unaware she’s doing it, and she’s oblivious to its significance.” Matthew shuddered and balled up his fist.

The daemon glanced at his watch. The day was young, but he already knew why his friend was in Scotland.

Matthew Clairmont was falling in love.

Jordan came in, his timing impeccable. “The gillie dropped off the Jeep, sir. I told him you wouldn’t need his services today.” The butler knew there was little need for a guide to track down deer when you had a vampire in the house.

“Excellent,” Hamish said, rising to his feet and draining his glass. He sorely wanted more whiskey, but it was better to keep his wits about him.

Matthew looked up. “I’ll go out by myself, Hamish. I’d rather hunt alone.” The vampire didn’t like hunting with warmbloods, a category that included humans, daemons, and witches. He usually made an exception for Hamish, but today he wanted to be on his own while he got his craving for Diana Bishop under control.

“Oh, we’re not going hunting,” Hamish said with a wicked glint in his eye. “We’re going stalking.” The daemon had a plan. It involved occupying his friend’s mind until he let down his guard and willingly shared what was going on in Oxford rather than requiring Hamish to drag it out of him. “Come on, it’s a beautiful day. You’ll have fun.”

Outside, Matthew grimly climbed into Hamish’s beat-up Jeep. It was what the two of them preferred to roam around in when they were at Cadzow, even though a Land Rover was the vehicle of choice in grand Scottish hunting lodges. Matthew didn’t mind that it was freezing to drive in, and Hamish found its hypermasculinity amusing.

In the hills Hamish ground the Jeep’s gears—the vampire cringed at the sound each time—as he climbed to where the deer grazed. Matthew spotted a pair of stags on the next crag and told Hamish to stop. He got out of the Jeep quietly and crouched by the front tire, already mesmerized.

Hamish smiled and joined him.

The daemon had stalked deer with Matthew before and understood what he needed. The vampire did not always feed, though today Hamish was certain that, left to his own devices, Matthew would have come home sated after dark—and there would be two fewer stags on the estate. His friend was as much predator as carnivore. It was the hunt that defined vampires’ identity, not their feeding or what they fed upon. Sometimes, when Matthew was restless, he just went out and tracked whatever he could chase without making a kill.

While the vampire watched the deer, the daemon watched Matthew. There was trouble in Oxford. He could feel it.

Matthew sat patiently for the next several hours, considering whether the stags were worth pursuing. Through his extraordinary senses of smell, sight, and hearing, he tracked their movements, figured out their habits, and gauged their every response to a cracking twig or a bird in flight. The vampire’s attention was avid, but he never showed impatience. For Matthew the crucial moment came when his prey acknowledged that it was beaten and surrendered.

The light was dimming when he finally rose and nodded to Hamish. It was enough for the first day, and though he didn’t need the light to see the deer, he knew that Hamish needed it to get back down the mountain.

By the time they reached the lodge, it was pitch black, and Jordan had turned on every lamp, which made the building look even more ridiculous, sitting on a rise in the middle of nowhere.

“This lodge never did make any sense,” Matthew said in a conversational tone that was nevertheless intended to sting. “Robert Adam was insane to take the commission.”

“You’ve shared your thoughts on my little extravagance many times, Matthew,” Hamish said serenely, “and I don’t care if you understand the principles of architectural design better than I do or whether you believe that Adam was a madman to construct—what do you always call it?—an ‘ill-conceived folly’ in the Lanarkshire wilderness. I love it, and nothing you say is going to change that.” They’d had versions of this conversation regularly since Hamish’s announcement he’d purchased the lodge—complete with all its furnishings, the gillie, and Jordan—from an aristocrat who had no use for the building and no money to repair it. Matthew had been horrified. To Hamish, however, Cadzow Lodge was a sign he had risen so far above his Glasgow roots that he could spend money on something impractical that he could love for its own sake.

“Hmph,” Matthew said with a scowl.

Grumpiness was preferable to agitation, Hamish thought. He moved on to the next step of his plan.

“Dinner’s at eight,” he said, “in the dining room.”

Matthew hated the dining room, which was grand, high-ceilinged, and drafty. More important, it upset the vampire because it was gaudy and feminine. It was Hamish’s favorite room.

Matthew groaned. “I’m not hungry.”

“You’re famished,” Hamish said sharply, taking in the color and texture of Matthew’s skin. “When was your last real meal?”