A Discovery of Witches(65)
“You’ve been noticed,” I told him.
“I forgot my coat. Besides, they’re looking at you, not me.” He gave me a dazzling smile. A woman’s jaw dropped, and she poked her friend, inclining her head in Matthew’s direction.
I laughed. “You are so wrong.”
We headed toward Keble College and the University Parks, making a right turn at Rhodes House before entering the labyrinth of modern buildings devoted to laboratory and computer space. Built in the shadow of the Museum of Natural History, the enormous redbrick Victorian cathedral to science, these were monuments of unimaginative, functional contemporary architecture.
Matthew pointed to our destination—a nondescript, low-slung building—and fished in his pocket for a plastic identity card. He swiped it through the reader at the door handle and punched in a set of codes in two different sequences. Once the door unlocked, he ushered me to the guard’s station, where he signed me in as a guest and handed me a pass to clip to my sweater.
“That’s a lot of security for a university laboratory,” I commented, fiddling with the badge.
The security only increased as we walked down the miles of corridors that somehow managed to fit behind the modest fa?ade. At the end of one hallway, Matthew took a different card out of his pocket, swiped it, and put his index finger on a glass panel next to a door. The glass panel chimed, and a touch pad appeared on its surface. Matthew’s fingers raced over the numbered keys. The door clicked softly open, and there was a clean, slightly antiseptic smell reminiscent of hospitals and empty professional kitchens. It derived from unbroken expanses of tile, stainless steel, and electronic equipment.
A series of glass-enclosed rooms stretched ahead of us. One held a round table for meetings, a black monolith of a monitor, and several computers. Another held an old wooden desk, a leather chair, an enormous Persian rug that must have been worth a fortune, telephones, fax machines, and still more computers and monitors. Beyond were other enclosures that held banks of file cabinets, microscopes, refrigerators, autoclaves, racks upon racks of test tubes, centrifuges, and dozens of unrecognizable devices and instruments.
The whole area seemed unoccupied, although from somewhere there came faint strains of a Bach cello concerto and something that sounded an awful lot like the latest hit recorded by the Eurovision song-contest winners.
As we passed by the two office spaces, Matthew gestured at the one with the rug. “My office,” he explained. He then steered me into the first laboratory on the left. Every surface held some combination of computers, microscopes, and specimen containers arranged neatly in racks. File cabinets ringed the walls. One of their drawers had a label that read “<0.”
“Welcome to the history lab.” The blue light made his face look whiter, his hair blacker. “This is where we’re studying evolution. We take in physical specimens from old burial sites, excavations, fossilized remains, and living beings, and extract DNA from the samples.” Matthew opened a different drawer and pulled out a handful of files. “We’re just one laboratory among hundreds all over the world using genetics to study problems of species origin and extinction. The difference between our lab and the rest is that humans aren’t the only species we’re studying.”
His words dropped, cold and clear, around me.
“You’re studying vampire genetics?”
“Witches and daemons, too.” Matthew hooked a wheeled stool with his foot and gently sat me on top of it.
A vampire wearing black Converse high-tops came rocketing around the corner and squeaked to a halt, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. He was in his late twenties, with the blond hair and blue eyes of a California surfer. Standing next to Matthew, his average height and build made him look slight, but his body was wiry and energetic.
“AB-negative,” he said, studying me admiringly. “Wow, terrific find.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “And a witch, too!”
“Marcus Whitmore, meet Diana Bishop. She’s a professor of history from Yale”—Matthew frowned at the younger vampire—“and is here as a guest, not a pincushion.”
“Oh.” Marcus looked disappointed, then brightened. “Would you mind if I took some of your blood anyway?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” I had no wish to be poked and prodded by a vampire phlebotomist.
Marcus whistled. “That’s some fight-or-flight response you have there, Dr. Bishop. Smell that adrenaline.”
“What’s going on?” a familiar soprano voice called out. Miriam’s diminutive frame was visible a few seconds later.
“Dr. Bishop is a bit overwhelmed by the laboratory, Miriam.”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize it was her,” Miriam said. “She smells different. Is it adrenaline?”
Marcus nodded. “Yep. Are you always like this? All dressed up in adrenaline and no place to go?”
“Marcus.” Matthew could issue a bone-chilling warning in remarkably few syllables.
“Since I was seven,” I said, meeting his startling blue eyes.
Marcus whistled again. “That explains a lot. No vampire could turn his back on that.” Marcus wasn’t referring to my physical features, even though he gestured in my direction.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, curiosity overcoming my nerves.
Matthew pulled on the hair at his temples and gave Marcus a glare that would curdle milk. The younger vampire looked blasé and cracked his knuckles. I jumped at the sharp sound.