Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(153)

“Somewhere outside Warrnambool,” Gallowglass said vaguely.

“Where the hell is Warrnambool?” Verin demanded.

“Australia,” Ernst and Gallowglass said at the same moment.

“Is that a German accent I hear? Have you found a new boyfriend?” Gallowglass teased.

“Watch yourself, pup,” Verin snapped. “You may be family, but I can still rip your throat out. That’s my husband, Ernst.”

Ernst sat forward in his chair and shook his head in warning. He didn’t like it when his wife took on a male vampire—even though she was stronger than most. Verin waved off his concern.

Gallowglass chuckled, and Ernst decided that this unfamiliar vampire might be all right. “There’s my scary Auntie Verin. It’s good to hear your voice after all these years. And don’t pretend you’re any more surprised to see that story than I was to get your call.”

“Part of me hoped he was raving,” Verin confessed, remembering the night when she and Gallowglass had sat by Philippe’s bed and listened to his ramblings.

“Did you imagine it was contagious and that I was raving, too?” Gallowglass snorted. He sounded very much like Philippe these days, Verin noticed.

“I hoped that was the case, as a matter of fact.” It had been easier to believe than the alternative: that her father’s impossible tale of a timespinning witch was true.

“Will you be keeping your promise anyway?” Gallowglass said softly.

Verin hesitated. It was only a moment, but Ernst saw it. Verin always kept her promises. When he’d been a terrified, cowering boy, Verin had promised him that he would grow to be a man. Ernst had clung to that assurance when he was six, just as he clung to the promises Verin had made since.

“You haven’t seen Matthew with her. Once you do—”

“I’ll think my stepbrother is even more of a problem? Not possible.”

“Give her a chance, Verin. She’s Philippe’s daughter, too. And he had excellent taste in women.”

“The witch isn’t his real daughter,” Verin said quickly.

On a road somewhere near Warrnambool, Gallowglass pressed his lips together and refused to reply. Verin might know more about Diana and Matthew than anyone else in the family, but she didn’t know as much as he did. There would be endless opportunities to discuss vampires and children once the couple was back. There was no need to argue about it now.

“Besides, Matthew isn’t here,” Verin said, looking at the paper. “I called the number. Someone else answered, and it wasn’t Baldwin.” That’s why she had disconnected so quickly. If Matthew wasn’t leading the brotherhood, the telephone number should have been passed on to Philippe’s only surviving full-blooded son. “The number” had been generated in the earliest years of the telephone. Philippe had picked it: 917, for Ysabeau’s birthday in September. With each new technology and every successive change in the national and international telephone system, the number referred seamlessly on to another, more modern iteration.

“You reached Marcus.” Gallowglass had called the number, too.

“Marcus?” Verin was aghast. “The future of the de Clermonts depends upon Marcus?”

“Give him a chance, too, Auntie Verin. He’s a good lad.” Gallowglass paused. “As for the family’s future, that depends on all of us. Philippe knew that, or he wouldn’t have made us promise to return to Sept-Tours.”

Philippe de Clermont had been very specific with his daughter and grandson. They were to watch for signs: stories of a young American witch with great power, the name Bishop, alchemy, and then a rash of anomalous historical discoveries.

Then, and only then, were Gallowglass and Verin to return to the de Clermont family seat. Philippe hadn’t been willing to divulge why it was so important that the family come together, but Gallowglass knew.

For decades Gallowglass had waited. Then he heard stories of a witch from Massachusetts named Rebecca, one of the last descendants of Salem’s Bridget Bishop. Reports of her power spread far and wide, as did news of her tragic death. Gallowglass tracked her surviving daughter to upstate New York. He’d checked on the girl periodically, watching as Diana Bishop played on the monkey bars at the playground, went to birthday parties, and graduated from college. Gallowglass had been as proud as any parent to see her pass her Oxford viva. And he often stood beneath the carillon in Harkness Tower at Yale, the power of the bells’ sound reverberating through his body, while the young professor walked across campus. Her clothing was different, but there was no mistaking Diana’s determined gait or the set of her shoulders, whether she was wearing a farthingale and ruff or a pair of trousers and an unflattering man’s jacket.

Gallowglass tried to keep his distance, but sometimes he had to interfere—like the day her energy drew a daemon to her side and the creature began to follow her. Still, Gallowglass prided himself on the hundreds of other times he’d refrained from rushing down the stairs of Yale’s bell tower, throwing his arms around Professor Bishop, and telling her how glad he was to see her after so many years.

When Gallowglass learned that Baldwin had been called to Sept-Tours at Ysabeau’s behest for some unspecified emergency involving Matthew, the Norseman knew it was only a matter of time before the historical anomalies appeared. Gallowglass had seen the announcement about the discovery of a pair of previously unknown Elizabethan miniatures. By the time he’d managed to reach Sotheby’s, they had already been purchased. Gallowglass had panicked, thinking they might have fallen into the wrong hands. But he’d underestimated Ysabeau. When he talked to Marcus this morning, Matthew’s son confirmed that they were sitting safely on Ysabeau’s desk at Sept-Tours. It had been more than four hundred years since Gallowglass had secreted the pictures away in a house in Shropshire. It would be good to see them—and the two creatures they depicted—once more.