“Father H still lives in a church in the city,” Jack explained, suddenly animated. “It’s not the same one you visited. That old heap burned down. Most of this one did, too, come to think of it.”
I laughed. Jack had always loved telling stories and had a talent for it, too.
“Now just the tower remains. Father H did it up so nicely you hardly notice it’s just a pile of rubbish.” Jack grinned at Hubbard and gave me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, his mood swinging from blood rage to happiness in a remarkably short period of time. He sped down the stairs. “Come on, Lobero. Let’s go wrestle with Gallowglass.”
“Midnight,” Matthew called after him. “Be ready. And be nice to Miriam, Jack. If you don’t, she’ll make you wish you’d never been reborn.”
“Don’t worry, I’m used to dealing with difficult females!” Jack replied. Lobero barked with excitement and orbited Jack’s legs to encourage him outside.
“Keep the picture, Mistress Roydon. If both Matthew and Benjamin covet it, then I wish to be as far away from it as possible,” Andrew said.
“How generous, Andrew.” Matthew’s hand shot out and closed around Hubbard’s throat. “Stay in New Haven until I give you leave to go.”
Their eyes clashed, slate and gray-green. Andrew was the first to look away.
“Come on, Father H!” Jack bellowed. “I want to see Gallowglass’s church, and Lobero needs a walk.”
“Midnight, Andrew.” Matthew’s words were perfectly cordial, but there was a warning in them. The door closed, and the sound of Lobero’s barking faded. When it had faded completely, I turned on Matthew.
“How could you—”
The sight of Matthew, his head buried in his hands, brought me to an abrupt stop. My anger, which had been blazing, slowly fizzled. He looked up, his face ravaged with guilt and sorrow. “Jack . . . Benjamin . . .” Matthew shuddered. “God help me, what have I done?”
20
Matthew sat in the broken-down easy chair opposite the bed where Diana was sleeping, plowing through another inconclusive set of test results so that he and Chris could reevaluate their research strategy at tomorrow’s meeting. Given the late hour, he was taken by surprise when his phone’s screen lit up.
Moving carefully so as not to wake his wife, Matthew padded silently out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen, where he could speak without being overheard.
“You need to come,” Gallowglass said, his voice gruff and low. “Now.”
Matthew’s flesh prickled, and his eyes rose to the ceiling as though he could see through the plaster and floorboards into the bedroom. His first instinct was always to protect her, even though it was clear that the danger was elsewhere.
“Leave Auntie at home,” Gallowglass said flatly, as though he could witness Matthew’s actions.
“Miriam’s on her way.” The phone went dead.
Matthew stared down at the display for a moment, its bright colors bringing a note of false cheer to the early-morning hours before they faded to black.
The front door creaked open.
Matthew was at the top of the stairs by the time Miriam walked through it. He studied her closely.
There was not a drop of blood on her, thank God. Even so, Miriam’s eyes were wide and her face bore a haunted expression. Very little frightened his longtime friend and colleague, but she was clearly terrified. Matthew swore.
“What’s wrong?” Diana descended from the third floor, her coppery hair seeming to capture all the available light in the house. “Is it Jack?”
Matthew nodded. Gallowglass wouldn’t have called otherwise.