The truth was far worse than I had allowed myself to imagine. Benjamin’s killing spree had lasted centuries. He’d preyed on witches, and very probably weavers in particular. Gerbert was almost certainly involved. And that one phrase—“They search within us for the Book of Life”—turned my blood to fire and ice.
“We have to stop him, Matthew. If he finds out we’ve had a daughter . . .” I trailed off. Benjamin’s final words to me in the Bodleian haunted me. When I thought of what he might try to do to Rebecca, the power snapped through my veins like the lash of a whip.
“He already knows.” Matthew met my eyes, and I gasped at the rage I saw there.
“Since when?”
“Sometime before the christening,” Matthew said. “I’m going to look for him, Diana.”
“How will you find him?” I asked.
“Not by using computers or by trying to find his IP address. He’s too clever for that. I’ll find him the way I know best: tracking him, scenting him, cornering him,” Matthew said. “Once I do that, I’ll tear him limb from limb. If I fail—”
“You can’t,” I said flatly.
“I may.” Matthew’s eyes met mine. He needed me to hear him, not reassure him.
“Okay,” I said with a calmness I didn’t feel, “what happens if you fail?”
“You’ll need the Book of Life. It’s the only thing that may lure Benjamin out of hiding so he can be destroyed—once and for all.”
“The only thing besides me,” I said.
Matthew’s darkening eyes said that using me as bait to catch Benjamin was not an option.
“I’ll leave for Oxford tomorrow. The library is closed for the Christmas vacation. There won’t be any staff around except for security,” I said.
To my surprise, Matthew nodded. He was going to let me help.
“Will you be all right on your own?” I didn’t want to fuss over him, but I needed to know. Matthew had already suffered through one separation. He nodded.
“What shall we do about the children?” Matthew asked.
“They need to stay here, with Sarah and Ysabeau and with enough of my milk and blood to feed them until I return. I’ll take Fernando with me—no one else. If someone is watching us and reporting back to Benjamin, then we need to do what we can to make it look as though we’re still here and everything is normal.”
“Someone is watching us. There’s no doubt about it.” Matthew pushed his fingers through his hair.
“The only question is whether that someone belongs to Benjamin or to Gerbert. That wily bastard’s role in this may have been bigger than we thought.”
“If he and your son have been in league all this time, there’s no telling how much they know,” I said.
“Then our only hope is to possess information they don’t yet have. Get the book. Bring it back here and see if you can fix it by reinserting the pages Kelley removed,” Matthew said. “Meanwhile I’ll find Benjamin and do what I should have done long ago.”
“When will you leave?” I asked.
“Tomorrow. After you go, so I can make sure that you aren’t being followed,” he said, rising to his feet.
I watched in silence as the parts of Matthew I knew and loved—the poet and the scientist, the warrior and the spy, the Renaissance prince and the father—fell away until only the darkest, most forbidding part of him remained. He was only the assassin now.
But he was still the man I loved.
Matthew took me by the shoulders and waited until I met his eyes. “Be safe.”