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"Is he d-dead?" she whispered numbly Mattheas at her side in the space of a human heartbeat
"No, mon coeur He’s not dead" Matthe this was Diana’s worst nightmare: that someone she loved would be taken from her before the two of the place in the house on Wooster Square ht somehoorse
"Stay with Miriaainst her stiff lips "I’ll be ho so well," Diana said Jack had been in New Haven for a week, and his blood rage had diminished in both frequency and intensity Matthew’s strict boundaries and consistent expectations had already made a difference
"We knew there would be setbacks," Matthew said, tucking a silky strand of hair behind Diana’s ear "I know you won’t sleep, but try to rest at least" He orried she’d do nothing but pace and stare out theuntil he returned with news
"You can read these while you wait" Miria She wasan effort to sound brisk and ranate stronger now "This is everything you asked for, and I added soht be interested in: all of Matthew’s studies on wolves, as well as so and pack behavior It’s basically Dr Spock for the modern vaain, his wife had surprised him Her cheeks reddened, and she took the articles from Miriam
"I need to understand how this vampire family stuff works Go Tell Jack I love him" Diana’s voice broke "If you can"
Matthew squeezed her hand without replying He would make no promises on that score Jack had to understand that his access to Diana depended on his behavior--and Matthew’s approval
"Prepare yourself," Miriam murmured when he passed her "And I don’t care if Benja this, I will"
In spite of the late hour, Gallowglass’s house was not the only one in the neighborhood that was still illue town, after all Most of Wooster Square’s night owls sought a strange co in full vieith curtains and blinds open What distinguished the vahtly closed and only cracks of golden light around the edges of the s betrayed the fact that soht cast a wars Otherwise it was sparsely decorated with Danish Modern furniture made from blond wood accented with occasional antiques and splashes of bold color One of Gallowglass’s hteenth-century Red Ensign that he and Davy Hancock had stripped froo ship the
Earl of Pembroke before it was refitted and renamed Endeavour-- was balled up on the floor
Matthew sniffed The house was filled with the bitter, acrid scent that Diana had likened to a coal fire, and faint strains of Bach filled the air The St Matthew Passion -- the same music that Benjamin played in his laboratory to torture his captive witch Matthew’s stomach twisted into a heavy knot
He rounded the corner of the living rooht hiray covered every inch of the canvas-hued walls Jack stood atop a makeshift scaffold constructed fro a soft artist’s pencil The floor was littered with pencil stubs and the paper peelings that Jack had torn away to reveal fresh charcoal
Matthew’s eyes swept the walls fro Detailed landscapes, studies of animals and plants that were almost microscopic in their precision, and sensitive portraits were linked together with breathtaking swaths of line and foric The overall effect was beautiful yet disturbing, as if Sir Anthony van Dyck had painted Picasso’s Guernica
"Christ" Matthew’s right hand auton of the cross
"Jack ran out of paper two hours ago," Gallowglass said gri to the easels in the frontEach now bore a single sheet, but the drifts of paper surrounding their tripod supports suggested that these were s
"Matthew" Chris ca a cup of black coffee, the aro with Jack’s bitter scent
"This is no place for a war a wary eye on Jack
"I promised Miriam I’d stay" Chris settled into a worn plantation chair and placed his coffeeon the wide arms When he moved, the woven seat underneath him creaked like a ship under sail "So Jack’s another one of your grandchildren?"
"Not now, Chris Where’s Andrew?" Matthew said, continuing to observe Jack at work
"He’s upstairs gettingin the details of what Jack was sketching now: a nad woony "I wish like hell he would go back to drawing daffodils"
Mattheiped his hand across histo remove the sourness that rose up from his stomach Thank God that Diana hadn’t come with hiain if he knew she’d seen this
Mo room He put a box of fresh supplies on the stepladder where Jack balanced Utterly absorbed in his work, Jack didn’t react to Hubbard’s presence any more than he had to Matthew’s arrival
"You should have called me sooner" Matthew kept his voice deliberately cal eyes toward hie responded to the tension in the air
"Jack’s done this before," Hubbard said "He’s drawn on his bedroom walls and on the walls in the church undercroft But he’s never es so quickly And neverhim" He looked up
Benja down on Jack with an expression that was equal parts avarice and malice His features were unmistakable in their cruelty, and so contained within the outlines of a hu fro on the last empty stretch of wall The pictures around the roo from Jack’s time in London before Hubbard had made him a vampire all the way to the present day The easels in the ere the starting point for Jack’s troubling ie cycle
Matthew exale eleer scene that helped them to understand particular proble of a h poverty andteeth occupied another easel The third showed the crisscrossing laces on a er hooked and ready to pull theainst a boy’s prominent hip bone until the tip slid into the skin
Matthew put the solitary iether in his mind--hand, ear, breeches, knife--while the St
Matthew Passion thundered in the background He swore at the abusive scene that instantly sprang to mind
"One of Jack’s earliest memories," Hubbard said
Mattheas reminded of his first encounter with Jack, when he would have taken the boy’s ear if not for Diana’s intervention He had been yet another creature to offer Jack violence instead of compassion
"If not for his art and music, Jack would have destroyed hiift" Andrew gestured toward the cello propped up in the corner
Matthew had recognized the instrument’s distinctive scroll the nana, the instrument’s Venetian h" for its generous, yet still elegant, curves Matthew had learned to play on Duchess back when lutes fell out of favor and were replaced by violins, violas, and cellos Duchess had mysteriously disappeared while he was in New Orleans disciplining Marcus’s brood of children When Matthew returned, he had asked Philippe what had happened to the instru about Napoleon and the English that had made no sense at all
"Does Jack always listen to Bach when he draws?" Matthewto Bach afteryou know" Hubbard’s mouth twisted