by Ariel Tachna
“She doesn’t know,” Sebastien said. “She was turned earlier tonight and then abandoned by her maker. Adèle found her and brought her to l’Institut, but Thierry is the only human in residence at the moment, and I didn’t feel like sharing.”
“Oh, ma pauvre,” Angelique fussed, wrapping her arm around Pascale’s shoulders. “Come inside and let me take care of you. Go away, Sebastien. This is girl talk.”
“As if you wouldn’t have the same talk with a male vampire,” Sebastien laughed.
“Of course I would, but that doesn’t mean Pascale wants you to hear her secrets,” Angelique scolded. “Go away. I’ll take care of her.”
“Is David around, by any chance?” Sebastien asked. “Because if he isn’t, I’m stuck here until Thierry sends someone looking for me.”
“Don’t terrorize my staff,” Angelique said. “David is asleep, but I’ll have him send you home when he wakes up. He had a bad case yesterday. I won’t disturb him if it’s not an emergency.”
“Can I use your phone, then, so Thierry knows that I’ve been delayed?” Sebastien asked. He respected Angelique’s protectiveness. David worked as a child advocate in custody and abuse cases. Sebastien suspected all of his cases were tough ones.
“It’s behind the desk,” Angelique said with a wave of her hand as she guided Pascale out of the main room and into her parlor-cum-office. “Now that the men are gone, we can talk.”
“Talk about what?” Pascale asked nervously.
“Which of my lovely employees will provide the blood you need tonight,” Angelique said. “You are hungry, aren’t you?”
“Ravenous,” Pascale said, “but how am I supposed to choose? Does one person’s blood taste different from another’s?”
“You aren’t supposed to choose,” Angelique said. “Not without some experience. I, on the other hand, have centuries of experience to share with you, and over a hundred years of matching vampires with my employees. And yes, the taste of blood varies from person to person. I’m sure we can find someone who appeals. Male or female?”
“Female,” Pascale replied immediately. “Well, as a rule, anyway.”
“Female it is,” Angelique said without blinking an eye. “Your age, younger, older?”
“How is this supposed to help?”
“Because what you prefer in a person generally carries over to what you will prefer in their blood,” Angelique explained patiently. “Answer the question.”
“Older,” Pascale whispered. “Not a lot, but a few years anyway.”
“Femme or butch?”
Pascale hesitated, not sure she was comfortable discussing such things with a woman she barely knew.
Angelique laughed at her shyness. “I lived in a harem, dear,” she said, holding up her henna-covered hands. “There is nothing about sex and sexual preferences that I haven’t seen and probably lived. You don’t need to be embarrassed with me.”
“Not butch,” Pascale said. “I don’t want someone masculine, but someone who can take charge and take care of me. I’m not the aggressor.”
“That may change a little now that you’re a vampire,” Angelique said, “but for now, any preferences in coloring?”
“Dark,” Pascale said. “Someone like you, if you weren’t a vampire.”
Angelique laughed. “Oh, darling, they stopped making them like me centuries ago, but I’ll find someone who suits. Let me show you to a room.”
“A room?”
“Feeding is very personal, very intimate,” Angelique explained. “As a rule, vampires feed in private. Since this is your first time, I’ll be there to help you find your balance. Your maker should have done this, but since he… she?”
“He.”
“Since he didn’t do his duty, I will take his place gladly.”
Angelique led Pascale to a finely appointed sitting room, furnished with two love seats and a chaise longue. “Make yourself comfortable. Take off your coat, your shoes, too, if you want. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Angelique left Pascale alone, shutting the door behind her. Pascale started toward the shuttered window, wondering what time it was, but the heat coming through the closed volets nearly burned her. She jerked her hand away, seeing the grey cast to her skin and feeling the painful tingling along her arm. “What nightmare have I walked into?”
Angelique returned a few minutes later with a beautiful, busty woman in tow, exactly the kind of woman Pascale might have flirted with when she came to the city. Exactly the kind who never gave her the time of day. “Pascale, this is Isabelle. Isabelle, the vampire I told you about.”
“Welcome to Sang Froid,” Isabelle said, holding out her hand. Pascale took it uncertainly, her eyes fixed on the pulse at the woman’s wrist. Her mouth watered. She could practically taste the blood flowing beneath the surface.
“Gently now,” Angelique said. “You can’t simply dive in. Have a seat on one of the couches where you’ll be comfortable.”
Pascale frowned. This was the part where her shyness always kicked in and she lost her nerve. She took a seat as Angelique instructed, wondering how she was supposed to make small talk while the urge to bite, anywhere she could, was nearly overwhelming.
“Take her hand again,” Angelique instructed. “Lick the skin of her wrist. You should always prepare the place you intend to bite. Your saliva will numb the area a little so the bite hurts less, and afterward, you lick the whole area again to help her heal faster.”
Pascale breathed a huge sigh of relief, lifting Isabelle’s wrist to her mouth and licking over the lightly perfumed skin. The smell went to her head, evoking an odd tingling in her mouth, then a sharp pain.
“Look at me,” Angelique said.
Pascale turned her head.
“Show me your teeth.”
Confused, Pascale smiled.
“Good, your fangs dropped on their own. Sometimes new vampires have a problem with that, and then it gets complicated. You can bite her now.”
Pascale looked up at Isabelle.
“Go ahead,” Isabelle said with a friendly smile. “I’m a willing participant in this.”
“You enjoy it?” Pascale asked, caught by the smile.
“Very much,” Isabelle said. “It’s a good job, and I’ve grown to crave the feeling of a vampire’s fangs in my skin.”
Bemused, Pascale lifted Isabelle’s arm to her lips, biting into the skin.
“Harder,” Isabelle said. “Your fangs are sharp, but you have to push them deep enough to draw blood.”
Pascale pressed harder, feeling the sudden give in the other woman’s skin as her fangs pierced deep. Blood flooded her mouth, surprising her. She almost choked as she tried to find the rhythm that would allow her to swallow.
Next to her, Angelique kept a close eye on Isabelle. The woman was one of her longest-term employees. She would know when she reached a critical level and Pascale needed to stop. The vampire herself would learn to identify that moment in time, but not tonight, with the need of her turning burning through her. Angelique suspected it would take two or three feedings to satisfy her completely.
When Isabelle nodded, Angelique tapped Pascale’s shoulder. “That’s enough,” she said.
Pascale gripped Isabelle’s hand tighter.
Angelique tapped a little harder. “Pascale, you need to let her go now.”
Pascale ignored her.
Grabbing Pascale’s hands, Angelique forced them away from Isabelle’s wrist. The moment her hand was free, Isabelle snatched it back.
Pascale spun to face Angelique, her eyes wild. “I wasn’t done.”
“No, but Isabelle is,” Angelique said mildly. Her superior age guaranteed she could restrain Pascale if she needed to, but usually her calm demeanor did the trick.
“I’m still hungry!” Pascale shouted.
“And Isabelle’s sending someone else in,” Angelique said, “but you have to get control of yourself. You said you didn’t want to do what he did to you
, but if you don’t control the beast driving you to feed, you will do exactly that, intentionally or not.”
“How?”
“You probably can’t control yourself now,” Angelique said honestly. “You’re newly turned and the blood hunger is driving you hard. After you’ve sated yourself and rested, we will talk again and I’ll teach you some techniques.”
They repeated the process twice more before Pascale let go of a donor’s wrist voluntarily. “There is a bedroom down the hall where you can rest today,” Angelique said. “You’ll be hungry again tonight, but we will talk some more before then.”
“I don’t think I can rest,” Pascale said. “I’m on edge.”
“That’s a side effect of feeding,” Angelique agreed. “With a willing partner, the fastest way to ease that restlessness is a round of hot, sweaty sex. Unfortunately, that isn’t on offer here. I don’t run a sex shop.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“There’s a vibrator in the drawer, still in its package,” Angelique said. “It’s yours if you want it.”
“Why are you being so helpful?” Pascale demanded.
“Because Sebastien asked me to, because every vampire should have guidance when they’re turned, because you remind me of a girl in the harem, because this is what I do,” Angelique replied. “Take your pick.”
“Are you sure you won’t join me?” Pascale asked, the blood rushing through her system emboldening her.
“You are temptation itself, but I have a lover,” Angelique said, “one whom I am not willing to give up. Before I can do anything, I would have to talk with him, and he will have already left for the day.”
“A vampire?”
“No, a wizard.”
“Another wizard? I’d never met one in my life until tonight and now they’re everywhere!”
“You’re a vampire now, a magical creature,” Angelique reminded her. “Wizards are about to be a large part of your life, at least until you’re ready to be on your own again, and perhaps even after that. I predict you have about twelve hours before Raymond and Jean descend on you, and that’s only because they’ll wait for sundown before they disturb you.”
“Who are they?” Pascale asked.
Angelique laughed. “The two most charismatic men you’ll ever meet. Either one of them is enough to turn a woman’s head. Together….” She shook her head and laughed again. “More relevantly, they’re the chef de la Cour of Paris and his Consort, as well as the directors of l’Institut Marcel Chavinier.”
“None of which tells me anything,” Pascale reminded her.
“Rest,” Angelique insisted. “The sun is up and you’re about to be very twitchy unless you’re somewhere dark and enclosed. You’ll be safe in the bedroom as long as you stay away from the volets, but you’ll rest better if you close the bed curtains too.”
Pascale wanted to argue, but Angelique was implacable, showing her into the small, well-appointed bedroom, offering her a nightgown if she wanted, and closing the door firmly behind her. Pascale checked the handle the moment she was gone. The door was unlocked. She could leave if she wanted, the room, anyway. The sun outside would keep her from leaving the building.
The thought surprised her. Sometime in the past hour, she had recovered her equilibrium and her desire to live, even in this altered state. She had no idea what it really meant to be a “magical creature” as Angelique had said, but she had fed without hurting the people who helped her. She could exist this way without becoming a monster. It would be different, but perhaps it would not be horrible. Suddenly exhausted, she climbed into bed, drawing the bed curtains as Angelique had suggested. Cocooned in darkness, she closed her eyes and let dreams take her.
Chapter 2
“About time you got back,” Thierry said when Jean and Raymond returned to l’Institut the following evening. “What’s the point of having cell phones if I can’t reach you when I need you?”
“You’ve done enough seminars to be able to welcome everyone without us,” Raymond reminded him.
“That wasn’t the reason I was calling,” Thierry said. “A woman was attacked last night by a vampire.”
“Where?” Jean demanded, all levity gone from his voice.
“I don’t know all the details. Adèle said to call her when you got in. She’s the one who found the woman.”
“Where is she now?” Jean asked.
“In Paris, at Sang Froid.”
“She was turned,” Jean said, his voice cold.
Thierry nodded.
“Putain de merde,” Jean cursed. “Angelique will take good care of her—thank you for arranging that—but we have a problem if there’s a vampire turning people against their will.”
“We only know of the one case,” Raymond reminded him. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t find the culprit, but it could be an isolated incident.”
“Unless it is a newly turned vampire realizing too late that he was killing his victim, it was intentional,” Jean explained, “and if he did it once, he’ll almost certainly do it again.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because there’s something addicting about the feeling of bestowing life and death, the tightrope you have to walk to drain someone enough to turn them without killing them first.”
“You sound like you know from experience.”
Jean flushed. “I’ve never turned anyone against their will, but early in my new existence, I turned several vampires. All of them were willing, but there were enough of them that people in the neighborhood started whispering about a fiend in the darkness. That earned me a visit from monsieur Lombard, who ordered me to stop for at least fifty years. If I did, I could stay where I was. If I didn’t, he’d be forced to send me to some other Cour because I would be a threat to his. Paris is the only home I’ve ever known. Leaving it was not an option I wanted to consider.”
“And after fifty years?”
“I’d mastered my need again,” Jean said. “I’ve turned only one person since then. Even at the height of my madness, I only turned people willingly, but I searched them out, offering it to every person I fed from, hoping they would say yes, that they would all say yes. If the vampire is far enough gone to turn someone against their will, he or she won’t stop now.”
“So what do we do?” Raymond asked. “We can’t sit by and let it happen.”
“No, but we also can’t go rushing in without thought,” Jean said. “You are no longer president of l’ANS, and I am out of my territory here. Furthermore, what he did, while clearly wrong, is not actually illegal because this is the first time it has happened since French law took us and vampire situations into account. I almost wish you hadn’t resigned, because this is going to require some complicated legislation, and your successor doesn’t have your way with words.”
“We’ll have to give her those words, then,” Raymond said, “because I’m far too happy as director of l’Institut and your Consort to consider going back. Even for this. We’ll have to talk to Adèle, but perhaps the vampire can be charged with assault. I don’t know the details, of course, but even if the woman gave her consent for him to feed, turning her without her permission would be an assault on her person.”
“It’s pointless to speculate,” Thierry said. “Call Adèle. She said she was going to sleep a bit before she started investigating. She may have caught the vampire by now.”
“She’d have called if she did,” Jean said.
“Your phone’s been off all day long,” Thierry snapped.
“She would have called you if she couldn’t reach us,” Raymond said, “because she knows we’ll come back here for the welcome dinner tonight. We can call her now, but we can’t miss dinner, or I can’t, anyway. I don’t have the excuse of being president of l’ANS to drag me away from my job anymore.”
The comment surprised a snort from both Thierry and Jean. They shared an amused glance, both remembering Raymond’s struggle to balance the two sets of responsibili
ties before he decided he had to choose.
“We can still call her before dinner,” Jean said. “She might be willing to update us on the phone and save us all a trip.”
“We’ll use the speaker phone in the office,” Raymond said. “That way we can all join in the discussion.”
“It’s about time you called,” Adèle snapped when she answered the phone.
“We didn’t know you needed us to call until about five minutes ago,” Raymond said soothingly. “Thierry filled us in on what he could. Tell us what you’ve learned today.”