by Ariel Tachna
“Pascale Auboussu, twenty-six years old, female, lives alone in Château-Chinon,” Adèle recited. Jean stroked Raymond’s back when his lover flinched at the name. His fingers lingered on the mark of their Aveu de Sang that covered the older, more sinister mark Pascal Serrier had left there at the start of the war. “She said she was attacked outside her home between ten and eleven o’clock last night, dragged behind the garage, bitten, and drained before the vampire forced his blood down her throat and turned her without her consent. I’ve been by her house, and the signs of struggle are there, but nothing I can use as evidence. No fibers, no clean shoe prints, no blood. He’s either really efficient, really paranoid, or both.”
“Any idea where she might have been to attract a vampire?” Raymond asked. “Maybe she ran into him at a club, flirted with him, and then he decided she was interested in more, regardless of her feelings on the matter.”
“I haven’t had a chance to interview her that closely,” Adèle replied. “Sebastien took her to Paris, to Sang Froid, so she could feed. I thought I’d wait until sunset and then go speak with her again.”
“Wait until after tonight’s dinner if you can,” Jean requested. “We’d like to go with you, but we have to be here for this.”
“Call me when it’s done,” Adèle suggested. “I’ll pop over to l’Institut and we can all go together.”
A long pause followed. “She was scared, convinced she’d been turned into a monster. Sebastien got her calmed down a little, but if we don’t handle this well, we could end up with a pile of ashes instead of a witness.”
“Sebastien left her with Angelique, right?” Jean verified.
“As far as I know,” Adèle said.
“Angelique will make sure she makes it through the day,” Jean said, “and that’s the hardest part. The longer she goes on as a vampire, the harder it will be to end her existence simply because it’s different than what came before.”
“We need to go,” Raymond interrupted. “Dinner’s about to start, and we have a special guest tonight. It wouldn’t be right to miss it.”
“Call me when it’s over,” Adèle repeated. “I’ll have my cell on.”
Hanging up the phone, Raymond looked at Jean. “This is bad, isn’t it?”
“Oui,” Jean replied. “As bad as anything the extorris did, almost as bad as Serrier.”
“If it isn’t your territory, whose is it?” Raymond asked. “We chose Dommartin in part because it’s outside the jurisdiction of any Cour.”
“Autun is the closest Cour,” Jean said. “At least Denis Langlois is more reasonable than Renaud was.”
“Do we need to call him as well?” Raymond asked. “I could go to Autun to get him. My magic will work on him.”
“Let’s get through dinner first,” Jean said after a moment’s reflection. “Adèle will wait for our call. Pascale isn’t going anywhere without Angelique, and Denis isn’t expecting us to call, so he won’t care if we finish with dinner first. Martin Delacroix’s arrival is a huge coup for l’Institut. We don’t want to jeopardize his entire sabbatical over this. If this goes well, he could be key to expanding the partnership network out of Europe and into North America. As much as my ingrained sense of responsibility says we need to check on the new vampire, this is more important.”
Raymond reminded himself the vampire was in good hands where she was. She could wait another few hours and indeed would probably be more amenable to conversation after she had time to feed again. He had learned the futility of trying to discuss anything with his partner when Jean was hungry, not that Jean had been hungry very often since they had made their Aveu de Sang six months earlier. The magical bond that prohibited Jean from feeding from any other mortal also allowed him to feed from Raymond without any danger to Raymond’s system. The fang marks over Raymond’s left pectoral had not healed in months. If Raymond had his way, they never would.
“Shall we go down, then?” he asked instead of continuing the discussion. “Alain and Orlando shouldn’t have to welcome everyone alone.”
“Are they even here tonight?” Jean asked as they left the office and started across the courtyard to the réfectoire. “I thought I heard Orlando say something about contractors starting work on their house this week.”
“That starts on Wednesday,” Raymond replied. “They’ll be around tonight and tomorrow for the history lesson with the wizards. Sebastien and Thierry offered to do that with the vampires so they don’t have to deal with their Aveu de Sang skewing perceptions, and then Alain and Orlando will be off until Sunday and the end of seminar dinner.”
“What are they having done?”
“You’ll have to ask them that,” Raymond said. “Alain started waxing poetic about different kinds of wood and flooring and faux finishes and lost me completely. I know they aren’t that far along, but I don’t know what they’re actually doing right now.”
“I still can’t believe they bought a house in the country after living in Paris for so long,” Jean said. “And they’re obviously loving every minute of fixing it up. I haven’t ever seen Orlando this happy, except I keep saying that and he keeps getting happier.”
Raymond paused outside the door to the réfectoire. “I think an Aveu de Sang does that to a man.”
Jean grinned and kissed his Avoué. “I think it might.”
Jean was tempted to linger, but their guests waited. Pulling back with the whispered promise of more when they were finally alone, he pushed open the door, allowing his Consort to precede him into the room. In other circumstances, their positions would have been reversed, but Raymond was the director of l’Institut. Here, he was the senior one, not Jean.
Every head turned at their entry, silence settling across the room.
“Bonsoir, everyone,” Raymond said, his voice resounding in the cavernous space. “Welcome to l’Institut Marcel Chavinier. I hope everything has been to your satisfaction so far. Tonight is your chance to mingle, to catch up with old friends and perhaps make new ones. We’re looking forward to a busy, productive week.”
“Monsieur Payet?”
“Please, call me Raymond,” Raymond said to the man who addressed him. “We are not a formal bunch here at l’Institut.”
“That’s a relief,” the other man said. “My colleagues in Canada all warned me about how formal and stiff the French were. I didn’t want to offend, of course, but I will admit to being a first-name person myself.”
“Martin, I assume?” Raymond asked, amused at the other man’s ramblings. The Canadian wizard’s accent gave away his identity as clearly as if he wore a tag proclaiming his name and origin. He was nearly as tall as Raymond, though easily ten years younger. His light brown hair was short and somewhat tousled, like he had run his fingers through it more than once, but his smile was infectious, lighting his hazel eyes from inside.
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry, Martin Delacroix. I’m very excited about my chance to come study and research here at l’Institut. I’ve always been fascinated with the way magic works in the other magical races, but my studies have been almost entirely theoretical. In Canada, anyway, they have little use for vampires.”
“You will find that here as well, in many cases,” Raymond said, “but the vampires—some of them, anyway—have decided we are not as bad as all that.”
Next to him, Jean smothered an inelegant snort. “The vampires you will meet here at l’Institut fall into two categories,” he said. “Those who have chosen to form partnerships with wizards and those interested in forming those partnerships. We’ve had a few complete our seminar and decide not to go farther into the process, but only perhaps one in twenty. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t at least willing to listen and learn.”
“My partner, Jean Bellaiche,” Raymond added, “speaking of vampires who have stuck around.”
“Call me Jean,” Jean said, shaking Martin’s hand. “We’re looking forward to working with you this year.”
“Have you met Alain,
Orlando, Sebastien, and Thierry yet?” Raymond asked. “Sebastien and Thierry are here full time. Alain and Orlando are part-time, but they’re part of our faculty as well.”
“I’m not sure,” Martin said honestly. “I’ve met so many people so quickly, and names are not my forte.”
“Alain is the blond wizard standing next to the slender, dark-haired vampire,” Raymond said, pointing toward Alain and Orlando. “They split their time between Paris and their new home in Pouilly-en-Auxois. They were the first to discover the partnership bond that can exist between the right vampire and wizard.”
“Are they researchers?” Martin asked.
Raymond could not stop the laugh that escaped.
“No,” Jean said, answering for Raymond, “they’re lovers.”
“Is that typical?” Martin asked.
“It isn’t atypical,” Raymond replied, still chuckling at the thought of Alain and Orlando as researchers. “The partnerships work through the exchange of blood, and that is a very intimate experience for both participants. Repeated feedings over time create a more personal relationship almost by default. It isn’t a requirement, though, if that’s what you’re asking. I do know partners, both now and from the war, who have chosen to keep their relationship purely functional. That does seem to require a conscious decision and constant diligence, however, so we’re careful to make it clear to our seminar participants the very real possibility of a magical partnership bringing them a life partner.”
“Forgive me if I’m being overly inquisitive, but are you…?”
Raymond smiled. “In this context, I’m the director of l’Institut, but in Paris, I am the Consort of the chef de la Cour. Yes, our relationship is personal as well as professional.”
Raymond didn’t mention the brand on his back, but Jean’s hand found it unerringly, covering it with a casual touch that Raymond knew was anything but casual.
“I feel like I should start taking notes already,” Martin said. “So much information!”
“We thought you might like to sit through this week’s seminar as a participant,” Raymond said. “It’s the quickest, most organized way to cover all the material we have at the moment. Once you’re up to speed, we can discuss the areas of research already going on at l’Institut as well as those we’d like to develop, and you can decide where you’d best fit in.”
“That sounds like a reasonable plan,” Martin agreed. “All my training doesn’t do me any good without a base of information to draw on.”
“Were your rooms to your satisfaction?” Jean asked. “We’re fairly remote, so we try and have space available for everyone here.”
“They’re wonderful,” Martin said. “I’ve met madame Naizot and her daughters, and they all made me promise to let them know if I needed anything.”
“They are most efficient,” Raymond said with a smile. “L’Institut has become the largest employer in Dommartin, much to the delight of the locals who no longer have to drive to neighboring towns and cities to work. And it would seem dinner is ready. Would you join us at the faculty table?”
After dinner, the wizards, for the most part, retired to their rooms, leaving the vampires to start their first session, a history of the partnerships.
“Would it be all right if I attended that session?” Martin asked Raymond.
“I suppose, but you’ll have the same information in your session tomorrow.”
“Yes, but I won’t hear the questions and answers that were important to the vampires,” Martin explained. “I know how wizards think. I need to learn how vampires think, what their culture values and discounts.”
“You make us sounds like some foreign species,” Jean said with a laugh. “You will find we aren’t so different from you.”
“No offense intended,” Martin apologized, flushing at being called on his insensitive choice of words. “I tend not to think before I speak. Vampires have a longevity humans, even wizards, can’t come close to attaining. You’ve seen things we only studied in books. You have a culture that reflects that, whether you think about it in those terms or not. I want to see those values reflected in the conversation. It will help me understand and perhaps avoid other gaffes later.”
“I don’t see why it would be a problem,” Raymond said, “unless you think the vampires will be uncomfortable with Martin there.”
“No more uncomfortable than they already are being here,” Jean replied. “One quick lesson about vampires, Martin. They are far less trusting of their own kind than of outsiders because outsiders can’t do much to them. Another vampire, on the other hand, is always a threat as much as an ally.”
“They call it le Jeu des Cours,” Raymond added, “a constant game of one-upmanship to keep their status. Only Orlando is outside of it because of his relationship with Alain.”
“What is special about him? Other vampires have partners.”
“Other vampires don’t have Avoués,” Jean replied. “It’s an extra bond between them that has nothing to do with Alain being a wizard. It’s a vampire custom whose origins have long since been forgotten. Orlando is the only vampire in France, as far as I know, with a publicly acknowledged Avoué. For as long as Alain lives, Orlando is exempt from le Jeu des Cours.”
“You’d think more vampires would have one,” Martin commented, “if the advantages are so great.”
“So is the cost,” Jean replied. “An Avoué cannot be turned. A vampire and his Avoué cannot be separated for more than a few days while the Avoué lives. It can be a challenging life.”
Martin’s busy brain needed no more than that to see the irony of the bond: a lifetime together followed by an eternity of separation. “The vampires are leaving. I will see you at breakfast.”
Jean and Raymond shook Martin’s hand and let him follow the vampires to their first meeting.
“Impressions?” Raymond asked when they were alone.
“He’ll have to learn to curb his tongue if he doesn’t want to offend his subjects,” Jean said, “but he seems an interesting and intelligent man. What did you think of him?”
“He reminds me of myself ten years ago,” Raymond replied, “all eager enthusiasm and lust for learning. He was spared the horrors of the war that stole some of that from me, although I was never as gregarious as he is. I was always too lost in a book.”
Jean chuckled. “I’ve never noticed that about you.”
Raymond grinned. “You’re more interesting than any book.”
Jean’s tender smile left Raymond weak in the knees with the desire to pull his vampire across the courtyard and up the stairs to the abbot’s quarters, where they could be alone and reaffirm their bond, but responsibility nagged.
“We should call Adèle and figure out what we’re going to tell Denis,” Raymond said with a sigh of regret. Jean had fed before they left Paris to return to l’Institut, and even if he hadn’t, their Aveu de Sang gave him the ability to go longer between feedings than other vampires.
Jean must have sensed his conflicted emotions, because a surge of lust and longing swept through their bond. “There will be time for us after we’ve seen to the new vampire,” Jean said aloud, leaving Raymond to extrapolate the rest.
“I’ll call Adèle,” Raymond said. “You should call Denis so I don’t do something to cause you to lose face in le Jeu des Cours.”
Jean’s hand settled on Raymond’s back, guiding him out of the main building toward the abbot’s lodge. His Consort had promised to support him in any way possible, but despite nearly two years of association, Jean doubted Raymond fully understood how much his mere presence at Jean’s side added to Jean’s status within his Cour and with the other chefs de la Cour. The chefs de la Cour would not normally meet for another twelve months, but Jean knew having a lover, a partner of Raymond’s status, would only help when that happened. And if it happened early because of the weekend’s events, Raymond’s presence would be even more beneficial. “I’ll call him, but you have only ever added to my stand
ing. Will you be able to go to Autun to get him if he wants to join us?”
“Yes, as soon as I get off the phone with Adèle,” Raymond said. “If he wants to go, tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes. That should give me time to make the call and change into something warmer.”
The late September days were still warm, but the temperatures dropped at night, making Raymond’s short-sleeved shirt too lightweight for their evening’s outings. Jean would not be bothered by the temperature until it got far colder than this, and even then, his sensitivity would never match Raymond’s. His vampire nature saw to that.
Letting Raymond go change, Jean went into the office they shared and searched out Denis Langlois’s phone number from their records. While he was on better terms with the new chef de la Cour of Autun than he had been with the previous one, he would not go so far as to call them friends. Friendly colleagues, perhaps, but nothing more. Jean’s life was wrapped up in l’Institut, the Cour parisienne, and Raymond. Denis was focused on consolidating power after his coup in Autun six months ago. Jean remembered those days from his own rise to power in the Cour parisienne, several hundred years ago, and he had stepped into the place of a retiring chef de la Cour rather than toppling one, as Denis had done. Even then, he had fought for the first several years to retain his role.