by Ariel Tachna
“Merde,” Adèle cursed under her breath when she saw the man in the back of the patrol car. “Jean, we may have a problem here.”
“We already have a problem,” Jean reminded her.
“No, a bigger problem,” Adèle said. “That’s Pierre Ganet.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” Jean replied.
“He’s a local homeless man, perfectly harmless,” Adèle insisted, “and if he remembers to take his medicine, he is a sweet, gentle man, but when he doesn’t have his medicine, he ends up pretty much incoherent. I have no idea what we’ll be able to get out of him.”
The officers stepped out of the car before she could say more. Their uniforms were torn and dirty. “What happened?” Adèle exclaimed.
“He attacked us,” one of them explained. “Snarling and snapping and trying to bite us. I’ve never seen anything like it. We managed to get cuffs on him and stuff him into the back of the car, but he struggled the entire way here. It’s like he’s lost all connection with reason.”
“Let him out of the car and step back,” Jean requested.
The officers looked skeptical, but Adèle nodded, so they opened the door, backing away instantly. Pierre’s head came into the light as he leaned forward, looking around like a cornered animal seeking an escape route. “Pierre,” she called softly, “it’s Detective Rougier from Château-Chinon. You remember me, don’t you?”
Pierre blinked a couple of times as if the moonlight was too bright for him before his eyes focused on Adèle. He did not speak, but he calmed slightly at the sight of her.
“Can you tell me what happened to you?”
With a wordless howl, he lunged at her, fangs bared. She stumbled backward, the heels of her shoes tangling in the hem of Raymond’s coat, as Jean grabbed the new vampire and pulled him off her. “Raymond!”
The words of a binding spell cut through the night, immobilizing Pierre in Jean’s hold.
“Are you all right?” Pascale asked, helping Adèle to her feet again.
“I’m fine,” Adèle replied. “Embarrassed, but fine. Thank you. Okay, somebody tell me what the hell just happened here.”
“He’s been like this since we found him,” the officer said. “One minute he’s cowering in a corner, the next he’s lunging at the nearest warm body.”
“He needs blood,” Jean explained. “He won’t attack Pascale or me because we’re vampires. He might go for Raymond, but he sees you as an easier target because you’re female. Or maybe because he knows you.”
“Will feeding calm him down?” Adèle asked. “I realize I haven’t been around a lot of newly turned vampires, but I’ve never seen a vampire act like this before.”
“There’s no way to know for sure,” Jean said, his mind racing. “When a vampire is turned, the hunger for blood is incredible. Most of the time, the rational side of the person can control the beast inside long enough to feed and sate the need, but that beast lingers, always looking for a way out. It’s one of the reasons vampires tend to be solitary creatures. One slip, and any one of us could turn into the same mindless creature that just attacked you. The older we get, the more control we have, but even an ancient vampire still has to deal with the impulse.”
“The hint of danger overlaid by the veneer of the strength required to control the beast can be very attractive, though,” Raymond said with a grin for Jean. Sobering, he looked at the newly turned vampire bound by his spell. “That doesn’t help us with this one. I can keep him bound, but that doesn’t solve his problem or help Adèle’s investigation.”
“And the longer he goes without feeding, the harder it will be to bring him back,” Jean agreed. “I suppose we could take him to Paris. If we keep him bound except for his head so he can feed and if we supervise him, we should be able to keep him from hurting anyone else.”
“This is ridiculous,” Adèle muttered. “Take him inside. He can feed from me. We already know he isn’t my partner, and if you’re both there, you can get him off of me even if he catches me off guard again.”
“I want to be there as well,” Pascale insisted, the idea of someone else feeding from Adèle enough to send a roil of angry jealousy through her. Adèle was her partner, hers to protect if something went wrong. The thought caught her off guard, but the sense of rightness was too strong to deny.
“Are you sure you want to see this?” Jean asked, not entirely sure of the wisdom of Pascale watching someone else feed from Adèle. He would destroy anyone who even attempted to feed from Raymond. Then again, Adèle and Pascale had not even begun a partnership, much less the sacred bond that linked him to Raymond.
“Yes,” Pascale said with more determination than she felt, but if something went wrong, she wanted to be there. She had no idea what she could do about it if it did, but she needed to know rather than pacing nervously outside.
“Thank you, officers,” Adèle said, taking pity on the two cops. “We’ll handle it from here, and I’ll make sure to note your dedication in my report.”
As the police returned to their car, Adèle drew her wand. “Levez,” she said, lifting Pierre’s frozen body and propelling it back inside before her.
Once they were safely enclosed in Jean’s office again, Adèle removed Raymond’s coat and the bracelet around her wrist. “I’m ready.”
“Not yet,” Jean said. “Let me get Sebastien and Orlando too.”
“Why?” Adèle demanded.
“Because I don’t trust this situation at all,” Jean replied. “Crazed as he is, I don’t know what he’s capable of. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“With you here plus Raymond’s magic and my own, I don’t see what could possibly happen,” Adèle insisted, but Jean was implacable.
After he had left, Raymond gestured for Adèle to sit. “Jean would deny it if he heard me say it aloud, but he lives in fear of his ‘beast’, as he calls it, escaping his control. Seeing a vampire with no control over his inner urges has shaken him. If the safeguard of a few extra vampires makes him more comfortable, give it to him. Even after two years, he forgets sometimes how powerful magic can be. He’s used to relying on his own strength, not on mine, even now. It isn’t worth the fight.”
“Very well,” Adèle agreed, glancing quickly at Pascale. She had thought the woman’s hysterics on their first meeting over the top, but now, seeing the madness inside Pierre and hearing that every vampire lived with that, controlling it constantly, she grudgingly revised her opinion. Pascale had not lunged at her wildly as Pierre had, trying to take by force what Adèle would certainly not have given willingly. Even in those first few moments in the tight confines of Adèle’s car after they met, when her lust for blood must have been unbelievable, Pascale had been upset, but not out of control, not like Pierre. Perhaps Pascale was not as weak as she had first appeared.
Jean returned a few minutes later with Orlando and Sebastien. “I made Thierry and Alain stay at dinner,” he told Adèle. “They wanted to come help too.”
“Thank you,” Adèle said. “This is already too much of an audience.”
“If he showed any sign of awareness or control, I wouldn’t do this,” Jean assured her, “but I wouldn’t risk a stranger alone with him as he is right now. I certainly won’t risk you.”
“I know that,” Adèle said, touched at the concern everyone was showing on her behalf. “Let’s see if this will help him. Raymond, can you free just his head so he can move to feed without being able to attack me again?”
“Let’s find out,” Raymond said, recasting the binding spell. The moment Pierre’s head was free, he snarled at everyone in the room, clearly focusing in on Adèle again.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Raymond asked.
“No,” Adèle admitted, “but I’m the only one here without a partner to protest if I let him do this. It’ll be fine.” She lifted her wrist to Pierre’s mouth. Even with Raymond’s spell holding his arms immobile, she could see his muscles strain as he tried to lung
e for her, to grab and hold and not let go. His fangs hurt as they scored her flesh and then plunged deep with no preparation, but she gritted her teeth and bore the pain. If she could help the usually harmless man regain his equilibrium, it would be worth the momentary discomfort, and if she could not, at least they would know they had tried. Turning her head from the sight of Pierre’s head bent over her wrist, Adèle met Pascale’s eyes, the hard expression enough to make her want to apologize.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. It’s nothing compared to what my partner did to me.” Out of habit, her free hand caressed the scars barely hidden beneath the plunging neckline of her dress. Suddenly lightheaded, she swayed slightly on her feet.
“Get him off her,” Jean snapped. Sebastien grabbed Pierre’s hair, forcing his head away from Adèle’s wrist as Jean supported one of her elbows and Pascale reached for the other, all anger gone as she hovered over Adèle protectively. “Sit down now, Adèle.”
“What’s happening?” Adèle asked, the lightheadedness continuing even after she collapsed on the settee.
“He took too much,” Jean explained. “Even with us all watching, he reached the point of his feeding being dangerous to you. Just sit still for a moment while I send for something for you to eat and drink. It will help steady you.”
“Did it help him to feed?” Adèle asked. “Did it make any difference?”
“It didn’t seem like it,” Sebastien replied as Jean went to order Adèle’s food. “We’ll give him a few more minutes and then see if he’s calmed down at all.”
“What do we do if he doesn’t?” Raymond inquired.
“I don’t know that there’s anything you can do,” Sebastien answered. “Jean might have some ideas.”
“If we can find out what medications he was on, maybe those will help him,” Adèle suggested. “The first thing we always did if we found him wandering around talking to himself or otherwise acting out of control was to take him to his doctor for a new batch of meds.”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Sebastien said, “although many substances no longer have the same effect on us they once did. Alcohol, for example, does nothing to our metabolism.”
“That’s not completely true,” Orlando said. “If I drink wine, it has no effect on me, but if Alain drinks wine, I feel it. Not as strongly as if I had drunk the same amount before I was turned, but I can feel it for a time.”
“So we would have to get the drugs into the bloodstream of someone Pierre would then feed from?” Adèle verified. “That could be tricky. I don’t know exactly what he was on, but I’m pretty sure they were some high-powered antipsychotics. Not something a doctor would prescribe for someone who didn’t need it.”
“We’ve talked about the idea of donor blood in other contexts,” Raymond commented. “If we had a liter of blood, we could possibly inject the drugs in the blood before he fed, but I have no idea how long it would take to get the dosage right or how long the effects would last. It would hardly be an ideal situation.”
“Turning him loose as he was when he got here tonight is no solution either,” Adèle pointed out. “The way he lunged for me, he’s a danger to society. He could kill someone without even realizing what he’s doing, and that would be detrimental to everyone concerned.” She rose out of habit, intending to pace the room as she worked through the situation in her mind, but she had forgotten the lightheadedness from Pierre’s feeding.
Pascale steadied her before she could fall. “You can discuss this later or you can discuss it without Adèle, but she’s about to fall over. Raymond, surely there’s a room where she can lie down for a bit.”
“I’m fine,” Adèle said, trying to pull away.
“I’ll believe that when you can say it like you mean it,” Pascale retorted. “I don’t know you as well as the others do, but they’re all nodding like they agree with me. Rest for an hour or two and then you can solve all the world’s problems again.”
“We had a cancellation at this week’s seminar,” Raymond interjected. “There’s an empty room right down the hall. You can rest there for as long as you need.”
“I’m not an invalid,” Adèle complained as Raymond led her and Pascale to the indicated room.
“No, you’re not,” Pascale agreed, following Adèle into the room. “You’re a strong, stubborn woman who obviously needs someone to look out for her because you’re too strong and too stubborn to admit weakness when it strikes. Now lie down before I make you lie down.”
Adèle almost asked how Pascale thought she would make Adèle do anything, but as weak as she was, she doubted she could even summon enough magic to cast a displacement spell. Deciding not to argue, Adèle subsided onto the bed, plumping the pillow up so it supported her back. Dressed as she was, she refused to lie down with Pascale present. She did lean back against the pillow and close her eyes, though, something she never would have done in Jude’s presence.
“I don’t know what he did to you,” Pascale said, breaking the silence, “but I’m not him.”
“I know you aren’t,” Adèle agreed, not opening her eyes, “but you have to understand that I won’t go back to the way I had to live while he was alive.”
“How did you have to live?” Pascale asked, hackles rising at the thought of anyone hurting Adèle.
“Always looking over my shoulder,” Adèle said. “Always worried about when he’d grab me again. He might not have turned me, because he had a reason to want me alive, and besides, wizards can’t be turned, but he didn’t give me any more choice than your maker gave you.”
“And you think I would do that after all I’ve been through?” Pascale demanded, beginning to get angry.
“No,” Adèle said, finally opening her eyes. “I don’t think you would intend to do anything of the sort, but you have no idea the kind of power a partnership can bring to bear. If we do this, it won’t be a matter of choosing. We’ll end up in this relationship with no way out. I’m a bitch on a good day, Pascale. Jude was a bastard, but I wasn’t any angel either.”
“Do I get a choice in this?” Pascale asked. “You just decide you don’t want this and that’s it? How is that fair?”
“You don’t even know what this is,” Adèle replied tiredly. “You’ve been a vampire for a week. You’ve never been around wizards. You’ve met Angelique and maybe David, Jean and Raymond, a couple of the others, but you have no concept of what a partnership entails. I’ve watched it take over people’s lives. I’ve watched them change in front of my eyes, it felt like. Maybe most of those changes were for the better, but they weren’t for me, because I changed too. When I think about how I acted with Jude… I won’t go back to that.”
Hearing Adèle admit to the kind of fear Pascale could not even imagine the confident detective feeling gave her the strength to close her fingers over Adèle’s. “Maybe I don’t know what it entails, but I know how to find out, and maybe this time around, the changes will be right. For both of us.”
Adèle looked down at the slender fingers closing over hers. “I don’t know if I can give you what you need.”
Pascale shrugged. “Let me go through the seminar first, and then we can discuss giving each other what we want. I’m not asking for a commitment, just a chance.”
“I don’t have any experience with women.”
“I don’t have any experience with being a vampire. We’ll figure it out together. I may not know much, but I’m not blind. I’ve seen the way the vampires and wizards around here lean on each other. You can’t tell me they all had it easy. They’ve made it work. Surely we can too.”
“Not tonight,” Adèle said, pulling her hand back slowly. “After you’ve finished the seminar, we can talk about it again.”
Pascale nodded and retreated from the room, leaving Adèle alone with her tumultuous thoughts. She must have dozed, because when she opened her eyes again, Magali sat next to her bed, a book in hand. A tray full of steaming food rested on the bedside table.
“You should eat something,” Magali said, not looking up from her book.
“How do you do that?” Adèle demanded irritably even as she reached for the tray. “You didn’t look up and I didn’t move except to open my eyes.”
“Your breathing changed,” Magali replied, looking up. “You’re in an even fouler mood than usual. What’s bothering you?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Adèle said with a frown as she started to eat.
“You’re a lot of things, but you’ve never been one to exaggerate,” Magali replied. “Tell me. I’ll believe you.”
Adèle considered refusing, but she had a lot of respect for Magali, and perhaps it would help to have the perspective of another female wizard. “I found a new partner.”
“You don’t sound like that’s good news.”