Reluctant Partnerships

by Ariel Tachna

  “Constance is a doctor,” Raymond said as the woman knelt at Denis’s side. “She’s been studying how a partnership affects healing in injured wizards. Let her check him out.”

  Denis lifted his head, giving the woman access to Martin’s chest and neck, but he did not move farther away than that.

  “Renaud is the vampire we want,” Denis told the others. “I couldn’t go after him. I had to help Martin.”

  “He could be anywhere by now,” Orlando said.

  “You can track him,” Denis reminded them. “All you have to do is take a little of Martin’s blood. He fed minutes ago. Please, Jean. Don’t make me leave him.”

  Jean looked at Raymond for a moment before kneeling next to Denis. “I can’t. His blood would make me sick.” Raymond’s hand settled on Jean’s shoulder. Jean reached up and squeezed it gently. “I made a promise I can’t break.”

  “What promise?” Denis asked, looking from the brand on Alain’s neck to the unmarked skin of Raymond’s.

  “I need to take him to Paris,” Constance interrupted. “He needs a transfusion, and he needs it now.”

  “What do I do?” Denis asked Jean.

  “You let Constance take him and take care of him, and you lead the rest of us after Renaud,” Jean said. “You can’t help with Martin’s treatment any more than you’ve already done, but you can help make sure no one else is attacked the same way.”

  “Do it,” Denis said, looking at Constance.

  “You know how to reach me,” Raymond reminded her.

  She nodded and cast a spell, disappearing and taking Martin with her.

  “What promise?” Denis asked again.

  “Not all bonds are public ones,” Jean said simply, rising to his feet and offering Denis his hand. “Not all bonds need to be public ones.”

  Understanding dawned slowly. Somewhere on Raymond’s body, hidden by clothes or magic, it did not matter which, Raymond had a brand to match the one on Alain’s neck, proof of the Aveu de Sang he and Jean had made.

  “Let’s go,” Raymond said, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Alain and Orlando knew, of course, but he and Jean had deliberately chosen not to tell anyone else, even their friends. He had never envisioned a scenario in which they would have to tell a near stranger, but it could not be helped. “The longer we wait, the harder he’ll be to track.”

  “Can you sense him?” Jean asked. “I have no idea how monsieur Lombard did it except that he tasted Alain’s blood and led us to Orlando.”

  “It’s like a pull in a certain direction,” Denis said, starting toward the gate. He glanced at Alain and Raymond. “Can you keep up?”

  Jean laughed. “Magic makes ‘impossible’ such a relative term.”

  Denis had no response for that, so he led them out of the courtyard in the direction he sensed Renaud’s presence. He only hoped the vampire would not try to grab some other victim to hide his trail. Then again, Denis had not known about the ability to trace a vampire this way until relatively recently, so perhaps Renaud was equally ignorant and would focus on hiding on a physical rather than on a magical plane.

  They raced through the streets of Autun, heading toward the countryside that surrounded the town. “It’s going to be hard going if he gets out of the city,” Orlando said.

  “For him as well as for us,” Denis replied. “For a while, I could feel him moving, but I think he’s gone to ground now. If we can keep him from realizing we’re coming, he’ll have no reason to leave his safe place.”

  “If he doesn’t know we’re coming and we can figure out where he is, we can cast a magical net around his location,” Raymond offered. “We don’t have time to cast it so it only traps him, which means whoever goes after him will also be trapped until we release the spell, but you won’t have to worry about him slipping through your fingers again. Or we could wait for dawn to trap him completely.”

  “I defeated him once before,” Denis said. “I’ll do it again. I don’t need sunlight to trap him, and I don’t want to wait that long to check on Martin.”

  “And this time you won’t have to do it alone,” Orlando added. “And don’t argue. He endangered all of us with his actions. You and Jean named him extorris. I know he attacked your partner, not mine, but this is still our fight, all of us, not just yours.”

  “We want him to stand trial,” Alain added. “All any of you have to do is lure him out so Raymond or I can get a binding spell on him. This doesn’t have to be a fight to the death.”

  “And don’t argue,” Raymond finished. “Neither Alain nor I have any intention of watching our partners get hurt.”

  All three vampires scowled at the two wizards, but they did not argue. Denis slowed as he felt Renaud’s presence grow stronger in his mind. He zeroed in finally on a small hut built into the side of the hill. “I think he’s in there,” Denis whispered.

  Raymond and Alain nodded, moving to opposite sides of the building. At a look from Raymond, Alain began casting the net, sending his magic out to mesh with Raymond’s. When the two spells had knitted together completely and Raymond could feel Alain’s magic completely entwined with his, he gestured for the vampires to continue.

  “Renaud!” Denis called. “You’re surrounded. Come out now. If we have to come in and get you, it will go far worse for you.”

  “On what authority?” Renaud shouted.

  “On the authority of the chefs de la Cour of Paris and Autun,” Jean replied, his voice as harsh as Raymond had ever heard it, even at the judicium for the last vampire who had been declared extorris. “You’re wanted for questioning in attacks on Pascale Auboussu, Pierre Ganet, and Martin Delacroix.”

  “I don’t belong to the Cour of Paris, and I don’t recognize the authority of the usurper in Autun,” Renaud yelled back.

  “In other words, he’s going to turn this into a fight,” Jean said, barely loud enough for the others to hear.

  “Lure him out if you can,” Raymond reminded them, not moving from where he held the net in place. “We don’t want anyone getting hurt. You and Orlando could feed to heal quickly, but Denis is going to have to be careful with Martin for a while, and I definitely don’t want to open the can of worms that would be involved in getting Renaud enough blood to heal.”

  That last comment drew Jean up short. “Can one of you hold the net alone and the other get close enough to cast a spell into the building?”

  “Probably not,” Raymond said. “That’s a two-person spell, but if you can keep him from coming out the door, we can let the net drop and cast a spell in the window.”

  “Do it,” Jean said as the three vampires approached the door and the window to keep Renaud ensnared within.

  When Denis stood guard at the window and Jean and Orlando at the door, Raymond and Alain released the spell and started toward the house. The door exploded outward, hitting Jean and knocking him backward. Orlando lunged forward, blocking the way. Renaud plowed into him as he tried to escape, but Orlando grabbed him, pushing back against him with all his strength augmented by two years as Alain’s Avoué. He felt the brush of Alain’s magic as it surged around him and Renaud, the shouted spell betraying all the horror Alain felt at seeing Orlando attacked. Alain’s magic had no effect on Orlando, but it dropped Renaud to the ground, completely immobilized.

  Then Alain was there, his foot pressing hard on Renaud’s chest. “No one touches my Avoué but me,” he spat.

  “He didn’t hurt me, Alain,” Orlando said gently, stroking Alain’s arm before drawing him away. “He can’t hurt me.”

  Alain took a step back, enough to look around at the others. Jean had one hand cradled against his nose as he fed from Raymond’s wrist. “The door broke it,” Raymond explained. “He’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

  Alain nodded. “Shall I call Adèle? She’ll need to come arrest him officially.”

  “Or we can bring him to her, if that would be easier,” Raymond offered. “I still have my repère, so she could go to l’Insti
tut and then come here, but it would probably be faster for us to meet her in Château-Chinon at the police department.”

  “I’ll ask,” Alain said, taking out his cell phone. He kept his arm snugly around Orlando’s waist as he waited for her to pick up. He was not about to let Orlando out of his reach until Renaud was safely behind magically reinforced bars.

  “Since you have everything under control here,” Denis said when Jean released Raymond’s wrist, “I need to go to Paris. I need to see Martin, to make sure he’s going to be all right. Could one of you send me?”

  “Adèle will want—”

  “We’ll tell Adèle to come to the hospital to take your statement,” Jean interrupted his partner. “Send him there, Raymond. He won’t be any good to us until he’s seen for himself that Constance has worked her medical magic on his partner.”

  “Thank you,” Denis said, bracing himself for the displacement spell.

  Seconds later, he arrived in front of l’Hôtel-Dieu. Going inside, he gave Martin’s name at the desk and was directed to the waiting room outside intensive care. The woman at the desk assured him a nurse would help him find Martin’s doctors.

  Denis hurried through the halls in the direction she indicated. He knew Martin was still alive because his heart beat in time with his partner’s, but that was all he could tell. Finding the intensive care unit, he asked at the desk again.

  “Oh, yes,” the nurse said, “Dr. Alard said you would be coming by. Let me page her. She said you could visit the patient, but she wanted to talk to you first.”

  Denis paced the waiting room impatiently as he struggled against the need to barge past the nurses’ station and find Martin’s room on his own. He reminded himself that they did not want to keep him out. They only wanted him to talk to the doctor first.

  “Denis.” Constance’s warm voice drew Denis out of his thoughts.

  “How is he?” Denis asked without preamble.

  “Remarkably well,” Constance said. “Of course, the fact that you were there to feed from him right away improved his prognosis considerably. We transfused nine units of blood, which has also helped. We have him in intensive care for observation, but that’s mostly to make sure he doesn’t have any complications from the transfusion itself rather than because we’re worried about additional blood loss. The puncture wounds on his neck are of no danger by themselves. The other thing we’ll have to monitor over the next three days is his body’s production of blood cells to make sure his system is returning to normal.”

  “So what does that mean in terms of his recovery?” Denis asked.

  “It’s hard to predict exactly,” Constance said, “since usually when we have that kind of blood loss, there’s significant trauma to the body that has to heal as well, so that there’s the danger of additional bleeding and other complications. Martin doesn’t have any of that because of the way his blood loss occurred, so it will be entirely up to him. When his body is producing blood normally again and he’s past the stage of likely negative reactions to the transfusion, he can go home. Until then, he has to stay here so we can help him if there’s a problem.”

  “So you’re telling me I can’t feed from him,” Denis surmised.

  “On the contrary,” Constance said with a smile. “You have to limit what you take, but we’ll want you to take a few sips three times a day. The magic in your bond with him will speed his healing far faster than anything we can do.”

  “We aren’t really partners,” Denis demurred. “I mean, the first time I bit him was earlier tonight.”

  “Ah, that complicates matters,” Constance agreed. “He will make a full recovery without your help, albeit a slower one. I have no doubt of that. We can wait until he wakes up and you can talk before we add your biting him to his treatment regimen, if you prefer.”

  Denis knew Martin would not argue against it. “How long do you expect him to stay unconscious?”

  “Again, our usual experience doesn’t really apply here because his body has no trauma other than the blood loss,” Constance said, “but honestly there’s no reason why he shouldn’t wake up at any moment. You’re welcome to go sit with him if you’d like. It often helps patients regain consciousness if they hear the voices of their loved ones.”

  “He’s not—”

  “Your partner. Yes, I know. Go sit with him anyway,” Constance insisted. “You’ll both feel better for it. He’s in room 405.”

  Denis walked down the hall to the indicated room, pushing open the door and stepping inside. Martin lay quiescent in the bed, attached to a variety of machines, but from what Denis could tell, they were all monitoring Martin’s condition rather than controlling it. The steady beep of the heart monitor reassured him as it pinged in time with Denis’s own heartbeat as well.

  “We caught Renaud,” Denis said into the silence of the room, needing to fill it even if Martin could not hear him. “He tried to attack Orlando, and that was the end of that. I don’t need to tell you how Alain reacted. They’re going to turn him over to Adèle, so you have to wake up so you can press charges. We think he’s the same vampire who attacked Pascale and Pierre, although it will be harder to prove in Pierre’s case unless Renaud confesses, but we know he attacked you. I would have killed him if he hadn’t gotten away in the courtyard. Raymond and Alain wouldn’t let me later, but he had no right to put his hands on you.”

  Martin’s breathing seemed to speed up, so Denis clasped the wizard’s hand in his own to provide an additional stimulus and kept talking. “I spoke with your doctor. She said if you’ll wake up, you can go home in a few days. They just have to make sure you don’t have any ill effects from the transfusion. They had to give you a lot of blood, and apparently there can be side effects from that. The doctor didn’t say what kind of complications, and I didn’t ask. I prefer to think you’re going to get well with no problem. They think I can help with that if I bite you again. Not really feed from you—you’re still too weak for that—but just take a little bit, enough to cause the partnership bond to kick in. I told her you had to wake up first. I bit you once without your express permission to save your life, but I won’t do it again until I’ve had a chance to talk to you. I know you said you wanted it. I know you were angry because I wouldn’t bite you earlier, but that doesn’t mean I should take your consent for granted now.”

  Martin’s eyes fluttered open. “Granted,” he said, his voice hoarse. He coughed a couple of times, obviously uncomfortable.

  Denis squeezed his hand. “Let me get a nurse. I don’t know if you can have anything.”

  Martin nodded, the cough getting worse.

  Denis stuck his head out the door, flagging down a passing nurse. “He’s awake, but he can’t stop coughing. Can I give him some water?”

  The nurse came inside and checked Martin’s chart quickly. “A few swallows,” she said after a moment. “He isn’t on any restrictions, but we still want to be careful.”

  Denis poured a glass of water and helped Martin drink a little. When that settled his coughing, the nurse withdrew.

  “How much did you hear?” Denis asked, uncomfortable now that Martin was awake.

  “Only the bit about not taking my consent for granted,” Martin replied, his voice still weak. “Should I have heard something else?”

  “I was telling you what the doctor said,” Denis explained. “She thinks it will speed up your recovery if I bite you a couple of times each day until you’re well. I told her it would have to wait until you woke up and we could talk.”

  Martin stretched out his arm, wrist upturned. “I’ve been trying to get you to bite me for a while now. I’m not about to say no now.”

  Denis took the outstretched hand and kissed the smooth face of Martin’s wrist. “I think we’ll wait and talk to Constance first anyway, because I don’t want to do anything to set back your recovery. She said a couple of times a day, but she didn’t give me any other guidelines.”

  “So call her in here and ask,” Mar
tin said. “I want us to be partners.”

  “We already are,” Denis admitted softly. “You were dying. I called Raymond in a panic because Renaud had attacked you. He told me to bite you. Not really to feed, but to let the magic of the bond kick in until help could arrive. I didn’t want to do it without your consent, but I couldn’t let you die.”

  “I’m sorry I missed it,” Martin said with a crooked smile. “Call the doctor in and ask. I want to know what it feels like.”

  Before Denis could get up to look for a doctor, the door opened and a man he did not know came in. “Good morning,” he said, glancing at the clock to make sure. “I’m Dr. Périssé. Dr. Alard is off duty, but she asked me to check on you, since I worked with wizards and vampires during the war. It’s not my area of expertise the way it is hers. I tend to do emergency medicine, but you’re a case the average doctor on call wouldn’t know how to handle.” He picked up the chart and glanced over it. “You’re awake, so that’s a good sign.”