Unbitten

by Valerie du Sange

  “Whether male blood is equally nutritive, well, we don’t have any proof that it wouldn’t be. Unfortunately we can’t set up a study with controls to get any hard data.

  “As to the female vampire question.” Alain let out a long sigh. “Honestly, I am reluctant to speak about it, because I am so uncertain about whether we are even on the right track. So much is guesswork.”

  Tristan nodded, showing encouragement and sympathy in his expression.

  “Let me explain for a moment how we think a vampire comes to be a vampire, because that is inextricable to the female issue. People have got the idea–from television shows and movies, largely, which is hardly any way to nail down facts–that you turn into a vampire if you are bitten by one.

  “Not so. And this we are fairly certain about.” Alain stood up and leaned his hands on his desk. “You become a vampire if you drink a vampire’s blood, not the other way round.”

  He let the words sink in for a moment before continuing. "So these families of vampires, like your la Mottes, most likely–when the child reaches a certain age, the vampire father would wound himself and have the child drink his blood, thereby passing his status to his son.

  “I say “son” because we have no evidence of this familial connection happening with daughters. Although it has happened with husbands turning their wives.

  “The twist in all of this is that female vampires, called labrim, do not drink from human males; they must, for reasons we don’t really understand, drink from male vampires. Whether this is the custom of the culture or necessary physically, we’ve no idea. But we guess the latter.

  “And despite their bloody-minded natures and their virtual obsession with blood, male vampires do not especially like being bitten. They prize their own blood beyond anything. They can be a little bit…prissy…when it comes to bleeding.” Alain looked at Tristan to make sure he was following all the detail, and not becoming sleepy from the big lunch. Tristan was hanging on every word.

  “That’s why the number of labrim is so low–because not many males will allow a labri to drink from them. They are afraid to.”

  “Fascinating,” said Tristan. "It’s true that the suspects in my village are all male. The incident that got my attention, before I had any idea that vampires weren’t just a silly myth, was an attack on a young woman by a man who works on one of the nearby farms. At first I put his strength down to being a farm laborer, and believed those extraordinary muscles had been built up from all that physical work. But the bite marks on her neck disturbed me. I tried to dismiss them as only a kind of play, the man wanting to make himself feel grander by copying something he’d seen on television.

  “But we got to the victim in time, and she still had some memories of the attack, which I understand is unusual? Anyway, she told me that the man had sucked for a long time at her neck. That she could feel him draining her.

  “She was telling me this in the hospital, and she passed out in the middle of the interview. When she came to, she wasn’t talking anymore. Can’t say I blame her.” Tristan stretched his legs and glanced over at Jessica, who had been quiet during the long post-lunch discussion.

  “Shall I tell about my first brush with a vampire?” said Jessica. She had brought her arms up to hug herself as though it were cold, even though Alain’s office was toasty and the radiators kept banging out heat.

  Tristan looked at her expectantly. He noticed he was having a jumble of nonsensical emotions–feeling like he wanted to protect Jessica from something that had already happened.

  “I’m a New Yorker, born and bred,” she said. "Which actually, considering the same is true for my parents and grandparents, is not that common. So many New Yorkers have come to New York to live from other places around the country and the world.

  “Anyway, my parents gave me a lot of freedom, a lot of independence. I rode the subway by myself when I was eight. I knew my neighborhood, the Upper East Side, backwards and forwards, every alley, every side street, every park. And while I applaud my parents for this, and understand that there was no way for them to comprehend what happened as a result, the truth is that all that independence at such a young age made me a little too cocky.

  “I knew about staying aware when I was on the street. I knew about keeping an eye on everyone around me; keeping my senses sharp; keeping to brightly lit, populated areas if I got even the slightest tingle of weirdness. But the thing is, I never did get that tingle. Sure, I saw homeless people camped out on air vents, and beggars, and even some lunatics running down the street yelling nonsense. But none of these people ever seemed even remotely interested in me.

  “As for vampires–no one spoke about them. If the subject was brought up, it was to mock anyone who believed they existed, the way a third-grader will mock a kindergartener for believing in Santa. Fear and denial make truth difficult to speak, no matter where you live, no matter how sophisticated the culture believes itself to be.

  “I started getting the idea–not consciously you understand–that I was invisible. That I had the run of the city, unfettered by the security concerns of regular people.

  “Oh, the stories we tell ourselves,” Jessica said softly, almost to herself.

  “I did have trouble, once I was a teenager, with men whistling at me and sometimes grabbing me. That should have made me less arrogant and more careful. But–I was a teenager. An idiot.”

  “I hope for Christ’s sake you do not blame yourself,” said Alain, almost harshly. “It is always the vampire who does wrong, not his victim.”

  “I know, I know,” said Jessica, waving a hand as though to sweep his objections away. "Of course he is to blame. But that does not mean I couldn’t have acted with more sense.

  “So, Tristan, one night when I was sixteen, I was going to a party on the Upper West Side. Friends had parents who were going away for a week, you know what that means for teenagers. I was especially looking forward to it because I had a big crush on a boy who was going to be there. I dressed for him, a tiny black cocktail dress with a plunging neckline. Serious heels. Lots of makeup and perfume, deep red manicure. I was trying to look grown up, doing the teenage New Yorker version of all-out for that decade.

  “But then I made a bad decision. I decided to stroll through the park, at night, alone, so I could clear my head and calm myself down. I had this idea of arriving at the party emanating cool serenity.” Jessica laughed at her teenage absurdity. Her laugh, to Tristan, sounded like the bells of a wind-chime. And he liked wind-chimes very much. As well as tiny black cocktail dresses.

  “I was on the path, heading west around 72nd Street, at about 8:00. It was hardly solitary, there were plenty of people out–rollerbladers, couples holding hands, men in suits walking home from work. I was thinking about that boy and completely lost any sense of my actual surroundings. I came around a bend in the path and got jumped.

  “He had me in the bushes with his hand over my mouth before I could even take in what had happened. It’s strange what your mind does at a time like that–I was having to argue with myself, for God’s sake, just to believe in reality. A loud voice in my head kept saying, this isn’t happening and I was having to tell that voice Shut UP!

  “Of course I figured rape or murder. There was absolutely no question of getting free. The strength in his hands–you would have to feel it yourself to know what I am talking about. It was like having steel handcuffs on. He could have broken my humerus just by squeezing, I have no doubt.

  “One thing I’m remembering, and I’m not sure, Alain, have I spoken about this before? He had a very particular smell. Utterly unusual, not like anything I’ve even smelled before. It was, I have to admit, kind of intoxicating. It smelled good.

  Alain raised his eyebrows. In fact, in their long collaboration, Jessica had never mentioned this smell before, not once.

  “And then, of course…” Jessica paused.

  Tristan was on the edge of his seat. So was Alain, though he knew what was going to happe
n.

  “He began to lick me,” Jessica said. “All over my neck. My mouth. He reached down and pulled my dress up over my hips–not exactly difficult with a dress that short,” she said, shaking her head. "Then he kissed me very deeply on the mouth. It wasn’t a violent kiss, it didn’t have anger in it, or hatred…it felt, actually, OK this sounds crazy…it felt respectful. Like somehow in that kiss he was making an apology for what he was about to do, and thanking me.

  “I don’t know, maybe I am just making things up after the fact. It was, after all, many years ago.

  “Then he sank his teeth into me and sucked. It hurt, but it was a pain that felt exquisite, in its strange way. I will admit, though I wish I did not have to, that his sucking put me in a sort of euphoric state, a dream-state, where I felt like I was drifting around in the most–I can’t explain it. It was something like being inside pleasure, instead of just feeling it.

  “I got lucky then. Who knows whether he’d have drained me to all the way to death. But before he had been sucking long, a frisbee came sailing into the bush we were lying behind, and three teenage boys came running over. The vampire leapt up and ran into the woods–and I’m telling you, their speed is so phenomenal, you think maybe you didn’t see what you just saw.”

  The three of them sat quietly for a few minutes. Tristan wanted to pull Jessica onto his lap and hold her. Alain was restless. And Jessica…every time she told that story, she felt more confused. The memory of the bad parts faded more, and the memory of the good parts–that smell, that feeling of bliss–were more vivid.

  She wondered whether she would ever be able to arrange being bitten again, in a controlled circumstance, of course. She told herself she wanted to do it for science.

  Of course, she kept that wish from Alain and from Tristan. She laughed a little to herself, just imagining what they would say to that.

  11

  “The guy’s a seriously late sleeper,” thought Jo, on her way to the barn having given up on finding David.

  Thierry had Drogo saddled up and ready to go. She thanked him and led the horse out to the block, gathered the reins in one hand, put her boot in the stirrup, and mounted up. Drogo tossed his head and stepped backwards in a little dance, wanting her to know that having her on his back was not necessarily what he was in the mood for. She would have to earn the privilege.

  “Come on, boy,” she murmured to him. “Settle your big self down.” She turned him towards the gate, and with one gloved hand she reached down and caressed his neck.

  “Pretty boy,” she said, “handsome boy.” Drogo stopped his skittering and calmed. Like a lamb.

  Jo had trouble with boyfriends, and let’s not even mention that fiancé who didn’t last a month. But horses? Horses she knew how to handle.

  Soon they were into the long pasture before the woods, and Jo had to hold him back so he could warm up before galloping. Can’t have our show horse getting hurt, she thought, trying to be careful with his mouth, gentle yet assertive, as they got to know each other. Drogo relaxed into a trot and they passed into the forest, autumn leaves falling around them and on them as they went.

  It was a true bridle path they were on, wide enough for a quite a few horses to pass, or a couple of carriages. Jo thought about how only a hundred years earlier, this would have been like a highway, the main route the families in the surrounding area took to visit with each other. Oh, she loved her cell phone and her internet, and a long list of modern technologies, but she would dearly love for horses to be the way everyone still got around. She wanted to drive a trap, a brougham, a barouche, a landau–every horse-drawn conveyance there was, she wanted them all, could imagine herself reins in hand, flying along the road, the sound of hoofbeats clashing.

  It’s infinitely better to have a mode of transportation you can talk to and have a relationship with, she thought.

  Drogo was feeling energetic. They rode for hours. Jo quickly got into a zone of not thinking, of

  simply being. She was very aware of the horse between her legs, his smell, and the oaks and beeches, the falling leaves, and the brisk air. No thoughts, only sensations.

  A few times she noticed horse droppings on the path, and wondered which of the Château’s neighbors had horses. She liked riding alone, and riding in a group as well–and she was curious about the local breeds.

  She was in tune with Drogo, so that when he suddenly pulled up, she did not lose her seat. His ears were swiveled forward, his head still. He began to sidestep although Jo could see nothing on the path to bother him.

  “What is it, big boy?” she said soothingly.

  He tossed his head. Bucked just the tiniest bit. Refused to go forward.

  Jo sat back and looked around. She was going to listen to him, not force him to go ahead if he did not want to, but she wanted to know what it was that troubled him.

  At that point the path was cutting across a small hill, so on one side it dropped down, presumably until it got to a stream, and on the other, it climbed. She noticed a very faint trail going off the bridle path–very faint, barely there, just leaves tramped down a bit. Jo hopped off of Drogo, telling him she would be right back, looped the reins around a branch and then headed up the path.

  Drogo made a sound that was clearly not a sound of agreement.

  At first Jo saw nothing at all but several massive oaks, their branches still holding on to their brown leaves. But as she got to the top of the small hill, where the horse had appeared to be looking, just on the other side, out of view of the bridle path, she could just make out an old hut, visible only because the leaves had fallen from the trees surrounding it. It was made of stone and looked to be only one small circular room. It had a sharply peaked roof, like a witch’s hat, tiled in overlapping slate.

  It looked…well, Jo couldn’t quite put her finger on it at first. It looked like it had been built for a very specific purpose. And she couldn’t help feeling that whatever that purpose was, it was meant to be secret. There were no dwellings anywhere around, that she could see. She and Drogo and that hut were very deep into the forest. Very deep indeed.

  The hill was steep enough that Jo had to grab on to saplings to get herself down to it without sliding. It was windowless, its walls made of stacked stone. The stone was thin and flat and grayish, but Jo’s knowledge of geology was zero and she had no clue what type of stone it was. The building looked very old. There was no mortar between the stones. The roof appeared to have wooden beams, but she did not see any nails.

  She walked around it, looking for signs of recent use. On the downhill side there was a small wooden door. She paused a moment before trying to open it.

  Is this a stupid thing to do? she asked herself. But before she answered, she was pulling up the latch and wrenching on the door, which swung open easily with nothing more than a creak. She ducked down and stepped inside.

  Jo figured the hut was at least a hundred years old, probably much older. But it had not been anything like that long since it had been used. The dirt floor was neat and there were no cobwebs anywhere. It was empty, as far as she could see in the gloom, except for an old wooden table. But she had the distinct feeling of a presence of some sort. Like either someone was around close by, maybe even watching her, or someone had just been here.

  Time to get going, she thought.

  When she had climbed to the top of the hill and begun scrambling back down, she looked for Drogo.

  Drogo was not there.

  Jo was dumbstruck. How had he gotten away without her hearing him? Was he frightened, or just impatient and ready to get back to the barn?

  “Drogo!”she shouted, knowing full well he was not a dog who would come when she called. She couldn’t help feeling a little hurt that he would take off like that without a sound.

  And oh, it was going to be a long walk back to Château Gagnon.

  Pierre had had to wait uncomfortably until the middle of the night in the trunk of the Americans’ rental car, until they were sure the
proprietors of the only inn in Mourency had gone to bed and they could carry him upstairs without being observed. It was boring lying in the truck. He wasn’t scared, because he was, after all, over two centuries old and no one had really hurt him too badly in all that time. He was only vaguely curious about what they wanted.

  What other people wanted had never been high up on Pierre’s list of things to care about, at least not once he had been turned.

  He did notice that the rope, this whipster they were calling it, was pretty interesting stuff. When he relaxed, it loosened. If he struggled, or even tried to adjust his arms or legs to be more comfortable, it tightened right up. It was sort of like a rope with a tiny brain, or sensors, something like that. Pierre was not exactly a science type of guy.

  Finally Dominic and the big man, Maloney, came for him. Maloney tossed him over one shoulder like he was no heavier than a loaf of bread, and trundled up some dank back stairs to their room, Dominic shushing them both the whole way.

  “MMMmmmff,” said Pierre, when they were in the room and the door was closed.

  “Sorry about that,” Dominic said, “All right now, you promise not to shout? I’ll take it off if you promise.”

  Pierre nodded his head vigorously.

  Dominic slowly peeled the tape from Pierre’s raw skin, ready to slap it back on if Pierre made more than a squeak. But he only narrowed his eyes at them, waiting for some kind of explanation.

  “Hungry?” said Dominic. He reached into a cooler and pulled out a bag of synthetic blood and tossed it in Pierre’s lap.

  “I don’t drink that crap,” Pierre said.

  “Really?” said Dominic, “Not even when you’re traveling, and you can’t find anything else to eat? Not even when you’re really, really thirsty and it’s been a long time between bites?”