Unbitten

by Valerie du Sange

  She took a croissant to eat while she walked on the path to the stable, something she had learned was not a French way to approach eating, but screw the French way, she thought. She hoped she would pass some French guests or workers at the Château so she could glare at them, daring them to express any disapproval.

  The croissant was spectacular, like an explosion of crackly butter. Salty, with insides that were stretchy and chewy and warm. Jo stopped walking, and considered going back to get another one. But was she only hoping to see David? She wasn’t sure which it was. So the best course of action was to keep going to the barn, where she had no chance of seeing him, and do her job.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle!” chirped Thierry, when he saw her. “Lovely morning to ride, isn’t it? I thought I would see you early, so Drogo is saddled up and ready to go.”

  “Thanks,” said Jo. She went into the stable and stood outside Drogo’s box, waiting for him to bring his beautiful chestnut head over to her.

  “Hello, big boy,” she said, rubbing his muzzle the way he liked her to. “Hey Thierry, you have any treats around here? Some apples or carrots or anything like that?”

  “Drogo, his favorite thing is dates,” said Thierry, trotting back to the room that held bins of oats and other food.

  “Dates, huh?” Jo said to the horse. “What exotic tastes you have.”

  “Well, he is Arabian, after all,” said Thierry, already back with a handful of dates. “It is a native food for him.”

  Jo held a date out in the flat of her hand and Drogo reached his big rubbery lips over and snatched it right up. She could see the gratitude in his eyes.

  “Hey Thierry,” said Jo.

  “Yes, Mademoiselle?”

  “Why don’t you ride with us today? I’m going to the bridle path, not too far, just to warm up. And later I thought I would work in the ring. But I’d like the company, if you’re up for it.”

  Thierry grinned and took off for the tack room, shouting over his shoulder that he wouldn’t be a minute.

  David was in his bedroom, but he was not sleeping. He had called down to the kitchen and asked for some chamomile tea, even though herbs were known to have unpredictable effects on vampires. In moments of stress, however, David–and Henri and Pierre, and probably most other vampires as well–often went back to their old, pre-vampire habits, even though those habits dated from when they were children, perhaps centuries ago. And even though doing so often backfired.

  The tea did not turn out to be calming. He paced from one end of his bedroom to the other, his slippered feet crossing rugs and stone and more rugs. He wore a silk dressing gown that kept slipping open, revealing his muscular chest and flat belly.

  “Why in HELL did I leave Jo and go to the cottages?” he said out loud, not worrying that anyone could hear through the thick walls. “I have never even come close to drinking anyone out like that. Not even close.”

  David was thinking in many directions at once, looking for someone or something, anything at all, to blame for the situation he was in. And the irony was that all of the stress and all of the upset made him want to find Jo and bite her even more than before. If that were even possible! He had gotten it in his head that she would soothe him, that her blood would finally give him the calm he had always wanted, the peace, the harmony with the world. He was tired of always feeling so driven, never feeling satisfied for more than a handful of minutes before having to charge off to the next thing.

  Jo was the closest he could get to his beloved horses, for one thing. And her attention and her desire for him were so addictive; the more he got, the more he wanted.

  He flopped into his English arm chair with the moiré stripes. Gingerly, he thought for just a few moments about the hour before dawn, when he had taken the girl from New Hampshire into the forest and given her body to the witches. They had cackled like something out of a horror movie, he thought with a shudder. Or maybe cackle wasn’t the word. It was a bird noise they made, a terrible, predatory bird noise. He closed his eyes, wanting that sound wiped from his brain.

  His mother was the only person he knew who ever really had much contact with the witches. She used to go into the forest all the time as a girl, on horseback and on foot, because she loved birds and especially the birds of the deep forest. He wasn’t sure whether she had met the witches, or even known about them, before her husband had sealed her fate as a vampire. But either way, Antoinette, his mother, had made it very clear to everyone at the Château that they were not to be disturbed or bothered in any way, and left to do whatever it was they did in respectful seclusion.

  Which would have been fine, and was fine, in the old days when the Château was private and anyone who worked there was local. But now David had other concerns. He couldn’t have paying guests out strolling and running into them. He couldn’t trust them not to sneak up and try to pluck the guests’ hair or snip off bits of their clothing or any of the other socially unacceptable, not to say totally creepy, things he had seen them do.

  They had powers, he knew that much. He was afraid of them.

  And really, why was he complaining about them when they had just saved his ass?

  He had run down the bridle path at a truly remarkable speed. The girl’s blood had not been run of the mill, no. It had given him a surge like he had never felt before. He was already like a super-concentrated human–stronger, faster, more of everything. And the New England girl’s blood had pushed him another twenty degrees beyond that. Like something out of a comic book. His mind had been going faster than it ever had, thoughts upon tumbling thoughts, lightning speed, hyper-aware of everything around him.

  When he had gotten close to the hut he stopped and listened. He tried to think of everything his mother had told him about the witches’ habits, but he couldn’t remember much. He was intensely nervous that they wouldn’t be interested in the body. Or worse, that they would sound an alarm somehow, and the next thing would be Tristan Durant coming at him with handcuffs.

  But he needn’t have worried that they wouldn’t be interested.

  They were interested, oh yes.

  First, that wolf came around. A pet, maybe? He came up to me sniffing, and grumbling, walking around and around me. I think it may have nibbled a little on…something.

  David absent-mindedly took a gulp of tea.

  Can’t think about this anymore.

  I really should go talk to Mother. Someday very soon, I will go visit her, he said to himself, or rather lied to himself, which was a little odd since he did not fool himself for a second, yet nevertheless made the effort to lie.

  He walked over to the bed and stretched out, then pulled out his cell phone and texted his brother, not for the first time, that an absolute blockbuster moneymaker would be something to cure vampire insomnia. This not being able to sleep was the worst thing ever. Sleep was the only time he was free of the yearning to bite Jo, and he couldn’t get there no matter what he did.

  24

  Henri had considered going straight back to Mourency after his last conversation with Claudine. The idea of developing Hemo-Yum for labrim had so taken hold of him that he could think of nothing else. He was still struggling to understand how he had failed to see the most obvious thing, that labrim must always drink from male vampires, who generally did not like being bitten. Which meant that a synthetic product they could use instead would mean independence, and the freedom to live by themselves if they wanted to. It would mean many more labrim would live to adulthood–an untalked-about scandal of the vampire world was that so many young labrim starved to death for lack of any male willing to allow himself to be bitten.

  Henri could change all that. And possibly he could improve his poor mother’s life as well, if it wasn’t too late.

  He stuck around in Paris, walking the streets in his anti-sun outfit, attracting some attention but unaware of it, turning the problems over and over and upside down in his mind. Eventually he wandered back to Montparnasse and caught a train home
.

  He walked home from the station under a slight moon, just a fingernail clipping of a moon, thirsty, and very much looking forward to getting to work in his lab. He was so hungry and thirsty and work-obsessed that he stopped off at the kitchen and grabbed a bag of Hemo-Yum for himself, to have at the lab while he worked.

  “No dinner?” said Marcel, his face falling.

  “Not tonight, dear Marcel. I’m sure whatever you made is lovely. But my work –”

  “You are spending too much time with Americans,” Marcel said sadly. “They work too hard, don’t take time…”

  “Americans? I don’t think I even know any Americans,” said Henri.

  Marcel laughed. “Head in the cabbages!” he said. “You don’t remember the girl who was riding on the moped with you last week?”

  “Oh,” said Henri. He reached over to a basket full of leftover croissants and picked one out. “Yes, of course I remember her,” he said, with a warm smile. “All right then, see you later.”

  Henri headed down the path to the lab, eating the stale croissant without noticing that he was eating it. He pulled the bag of Hemo-Yum out of his pocket–Highland Lassie, another ridiculous flavor–stuck in a straw, and began to suck. At first he was remembering Jo, simply picturing her, how she had looked that afternoon, how her face lit up when she saw him coming on the moped. He dwelt on that smile for some time, smiling to himself at the memory. And then, inexorably, his thoughts turned to work. There were several especially knotty problems with the labri version of Hemo-Yum, and for some of them he didn’t even have a beginning of an approach to solving them.

  When Henri was working like this, his mind was so engaged, so completely taken up by whatever problem he was trying to solve, that physical realities such as where he was walking and the weather and who was nearby simply did not register.

  He did not see Jo coming the other way on the path, back from the barn. He did not think to put his Hemo-Yum back in his pocket before they met. And Jo, for her part, was exhausted from her long day of riding, eating lunch with Thierry while talking horses, doing barn chores to keep herself busy, and then more riding. She was walking along looking at the white pebbles in the path, her mind blissfully blank thanks to plain old tiredness.

  They did not smack into each other, but just barely.

  “Henri!” said Jo. “You surprised me!”

  “I’m sorry, Jo,” said Henri, putting a hand on her forearm. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was thinking some things over and lost track of where I was,” he said, a bit ruefully. Then he thought about the Hemo-Yum and rather gracefully slid it into his jacket pocket, hoping it wouldn’t stain.

  He made a mental note: work on bloodstain removers. Vampire market could be immense.

  “And did you have a lovely ride?” he asked, interested in her answer.

  “Wonderful,” she said, and smiled at him.

  He noticed that her green eyes were the color of the ferns in the forest. And that her skin was glowing from exertion. Without intending to, he leaned forward just a little, inhaling her smell.

  They stood there, neither one able to think of what to say next, but not ready to go their separate ways. They strained for words. But came up with nothing.

  “Well,” said Henri, finally. “I’m afraid I have to get back to work.”

  “This late?” asked Jo. “And you’ve been in Paris, is that right? How was your trip?” She rolled her eyes at herself for coming up with such lame conversation, but at least it was something.

  “Invigorating,” he said. “I love my work,” he said, looking into Jo’s face, and meeting her fern-green eyes as though he really wanted her to understand this about him.

  “Same,” said Jo, grinning. “I would be lost without my horses.”

  With that, the conversation sagged again. They looked down and Jo dragged the heel of her boot through the gravel, making an arc.

  Why is it that people can be so hard to talk to, even when you want to talk to them? she wondered.

  “I have so much to do, so I’ll say good night,” said Henri, “I’m off to the lab.”

  When Jo was well down the path and no one else was in sight, Henri carefully took out the Hemo-Yum and finished it up. Not so sure about Highland Lassie, he thought. It’s a little thin. Needs a bit more, let’s see, voluptuousness. Yes, that’s it.

  Jo, walking slowly, enjoying the brisk night air, wondered about that plastic bag she had seen Henri hurriedly shove into his pocket. It had looked like…no, that doesn’t make any sense. It must have been a juice pouch. Because what would Henri be doing with a bag of blood in his pocket?

  When David came down to dinner–cranky for sure, not having gotten anywhere near the absolutely required eight hours of sleep–he immediately sensed trouble. The guests that night included a couple from New Zealand who were ardent walkers, so they were gone all day and only occasionally returned in time for dinner; Katarina, the older woman he had spent a few nights with; a noisy family of Britons, whose myriad children did not get along at all; a young couple from Italy, who appeared to be in a constant state of arousal and who looked, no matter when you saw them, as though they had just climbed out of bed two seconds ago and were positively drugged by happy sex.

  Ten, altogether. They should all be sipping wine, nibbling on something Marcel sent out, laughing and talking. David was there to act the well-bred host, massage their egos, and take their money.

  But tonight, something was wrong. The Italians were heatedly talking with Katarina, and the New Zealanders had left their table and crowded around, following the argument.

  “I’m telling you,” said Arsenio, the Italian, “she was supposed to go with us to the cathedral today, and she did not show up.”

  “Maybe she decided the cathedral was going to be a bore,” shrugged Anne, the New Zealander.

  “Why do you say something like that?” said Marina, the other Italian. Anne made her angry. All that walking, just to end up where they started! The New Zealanders were idiots. Nothing but sheep in New Zealand anyway.

  Katarina, trying to bring the tone back to calmness and reason, said, “There are a million explanations for why she didn’t show. People change their minds all the time, they get side-tracked, it’s not something you have to take personally.”

  “I’m _not_taking it personally!” shouted Arsenio. "What I am saying to you people if you would only put your forks down and listen to me, is that I am worried about her! Callie Armstrong is not, what is the American word, a flake. We have made excursions with her several times, we have gotten to know her pretty well, and she is not the kind of person to say she will do something and then disappear without a word.

  “I mean, Santa Maria! She has a cell phone. Why not so much as a text?”

  David listened to all this with terror growing in his heart. Somehow he had convinced himself that if he just made the girl disappear, that would be that.

  But no, apparently, that is not that. Not at all.

  Callie Armstrong. Is it possible he had never even known her name?

  “Good evening, everyone!” said David, hoping that the utterly false cheer in his voice was convincing. “Has Marcel sent out an amuse-bouche, any of his sparkling little tidbits to get your appetites tingling?” he said, with an equally utterly false chuckle. He came over to Katarina’s table and put his hand on her shoulder. He felt a little better, just touching someone a little familiar.

  “These little crackers with brandade are possibly the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” said Katarina, giving him a wicked smile. “How does Marcel make it so smooth, the flavor so deep? It’s just salt cod, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Marcel is Marcel,” said David, smiling expansively. "His favorite thing is to take the lowliest of ingredients and make it taste like heaven itself.

  “Does everyone have enough wine?” he asked. “And the wine you have–is it to your liking?”

  David knew that almost all the tourist
s were a little nutty on the subject of French wine. They tended to drink too much of it, feeling that they had to indulge while they could. And it occurred to him that perhaps drunk guests, tonight anyway, might be less likely to make the kind of trouble he was afraid of. Trouble would actually be excellent, he thought, as long as it was something like someone tipping over in his chair, sleeping with someone other than his partner, or starting a political argument–the usual effects of overimbibing that they’d seen plenty of once they’d started having paying guests at the Château.

  He gave them all a beaming smile and ducked out, heading for the wine cellar. This, he thought, is just the night for a bottle or two on the house.

  The wine cellar stairs came up into a narrow hallway just off the kitchen. It was gloomy down there, rows and rows of bottles covered in cobwebs, some of them laid down by great-grandparents. And considering the lifespans in the la Motte family, that meant some very old bottles. Bottles with handwritten labels. Aged, ancient bottles that nobody really knew what was in them.

  It made David grouchy, being in the wine cellar. He still liked the flavor of wine, and the smell of it, but of course, being a vampire meant that he felt nothing when he drank it. No moments of euphoria, no relief from stress. He was amused by the pretensions of some of his guests, who went on and on about various wines as though the taste was all that mattered. It was important, no doubt. But when wine doesn’t give you any kind of high at all? Not really worth it. The taste all by itself was a little hollow, though he drank it anyway. Partly because not to would attract all kinds of attention.

  He walked down the rows, picking a bottle here and there–something good enough that the guests felt taken care of, but not so good as to be squandering money.

  Callie Armstrong. He shuddered again.

  Moments after David left the dining room, Jo appeared in the doorway. She had once more taken her time with her bath, her hair, and her makeup. She had the glow that comes from a day spent almost entirely outside, doing something physical. Her hair was in a loose chignon and some tendrils had already escaped, framing her face. A bit unusual for her, she had put on very red lipstick, making her mouth the center of attention.