Unbitten

by Valerie du Sange

  “I’d like to sleep now,” she said, keeping her distance. “I’d like you to leave.”

  David’s face fell. Now that he had tasted her, he did not know how he was going to be able to stay away. He was nowhere close to being sated. In Jo’s case, it meant that his desire for her blood was now multiplied.

  “It’s not that I’m upset with you,” she said, not wanting him to feel hurt, or, more precisely, not wanting to be the agent of his feeling hurt. “Or, that is, I’m not upset with you-you. But this vampire thing–you’re going to have to give me a minute.”

  She smiled at him, a brittle sort of smile, and opened the door, noticing again this unexpected feeling–how much she wished he were not there.

  26

  Tristan Durant had known the phone call was coming eventually–someday–but somehow, he had expected it to remain in the future, and yet, it was happening now, today, and he had better pull himself together.

  One of the housemaids from the Château had called. She believed something had happened to one of the guests, a young woman, an American. Tristan had the distinct impression that the housemaid was bitter over something that had happened with David de la Motte, but that part of the call was a bit garbled. The woman liked to imply more than she liked to make direct statements, that was for sure.

  First he called Roland, bringing him in on his day off.

  Second, he called Jessica, who was back in New York by now.

  “Hello, my little cabbage,” he said.

  Jessica laughed the laugh of someone not awake.

  “I am sorry to call in the middle of your night,” he said. “And I wish, I deeply and dramatically wish, that I were waking you up in some other way than the telephone. With my fingertips, for example. Or my lips on your…” he stopped suddenly. This would not do.

  Tristan cleared his throat. “So sorry,” he said. “Your sleepy voice sounds so dear that I lost my place there for a moment. Actually, I am calling at this obscene hour because there is a problem at the Château, with a guest. There’s a possibility that it may have been a vampire attack. Roland and I are about to go out there and check it out, but I wanted to have a word with you first, and make sure we get off on the right foot.”

  Jessica sat up in bed, alert. “What do you know so far?” she asked.

  “Next to nothing. A housemaid called. She said there was a guest, a young American girl, college-aged, who disappeared but left her luggage behind. Then a day later, the luggage disappeared, but the maid could not find anyone who had sent it ahead or anything like that. She believes something happened to the girl.

  “As often happens in these cases, the maid seems to have a beef with David de la Motte, and that part is a bit confused. I don’t think she’s entirely reliable, or at least, she has some motivations that are not entirely clear.

  “In any case. Just to make sure. What kind of gear do we need to take? I am expecting this to be routine, at first, only trying to get an understanding of the situation, not attempting anything more…final. But of course we should be protected and ready for the unexpected.”

  “Yes,” said Jessica, agreeing with the last part especially. “You’re going to feel a bit stupid with some of it, at least I certainly did the first time,” she said.

  “Each of you needs a silver cross on your body,” she said. Saying the word “body” to Tristan made something happen in her own body, but she swept that aside, focusing on what she was saying. “The crosses are more powerful if you have religious faith, but they are not useless if you do not. You should have stakes with you, extremely sharp ones. Did you get that launcher I told you about?”

  Tristan felt the sting of having screwed up. “Not yet,” he said, in a small voice. “But if necessary, we can manually stake him, yes?”

  “Yes. It will help if Roland is strong too. It’s not like vampires take a staking without fighting back. And from what you said, David de la Motte is somewhat formidable, physically.”

  “It is true,” said Tristan. He didn’t especially like hearing Jessica talk about David like that. Feeling like a thirteen year old, he had a quick flash of being able to tell her how he had vanquished David de la Motte, and basking in her admiration. He shook his head quickly to clear it.

  “I know it seems practically medieval,” she said, “but that’s pretty much your arsenal, right there. If you can drag him out into the sunlight, all the better. And…”

  “Yes, chérie,” Tristan asked softly.

  “It’s important that if you do try to take David de la Motte down, that you have absolute privacy when you do it. You understand.”

  “Certainly, Jessica,” he said. “I would not look forward to seeing photos of Roland and me with stakes and crosses all over the internet.”

  “No,” she said, “you would not.”

  Tristan heard a rustle, as though of bedclothes or a nightgown.

  “Be very careful, my love,” said Jessica. “Vampires have survived so long, against great odds, not only because they are strong but because they tend to be quite crafty. Be on your utmost guard. And call me the second you get back.”

  They said their fond and increasingly warmer goodbyes.

  Jessica got up from bed, naked, and walked to her window. The lights down Amsterdam Avenue went in a long glowing stripe. She could see traffic lights blinking from red to green, the neon of the new bar a few blocks down. Some straggling partiers making their 3 a.m. way home, or to the next place. It looked lonely out there, but then, these days, anyplace without Tristan felt lonely.

  Roland arrived and he and Tristan conferred for a moment outside the gendarmerie.

  “Here’s a cross I got for you,” Roland said, holding out an elaborate and quite large Celtic cross on a chain. “It’s my grandmother’s. The one whose idea of decoration is bloody crucifixes on the wall by your bed.”

  “I suppose the best thing is to put them on under our shirts,” said Tristan. “I’ve got stakes in my briefcase.” He couldn’t help feeling like that thirteen year old again, like they were planning some game in the woods. It gave the operation a feeling of unseriousness, putting a pile of sticks in his briefcase. He was grateful that Roland appeared to have no misgivings, no hesitation in believing what Tristan had told him.

  “All right then. We ready?”

  Roland nodded.

  “We’re just doing routine police work this morning. Just asking some questions, interviewing that housemaid, possibly some guests, and seeing if we can find out where the American girl is. For all we know, it could be a false alarm.”

  Tristan felt a little funny saying that, because he couldn’t be altogether sure whether he wanted it to be a false alarm or not.

  Jo woke up and quickly put on her riding clothes. It was chilly enough that she could wrap a scarf around her neck to hide the bite marks–she arranged it as she was headed down to breakfast. She was starving, and she was looking forward to her coffee and throwing moderation completely out the window when it came to Marcel’s pastries.

  So David was, when you just came right down to it, not even human. Well, that does put things in a new light, she thought, wondering with a snort what Marianne would say to the latest turn of events. But in the light of day, David and his vampire story just seemed ridiculous. Just how gullible did he think she was? Is he going to be chatting to me about shape-shifted squirrels next? Pixies living in the flower borders? Trolls under the bridge in the village?

  She gratefully slurped up some coffee when it arrived, loving its dark, enlivening flavor. Two croissants, one chocolate and one almond, followed by a plain but delectably chewy roll slathered in butter, and she was starting to feel a little less drained. Being around David and all his drama–that’s exactly what it was. Draining. She shivered slightly, and reached for another pastry.

  Just then, Henri appeared in the dining room doorway wearing his sun protection gear. He looked around the room, pushing the netting back from his face.

  The gu
ests were few that morning, at that early hour. The Italians were nowhere to be seen, and the New Zealanders had already come and gone and taken off on a long walk. No sign of the family of Brits.

  Jo nodded to Henri, suddenly wondering–is he a vampire too? And what is that get-up he’s always wearing?

  Henri had worked all night, trying to bring order to the hurricane in his lab. Even though he was exhausted, emotionally and physically, he did not feel ready for sleep. What he wanted, for reasons he could not quite understand, was to see Jo.

  “Do you mind if I join you?” Henri asked.

  “Not at all,” said Jo, with her mouth full.

  She noticed something about his eyes. They were dark blue, the color of deep ocean, but they had glints of something else, gold maybe, that seemed to catch in the light and almost shimmer.

  “Of course you can join me, Henri,” she said, looking away from his eyes and back to her cup. “I am so looking forward to today. Drogo is in for it. Thierry and I have got the dressage all worked out and he is going to be put through his paces today, I’m telling you!” Jo’s face was glowing as she talked.

  Henri smiled at her and slowly drank his coffee. He didn’t even drink coffee, as a rule, and he was heading to bed soon, but he kept drinking it anyway.

  “When is the show?” he asked her.

  “Just a few days away, if you can believe it. We are not ready, Drogo and I. So I expect to work super hard today, and then leave him some time to rest before we travel. Traveling is very hard on a horse like Drogo, as you can imagine. Very hard.”

  “So you have forgiven him for abandoning you out in the forest?”

  Jo looked up and met Henri’s eyes, noticing those gold glints again. “Well, no, actually, I haven’t. It’s true, we didn’t know each other all that well yet when it happened. But still, he left me many miles out in the forest, as you well know. I’m not over it, no. I like my fellows to be a bit more dependable.”

  It was not lost on Jo that she was not only talking about the horse. She wondered if Henri had even known that she and David had been involved. She had no idea whether they were close or not–David had barely mentioned his brother in the time Jo had spent with him.

  Marianne was probably dying to tell me to get the hell out of here, she thought. Marianne was usually right. But now that the hold David had over her was broken, Jo was feeling a burst of lightness, of enthusiasm for her work, for her horse, and for being in France. She could see now that the complications with David had muffled her; she had been spending on her energy on him, and not getting any in return. She thought, not for the first time, that infatuation was a kind of drunkenness, and she just had to get through a short hangover and then she’d be done with it.

  If there was danger, well, Jo wasn’t worried about that. All she wanted was to finish shaking off the effects of the affair with David, work with her horse, and eat pastries. This morning she felt free and strong and ready to throw herself with her old excitement into whatever she was doing. The fact that the Château had turned out to be a nest of vampires, well–Jo cracked up laughing. She could not stop trying to come up with alternative explanations for David’s biting her, and at the same time, she admitted to herself that she thought the idea was more than intriguing, it was actually captivating.

  She didn’t know whether to believe it, or to be laughing her ass off at the joke.

  How many times in your life does your whole sense of what is possible get turned on its head?

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come see you after that…adventure we had in the forest,” said Henri. “I meant to. Sometimes I get terribly distracted with my work and forget things I really intend to do.”

  “It’s all right,” said Jo. “It was very odd, though, wasn’t it? So those women are neighbors? Do you know them very well?”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking,” he said. “They don’t invite us to dinner parties, if that’s what you mean,” he said with a twinkle.

  Jo finished up her pastry and eyed the last one on the platter. She couldn’t remember ever being so ravenous. “I hope it’s not rude for me to ask–are they dangerous? I couldn’t quite tell what they wanted from me,” she said.

  “Only sometimes,” said Henri, again with the twinkle.

  Henri had the oddest feeling. He wanted to simply continue hanging out there in the breakfast room with Jo, talking to her, looking at those eyes, listening to her laugh. He wondered what the hell was going on. He had serious work to do, a crisis to deal with, and here he sat, smiling at this girl and watching her eat a stunning quantity of pastries. What was he doing?

  He stood up abruptly. “Well,” he said awkwardly, “I’ve got ten thousand things to do, I’ve got to be off.”

  “But you haven’t eaten anything!”

  “Perhaps I’ll see you at dinner?” he said. And making a little bow, and taking one last look at her–how she eats! It’s extraordinary!–Henri strode from the dining room and back to his lab, where not only a huge mess still awaited him, but also the very person who had made the mess.

  27

  Pierre lurked about outside the lab, trying not to look guilty, or desperate, or any of the things he actually was, and he had one eye out for Angélique, because he was not in the mood for tangling with her. After Dominic and Maloney had left his hayloft, Pierre had done some thinking, and what he decided was that he needed some protection from those two. He sensed that they themselves were under tremendous pressure from whomever they worked for, and he understood–from experience–that serious pressure like that can lead a person, or a vampire for that matter, to do something…rash.

  As depressed as Pierre was, as unhappy and generally dismissive of his life, openly wishing it were over, when someone who might consider killing him actually appeared, he fervently wished to do everything possible to stay alive.

  He was not even a vampire, but Maloney looked like he could squash Pierre like a bug, if he ever had reason to, or could organize his thoughts coherently in that direction.

  It was early morning, a time when most vampires were snoozing soundly in their beds. Henri could manage with less sleep than most, and he had his protective clothing for moving around during daylight. Pierre had no such private technological advances, but he had found, in his solitary life, that not being able to be outside during the day was an enormous handicap–or maybe he just missed the sun. In any case, he had developed his own methods of protection.

  On his head, which had always seemed the most sensitive to sunlight, Pierre had put several black plastic bags covered by a stocking cap, with a layer of aluminum foil in between for reflective purposes. On his body he wore several layers of expensive long underwear, made for high altitude treks, that also had reflective qualities. The tricky part had been his face. After trying out many different things over the decades, and getting some bad burns in the process, including once nearly passing out which would have been quickly fatal, he discovered a clay facial mask for women that worked perfectly. It had the unfortunate side effect of making his face a rather startling color green, but it worked like a charm and left his skin feeling very smooth after he washed it off.

  He found some heavy duty, extra black sunglasses with side covers, also made for mountaineers, also very expensive. They worked all right, not great, but if he kept his eyes on the ground and didn’t stay out too long, he could manage.

  So what Henri saw as he walked up to his lab that morning was a man with a green face pacing back and forth, wearing far more clothes than the weather required, his head especially looking quite swollen, and his face–is that his actual skin color, or what?

  Pierre saw Henri see him, and he tried for the few moments it took for Henri to get close enough to speak, to calm himself, to gather his confidence. There was an instant of satisfaction for some reason when he saw that Henri had no idea who he was.

  “Marquis,” Pierre said, presenting a leg as if it were 1790.

  “Yes?” said Henri, stud
ying the strange creature.

  “I am Pierre Aucoin,” he said.

  Henri looked him over from top to bottom, slowly. He pulled a croissant out of his pocket with his gloved hand and nibbled on the end. “So you are,” said Henri finally. “Would you like to come inside?”

  Henri used the iris recognition device without a word, and when the door slid open, he pulled Pierre through.

  “Excuse the mess,” he said, going over to an alcove which contained a small sofa and a couple of comfortable chairs. He kept his eyes on Pierre every minute.

  When they were seated, Henri squinted a bit at Pierre. “It’s been a very long time, hasn’t it,” he said, holding out a hand to shake, then remembering he needed to take off his gloves, as did Pierre. Then they shook, and gave it an extra little shake, since they were vampires who had grown up at the Château, after all, and Pierre had known Henri since he was a child, even if they had not spoken in many years.

  “What is that on your face?” Henri could not help asking.

  “La Belle Visage,” said Pierre. “It’s 25 euros for a little pot. But it does the job.” He sat back more easily in the chair, the mention of the facial mask having given him a burst of confidence.

  Henri waited.

  Pierre struggled to get out what was on his mind. “It’s like this, sir,” he said. He was trying to decide whether to admit that he was the one who had trashed the lab. Should’ve made that decision before now, he was thinking.

  “It’s like this. I work at the farm at the end of the road, you know, sir. Just physical work, that’s what I do. I can’t say I’m happy in it. Or that my life…” Pierre cleared his throat and started again. “So what happened was, these two brutes from the U.S. came to see me. They want me to work for them, they want your…your information. The stuff you’re working with in your lab. Inventions, and the like. They work for some scary dude back in America. Not a dude exactly, a company, a corporation is what they called it. And I will tell you, Marquis, they are dead set on having whatever it is you’ve got.”