But Jo was in the tub, the bathroom door closed, water running. She didn’t hear a single word.
29
The bath was not as relaxing as she had hoped, and Jo still felt jangly and unsettled, so instead of going to bed, she put on some jeans and a warm jacket, and went out for a quick walk to clear her head.
Vampire.
Really?
That man is not going to turn me into a scared little bunny, she thought. These ridiculous games he’s playing? Showing up drunk? Pfft.
On some nights, Angélique had the Château lit up extravagantly, but not tonight. Perhaps she figured it’s too cold for anyone to be outside to see it, thought Jo, turning up her collar and pulling her hat down over her ears. Once she had gotten a ways down the path, the darkness felt almost complete. She could see the outline of the gravel path because the stones were light-colored, she could see vague shapes of shrubbery, but mostly she was aware of what she couldn’t see, and of the deep forest in front of her.
The grounds did not have the lovely and even joyful feeling they did during the day, but instead were tenebrous, even forlorn. The wind was high and biting on her face. Jo kept walking out of doggedness rather than enjoyment.
She did not hear the crunching on the gravel, the footsteps behind her. She was busy listening to the clattering of her own thoughts, dipping and swooping from one thing to another, unsettled, so that when Pierre, having spotted her on his way home, veered in her direction with the idea of a quick breakfast, she was unprepared.
Completely taken by surprise.
“I remember you,” Pierre said into her ear, after wrapping one arm over her chest from behind, holding her still, his grip like iron. “We got interrupted the night we met,” he said.
“Let me go,” said Jo, her voice confident and strong, no matter her circumstances at the moment.
Even though she had been totally surprised, and Pierre had the upper hand–to put it mildly–Jo was not scared. Well, no, she was scared, terrifically scared. But she did not panic.
Pierre pulled her in to him, so that her backside was pressed against his crotch and her back against his trunk. She struggled to get out from under his arm, but quickly realized that she was totally overpowered.
She would have to think of something else.
“So Pierre,” she said, forcing her voice to sound friendly, even just at the edge of sultry, but not so far that he would know she was faking, “tell me, you’re a vampire, is that right?”
He squeezed her tighter in response, and bent his head to lick her neck, but her coat was in the way.
“How did you figure that out?” he asked, his voice hoarse. He grabbed her hip with his other hand, and spun her around to face him, his hands digging into her flesh, his fingernails breaking the skin.
“I’m interested in vampires,” said Jo. “Why do you think I came to the Château?”
He rocked her up against his erection, then pulled away and looked down at himself. He growled. His fangs shot down and he bared his teeth so she could see them.
OK, I’m a believer now, Jo said to herself. I get it.
“What I’m really interested in,” she said, making her voice low, “is vampire manliness,” she said, and put her hand right on his boner.
Pierre drew his head back in surprise. He looked at Jo carefully, but as she began slowly to stroke his cock through his pants, his guard dropped, just a little. He could not remember the last time anyone had touched him, willingly.
“What I’d like,” she said, whispering now, her mouth next to his ear, “is to see it, Pierre. Will you show it to me?”
Pierre cleared his throat, which felt like it was closing up. The feel of her hand was like a sensational burning happiness, like her touch was spreading pleasure all up and down his penis and then to his whole body.
“Show me your stuff, Pierre,” Jo said, a little more forcefully, managing to make her voice break a little. I’m good, she thought, all fear gone now.
He took one hand off her, as a test. She did not move. He gripped her forearm with one hand, and with the other undid his trousers. With a little moan, he reached in and pulled out a hard cock big enough to make her gasp for real.
Pierre grinned at her reaction. This is so much better than forcing it, he thought.
“You smell so good,” she said, inhaling his scent, which was sort of cinnamony with a hint of lily-of-the-valley, a sort of confused combination.
“Can I put my hands on you?” she asked.
Pierre nodded, unable to get words out.
First Jo squeezed him and ran her hand up and down, until she felt Pierre give in to it, felt him relax somewhere down deep, allowing himself to enjoy what she was doing.
“You like to fuck humans?” she asked.
“Yes,” Pierre managed to croak. “I don’t know any labrim,” he added. “Females of my own kind, I mean.”
“That’s too bad,” crooned Jo. “Look at what they’re missing. I’m sure they would really appreciate you,” she said, slowly squatting down, and Pierre released his hand from her arm to let her go, to let her face, her mouth, get closer to where he desperately wanted it to be.
And then Jo had to decide how far she could go. And she decided–far. As far as she had to, to get free, to stay unbitten. She took the head of his cock into her mouth, and with her other hand gently cupped his balls.
Pierre moaned and let his head drop back, hardly believing his luck.
Jo gave a hard suck, and in the next instant, she squeezed his balls harder than she had ever squeezed anything in her life.
Pierre screamed, and Jo sprang to her feet and leapt back, out of reach, and then tore down the path, back towards the Château, not daring to look to see how close he was behind her.
He was not close. Hapless Pierre was curled up on the gravel path, holding his balls and whimpering, furious with himself for letting that human trick him, and furious that he had been this close to a blow job, a real one! and ended up practically castrated instead.
Tristan and Roland were at the Lion D’Or, the best restaurant in the village, lingering over small plates of flan, having just eaten four courses of exceedingly good food.
“The problem is,” Tristan was saying, “that I so dearly love the way they grill a steak here, that I feel compelled to order it, and never have the chance to taste anything else. That little pile of caramelized shallots does me in every time.”
Roland nodded. “It is a problem,” he said. “It is the same for me with the duck confit. In fact, whenever I go out, which is fairly often since as you know I am a bachelor, I order the duck confit. I cannot pass it by. So I am doomed never to know what other glories I am missing.”
“Exactly,” said Tristan. They had finished the flan and took sips of their digestifs: Cointreau for Roland, and eau-de-vie for Tristan. “So,” he continued. "Shall we have a few words about our visit to the Château? I admit I feel a bit torn, Roland. With those stakes in my briefcase, I sort of yearned for a show-down, a face-off. But perhaps that is simply the effect of watching too many action movies.
“I would like to know your thoughts,” he said, taking another sip of his drink and leaning back in his chair.
Roland furrowed his brow and pursed his lips. He kept moving the parts of his face around as he thought, which looked quite comical to Tristan but not so comical that he couldn’t hide his amusement.
“Well,” said Roland finally. “The difficulty is that there is no evidence. No evidence of any outcome, good or bad. We don’t know if Callie Armstrong went off, continuing her holiday somewhere else, safe and sound, or whether she…did not. It is curious that her bags appeared to have been taken after she was gone, but perhaps there is an explanation for that. It is possible that she herself returned for them the next day, and no one happened to see her. It’s not as though the Château has such tight security as to make that impossible.”
“True enough.” said Tristan. “Angélique, you know, i
s an old school mate of mine.”
“Yes,” said Roland, grinning. Or possibly smirking. “You were both some years ahead of me, but I remember Angélique, absolutely.”
“Yes. Well, so I have known her for years, since we were children. I cannot believe that if David de la Motte were routinely drinking out guests and disposing of their bodies somewhere on the estate, that she would cover for him. I just cannot believe that of her.”
“But she may not know what he is or is not doing.”
“Very true.”
The men sipped their drinks. They listened to the few remaining diners gather up their coats and say their goodbyes to the daughters of the chef, who did the serving.
“Excuse me for one moment, there is a call I should have made before now,” said Tristan. He moved quickly to the door as he pulled out his cell, looking for some privacy outside in the chilly night air.
Jessica’s number only managed a half-ring before she was on the line.
“Tristan! I have been so anxious to hear from you! Tell me what is happening.”
“Not very much, not yet. I am very sorry not to have called sooner. It was something of a letdown, frankly. Roland and I spoke to the housemaid and a few guests,we poked around the cottage where the girl stayed, but we didn’t find anything.”
“Did David show up?”
“No, no sign of him. But it was daylight, after all. Besides the housemaid, no one else appeared worried or bothered,” he said, thinking of Angélique.
“Well, please Tristan, next time don’t keep me waiting. I was picturing an all-out battle!”
“Oh, chérie.”
“If you do have a battle, I want to fight with you,” she said, her voice husky.
“Yes,” said Tristan. In his voice, his tone, he said a lot with just that one word. How much he missed her, how much he wanted her, how much he wanted to be doing all manner of exciting things with her. And she heard everything he said with that one yes.
“I’m at work, love, and I’m afraid I have to go back to the meeting I just ran out of with no explanation,” she said.
“Je t’aime,” he said softly.
They stayed on the phone for a few more minutes, not talking about work or vampires, unable to break the connection but frustrated, until at last someone came to find Jessica and she had to hang up.
Long distance love, thought Tristan, sucks.
He came back in and settled himself back at the table, finishing his drink and sighing.
“I’ll tell, you Roland,” said Tristan, his voice low. "We have no proof that anything at all happened to Callie Armstrong at the Château. I think Marie-Louise, the housemaid, is not telling us everything about her motives for speaking up–I distinctly got the feeling that she had some sort of crush on David de la Motte and that he had spurned her advances.
“Or something like that, at any rate. But nonetheless, I have a persistent feeling that something has happened. I have no evidence for what that might be, and no feeling about it either, only that we are not talking about a mix-up of schedule and communication. I am not going to be satisfied until we have heard from Ms. Armstrong, and she has told us she is all right.”
The two men looked at each other, and nodded agreement. The problem, of course, was how to proceed without startling their quarry. And there was a possible necessity to move quickly, since, as Tristan reminded himself, the only two options were not death and happily ever after. Callie Armstrong could be somewhere in the middle, needing their help, and needing it now.
30
David galloped down the staircase, feeling as though he were flying, leaping seven or eight stairs at a time, laughing so loud it hurt his ears. When he got to the bottom he stumbled again, catching himself on the banister.
So this is “drunk,” he thought. No wonder humans like it! He gleefully sailed out into the night, on his way to the lab, to share his conviviality with his brother.
Henri was in the back room where he worked with chemicals. He was wearing a protective lab coat, engaged in a particularly sensitive operation involving pouring a minute quantity of a liquid painstakingly distilled, drop by drop, into another liquid that at the moment had billows of fearsome black smoke pouring off the top.
He heard the banging on the door and rolled his eyes. Pierre again, he assumed, putting down the beaker and peeling off his latex gloves. He was not prepared at all to see David when he opened the door, lounging in the doorway like a prostitute, his pants half unbuttoned, with a most un-Davidlike expression on his face.
“What is the matter?” Henri asked, grabbing him by the lapels and dragging him inside.
David threw his head back and laughed. “Jo says I’m drunk!” he shouted.
Both brothers put their hands over their ears.
“You are yelling!” said Henri in amazement. Vampires, because of their noise sensitivity, are not yellers. They get angry, excited, scared, and all the other states that could lead a human to yell, but a vampire’s voice almost never rises above a certain level, simply out of self-protection.
“I don’t know why,” said David, giggling.
Henri leaned close to David and inhaled through his nose. “You do smell of alcohol,” he said. “Were you drinking wine at dinner? It smells like a red, a pinot noir?”
“A bit,” answered David. “Maybe a glass. But…” he dissolved into giggling again, as he did a little dance step in the middle of the lab, “…what I drank at dinner doesn’t matter. It’s what I drank after dinner that has put me in this happy, happy state of inebriation. Henri! I want you to try it too!”
“Try what?”
“A drunk man!” David laughed again as he fell into an armchair with his legs over the arm. “You know the British couple, Francis and Penelope I think they are, down in Cottage Six. After dinner, she went on ahead and he was sitting there on a bench like, like, like…a plump, tasty bird just waiting to be gobbled up!”
Henri squinted at David. A man. Really?
“First, have we not spoken about your leaving the guests alone? Second, a man? Why? Why would you do that?”
David was singing in Polish again, waving his arms as conductor, encouraging the brasses and using his palm to quiet down the strings; he was convincing as a conductor, you had to give him that. Henri had not had much experience lately with drunken people and he had no idea how long this would take to wear off. With an irritated sigh he searched his desk for his cell to call Angélique.
Angélique would know what to do. Henri needed to get back to work.
While he waited for her to answer her cell, he moved around his desk putting papers into files. Henri’s mind was logical and organized; his desk, not so much. Scraps of paper with important notes fluttered to the floor, an empty bag of Hemo-Yum was stuck to a folder, a sock was under a stack of test results. He sighed at the never-ending, hopeless job of neatening and straightening.
Just as he was thinking this, he heard a pop and a shower of glass rained down on the floor by the doorway.
“Sorry, errant thoughtburst!” said David, with a cackle. “That was so. fun.”
“Angélique, it’s Henri. Sorry to bother you yet again. We have another problem.” He glanced at David, who was upside down in the chair, his head almost touching the floor and his feet up in the air, still singing, and conducting vigorously with both arms.
“David needs a minder. If you could come to my lab and take him to his room, and make sure he does not have any contact with guests if possible?”
“What’s going on?”
“Oh, you will see when you get here. I don’t understand how it happened, but it appears that David is drunk.”
“I’m on my way,” said Angélique.
Pierre was not drunk, and his balls were feeling rather tender, but all things considered he was practically on top of the world at the moment, his prospects having gone from shit to gold quite quickly, thanks to Henri de la Motte. He was on his way to the inn to pay a visit to Do
minic and that idiot Maloney, a thick sheaf of papers in a handsome leather briefcase Henri had given him, papers that he and Henri had every hope would take Dominic and Maloney and their boss a very long time to figure out were not nearly as useful as they appeared to be.
What Henri had planned, in his meticulous way, was a sort of scientific booby trap. The Americans would use his information to manufacture their own bandages, and concoct their own version of Hemo-Yum, and the products would seem to work perfectly…until they did not. The bandages would indeed cover a vampire’s bite marks perfectly, and be invisible until the wounds were completely healed at which point the bandages would dissolve without ever being noticed. However, the vampires who used them often would notice a fungus begin to grow on their hands that was extremely difficult to get rid of as well as socially embarrassing.
Hemo-Yum would be just as delicious as the stuff made in Paris by PolyLabs, the flavors just as complex and appealing. But over time, the deficiencies of the recipe would become apparent, in what Henri hoped was dramatically and comically disfiguring ways–permanent hair loss, chronically bloodshot eyes, perhaps in some cases, green teeth–which would result in such a public relations disaster that the American vampire corporation might not survive.
Henri had hesitated a moment over his plan, not wanting to do harm to any vampire group, no matter how badly behaved. But only a moment. His next feeling had been a deep desire to crush them into tiny indistinguishable vampire scraps for violating his lab and daring to try to fuck with him. As for retaliation, he would deal with that when it happened, if it ever did. Henri wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.
But Pierre still had this little hump to get over, where he had to convince Dominic and Maloney that he had managed to get the right papers from Henri. He had worked up a story to tell them, and practiced it up in his hayloft, but he was nervous. The image of the labri, waiting for him, shimmered in the immediate future, and he did not want to screw this up.
At the inn, Madame was nowhere to be seen, and Pierre flew up the stairs and down the corridor to the Americans’ room without seeing anyone. The corridor had a distinct odor, the concentrations of generations of feet and armpit in a space that was not aired properly, along with the smell of dust that had worked into the cracks in the floor and along the baseboards and gone through a kind of transformation that Henri could probably express in chemical equations but that anyone could identify with a quick sniff: old, musty dirt, the slough-off of the innumerable strangers that had passed through the corridor over the decades.
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