Reluctant Partnerships (10 page)

“Would it help to talk about it?” Raymond asked. “I have a few things to do this morning, but nothing that can’t wait an hour or two. We could go to my office and hash things out.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?” Martin asked. “I don’t want to take you away from your responsibilities.”

“I don’t mind,” Raymond said. “Alain and Orlando can handle the morning’s session by themselves. They’ve done it plenty of times now, and while I’m slated to present this afternoon, I hope we can settle your mind in less than five hours.”

“I hope so too,” Martin said with a laugh. “I’d like to sleep at some point. Coffee and adrenaline are only good for so long.”

Raymond did not add his own suggestion for pushing his limits past their normal range. During the war, Jean feeding from him had often allowed him to stretch his waking hours into longer days than should have been possible, but Raymond had no intention of sharing his lover with anyone. Not that Jean could feed from any other mortal, even if he wanted to or Raymond agreed. The brand on Raymond’s back saw to that.

“If you don’t mind me eating while we talk, we can go now,” Raymond said. “The sooner we get started, the sooner you can sleep.”

Martin nodded and followed Raymond through the building to the director’s office that he and Jean shared, more because Jean had a tendency to end up wherever Raymond was working anyway. It had happened when Raymond was president of l’ANS, and it happened even more now.

“So what’s on your mind?” Raymond asked, taking a seat in one of the armchairs and gesturing for Martin to make himself comfortable in either the other one or on the couch.

“I read up on l’émeutte des Sorciers before I came,” Martin began slowly, “every scrap of news I could find. I studied all the conventional wisdom about vampires. I wanted to arrive having done my homework. I walked out of the session last night feeling like I knew nothing at all.”

“There is a difference between reading about something and living it,” Raymond agreed, “or talking with people who lived it. Thierry is quite a compelling speaker when he starts on the topic of the war and the desperation that led to the alliance.”

“Did Serrier truly believe he could establish and maintain a magical oligarchy?” Martin asked. “That’s madness.”

“No more so than Hitler and his Aryan race,” Raymond replied. “Serrier went mad before the end. I wasn’t there when he was killed during the final battle. I was elsewhere, helping Jean deal with a rogue vampire, but from what I heard of those final moments, there’s no doubt he had left the realm of sanity some time before. When he first started his campaign, though, he was using very different rhetoric. He started with the restrictions on the use of magic that many wizards felt—and still feel—are unnecessarily limited. By the time his madness became clear, a lot of wizards were in too deep to get out. In fact, I’m only aware of two who did so successfully. He killed the others.”

 “How to win friends and influence people,” Martin said with a shake of his head. “And the magical equilibrium was dangerously out of balance. You’d think wizards from other countries would have noticed and helped.”

“I have a theory on that,” Raymond said, “although I have no real way of testing it. The local equilibrium was completely haywire, but I’m not sure how widespread that was outside of France other than the typhoon that hit la Réunion. I was too busy at the time fighting a war to check beyond that, and now it’s too late. And honestly, the last thing we wanted was to drag more wizards into our fight, because we risked losing as many to Serrier as we recruited to our side. We needed local people who we could convince of the negative ramifications of Serrier winning. The vampires were the logical choice.”

“Why?”

“In hindsight, the answer to that is why we’re here, but we didn’t know any of that at the time,” Raymond said with a laugh. “At the time, we had to weigh the weaknesses of each of the magical races against their strengths. Vampires are limited by daylight unless they have a wizard partner—something else we didn’t know at the time—but they are fast, strong, ruthless, and most importantly, they were willing to help us.”

“The vampires during the session didn’t seem particularly trusting,” Martin observed. “How in the world did you convince them to help?”

“Chance, mostly,” Raymond admitted. “If Marcel—Général Chavinier, the former president of l’ANS, leader of the Milice de Sorcellerie, and the man for whom l’Institut is named—if Marcel had chosen a different emissary, I don’t know that we would have been successful. For that matter, I don’t know if the alliance would have happened if Jean had sent someone else to the meeting. Alain and Orlando met the first time, Orlando tasted Alain’s blood to verify he was telling the truth, and the rest is history. Their instant connection to each other gave them each the incentive to press for cooperation, not just initially, but for weeks into the alliance. I can’t count the number of times Orlando, especially, shouted that we would never be successful if we fought each other instead of fighting Serrier.”

“So they knew they were partners immediately?” Martin verified.

“Not in those terms,” Raymond replied. “You have to remember we didn’t know anything about the magical exchange we’ve dubbed a partnership. We went looking for allies in a war. We found them, but we found so much more as well. Even now, two years later, we’re still discovering ramifications of the relationships we created. At the time, we knew nothing. Orlando knew he felt something special when he fed from Alain. Alain knew he felt more than he could have imagined possible when Orlando bit him. That led them to make a commitment to each other, the Aveu de Sang we mentioned last night, but we still had no idea what the lesser partnership commitment involved. The Aveu de Sang was between them. It was only later, as the partnerships spread and began to deepen, that we realized there was far more to a partnership than the exchange of blood and the protection from sunlight for the vampires.”

“Within months of forming the alliance, Serrier was dead and the Milice was victorious,” Martin commented. “There was obviously a whole lot more going on beneath the surface.”

“We didn’t realize it until nearly the last days of the war, but every wizard with a partner was getting stronger every time his vampire fed,” Raymond explained. “We knew about the short-term effects before then, but not that it was cumulative. By the time the war ended, that increase had been going on for months. Serrier was still a powerful wizard, but alone, he couldn’t have stood against any pair. He certainly couldn’t stand against Marcel and his partner.”

“I didn’t realize the general had a partner,” Martin interrupted.

“He does and he doesn’t,” Raymond explained. “There is a vampire who could be his partner, but that vampire lives in seclusion and chooses not to feed from Marcel. He was at the final battle, though, augmenting Marcel’s strength as he faced Serrier.”

“So it is possible to have a partnership and not have it take over your life,” Martin said.

“Maybe,” Raymond replied, “but they spent a matter of hours together. Monsieur Lombard fed twice, maybe three times in that span of time. To my knowledge, while they still meet to discuss politics and who knows what else, there has been no exchange of blood between them since then. While Alain and Orlando’s bond was instantaneous, that doesn’t always seem to be the case. Certainly the bond grows stronger with repeated exposure. Even most of us who have embraced our partners now took more than a few days—and a few feedings—to make that decision. Marcel may see his partner on a regular basis, but without the exchange of blood, there’s no exchange of magic and nothing to strengthen the bond.”

“So does the bond fade over time if the partners are separated?” Martin asked.

“The only case of separation we’re aware of was Adèle Rougier and her partner Jude Leighton,” Raymond said. “Adèle chose not to continue their partnership after the war ended, a decision Jude did not agree with. By the time the war ended, though, their partnership had formed, however imperfectly. Leighton was destroyed in an accident at l’Institut six months ago, but at the time, he showed no lessening of interest in Adèle. She refuses to talk about her relationship with him, and since it’s no longer an issue, I haven’t forced the matter.”

“That could be something worth investigating,” Martin mused aloud.

“I know of one other pair that would be willing to be separated,” Raymond offered, “if that’s what you decide you want to look into. Another option would be to work on the increase in magical strength. We have intake numbers for wizards who have been through the seminar here, and we have post-war numbers for the wizards who formed their partnerships during the alliance. We have no idea what the limits are, or indeed if there are limits or other parameters for the increases. We haven’t had time to examine the data we have, much less set up any active experiments to test it.”

A yawn forestalled Martin’s answer. “Perhaps I should get some sleep and think some more about it later,” he said. “I’ll leave you to your day. I’m hoping a short nap will set me right and I can attend the afternoon session with the wizards, since I haven’t met any of them yet.”

“Sleep well,” Raymond said, “and I’ll look for you this afternoon.”

Martin nodded and left Raymond alone in his office.

Raymond finished his coffee and picked up the phone to call Fabienne, his former assistant, who worked for Anne-Marie Valour now. She would understand the importance of his call and find a way to work him into the president’s busy schedule.

Chapter 6

D
ENIS
waited in the shadows outside the musée Rolin, where he had directed the other vampires in the Cour to meet. Autun was not a large city, not by Parisian standards, and the Cour was similarly small, but while Denis could have invited the full complement of vampires to his home, he wanted the more formal setting for a meeting of such importance. At barely ninety years old, he was little more than a baby in the eyes of many vampires. His successful bid to take the Cour d’Autun from a much older, established vampire mitigated his age to a certain extent, but only to a certain extent. Only time and effective leadership would do the rest. Time he did not have at the moment.

To that end, he had taken great pains with his appearance tonight, doing everything he could to play down his age and highlight his authority. The black three-piece suit he wore fit perfectly, the austere lines making him appear taller, the somber color and conservative cut a throwback to the time of his turning but also a subtle declaration of his authority. He kept his black hair short, slicked into submission rather than tumbled around his face as it would be if he let it grow. The look appealed at times, but not when he faced a possibly hostile Cour. Tonight it was all about control of himself and of the others.

He kept count as the vampires slowly arrived. He did not expect all forty members of the Cour to attend, but he hoped for a majority at least. When the count reached twenty-eight and he saw no one else moving in the night, he made his entrance. Never mind that he had arrived well before any of them. He was the chef de la Cour. Le Jeu des Cours dictated he wait for no one.

The other vampires stood in groups of twos and threes around the room, mostly in silence. They turned as Denis walked to the front of the room. He faced them, keenly aware of his youthful appearance and relatively young age, but they had chosen to put their trust in him six months ago when he had challenged Renaud for leadership of the Cour. He would have to hope that trust continued a little longer.

“Bonsoir, chers amis,” Denis said by way of greeting. “Thank you for coming out tonight with as little explanation as I provided. I know you have little reason to trust my leadership yet, but I would not have convened the Cour if it weren’t a matter of importance.” He was taking a risk, acknowledging the short duration of his tenure as chef de la Cour, but it was on everyone’s mind, he was certain. If he put it out in the open, they could not blindside him with it later.

“I received a call last night from Jean Bellaiche, the chef de la Cour of Paris, who is, as some of you know, very involved with l’Institut Marcel Chavinier in Dommartin. He called because he had gotten word of a newly turned vampire from Château-Chinon.”

“You summoned us to tell us there’s a new vampire?” Auguste Chambertin, one of the prickliest vampires in Autun, demanded. Denis had known to expect a challenge from that quarter. Auguste had challenged Renaud the same way every time the Cour gathered. The vampire did not want to be chef de la Cour himself, but he had no patience for any other leader either. “What a waste of time!”

“No, I summoned you because the new vampire was turned against her will,” Denis replied, keeping his voice level despite the roil of anger at being challenged so soon. Expecting it did not make it any easier when it happened. He knew the way le Jeu des Cours worked. He had used it on Renaud, challenging him subtly in gatherings such as this, slowly undermining his authority until he was positioned within the eyes of the Cour as the logical successor for a man who had lost their confidence. Now he had to play the game to keep his position, and any show of anger or discomfiture would weaken him in the eyes of his peers. “She didn’t see her attacker, and I am not accusing any of you, before you jump to another false conclusion. However, the actions of the vampire who did turn her put us all at risk. I’m not asking any of you to account for your whereabouts Sunday evening. I’m not investigating the crime because that is the purview of the local police, who have been notified and who are working on the case. If they come to me for more assistance than I’ve already given, though, I will give them all the information in my possession.”

“What are you threatening?”

“Absolutely nothing if you weren’t the one to turn Pascale Auboussu against her will,” Denis replied, keeping his smile as hidden as he had his anger. If they felt threatened, then they still recognized his authority. By the time Denis had challenged Renaud, the former chef de la Cour had resorted to wild threats of banishment or worse for anyone who did not follow his dictates. Army experience aside, Denis had never been one to yield easily to orders. “The vampire who did this is
extorris
, which is what I summoned you to announce. By his actions, he endangered not only the vampire he turned and abandoned, but also all vampires who do their best to function as law-abiding citizens. Bellaiche will make the same announcement to his Cour in Paris, although suspicion is far more likely to fall on us than on his Cour simply because of proximity. Our hope is that other chefs de la Cour will make the same announcement as well, but our decision stands regardless of their action or inaction on the matter. If a detective comes to ask you questions, I suggest you cooperate. Human justice may be less harsh than vampire justice, but they are far pickier about what you do to begin with.”