Perilous Partnership (27 page)

“Raymond is many things, but before he was anything else, he was a researcher and a historian. If anyone can make this happen, it will be him,”

Magali replied. “How would you feel about me coming down to help with the seminars during the day? I could commute and come home each night, so you could still feed as often as you needed to.”

Luc‟s eyes narrowed, making Magali wonder if she would have a fight on her hands, but the vampire subsided after a moment. “As long as you are there when I need to feed, the rest of your time is your own. I told you that from the beginning.”

They pulled up next to the grange and parked. “Shall we see what‟s going on inside? Raymond said they would have rooms for us in the abbot‟s house.”

Luc nodded and took both suitcases from the trunk, carrying them toward the abbot‟s lodge. Magali rolled her eyes at his typical insistence on showing off. She grabbed her purse and the smaller bag and followed him, observing all the changes since the last time she had been there. The hole in the outer wall had been repaired completely as far as she could tell, and several of the markers on the exterior walls of the main building and abbot‟s house were gone as well.

“It looks like they‟re making good progress,” she commented. “I‟m going to take a quick walk around. I don‟t like not knowing the lay of the land. Can you carry these inside as well?”

Luc grunted his reply and took the extra load. He did not claim to understand all of his partner‟s quirks, but he had come to accept them over the past year. She had spent too long as a lone agent, the cleanup crew after a battle ended, to feel secure in an unfamiliar location until she had personally ensured their safety.

Magali started at the grange, walking the perimeter of the wards, inspecting them as carefully as she inspected the buildings themselves. She recognized Adèle‟s handiwork, which reassured her. She had not kept in touch with the other wizard after the war ended, so she had not realized Raymond was still in touch with her or that he had called on her to do the security of l‟Institut. As she rounded the far corner of the compound, she smiled to see the object of her

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thoughts standing on the bank of the lake. “Adèle, what are you doing here so late?”

“I have a day job,” Adèle said with a smile, crossing to Magali‟s side and kissing both her cheeks in welcome. “I didn‟t get off work until about an hour ago. I figured I‟d come here and take care of this first and then I could relax and think about some dinner.”

“I haven‟t eaten either,” Magali said. “Luc and I were going to drive into Dommartin and see what we could find after we got settled in the abbot‟s house. Would you like to come with us?”

“If you don‟t mind waiting,” Adèle said. “I have another half hour‟s work here, probably, but you don‟t really want to go into Dommartin for dinner. If you‟re going to drive, you may as well go the extra ten minutes into Château-Chinon. You‟ll have far more choice and a far better meal.”

“We can wait,” Magali said. “Come find us when you‟re done. Unless you need some help here?”

Adèle shook her head. “It‟s honestly easier to do it myself. Then I don‟t have to worry about anyone else‟s magical resonances clashing with mine. It‟s bad enough Eric worked on them when the wall fell in.”

“Then I‟ll let you work. Come get us when you‟re ready to go.”

Alone again, Adèle turned her attention back to what she was doing, not entirely sure she wanted to spend an evening with a vampire-wizard pair. She had enough trouble with the longings she could not completely smother without having to watch people who had the kind of bond she had dreamed of and had been denied through her partner‟s irascibility.

Finished with the wards along the lake, Adèle stepped around the outer wall so she could reinforce the wards where the collapse had occurred. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the spell, picturing in her mind the layers of protection that would stop intruders, alert a wizard of someone‟s presence, and sound an alarm if magic troubled the wards.

The feeling of hands around her neck startled her out of her trance.

Immediately she cast a stun spell on her unseen attacker, but the hands did not loosen. Cursing under her breath, she fell back on her police training, but the grip did not falter. “Hello, pussy.”

Adèle cursed again when she recognized the hateful voice. Somehow Jude had found her. His hands tightened even more, cutting off her air. She relaxed in his grip, hoping he would not squeeze her throat until she lost consciousness.

She could feel her vision blackening around the edges when his grip finally loosened a little. He chose that moment to puncture her neck with his fangs.

She cried out sharply but did not struggle. She needed to lull him into complacency so she could get away.

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One hand still on her throat, he moved the other hand to the front of her coat, opening the buttons so he could get to the body beneath. His fingers burrowed beneath the hem of her sweater, uncaring that the motion bared her skin to the frigid air as he sought the swell of her breasts. Biding her time, Adèle flicked her wand toward the wards, hoping the disturbance would alert Magali. Adèle was not particularly thrilled about the other woman seeing her pinned by her partner, but she was even less comfortable with what she knew Jude would do if she did not escape.

Jude‟s fangs left her neck, but his grip tightened again. “You have been a very bad girl, pussy, running away like you did.” His fingers pulled the cup of her bra away from her skin, pinching roughly at her nipple. “You need to be taught a lesson about denying me what I want. I‟m looking forward to teaching you.” He released her neck, grabbing her hair and pulling her toward the woods.

Taking advantage of having her breath back, Adèle cast a displacement spell, fleeing to the safety of home.

“Hey! What are you doing here?”

The disappearance of the woman in his arms and the shouted question left Jude cursing. He turned to spring toward the woods and the car he had hidden there, but a spell caught him, sending him to the ground, unable to move.

“Who are you and what did you do with Adèle?”

Jude held his tongue until another person joined the woman demanding answers.

“Jude Leighton,” the vampire said. “I should have known you‟d come sniffing around.”

“You know him?” Magali asked.

“Adèle‟s partner, or former partner, since she chose to come out here instead of staying in Paris,” Luc replied. “You remember him from the Piège-Pouvoir.”

Now that Luc had refreshed her memory, Magali remembered the incident clearly. In the middle of a powerful and dangerous spell to ground the wild magic that had escaped a Rite d‟équilibrage, the vampire had started groping Adèle, causing her to nearly lose control of her magic and burn both of them.

“What are you doing here?” Magali demanded.

Jude did not answer.

Scowling, Magali knelt down next to the prone vampire, her wand pressed to his breastbone. “You listen to me, vampire. You‟re used to dealing with Marcel and Raymond and the others. They have scruples. I don‟t. I don‟t have any qualms about using magic on you until you tell me what I want to know,

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and I can do it without leaving a single trace. And before you look to Luc, he‟ll turn a blind eye to what I‟m doing because he‟s as addicted to my blood as you are to Adèle‟s.” She sent a small tendril of magic through her wand, constricting his breathing. “Are you ready to talk to me?”

Jude nodded.

“Where‟s Adèle?”

“She disappeared,” Jude gasped. “It‟s been over a year. I just want what‟s mine. You don‟t keep your partner from feeding. What gives her the right to deny me?”

“The fact that you treat her like she‟s worthless chattel,” Luc said. “I‟d say that gives her every right to do far more than simply leave. I‟m pretty sure she could have you tossed in jail for assault.”

“Stupid slut. She wanted it. I could taste it in her blood. She likes it when I‟m rough.”

“It will be your word against hers, and every woman on the jury would listen to the abusive way you talk about her and condemn you for that alone,”

Magali insisted. “I have no idea how you got here, but I know how you‟re leaving. Luc, if you‟ll excuse us for a few minutes, I need to take out the trash.”

Jude started to protest, but Magali extended her binding spell so he could not speak. With a wave of her wand, she displaced them both to Paris and the offices of l‟ANS. “I‟m sorry to arrived unannounced,” she said to Fabienne, “but I need to see Raymond and Jean.”

“What‟s going on?” Fabienne asked, picking up the phone to buzz Jean‟s office.

“Leighton came skulking around l‟Institut and attacked Adèle,” Magali said.

Fabienne‟s eyes narrowed. “Where is he now?”

“In the hallway where I left him.”

“Good,” Fabienne said. “Stay here.”

Magali followed, of course, in time to watch Fabienne plant a booted foot in Jude‟s stomach. “You know,” Magali said with a smile for Fabienne, “I think he needs another one.” She added a second kick to the first one, leaving Jude‟s face contorted in pain. “Maybe that will teach him a lesson.”

“Probably not,” Fabienne said, returning to her desk, “but it makes me feel better.”

“Magali?” Jean said, coming into Fabienne‟s office from the other direction. “What are you doing here?”

“Get Raymond first,” Fabienne said. “You both need to deal with this.”

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Jean rapped on Raymond‟s door and stuck his head inside, summoning his lover into the outer office.

“I found Leighton outside l‟Institut tonight,” Magali explained. “Adèle was nowhere to be seen, but it was her alert that summoned me, so my guess is that he found her and attacked her. She obviously got away, but that doesn‟t change his intentions.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the hallway,” both women replied, sharing a grin. “A little worse for the wear.”

“Don‟t tell me anything you know I don‟t want to hear,” Raymond warned.

They went out to the hall. “Undo the spell,” Raymond told Magali, his own wand drawn and ready. The moment the spell was released, Jude sprang to his feet, lunging for Magali. Jean blocked him before he could reach her, pinning Jude against the wall with an arm across his throat. The difference in their sizes made little difference given the difference in their ages, Jean‟s greater age offsetting his slighter build.

“Don‟t do something you‟ll regret,” Jean warned, pressing a little harder.

“If you get away from me, you‟re still facing the wands of two of the deadliest wizards in France, and their spells will work on you. Now what the hell were you doing trying to find Adèle after she‟s made it very clear that she wants nothing to do with you?”

“I want what‟s mine,” Jude growled. “You can‟t keep me away from her. I know where she is now. It‟s just a matter of time before I find her again.”

“You‟d be amazed what I can do,” Raymond disagreed, “and if I can‟t—or won‟t—I can pretty much guarantee Magali can and will, so I suggest you return to whatever hole you crawled out of and forget about Adèle. You obviously can‟t behave like a civilized man, so don‟t expect any help or sympathy from l‟ANS or l‟Institut unless it‟s to give Adèle a way to end your partnership permanently.”

“Is that possible?” Jude asked. “And if it is, would I be able to find another partner, one who might actually give me my due this time?”

“We have no idea yet if it‟s possible,” Jean replied, “but don‟t hold your breath on finding another partner, because you have no concept of what a partnership is. If you did, you‟d never treat Adèle the way you do. You don‟t want her to be your partner. You want her to be your property.”

“She‟s a mortal and a woman. Is there a difference?”

Magali‟s spell hit him before anyone could react. “He‟ll wake up in a few hours with a pounding headache. Leave him somewhere nice and sunny and he won‟t be a problem anymore.”

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“You know we can‟t do that without a proper trial,” Raymond sighed. “And I don‟t think we could do it even then, since having a bad attitude isn‟t a crime, however much we might wish it was.”

“That‟s far more than just a bad attitude.”

“Misogyny isn‟t a crime either, nor is xenophobia,” Jean reminded Magali.

“He hasn‟t harmed another vampire or done anything to endanger another vampire. That‟s all I can prosecute him for under vampire law. If someone can persuade Adèle to press charges, we might have a case.”

“She was going to join us for dinner tonight, but I doubt that will happen now,” Magali said, “but I‟ll talk to her in the next day or two. If she can be persuaded, I‟ll let you know.” With a flick of her fingers, she was gone.

“Wake him up, Raymond,” Jean said. “I understand why Magali cast the spell, but I can‟t just drop him somewhere.”

Raymond didn‟t agree, but he reversed Magali‟s spell nonetheless.

Leighton woke up slowly, his head clearly pounding.

“Get out of here, Leighton,” Jean said, urging the other vampire toward the door, “and if you have the sense God gave a snail, stay the hell away from l‟Institut and Adèle. I might not be able to convince her to press charges, but I know I can convince Raymond to charge you with trespassing if you‟re found at l‟Institut again.”

“In a heartbeat,” Raymond agreed. “We‟ll post private property signs tomorrow.”