Unbitten (12 page)

She walked around it, looking for signs of recent use. On
the downhill side there was a small wooden door. She paused
a moment before trying to open it.

Is this a stupid thing to do? she asked herself. But before
she answered, she was pulling up the latch and wrenching on
the door, which swung open easily with nothing more than a
creak. She ducked down and stepped inside.

Jo figured the hut was at least a hundred years old,
probably much older. But it had not been anything like that
long since it had been used. The dirt floor was neat and
there were no cobwebs anywhere. It was empty, as far as she
could see in the gloom, except for an old wooden table. But
she had the distinct feeling of a presence of some sort.
Like either someone was around close by, maybe even
watching her, or someone had just been here.

Time to get going, she thought.

When she had climbed to the top of the hill and begun
scrambling back down, she looked for Drogo.

Drogo was not there.

Jo was dumbstruck. How had he gotten away without her
hearing him? Was he frightened, or just impatient and ready
to get back to the barn?

“Drogo!”she shouted, knowing full well he was
not a dog who would come when she called. She
couldn’t help feeling a little hurt that he would
take off like that without a sound.

And oh, it was going to be a
long
walk back to
Château Gagnon.

Pierre had had to wait uncomfortably until the middle of
the night in the trunk of the Americans’ rental car,
until they were sure the proprietors of the only inn in
Mourency had gone to bed and they could carry him upstairs
without being observed. It was boring lying in the truck.
He wasn’t scared, because he was, after all, over two
centuries old and no one had really hurt him too badly in
all that time. He was only vaguely curious about what they
wanted.

What other people wanted had never been high up on
Pierre’s list of things to care about, at least not
once he had been turned.

He did notice that the rope, this whipster they were
calling it, was pretty interesting stuff. When he relaxed,
it loosened. If he struggled, or even tried to adjust his
arms or legs to be more comfortable, it tightened right up.
It was sort of like a rope with a tiny brain, or sensors,
something like that. Pierre was not exactly a science type
of guy.

Finally Dominic and the big man, Maloney, came for him.
Maloney tossed him over one shoulder like he was no heavier
than a loaf of bread, and trundled up some dank back stairs
to their room, Dominic shushing them both the whole way.

“MMMmmmff,” said Pierre, when they were in the
room and the door was closed.

“Sorry about that,” Dominic said, “All
right now, you promise not to shout? I’ll take it off
if you promise.”

Pierre nodded his head vigorously.

Dominic slowly peeled the tape from Pierre’s raw
skin, ready to slap it back on if Pierre made more than a
squeak. But he only narrowed his eyes at them, waiting for
some kind of explanation.

“Hungry?” said Dominic. He reached into a
cooler and pulled out a bag of synthetic blood and tossed
it in Pierre’s lap.

“I don’t drink that crap,” Pierre said.

“Really?” said Dominic, “Not even when
you’re traveling, and you can’t find anything
else to eat? Not even when you’re really, really
thirsty and it’s been a long time between
bites?”

“Not even then,” said Pierre. “I have
standards.”

Dominic laughed. This French vampire was so haughty, even
when he was slumped on the floor, probably starving, and
all whipstered up.

“OK then,” said Dominic, taking the bag from
Pierre’s lap and inserting a straw through the
plastic. He took a long pull on it and then grinned and
said, “Ahhh. But I’ll admit, it would be
significantly better if we had a microwave and we could
heat it just a tiny bit. Cold blood is about as good as
warm soda, you know?”

“No, I do not know,” said Pierre. “I do
not drink your soda. And by the way, the microwave is a
horrific invention. A real chef spits on your
microwave.”

Dominic cackled at this. He could happily spend the whole
night saying things to get this guy irritated. But he and
Maloney had a job to do.

“All right, you want to know why we invited you up to
our palatial room?” Dominic said, gesturing grandly
at the faded wallpaper, complete with water stains on the
ceiling. “It’s because we want to make you an
offer.”

Pierre cocked his head. He was trying to decide whether he
could take Maloney if he could first incapacitate Dominic
somehow.

“We work for an American company,” Dominic
continued. “The company that makes this brand of
synthetic blood, actually. As well as whipster. The guy
running the show is…I guess the word for it is
ambitious
. Whatever big money he’s making,
he wants ten times that, a hundred times that. Whatever
products he’s got, he wants more, he wants better.
Bestseller in the U.S.? Then he wants bestsellers in Europe
and Asia. Know the kind of guy I’m talking
about?”

Well, thought Pierre, not really. The ambitions of his
village friends had been more along the lines of wanting a
specific woman, or a new goat. He himself limited his
ambitions to things that might happen on that particular
day–no looking ahead, no thinking big. That would be
a straight road to disappointment, was Pierre’s way
of thinking.

“There are vampires in Asia?” he said.

Dominic ignored him. “So why we’re here in
Mourency,” he said, “is that your local big
cheese, Henri de la Motte, has invented some stuff our boss
is very interested in.” He paused and took another
long pull on his blood bag. “And by ‘very
interested’, I mean he wants it. Whatever your
dude’s got, our guy has to have it.”

“How did you find out about what la Motte is doing,
anyway?” Pierre asked, hoping it was not obvious that
he himself had no idea.

“We have good information,” said Dominic,
smiling. “About more people and their activities than
you could imagine. Even people from this dump of a
village.”

Pierre thought this might be the moment to ask them to turn
off the whipster, or whatever you did to make it loosen up
enough for him to be unbound.

“Take this thing off me,” he said, “and I
will talk business with you.”

Maloney giggled. Dominic took one end of the whipster and
squeezed it, and it unraveled itself into a neat coil.
Pierre rubbed his arms and legs and scowled at Dominic.

“It left a sticky residue,” he said, glowering.

Dominic rolled his eyes. “OK,” he said.
“Let me tell you exactly what we want you to do, and
why you aren’t going to refuse.”

It was Pierre’s turn to roll his eyes. But he was
listening all right, because honestly, he was glad to have
a little excitement in his life.

Thierry ran up the path to Henri’s lab and pushed the
buzzer. Then pushed it again.

“Henri!” he shouted. “It’s very
important!”

Nothing but silence.

One more push of the buzzer.

“
HENRI
! IT’S AN
EMERGENCY
!” he yelled at
the very top of his voice.

He put his ear to the door, and thought that yes, he heard
some shuffling around in there.

The door swung open and Henri was standing inside wearing
nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. His physique
was impressive, and Thierry was momentarily startled by
seeing his boss half-dressed. “Come on in,
Thierry,” he said, waving him along. “What is
the matter?”

“It’s Drogo. No, I mean it’s Jo, the
American rider,” said Thierry.

Henri waited for more. Thierry was just standing there with
a terrified expression on his face. “Yes, what about
her?” Henri said finally.

“She went off with Drogo this morning, pretty early.
And now Drogo has returned–but without Jo!”

Henri nodded. “They were in the forest?” he
asked.

“Yes sir, I believe so, sir,” said Thierry.

Henri wondered for a moment what Thierry knew about who
lived in the forest. He certainly seemed to understand that
a human on foot was in some danger there.

“Thanks for telling me, Thierry, I’ll see about
it right away. May I call you if I need help?”

“Of course!”

Henri closed the door after Thierry ran out. He began
pacing. He looked at his watch.

“Oh
why
did David have to hire that
girl?” he said, and then, having said it once, out
loud, he was done with the past and intent on the present.
He went to a closet and began taking out clothing until he
had made quite a pile. He pulled off the towel and tossed
it to the floor, his powerful body naked for a just a
moment. For someone who spent so much time in the lab, he
had a shockingly tight ass, sculpted shoulders, and a belly
that looked like he didn’t work out with a personal
trainer, he
was
a personal trainer.

He put on a sort of bodystocking that went from his ankles
to his neck and down to his wrists, then long pants and a
long-sleeved shirt over that. The shirt was made of a
stretchy material and had a sort of pocket you slid your
hand into, so that your hand was covered up except for the
tips of your fingers. He put on gloves. A jacket. A piece
of filmy netting over his head and face. A large hat with a
brim. He looked a bit like a tall French ninja–a
warrior, but with style, and every square inch of skin
covered.

Well, he thought, it’s been long past time to test
this stuff anyway. Might as well take it out for a spin and
see how it does.

Henri approached the door with a great deal of unease. It
was nearly three in the afternoon. He had not been outside
at nearly three in the afternoon since he was eight years
old, two hundred years ago.

He opened the door slowly, carefully. Then he thought of
Jo, walking along that bridle path by herself, probably
without a suspicion or care in the world, and he hurried
out the lab door, slammed it behind him, and began to run.

David had been tossing and turning for what felt like an
eternity. Finally he got out of bed and went into the
bathroom for a glass of water. Then decided perhaps a nip
of cognac would be better–he simply liked the taste,
and the idea of it, even though he felt no buzz. He poured
himself a glass and flopped down in an armchair,
English-made of all things, since in his private bedroom
where no one ever came, David wanted things the way he
liked them. And he liked an English armchair. It was bigger
and sturdier than its French counterparts. It seemed to
invite lolling. All the French chairs downstairs in the
salons–they seemed to say, We’re here to look
pretty. All right, fine, have your moment of rest. Now get
up and go do something.

The curtains, however, and the drapes around the bed, and
the slipcovers–all French, silk moiré and
damask. On the windows, behind the curtains, were
Henri’s special shades for filtering sunlight. With
those pulled, David could walk around his room during the
day and even go to the window to look out, without getting
even the slightest bit burnt.