Unbitten (14 page)

The one who had been chewing pulled some kind of root out
of a pocket and bit off another hunk. The one with the
stick patted it against her thigh. The third one–man,
she could use a dentist, thought Jo. The woman’s
teeth were either missing or little nubs, like half-eaten
Chiclets.

The three women came closer, until they were surrounding
her. They were not teenagers. And they did not smell good.

“Is there a problem?” asked Jo.
“I’m sorry if I’m on your land or
disturbed you somehow.”

They kept smiling. The smiling was making Jo feel really,
really uneasy.

“My horse took off on me,” she said, trying for
a nonchalant tone, even though she could see that the time
when a nonchalant tone might have gotten her out of this
had passed a while back. And she wasn’t sure they
understood English. She wished, fervently, that she had
been more diligent in her study of French.

The chewer reached out and plucked at Jo’s shirt.
Then she lifted the shirt up so that Jo’s stomach
showed.

All three of them made more noises. Like grackles, Jo
thought. Starlings.

Jo stepped back. The woman let go, but advanced, reaching
out again. The sound of starlings–raucous,
grating–got louder. Jo was seriously creeped out,
verging on scared. But now that she could see them plainly,
they looked middle-aged, these women. I can outrun them,
for sure.

And as she had the thought, so her body followed. She spun
around and took off down the bridle path, tearing along as
fast as she could, cursing her damn slippery-soled riding
boots, imagining the opening to the pasture as being within
reach even though she knew it was miles away.

As she made a turn, her boots slid on some leaves and she
fell down, rolling, but was up again before the roll was
done.

She did not look back.

She tried to listen, to hear if their squawking was still
close by–but what she heard was a motor, revving and
slowing and revving again.

And in the distance up ahead, she saw a figure flying along
on a moped, swathed in fabric and wearing something unusual
on his head, calling out over the engine noise, “JO!
JO!”

He braked the moped just before reaching her and skidded
into a turn.

“Hop on!” he said, and she did.

Henri quickly accelerated and they flew down the wide path.
By far the biggest feeling Jo had was relief. Those
women–they were not like anything Jo had ever seen,
and she had been in plenty of sketchy neighborhoods in her
time, places where the wrong word or the wrong movement
could get you into real trouble, but these women were in a
whole other league.

They felt…witchy. For real.

And now that she felt safe she could allow the reality:
that had been a wolf howling. More than one.

Jo nestled her head on Henri’s neck. She didn’t
like that she was feeling it, she fought feeling it, but
the truth was, she was deeply grateful that Henri had come
to rescue her. As much as she wanted to believe herself
always self-sufficient and not in need of any rescue, thank
you very much–the fact was that riding on the back of
the moped, with her arms around the very solid Henri, felt
more reassuring than anything she could remember.

Pierre strode down one of the narrow back streets of
Mourency, tapping Angélique’s number.

“Hey babe,” he said when she answered.

“Shut it,” said Angélique. “What
kind of trouble are you in now?”

“No trouble,” said Pierre. “Zero trouble.
The opposite, actually. I’ve decided to make
something of my life and I’m looking for a new
job.”

Angélique laughed. “Uh huh, sure,” she
said. “I thought things at the farm suited you quite
well. They didn’t mind you doing all your work in the
middle of the night.”

“It’s not like stacking bales of hay requires
daylight,” he said, a little defensively. It was a
lost cause, and he knew it, but he could never quite give
up hoping that Angélique would like him just a
little. “So my idea,” he said, “is that
you could put a word in for me with the la Mottes.”

“Are you high?” she said, and hung up.

Hmm. Going to have to go to Plan B, thought Pierre, moving
at vampire speed down the street and out to the
countryside, in the direction of the Château.

Thierry had called David, waking him up long before the sun
went down, to let him know that Drogo had arrived at the
barn without Jo, but that Henri had gone in search of her.

“He went out…when?” said David, coming
fully awake when he heard of the crisis.

“About an hour ago,” said Thierry. “I am
thinking if he does not return by the next hour, I will go
out after them, on horseback.”

David agreed with Thierry’s plan. He got out of bed
and began rummaging for some clothes, still pressing his
phone to his ear. Worrying about Jo, yes, but also about
Henri, outside in broad daylight.

Is he out of his mind?

“It only means a long walk for her?” David
asked, with a hopeful note in his voice.

“That is the best case,” answered Thierry.

David juggled the phone while getting into a flannel shirt
and some jeans. “And…the worst case?” he
asked.

Thierry paused, never wanting to put his worst fears into
words when it seemed at all possible they might come true.

“The worst,” he said finally, “the worst
is…well, there are wolves,” he said. “We
don’t know if perhaps she was thrown and might be
hurt. And wolves in a pack, you understand…”

“I understand,” said David. “You were
right to let me know.” He looked out the window and
saw the sun still blazing. Dusk was still at least an hour
away. “I’ll be right down to see what I can
do.”

Thierry couldn’t exactly figure out what that might
be, since David did not ride and Henri had taken the moped,
and since as long as he had known him, David had been more
of a wait-and-see sort of guy when it came to trouble, a
man who hopes problems will resolve if you ignore them. But
Thierry did not spend much time on such thoughts; David was
his boss and he was who he was, no point getting your
knickers in a twist wishing he were someone he was not.

David said goodbye and put his phone in his back pocket. He
poured himself another cognac just for something to do. He
went to the window and waited until the sun began to sink
down beneath the line of trees.

The wolves weren’t nothing, he thought. But the
wolves weren’t the half of it. Those witches were
seriously creepy. He remembered seeing them when he was a
child, when he had ridden farther into the forest than he
was supposed to. Who knew what they were capable of?

Eventually his bedroom felt claustrophobic and he picked up
a jacket and went outside, just in time to see Henri
cruising down the gravel path dressed rather oddly and with
Jo hanging on behind.

Seeing her hands holding on to his brother’s hips
made his fangs tingle. He did not like it. At all.

“Jo!” he shouted over the din of the moped.
“You are all right?”

Henri braked, skidding a little in the gravel, making a bit
of a flourish, thought David, an unnecessary flourish. Jo
swung her leg around and stretched her arms up over her
head while Henri took off the big hat and the netting over
his face.

She looked from one brother to the other.
“What…
were
those women?”

David looked up at the roofline of the Château and
sucked in his cheeks, but said nothing.

Henri took one of Jo’s hands in his still-gloved
hand. “They are neighbors, Jo,” he said, his
voice serious. “Our families have been neighbors for
hundreds of years, in fact. And they are, well, I believe
the word in English is ‘eccentric’, yes?”

“You can say that again,” said Jo, remembering
their raucous cries and the weird, creepy smiling. “I
was a little frightened,” she said softly, because
Henri seemed so kind that the admission just slipped out.

David stepped forward and put his arm around her, claiming
her. She felt the jolt that came with his touch and her
thoughts became jumbly.

“The forest,” she said, pulling away and
speaking to both brothers, “the forest is
magnificent. I don’t understand how you both
aren’t out riding on those paths all the time.”
She shook each leg as though she could shake off the
remains of the fear she had felt when the women were
following her. “I should go to the stable this minute
and have a talk with Drogo. He was a very bad boy
today,” she said. “And I want to make sure
Thierry knows I made it back,” she said, looking at
Henri with a grateful smile.

“Thank you, Henri,” she said, impulsively
leaning in to kiss him on both cheeks.

David took in the hat, the netting that Henri had pushed
back from his face, and the rest of the outfit Henri was
sporting, and they too exchanged a look, with Henri nodding
to let his brother know the outfit had worked.

Henri turned back to Jo, smiled, and told her it had been
his pleasure. And it had been. He was completely thrilled
at having been able to go outside in the middle of the
afternoon, on a sunny day, with no ill effects whatsoever.
Not so much as a sunburn. I’ll be working on tanning
lotions next, he laughed to himself. He was anxious to call
Claudine and set up a meeting to discuss putting the
sun-protective clothing into production sooner than they
had planned.

Way down deep in his scientific heart, there was something
else. Henri had wished the moped ride had gone on and on,
with Jo’s hands holding his hips, or her arms around
his waist. He had felt more warmth from that touch than he
had had in his life for many decades, and he had wanted to
reach for her and hold her close. He felt a profound relief
at getting to her in time, before the witches or the wolves
had done her any harm or at the very least scared her out
of her wits. Not that she seemed easy to frighten, he
thought, affectionately.

But those feelings were no more than a momentary
flickering, as he waved at Jo and then at David, calling
out goodnight, and turned to hurry down the path to his
lab. Must keep humans at a distance, he thought, as his
parents had taught him and as he believed made perfect
sense.

Jo stood still, looking at David. He looked back.

She was deliciously disheveled, with some dirt on her cheek
and her pants, and her shirt a little askew. Her hair
sticking out crazily all over the place from the riding
helmet followed by the moped ride. He reached over and
pulled her shirt down to straighten it, and saw how it
pressed against her breasts when he did that, so he pulled
it down again.

She felt like she was floating along in a shiny bubble of
relief, the kind of relief that is no less intense for
having denied that she was afraid. She felt, acutely, that
these moments right then were a gift, that she was free
from normal, everyday considerations and burdens because
there had been some chance that she might not have gotten
out of the forest alive.