Unbitten (26 page)

“Well, in a manner of speaking,” he said.
“They don’t invite us to dinner parties, if
that’s what you mean,” he said with a twinkle.

Jo finished up her pastry and eyed the last one on the
platter. She couldn’t remember ever being so
ravenous. “I hope it’s not rude for me to
ask–are they dangerous? I couldn’t quite tell
what they wanted from me,” she said.

“Only sometimes,” said Henri, again with the
twinkle.

Henri had the oddest feeling. He wanted to simply continue
hanging out there in the breakfast room with Jo, talking to
her, looking at those eyes, listening to her laugh. He
wondered what the hell was going on. He had serious work to
do, a crisis to deal with, and here he sat, smiling at this
girl and watching her eat a stunning quantity of pastries.
What was he doing?

He stood up abruptly. “Well,” he said
awkwardly, “I’ve got ten thousand things to do,
I’ve got to be off.”

“But you haven’t eaten anything!”

“Perhaps I’ll see you at dinner?” he
said. And making a little bow, and taking one last look at
her–how she eats! It’s
extraordinary!–Henri strode from the dining room and
back to his lab, where not only a huge mess still awaited
him, but also the very person who had made the mess.

Pierre lurked about outside the lab, trying not to look
guilty, or desperate, or any of the things he actually was,
and he had one eye out for Angélique, because he was
not in the mood for tangling with her. After Dominic and
Maloney had left his hayloft, Pierre had done some
thinking, and what he decided was that he needed some
protection from those two. He sensed that they themselves
were under tremendous pressure from whomever they worked
for, and he understood–from experience–that
serious pressure like that can lead a person, or a vampire
for that matter, to do something…rash.

As depressed as Pierre was, as unhappy and generally
dismissive of his life, openly wishing it were over, when
someone who might consider killing him actually appeared,
he fervently wished to do everything possible to stay
alive.

He was not even a vampire, but Maloney looked like he could
squash Pierre like a bug, if he ever had reason to, or
could organize his thoughts coherently in that direction.

It was early morning, a time when most vampires were
snoozing soundly in their beds. Henri could manage with
less sleep than most, and he had his protective clothing
for moving around during daylight. Pierre had no such
private technological advances, but he had found, in his
solitary life, that not being able to be outside during the
day was an enormous handicap–or maybe he just missed
the sun. In any case, he had developed his own methods of
protection.

On his head, which had always seemed the most sensitive to
sunlight, Pierre had put several black plastic bags covered
by a stocking cap, with a layer of aluminum foil in between
for reflective purposes. On his body he wore several layers
of expensive long underwear, made for high altitude treks,
that also had reflective qualities. The tricky part had
been his face. After trying out many different things over
the decades, and getting some bad burns in the process,
including once nearly passing out which would have been
quickly fatal, he discovered a clay facial mask for women
that worked perfectly. It had the unfortunate side effect
of making his face a rather startling color green, but it
worked like a charm and left his skin feeling very smooth
after he washed it off.

He found some heavy duty, extra black sunglasses with side
covers, also made for mountaineers, also very expensive.
They worked all right, not great, but if he kept his eyes
on the ground and didn’t stay out too long, he could
manage.

So what Henri saw as he walked up to his lab that morning
was a man with a green face pacing back and forth, wearing
far more clothes than the weather required, his head
especially looking quite swollen, and his face–is
that his actual skin color, or what?

Pierre saw Henri see him, and he tried for the few moments
it took for Henri to get close enough to speak, to calm
himself, to gather his confidence. There was an instant of
satisfaction for some reason when he saw that Henri had no
idea who he was.

“Marquis,” Pierre said, presenting a leg as if
it were 1790.

“Yes?” said Henri, studying the strange
creature.

“I am Pierre Aucoin,” he said.

Henri looked him over from top to bottom, slowly. He pulled
a croissant out of his pocket with his gloved hand and
nibbled on the end. “So you are,” said Henri
finally. “Would you like to come inside?”

Henri used the iris recognition device without a word, and
when the door slid open, he pulled Pierre through.

“Excuse the mess,” he said, going over to an
alcove which contained a small sofa and a couple of
comfortable chairs. He kept his eyes on Pierre every
minute.

When they were seated, Henri squinted a bit at Pierre.
“It’s been a very long time, hasn’t
it,” he said, holding out a hand to shake, then
remembering he needed to take off his gloves, as did
Pierre. Then they shook, and gave it an extra little shake,
since they were vampires who had grown up at the
Château, after all, and Pierre had known Henri since
he was a child, even if they had not spoken in many years.

“What is that on your face?” Henri could not
help asking.

“
La Belle Visage
,” said Pierre.
“It’s 25 euros for a little pot. But it does
the job.” He sat back more easily in the chair, the
mention of the facial mask having given him a burst of
confidence.

Henri waited.

Pierre struggled to get out what was on his mind.
“It’s like this, sir,” he said. He was
trying to decide whether to admit that he was the one who
had trashed the lab. Should’ve made that decision
before now, he was thinking.

“It’s like this. I work at the farm at the end
of the road, you know, sir. Just physical work,
that’s what I do. I can’t say I’m happy
in it. Or that my life…” Pierre cleared his
throat and started again. “So what happened was,
these two brutes from the U.S. came to see me. They want me
to work for them, they want your…your information.
The stuff you’re working with in your lab.
Inventions, and the like. They work for some scary dude
back in America. Not a dude exactly, a company, a
corporation
is what they called it. And I will
tell you, Marquis, they are dead set on having whatever it
is you’ve got.”

Pierre sat back in his chair as though he had just recited
an extremely long poem for his teacher.

“Would you like something to drink, Pierre? A
Hemo-Yum, perhaps? Have you tried one before?”

“Never have,” said Pierre. “They
don’t carry it at the bar I go to.”

Henri laughed, then got up and rummaged around in a cooler
by his desk. “What’s your pleasure? Minnesota
Farm Girl? English Rose? Porn Star?”

“Uh, I’ll have the Porn Star,” said
Pierre, perking up considerably.

Henri took one for himself too, Brazilian Bombshell. The
two of them arranged their straws, relaxed back in their
chairs, and began to suck.

“Wow,” said Pierre. “This is the real
thing?”

“Not at all,” said Henri.
“Synthetic.” He paused and took a long pull
from his own bag. “Pretty close though, eh?”

“Yeah no kidding! Sir!” said Pierre, barely
able to take his mouth off the straw long enough to speak.
Embarrassingly, the flavor was so erotic he was getting a
hard-on. Not really what you want for an audience with the
Marquis. He crossed his legs and tried to continue enjoying
the flavor while willing his cock to settle down.

“So what you’re telling me is that you were
approached by some thugs. And these thugs want you to spy
on me, to gather information, documents, that sort of
thing, to give to them which they will deliver to someone
at this nameless corporation. Is that it?”

“Yes,” Pierre gurgled, putting his mouth right
back on the straw.

“Did they threaten you?” asked Henri.
“Offer to pay you? What’s your
incentive?”

“Well, sir, it’s carrot and stick.
They’re promising me things and threatening me. Both
together.”

“I see.” They both leaned back and sucked for a
while without talking.

Henri looked around his lab, conspicuously looked, so that
Pierre would notice him looking. It was absolutely clear to
Henri that Pierre had been the one who had gotten into the
lab. That’s where the evidence pointed, although he
didn’t need any evidence; with Pierre looking so
guilty Henri expected him to blurt it out at any minute.

“And so, here you are,” said Henri.

“Here I am,” said Pierre, nodding. He sucked
the last little wee droplets out of the corner of his bag,
and just barely resisted the impulse to tear it open and
lick the inside.

“What I was thinking,” Pierre said, "is,
listen, we go way back. I don’t want to cause trouble
for you. I don’t even have any idea what it is you do
in here. And documents, you know, documents are not really
my thing. So I thought maybe the two of us, or you, could
come up with a plan so I could be a kind of double agent.

“You don’t want these thugs hanging around.
You’ve gotta get rid of them. But if you just get rid
of this pair, the corporation will send three next time.
You’ve got to do something, ah, a little
sneakier,” he finished. He gave a longing look at the
cooler, hoping Henri would offer him another bag.

“I see what you mean,” said Henri, stroking his
chin, beginning a list in his head. For some reason,
despite the seriousness of what Pierre was telling him and
the plans that must be made, Henri felt a lightness, a lift
of good humor that was almost adolescent. This
corporation–we will make them very sorry, thought
Henri, almost gleefully.

Angélique had been trying to talk to David for days.
It had not been a good month for the Château,
financially speaking, and she needed to have an emergency
session with him to discuss the budget. But, she thought,
David seemed to have some kind of special sense that clued
him in, because whenever she had to talk to him about
money, he was nowhere to be found. Every time she entered a
room, it seemed he had just left. They could go on like
this for at least a week.

He could keep a few horses, she thought, reviewing her list
in her head as she was walking down the gravel path that
went to the guest cottages. He could keep a few, and
Thierry as well, if he would just sell that Drogo. He was
worth a bloody fortune. She would very much like to get her
hands on some of the items in the tack room as well, not to
mention some of the antiques in those upper storage rooms,
maybe an auction….

She came around some bushes and found herself about twenty
feet from Tristan Durant and Roland Morel, standing with
the housemaid Marie-Louise. Angélique had been
meaning to let Marie-Louise go for months, but had not been
quite able to pull the trigger.
When Tristan saw Angélique, he thanked Marie-Louise
who picked up her cleaning kit and went on to the next
cottage.

“
Bonjour, Messieurs!
” said
Angélique, in her welcoming-guests voice.

Roland nodded. Tristan, an old schoolmate, kissed her on
both cheeks.

“Marie-Louise gave us a call,” said Tristan,
sounding very off-hand, as though he and Roland were only
here because they had nothing better to do.

“Is there a problem?” asked Angélique,
looking from Tristan to Marie-Louise, and suddenly deeply
regretting not having fired her ass.

“Your guest, a Callie Armstrong?” said Tristan,
looking at his notes. Again, seeming as though he
couldn’t be bothered to remember the details of this
wild goose chase.

“Yes, Ms. Armstrong,” said Angélique.
“She came last week. Sporty type, college girl, I
believe.”

“Do you know anything about her plans for leaving,
where she was going, anything like that?”