Unbitten (27 page)

“No, I don’t think so. I talked to her at
length about the walking trails around here, and sent her
to the _tabac_in the village for maps.”
Angélique talked while looking up and to the left,
as though more information was written in the rafters of
the cottage roof.

“But you can verify that she has left,” Tristan
said.

Angélique paused at the tone in his voice, which had
seemed to veer into some new territory. Not so off-hand.
Like he wanted to get her statement so that he could twist
it somehow. It was much safer, she had thought since coming
to work for the la Mottes, to keep any police away from the
Château and any guests away from the police. She was
not going to be able to relax until Tristan was gone.

“I would have to check the records in the
office,” she said carefully. “We have so much
coming and going, you understand. But yes, I believe she
has left. A few days ago? I’m not sure which
day.”

“Did you make travel arrangements for her?”

“For Callie Armstrong?” Angélique
laughed. “Oh no. She was not the type of girl who
liked having things done for her. Independent. Sporty, like
I said.”

“Thank you,” said Tristan, smiling.

He has such a nice way about him, thought Angélique.
It’s like you instantly trust him, without having to
think about it. She remembered him in school, awkward but
sweet, sitting behind her in geography class, drawing
cartoons and passing them up for her to look at. She had
avoided him since she started working for the la Mottes,
because it made her so uncomfortable to keep their secret
from such a decent man. Her loyalty was complicated,
however. She was not staying quiet simply because of her
job, or because she thought the la Mottes had earned her
silence. It was more complicated than that.

As far as Tristan was concerned, her main job was the keep
the guests away from him, by lying if necessary.

“Angélique,” he said, “Would it be
all right if Roland and I took a look around her room?
Roland here needs some training, and I’m grateful to
have an opportunity to put him through his paces.”

“That would be no problem,” said
Angélique, giving Tristan a warm look and walking
them up to the cottage where Callie Armstrong had stayed.

It was dusk. David was already awake, his sleep a disaster.
He had spent hours flopping one way and then another, with
images swirling through his mind–Callie Armstrong
greeting him at the cottage door, all rosy-cheeked and glad
to see him; a dribble of blood on Jo’s neck; the
expression on the witches’ faces as they took
Callie’s body from him; Jo, telling him to leave her
room.

David tried remembering all the way back, more than two
centuries, and he could not think of even one time that
David de la Motte had been asked to leave a woman’s
bedroom. Not once.

He did not like it at all.

She asked me to leave,
he thought, over and over,
the words like a black ribbon winding around his head and
getting tighter and tighter. An ugly sweat was glistening
on his skin.

Finally David gave up on sleep. The sun had dipped below
the trees anyway. He got up and showered, then dressed
carefully–his pants tight; his shirt a rich fabric,
opened at the chest; a pair of supple black boots that
smelled of saddle soap.

He considered dinner in the dining room, but the thought of
mingling with guests and having to be charming felt like a
burden. On the other hand, he was extremely thirsty. He
wanted to suck, to drink from someone, and he knew from
experience that this degree of need was not going to be
denied for very long. And whether Henri liked it or not,
the guests were the perfect snack menu. He would just have
to be more careful than last time.

Marcel was in a fantastic mood for some reason, and had
spared no trouble or expense on the night’s dinner.
Figs and prunes stuffed with foie gras. Roasted duck, with
a choice of sauces. Some kind of potato and mushroom
gratin, made with the duck fat, that was inspiring swoons
all over the dining room.

Angélique was sitting at a table with David, the
Italians, and the new guests, a couple from England, who
looked a bit stodgy.

Most of the time, Angélique kept thoughts of David,
and memories of David, out of her mind, which was no small
trick considering she worked directly for him and saw him
every day. Now that she was at dinner, trying to relax and
enjoy the company of the guests, and was on her second
glass of wine…bits of memory began to flash through
her mind whether she wanted them to or not.

Mostly, David’s face as he descended on her neck, his
fangs out.

No, she thought. I am
not
going to think about
that now.

When the salad course came, she piled her plate high. It
was a very simple salad, to counterbalance the complicated
dishes that had come before and the extravagant dessert to
follow. It was just lettuce in a mustardy vinaigrette,
rather salty, but to Angélique the salad tasted like
home, like her grandmother’s cooking, and she ate it
as though it would give her the strength to keep her
thoughts in check. Which it did.

Dessert, an old-fashioned floating island, came and went
with the usual oohs and ahhs and people saying they
wouldn’t but then having just a taste, followed by
large helpings. The mood at the table was amiable enough,
but it lacked the high spirits of the other night, and
Angélique felt a little disappointed. Abruptly, she
stood up and said goodnight to everyone, and left the
dining room.

David watched her go, his expression inscrutable.

The British couple was stirring now, getting ready to leave
as well. David had a moment of panic, terrifically thirsty,
needing to bite, and no prospects.

There was always the New Zealand woman, who had a certain
way about her, but–David stopped himself, shuddering.
Too sporty, he thought. Too close to…
the
accident,
as he had started referring to Callie
Armstrong in his head.

The bigger problem was Jo. His whole mind, his whole body
was all wrapped up in one thought: that he could not allow
her to reject him. And he felt sure that biting another
woman would mean her door was closed to him forever.

He should have brainwiped her. It was arrogant not to have
done it. But David–David liked to be remembered. He
hated the thought of having a night with a woman and then
making it impossible for her even to know it had happened.
That was why he hadn’t been able to bring himself to
wipe Angélique, refusing to listen to Henri even
though that whole episode had been a disaster from
beginning to end. But he liked, sometimes, to look into
Angélique’s eyes, knowing that he had once
sunk his fangs into her, that he had had her, sucked her.
And that she remembered too.

Without his usual charm, David got up from the table where
only the Italians were left to finish the good wine he had
brought up. The British couple was ahead, the man weaving a
little perhaps, having overdone it as so many of the
tourists did.

When David got outside, he saw the wife far down the path
on the way to their cottage. The husband was sitting on a
bench, looking out into the darkness.

Seeing the man, David paused, his thirst overtaking him. He
had never considered biting a man before. It was not
exactly taboo, but it was certainly frowned upon–so
much so that David could not remember hearing of anyone
doing it. The man might taste bad. David might get a belly
ache from his blood. There were a million reasons not to.

But reasons not to had never stopped David before; if
anything, they spurred him to do a thing regardless, giving
him an extra thrill of going against convention, or against
what Henri wanted, his parents wanted, a girlfriend wanted.

He came up behind the man–did David even know his
name? Was it Francis?–put a hand on his shoulder, and
with vampire quickness, leaned down to his neck, fangs
extended, thirsty, ready to suck. There was a cloud of
alcohol next to the man’s skin. His blood tasted like
wine. Not uninteresting. David noticed that the usual
effect of his penis stiffening did not occur, and he was
glad of that. He kept sucking, almost absent-mindedly,
almost numbly. And before the line was crossed, long before
the man was emptied, he pulled up, let the man go, and
circled around to face him. The man (yes, it
was
Francis) was not really conscious–the effect of all
the wine and then the sucking on top of that had pretty
much pulled the rug out from under Francis.

David lifted his chin, gently, and stared into his eyes.
David’s irises changed, becoming fiery around the
edges, and glowing. He stared a penetrating stare into the
dulled eyes of Francis, brainwiping him, and then he backed
away from him, staggered a moment, and began to walk away.
Then he spun around and came back, digging in his pocket
for a bandage. He had a bit of trouble peeling the backing
off, cursing, but eventually got it off and the bandage in
place, if a little askew.

“Good night, old chap,” said David, and laughed
as he trotted toward the Château, on the way to his
bedroom.

On the grand staircase, he tripped and fell. He rubbed his
face. He had barked his shins on the stone stairs and they
hurt. He got to his feet and kept going, his feet not
feeling like they belonged to him anymore. Marveling at
this odd sensation of walking on someone else’s feet,
he changed his course to go to Jo’s room instead of
his own.

Jo had spent the day hard at work, taking Drogo through his
jumps in the ring, rubbing him down, doing the exercises
she needed to do herself to stay limber and in top
condition for the upcoming show. She was grateful to have
so much physical work to do.

All day, the image of David with his bloody fangs out,
dripping with her blood, kept coming into her mind. And she
would gently escort that image right back out again.

Now it was time for a bath. Jo planned to call Albert and
ask him to bring some dinner to her room; she was still
famished and had considered going to the dining room in her
riding clothes, but was not ready to run into David.

Always how it is, she thought. First all you can think
about is how to run into the guy, and then all you can
think about is how to avoid him.

She had taken off her riding clothes and put on a thick
terry bathrobe while she wandered around her room,
organizing and neatening up. Outside, in the corridor, a
loud thump. A low groan. Jo went to the door and opened it.
David was sprawled out on the stone floor, unsteadily
attempting to get to his feet.

“Jo!” he said, beaming at her, and holding out
one hand. Reaching his arm out seemed to threaten his
balance, and he overcompensated, lurching one way and then
another, and finally putting his hand on the wall to keep
himself steady.

Jo glared at him. Then turned and paced for a moment,
finally sitting down on the edge of her bed, her mind
spinning, her body feeling clammy and jangly.

“Jo, Jo, Jo, Jo, Jooooooo,” said David,
careening into her room and then standing there with one
shoulder dipped down, leaning forward as though getting
ready for a footrace, one arm dangling and the other
holding on to the doorway, smiling at her, his eyes rather
hazy, his eyebrows raised up.

“You’re drunk,” said Jo, her voice flat.

“Oh no, no, no,” said David. “Thas
impossible,” he said. “Vampires don’t get
drunk, my dear Josephine.”

“My name is not Josephine,” she said.

“You are the Empress of all of France!” he
raised up one arm in some sort of salute. “Wife of
Napoleon!” He went to bow, and keeled over in a heap.

“Get out,” said Jo.

David did not appear to hear her. He was mumbling something
in a sort of sing-song, possibly in Polish.

“David!” said Jo, her voice stern. “I
want you to leave. Now.”

He looked up at her as though he was having a hard time
understanding what she was saying. “But I want to
make love to you,” he said, with a leer, waggling his
eyebrows.

The leer was what did it. The penny dropped. All at once he
was no longer the charismatic aristocrat whose attention
she craved, but a man so wrapped up in himself that it made
her literally a little sick to her stomach. Of course, she
was also thinking of her father, nearly always drunk in
those last years she was at home. Slurring his words too.
Wanting her attention too. And yes, a few times, leering.

Jo squeezed her eyes tight as if that would make the
memories more tolerable.

She moved past David into the hallway, and started walking
down the corridor, talking quickly in an excited voice.
David came after her, looking for all the world like a dog
hoping to get a treat. When they were a little ways away
from her door, Jo turned suddenly and ran quickly back past
him, into her bedroom, and shut the door. She turned the
ancient key in the ancient lock and went to run her bath.