Unbitten (4 page)

And all of those paths had led him, whether circuitously or
straight, right to vampirism.

Rumors of vampirism’s existence had been around for
as long as he could remember. Whispers, mostly. Certainly
not talked about in polite company. Most people, if asked
directly, would scoff and say of course there was no such
thing as a vampire…but many of those same people
discreetly carried silver crosses, just to be on the safe
side. Many of them made sure their wives and daughters were
not out alone at night, especially in those areas whispered
about the most. And the wives and daughters themselves, the
potential victims–the more practical-minded, the most
prudent of them–they took precautions, even if they
did not speak about it openly.

It was still difficult for Tristan to get his head around
it. It’s the second millennium, after all, not the
Dark Ages! It’s a time of science, not mythology! And
yet, facts are facts. His police training had been
excellent and thorough, and his mind was naturally logical
and clear. So even if the facts led him to a conclusion he
would prefer not to make, Tristan had the intellectual
strength to make it anyway. Or at least to give it a chance
to continue to prove itself, or not. He was not afraid to
speak up, to drag this subject out from the shadows of
gossip and into plain sight where it could be evaluated
fairly.

So now it was time for Tristan to travel to Paris, where he
had found a group that called themselves
“slayers,” and that claimed to know quite a lot
about modern vampires.

And getting rid of them.

Tristan Durant was a tolerant man, even an exceptionally
tolerant man. He did not have even the tiniest smidgen of
prejudice or distaste for anyone who was different. Any
race, any sexual persuasion, too fat, too skinny, oddball
religions–he would give a Gallic shrug, and say: to
each his own tastes. If the vampire at Château
Gagnon, as well as Pierre Aucoin, had kept to themselves,
Tristan would likely have kept their secret. But the
vampires did
not
mind their own business. There
had been…incidents. More than a few deaths whose
explanations did not entirely satisfy. Spates of missing
livestock, where the recovered bodies did not look like the
prey of a bear or wolf. Reports from the local clinic of
young women coming in with bite marks on their necks but no
memory of being bitten.

To a
gendarme
who took his job very seriously,
that sort of thing was insupportable. He was going to put a
stop to it, and he was unfazed by la Motte’s title,
the family’s vast acreage, their reputation in the
village for aloof generosity, or the brothers’ rather
daunting physical presences.

David de la Motte, and Pierre Aucoin, as well as any other
vampire in Mourency whose existence was so far unknown,
were going to find out just how determined a man Tristan
Durant was.

Angélique made sure Jo was settled in her tower room
with a view of the lake, and then she hurriedly trotted
down the long passageway to her own tower room on the other
side of the Château. She couldn’t help, as
always, taking an appreciative look out the windows at the
rooflines of the building, the amazing turrets with their
spiraled tops, the crenellations that archers used to hide
behind, and the green expanse of pastures beyond, ending at
the dark forest that surrounded the estate.

She whipped out her cell phone the minute she was in her
room with the ancient thick door closed behind her.

The number rang and rang with no answer.

Come on, Pierre! she whispered. Answer your damn phone!

Angélique tossed the phone on her bed, which was
Louis XV inlaid mahogany with a red toile coverlet. She sat
down on the window seat, and looked out again at the
rooftop, while twisting her thick brown hair into a bun and
securing it with some pins from her vanity table.

Damn it!
she said out loud. The whole thing is
going to come crashing down if Pierre cannot keep his
miserable hands to himself!

She picked up her cell again and this time tapped
Jo’s number.

“
Salut!
” she said cheerily. “I
don’t mean to bother you, but first of all I wanted
to make sure you have my number. The Château is so
big we very often call each other instead of trying to
search and find someone. And the other thing is that I
wanted to check on how you are doing after that funny
moment in the parking lot. I know the man ran off, no harm
done, but nevertheless, a thing like that can be
unsettling, especially when you’ve just arrived
someplace totally new.”

“Thanks, Angélique,” said Jo.
“Really, I’m OK. Fine.”

“Yes. Well,” said Angélique, her voice
softer than usual, “let me suggest a long bath before
dinner. I will call Albert and ask him to bring these
English bath salts that are wonderfully soothing. And
please, let me know if you need anything at all, or just
want to talk.”

After ending the call with Jo, Angélique tapped
Pierre’s number once again. Still no answer.
He’s probably out biting some other girl, thought
Angélique, and a shiver went through her, and for an
instant, she allowed the memory of her own encounter with
Pierre to come into her mind.

Then she shook her head no. I am not going to allow those
thoughts, she said to herself, and because Angélique
was a strong woman, not only physically but emotionally as
well, she succeeded.

Jo put her phone down, silently thanking Marianne for
making sure it would work once she got to France.
Technology was decidedly not Jo’s thing. She wandered
over to the window and looked out, seeing much the same
view as Angélique in the opposite tower.

The combination of jet-lag and Château Gagnon
itself–and can’t forget David, oh my
God
–it’s all a little too much right
now, thought Jo.

She crossed the large bedroom and went into the bathroom,
which was bigger than her apartment back home. It had an
old sink with sides wide enough to sit on, and a massive
tub, longer than she was. Suddenly Angélique’s
suggestion of a bath seemed like exactly the right thing.
She ran the water as hot as she could stand it and leapt
in, at first gasping at the heat and then sighing
gratefully as the heat relaxed her muscles in spite of
themselves.

The water pressure was magnificent. She picked up a wand
shaped nozzle connected to the water supply by a silver
hose, and flicked the knob so that a fine spray, steaming
hot, played over her breasts and shoulders.

When her skin became bright red, she turned the heat down a
little and unwrapped a bar of lavender soap. She was so
involved in soaping herself all over, and so relaxed for
the first time since arriving in France, that she did not
hear anyone knock and enter her bedroom.

“Mademoiselle?” a man’s voice called,
gently, with a knock on the bathroom door.

Jo slid under the water up to her neck, even though the
water was totally clear and her curvy but athletic body was
perfectly visible. “Yes?” she said.
“I’m in the bath.”

“Yes, Mademoiselle. I am leaving a tray for you, a
little something to eat for when you get out,” the
man said.

“Thank you,” said Jo. She was not used to being
waited on and found she didn’t mind it one bit.

She began soaping herself again, under the water, still
luxuriating in the immense tub that was practically big
enough to swim in, flipping over onto her belly and back
again, feeling like a seal, swirling the soap all over
herself, in between her legs and all over her ass, with her
eyes closed.

She did not hear the man leave. In fact Jo had the distinct
feeling that he was still standing right there, in her
bedroom.

Jo turned the nozzle back on and let the spray go over her
arms, her neck, and again her breasts. David had had such
an effect on her that everything she did felt sexy. She
imagined that the butler, or whatever you called whoever
that was who was not leaving–she imagined that he was
peeking at her, through the crack of the door.

Jo sat up so that the water was only up to her waist, put
the nozzle down, and soaped her breasts with such detail
and thoroughness that she almost started laughing at
herself. Her breasts were round and pert, more than a
handful, heavy enough to swing when she walked if she wore
no bra. Her pink nipples were hard, just thinking of the
man on the other side of the door, staring, perhaps even
touching himself, because he wanted her so much.

What has gotten into me? she thought, dropping the lavender
soap with a splash. I am not acting like myself at all.

In that instant, the erotic spell was broken and she
finished up her bath quickly so as to get to the snack
waiting in the bedroom. She heard no sound at all from her
bedroom and it was empty when she walked in wearing a terry
bathrobe. Somehow she must have missed hearing the servant
leave.

Not sure how that happened, she thought. He must have
special butler powers that allow him to move silently. Next
thing you know I’ll be seeing ghosts, and elves
scampering about the shrubbery.

Now let me at that food! she thought. I am absolutely
starving
.

The problem with running a
chambre
d’hôte
, thought Henri, as he left the main
building of the Château and struck out across the
grounds, is that there are just too many people coming and
going. It’s impossible to have five minutes to
concentrate on anything. He hoped no one had seen which
direction he had gone, although everyone at the
Château knew exactly which building he was likely to
be in. But Henri liked to pretend to himself that he was
invisible and working behind the scenes. And he hated being
disturbed at his work. David thought Henri was jealous that
David was so often the center of attention, and Henri was
happy to let him continue to believe it, but it was not
even a little bit true.

Henri had serious work to do. He did not have time, nor the
temperament, for endless socializing. He left the
conversing and arranging and flattering and flirting and
all the rest up to David.

Top of the list: improvements and testing of the latest
version of synthetic blood, which had been given what he
considered the silly name of Hemo-Yum by the marketing
people up in Paris. Henri had displeased his parents
mightily when he insisted on going off to university and
studying chemistry. And it had not been easy to pull off
getting to classes without undue sun exposure.

But Henri had managed it. He had managed it brilliantly.

And now, many years later, he was right at the peak of his
greatest success by far. Blood substitutes of various kinds
had been on the market for years. But they were all made by
humans, not vampires, and so their properties were not at
all what vampires required. The human’s synthetic
blood was designed to carry oxygen, of all the crazy
things, and while it could keep a vampire alive for a
while, it could not be the basis for a good life or
anything close to it. A vampire on a complete diet of human
synthetic blood would waste away, becoming more and more
degenerated. Henri had heard of suicides. Vampire suicides!
It boggled the mind.