Perilous Partnership (25 page)

“If this is a risk, though, isn‟t it to our advantage to actively approach other chefs de la Cour to persuade them of the rightness of our position before those two can spread their lies?” Magali asked. “I realize I‟m no expert at le Jeu des Cours, but I learned well in the war that the best defense was a good offense. If nothing else, once l‟Institut is open, we could invite other chefs de la Cour to come for a tour so they could see what we‟re doing and understand that it isn‟t something threatening.”

“Not threatening?” Luc said with a laugh. “Nothing in my memory has ever been as threatening to the fabric of vampire society. Even with our Cours, we‟re loners, used to living on the outside. Forming partnerships, creating those kinds of bonds… we‟re on the cusp of something extraordinary. It‟s a question of staying the course and seeing it through to the end.”

“We aren‟t looking at another war, are we?” Raymond asked, uncomfortable at the very thought.

“No,” Jean and Luc said simultaneously.

“There aren‟t enough of us for it to come to that,” Jean said. “We may end up in two distinct camps, but our partnerships also make us stronger, so whatever it looks like ten or twenty years from now, we will prevail.”

Raymond looked back and forth between the two leaders. “I hope you‟re right.”

134

Ariel Tachna

RAYMOND‟S cell phone rang as he arrived in his office on Monday afternoon.

He had given in to Jean‟s insistence that they not work on Sunday and that they keep their normal hours on Monday, so he was not at all surprised to find a pile of messages on his desk. “Hello?”

“Oh, good, I‟ve caught you,” Thierry‟s voice said from the other end of the line. “When you have time today, can you come out to l‟Institut? I want to show you a few things.”

“Let me check my calendar and make sure Fabienne isn‟t ready to quit on me and I‟ll come down. In about an hour?” Raymond suggested.

“An hour is fine. We‟ll keep working until then.”

“I couldn‟t quit on you,” Fabienne said, grinning at Raymond. “L‟ANS

would cease to exist without me here to run it for you.”

Raymond chuckled, as he knew she intended, but he could not stop from flushing either when he thought about how true that had become since he and Jean had started work on l‟Institut. “Is there anything urgent for me?”

“A few things,” Fabienne replied. “They‟re in the center of your desk, but more and more things are building up, waiting for your attention.”

“That was Thierry on the phone. He needs to show me something at l‟Institut. Let me take care of the urgent items, see what he needs, and then I promise I‟ll work on clearing my desk for the rest of the evening,” Raymond said.

Fabienne did not look convinced, but she did not say anything, letting him go into his office to check phone messages and e-mails. He returned several calls from members of Parlement with questions about new l‟ANS-sponsored or -supported initiatives and took care of in-house e-mails. He signed a fundraising letter and made himself draft a column for the member newsletter that would go out at the beginning of December updating the readers on progress with various l‟ANS programs.

When almost an hour had passed and he had emptied the urgent pile, he left his office. “I‟m heading out to l‟Institut. I have my phone, and I shouldn‟t be more than a couple of hours if anyone needs me,” he told her.

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“Jean came by a few minutes ago and said he‟d meet you there,” Fabienne replied. “He said something about needing to meet with Orlando first.”

“Thank you,” Raymond said. “I‟ll let you know when I‟m back.”

A quick displacement spell sent him to Dommartin. Despite the cold, he took a moment to savor the brisk breeze. He loved Paris, had lived there since he was a teenager, but there was something to be said for the purity of country air. If he walked down to the lake and dipped his fingers in, he was sure he would find the same purity. He had other things to take care of first, though.

“Thierry? Sebastien?”

“In here,” Thierry replied, sticking his head out of one of the windows on the upper floor of the abbot‟s house. “It‟s safe to come upstairs.”

Raymond chuckled to himself as he wondered whether he needed to be more worried about the state of the building or walking in on Sebastien and Thierry in a compromising position. It had not happened recently, but more than once during the war, he had approached their office only to change his mind at the last minute because of the sounds he heard coming through the door. “What‟s going on?” he asked when he made it inside and up to the room where the two men waited for him.

“We‟ve been working on getting the abbot‟s house ready for inhabitants,”

Thierry said. “You mentioned needing two rooms for Luc and Magali, so we focused on this area. It will be more comfortable for pairs coming to help run the seminars as well because the rooms are more spacious on the whole. Once we know the main building is stable, we can look at some of the interior walls and possibly combine some of the monks‟ cells to make double rooms, but for now, this is a better bet.”

Raymond looked around the empty room. “So where are we in the process?”

“With Vincent‟s and Marcel‟s help, we‟ve made this building sound,”

Thierry reported, “and the workmen have made sure there is heat and electricity in all the rooms and running water in the appropriate places, so all we need is furniture, and people can start moving in. It will be shared restrooms and showers, unless you want to change the order of work that needs to be done to renovate the rooms in here.”

“I think if we‟re upfront about the arrangements, most people won‟t have a problem with that,” Raymond replied, “particularly while it‟s just Magali and Luc.”

“Actually,” Sebastien interrupted, “Thierry and I were thinking we might stay until the repairs are done as well. It‟s tiring to travel back and forth each day. If you‟re already arranging for food for Magali, you could easily arrange for food for two.”

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“I can do that,” Raymond agreed. “We didn‟t have that set up for another week because Luc and Magali have commitments until then, but I can contact the restaurant again and see about moving it up.”

“They don‟t need to deliver it for me,” Thierry said. “Just see if they‟ll run a tab and bill l‟ANS at the end of the week or something.”

“I should probably go into Dommartin anyway,” Raymond mused, “since we‟re about to be a very big employer in the area.”

“The other thing that might be worth looking into,” Thierry said before Raymond could leave, “is a car for the school. We‟re so used to popping in and out at will or hopping the metro that being out here in the country has been a real shock. Sebastien was going to come with me to get lunch the other day, but we were the only two here, and we ended up having to walk. It‟s not so far that we couldn‟t do it, but it definitely took more time out of our day than we had planned on.”

“I won‟t find a car in Dommartin,” Raymond said with a laugh, thinking of the tiny hamlet of perhaps two hundred inhabitants, “but I can see about finding one in Autun or Auxerre.”

“Obviously, it doesn‟t have to be anything large or fancy or even particularly new,” Thierry said. “Just something that will get us from here to there and back again.”

“I‟ll look into it. In the meantime, I think I should go check in with monsieur Papot and make sure he doesn‟t need any reassurance about anything.

I‟ll check with the restaurant while I‟m there and get something set up for you.

Jean was supposed to show up after he finished meeting with Orlando. I guess he can wait here for me.”

“I‟ll send him on to join you,” Thierry offered, “unless you‟d rather I didn‟t.”

“No, that‟s fine,” Raymond said. “I didn‟t want to make more work for you.”

“I‟d be sending him with you now if he were here already,” Thierry reminded Raymond. “It‟s no problem to send him later.”

“Thanks.”

Thierry inclined his head and shooed Raymond toward the door.

Raymond left, amused at the ease of the gesture. So many things had changed in the last year, and he owed it all to Jean. In his private moments, he could not stop smiling whenever he thought of his lover. He rubbed absently at the bite marks on his chest right above his heart where he had insisted Jean bite him. He fully intended for those marks to never completely heal.

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“If you do much of that, people will start thinking you have heart problems.”

Raymond spun around, relaxing when he saw Jean lounging against the wall to the abbot‟s house. “Jean, you scared me!”

“Then I‟ll have to make it up to you,” Jean said with a grin, pulling Raymond into his arms and kissing him. Raymond‟s eyes darted around the cloister, wondering if anyone was looking, but Jean‟s hands caught his cheeks, keeping him from turning his head or pulling away. “No one‟s looking, and even if they did, no one cares. It‟s been hours since I‟ve seen you, and I need a kiss.”

Raymond relaxed into the embrace, unable to resist Jean‟s affection for long. Thierry and Sebastien would not care if they saw, and the workmen might not recognize either him or Jean to make the connection or to care about it.

When Jean ended the kiss several long, enjoyable seconds later, he smiled at his lover. “Were you leaving already?”

“Only to go into Dommartin,” Raymond said. “I thought it might be worth paying a visit to the mayor and seeing what kind of waves our presence here is causing.”

“Do you expect it to cause any waves?” Jean asked.

“Not really, but I didn‟t expect it to cause waves with the vampires either, yet it clearly did.”

“About that,” Jean said. “I was thinking about how to head off any problems Céline and Renaud, Renaud particularly, might try to cause. If Luc and I approach the chefs de la Cour of each region, a few at a time, and explain to them what we‟re doing and how it could possibly benefit them, I hope we‟ll at least get the typical vampire laissez-faire attitude, even if we don‟t get their support.”

“I think it‟s a very logical plan,” Raymond agreed. “Tell me what you need from me and I‟ll take care of it.”

Jean grinned wolfishly. “Ask me that question again when we get home and I‟ll have an answer for you.”

Raymond rolled his eyes. “That‟s not what I meant.”

“Does that mean you aren‟t going to put out tonight?” Jean said with a pout.

Raymond snorted. “That expression makes you look about ten years old.

Let‟s find Thierry. The sooner we can finish our meeting with the mayor, the sooner we can get back to Paris. And the sooner we do that, the sooner we can go home for the night and see about who‟s going to do what for whom.”

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Jean‟s expression brightened considerably, making Raymond laugh again.

“Thierry! Jean‟s here!”

Thierry joined them in the open cloister a few moments later. “Go ahead and I‟ll send him after you,” Thierry told Raymond. “Call me when you‟re ready to come back, and I‟ll come get you.”

Raymond nodded and disappeared, reappearing moments later on what passed for a town square in Dommartin. The bistro stood to one side of the triangular commons, with the bakery and the préfecture on the other two sides.

Raymond smothered a smile at the squawk of surprise his arrival elicited from the children playing soccer despite the cold. “Stay back a minute longer,”

Raymond warned. “I have a friend who should be arriving right… about…

now.”

As if on cue, Jean appeared next to him, the children oohing in delight.

“Now you can come closer.”

The children ran up to Jean. “Are you a wizard?”

“He is. I‟m not,” Jean replied with a grin, careful not to let his fangs drop.

“I just hang out with him.”

The boys grabbed Raymond‟s coat sleeves. “Do something for us,” they begged. “Cast a spell.”

Raymond raised an eyebrow but drew his wand, an affectation he rarely bothered with in private. With a dramatic swoosh, he summoned water, sending it spouting through the air. The boys clapped in delight as the droplets froze into an elegant arc. Raymond met Jean‟s eyes over the children‟s heads and smiled.

“So can you tell us where we might find the mayor?” Raymond asked. “My friend and I need to talk to him for a few minutes.”

“Will you do some more magic when you come back?” the oldest boy asked.

“One more spell,” Raymond promised. “Think about what you want to see me do so you can ask for a good one. As long as it won‟t hurt or embarrass anyone, I‟ll do my best to show you what you want to see.”

“He has an office in the préfecture, but at this hour of the day, you can usually find him having a drink with the other men in the café,” the boy replied.

“Thank you. We‟ll be back later,” Raymond said. He joined Jean and headed toward the café. “„He is. I‟m not‟?” Raymond parroted. “You don‟t think they might have been interested in what you are?”

“They probably would have been,” Jean said, “but I didn‟t want to make a spectacle of myself.”

“So you made one of me instead.”

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“Exactly,” Jean said with a grin. “Do you know which of those venerable gentlemen is the mayor?”

“No idea,” Raymond said, “but I‟m quite sure an introduction on our part will provide us with the correct information.”