Unbitten (36 page)

Eventually, when Antoinette was calmed and Henri worried
that
le Seigneur
might try lunging at Jo, they
said their goodbyes. Without a word, Henri locked his
parents in, and he and Jo walked the long way back up out
of the dark, to the outside, where it was cold and clear
with countless stars overhead. She had never been so
relieved to leave a room. She held Henri’s hand as
they came back up the staircases, thinking about what kind
of fortitude a person would need to make that visit every
week, on and on, practically forever. What kind of
devotion.

There was no need for them to speak. Jo stopped, and Henri
stopped, and they turned towards each other at the same
moment, and twined their arms around each other, and looked
briefly into each other’s eyes before falling into a
deep kiss. Henri moaned a little while he kissed her, and
the vibration of his moan sent sparks of excitement through
Jo’s trembling body. She put her hands in his hair
and then held on to his massive shoulders, pulling him
close as they kept kissing, and kept kissing, and only
stepped apart when they could both hear someone coming down
the gravel path.

The next morning, the train pulled into the Mourency
station and a short woman, a little on the round side,
tumbled off with her bag dragging behind her. It was
Marianne, who had come to see the vampire for herself, and
of course, to make sure her friend was not in any danger.
She brushed her wild, curly hair out of her face and looked
around for a taxi, but there was none in Mourency save old
Monsieur Rémy, who sometimes waited around the
station in his old Renault, trying to make a few extra
euros. And this morning, M. Rémy was with his wife
at the dentist’s.

Marianne was nothing if not resourceful. And her French was
excellent. She asked at the station the way to the
Château, and set out on foot; vigorous exercise was
not really her thing, but she was excited to surprise Jo
and in a hurry to get there.

She admired the stonework of the village houses as she
walked down the street, the deep quiet, the little river.
Everything looked so solid. If she squinted her eyes and
blocked out some lurid advertising and the cars, the street
could have been a street of 1700. Or even earlier. The
sound of her wheeled bag clattering over the cobblestones
was incongruous, and intensely loud, announcing her passage
to the entire village.

She had done plenty of research after Jo had told her about
being bitten and sucked by David. Thank God for the
internet. She had even discovered a vampire museum in
Paris, but had been in too big a hurry to see Jo to swing
by for a visit that morning. Marianne had been shocked at
how much information there was on a subject that most of
the educated world dismissed as a myth. There were blogs;
online stores to buy various supplies both for vampires
themselves and for the people who wanted to kill them;
endless treatises (apparently the academic wing of vampire
society loved to drone on and on about themselves and every
thought they’d ever had); self-help sites offering
advice for the myriad problems of vampires, both within
their own world and in dealing with the non-vampire world
they had no choice but to live in; and even gift sites for
the vampire who has everything.

All in all, she felt ready. She had read everything she
could get her hands on and she felt that at least she had a
good understanding of vampire culture, their basic physical
attributes and requirements, and how much of a threat they
actually were (no way to tell since it depended on
individual vampires and their circumstance and
personalities). Yet Marianne was smart enough to know that
book learning does not translate to the real world that
easily. She was ready to be surprised, ready for the
unexpected.

She felt a little tingle of fear as she got closer to the
Château. When she rounded the final turn and it
loomed into view, she gasped, as many thousands before her
had done at the same spot in the road. There were flags
flying from several turrets, and it was easy to imagine,
like she had in the village, that it was not the 21st
century but the 17th. She pulled out her phone to call
Angélique–even from a distance she could see
that she was not going to be strolling through that gate
without being buzzed in.

“Ah, you are here!” said Angélique.
“Jo is going to be so thrilled to see you, I am
sure.”

“I hope so,” said Marianne. “I can see
the gate from here, what do I need to do to get in? Is
there a guard?”

“Oh no, nothing like that here in sleepy
Mourency,” said Angélique. “Why
don’t I hop in the car and come fetch you? I
won’t be a minute.”

True to her word, before Marianne had gotten much farther
down the road, which was lined with fields of sunflowers,
an older-model Citroën came racing around the curves,
shot past her, turned around, and pulled up alongside.
Marianne shoved her bag in the back seat and got in front,
speaking French as fast as she could manage, which was
extremely fast, as they made the short drive through the
gates and up to the Château.

“Where is Jo now, do you think?” Marianne
asked.

“Let’s see, midmorning? She is probably at the
barn, working with Thierry or out riding. Shall
I–”

“Just point me in the right direction and I’ll
find it,” said Marianne.

Angélique did so, and took Marianne’s bag that
seemed to be filled with hardcover books, or bricks, or
just a lot of rocks, and went to make sure Marianne’s
cottage was in order and welcoming.

Marianne flew down the gravel path towards the stables. She
could smell the earthy smells of hay and manure in the
chilly air as she got closer. Then she heard her friend
laughing, a real belly-laugh, and little tears sprang to
her eyes; she was so glad to hear Jo sounding so carefree
considering what she’d been through.

“Jo!” Marianne shouted, waving.

Jo turned and stared. It almost looked like–it
couldn’t–
Marianne!
She bounded down
the path and lifted her friend up in a gigantic hug.

“You were so sneaky not to tell me!”

“I didn’t want you to talk me out of it.”

“Why would I ever do such a thing? Come, meet my
great friend Thierry.” Jo pulled her along, inside
the building where it was warmer.

“Thierry! This is Marianne,” said Jo, beaming
at both of them. “My dearest, best friend!”

“
Enchanté
,” said Thierry, with
a bow, and then a kiss on both cheeks.

Jo had not seen this courtly side of him before and she
almost teased him, then thought the better of it.

“Would you like to ride?” Thierry asked
Marianne. “We have several horses, suitable for any
level of horsemanship….”

“I’m afraid my level of horsemanship is
zero,” said Marianne. “My level is Afraid of
Large Beasts, if you understand.”

“You can make jokes in French!” Thierry said,
laughing. “I adore you already. Would you like a
quick drink then,” he asked. “Just to
counteract the nip in the air?” He rummaged on a
shelf that was loaded with books, a bowl holding various
kinds of teeth, notebooks with papers falling out, and
behind all of that, a bottle of
pineau
.

Marianne moved to look at some book titles and with the
sleeve of her coat knocked a small vase off Thierry’s
desk. It exploded on the floor in dramatic fashion.

“Oh, dear,” said Marianne, bending to pick up
the pieces.

“Oh, please!” said Thierry laughing. “You
have thankfully disposed of that hideously ugly thing for
me. I will sweep up later!” He poured them each a
thimbleful in a dusty little glass and they made toasts.

“To France!” said Marianne.

“To Drogo’s future victories!” said Jo.

“To Marianne’s first ride!” said Thierry.

“Oh no you don’t,” said Marianne.

Thierry made a show of looking her over, from feet to the
top of her head. He made it quite obvious that he very much
liked what he saw.

“I know we have only just met,” he said.
“But I wonder if you will allow me to make an
observation?”

Marianne nodded.

Jo noted that she looked more…girlish? Flirty? than
Jo had ever seen her before. Marianne eyes were actually
sparkling as she waited to hear what Thierry had to say.

“What I see,” said Thierry, “is a woman
who was made to be on horseback.”

Marianne tried to protest but he cut her off.

“No, no, I am not teasing you. I would not joke about
this.”

Jo nodded.

“I propose that after you have eaten, and slept, and
adjusted to your new country, that you pay me the honor of
a visit, and I will give you your very first riding lesson.
In fact, come with me now, I want to introduce you to
somebody.”

Thierry took Marianne’s hand and led her down the
center of the stable to the far end, where a gentle horse
named Prunelle was nibbling on some hay.

Jo watched them, curious. She knew that Marianne had come
to see her, and to make sure she was all right, because
Marianne was that way–sort of motherly, always
looking out for her friends. Yet it appeared that she was
being diverted from her mission, and for the best of
reasons, Jo thought, smiling to herself as she waited, and
waited, for them to rejoin her.

The night before, Pierre had taken Roxanne down the long
road out of Mourency, towards the farm where he lived. As
they walked, Roxanne chattered away about living in New
York City, about the small town she had grown up in, and
about anything else that popped into her head–the
sunflowers, which she had never seen growing in a field
before; the stars overhead, which in New York City are
invisible because the city is lit up all night long. She
was rough, and pessimistic, and rarely spoke a sentence
without swearing. She had not been in France even
twenty-four hours and had mastered the French manner of
cursing quite admirably.

Pierre was intoxicated by her. He kept turning to watch her
face as she talked, her legs, the way she tossed that
green-streaked hank of hair out of her eyes. He had never
seen anything remotely like her. And unlike all the women
he had found at the train station over the decades, she was
his kind. A
labri
. She would understand how it
felt to be on the outside of everything, how it felt to
have blood-thirst be the central feature of your life, how
it felt to live so long with nothing to look forward to.

The little farmhouse of the couple who had so kindly hired
him was tucked up for the night, all lights out, quiet. The
dogs were inside and sleeping too, the roosters snoozing on
their roosts, and so Pierre and Roxanne slipped by on the
way to the barn without fanfare. They climbed up the ladder
to the hayloft, where Pierre had not bothered to make much
of a living space–he pretty much lived like a dog
himself, just throwing himself down in the hay when dawn
approached, digging in farther when it was chilly, and on
warm days, pulling open the big door through which he
tossed the bales to get a little breeze, while he slept
back in the shadows.

“Fucking awesome!” said Roxanne, and she sank
down on a bale of hay, obviously exhausted.

“Welcome,” said Pierre, and then he laughed
darkly. His home had never been a point of embarrassment
before. The only visitors he had had since living here were
Dominic and Maloney. But tonight, he wished he could have
brought Roxanne someplace nicer. Someplace that at least
had furniture.

But she wasn’t complaining. The plane ride, followed
by the long night of chasing fun in Paris and not finding
any, followed by the rather vigorous train ride and then
the long walk all the way to the farm–Roxanne was
obliterated by fatigue, and fading fast. She had already
slid off her bale onto the floor, and was contracting into
fetal position, no longer chattering.

Pierre observed her. He felt, for the first time since
becoming a vampire, protective of someone else. He wanted
to scoop her up and make a nest for her, and shelter her
from the cold. He wanted, more than anything, to let her
suck from him, to give her some of his abundant strength,
to make her happy.