Unbitten (8 page)

“Now, about aging,” continued Alain.
“Generally speaking, worldwide, vampires stop getting
older when they become vampires. It’s as simple as
that, and true to the mythology. But here in France, we see
a different strain. These vampires, who appear to have been
turned at young ages, prepubescent in any case, do get
older, albeit extremely slowly. So they might live to be
two or three hundred years old, and just like humans, their
faculties and strength will fade over time. Why, we
don’t know.”

Jessica continued the explanations. “They do like the
high life, these vampires,” she said. “Here in
Paris, and back in New York as well, they party all the
time. Love wearing couture. Eating the most extravagant
food.” She paused and sipped her drink.

“I haven’t thought of it like this
before,” she said, “but it’s like they
are extra-concentrated humans. They are faster, stronger,
and they want everything to be the best, beyond the
best–they want to eat, and make love, and do
everything to the absolute maximum. All the time.”

Jessica was practically breathless. She did not exactly
sound like a woman talking about something she
wholeheartedly disapproved of.

“Some weaknesses that we know of.” said Alain.
"They do not like noise. It might be that their ears are
more highly sensitive, we’re not sure. But loud
noise, especially grating, scraping, blaring noise really
puts them off. It makes them run.

“They appear to have some kind of–now,
I’m absolutely serious here. I make this claim only
on the basis of a mountain of evidence, and I’m well
aware it sounds ridiculous–some kind of mind control,
or something like that. We don’t understand how it
works. But in case after case, we arrive at the location of
an attack, and we have the victim right there, clearly
bitten, clearly assaulted by one of these monsters, and not
only the victim herself but people who were right there and
saw the whole thing–they remember nothing.

“It’s like their short-term memories were gone
over with a wet sponge. Nothing there.” Alain drained
his drink and glanced hopefully at the door to the kitchen.

“You said ‘victim herself’,” said
Tristan. “That’s one thing I’ve been
wanting to understand. Do vampires only bite women? And are
there female vampires?”

“Ah,” said Alain. “This is a very
interesting topic, and one that again, we don’t fully
understand. But please,” he said, turning his large
brown eyes on Jessica and giving her the warmest smile he
could muster, “let’s talk of other things while
we eat. I see our waiter hurrying towards us this very
minute. I am undone at the prospect of my oysters.”

Alain clapped his hands and turned to the waiter, and
Tristan nearly snatched the plates out of the
waiter’s hands he was so impatient to taste those
snails.

Jo had eaten a fine lunch, served in the breakfast room to
staff only. Then she had taken the rather long walk to her
room up in the tower, and fallen dead asleep for hours in
that wonderfully comfortable bed.

When she woke, she lay on her side, stretching and thinking
of Drogo, and what a deep pleasure it had been to ride him
that morning. Then she noticed what looked like a note
slipped under her door.

It was handwritten, old-fashioned, as though a quill had
been dipped in black ink.

I would very much like it if you would have dinner
with me this evening. 8:00 in the foyer –
David

Huh. Well. Jo wasn’t sure she wanted to have dinner
with him. It was stupid in a way, because of course she
hadn’t known him at all, but what she kept thinking
was that everything she had known about him had turned out
to be a lie.

Which was silly, since she hadn’t really known
anything about him anyway. She had simply believed he loved
horses, that was all. And now she knew he didn’t. So
what’s the big deal, what did she care? He was a
complete stranger and always had been.

A stranger who was smokin’ hot, OK, but a stranger
nonetheless.

Yikes, it was 7:30 already. Jet-lag was really screwing
with her sense of time. She hurried to take a bath and find
something not too wrinkled to wear, and in half an hour,
plus ten minutes so as not to seem all eager–which
she wasn’t,
really she wasn’t
, no
danger of that–she was coming down the wide staircase
to the main foyer.

Jo had her hair pulled back tight into a chignon, and had
darkened up her eyebrows with pencil. Her cheeks were rosy
from the long ride. Her dress was blue silk, a slip-dress,
practically like wearing a nightgown. But she knew she
looked good in it, and perversely, she almost cared more
about looking good now that she was mad at David than if
she were still interested in him.

She wanted him to feel sorry for pretending to be something
he wasn’t.

Of course, Jo did not know the half of it.

David was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He was
wearing a dark blue shirt that made his skin look very
pale. Tight blue jeans. Dress shoes. He looked tremendously
athletic, something like a panther, like he could leap
right out of those shoes and those jeans and–wait a
minute. How about…athletic like he would be a terror
on the tennis court, how’s that? Much better, she
thought.

She could see his appreciation on his face. His eyes took
her in, drank her in, as he reached out a hand. When she
gave him hers, he brought it to his lips, like he had the
day before when they met.

This time, she felt a jolt when his lips touched her
fingers. Like her fingers were only now coming alive for
the very first time.

“I thought we’d eat in here,” he said,
taking her hand and leading her in a different direction
than she had been before. They walked through room after
room, until they came to a small room lined with books,
with a fire blazing in an enormous fireplace.

“This is my grandfather’s library,” said
David. “He was quite a collector and many of these
books are worth a fortune. Of course, books are becoming
obsolete, like so many of the old things,” he said,
looking charmingly sentimental.

Jo felt a wall of defenses drop. There were other walls,
still intact, but that first line had crumbled and they
weren’t even sitting down yet.

“Has your grandfather been…gone for very
long?” Jo asked.

“You could say that,” answered David, but he
did not elaborate. “Tell me about Drogo,” he
said, his face lighting up.

“Oh,” said Jo. “I thought…I
didn’t know he mattered to you.”

David cocked his head to the side.

Jo was kicking herself. She had sworn that she was not
going to bring it up. She had a habit of blurting things
out that she regretted later.

“Drogo matters to me a great deal,” he said,
looking into her eyes, focusing so deeply on her eyes that
she could not look away.

There was no way not to believe him.

Jo suddenly heard Marianne’s voice in her ear.
“When it comes to men,” Marianne said,
“Pay attention to what they
do
, not what
they
say
.”

“Oh shut up,” said Jo.

“Excuse me?” said David.

“Nothing,” said Jo, giggling like a schoolgirl.
Jo felt the obnoxious creep of a blush starting to inch up
her neck. She sternly told it to cut it the hell
out–silently this time.

“It’s…warm in here, isn’t
it?” she said.

“Yes,” said David, looking at her with
undisguised desire. He reached for her hand and held it.

Again, the jolt.

“Albert will be bringing something to nibble on
soon,” he said. “Would you like to sit down?
The sofa or at the table?”

“The table,” Jo said hurriedly. She needed to
put some furniture between herself and this man.

She tried to remember how disgusted with him she had felt
after talking to Thierry, but the feeling was like
something written on a piece of paper and then tossed into
the fire–up in smoke, lost for good.

“Talk to me about riding, Jo,” said David. "I
want to hear about Drogo, yes, but right now I want you to
tell me what it feels like to be on top of him, guiding
him, squeezing him with your legs. I want you to describe
the connection you feel to your horse.

“Can you do that for me?” he said softly.

She could. And she did. All through the delicious dinner,
which was the best meal Jo had ever had. And she kept
telling him as they drank tiny glasses of Chartreuse and
the fire died down to embers, as he continued to hold her
hand, and eventually, with one finger, touch the thin silk
strap of her dress, and eventually, for just a moment, her
neck, but no more, and as the cautionary words of Marianne
floated high up and out to sea.

Pierre Aucoin sat with his elbows on the bar in front of a
glass of beer. The beer was for show, really, since alcohol
has no effect on vampires–or not for show exactly, he
ordered the beer because it made him feel like he was part
of the group at the bar, doing what they did.

A comrade. A buddy. One of the gang.

Which–there was no kidding himself–Pierre was
not.

Most of the men he knew were married now, and they came to
the bar for a quick nip before going home to their wives.
Some of them had children. None of them knew about
his…status. The only other vampires he knew of were
the la Mottes, and they wanted nothing to do with him,
beyond occasionally keeping him out of trouble when they
thought he might be giving up their secret to the local
gendarmes.

He was terribly, terribly lonely.

And right now, as usual, he wanted a woman. He wanted to
drink blood, not beer.

The bartender was talking sports to a couple of guys
standing near the bar. The bartender’s wife was in
the back room, mopping the floor. The whole place was
brown, tired, and had the air of a place where nothing was
ever going to happen worth telling about.

Pierre tossed back the rest of his beer–he was a
legend in the bar, no one could believe the amount of
alcohol he could put away without showing any
effects–and said good night to the few remaining
patrons. They nodded and said their goodnights as well,
ever polite. Pierre was sick to death of polite. He wanted
something a whole hell of a lot better than polite.

It was agreeably dark out. He strolled down the back street
by the river, amusing himself by popping out the
streetlamps with thoughtbursts, wondering how much money
the poor old village of Mourency had had to spend over the
years to replace bulbs he had ruined.

He stood on the corner, trying to decide which way to go
next. He lifted his face to the sky, inhaling deeply,
hoping to catch the scent of a woman.

Pierre had long ago given up on finding a female of his own
kind, a
labri
, so that particular pain did not
bother him anymore, at least not consciously. There were
still female humans who ventured out at night, alone, too
trusting. He inhaled again. Nothing. He smelled only the
mossy smell of the river and wet stones, and dust from the
street. He walked slowly, aimlessly kicking a stone.

It came out of nowhere. An enormous hand clamped over his
mouth while something lashed at his legs. In an instant his
legs were bound by an incredibly tight rope and he used all
of the impressive strength in his arms to reach around
behind him to try to grab whoever was attacking him.

Pierre had been in many fights over the years, and he had
never come close to losing.

He felt the rope beating at his arms and starting to bind
them too, almost as though it were something alive, like a
tentacle. With a huge surge of power, Pierre ripped his
legs apart and turned to face the man behind him, crouched
and ready to spring. His fangs tingled as they began to
slide down.

The man was very tall, and wide, and had the biggest
muscles Pierre had ever seen except in a bodybuilder
magazine. But big muscles didn’t scare him. Lifting a
barbell at the gym was nothing like a street-fight. And
human muscles? Pfft.