Reluctant Partnerships

by Ariel Tachna

  Surprised to be addressed, Pascale looked up at the young, almost androgynous man who stood before her. “Justin Molinière. And you are?”

  “Pascale Auboussu. Are you here for the seminar?”

  “I’m actually here to present some of the seminars,” Justin replied. “My partner Catherine and I are substituting for two of the usual presenters who are on vacation. This month is the second anniversary of the alliance, and I know a number of couples who consider this their anniversary month.”

  “You don’t?” Pascale asked.

  “We do,” Justin said, “but we celebrated last week. The date was less important to us than the commemoration. So what brings you here? Anything in particular?”

  “A chance at a normal life again,” Pascale said. “Adjusting to being a vampire has not been easy for me.”

  “It’s not an easy adjustment,” Justin agreed. “How long have you been a vampire?”

  “A week.”

  “A week?” Justin repeated. “That’s the blink of an eye. If you’ve adjusted at all, you’re doing better than most vampires I’ve seen after their turning.”

  “I completely forgot it was the first day of the new seminar,” Denis said when he arrived at l’Institut. “I would have waited until tomorrow otherwise.”

  “Yes, things are a little crazy around here today,” Martin agreed. “I’m still getting used to the rhythm of life here. Not that I’m teaching any of the seminars since I don’t really have anything to add to the discussion at this point, but just the comings and goings of all the participants hasn’t become routine for me yet.”

  “If you’re focusing your research on Pierre, you probably won’t have a lot to contribute,” Denis said. “Unless we manage to get him a lot more stable than he was last night, I’d be afraid to let him form a partnership. He wouldn’t be able to function as half of a whole without endangering his partner.”

  “Yes, one of the things they stressed repeatedly when I went through the seminar is how careful both partners have to be not to let the vampire overfeed. That’s fine if the vampire is in control, but if the vampire isn’t, he could easily overpower his partner and do serious harm.”

  Denis nodded. “Are you planning on trying anything tonight to help him?”

  “I had thought to wait until tomorrow, since he fed yesterday and you said three days would be sufficient,” Martin replied. “Do you disagree?”

  “Not with that,” Denis said, “but I want to talk to him if we can get him at all coherent. I had a thought about the case last night as I was talking with Luc Cabalet from Amiens.”

  “Oh? Adèle will be interested to hear that,” Martin replied.

  “I’d like to talk to Pierre about it first,” Denis said. “I could be completely off the mark. In fact, I’m mostly convinced I am, except I can’t let it go.”

  “Well, let’s go talk to Pierre,” Martin suggested. “Maybe he’ll say something that’ll tip you over one way or the other.”

  “Once we get inside the room, put a barrier between you and him so he can’t get to you,” Denis requested.

  “He won’t try anything after yesterday,” Martin said, his voice full of confidence.

  “You don’t know that,” Denis insisted. “Yesterday he was capable of talking. Today he might not have that much lucidity, and if he’s truly out of control, I want more between you and him than just me.”

  “What do you really think he’s going to do to me?” Martin asked, not wanting Denis to see him as less than capable. Despite the visceral thrill of hearing Denis claim him the night before, Martin was used to being the one in control, the one protecting rather than being protected. “He’s half my size, underfed from the looks of him—”

  “He’s a vampire,” Denis interrupted, annoyed at Martin’s comments when Pierre had proven the night before how wrong such assumptions were. He knew Martin’s type: always in control, always the most powerful. He could imagine Martin struggling with the realization that it would be different if he took up with a vampire. “Size doesn’t matter. He could overpower a man twice his size.”

  Martin still looked skeptical enough that Denis’s temper snapped. He grabbed the wizard’s shoulders, pinning him hard against the wall. “Get away from me,” he demanded. “I’m even smaller than Pierre. You think you can get away from him. Get away from me.”

  Martin struggled, his body rubbing against Denis’s, the friction enflaming Denis’s senses. He forced the awareness down, determined to stay in control of his instincts, but his fangs dropped despite his best intentions. “Pierre would have drained you half dry by now,” he ground out. “Put the barrier in place.”

  “You wouldn’t let it come to that,” Martin replied, subsiding against the wall, the cessation of tension as tempting to Denis as the struggle had been. “I may not know much about vampires, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that they don’t share.”

  Denis yearned to prove that point, to drive his fangs deep into Martin’s neck and stake his claim in a way no vampire, even one as newly turned as Pierre, would misunderstand. He held back, though, because biting Martin would set off a chain reaction he was not entirely sure he was ready to deal with. “No, we don’t,” Denis agreed, “but that isn’t the point. Put the barrier in place.”

  Martin nodded his agreement, so Denis stepped back, releasing his hold. They walked the rest of the way to Pierre’s chamber in silence. Denis insisted on going inside first. Martin rolled his eyes but did not argue.

  Pierre lifted his head from his knees as they walked in, but he did not rise from the bed. Denis shot Martin a sharp look, waiting until Martin had lifted his wand and cast a spell before moving closer to Pierre. “Did you see who attacked you?” Denis began without preamble.

  “It was dark,” Pierre replied, his voice hollow, as if he were somewhere else and only barely aware of what he was saying.

  “I know it was,” Denis agreed, sitting on the bed next to Pierre, “but you must have seen something. Some hint of who it might have been. Anything. The color of his hair, a piece of jewelry he wore, anything he might have said to you. I know you remember, Pierre. You just have to tell us.”

  Martin had no idea what Denis really expected Pierre to say, but Denis simply sat down at Pierre’s side and waited.

  “Come back for me,” Pierre crooned. “He said he’d make me immortal and when he came back for me, I’d thank him for it.”

  “Why?” Denis pressed. “What did he want?”

  “Thank him for it,” Pierre said, rocking back and forth on the bed, his arms around his bent knees, his chin tucked down against them. “Thank him for it. Do whatever he wants. Come back for me.”

  “Did you see him at all?” Denis insisted. “Anything?”

  “Come back for me.”

  “He doesn’t know anything, Denis,” Martin interrupted from behind the ward. “Even if he did, you couldn’t trust what he’s saying. Look at him. He’s completely cracked beneath the stress of being turned.”

  “Did he say what he’d do when he came back for you?” Denis asked, ignoring Martin.

  “Never be hungry, never be cold,” Pierre said, looking up at Denis. “Hungry! I’m hungry!”

  “We’ll get you something to eat,” Denis promised. “Just answer my question. What did he say about coming back for you?”

  “Hungry!”

  Cursing under his breath, Denis returned to Martin’s side, the ward unable to keep him out because Martin had cast it. “We aren’t going to get anything else out of him until after he’s fed. Have we gotten any donor blood?”

  “We hadn’t earlier, but we could check again,” Martin said. “You were driving at something with him. What are you thinking?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get somewhere safe,” Denis said, ushering Martin toward the door. “As hungry as he is, I don’t trust him around you even with your ward in place.”

  Tempted as Martin was to argue the effectiveness of his
magic, Pierre’s rocking and babbling left him far too unsettled. He cast the spell to open the door, releasing the ward as he passed over the threshold. The moment the ward fell, Pierre lunged at them. Martin slammed the door shut, heart pounding as he listened to the angry screaming coming through the door. “Maybe you were right.”

  Denis shook his head. “There are many things I don’t know, but I do know vampires. He doesn’t actually need to feed again yet, but as weak as his mind is, he can’t control those urges the way a more mature vampire would be able to do. Let’s go back to your rooms, if you don’t mind. I want to talk to you.”

  “About?” Martin asked, leading the way toward his room in the Hostellerie. He shivered slightly as they crossed the courtyard. The temperatures were still warmer than they would have been at home, but he had left his sweater in one of the classrooms, and his thin shirt did little to protect him from the cool night breeze.

  “About Pierre and who might have turned him and Pascale,” Denis said. “I went to Amiens last night to speak with another chef de la Cour about something else entirely, and a thought occurred to me. It’s far-fetched, but I can’t seem to shake the feeling I’m on to something.”

  Martin released the lock to his rooms with a quick spell and opened the door. Denis followed him inside and took a seat in the armchair, leaving the love seat for Martin. Martin made himself comfortable and waited for Denis to continue.

  “I was talking to Luc Cabalet last night about Guy Renaud, the vampire I replaced as chef de la Cour,” Denis explained. “He asked if I’d heard from Renaud and whether Renaud still had any support within the Cour in Autun, whether Renaud could take power back if I stepped down.”

  “Wait, why are you stepping down?” Martin interrupted.

  “I’m not,” Denis replied. “Luc wanted to know what would happen if I did, that’s all. I told him no one within the Cour would support Renaud. That’s how I took power from him in the first place, but the way I answered him, just coincidentally, you understand, was that Renaud would have to recruit support from outside the Cour in order to take back power. I know it’s far-fetched, but what if Renaud is turning people with the idea of creating supporters for himself?”

  “He isn’t doing a very good job if that’s the case,” Martin said. “Pascale wants nothing to do with her maker, whether it’s Renaud or someone else, and Pierre isn’t in any shape to be of help to anyone.”

  “I told you it was far-fetched,” Denis agreed, “but I can’t seem to shake the idea, and Pierre talked about his maker expecting him to be grateful.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s Renaud,” Martin pointed out.

  “No, it doesn’t, but it doesn’t rule him out either. Renaud is from the right time period to have the accent Pascale identified. There’s nothing to prove it is him, but there’s nothing to rule him out either.”

  “But couldn’t that be true of a large number of vampires?” Martin asked. “I mean, I heard Adèle talking about the number of vampires she’d have to talk to after Pascale was turned, and we don’t have anything other than the day of the week in Pierre’s case. Hardly enough to bring them in to talk with Pascale. If we work in the opposite direction, if we start by assuming it’s Renaud, is there any way we could identify him or rule him out? Besides checking his alibi, of course.”

  “He was a glass smith before he was turned,” Denis said. “His hands were covered in pock marks from exploding glass and sparks from the fire.”

  “I thought all that sort of thing healed when a vampire was turned,” Martin said. “How did he still have the marks?”

  “Fresh marks will heal, like the bullet wounds that would have taken my life if Luc hadn’t turned me,” Denis explained, “but if the wounds were made and healed before the turning, the scars won’t disappear. Renaud was in his thirties when he was turned, long enough to have accumulated a few scars from his profession. I’d hoped Pierre saw them, but I’m afraid if I ask him about it directly, he’ll give me the answer he thinks I want rather than answering truthfully.”

  “We should ask Pascale about it,” Martin proposed. “She’s here at l’Institut this week for the seminar. I know she said she didn’t see anything, but she might not have thought about that kind of detail being important. If we bring it up, it might jog her memory.”

  “Of course, even if she did see something to identify him, we still have to find him,” Denis said. “He went missing six months ago, after I took the Cour from him.”

  “You and others have mentioned that a couple of times, but everyone else knows what happened, so they never discuss details,” Martin said. “Why did you overthrow him?”

  “Because he was stuck in the past, refusing to allow any of the vampires in Autun to participate with l’Institut,” Denis replied. “Refusing to deal with the changes brought about by the equal rights legislation. Making life difficult for the rest of us with his antiquated ways. Not that many of my Cour have formed partnerships, but quite a few of them have participated in the seminars. More importantly, they now feel like they have a choice.”

  “You couldn’t have simply changed Cours?” Martin asked.

  “I suppose we could have applied for entrance into the Cour de Paris,” Denis replied, “but Autun is home for us, not Paris, and if we tried to stay in Autun but leave the Cour, Renaud could have made life very difficult for us. It was easier to replace him with someone capable of seeing reason. The others picked me to attempt it, and with their support, I succeeded.”

  It had not been quite that simple, of course, but Denis saw no reason to rehash the grueling fight that had left both him and Renaud bleeding profusely. Denis had been at the end of his strength, sure he was about to lose the fight, the protection of the Cour, and perhaps even his existence, when Renaud had suddenly slunk from the field, admitting defeat. He almost hoped they could prove that Renaud was the one responsible for turning Pascale and Pierre so he could stop worrying about the former chef de la Cour returning to challenge him once more.

  “I’m glad you did,” Martin said. “I might not have met you otherwise.”

  “Are you still serious about considering a partnership?” Denis asked on impulse.

  “I’m certainly open to discussing our options,” Martin replied. “Why? Have you changed your mind?”

  “I told you I went to Amiens to talk with the vampire who turned me,” Denis said slowly. “I didn’t tell you why I wanted to talk to him. When he turned me, he had a lover he very much adored. That lover was killed at the beginning of World War II. I wanted to talk to him about recovering from that kind of loss.”

  “Did you lose someone as well?”

  “I did. Noël was the first person I ever fed from after I was turned, and indeed the only one until his death thirty years ago,” Denis revealed. “I cared deeply for him, and a part of me feels guilty even considering a partnership with him so recently gone.”

  “Thirty years is hardly recent,” Martin said. “I don’t mean to sound callous, but you’re allowed to move on with your life.”

  “I am, but thirty years is much less to a vampire than to a mortal,” Denis reminded him. “Even to a vampire as young as I am. It isn’t in our nature to love easily, but when we do, we love completely, and it takes a long time to let that go.”

  “Did your maker have any advice for you?” Martin asked.

  “He is of the opinion that a partnership doesn’t have to be the center of one’s life if the people involved choose to keep the relationship on a less personal footing,” Denis replied.

  “The instructors here seem to think that’s quite a hard line to walk,” Martin said.

  “Luc didn’t say it was hard per se, but he did agree it was a constant choice to step back and keep things on that level,” Denis agreed. “He doesn’t feed only from his partner, unlike most of the pairs I’ve talked to. They don’t share a room or a bed or a life, really, except for the feeding.”

  “So what are you suggesting?”
Martin asked. “That we should try something like that, with me here at l’Institut and you in Autun, and you come see me or call me to come see you a few times a week so you can feed without anything else?”

  “Not really,” Denis said, the impersonal description far less appealing than it should have been. “I mean, I’m not opposed to that if that’s what you want. I guess what I’m really saying is that maybe we should take the time to get better acquainted so we can see what kind of compatibility we have. If we think we could function as partners, we could establish a set of ground rules that would allow us to be apart at times so you could return home. We could decide what degree of intimacy we’re comfortable with and keep it at that level instead of sliding headlong into a love affair that maybe neither of us wants.”

  “Okay, so how do we do that?” Martin asked.

  Denis shrugged. “We work together to help Pierre, if that’s possible, and to find the vampire who turned him so other people aren’t hurt the same way. We get to know each other and see where that leads us. Maybe the answer will be nowhere. Maybe we’ll spend a few weeks together and realize we couldn’t possibly function as partners on any level. And maybe the answer will be that we find something worth compromising to keep it going.”