by Cora Zane
“You’ll give me no trouble tonight, hein?”
She wrapped her arms low around his waist, sighing, resigned to do what she really didn’t want to do if it satisfied him. It was her job to please him, after all, and he seemed to want this adventure for her, whatever the reason. She lowered her eyes, but it didn’t stop him from kissing the tip of her nose, then her forehead. At last, he lifted her chin and forced her to look at him.
“I know you’re disappointed. I said I would take you—now this.” He brushed a stray lock of blond hair from her cheek. “Don’t look so down. It can’t be helped.”
“I know…it’s not that.”
“I promise to make this up to you. Now go with Gisele. Have a good time.” He held her at arm’s length then kissed her hand as he moved away to the office door, where someone now knocked—Claudette with the business man.
Frowning at no one, Eleni thought grimly of the night ahead and turned, walking across the room to take Julian’s private elevator up to the second floor.
* * * * *
By nine-thirty, Eleni had showered and dressed in sweater, jeans and a comfortable pair of riding boots, since she expected to do a lot of walking. Standing in front of her dresser mirror, she applied her makeup, and braided her long hair into a single plait, knowing the whole time she was dragging her feet and only putting off the inevitable.
Finally, she grabbed her wallet and her keys, resigned to the fact she wouldn’t be able to excuse her way out of this situation. On her way downstairs, she tried to convince herself the evening could turn out passable, if not okay.
From the foyer, she heard the car running out front. She went to the coat closet and took down a navy pea coat and slipped it on over her shoulders, bracing herself for the worst.
Outside, the evening air was chilly and slightly damp. A thin white mist rose up from the vineyard, which began down the hill from Julian’s house. She quickly crossed the raked gravel drive and climbed into the waiting car. As she strapped on her seatbelt, she glanced over at Gisele, who sat mutely behind the wheel, her dark eyes glittering with barely restrained dislike. That along with the angry set of her jaw told Eleni everything she needed to know. Yep, this is going to be fun. A real picnic!
They spoke barely two words to one another all the way to Ville Cleménce, and that suited Eleni just fine. But as they reached the edge of the village and Gisele began navigating their way through traffic choked streets, Eleni began to feel overwhelmed by it all—the crowds of people, the loud music, and anonymous mask-covered faces of hundreds of strangers.
Julian hadn’t been kidding when he’d claimed the festival was a major local attraction. Street vendors had cropped up everywhere and were selling everything under the moon, from food to balloons, to collectibles and trinkets. Almost everyone wore, or at least carried, a silk or paper mask.
Gisele navigated the traffic well. Even so, Eleni was relieved when she began looking for a place to park. Keeping to the side streets, Gisele stayed away from the immediate action, and kept hunting in areas that wouldn’t put them too far away from the square to walk.
Eleni was relieved when they came across the glowing red taillights of a car pulling out of a tight parking space. Gisele rushed up the street to stake her territory then hung back to wait for the car to vacate the spot. Horns blared behind them. Gisele looked up into the rearview mirror, a gleam of reflected light created a skewed rectangle across her face. Cursing the impatient drivers under her breath, she weathered the annoying insults that were hurled at them and refused to budge.
Eleni didn’t realize how hard she was gripping the edge of her seat until Gisele zipped into the empty spot. She killed the engine, and finally, Eleni was able to relax.
A humorless laugh escaped her lips. “I’m glad you were the one driving. I’d have turned back at the edge of town.” She looked across at Gisele, reaching out, hopeful. She lowered her voice a fraction, testing the waters. “I think we can manage to get along for one night, don’t you?”
Gisele scoffed as though the very idea was an insult. Her smoky eyes brimmed with malice as she flicked her gaze over Eleni’s face. “I told Julian I’d bring you here, but I never agreed to be your babysitter.”
Just like that, she snatched her leather handbag from the center console and got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. Stunned, Eleni gaped after her then hurried to get out of the car. By the time she set foot on the street, Gisele was already a half a block down the street, walking with an arrogant jauntiness that rapidly ate up the distance.
Eleni started after her, following the woman’s blonde head of hair through a thin crowd that walked along the narrow strip, but then up the block, a car came slowly around the corner, turning onto the street in her direction with the headlights beaming brightly.
Eleni squinted in the brightness, and ended up lifted her hand to shield her eyes before the car passed. In that short amount of time, she completely lost sight of Gisele.
Worry swirled through her as she walked to the end of the block. At the corner, she stood beneath the street lights while looking around at the vendors and the shops, searching for any sign of Gisele among the people drifting by and finding none.
She wondered briefly whether to go back to the car and wait. But then her anger caught up with her. If Gisele thought she was going to let this one slide, she was in for a rude awakening.
Falling in behind a group of pedestrians, two nice looking young couples trailing woolen scarves and carrying stick masks, Eleni made up her mind to explore. A determined scowl crossed her face. If she ended up lost, with no other choice but to hire a driver to take her back to the chateau, so be it. She’d let Gisele explain that one to Julian.
Two hours later, she wandered around the bustling village square. It had taken her a few false turns to find it, but once she did, her anxiety eased and she began to enjoy herself. A temporary stage had been set up near the fountain where Julian had walked with her weeks before. The fountain gurgled with water now, and a local band complete with accordions, clarinets, and a piccolo played a traditional French song to a masked, enthusiastic crowd. The melody was so moody and haunting it seemed to shiver through the night air like an electric current.
Eleni listened to it, the hairs prickling along the back of her neck. She kept glancing around, expecting to find Gisele at any minute, but there was still no sight of her. She stopped to watch a part of a marionette show, and had just finished eating a chocolate crepe she’d bought from a street vendor when she turned to walk back toward the an area closer to the stage that had places to sit, and walked head first into another woman and would have topple to the ground if the woman hadn’t caught her up and steadied her.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Eleni blurted in English.
“Eleni, it’s me!” The woman laughed as if it were all a great joke, and Eleni straightened, red faced, relieved to see Marguerite’s familiar face beaming at her in amusement. Before Eleni could say a word, Marguerite greeted her with a brief kiss on both cheeks. Then, she glanced around as if searching for someone. “This is such a pleasant surprise. Julian is with you?”
“No. I came with Gisele…who is somewhere around here.”
“Abandoned you, did she?” The vampiress didn’t sound surprised. “The girl is insolent. No respect for others, or for her station in life,” she said with a sniff. “But never mind her; I was just going to sit over at this little café to sit and watch the crowds. I’m old, you know?” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “I’ve been shopping and I need to rest my feet. You must come with me.”
Marguerite led her to a sidewalk café not far from the restaurant where she and Julian had dined only days before. They found an empty table and claimed it. Marguerite sat down heavily in one of the chairs and dropped her shopping bags by her feet.
“Zut! Let us sit for a while to catch our breath. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been up since before the sun went down.” She waved to a passing
waiter, catching him before he disappeared into the building. “Monsieur, deux cafés, s’il vous plait.”
The man nodded, and Marguerite looked back around at Eleni. “Coffee is good?”
“Yes, thank you.”
They sat a moment, waiting. Marguerite excused herself when her cell phone rang. While she took the call, Eleni found herself drawn to someone across the square dressed as the grim reaper, complete with a hooded black robe and an obviously plastic sickle, the tip painted red to appear bloodstained. The hooded figure teased a group of school aged girls who shrieked like a flock of birds when he levered the sickle at them as they passed by on the street.
Amused, Eleni was still smiling to herself when the waiter appeared with the coffee, the sound of heavy stoneware cups rattling against matching saucers tugging her from her reverie.
Marguerite uttered a polite good-bye into the phone, then set it down on the table so she could thank the waiter and pay. Her handbag in her lap, she dug for change, shuffling through the contents of her purse. Eleni unzipped her wristlet, willing to pay, but Marguerite refused to let her. In the end, the vampiress paid for the coffee and offered the waiter a tip of a few Euros because he’d had stood by with practiced patience, and on such a busy night.
Once he was gone, Eleni tore open a thumb-cup of liquid creamer and poured it into her cup while Marguerite watched. The vampiress sipped her coffee, and talked about idle things, things in passing, how much the festival had grown over the years. Then she fixed Eleni with a quiet look from over her coffee cup, her red lips hovering just near the chalk white rim.
“So, do you know where Gisele is?” she asked gently. “Are you going to need a ride home?”
Relief poured through her like blessed sunshine. “Could you do that?” Eleni asked. “Drive me home, I mean?”
Marguerite’s brows lifted. “Certainly. I wouldn’t dream of leaving you stranded.”
Eleni’s shoulders sagged, and she breathed deeply. “Thank you. Really. I know Gisele will have to go back to the car eventually.” She glanced back toward the town square, wary. “But I can’t remember where we parked. It was on a little side street, and there was a lot of traffic.”
“No worries.” Marguerite shook her head. “Though I will say, you should watch yourself with Gisele in the future. She is rarely trustworthy.”
“I suppose you would know,” Eleni said wistfully. “Julian said she lived with you for a while.”
“That much is true. I took her in for several years. She was very young, so I hired a local woman from the village to be a nurse to her. She grew up in my house, although admittedly, there were times it wasn’t easy to live with her. She was strong willed as girl, so angry at the world.” Marguerite shook her head. “But I am sure you likely know that or you wouldn’t be sitting here with me.”
Eleni looked down into her coffee to escape those knowing eyes.
They finished their coffee, then left the little café, heading toward a side street around the corner from the central square. It wasn’t far from the café or the restaurant where Eleni had dined with Julian, but it was perceptibly darker. Cars lined the streets, which were far quieter and less traveled than the ones at the opposite side of the square.
Even so, there were revelers—late arrivals parked out here, people that grouped together, traveling in packs from their cars to the festivities in the square.
“What you must understand about Gisele,” Marguerite told her confidentially, “is that she lived with me as a sort of trainee. I was expected to show her how to be a proper lady, and yet, she was told she would be a servant. I tried to tell Julian that you can have it both ways. There were places we could send her so that she would be brought up properly, but he was hesitant to send her. He felt sorry for her, I think. She had no family, no one but us to care for her.” They reached Marguerite’s car, and the vampiress turned and faced her on the sidewalk.
“Julian paid for Gisele’s boarding school, and when she was sixteen, he took her into his household as a servant. We both knew she wasn’t prepared, but she was a smart girl, and Julian figured she would catch on. I feared he would cross the line and make her some…bastard lover. But he surprised me. I realized at Christmas the following year, his feelings were more like a father to a daughter—not romantic. Still, I could see the admiration in her eyes, and I warned him she was at an impressionable age, and he would only complicate things for himself and her, if he didn’t place her under the care of the council.” She shook her head. “He feared the council would dismiss her, and likely they would have…for just reasons.”
“What did he do?” Eleni asked quietly.
“He sent Gisele to live with me, part time, and without consulting him, I had a life coach come in from Paris, a vampiress with much experience. It was not a success. I knew Julian wanted her to have a “motherly” influence in her life, you see. But Gisele turned against me completely. She has a vicious side once she feels you have wronged her. Mark my word on that. Julian has a soft spot for her, one that I don’t entirely understand, but an important thing to know.”
She turned with her keys in hand and unlocked the passenger side door, which automatically unlocked all the other doors in the car.
An undercurrent of tension hung in the air. Eleni noticed Marguerite’s shrewd tone and ventured carefully, “Something happened between you and her?”
“That depends on who you ask,” Marguerite said as she walked around the car to the driver’s side door.
“As I was saying, the trouble…it depends on who you ask. But I will tell you Gisele is unquestionably ambitious. It is only my opinion, of course, but I believe Julian should have severed the bloodline when her mother left the servitude. Gisele never should have been brought into our homes. It takes years, generations, to build loyalty and trust. We place our lives in the hands our servants, when you think about it. Julian, he…how do you say?” Her eyes clouded thoughtfully, then cleared. “With Gisele, he created a monster. Gisele covets immortality too much, and doesn’t have the discipline of a proper servant.”
“You think she’s dangerous?”
“That depends on what you consider to be dangerous,” Marguerite said without guile. “Not long after Gisele came of age, she presented herself to me as a lover. She said she would do anything I desired of her. But, in return, she wanted me to make her a vampire. That was when I packed her clothes, and sent her to Julian.” Her eyes glittered dangerously, her lips thinned in anger. “Honestly, I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to seduce him. But who am I to criticize, yes? After all, Gisele is not a demon of my making. In the end, she is Julian’s problem. All I have ever tried to do is keep my cousin from being lost to loneliness and despair.”
Marguerite climbed into the car. For a moment, Eleni stared after her, dumbfounded by this new and surprising information. It explained so many things—Gisele’s anger when she was asked to serve the household, and her curious dislike of Marguerite. Also, it at least partially explained her argument with Claudette.
Of course, Julian would be furious if he ever found out what Marguerite had told her. He was a private man, and in some ways, what she’d been told changed the entire dynamic of the household. Eleni knew she could no longer look at Gisele as merely an idle threat.
While it disturbed her that Gisele was so driven to seek immortality, it wasn’t necessarily a problem she hadn’t faced before. Many Acolytes thought the way Gisele did. The only difference was that the uninitiated, foolish women like Gisele had no idea how rare it was to be chosen for such a gift. Most Acolytes never entered a blood bond with their Biter. Overall, maybe one percent was spared a mortal’s death—like her sister Anya. Eleni didn’t anticipate being so lucky. And after her disastrous relationship with Rubio, she had finally come to terms with that.
Marguerite started the engine, and as Eleni climbed into the car, an odd sense of dread trickled through her at the thought of going back to the chateau. The vampiress rummaged around
in the center console for a moment and came away with a pair of gradient sunglasses that were a translucent, smoke gray along the lower half of the lenses for driving. She put them on and looked over at Eleni.
“Voila. Are we ready to go?” she asked.
Eleni sucked in a deep breath and nodded. A thousand questions churned in her mind as they pulled away from the curb. Although she wasn’t too thrilled with what she’d learned tonight, if she hadn’t allowed Julian to shove her out of the nest to attend the festival, she might have never known the truth about Gisele’s behavior and her past.
They’d gone less than two blocks when the car slowed and Marguerite swore softly, drawing Eleni’s attention to the road ahead, the view a bleary sea of gleaming red taillights. The traffic had bottlenecked along a narrow but main artery running through the village, and up ahead a police officer was waving drivers along a perpendicular street, trying to untangle the snag in traffic.
While Marguerite drummed her nail on the steering wheel in impatience, Eleni looked through the window and noticed a bistro less than ten feet away with a wrought iron balcony and chipped plaster front. In the glowing, amber-sconce ambiance of the front window, which was partly covered with sheer lace, a woman with long, curling blond hair sat with her elbow on the candle-lit table.
Gisele.
Anxiety trilled up from the core of Eleni’s stomach and lodged in her chest as the car inched along, closer to the window and Gisele. Her lips parted slightly as she watched Julian’s troubled servant having a very animated discussion with someone—a man. She couldn’t get an immediate good look at him, his back was turned to her, but she could see the reddish brown hair and a pale hand clasped around a steaming cup of coffee or tea.
At last, the car began to roll forward, and as Marguerite drove past the window, the man leaned in as if to share something in confidence with Gisele. Eleni caught a glimpse of his face and paled in shock and disbelief. A dart of alarm stabbed her straight in the heart when she realized the man was Liev Sidorov, the vampire who had come to Julian’s house to threaten her.
