Reluctant Partnerships (18 page)

“C’est quoi, cette connerie?” Denis muttered under his breath. He glared at the amusement on Jean’s face. “I don’t have time for this.”

“No one said you had to do anything about it,” Jean said as Martin reappeared next to them.

“What happened?” Martin asked.

“Your magic didn’t work,” Raymond said. “It would seem you’ve found your partner even before you completed the seminar. Before either of you panic, remember that what you do with the information is entirely up to you. You don’t ever have to see each other again if that’s what you decide to do. And even if you decide to get a little better acquainted before going forward, as long as Denis does not feed, you are both still free to walk away. The bond cannot form without the exchange of blood.”

Denis nodded slowly, searching Martin’s face before turning back to Raymond. “If you could send me home, I’d appreciate it.”

“Of course,” Raymond said, drawing his wand. “We’ll be in touch if anything changes.”

“As will I,” Denis said. Good manners insisted he acknowledge his partner in some way before he left. “Martin, it was nice to meet you.”

Martin offered his hand. “Nice to meet you as well.”

Denis almost wished he could avoid shaking Martin’s hand, but that would be rude, and Martin did not deserve that. He had no more interest in being Denis’s partner than Denis had in being his partner. Denis ignored the tingle of awareness that slithered up his arm as their skin connected. He pushed all thoughts of lingering and getting better acquainted with Martin aside with deliberate determination. He did not have time for complications. “I’m ready.”

Raymond cast the displacement spell, sending Denis home.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Martin said when Denis was gone.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Raymond offered.

“What is there to talk about?” Martin said with a lightness he did not feel. “Denis was quite clear about not having an interest in forming a partnership, and my presence here in France is only temporary. As interesting as he seems, there’s no future in any relationship between us, so it’s better not to begin.”

“He is an interesting case,” Jean replied, not sure he agreed with Martin’s assessment of the situation. With the options available because of Martin’s magic, distance was not the issue it could have been. “For a vampire, he’s very young, only a little over ninety years since he was turned, not to mention how young he looks because of his age when he was turned. Yet he took the Cour autunoise from a vampire who is nearly my contemporary. Age confers strength among vampires. Even with the support of the Cour behind him, he should not have been able to win that battle, and yet he did.”

“So what makes him different?” Martin asked.

“Damned if I know,” Jean replied with a shake of his head. “I couldn’t figure it out six months ago when it happened, and I haven’t figured it out since then. Granted, I haven’t really studied the situation—I’ve had a few more pressing problems to deal with—but I’ve never heard of anything like it. If it were Auguste or Camille or one of the older vampires, I wouldn’t have been terribly surprised at the news. Renaud was a bit of a tyrant, and his replacement was very much the will of the Cour. That approval would have given strength to the coup attempt, but for a ninety-year-old vampire to defeat a nine-hundred-year-old vampire who, to my knowledge, wasn’t injured or otherwise impaired, is unprecedented.”

“Is strength directly proportional to age? Should Renaud have been ten times stronger than Denis?” Martin asked curiously.

“Not directly proportional, no,” Jean replied. “If I were to fight Renaud, it would be a fairly even match. My eleven hundred years and his nine hundred are close enough not to make that much difference. But I wouldn’t want to fight monsieur Lombard, who is almost twice my age. I have no doubt I would lose that battle.”

“I’m not so sure you would,” Raymond disagreed. “You’re stronger now than you were two years ago because of our partnership. We haven’t tested exactly how much, but I noticed it when we were clearing the rubble after the first episode of vandalism last winter. You moved far more by yourself than you were able to do when we went to La Réunion after the typhoon eighteen months before.”

“I still don’t think I’ll test it,” Jean said with a rueful grin. “There are certain people it doesn’t do to alienate.”

“That’s not the point,” Raymond said. “The point is that other things besides age can influence a vampire’s strength.”

“Yes, but Denis doesn’t have a partnership,” Martin said. “Unless he had a partner who didn’t survive the war?”

“No, he wasn’t involved with the war effort,” Jean said. “As he said, it didn’t spread out to Autun, but something obviously happened, either to strengthen him or to weaken Renaud. I don’t understand what, but whatever it was, it was enough to convince me Denis is a vampire worth watching.”

“It would benefit you if he had a partner, wouldn’t it?” Martin asked.

Jean shrugged. “Perhaps. He is the closest chef de la Cour to l’Institut, certainly, but we already have his good will in that regard. He participated in one of our seminars and has allowed and even encouraged the members of his Cour to do the same. That’s far more than his predecessor ever did. The Cours are mostly independent other than the Congrès des chefs, a periodic gathering of all the chefs de la Cour, but I am well enough established among my peers that I’m not worried about all the changes in my life since the last gathering. If anything, I’m in a position to strengthen Denis more than the other way around.”

“When is the next Congrès des chefs?” Martin asked.

“In about a year,” Jean replied.

“So not soon enough for that to have any impact on the current situation,” Martin decided.

“Not unless we convened early,” Jean agreed. “I’m not sure whether that would be a help or a hindrance, though. I don’t really see the other chefs de la Cour being comfortable with the spotlight of meeting early in response to this kind of threat. Then again, that may be what it takes. I suppose we’ll deal with that if it happens.”

Martin nodded. “That makes sense. Thank you for including me in the discussion tonight. It was most enlightening. I should probably retire. Tomorrow will be another long day, and then on Sunday it will be time to start thinking about my research.”

Jean and Raymond let him go. “That complicates matters,” Raymond said when they were alone. “Even with all our attempts to smooth things over, this makes two unplanned partnerships in less than a week.”

“No, it makes two unplanned potential partnerships,” Jean replied. “None of the people involved have to go forward with anything. That’s the point of l’Institut and the seminars. Pascale hasn’t completed a seminar yet, but the others know what it will mean if they decide to go forward. And if they decide not to, that’s a victory for the process as well. It means we’ve done what we intended to do and helped people make an informed decision.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Raymond said. “It just seems… sad.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Jean teased.

“You’ll never find anyone to believe it,” Raymond retorted.

Jean smiled. “I don’t need to find anyone to believe it. It’s enough to know it myself. Now come inside. I’m of a mind to prove how much of a romantic I am.”

“How much of a sex fiend, you mean?” Raymond said with a laugh.

Jean grinned. “I haven’t heard you complaining yet.”

Jean would never hear him complaining about that, but Raymond would not swell his lover’s ego by saying that aloud. Jean knew anyway.

A
LONE
in his room in the Hostellerie, Martin undressed slowly, trying to take everything he had learned over the past week and apply it to his own life. The idea of a partnership fascinated him. It had even before he came to l’Institut on sabbatical. As a child, he had read an old legend about soul mates, and the concept had stayed with him ever since, even when rational thinking insisted he dismiss it as the legend it was. He had started a career in magical research, always with the niggling notion that the obscure legend must have had some basis in fact at some point in the past. He had not shared that notion with his advisors or colleagues, not wanting to be laughed out of the room, but when he first heard of the partnerships forming in France, he had immediately searched out more information and started putting together a proposal to come to France to study. The creation of l’Institut had sped up that process, and here he was, on the cusp of pursuing his childhood obsession in a real-world application.

The possibility of finding someone who could augment his magic and who knew what else had tempted him from the start, but he had intended to return home and pursue it there, hopefully setting up a satellite campus of l’Institut Marcel Chavinier where he could continue his research and perhaps find a partner of his own. He had not realized exactly how involved the relationship was, but nothing he had heard dissuaded him from the theory. Obviously it would depend on his partner once the time came to move from theory into practice, but he had seen the success stories all around him, and even the few cautionary tales had only convinced him that the solution was a bit of common sense rather than avoidance of the issue entirely.

He had not counted on finding a partner in France before his sabbatical had even truly begun. Nor had he counted on his partner being uninterested in exploring what they might build between them.

Climbing into bed, he pondered the implications of what had happened that evening in the courtyard. From the little everyone understood of the partnership bond, once it was established, death was the only way to break it, but he and Denis had not formed a partnership yet. They had the potential to create one, but until blood actually passed between them, it was only potential. The question remained whether Martin could form that bond with someone else, or if the potential for a partnership was enough to keep him from matching with anyone else as long as Denis lived. He could not force the vampire to accept him as a partner, of course, but if Denis continued to refuse and Martin did not find another partner, he would always wonder if Denis was the reason why.

It would be an interesting question to explore, but given the percentage of bonds Raymond reported having formed since l’Institut opened, Martin was not sure a lack of additional matches would be conclusive. It could simply mean he had not found the right person yet. From what Raymond had said, everyone who had found a potential partner at l’Institut had gone on to form a bond, those who were not interested choosing not to participate in the matching process. That would seemingly make him and Denis the exception. He would have to ask Raymond if Denis had ever participated in the matching process or if he had declined at the end of his seminar participation. If he had, Martin would respect that. However intrigued he was by the vampire and by their society as a whole, Martin could see the pitfalls for a couple who was less than fully committed to their bond.

He closed his eyes, determined to put the thought of Denis Langlois out of his mind completely so he could rest. He had other things to worry about than a vampire who had no interest in a partnership with him or with anyone else.

D
ENIS
paced the courtyard outside his building in Autun, restless energy keeping him from returning inside. A partner. He had a partner, if he chose to reach out his hand and take one.

It was more complicated than that, of course, with Martin not seeming interested in forming a bond, but Denis had seen others say the same, only to change their tune quickly after discovering they did have a partner. He had wondered at the part of vampire nature that seemed to drive vampires to seek company in their solitude even knowing it would lead to inevitable loss. He excused his relationship with Noël as ignorance. He had fed from Noël the night he was turned and had not fed from anyone else until Noël was too close to death to sustain him any longer. All the blood he had consumed since then had tasted flat in comparison. He credited the lack of emotion in the exchange with the difference. Even the first night, when he did not know Noël, he had tasted interest and desire in the man’s blood, though he had not known how to read it at the time. As their relationship deepened, the interest and desire had expanded to include an unending devotion that Denis mirrored to the depths of his being. More than once, he had tried to convince Noël to become a vampire, but his lover had resisted, insisting it would change their relationship beyond recognition. Denis had finally accepted that. He had eased Noël’s passing much as his own maker, Luc Cabalet, had offered to do for him on the battlefield outside Amiens where he had been left for dead. Denis had chosen to be changed rather than to die, but he had accepted Noël’s choice in the end.

Noël had been gone nearly thirty years, but the passing of time had not eased the loss in any appreciable way. Denis still looked for him at odd times, turning to say something to the lover who had been there for over sixty years and suddenly was not. The thought of having someone else there instead both thrilled and horrified him. Unlike most vampires, he had not broken all but functional ties with the mortal world when he was turned, his relationship with Noël keeping him firmly planted in the world he should have left behind. When Noël died, Denis had suddenly found himself alone without the support of a maker and friend to guide him through the adjustment he had not made when he was first turned, unsatisfied by impersonal feedings and yet unwilling to enter a new relationship out of respect for his lover’s memory. As far as Denis knew, Luc still resided in Amiens as their chef de la Cour, but having disregarded the man’s advice about relationships with mortals upon his turning, Denis had felt awkward about approaching him for more help. As far as Denis knew, Luc did not even know Noël had died, although surely he must have presumed, given the passage of time and Noël’s age when Denis was first turned. Denis had finally changed apartments, realizing he would never be able to move on as long as he was surrounded by memories of Noël.