Etienne Corbeau was a handsome devil, you had to grant him that. Black haired, blue eyed, tall and comely of shape; he was the sort that made silly young women swoon and certain young men go weak kneed.

But the swooning and the weak knees were from loss of blood and terror.

He was in the St Morien household.  How Corbeau had gotten past the threshold, I could not guess, but he had most likely used persuasion.  Much as I had, though with much more benign intent.

The servant I had seen on my last visit lay dead in the very doorway.
I almost called out Genevieve's name. I feared the worst it had been her I had heard screaming. Corbeau would enjoy tormenting a beautiful woman. Then I heard her voice, and my heart unfroze. She was still alive, and from the sounds of it, relatively unhurt.

Ah, Dieu, fool that I was, I loved her.

"Let him be, he is ill!" she was saying, and fear and anger were in every syllable. But, despite her fear, she was not cowering; she was confronting the monster.

"Come in," I whispered to Benoit, who had not been invited to this house.

Together, we crossed the threshold and rushed to the sound of voices. And saw what had made Genevieve scream.

Corbeau held Gaspard St Morien in his arms, as if Gaspard was a small child. The black haired vampire's grip was almost gentle, a horrible parody of caring. Blood dripped from Corbeau's cruel mouth, and from Gaspard's neck. I could tell that Gaspard was dead.

I never quite forgave myself for being relieved that it was not Genevieve in those arms, or Genevieve with the blood drained from her body. She looked perfectly untouched and healthy, though far from happy, standing clutching a metal poker that she had apparently snatched up as a weapon when her home had been invaded.

Corbeau turned as Benoit and I entered. He snarled and cast down Gaspard's body, throwing away the husk when all the juice had been drained. The horrible way the body flopped when it hit the floor of the cottage was something I would remember for a long time.

"Claude...?" Genevieve gasped. Corbeau laughed and leapt nimbly over the corpse on the floor.

"The gallant Prince to the rescue," said Corbeau.

He tried to seize Genevieve, but she was still carrying the poker. She raised it over her shoulder and swang wildly, fetching Corbeau a sound thwack across the back but also hitting me with it.

Pain erupted in my stomach, and Genevieve dropped the poker, her face blanching as she realized what she had done. Corbeau, damn him, was already recovering. He grabbed the poker and threw it violently across the room, where it stuck, quivering, in the wall.

As I tried to straighten up after having a poker thrust into my belly, luckily not hard enough to puncture anything, Corbeau grabbed Genevieve. But he'd forgotten Benoit. The plucky little street urchin jumped on the taller vampire and pulled him physically off the struggling woman. Genevieve ran to my side and helped me stand straight; I was already regaining mastery of myself.

Merde, but it hurt.

"Oh, Claude," she said, "I did not mean..."

"C'est rien," I assured her.

I drew my sword and advanced on the struggling pair; Benoit was getting the worst of it and I was afraid to attack for fear of harming my fledgling. Corbeau saw the sword- beheading was death to us as surely as a wooden stake through the heart -and threw Benoit off him, then ran for the door. And before I could react, he stabbed me with a dagger, shoved Genevieve hard against a wall, and fled into the night.

"You are exiled!" I called out after the disappearing form.

A dagger wound was nothing to me- it had not been a silver weapon or a wooden one. My mental powers sufficed to stop the bleeding.

The exile, I knew, would not last forever; but it had been the best I'd been able to do at the moment. Essentially, I had uninvited Corbeau from all of France. No doubt some fool would issue a new invitation sooner or later; but in the meantime, Corbeau would be forced to either leave the country or be completely unable to hunt or feed while in France.

There are special powers granted with a Princedom. Nobody in particular had granted them, they grew from the title, from the mastery of the land and its vampires. It is a burden, this power.

I looked down at Gaspard's poor dead body, picked it up, and laid it out on the wrecked bed.  Ah, merde, it looked, to my somewhat untutored eye, as if Gaspard had been actually recovering from the plague.  Sometimes they survived it.  Poor Genevieve, she had now lost everyone she cared about.

Genevieve!  She had not stirred from the floor where she had fallen after Corbeau had shoved her.  Ah, Dieu, if after all this he had killed her anyway...

"Mon Prince?"

It was Benoit, of course.

"I assume Corbeau is gone," I said.

"Oui, Monsieur.  Marc and Thierry killed all his assistants, but he drove the
 coach off himself.  Very quickly.  Shall we go after him?"

I shook my head.  "No, I cannot afford to lose you. I have exiled him, let that suffice for now."  I looked down at the young woman on the floor. "Genevieve.”.

“She is breathing, Monsieur,” said Benoit, stater of the obvious.

“We cannot leave her here; everyone in this household is dead.”  I lifted her into my arms.  Ah, she was no burden, no burden at all.  “I will take her back to the chateau; when she recovers, she may choose to go where she will.”

Benoit nodded.  “There will be questions, Mon Prince,” he said.

“I have concerns other than the lady’s reputation, Benoit.”

“About the bodies, Monsieur.”  Sometimes, my lieutenant actually had a point.  “And the state of this cottage.”

“Burn it,” I said.  “Burn it, and we will be the gallant rescuers, offering the only survivor a home until she can find more suitable arrangements; alas that we were too late to save her husband and servants.”

I set the fire myself.  If it had to be done, then it would be I who did it. I said prayers for Gaspard and the servants; but fire was a clean way to dispose of the bodies and there would not be awkward questions asked about marks and blood.

When it was well alight, and the neighbours had formed bucket chains (far too late) and approved of my “rescue” of la pauvre femme, (after all, someone had to take her in, and better me than they–they thought me brave, but foolish)  we put Genevieve’s still unconscious form into the carriage and drove back to the chateau.

Her eyes began to flutter as I carried her up the stairs.  She looked surprised to find herself in my arms, but not frightened. I will always remember that she was not frightened.

“Claude?” she asked.  “What happened?”


“Corbeau threw you against the wall, cherie,” I told her, setting her down on a chair in the hallway.  “You hit your head and were gone to us for a little while.  But your cottage has burnt down, I am afraid.”

"Gaspard is dead," she said, and it wasn't a question.

"Yes, I am sorry."  I was, too.  Gaspard had been an inoffensive young man, a good husband and father, and had not deserved to die as some rogue vampire’s plaything.

"That man..." she was shaking with reaction, cold and fear.  "He was the one you tried to tell me of, that night."

"Yes.  He is one of the monsters."

She gave me an odd sort of look that I couldn't quite interpret.

"He was growing stronger," she said.  "And now he is dead. And I have no home."

Then she looked up and met my eyes, and her expression was one of sorrow... but also resolve.  "What am I do, Claude?" she asked.

"Why do you ask me?"

"You drove the monster off," she said.  "You saved my life. You have brought me to your home.  I... I find I  cannot be frightened of you."

And suddenly, she was in my arms, silent tears on her cheeks, seeking my strength, adding it to her own.

"How can this be?" she asked, blue eyes staring up at him.  "Gaspard is only just dead, and yet I feel..."

I bent down and kissed her. Ah, her lips were as sweet as I had imagined. "Come and live here with me for awhile.  You will be safe in the chateau.”

Seeing the shock in her eyes, I hastily added, "You will have your own rooms and I will not press my attentions on you. I offer you a roof, food, clothing... no more.”   I added, strictly in my own mind, ‘Not yet.’

"Thank you, Claude," she said, very seriously.  "I accept."