Free Reluctant Partnerships by Ariel Tachna Page A

the glass and then back at the other two men in the room. “I have no idea, but yes, I can taste it.”
    “When did you start noticing it?” Raymond asked.
    “I didn’t,” Jean said. “I hadn’t noticed it until tonight. Honestly, I didn’t even think about it tonight until Denis pointed it out.”
    “Something else to add to our agenda,” Raymond said with a sigh. “I swear we end up with ten new questions for every answer we find, but that can wait until tomorrow. We didn’t invite Denis up here to talk about our research. You have more important things to talk about.”
    “You’re right, of course,” Jean said, turning back to Denis. “Do you have any idea who we’re chasing here? Did anything Pascale say tonight give you a hint, even the smallest thing?”
    “Not really,” Denis said. “A distinctive voice, but that’s hard to quantify. Many people have distinctive voices. I would recognize your voice instantly, for example, because of the odd way you say certain words. I’ve noticed it especially with very old vampires. Renaud was another perfect example. I don’t know that he’s quite your contemporary, but he’s certainly centuries old. Pascale could identify her attacker again because of that, but we can’t go searching based on it. We’ll need more than that before we can start hunting. I think for now we should focus our attention on what this means to us and how to deal with from a public relations standpoint. If people start to associate one vampire’s bad behavior with all vampires, we could be in for a rough ride.”
    “And now that the war has been over for two years, people are starting to forget how instrumental vampires were in winning it,” Raymond added. “That was enough to avoid tarring all vampires with Couthon’s crimes. We have to find a way to do that again.”
    “I think our best strategy will be to lead the outcry against him,” Jean said. “Turning a mortal isn’t against vampire law. Turning a mortal without permission isn’t even expressly against vampire law, although perhaps we won’t mention that. But turning a vampire and then abandoning her definitely qualifies as endangering another vampire, even if you don’t go into what his actions will do to the rest of us if he isn’t stopped. If we make it clear to the public that we are outraged by his actions, if we declare him extorris under our law, we at least are seen to side with law and order.”
     “Can we declare an unknown vampire extorris ?” Denis asked. “How do we enforce it when we can’t even tell the members of our Cours who it is?”
    “If nothing else, maybe telling them he’s outcast will be enough to give our vampire second thoughts about his course of action,” Jean said. “If we catch him, then we can identify him. It’s not about our Cours anyway. It’s about the general public.”
    “Then there’s the issue of what charges Adèle can bring against him if we do catch him,” Raymond added. “Turning someone into a vampire without their consent isn’t illegal. I don’t think anyone other than maybe the vampire who did it would consider it a good thing, but there is no law on the books declaring it a crime, and until there is, he could only be accused of attacking her. That’s the other first step in this process. We need to get a law on the books to cover this situation so that when he’s arrested, we can charge him with his true crime. The question is where it fits on the scale of offenses, because it isn’t simply a matter of saying it’s illegal to change a person against their will. There will need to be a punishment, or range of punishments, established for the perpetrator of the crime.”
    “Certainly assault,” Jean said, “but not homicide.”
    “Not even involuntary homicide,” Denis agreed. “Not if the person is turned. They aren’t dead if they’re turned. Undead, but not dead. There is a difference.”
    “Obviously,” Raymond said with a