The Vampire (THE VAMPIRE Book 1) (43 page)

The young man got Jason’s luggage out of the trunk of the car. The other’s luggage had been left at the airport. They would be returning there, and then splitting up, Allen had said. He repeated he was flying on to New Orleans to spend a few days with his family.

The cold air felt good to Jason. It revived him a little. Made him feel more alive…ironically.

Now Allen was standing beside the car with him. He clasped both of Jason’s hands in his. “You see? I promised I’d get you home safe. And I have done so. Take care now, Jason. Best of luck to you.” He clasped him warmly in a genuinely friendly hug, as tightly as a loving brother.

Then he got back into the car with the others.

Jason stood there numb and uncertain for several moments. Then the cold air prompted him to ring the doorbell. The men in the car waited until someone answered the door. Waited until Jason was safe inside, with his family. He stood shivering for several moments. Then the door opened.

His mom let out a joyful sound at the unexpected sight of him and threw her arms around him. The rest of the family soon came to the door to see what the commotion was. Jason glanced over his shoulder in time to see the car drive off.

Everyone was so touched to see how emotional and tearful Jason was to see all of them. How tightly he clasped each one of them, and held them for a long interval while still standing in the open doorway. They pulled him inside out of the cold finally, laughing and joking loudly and glad to have all of the family together again.

Only Jason knew the real reasons for his tears.

Chapter 20

Debriefing

Augere entered his house in New Orleans and let the heavy wooden door close behind him. He let his single piece of luggage drop to the floor with a thud as he stepped inside the dark foyer.

He breathed in the familiar comfort of the sweet scent of old things, things that had remained just as he had left them. Except for the dim glow of several faux candles in Victorian styled sconces on several of the walls, a reassuring darkness welcomed him home.

He walked to his immediate right through a small elegant parlor and then continued from there along a narrow hallway, the only small closed space on the planet that did not make him feel claustrophobic. He arrived at a small half rounded room, the lower part of a two story tower that jutted from of the side of the house. This small room was dark and would have been darker still if not for the tall, narrow stained glass window. This allowed numerous colors to be illuminated and fanned out by sunlight spreading soothing, jewel-toned light effects against the opposite wall.

He paused next to a small dark wooden table flush against one wall. A tall Gothic arched mirror hung above the table. Half a dozen small flameless candles were placed in an orderly fashion on the black marble surface of the table and were reflected in the mirror making the number of them seem greater though the batteries of several of these had burned out in his absence. He replaced several of those, which did little in the way of banishing the dark, and then rested several fingertips on the edge of the table. His eyes traveled over the various drawings displayed there. Some of these he had done himself, and others had been made by various artists over the years using his assistance in describing the remembered features, rendered in various artistic media. The image of a young girl with long dark hair and large eyes of a sad shade of blue gazed back at him. Color and black and white images and different serenely elegant poses had attempted to capture the beauty of the sister he had lost so many, many decades ago.

He felt closest to her here. This made no sense. She was long dead, over two hundred and twenty years ago, and buried farther than an ocean away. She had never been to this place. But often he thought he felt her spirit here. It might be because he wished it were so.

Whether pleasant or not, memory sometimes became a torment to him, with insistently remembered details.

Delphine had possessed a wisdom few adults seemed to hold. For her young years, she talked of a great many things with such certain knowledge he could not doubt much of what she said. She knew and spoke of things in the future, some of which had come to pass in her and his lifetime. She seemed an old soul, who might have lived many lifetimes before the one he knew. She did not see the end of her own life arriving so soon, or if she did she never made mention of it. “I do not understand,” she had said to him just days before her death, “why I must go and leave all of you now.” She was a musical prodigy with an untrained voice so pure and beautiful that people, not the least of all their mother, often wept upon hearing her sing. He thought of all of the beauty of her once again, gone too soon.

“Je suis seule a nouveau, Delphine.” He spoke the words aloud but softly and with a measure and depth of sadness he never allowed himself to show to anyone. “Alone. I have no choice but to go on even though I scarcely have the heart for it.”

He began to recite in French a poem they had memorized together as children:
Larmes des anges,
about the power of the tears of angels. Delphine thought they might need to call upon the power of such angels one day, and she thought it best to know how one might reach them. Augere indulged her; she was only nine at the time and he was the older brother; her protector and her constant companion.

They had kept the poem a secret between them. Even as children they realized their mother’s superstitions about angels seemed unreasonable. Her gypsy leanings were full of drama and she was often given to spells of melancholy. It distressed her when people remarked how beautiful her children were, and she became more frightened of her children attracting unwanted attention after the death of her oldest child, Amandine. In particular she had become fearful of them drawing the attention of such beings as angels. She had often warned Laurent and Delphine “the envy of angels is not something to be desired. They will appear to grant your wish but may do so for spite, or out of jealousy or for their own purposes.” And so he Delphine had grown up with a fear of such creatures, as if they were quite real. But in the weeks before she died, before anyone knew how ill Delphine really was, she told him of an encounter with “un somber ange qui apparait comme un etre de lumiere et qui a le pouvoir de conferer la vie eternelle.” The words uttered so long ago, and all but forgotten amidst all the events that had transpired since, often came back to haunt him now: a dark angel who appears as a being of light and who has the power to bestow eternal life. He had never shared these words with anyone else. They had seemed at the time naught but the ravings of a child who was probably already doomed by illness.

He sat alone now in near darkness, in a black soft fabric upholstered chair alongside the table shrine, thinking. For a long time he had not been able to unravel the mystery of those words. But in time they had come to have a permanently chilling meaning for him. At times he would dwell on this and at other times push such thoughts away.

“One full of emotion; intelligence; charming and entertaining this one was, Delphine. Something to draw near and absorb meaning from and try to experience what the present world is all about and even in its horrible state, what it has to offer. Now, gone, and such as yourself, all but lost to me. Though I feel the permanence of it may yet remain to be seen. It is I who decides.”

By his will, he believed, he could reverse it. But such gain meant little to him when it had to be forced.

****

On Tuesday morning, several members of the Genier law firm were gathered at their office in the French Quarter. They rarely used their office for such meetings, but the group expected today was a small one. They were still awaiting the arrival of Allen Genier, who had flown in late the evening before, and Mr. Augere, who had arrived in New Orleans early Sunday evening.

James had been in fairly regular contact with Allen over the past forty-eight hours, but he had been unable to speak with Augere except once, and then just briefly. Which was rather unusual, given the circumstances. And during that quick conversation, Augere’s only terse comment was that he would attend the debriefing.

The events that had preceded and necessitated this debriefing were somewhat unusual for most of them. In the twenty-five years James had worked closely with Augere, there had been only the one assistant during that long interval though James was also acquainted with that assistant’s predecessors, three to be exact, who were still living. Augere had lost other assistants before, in the distant past, for various reasons, but none of those was within recent memory. Those who had left were known to James, but he had not had an actual part in the process of them leaving. Not like this time. He had had to consult their firm’s policy on this. He consulted the Archives as well, to see how Augere had handled these kinds of things. The Archives had not been much help in this situation. This case, as did the other ones, had its own unique circumstances.

James was standing near the doorway to the meeting room speaking with Allen when Augere arrived. James interrupted his conversation to approach Augere. “Can I have a word with you please—”

“Not now. After.” Augere walked briskly past him and for several moments he stood at the round table behind what would be, whether here or elsewhere, his designated place, next to James. He was taking in all who were present, but without actually looking at any of them. Then he sat down.

Augere’s abruptness, a rare rebuff between the two of them, was quickly forgiven by James. The last forty-eight hours had been highly stressful for all of them. Scarcely anyone knew better than James just how difficult Augere could be at times and occasionally there might be short lived tension between the two of them. This moment was too soon to determine Augere’s mood: angry? Upset? Indifferent? Whatever it was James hoped to get through the meeting quickly with a minimum of discomfort all around.

James began the proceedings by entering, for the purpose of the minutes, which his assistant Mariette recorded, the names of everyone present. Besides himself, Allen, Augere and Mariette, there was Sean Genier; Chanel Genier, from accounting; Charles Genier, attorney; Adam Genier, archive/record keeping as well as technical support; Ryan Genier, a law school student, who was James’ nephew and who, along with his cousins Nicholas and Farren Genier, also present, had newly gained positions within the company. All of them had already acknowledged and signed the requisite confidentiality agreements, regarding Augere in particular. Relatively few people, even among the inner circle of family, knew the full truth about Augere. The presence today of the three newest members of the firm meant they were forever restrained from revealing any part of Augere’s secret to the world. They understood their family took this oath very seriously. But James braced himself now for Augere’s reaction to their presence. There had been no time to confer with him prior to the young men’s appearance at the meeting, and Augere hated surprises such as these. It was not a good time to spring this on him, James knew, from the very limited number of previous such encounters in the past. But James had his argument ready: these young men were to be the next generation. If they were going to be of any use to Augere, they would need to know about the kinds of situations they might encounter when working closely with him. Situations like this one did not come up often. James took a chance on inviting them without first informing Augere for that reason: a learning experience like no other. He observed Augere’s cold glance in their direction, and a barely perceptible look of dismay, the tip of the iceberg, James knew from experience, but Augere did not look at James, nor make any comment about them.

“As most of you may already know, we are here for a debriefing. Unfortunately, Jason Sterling has decided to leave his position. I know I speak for most of us, those who have met him certainly, when I say we regret this decision, but it appears he—”

Augere interrupted the proceedings by removing a cell phone from the inner pocket of his jacket and sliding it across the table toward James.

“This needs to be attended to as soon as possible. Also, I am requesting all contact be severed as quickly as it is feasible to do so, as per company policy.” Augere’s voice was calm and measured, James noted, as he nodded his assent and began jotting notes on a yellow legal pad. He put the cell phone into his pocket.

“Under the circumstances,” Augere continued, “it may be ill advised for the assistant to have access to the house to remove personal items. I am suggesting a bonded company be retained for that purpose.”

James nodded as he continued to write. This was common procedure also. Nothing out of the ordinary. He didn’t mind Augere taking over the meeting. Though the Geniers always offered any assistance where the monitoring of his assistants was concerned, the exact details and decisions were always Augere’s realm. They always deferred to his judgment in his personal matters, although they might offer advice and assistance when it seemed appropriate or needed.

“I would also prefer you attempt to spare a family member to oversee that process.” He looked directly at James. “To insure there is no loss or breakage.” Augere paused for a moment, as if in thought. “Remy would be a good choice. Or Parker perhaps.”

James looked up at him, pen poised over his list.

“Remy left on a two week vacation yesterday. Parker’s wife is about to give birth.”

“Vacation?” Augere asked and then added with mock seriousness: “Is he not always on vacation?”

Gentle laughter percolated through the room.

“Perhaps he can be persuaded to return,” Augere suggested.

James winced as he made a notation. Then he looked up at Augere expectantly. But it appeared he had concluded what he had to say.

“Okay, then. It would be helpful to look at this situation to determine what went right particularly; and how we might have handled things differently where things did not.” He gazed around the room.

“I have not yet spoken to Allen. I want to hear how the situation proceeded.” Augere stated, fixing a steady gaze on Allen’s face.