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Authors: Valerie du Sange
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reward,
or else he would be tempted to toss Maloney in the river to
be done with him.
9
Henri had spent the evening combing over every square
centimeter of his lab, and at long last, had solved at
least part of the mystery of the break-in. His lab was an
old building–old if you consider 17th century
old–and the walls were two feet thick, made of
irregular flint stones roughly half a meter across. He was
unsure what the building’s original use had been, but
it was not designed in a simple rectangle as so many
outbuildings were. There were indentations and extrusions,
which on the inside were handy for making closets and
bookshelves. The outside of the building was largely
surrounded by bushes simply to make the mowing easier on
the landscaping staff.
In any case, it was a building of nooks and crannies. And
Henri discovered, in the back of a closet full of broken
umbrellas and worn-out boots that he had intended to take
care of, someday–he discovered a fine layer of dust
and some tiny crumbles of stone and mortar. Looking
carefully at the wall with a strong flashlight, he saw that
someone, or someones, had managed to break up the four
hundred-year-old masonry and ease a few of the big pieces
of flint out of the wall, without causing the whole thing
to tumble down, and then put them back again.
The hole would easily have been big enough for a man to
crawl through.
Those pieces of stone were
heavy
. It must have
been very difficult to do without machinery. And risky.
When he went around outside and crawled beneath the bushes,
he saw bigger crumbles of stone and more of a mess, with
the perpetrator likely figuring no one was going to be
tidying up deep in a bank of viburnums.
The thing that made Henri the angriest was that the
break-in was successful in spite of his iris recognition
device. All that work, and he ends up with a hole in the
wall and his valuable stuff stolen! At least it looked as
though Hemo-Yum was safe.
He expected Hemo-Yum to do very, very well, once it was in
wide distribution and word had gotten out. But that word
was going to take some time to develop. Vampires had been
drinking from living humans for centuries, and a switch to
synthetic blood wasn’t going to happen overnight,
Henri didn’t kid himself about that. It didn’t
help that the American synthetics already on the market
were pretty much the equivalent of fast food–it all
tasted the same, was sort of addictive, and made you feel
like crap after you drank it. But luckily, those products
had not yet made it to France, and Henri hoped that being
first in his home country, with a truly good product, would
mean he would gain an advantage that would be hard to take
from him.
The bandages were less complicated. Henri believed the
bandages would be an immediate bestseller. Claudine and her
team had better come up with a terrific name for them,
because it was unquestionably a terrific product, something
every vampire needs. It was obvious, and simple, like many
wonderful things we can’t imagine how we lived
without now that we have them.
A basic bandage, like an ordinary Band-Aid–it covers
a bite mark completely, melts into the skin as it heals the
wound, so that once the bandage is applied, there is no
evidence of any bite at all. You can’t see the
bandage, you can’t see the bite. That plus a
brainwipe will get a vampire a quick and safe drink any old
time. No risk of the brainwipe not fully working and the
woman blabbing to the cops with the evidence right on her
neck.
Every vampire will carry them in their back pocket. The
teen market alone was going to be explosive, and all
vampire parents would insist their offspring carry them,
since it would make the teens and their sometimes reckless
biting much less detectable.
For Henri himself, whose darkest vampire urges were fairly
successfully
or else he would be tempted to toss Maloney in the river to
be done with him.
9
Henri had spent the evening combing over every square
centimeter of his lab, and at long last, had solved at
least part of the mystery of the break-in. His lab was an
old building–old if you consider 17th century
old–and the walls were two feet thick, made of
irregular flint stones roughly half a meter across. He was
unsure what the building’s original use had been, but
it was not designed in a simple rectangle as so many
outbuildings were. There were indentations and extrusions,
which on the inside were handy for making closets and
bookshelves. The outside of the building was largely
surrounded by bushes simply to make the mowing easier on
the landscaping staff.
In any case, it was a building of nooks and crannies. And
Henri discovered, in the back of a closet full of broken
umbrellas and worn-out boots that he had intended to take
care of, someday–he discovered a fine layer of dust
and some tiny crumbles of stone and mortar. Looking
carefully at the wall with a strong flashlight, he saw that
someone, or someones, had managed to break up the four
hundred-year-old masonry and ease a few of the big pieces
of flint out of the wall, without causing the whole thing
to tumble down, and then put them back again.
The hole would easily have been big enough for a man to
crawl through.
Those pieces of stone were
heavy
. It must have
been very difficult to do without machinery. And risky.
When he went around outside and crawled beneath the bushes,
he saw bigger crumbles of stone and more of a mess, with
the perpetrator likely figuring no one was going to be
tidying up deep in a bank of viburnums.
The thing that made Henri the angriest was that the
break-in was successful in spite of his iris recognition
device. All that work, and he ends up with a hole in the
wall and his valuable stuff stolen! At least it looked as
though Hemo-Yum was safe.
He expected Hemo-Yum to do very, very well, once it was in
wide distribution and word had gotten out. But that word
was going to take some time to develop. Vampires had been
drinking from living humans for centuries, and a switch to
synthetic blood wasn’t going to happen overnight,
Henri didn’t kid himself about that. It didn’t
help that the American synthetics already on the market
were pretty much the equivalent of fast food–it all
tasted the same, was sort of addictive, and made you feel
like crap after you drank it. But luckily, those products
had not yet made it to France, and Henri hoped that being
first in his home country, with a truly good product, would
mean he would gain an advantage that would be hard to take
from him.
The bandages were less complicated. Henri believed the
bandages would be an immediate bestseller. Claudine and her
team had better come up with a terrific name for them,
because it was unquestionably a terrific product, something
every vampire needs. It was obvious, and simple, like many
wonderful things we can’t imagine how we lived
without now that we have them.
A basic bandage, like an ordinary Band-Aid–it covers
a bite mark completely, melts into the skin as it heals the
wound, so that once the bandage is applied, there is no
evidence of any bite at all. You can’t see the
bandage, you can’t see the bite. That plus a
brainwipe will get a vampire a quick and safe drink any old
time. No risk of the brainwipe not fully working and the
woman blabbing to the cops with the evidence right on her
neck.
Every vampire will carry them in their back pocket. The
teen market alone was going to be explosive, and all
vampire parents would insist their offspring carry them,
since it would make the teens and their sometimes reckless
biting much less detectable.
For Henri himself, whose darkest vampire urges were fairly
successfully
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