The Passion (4 page)

misjudgement, and it was one he would never forget. He had no excuse to offer, no apology to make. And three of his own were stil dead.

Alexander said, "We have dominated this planet for thousands of years. There has never been a pack ruler who has not, at one point or another, faced a crisis that deter-mined our destiny, even our survival. Your mother and I faced such a crisis at the end of the last century. And now, as we enter the mil ennium, human and werewolf, you wil do the same. The choices you make wil change the course of history. I counsel you only not to make them in ignorance."

"You gave me the power,
mon père
," Nicholas said stiffly. "You can take it away." It was the rote and proper reply for the young, ascending ruler to make to the standing ruler whenever their ambitions came into conflict. Nicholas meant it… and he did not. The thirst for vengeance was a dangerous thing, singular and obsessive, and it had the ability to blind him to everything that was important—even the ultimate welfare of the pack. Perhaps that was the most important lesson his elder had to teach him tonight.

Alexander replied, with perhaps a touch of irony, "I would not want your power at this moment, thank you. Nor would I want your choices."

Another silence. Humans scurried in the distance.

Sirens. Garbage trucks.

Nicholas said very lowly, "
Why
? How did you come to know of the existence of this creature and why was it here?"

"Because," replied Alexander wearily, "I am responsible. I have always been responsible. It was I, you see, who first brought the human woman into the pack."

Five years earlier, in an inauguration ceremony that had drawn werewolves from al over the world to the Devoncroix compound in Alaska, Nicholas Devoncroix had been official y named heir designate to the pack leadership. Since he was the youngest offspring of the ruling family which had held its power uninterrupted for more than a mil ennium, the choice was no surprise, but the ceremony was essential. They were a people of ritual, of tradition and slow, certain change. They did not like surprises. Upheaval was vastly disturbing to them.

Nicholas tried not to think about what an upheaval of this magnitude would do to the pack.

Nicholas had been groomed from birth for his role in life. His primary education had been at an exclusive school in Switzerland which turned out more than its share of scientists, statesmen and prodigies in the arts—and which no human had ever attended—and he held graduate degrees from Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities. At twenty-three he had been president of one of the Devoncroix Corporation's most lucrative companies; at twenty-five he had perfected the satel ite technology which was the basis of the entire communications and security system that blanketed the pack around the world. By age thirty he had been responsible for bringing into the col ective coffers some thirty-two bil ion dol ars' worth of new business.

From the compound in Alaska—a vast and secret, mostly underground complex which served both as company headquarters and as symbolic ancestral home to al the pack—Nicholas had travel ed the circumference of the globe, from the rain forests of the Amazon to the mountains of central China, learning the business and the pack he was to rule.

He had won at Wimbledon, broken the sound barrier in an experimental aircraft, climbed Kilimanjaro and Everest alone. He had negotiated delicate deals between humans of warring countries—al to the pack's benefit, of course—and settled dangerous disputes between competing clans within the pack.

Although technical y he would not assume control of the pack until the death of his father, in every other, practical way he
was
the pack. He was wel loved, wel respected. It was general y agreed without argument that Nicholas Devoncroix would continue the fine tradition of progressive, benevolent rulership his ancestors had established over a thousand years ago.

But now, sitting beneath the cold shadow of the stone wolf, Nicholas felt an emptiness grip his bel y and he thought,
I have failed. Three of my own are
dead at the hands of another werewolf. A
monstrous hybrid human is at the heart of this
disaster and I never even knew of its existence. The
pack looked to me for protection, but I have failed.

History wil record that the beginning of the end was
on this night, in this place… on my watch
. Perhaps the events had been set in motion long ago, but the consequences were his to deal with now. And he was not ready.

Alexander looked at him and read the bleakness in Nicholas's eyes before he could disguise it.

Because it was a display of weakness for a leader to show self-doubt—even a leader who had not yet assumed power, and even to his father—Alexander politely pretended he did not see.

When he spoke, Alexander's voice was

conversational, picking up the story as though it were a matter of mere passing interest. "I was living in Paris then, the only place, real y, for a young, ambitious werewolf to be. Of course my home, my roots, were far from that carefree metropolis, deep in the cold black heart of Siberia, but I'm afraid I had grown rather far from my origins.

"I used to spend a great deal of time in the company of humans, and was often criticized for it. But they were such amusing, delightful creatures, their philosophies so arcane, their pleasures so shal ow… I adored the Winter Palace, and the intel ectuals of Paris, the theaters of London and the grand bal rooms of Florence and Venice. There was a train, I recal , known as the Orient Express… but that is another story.

"Times were so much simpler then, too, the lines between myth and reality not quite so distinct. It was easier to believe the impossible, I think, for werewolves as wel as humans, for the fences that keep our worlds separate from one another real y were not built until wel into this century. It was in many ways the most innocent age in al of history, when the savageries of the past were far enough behind to be little more than legends, yet before this time of instant communication and unlimited knowledge, which works so hard to destroy magic and make hope obsolete.

"It was just before the turn of the century, when the old leader Sancerre had died suddenly of a seizure of the brain, and left as his heir designee a young, unmated queen, inexperienced and il -prepared.

Needless to say, the pack was in disarray and ripe for a takeover, not that there was much to take over back then.

"Today we are involved in over a hundred different enterprises and industries, ranging from electronics to filmmaking. We have offices and representatives in every major city of every developed country on earth and we control most of the world's financial markets, technology and natural resources. But at the end of the last century, you must recal , for most of Europe the Industrial Revolution was just proving itself more than a passing trend. We hadn't yet grasped the potential of the future, and we were scattered, divided, each devoted in his own self-absorbed way to his own selfish indulgences and personal fortune. The young queen, of course, fel heir to the largest of these fortunes, and she was the constant target of schemes from ambitious young werewolves like myself—for both her power and her wealth. It was beginning to look as though she would spend the rest of her tenure as pack leader—however long that might be—doing nothing but defending herself. I felt rather sorry for her, actual y."

Alexander must have sensed Nicholas's impatience, for he smiled, a very smal smile, in the dark. "Shal I stop?" he inquired courteously.

Nicholas breathed deeply once, and again. He thought of human poets and philosophers, and the dangers that face those who chase monsters.

"I think," he answered slowly, after a long moment,

"I have acted rashly once too often tonight. And if I do not hear what you have to say now, I may spend the rest of my life wrestling with questions to which I wil never know the answers."

Alexander nodded, though whether the gesture symbolized approval or mere thoughtfulness was impossible to determine. "And if I do not have the answers you seek?"

Nicholas looked at him steadily in the dark, and gave the appropriate response. "Then I am not asking the right questions. The hybrid, Father. Who is it? Tel me."

Alexander turned his eyes straight ahead, gazing off into the darkness. His features were lost in the shadow of the wolf, and after a time he resumed his tale.

"It may surprise you," he said, "that this is a love story." And he smiled, softly, to himself. "Then again, in the greater scheme of things, it seems to me that al matters both werewolf and human eventual y come down to that…"

PART TWO

Paris

1897

[Humans] are savages at heart, just like we are. And that is the one thing for which they can never be forgiven.

—FREDERICK PETROV, WEREWOLF 1648

Man is only great when he acts from the passions.

—BENJAMIN DISRAELI, A HUMAN 1844

TESSA

Chapter Two

Tessa LeGuerre had planned the murder of Alexander Devoncroix for ten years. She knew she would never get a better chance than the one that presented itself the night of the October moon.

Six months earlier she had joined the household as a chambermaid, an accomplishment which had been far easier than it probably should have been, by appealing to the sympathies of the majordomo with her woeful tale of being orphaned (true) and penniless (untrue). She had even gone to the trouble of pul ing off the top two buttons of her cotton shirtwaist to let a provocative few inches of skin show through before going into the interview, only to learn later that the subject of her wiles was immune to the charms of young girls, whether they be ful y clothed or not. He did, however, find her English-accented French appealing, and mentioned it specifical y when he gave her the position. It was that easy.

After that, she had only to avoid the sharp eyes of Madame Crol iere, the housekeeper, who carried around a riding crop and disciplined her girls with a sharp rap to the knuckles for a sloppy sheet corner or a damp washbasin, and to spend every spare moment learning al that was to be known about the house of Devoncroix.

Tessa had a quick and agile mind and a memory like a trap and in only a matter of days she had learned al the corridors and passageways of the twenty-three-room Paris town house, the cubbyholes and niches and hiding places, the closest staircases and the window embrasures which would hide a human form; which hinges needed oiling and which stair tread squeaked. She learned the quickest, quietest route from her attic sleeping quarters to the master's chamber; she learned how to make the journey without arousing her sleeping companions. She studied every detail of that inner sanctum, from the artwork on the wal s to the carpet upon the floor, the crisp white shirts in the linen press and the rich woolens in the wardrobe, the perfumes and pomades in his dressing room, the leathers and the silks and the jewel ed shirt studs. She could find each piece of furniture in the dark; she knew the broken latch on the window and the sticky hinge on the door. She had plotted every step of the night over and over again in her mind until performance was little more than an extension of imagination; a mistake or misjudgement would have been impossible.

She stole a knife from the kitchen, a fine six-inch blade of hammered steel with a solid ash handle.

She had heard somewhere that ash was best for these things, and she intended to take no chances.

She secreted the knife inside the ticking of her mattress, where it could be found only if one knew it was there. Lavalier, the chef, raised a furor over its disappearance and kept the downstairs staff cowering for days, until final y he fixed the blame on an underchef, who was promptly dismissed. The knife was replaced, though Lavalier continued to complain that the replacement never sliced as fine as the original, but for the most part that was the end of that.

Tessa had the plan, she had the knife, she had the means and she had the access. What she did not have, to her great frustration, was the victim.

The master of the house was away when she joined his staff, and he was to remain so until the first week of October or thereabouts. Though patience was not one of her virtues, Tessa used the time to hone her intent, to settle herself more securely into her position, and to listen. She had waited ten years, after al . She was prepared to wait a few more months.

Tessa knew something of the households of the wel -to-do—her own circumstances had been quite cosmopolitan until the death of her father had forced her mother to return to her native Cornwal , taking with her a reluctant and much-aggrieved Tessa—

but she was impressed by the extravagance with which Alexander Devoncroix lived. Even the scul ery girls were supplied with a change of clothing for every day of the week, and white pinafores that had to be bleached in the sun to be kept clean. He had a coal furnace in the cel ar and burned wood in every grate, even in those whose rooms were unoccupied, because, it was said, he liked a cheery, warm house free of drafts.

The house itself was outfitted with every possible convenience. Gas lamps supplied lighting, from the servants' quarters to the enormous chandeliers in the entrance hal and al the way to the third-floor bal room. There were toilet facilities, with pul -chains for disposal, attached to every bedchamber. Water was pumped into the lavatory with a turn of a handle, and heated by means of a complicated boiler system in the cel ar. The marble bathing rooms were the most decadent—and fascinating—