Roux

Once the disguises were sorted out, everything seemed to happen very fast. Seamus had prepared travel and accommodation, and while Ludovic was off with Edmond somewhere, Roux packed their bags. Then she unpacked them, double-checked everything, and packed them again.

Renie helped her carry them down to the vestibule where Ysanne waited, as silent and still as a statue.

She appraised Roux's new look, but didn't say a word. Then she looked past Roux, to the main staircase which led up the various wings on the second floor, and her eyes visibly widened.

Roux and Renie both turned.

Ludovic and Edmond were coming down the stairs, and Ludovic's newly human appearance was even more incongruous next to Edmond's ebony-and-ivory vampire beauty. Plus, he looked awkward as hell.

Roux made a mental note to teach him how to walk and talk a bit more casually. His physical appearance was human, but he still moved with the fluid grace of a vampire, and his speech patterns weren't quite the norm for a human guy of his age. There was no point putting so much effort into changing his appearance if people picked up all these little inconsistencies about him.

"Ludovic?" Ysanne said, and there was genuine uncertainty in her voice.

Roux gave herself a little inner fist-pump.

"Well, well," Ysanne said, as Ludovic joined them. "I see that Roux was not wrong about her talents."

Ludovic tugged self-consciously at his beanie.

"Seamus has made all the necessary arrangements. You are booked into the Old Royal hotel on Romsey Road. The car is waiting outside, and Seamus assures me that it is equipped with the necessary technology to find the hotel without need of a map. The boot is stocked with more than enough bagged blood to last the two weeks, and there is an envelope of money in the glove compartment. I trust that you will use it wisely," Ysanne said.

"Do we have, like, cover stories or anything?" Roux said.

"I would recommend that you use false names, but you will have to handle that yourselves. There is no need for a false back-story as you do not have to answer any personal questions. As far as any of the escapees' families know, you are merely representatives of Belle Morte. You will not have to explain yourselves further than that." Ysanne looked from Roux to Ludovic and back again. "Seamus has only booked one room for you both, so you may wish to pose as a couple when you're not with the families themselves."

"Excuse me?" Ludovic said.

"What?" Roux said at the same time.

That was something that neither of them had considered.

Ysanne looked unrepentant. "It is only a suggestion, of course."

"Then why arrange a single room for us?" Ludovic said.

"It seemed the most practical option. You can seamlessly blend in with the humans if you're just another happy couple," Ysanne replied.

A quick look at Ludovic's expression and Roux wasn't sure they'd be pulling off that routine any time soon. They'd have to work on that, because Ysanne had a point – they needed to blend in with the outside world, and no one would look twice at a normal, happy couple out and about the city.

"I would also prefer it if you two are not separated any more than is necessary," Ysanne said. "One room means that you'll both be together. The only time Ludovic should be acting solo is when he actually captures our runaways."

Again, it made sense, but sharing a room with Ludovic like they really were a couple? Roux was okay with that, but she wasn't convinced Ludovic would take it so well. Theoretically, it wasn't an issue because they didn't need to do any couple-y things, but there was still a certain intimacy in sharing a room with someone. It wasn't a situation that Roux had ever thought she'd be in with Ludovic, and considering he wasn't entirely happy about her even coming with him, the prospect of sharing a room was likely to make him even unhappier.

But she'd known this wasn't going to be a walk in the park, and there wasn't anything that could make her back out now.

She peeked under her new fringe at Ludovic, trying to gauge how he did feel about this, but his face was a blank mask, stripped of any emotion. Interestingly, Edmond looked more worried than Ludovic, something that Roux filed away in her mind. She didn't know what it meant, or even if it was any of her business, but she took note of it anyway.

"There's one more thing," Ysanne said. From somewhere in her skin-tight dress – Roux couldn't imagine where – the vampire Lady produced a slim black mobile phone. She held it gingerly between thumb and forefinger, as if it was poisonous. "This is for you. I trust you know how to use it?"

Roux suppressed a smile as she took the phone. "I think I can work it out."

"We will keep one here at the mansion. The number is already...on your phone." Ysanne almost stumbled over the words as she got further and further out of her depth. "You will need to call us regularly and keep us updated on your progress."

Roux glanced at Ludovic, who was eyeing the phone with a kind of horrified fascination. He wouldn't be making any progress reports, then.

"Not to sound patronising, but do you know how to use it?" Roux said to Ysanne.

There was no point calling in a progress report – or calling for help if they needed it – if Ysanne didn't even know how to answer the phone.

Ysanne lifted her chin, proud as ever, but she didn't pretend that she understood the modern technology.

"Renie shall help with this aspect of the mission. In fact, I am going to need her to help the entire House enter the modern world." Ysanne sounded as enthused about that as if Renie was going to teach the older vampires how to swim through raw sewage.

It couldn't have been easy for Ysanne to say that, and not because she and Renie had a history of getting under each other's skin. The Lady of Belle Morte didn't like admitting her own ignorance, and she really didn't like asking anyone for help, especially in front of witnesses.

Roux took the phone from Ysanne and slid it into her pocket. "I guess that's it then," she said, nerves suddenly twisting in her stomach.

The world outside the walls of Belle Morte wasn't the same as it had been when Roux went into the House. Now fear and anger and thirst for revenge ran through the streets, and Roux didn't know how bad it was. She knew there were anti-vampire protestors camping outside the walls, and she knew she might see more of that once she went out into Winchester proper, but that didn't make it any less scary.

Renie gave her a last, tight hug. "Stay out of trouble," she whispered.

"I'll do my best."

The car that Seamus had got for them was a cheap grey junker with dings in the paintwork and rust on the hubcaps. He'd probably picked it up second-hand at a moment's notice, and it was just as probable that it would go the scrapyard when they were done with it. But it was all they needed for the time being.

Roux hesitated just outside the mansion's front door. Beyond Belle Morte's walls the protestors sounded horribly loud, a dull roar of anger and hatred. It made her cringe. She knew that people were scared, and they had every right to be, but they did not have the right to tar every vampire with the same bloody brush, and that was exactly what they were doing. Because some vampires had turned on people, these protestors now thought that all vampires would do the same. And it wasn't just the vampires that Roux was worried for – if people turned on anyone with fangs, then they might also turn on people who sympathised and associated with vampires. That included Roux.

She'd faced up to a lot of scary shit since coming to Belle Morte, but that roar of anger made her knees feel weak.

"Are you alright?" Ludovic said, coming up beside her.

It was midday and the sun was high in the sky, though the late January weather kept a chill in the air. The sun was strong enough to affect a new vampire, but someone as old as Ludovic could be out in it for at least an hour before it really started to hurt.

"I'm fine," she muttered. "You?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" His voice was flat and inflectionless.

Roux made a vague gesture at the wall that ringed the grounds. "Don't pretend you can't hear them."

"I never said I couldn't."

Roux looked curiously up at him, scanning his face for any hint of expression, anything that might tell her what he was thinking or feeling. If this was hard for her, then it was a damn sight harder for him. He was the one that these people were protesting against.

"So this is the car?" Ludovic said, eyeing it with ill-disguised apprehension.

"Looks like it."

Ludovic looked at her, his silence expectant, and after a moment or two, something clicked in her head.

"You can't drive, can you?"

Ludovic squared his shoulders. "Technically, yes, but the last car I drove was in 1905. I suspect the process may have changed somewhat since then."

Roux's lips twitched. "Maybe just a little."

The car was unlocked, the keys already in the ignition. It seemed a little sloppy to Roux, but she supposed the reasoning was that most vampires didn't know how to drive modern cars, and the only humans left in Belle Morte were Roux, Jason, and the remaining guards. They were all supposed to be trustworthy, so leaving the car unlocked wasn't a risk, but Roux couldn't help remembering all the people who were supposed to be trustworthy who had turned traitor and left a trail of bodies in their wake.

Maybe the vampires needed to completely overhaul their security system; ditch the old-fashioned locks and keys and go for some sort of high-tech security. CCTV was a must.

But none of that mattered now. Bringing vampires into the 21st century was Renie's job, and, if she needed help, Roux could do it when she got back from her own mission. But improved vampire security wouldn't mean squat if they lost their place in the human world.

Roux slung her bag into the backseat and gestured to Ludovic to do the same. There was something monumentally strange about all this. She had arrived at Belle Morte in a limousine, surrounded by flashing cameras and paparazzi barking questions. Her face would have been splashed across tabloids and fansites across the world, and when she left, it was supposed to have been in a similar fashion. Now she wondered if donors would ever again arrive at the mansion like that, or if Jemima and Etienne had damaged the system in a way that couldn't be fixed.

Ludovic climbed into the passenger's seat, sitting stiffly and uncomfortably. Roux could only imagine how strange this all was to him.

She paused before getting into the car, one hand on the door, gazing at the mansion behind her. When she first filled out a donor form, hoping for a chance to be taken into one of the vampire Houses, she had never imagined that Belle Morte would be anything like home to her. And really, it wasn't home, but she still felt some connection to the building. So much had happened here, bad and good, and Roux felt that she had become part of the House in a way that donors weren't meant to.

"Are you coming?" Ludovic called.

"Yeah."

Turning her back on Belle Morte, Roux climbed into the car. It was time to look forward.