Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Esther

Brighton, England, 1850

It had been a long time since Isabeau Aguillon had run into another vampire, but she knew instantly that that was what the blonde woman was.

It wasn't so surprising that she hadn't encountered many other vampires in her lifetime – Celeste had told her that so many of their kind lived secretive, elusive lives because it was safer for them. If they were all trying to keep to the shadows, to avoid arousing the suspicions of humans who might want them dead if they knew what they really were, then it was easy for said vampires to miss each other as they wandered the world.

It wasn't just the lack of heartbeat that gave the woman away. There was something about her, a kind of presence that spoke of an impossibly long life and inhuman power.

She sat on Brighton Beach, so still she might have been a statue, staring out to sea. The tide lapped softly at the shore, the barely rippling surface reflecting the silver glitter of the moon.

As Isabeau drew nearer, the woman glanced at her, and surprise faintly registered on her face before she looked away again. She knew what Isabeau was too, and if she was surprised then it must have been a while since she'd seen another vampire, too.

"May I join you?" Isabeau asked, stopping a respectful distance away.

A long pause.

"I suppose so," the woman said.

"You're English," Isabeau noted, tucking her skirts under her as she sat on the shingled ground.

"This is England," the woman dryly pointed out.

"I moved back to England twenty-nine years ago, and in all that time I've only encountered one other vampire, and they were French, like me."

"I suppose that's not so surprising. A lot of the French fled here to escape the Revolution, humans and vampires alike."

"That's why I came the first time, back in 1794. I'm Isabeau Aguillon, by the way." She held out a hand for the woman to shake.

The woman eyed it for a long moment, before eventually shaking it. "I'm Esther Jones."

"Good to meet you, Esther."

Esther let go of Isabeau's hand and turned back to face the sea.

No one said anything for a while, and Isabeau couldn't quite tell if Esther minded her being there or not.

"Do you live around here?" she said, trying to make conversation.

"I don't live anywhere. I'm currently staying at the Bedford," Esther said, gesturing behind her.

Isabeau looked up the beach to where the ornate Bedford Hotel towered into the sky.

More and more hotels like that were springing up along the seafront, built to accommodate the influx of day-trippers, often from London, who'd travelled via railway to get a glimpse of Queen Victoria and her family at the Royal Pavilion. Five years ago, the Queen had purchased land on the Isle of Wight and had permanently left Brighton, but the magnificent Royal Pavilion still remained, and the building of the Brighton railway had made the city important to the railway industry, which meant that visitors were still frequent.

"Do you often come down to the beach like this?" Isabeau asked.

"No."

"Is tonight a special occasion?" She was teasing, but Esther looked at her, and her eyes were hollow.

"I was sitting here thinking that if I was human, I would walk into the sea and drown myself," she said.

Isabeau was stunned into silence.