Chelsea Quinn Yarbro shares an excerpt from 'Sustenance'

Special for USA TODAY

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, author of Sustenance, introduces us to her vampire hero, Szent-Germain, in her Saint-Germain Cycle series and shares an excerpt.

Chelsea:Sustenance, the 27th book in the Saint-Germain Cycle, finds him in Europe in 1949-1952, dealing with a group of American journalists and academics who have fled the witch hunt for suspected Communists conducted by the FBI, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and the House Unamerican Activities Committee that was rampant at that time. His vast publishing network, Eclipse Press, becomes a source of income for many of the group, and he, himself, develops a deeper relationship with Charis Treat, a cultural anthropologist from Tulane, whose marriage and career have unraveled back in New Orleans. In this excerpt, Szent-Germain and Charis are taking a midnight walk through the streets of Paris, discussing her pending divorce. They are unaware that an ambitious CIA agent is after the group and has fixed on them to give him the advancement he seeks.

Excerpt from Sustenance …

A light spring mizzle was falling, looking like a dusting of minute diamonds in the shine of the street lamp. Across the Seine and a short way ahead of them, the Louvre appeared to be a painted backdrop, its image flattened by the mist and the night; sidewalks and streets shone black, and the river glinted silver where the spill of lamplight struck it; a barge headed upriver was leaving a frothy, spangled wake to mark its passage. It was almost midnight and the streets were nearly empty of traffic; only the two-toned whoop of an ambulance a block away gave any reminder that this was a large, active city, not a forgotten, abandoned relic of a metropolis.

Szent-Germain and Charis had been walking for more than two hours, the sound of their footsteps seeming preternaturally loud. When they had first set out they had indulged in desultory conversation now and again, but for the most part, their nearness created a private, unspoken dialogue that was welcome to them both; they had covered the last kilometer in companionable silence.

"I gave Harold's letter to Bethune — well, I put it in an envelope and left it at his hotel," Charis said as if continuing a discussion rather than beginning one; she stopping walking to pull a scarf from her coat-pocket and tie it over her head; her desire for Szent-Germain was banked within her, but its heat remained powerful and strangely comforting. "I wanted to destroy it, but I knew that wouldn't be smart. So I did what I was supposed to do and left it for Bethune."

"The better choice of the two," he agreed, and waited for her to continue; he was aware that if he said anything derogatory about Harold Treat, she would feel the need to defend him, so he only asked, "Have you spoken with Bethune yet?"

"No, but I already have an appointment with him — Bethune — on the eighteenth. I guess two days isn't too long to wait. It may even be a good thing; I don't think I want to talk about Harold's letter with Bethune just yet. I'm too ... muddled about it all. I want to be sensible, rational, make considered decisions, but my impulse is to demolish the letter and find some way to upset Harold as much as he has upset me."

"Do you want to remain with him?"

She shook her head several times. "But the letter confuses me: is Harold being spiteful, or is he really trying to protect our boys? I can't decide. He may find it difficult to be forthcoming with me, but he may also want to keep me at a distance. He knows the letter is likely to be read by one of the intelligence organizations, so he may be reticent on that account. Lord knows I've found him baffling in the past. Bethune might be able to explain it all. Or you." She stifled a sigh. "He seems so ... self-righteous when I read what he wrote. I mean Harold, not Bethune."

"Do you think he is being encouraged to be autocratic with you?" It was a possibility that had first occurred to him when Charis had telephoned him more than three hours ago, nearly in tears from fury and despair.

"I don't know. He doesn't say much about his parents, or what they think about the divorce. And it could be that his attorney, Douglas Pond, might have something to do with it, but my guess is that's it's Harold, wanting to keep me off-balance and cooperative."

"Has he always been that way?" Szent-Germain asked calmly, suiting his tone to her mood.

"A little. He's a big cheese in his field, and he knows it, so he ... " She shook her head again and pressed her lips together as if to keep any critical words from escaping. When she was certain she had succeeded, she went on, "And he could get pompous when he wanted to have his way. Why do I speak of him in the past tense?" She frowned, then went on, "Sometimes when he gave formal lectures, he ended up sounding like Sidney Greenstreet — portentous, orotund, and gravelly — but with a bit of a Loozianna drawl. I never realized how much that nettled me until recently." She gave a self-deprecating laugh, looking away from Szent-Germain to the anonymity of the river.

Find out more about Chelsea and her books at www.chelseaquinnyarbro.net.

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