Die for Me (11 page)

“So, if they already killed him, why would those guys want to come back for his body? Why would they even kill him in the first place, if they know he's just going to come back to life three days later?” I asked Vincent, ignoring their surreal conversation.

Vincent seemed to weigh whether or not he should tell me. And then, looking at Ambrose's body half slumped over on mine, he whispered, “It's the only way we can be destroyed. If they kill us, and then burn our body, we're gone forever.”

Georgia was furious. And I didn't blame her.

By the time we got to Vincent's house, we had fought it out by text.

Georgia: Where are you guys?
Me: Ambrose sick. Had to take him home.
Georgia: Why didn't you come in and get me?
Me: Tried to. Couldn't get through the crowd.
Georgia: I seriously hate you right now, Kate Beaumont Mercier.
Me: I am SO SORRY.
Georgia: Saw some friends here who rescued me from complete humiliation. But I still hate you.
Me: Sorry.
Georgia: You are NOT forgiven.

Vincent and I tried to help Ambrose, but he righted himself after getting out of the taxi and brushed our hands away. “I've got it now. Damn, this guy is heavy. How can he even move with all these lumpy muscles all over the place?”

When we got to the door Vincent turned to me, looking conflicted.

“I think I'll go home,” I said, beating him to the punch.

He looked relieved. “I can walk with you if you can just wait a few minutes for us to get him settled.”

“No, I'll be okay. Really,” I said. And curiously enough, I meant it. Through all the horror and weirdness of the evening, I felt strangely okay.
I can handle this,
I thought to myself, as I walked out of the gates toward my grandparents' house.

GEORGIA SULKING IS NOT A PRETTY SIGHT
. Although I had apologized a million times, she wasn't speaking to me.

Things were pretty uncomfortable around the house. Mamie and Papy tried to ignore the fact that anything was wrong, but on the fifth day after my unforgivable crime, Papy pulled me over and said, “Why don't you come see me at work today?” He glanced over at Georgia's brooding silhouette and gave me a significant look, as if to say,
Can't talk here
. “It's been months since you've stopped by, and I have a lot of new inventory you haven't seen.”

After school I headed directly to Papy's gallery. Walking into his shop was like entering a museum. In its muted light, ancient statues were lined up facing one another from either side of the room, and glass cases displayed artifacts shaped in pottery or cast in precious metals.

“Ma princesse,”
Papy crowed when he saw me, shattering the room's opulent silence. I flinched. That was my dad's pet name for me, and no one had called me that since his death. “You came. So, what looks new to you?”

“Him, for starters,” I said, pointing to a life-size statue of an athletic-looking youth stepping forward with one foot and holding a clenched fist tightly down by his side. The other arm and his nose were missing.

“Ah, my kouros,” Papy said, walking over to the marble statue. “Fifth century BCE. A true prize. The Greek government wouldn't have even let it out of the country nowadays, but I bought it from a Swiss collector whose family acquired it in the nineteenth century.” He led me past a jeweled reliquary in a glass case. “You never know what you're getting these days, with all these iffy provenances.”

“What's this one?” I asked, stopping in front of a large black vase. Its surface was decorated with a dozen or so reddish-colored human figures in dramatic poses. Two armored groups faced each other, and in the middle a fierce-looking naked man stood at the head of each army. They held spears toward each other in a face-off. “Naked soldiers. Interesting.”

“Ah, the amphora. It's about a hundred years younger than the kouros. Shows two cities at battle, led by their numina.”

“Their what?”

“Numina. Singular, numen. A type of Roman god. They were part-man, part-deity. Could be wounded, but not killed.”

“So since they're gods, they fight naked?” I asked. “No armor necessary? Sound like show-offs to me.”

Papy chuckled.

Numina,
I thought, and muttered under my breath, “Sounds like numa.”

“What did you say?” Papy exclaimed, his head jerking upright from the vase to stare at me. He looked like someone had slapped him.

“I said numina sounds kind of like numa.”

“Where did you hear that word?” he asked.

“I don't know . . . TV?”

“I very seriously doubt that.”

“I don't know, Papy,” I said, breaking his laser gaze and searching for something else in the gallery that could bail me out of the situation. “I probably read it in an old book.”

“Hmm.” He nodded, hesitantly accepting my explanation but keeping his worried look.

Trust Papy to have heard of every archaic god and monster that ever existed. I'd have to tell Vincent that revenants, or at least the evil branch of revenants, weren't as “under the radar” as they thought. “So thanks for the invitation, Papy,” I said, relieved to change the subject. “Was there something you wanted to talk about? Besides statues and vases, that is.”

Papy smiled wanly. “I asked you to come here to check on you and Georgia. Is this just a skirmish,” he said, glancing at the vase, “or a full-out war? Not that it's any of my business. I'm just wondering when you're planning on calling a truce and restoring peace to the household. If it goes on much longer, I might have to leave on an urgent unforeseen business trip.”

“I'm sorry, Papy,” I said. “It's totally my fault.”

“I know. Georgia said that you and some young men left her stranded at a restaurant.”

“Yeah. There was kind of an emergency, and we had to leave.”

“And you didn't have enough time to bring Georgia with you?” he asked skeptically.

“No.”

Papy took my arm and gently led me back toward the front of the store. “Doesn't sound like the kind of thing you'd do,
princesse
. And it doesn't sound very gentlemanly on the part of your escorts.”

I shook my head, agreeing, but there wasn't anything I could say to defend myself.

We arrived at the front door. “Be careful who you choose to spend time with,
chérie
. Not everyone has a heart as good as yours.”

“Sorry, Papy. I'll sort it out with Georgia right away.” I gave him a hug and walked out of the darkened room, blinking in the sunlight. And after picking up a bouquet of Gerbera daisies from a neighborhood florist, I went home for a last-ditch effort at making peace with my sister. I don't know if it was the flowers that did the trick, or if she was just ready to forgive and forget. But this time, my apology worked.

Instead of discouraging me from seeing Vincent, Papy's speech made me even more eager to see him. It had been a long five days
,
and though we planned to see each other over the weekend and talked by text and by phone every day, it seemed like an eternity. After my peacemaking mission with Georgia, I picked up the phone to call him. But before I finished dialing, I saw his name pop up on my screen and my phone began to ring.

“I was just calling you,” I said, laughing.

“Yeah, right,” his velvety voice came from the other end of the line.

“Is Ambrose up and about?” I asked. At my request, he had been giving me updates on his kinsman's recovery. The day after he was stabbed the wound had begun closing up, and Vincent assured me that, as usual, Ambrose would be as good as new once he “woke up.”

“Yes, Kate. I told you he was fine.”

“Yeah, I know. It's still hard for me to believe, that's all.”

“Well, you can see him yourself if you want to come over. But do you want to go out first? Since we managed to handle Les Deux Magots without anyone being killed or maimed, I thought I might take you there again.”

“Sure. I've got a few hours until dinner.”

“Pick you up in five?”

“Perfect.”

Vincent was waiting outside on his Vespa by the time I got downstairs.

“You're fast!” I said, taking the helmet from him.

“I'll take that as a compliment,” he replied.

 * * * 

It was the first cold day of October. We sat outside the café on the boulevard Saint-Germain, under one of the tall, lamplike space heaters that sprout up on all the café terraces once it begins to get chilly out. Its radiating heat toasted my shoulders, while the hot chocolate warmed my insides.

“Now
this
is chocolate,” Vincent said as he poured the thick lava of melted chocolate into his cup and added steamed milk from a second pitcher. We sat and watched as people walked by, sporting coats, hats, and gloves for the first time that year.

Vincent leaned back in his seat. “So, Kate, my darling,” he began. I lifted my eyebrows, and he laughed. “Okay, just plain old Kate. In our agreed spirit of disclosure, I thought I would offer to answer a question for you.”

“What question?”

“Any question, as long as it pertains to the twenty-first and not the twentieth century.”

I thought for a moment. What I really wanted to know was who he was before he died. The first time. But he obviously wasn't ready to tell me.

“Okay. When did you die the last time?”

“A year ago.”

“How?”

“A fire rescue.”

I paused, wondering how far he would let me go. “Does it hurt?”

“Does what hurt?”

“Dying. I mean, I suppose the first time it's the same as any other death. But after that, when you die to save someone . . . does it hurt?”

Vincent studied my expression carefully before answering. “Just as much as if you, as a human, were hit by a subway train. Or asphyxiated under a pile of burning timbers.”

My skin crawled as I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that some people . . . or revenants . . . whatever . . . experienced the pain of death not just once but repeatedly. By choice. Vincent saw my unease and reached for my hand. His touch calmed me, but not in the supernatural way.

“Then why do you do it? Is this just about having an overblown sense of community service? Or repaying your debt to the universe for making you immortal? I mean, I respect the fact that you're saving people's lives, but after a few rescues, why don't you just let yourself get older, like Jean-Baptiste, until you finally die of old age?” I paused. “
Do
you die of old age?”

Ignoring my last question, Vincent leaned in toward me and spoke earnestly, as if making a confession. “Because, Kate. It's like a compulsion. It's like pressure building up inside until you have to do something to get relief. The ‘philanthropic' or ‘immortal' motives wouldn't make the pain and trauma worth it on their own. It's going against our nature
not
to do it.”

“Then how has Jean-Baptiste resisted it for . . . what? Thirty years straight?”

“The longer you're a revenant, the easier it gets to resist. But even with a couple of centuries under his belt, it takes him a mammoth amount of self-control. He has a really good reason, though. He not only shelters our little clan but supports other groups of revenants around the country. He can't be dying left and right and still manage that much responsibility.”

“Okay,” I conceded. “I get it that you have a compulsion to die. But that doesn't explain why, in between all the dying, you do things like dive into the Seine after a suicide attempt. You obviously weren't going to die from that.”

“You're right,” Vincent said. “The occasions where we actually die saving someone are rare. Once . . . twice a year at most. Usually we're just doing things like preventing pretty girls from getting crushed by crumbling buildings.”

“Very suave,” I said, nudging him. “But that's exactly what I mean. Where's the reward in that? Is that a compulsion too?”

Vincent looked uncomfortable.

“What? That is a valid question. We're still talking twenty-first century here,” I said defensively.

“Yeah, but we're going a bit beyond the original question.” As he studied my stubborn expression, his cell phone rang.

“Whew, saved by the bell,” he said, winking at me as he answered. I heard a high-pitched, panicky voice coming from across the line. “Is Jean-Baptiste with you? Good. Just try to calm down, Charlotte,” he soothed. “I'll be right there.”

Vincent pulled out his wallet and laid some change on the table. “It's a family emergency. I have to go help out.”

“Can't I come with you?”

He shook his head as we stood to leave. “No. There's been an accident. It might be a bit”—he paused, weighing his words—“messy.”

“Who?”

“Charles.”

“And Charlotte's there with him?”

Vincent nodded.

“Then I want to go. She sounded upset. I can help her while you take care of . . . whatever it is that you need to do.”

He looked up at the sky, as if waiting for some divine inspiration on how to explain things to me. “This isn't how it usually goes. Like I was saying—we normally die for someone only once or maybe twice a year. It's a fluke that Jules and Ambrose both died just as you and I started hanging out.”

We reached the scooter. Vincent unlocked it and put his helmet on.

“This is your life, right? And you promised not to hide things from me. So maybe this is something I should see if I want to know what hanging out with revenants really means.” A little voice inside me was telling me to give it up, to go home, and to stay out of Vincent's “family's” business. I ignored it.

He touched my stubbornly clenched jaw with one finger. “Kate, I really don't want you to come. But if you insist, I'm not going to stop you. I hoped it would be longer before you had to see the worst of it, but you're right—I shouldn't shelter you from our reality.”

Pulling my helmet on, I tucked myself in behind him on the scooter. Vincent started the engine and headed toward the river. We drove past the Eiffel Tower and pulled over into a little park in front of Grenelle Bridge. I knew the spot because it's the end of the line for sightseeing boats before they head back to the center of Paris.

One of those tour boats was pulled over to the riverbank, and in front of it an anxious crowd watched from outside a protective fence of police barriers. Two ambulances and a fire truck were parked on the lawn next to the river, their lights flashing.

Vincent propped the scooter against a tree without bothering to lock it up and, holding my hand, jogged up to the fence to speak with a policeman standing behind it. “I'm family,” he said to the man, who didn't budge, but glanced inquiringly back at his superior.

“Let him through. He's my nephew,” came a familiar voice, and Jean-Baptiste strode through a horde of paramedics and pushed the barrier aside to let us pass. Vincent kept his arm wrapped tightly around my waist, making it obvious that I was coming with him.

Now that we had an unobstructed view, I saw three bodies on the riverbank. One was a good distance away from the others. It was a little boy, probably five or six years old, and he was lying on a stretcher, wrapped in a blanket. A woman sat by his head, weeping silently as she rubbed his wet hair with a towel. After a moment, two paramedics flanking his small, shivering form helped him up to a seated position, facing away from the other two bodies, as they asked him and the woman questions. He was obviously okay.