Die for Me (9 page)

“LET'S WALK,” VINCENT SAID AND, HELPING ME
to my feet, held his arm out for me to hold. We strolled as we watched boats plow past us through the dark green water, leaving frothy wakes behind them and sending large, rolling waves clapping against the stones under our feet.

“So how did you . . . die? I mean the first time,” I asked.

Vincent cleared his throat. “Can I wait until later to tell you my story?” he asked, sounding uncomfortable. “I don't want to completely weird you out by talking about who I used to be before having the chance to show you who I am now.” He shot me an awkward smile.

“Does that mean I don't have to tell you about my past either?” I lobbed back.

“No,” he groaned. “Especially since I've barely started to figure you out.” He paused. “Just please, don't ask me yet. Any other question, just not that.”

“Okay, how about . . . why do you have a photo of me next to your bed?” I prodded.

“Did that creep you out?” he said, laughing.

“Yeah, kind of,” I admitted. “Although I saw it about a second after I found you dead on your bed, so the creep factor was already pretty high.”

“Well, Charlotte and I had to fight over that one,” he said. “Did you notice the photos on my walls?”

“Yes. On Charlotte's, too. She said they were people she had saved.”

He nodded. “They're our ‘rescues.' And after we saved you, we both laid claim to your picture.”

“How's that?” I asked, confused.

“Well, you know that day at the café when you almost became a bit of Paris history?”

I nodded.

“Charlotte waved you over, which is why you moved in time to avoid the falling stone. But I'm the one who told her it was about to happen.”

“You were there?” I asked, stopping in my tracks and staring up at him.

“Yes . . . in spirit. Not in body,” Vincent said as he pulled me along with him.

“In spirit? I thought you said you aren't ghosts.”

Vincent put his hand on mine, and I began to feel like I had been hit with a mini dose of tranquilizers.

“Stop it with the ‘calming touch' thing. Just explain. I can handle it.” Vincent left his hand on mine, but the warm fuzzy feeling went away. He smiled guiltily, like he had been caught cheating on an exam.

Without patting myself too much on the back, I felt I was handling things pretty well. Besides learning that the guy I liked was immortal, I thought I was taking the supernatural how-things-work lessons in stride. I hadn't freaked out. Much. Okay, except when I saw Jules get killed. And found the obituary photos. And came across Vincent “dead” in his bed.
All of which were totally understandable freak-out occasions,
I reassured myself.

Vincent was talking, so I tried to focus. “I'll come back to the spirit thing. But what I was saying about me being with Charlotte and Charles—that's kind of our modus operandi as revenants. We usually travel in threes when we're ‘walking.' That's what we call it when we're . . . um . . . on patrol. That way if something happens . . .”

“Like it did to Jules in the Métro?”

“Exactly. Then the others will alert Jean-Baptiste, who will make sure we get the body.”

“And how does he do that? Does he have connections at the city morgue?”

I said it jokingly, but Vincent smiled and nodded. “And the police, among other organizations.”

“Handy,” I said, trying not to look surprised.

“Very,” he agreed. “They probably think Jean-Baptiste is some kind of gangster or necrophiliac, but the amount of money he pays for the services he needs seems to make people forget their questions.”

I was quiet, thinking about how complicated the whole undead-lifesaving business must be. And here I had unwittingly crashed their carefully planned party. No wonder I wasn't on Jean-Baptiste's invite A-list.

“Charlotte explained about how when we're dormant our bodies are dead but our minds are still active.”

I nodded.

“She was oversimplifying a bit. Actually, for the first of our three dormant days we're ‘body-and-mind' dead. Everything is turned off, as if we were any other corpse.

“But on day two we switch into another mode—we're only ‘body' dead. If we've been injured since our last dormancy, our body starts healing itself. And our mind wakes up. For two days our consciousness can kind of . . . detach from our bodies. We can travel. We can talk to one another.”

I couldn't believe it. There were more “revenant rules.”
This can't get any weirder,
I thought. “Floating around outside your bodies? Now I get why Charles said you were ghosts.”

Vincent smiled. “When our minds leave our bodies, we call it being
volant
.”

“
Volant
like ‘flying'?”

“Exactly. And while we're volant we've got this kind of refined sixth sense. It's not exactly fortune-telling, but we can sense when something is going to happen that the others can use to save someone. It's like seeing into the future, but only for what's happening close to our immediate location, and only a minute or two past where we are.”

Strike that . . . it does get weirder.

Vincent must have felt the hesitation in my step and correctly guessed that I was getting overwhelmed. He pulled me over to a stone bench by the side of the quay and sat with me, giving me time to process the whole impossible story. Before us, the reflections of the buildings along the river swelled over the surface of the water.

“I know it sounds strange, Kate. But it's one of the gifts we possess as revenants. One of our only ‘superpowers,' as you put it. Like when you saw Jules and me in the Métro: There were actually three of us there. Ambrose was volant, and let us know just before that man jumped. Jules said that he would take it, while I shielded you from seeing him.”

Vincent smiled a slightly abashed smile. “Ambrose is also the reason we bumped into you in the Picasso Museum. He saw you from outside and suggested to Jules that we pop inside for ‘a lesson in Cubism.'”

“But how did Ambrose even know who I was?” I asked, incredulous.

“Making me bump into you was Ambrose's idea of a joke. I had been talking about you to the others, even before we saved you at the café.” He picked up a dead leaf and began crumbling it between his fingers.

“You had?” I gasped, astonished. “What had you been talking about?”

“Ah . . . now don't you wish you knew?” He smiled slyly. “I can't give away all my secrets in one sitting. Let me keep at least a shred of my dignity!”

I rolled my eyes and waited for what would come next. But I was secretly thrilled by this revelation.

“In any case, the day you almost got crushed by the falling masonry, I was volant with Charlotte and Charles and saw the building falling apart a minute before it happened. I told Charlotte you had to be moved, and she gestured at you to come over. That's why we both laid claim to your photo for our ‘Wall of Fame.'” He smiled and shifted his gaze from the now tattered leaf to my eyes, gauging my reaction.

“But why the photos? Are they”—I shuddered—“trophies?”

“No. It's not like we're gloating. Or competing. It's deeper than that,” Vincent said, his smile replaced by a look of unease. “It's hard not to get kind of . . . obsessed . . . with our rescues, especially the ones we die for. Dying repeatedly isn't easy. And it's hard not to want to know what happened to the person you died for afterward. If the near-death experience changed their life. If the sacrifice you made had a butterfly effect for them, their family, the people who know them, and on and on.”

He laughed uncomfortably. “If we weren't careful, we could end up stalking them. It does happen. It's an easy trap for those who aren't warned. Luckily, Jean-Baptiste has a couple hundred years of being undead under his belt. He keeps us to the ‘Triple-Recon Plan.'” Vincent smirked. “We can go back and photograph our rescue after saving them. Then we can go in volant form twice to check up on them, but no other communication is recommended. After that, we have to satisfy ourselves with Googling them to our heart's content.”

“So Ambrose pretty much threw that rule out the window when he forced us into the same room at the museum.”

He smiled. “The rules were already a bit screwed up. Like I said, my fascination with you began well before the crumbling building incident.”

Vincent avoided my eyes. Throwing the remains of the mangled leaf into the water, he reached over and covered my hand with his. I heard a warning bell going off in the back of my mind as I sifted through the information he had given me. And then something clicked.

“Vincent, are you saying that even though you didn't die for me, you became ‘obsessed' with me after saving my life?”

“
More
obsessed,” Vincent admitted, continuing to look away.

“So if the obsession is unavoidable, then what makes me different than any of your other rescues? Maybe the reason you like me is that I just happen to live down the street from you and cross your path more often than most. You saved me, but instead of disappearing from your life like all of the others, I kept popping up and fueled the obsession. How do you know that's not all there is to it?”

He was silent. “That's it, isn't it?” I shook my head in dismay. My stomach seized into a knot of despair.

“I was wondering how someone like you could fall for someone like me. How you went from acting like I was just a stupid admirer the first couple of times I saw you to looking at me like I was your dream girl. And that's the answer. It has nothing to do with me. It's just some sort of unnatural addiction to lifesaving that goes along with being a revenant.”

I knew it couldn't be true,
I thought to myself.

Vincent lowered his head into his hands and sat like that for a minute, massaging his temples before speaking. “Kate, I've saved hundreds of women and have never felt this for any of them. I was interested in you before I saved your life. I admit, the saving part did make you more unforgettable. It kind of sealed my resolution to know you. Maybe I came off as a jerk the first time we talked, but it's been a long time since I've let myself feel anything about anyone. I'm just out of practice at being human. You have to believe me.”

I searched for any hint of deception in his face. He seemed completely sincere. “You have to be honest with me, then, Vincent,” I said. “If you suddenly realize that's all that I am—a rescue who you've managed to get closer to—then I want to know immediately.”

“I will be honest, Kate. I won't ever lie to you.”

“Or keep things from me that I should know.”

“You have my word.”

I nodded. The sun was already setting, and lights began to appear in the buildings above us, their reflections bouncing off the water like flickering flames.

“Kate, what are you feeling?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Afraid.”

“Let me take you home,” Vincent said, regret filling his voice. He rose to his feet and pulled me up beside him.

No!
I thought. And aloud I stammered, “No . . . not yet. Let's not end today like this. Let's do something else. Something normal.”

“You mean something besides talking about death, flying spirits, and obsessed immortals?”

“That would be nice,” I said.

“How about dinner?” Vincent said.

“Okay.” I nodded. “Let me just tell Georgia that I won't be eating at home, though.” I took my cell phone out of my bag and texted:
Going out for dinner. Please tell M & P I won't be too late.

Vincent took my hand and laced his fingers through mine, sending little shock waves through my heart. My phone rang as we got to the top of the steps. It was Georgia.

“Yes?”

“So, who are you going to dinner with?”

“
So
, why do you want to know?” I smiled, glancing sideways at Vincent.

“Let's just say that I'm taking my role as your legal guardian seriously,” she purred.

“You are
so
not my legal guardian.”

Georgia laughed. “Who are you with?”

“A friend.”

“V?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Oh my God, where are you going? I'll come by and just pretend I was in the area so I can get a look at him.”

“No way, and besides, I don't even know where we're going yet.”

Vincent gave me a sly smile. “Georgia?” he asked. I nodded, and he reached for the phone.

“Hello, is this Georgia? Vincent here. Should I have cleared this date with you before taking your sister out?” He laughed, and I could tell Georgia was working her irresistible charm on him already.

Finally he said, “No, I don't think that a meet-the-folks session was in the plans for tonight, but I'm sure we'll run into each other soon. Why not, you ask?” He winked at me, and I shivered. It was incredible how he affected me. In a dangerous way.

“You'll have to ask your sister. She's the one calling the shots.”

WE SAT FACING EACH OTHER ACROSS A TINY
table in a cavelike restaurant in the Marais. Dozens of flickering candles illuminated the space around us. Our legs were crisscrossed under the table, mine resting between his, and the feeling of his body touching mine kept my blood on a constant low boil from the moment we sat down until we left.

I kept trying to fight the feeling that Vincent and I were already a couple. It was our first real date, after all, and, besides the barely believable information Vincent had given me about his monster-hood, I didn't know anything about him. This was no time to let my guard down. I resolved to keep things light.

“You've been speaking English to me all afternoon, and you haven't made one mistake yet,” I complimented him as we waited for our food to come.

“When you sleep as little as we do, you have a lot of time for things like books and films. I'd rather read in the original language and watch movies without having to read the subtitles. So I've managed to learn my favorites: English, Italian, and some of the Scandinavian languages.”

“Okay, I'm starting to feel intimidated.”

“I'm sure if you had enough decades to work on it, you'd totally show me up,” he responded, his eyes vivid in the flickering candlelight.

The waiter set our plates in front of us.
“Bon appétit,”
said Vincent, waiting for me to pick up my fork and knife before touching his own.

“So you eat normal food,” I commented, watching Vincent cut a piece off his
magret de canard
.

“What? Were you expecting me to order raw brains? I thought we were going to stay away from unearthly topics of conversation tonight,” he said with a grin.

“It's not every night I have dinner with an immortal,” I joked. “Give me a little leeway.”

“We eat normal stuff. We drink normal stuff. We don't sleep, except when we're dormant, which doesn't really count as sleeping. Anyway, everything else works the same. . . .” His eyes narrowed brazenly, and his lips formed a sexy smile. “Or so I've heard.”

I blushed and concentrated intently on my silverware.

“Kate?”

“Mmm?”

“What's the rest of your name?”

I met his eyes. “Kate Beaumont Mercier. Beaumont's my mom's maiden name.”

“It's French.”

“Yes. I've got French roots on both sides of the family. Anyway, naming your kids after your maiden name is a Southern thing. And the South is where Mom grew up. In Georgia, actually.”

“It's all falling into place now.” Vincent smiled.

“How about you?”

“Vincent Pierre Henri Delacroix. We get two middle names in France. Pierre's my dad's name, and my grandfather was Henri.”

“Sounds very aristocratic.”

“Maybe way, way back.” Vincent laughed. “But my family was nothing like Jean-Baptiste's. It's easy to tell what kind of background he's from.”

“Jean-Baptiste,” I murmured. “He doesn't seem very fond of me.”

Vincent's face darkened. “I want you to know that, though Jean-Baptiste is like my own family, his opinion of you doesn't matter to me. If you want him to like you, then I will reassure you: It will come. You have to earn his trust . . . he doesn't give it easily. But until then, you are with me. He will respect my choice and be civil from now on.”

Vincent saw the doubt on my face and said quickly, “That is, of course, if we keep seeing each other. Which I hope we will.”

I nodded to show I understood, and Vincent, seemingly relieved to see I hadn't made a run for it after his overearnest diatribe, changed the subject. “So are you and your sister very close?”

“Yeah, she's not even two years older than me, so we've always joked about being twins. But we're totally different.”

“How so?”

I took a bite and thought about how to describe my sister, the social butterfly, without making her sound shallow.

“Georgia is a total extrovert. Not like I'm exactly a shrinking violet, but I don't mind spending time by myself. My sister has to be with people twenty-four/seven. In New York everyone knew her. She always managed to find the best parties and was continually surrounded by her entourage: band members, DJs, performance artists.”

“And let me guess . . . you were too busy reading and going to museums to join her.” I laughed when I saw Vincent's wry grin.

“No, I went with her sometimes. But I wasn't in the spotlight like Georgia. I was just Georgia's little sister, along for the ride. She took care of me. She always nominated someone in her group to make sure I had a good time.”

I didn't explain how she would always choose a “date” for me: gorgeous hipster guys who, to my amazement, enthusiastically took on the challenge of entertaining Georgia's sister. A few of these setups had turned into something more. Not much more, really, but if one of these guys happened to be at a party Georgia and I went to, I knew I had someone to dance with, sit next to, and maybe kiss in some dark corner of the room later in the night. Georgia called them my “party boys.”

Now, with Vincent sitting across the table from me, larger than life, they seemed like ghosts. Shadows, in comparison to him.

“I worried how she would handle having to step down from her queen-of-nightlife throne when we moved,” I continued, “but I underestimated her. She's well on her way to reaching the same level here.”

“Different city, same scene?”

“She's basically out every night that Papy and Mamie don't force her to stay home. But unlike in New York, I don't go with her.”

“I know,” he said, spearing a potato with his fork, and then stopped and looked quickly up to see if I had noticed his slip.

“What?” I asked, surprised, and then Ambrose's words suddenly came back to me.
We've been checking her out, and she's not a spy.
“You've been following us!” Feeling simultaneously flattered and appalled, I pulled my legs back from his and kept to my side of the table.

“No one was following Georgia, just following you. And it wasn't me. At least after the day we talked at the Picasso Museum. After that, I felt I owed you some privacy. It was Ambrose and Jules; once they knew that I was . . . interested in you, they insisted on making sure you weren't a danger to us. I never doubted you, though. Honestly.”

“A ‘danger'?” I asked, dismayed.

Vincent sighed. “We have enemies.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let's change the subject,” Vincent said. “The last thing I want to do is get you involved in something that could put you at risk.”

“Are
you
at risk?” I asked.

“We don't come into contact with them that often. But when we do, it ends in each side trying to destroy the other. So since you asked me to be honest, I have to say yes. But I've had decades of experience protecting myself. I don't want you to worry.”

I suddenly remembered my early morning walk with Georgia along the quay. “The night I saw you dive into the Seine after that girl. People were fighting under the bridge. With swords.”

“Well, then, you've already seen them. Those were the numa.”

Even the word sounded evil. I shuddered. “What are they?”

“They're the same as us, but in reverse. They're revenants, but their fate isn't to save lives. It's to destroy them.”

“I don't understand.”

“We become immortal when we die while saving someone's life. They win their immortality by taking lives. The universe seems to like equilibrium.” His smile was bitter.

“You mean they're resurrected murderers?” I felt a cold blade of panic scrape a path from my stomach to my heart.

“Not
just
murderers. They all betrayed someone to their death.”

I inhaled sharply. “What? Wait a minute. Do you mean that anyone who dies after betraying someone to their death turns into an immortal bad guy?”

“No, not all. Just some. It's like us. Not everyone who dies saving someone else is resurrected. I'll explain some other time—it gets a bit complicated. All you need to know is that the numa are bad. They're dangerous. And they never die because they keep on killing. Which is facilitated by their line of work: They're basically glorified mafiosi, running prostitution and drug rings, and in order to have a legal face for their business dealings, they own bars and clubs. Not surprisingly, in their world the opportunity for death and betrayal comes along frequently enough.”

“And those are the . . . things, who were fighting under the bridge that night?”

Vincent nodded. “The girl who jumped. She had gotten involved with them. They drove her to decide to kill herself, and then went along to make sure she followed through.”

“But she looked so young. How old was she?”

“Fourteen.”

I flinched. “So why were you there?” I asked.

“Charles and Charlotte were walking, with Jules volant. Jules saw it before it happened and rushed home to get me and Ambrose. When we got to the scene, the twins held some of the numa off beneath the bridge while the girl . . . well, you saw what happened. I reached her just before she jumped.”

“Did you get the . . . bad guys?” I didn't want to say the word, it had such an unsettling effect on me.

“Two of them, yes. A couple others got away.”

“So you don't just save people. You kill people too.”

“Numa aren't people. If we have a chance to destroy an evil revenant, we do. Humans can always change; that's why we avoid killing them if we can. There is always a possibility of redemption in their future. But not the numa. They started on their path while they were human. Once they're revenants, they're past any hope for salvation.”

So Vincent was a killer, I thought. A bad-guy killer, but a killer nonetheless. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

“And the girl who threw herself off the bridge?”

“She's fine.”

“Are you obsessed with her?”

Vincent laughed. “Now that I know she's fine, no.” Under the table, he pulled my legs back between his, and some of the warmth returned. “I'm just lucky revenants can't read one another's minds, because Jean-Baptiste would kill me if he knew I had told you about the numa.”

“Security breach?” I laughed.

Vincent smiled. “Yes, but I trust you, Kate.”

“No problem there,” I said. “You probably already know this from your spy network, but I don't have anyone to tell even if I wanted to. It's not like I have crowds of friends waiting around to hear my undead gossip.”

Vincent laughed. “No. But you have me.”

“I'll be extra careful not to blab about monsters around you, then.”

“How is it that we just talked for two hours and I still don't know anything about you?” I complained as we left the restaurant.

“What do you mean?” Vincent responded, starting up the scooter. “I told you a ton about us.”

“About you as a group, lots, but you as a person, nothing,” I shouted over the noise of the engine. “You didn't let me ask you any questions. Puts me at a disadvantage.”

“Get on,” he said, laughing. I climbed up behind him and wrapped my arms around him, feeling close to bliss.

We crossed the river and began driving toward our part of town. With the wind whipping my hair wildly about below the edge of the helmet, and the warm body of my . . . potential boyfriend pressed up against me, I wished he would keep driving till we hit the Atlantic Ocean, more than four hours away. But when the Louvre Museum edged into view on the other side of the Seine, Vincent slowed down and pulled over to the riverside. He turned off the bike and locked it to a post before taking my hand and leading me toward the river.

“Okay, ask me something,” he said.

“Where are you taking me?”

Vincent laughed. “You get one question, and you're going to use it on that? Okay, Kate. Because you've been so patient, I will answer.” We stepped up onto the Pont des Arts—a wooden footbridge leading across the river—and began walking across.

The city was lit up like a Christmas tree, and its bridges illuminated with spotlights that made them appear majestic and otherworldly. The Eiffel Tower twinkled in the distance, and the reflection of the moon shone on the surface of the water swirling below us.

We reached the center of the bridge. Vincent led me gently to the side rail and, standing behind me, wrapped me in his arms and pulled me close to him. I closed my eyes and inhaled, filling my lungs with the river's distinct marine smell, which I had, over the years, come to equate with a state of tranquillity. My heart slowed, and then as Vincent's muscles flexed around my shoulders, accelerated.

We stood there, looking out at the City of Light together for a few euphoric moments before he leaned his head down and whispered, “The answer to your question of where I was taking you would be . . . to the most beautiful place in Paris. With the most beautiful girl I have been lucky enough to set eyes on, and who I desperately hope will agree to meet me again. As soon as possible.”

I looked up over my shoulder and registered his sincere expression. He turned me slowly to face him. He gazed at me for a full minute with his big dark eyes, as if trying to memorize every inch of my face.

Then he raised his hand to brush a lock of hair back from my face, tucking it gently behind my ear as he lifted my lips to his.

Our skin barely touched. He was hesitant, as if he knew what he wanted but was afraid of scaring me away. Our lips brushed, and I felt like a chord had been struck inside me, and my body was humming with a pure musical note. I slowly lifted my arms to drape them around his neck, afraid that a sudden move might break the spell. But as his lips met mine once more, the magic escalated and the note grew into a sweeping crescendo that blocked out every other sound.