Until I Die (16 page)

He turned to leave, stepping down from the door to the pavement.

“Hey, what happened to your date?” I asked.

“I've got my priorities,” he said, running his fingers through his hair in a debonair gesture. “And keeping you alive, Kates, is a bit higher up on my list than a late date with a pretty
signorina
.”

“Glad to know you care.” I smiled and, hesitating for just a second, stepped down from the doorway and gave him a good old American hug before turning to follow my sister.

I PEEKED INTO GEORGIA'S ROOM THE NEXT MORNING
. She was sitting propped up in bed, flipping through a music magazine. Her hair was sticking straight out, and her regular peaches-and-cream complexion was verging on kiwi-and-stale-milk.

“There you are,” she said as I plopped down on the end of her bed. “You're usually up at the crack of dawn.”

“Yeah, well, fighting monsters in a dark alleyway at midnight seems to have taken a bit out of me,” I said, my shoulder muscles burning as I cautiously tested them. “How are you feeling?”

“Like warmed-over crap,” she said. “I have absolutely no energy and was hoping you'd come in so I could hit you up for breakfast in bed.”

“Is that right?” I exclaimed, laughing. “Well, I guess I can accommodate, seeing you were two inches from being taken out by an evil zombie last night.”

“And rescued by a good zombie?” She smiled.

“If you want to get technical, yeah,” I said with a grin, and then got up and walked to the door. “Jules warned me that you'd probably be in shock and should rest. I would spend some quality time in the bathtub if I were you. It's my personal choice for post-traumatic stress. But first, I'll get us breakfast.”

I returned five minutes later with a tray for both of us, and sat on the floor with my back against Georgia's dresser while I ate a bowl of cereal. She munched pensively on her toast for a few minutes and then said, “So tell me more about this Arthur guy.”

I set my bowl on the ground. “Oh no, Georgia. Please do not tell me you're crushing on Arthur just because he saved your life last night.”

“I didn't say I was crushing on him. I'm simply interested in who he is. Will you allow that, Miss Protector-of-the-Undead?”

I rolled my eyes. “I don't really know much about him. He and Violette knew each other in life—she was one of Anne of Brittany's ladies-in-waiting, supposedly, and he was one of her dad's counselors . . . at least that's what Charlotte said. Which would mean they're aristocrats.”

“Oh believe me, it shows.” Georgia smirked.

“They both died around 1500, so he's really ancient. And they've been living in isolation in this Loire Valley castle for a really long time.”

“What's he like?”

“Honestly, Georgia, I don't know,” I conceded. “After he said that humans shouldn't be allowed in revenant meetings—right in front of me—I haven't really felt like getting to know him. The chip on my shoulder's pretty much superglued there.”

Georgia smiled. “Are he and Violette . . . together?”

“I thought they were. She acts really possessive of him. But Vincent said it's platonic. Platonic but codependent. Sounds like a healthy relationship.”

“He looked really hot in that T-shirt last night,” Georgia mused, taking a sip of coffee.

“Georgia!” I shouted. “You have a boyfriend. And plus, you've said it before yourself: You don't
do
dead guys. You're not even allowed in their house!”

“I'm not
doing
anything,” she said. “Especially not today.” She leaned back against her headboard, looking a little weaker than before.

“I can't even believe we're having this conversation,” I said, shaking my head. “He's five hundred, for God's sake! Plus he has this love-hate relationship with humans. There's no way he'd look twice at you.”

Oh no
, I thought. That was totally the wrong thing to say to my sister. She was going to see him as a challenge now. I changed the subject fast. “Anyway, what's wrong with good old Sebastien?”

“Nothing's wrong with him,” she said, gazing dreamily at the ceiling. Her expression suddenly changed to alarm. “Nothing except . . . oh my God, Kate. I ditched him last night and never called! Quick—bring me my phone. It's in my bag.”

I picked up the breakfast tray as she was babbling some ridiculous explanation of why she hadn't shown last night to Sebastien's voice mail. At least she was still concerned enough about him to make an effort, I reassured myself. The interest in Arthur was just one of those hero-worship infatuations. Knowing Georgia, she'd forget about it by lunchtime.

Vincent and I sat side by side, peering at the over-the-top gore of Géricault's famous painting
The Raft of the Medusa
. He had convinced me to take him to the Louvre, even though it was a weekend and packed with people. “I want you to teach me about art so I can understand why you're so affected by it,” he had said. Which was so romantic that before it was even out of his mouth, I was pulling him down the street in the direction of the museum.

We sat in one of my favorite rooms—one that contained melodramatic historical paintings on canvases as big as king-size beds. The sensational scene before us seemed oddly appropriate as a backdrop for a discussion about undead superpowers.

“So what's the story with this energy transfer thing?” I asked.

“Energy transfer?” Vincent repeated, confused, his eyes glued to the scene before us. He seemed to be studying it in a problem-solving way. The decomposing bodies didn't seem to bother him— I could tell he was just juggling the geometry of the live humans in his mind to strategize how many he could save in one go.

“Yeah. Jules mentioned it last night. He said something like Georgia would be weak because Arthur would have her energy. What's that mean?”

Vincent tore his gaze from the painting. “Well, you know why we die for people?”

“Besides out of the kindness of your nonbeating hearts?” I joked. Vincent took my hand and held it to his chest. “Okay, your beating undead heart,” I corrected myself, reluctantly pulling my hand away. “If you die saving someone, you reanimate at the age you lost your human life. It's a compulsion meant to preserve your immortality, right?”

“Right,” Vincent said. “But you know we only die occasionally—maybe once a year in times of peace. Most of our ‘saves' don't necessarily involve dying. Did you ever think about why we would spend our immortal lives watching over you if there wasn't a solid enticement? Whatever you've heard about superheroes, none of them are out saving the human race just because they're really nice guys.”

I immediately thought of Violette. Of her and Arthur holding out until their sixties until they died for someone, and then only doing it because Jean-Baptiste needed them. They didn't seem to love their job, to say the least.

Vincent turned his body toward me and linked his fingers through mine. “Imagine that everyone has this kind of life energy inside.”

I nodded, picturing all the tourists walking around the room with a glowing cloud inside them.

“So you know how, when someone's been in a near-death situation, they sometimes suffer post-traumatic shock? Well, try to picture it as that energy, or life force, being temporarily sucked out of them.”

Remembering my own brush with death the previous year, I said, “After I barely escaped being crushed by the side of the café, I was pretty weak and shaky for a couple of days.”

“Exactly,” Vincent said. “So if a revenant is responsible for the rescue, the energy or strength that has been figuratively ‘sucked out' of the would-be victim is literally infused into the revenant for the hours or days that it takes the human to recover.”

I thought about it for a minute, and then stared at him in surprise. “So when you and Charlotte rescued me, you guys got my energy? And same for Arthur with Georgia?”

Vincent nodded.

“And what about the girl who almost got run over by the truck the other day? I saw her afterward, sitting in shock by the side of the road.”

“Which is why I was able to stand up and walk away from the accident scene,” he confirmed. “That transfer of energy makes us physically stronger. Our muscles, hair, nails, everything goes into overdrive. It's a rush—like a hit of power for us.” He watched for my reaction.

“So, basically what you're saying is that I'm going out with a druggie zombie with a death wish. Who used me for my energy. Well”—I gave him as serious a look as I could muster—“I guess I could do worse.”

Vincent's laugh turned several heads, and we stood to leave before we drew any more attention to ourselves.

“So Arthur's going to be okay?” I asked as we passed the gigantic tableau showing Napoleon's coronation.

“Yep, thanks to Georgia loaning him her strength, among other reasons”—and at this, Vincent turned his eyes from mine in an incredibly suspicious gesture— “he's actually not in any pain and has his full strength.”

What was that about?
I thought, my curiosity piqued. But I had to drop the thought to refocus on what he was saying.

“But his wound won't heal completely until he's dormant. And since it's pretty serious, he'll probably be laid up in bed a whole day after he awakes.”

“Why?”

“The more severely wounded you are before dormancy, the longer it takes you to recover,” he stated, shrugging as if it were mere logic. “If a severed limb is reconnected during dormancy, we could need another day or two of recovery after awaking. Regenerating body parts lays us up for weeks.”

Eww.
Although I wanted to know everything about the revenants, sometimes the details Vincent gave me fell into the TMI category. Like now. I tried not to visualize what he had just said, and thought instead about the repercussions. As we walked out of the museum and headed toward the bridge crossing the Seine to our neighborhood, I mulled it over.

The revenant-human relationship was symbiotic—to say the least. Humans relied on revenants (however unknowingly) as we would on doctors or emergency workers: to save our lives. Revenants needed humans not only to keep them existent, but to ease the emotional and physical pain imposed by their particular lifestyle.
Or deathstyle, rather
, I thought in a flash of morbidity.

Without revenants, humans would still exist . . . many would just die a lot earlier. Without humans, revenants would cease to exist. Not to mention that they started out human in the first place.

The system had been working for a long time. Problems only arose when something out of the ordinary happened. Like a human and a revenant falling in love. And, once again, my mind returned to our plight. If I was going to see the
guérisseur
—that is, if I ever showed up when she happened to be there—I needed to know what to ask. Since Vincent was in an explaining mood, I decided to dig a bit deeper.

“So, how does it work? Can a revenant ever die—of natural causes—and just . . . stop existing?”

“Strictly speaking, it's possible,” he said. “But no one can withstand the temptation to sacrifice themselves at the end.”

“Wait, I thought the older you get, the less you suffer,” I said, confused.

“Up to a point, and then when the time for a regular human death approaches, it's like the pendulum suddenly swings back and the suffering is greater than ever.” I shivered, and noticing, Vincent put his arm around me and pulled me close as we continued to walk.

“Gaspard told me once about this Italian revenant he knew—Lorenzo something. The guy was centuries old and barely felt the pull of dying anymore. At one point, all the deaths and rescues he had experienced in his existence got to be too much and he decided to sequester himself. He went and lived like a hermit in this isolated hilltop retreat. And it wasn't until decades later that he had a message brought to his kindred that he needed help.

“They came and got him—he was in his eighties by then—and had to help him find someone to save. He said that his physical and mental suffering had come on like a tidal wave—within the space of a few days. The craving to sacrifice himself for someone was too great to let him just lie down and die, which was all he wanted.”

We were both silent for a long time as the implications for our own story sank in.

Whether or not Vincent or I found a way to keep him from suffering, we couldn't avoid one of several tragic endings. And if he managed to live as long as I did, someday he would get to that point that no revenant could pass—at eighty years old, or whenever. He would sacrifice his life for someone else's and wake up three days later at eighteen. I would die and he would remain immortal. There was no getting around it.

Sensing my hopelessness, Vincent pulled me to the side of the bridge. We stood hand in hand, watching the water surge forward in tiny, quickly moving whirlpools. The perfect metaphor for the unstoppable flow of time.

THE NEXT DAY, VIOLETTE TEXTED ME AT SCHOOL,
asking if I wanted to go to a movie that night.

I texted back:
Too much homework. Sorry!

Then how about coffee?

Perfect! After school. Sainte-Lucie.

I'll see you there.

I smiled, thinking of how her English was coming along. She was actually using contractions! In just a few short weeks, she had begun to sound more like a normal teenager and less like a dowager duchess. And when I heard her speak French with the others . . . well, she definitely was picking up more “street” expressions.

She was already seated when I arrived at the café, and stood to greet me with a huge smile on her face. Kissing my cheeks, she exclaimed, “Kate! You were so amazing Saturday night!”

We sat down, and she continued to gush, but in a softer voice so the people nearby couldn't hear. “I still can't believe how well you fought after just a couple months of training. We told Gaspard about it, and although he insisted he couldn't take any credit, I could tell he was really proud.”

“You were pretty awesome yourself!” I said, meaning it. “That guy was so much bigger than you, and he never even had a chance.”

She waved away the praise like it had been nothing. “So . . . what did you think about Vincent? Wait—
monsieur
?” She flagged down a passing waiter so I could order a hot chocolate. I leaned back in toward her.

“He was incredible. I'm glad he got my numa when he did, though. I don't know how much longer I could have fought him off.”

She hesitated, watching me.

“What?” I asked, her expression planting a seed of worry in my chest.

“He didn't seem to be operating at one hundred percent, I thought,” she replied quietly. “He has those circles under his eyes. And he's so sallow-looking. I mean, he battled like the expert fighter he is, but he just didn't seem to have much physical strength.”

I looked down at the table. “You're right, Violette. I mean, I've only seen him in practice, but he could probably have taken those guys on by himself if he weren't . . .” My voice trailed off.

“In bad shape.” She finished my sentence for me, and touched my hand. “That's what I thought. But I wanted to get your reading on it since I don't know how he usually performs. I hadn't realized how much his project was affecting him until I saw him fight. Don't worry about it, though. Things will get better,” she said gently. “But how about you. Any progress?”

“Zilch,” I answered.

She pursed her lips pityingly and sighed. “Don't worry, Kate. I'm sure things will get better.” Although she didn't look it. Unsure. Worried. Troubled, maybe. But I didn't see “sure” anywhere on her face.

Just then my chocolate arrived. I sipped the steaming froth off the top while inhaling the rich aroma of cocoa, and wondered for the hundredth time why Vincent couldn't just be a normal human boy.

“Good morning,
mon
ange
! Where's your dress?” Vincent called, from where he was leaning against the park gate across the street from my front door. Instead of his regular jeans and jacket, he was wearing a suit and tie. And, oh man, did he look yummy. I stood there in my workout gear and looked him up and down.

“It's time for fight training. What's with the suit, Mr. Wall Street?”

“Didn't you get my text?”

I pulled out my phone to see a message from Vincent logged at three a.m.:
Dress up tomorrow. I'm taking you to a formal event.

“Formal event?” I asked, my eyes widening. “What kind of formal event takes place on a Saturday morning?”

“A wedding,” Vincent said simply.

“You're taking me to a wedding?” I asked, aghast. “Why didn't you tell me before three o'clock—the morning of?”

“Because I wasn't sure I wanted to take you.”

My expression must have said it all, because he rushed to explain. “That's not what I meant. I meant I wasn't sure I wanted you to see a revenant wedding. You and I are already dealing with so much right now, I thought it might bring up too many . . . issues.”

“So why did you change your mind?” I asked, not quite mollified.

“Because I decided that avoidance wasn't the answer. I promised I wouldn't keep anything from you that you should know. And you're already letting me break that promise . . . temporarily.

“A wedding might be information overkill, but”—he looked down and fiddled with his tie—“at least you'll know more about the world you're getting involved in. I owe you that.”

I stood there stunned for a moment, before reaching up to kiss his cheek. “I think I can handle it, Vincent. Thanks for . . .” I didn't know what to say. “Just thanks.”

“How long will it take you to get ready?” he asked, brushing my hair back from my eyes with his fingers. “You already look perfect.”

I blushed, not wanting to admit that with a houseful of revenants living right down the street from us, seemingly popping up whenever I turned the corner, I never left the house now without making sure I looked okay. “Honestly, ten minutes. Just let me find a dress and shoes and I'll be right back.”

“Fine,” he said, looking at his watch. “We've got plenty of time.”

An hour later we walked into the lower chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, an eight-hundred-year-old royal church that stands a few blocks from Notre-Dame Cathedral on the island in the Seine called the Île de la Cité.

“The wedding is
here
?” I gasped as Vincent took my hand and led me up a minuscule winding stone staircase into the nave. And as soon as we entered the room, I began to feel that same heady sensation of sensory overload—a dizzy feeling—that I had experienced the handful of times I had visited the chapel as a tourist. Because the space was just that unexpectedly overwhelming.

The ceiling was higher than the length of the room, its decoration so distant it was barely visible. But it wasn't the palatial height that took my breath away—it was the composition of the walls. Fifteen stained-glass windows, each fifty feet high, were set into the entire vertical surface of the chapel. The room was basically all glass held together by skeletal stone columns. The light that filtered through was a blue so deep it appeared purple, and the thick glass looked like precious stone. The overall effect made me feel I was a tiny gold figure inside a Fabergé egg, with my entire world encrusted in jewels.

I took a deep breath to stabilize my tap-dancing heart and wrapped my arm through Vincent's. “How in the world were they able to reserve this for a wedding?” I whispered, as we moved toward the group of people assembled at the altar.

“Connections,” he whispered back, giving me a sly grin. I shook my head in wonder.

As there were no chairs, the group of thirty or forty revenants—several of whom I recognized from New Year's—was standing. We headed toward Jules and Ambrose, who took a break from talking to Jean-Baptiste and Violette to make appreciative comments about my appearance.

“Wow, Katie-Lou. You sure do clean up well. I barely recognize you out of jeans and Converses,” Ambrose said, giving me a hug. Jules just shrugged and said, “Not bad,” in a flippant voice before lifting his eyebrows and stroking his chin comically.

“Where's Gaspard?” I asked.

“Dormant,” Vincent said. “And Arthur awoke during the night, so he's still in bed.”

I nodded and looked toward the priest, who had begun addressing the crowd. “Dear ones,” he began, “we have gathered together today to celebrate the union of our brother Georges with our sister Chantal.”

I raised an eyebrow at Vincent. “Is he . . . ?” He nodded—the priest was one of them.

Vincent pulled me in front of him so that I could see better, resting his hands on the waist of my plum-colored knee-length dress.

The bride was stunning, wearing a traditional full-blown wedding gown with the works: veil, long train, and yards of creamy satin. She was twentieth century all the way, whereas the groom looked like he was from a much older time. He was dressed like one of the three musketeers, with ruffled collar, velvet waistcoat, and trousers that ended under the knee, just above where his long boots started. But instead of looking silly, he looked . . . dashing. I couldn't help wondering if he had walked here wearing that.

“What's up with d'Artagnan?” I whispered to Vincent.

“People usually wear the clothes of their era when they marry. It's revenant tradition.”

I smiled, unable to keep myself from watching out of my peripheral vision for his cohorts to swing in on ropes through the chapel windows, donning feathered hats and brandishing swords.

The priest followed the wording of a regular wedding ceremony, punctuated by an occasional piece from a string quartet. The music drifted around the room like a symphonic mist, giving an even more otherworldly effect to an extraordinary event. When they got to the vows, the bride and groom faced each other and promised to be loving and faithful “so long as we both exist.”
Well
, I thought,
that's an interesting twist
.

My thoughts percolated with the implications of what was happening. When humans married, they were already promising a lot by vowing they would stay together for several decades. This couple was stating, before their kindred, that they wanted to stay together . . . forever. Or at least for a
really
long time.

As the ceremony ended, the couple kissed, and then, taking each other's hand, led the rest of the group down the stairs and out of the chapel. Once on the street, the procession walked the ten minutes to the tip of the island, went down some stairs, and arrived at the Place Dauphine, a paved, tree-lined park jutting out into the Seine. A large white tent had been erected, with gas heaters warming the space inside.

Vincent and I took plates of food and walked out of the tent to sit on the edge of the quay, which had been lined with soft blankets for the occasion. We dangled our legs over the water and silently picked at our tenderloin and potatoes gratin.

“No questions? Comments? Existential pondering?” Vincent said finally.

“I have so many thoughts going through my head right now, that I don't even know where to start,” I said.

“Start basic then, and save the existential for later.” He set his empty plate on the blanket next to him and looked at me expectantly.

“Okay. Who are they—the bride and groom, I mean?”

“Georges and Chantal. He's eighteenth century, she's 1950s. He's French, she's Belgian.”

“How did they even meet then? I haven't heard of you guys traveling much.”

“They met at a convocation—a meeting of our Consortium that takes place every few years. Representatives from all over the world come to the big ones. We usually just go to the European meeting.”

“An international meeting of revenants? Like the undead United Nations?” I curbed my laughter, seeing Vincent's solemn expression.

“It's an ancient tradition. The meetings are top secret, of course—for the obvious security reasons. Otherwise it would be like offering ourselves up as numa bait.”

“And that's where the bride and groom met? At a political convocation?”

“Yeah. Besides being an informational meeting, it has an ulterior function of being a matchmaking opportunity. It's hard to meet a partner when your social circle is so limited.”

Charlotte had once said that to me. It was the reason she used for why she didn't have a boyfriend. Of course, now I knew it was because she was in love with Ambrose, and had been for years. I wondered briefly how she was doing without Charles. We had emailed a few times, but I hadn't heard from her since her twin had run off.

Vincent began idly playing with my fingers, pulling my thoughts back to the here and now. “Do most revenants have partners?” I asked. “I mean, Ambrose and Jules seem to be happy with their single status.”

“They're still ‘new.' Them wanting to settle down would be like a modern-day teenager wanting to get married. Why commit to one person when you've barely started experiencing life? Or afterlife”—he corrected himself—“whatever.”

“You don't seem to mind settling down for one girl yourself,” I teased him, and then suddenly felt self-conscious.

Vincent smiled. “I'm different. Remember? I was on the verge of getting married while I was still human. Maybe I'm just a committed kind of guy,” he said, leaning pensively over the water before turning his head to look at me.

“To return to the subject,” he said, giving me a shy smile, “after a few hundred years of bachelorhood, people like Georges often want someone to be with. I guess that's one part of our basic humanity that remains with us after death. The need to love and be loved.”

“Well, what about Jean-Baptiste? He's still single.”

Vincent looked back at the water and grinned. “He's just not very demonstrative with his affections.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “Jean-Baptiste has a girlfriend?”

He raised an eyebrow and, giving me a sideways smile, shook his head.

“A mistress then? A boy . . . oh!” I said, as the truth finally dawned on me. “Gaspard!”

Vincent gave me a broad smile. “Don't tell me you didn't think of that before.”

I shook my head. But now that I knew, it made absolute sense. They were perfect for each other.

Vincent jumped up and took our plates to the tent. Returning to sit next to me, he said, “I have something for you, Kate.” He reached into his jacket pocket and opened his hand to reveal a tiny red velvet drawstring bag.