Until I Die

  I didn’t want to disturb him, but something had been bothering me ever since the accident that morning. “I know you’re tired, but can we talk?” I asked, brushing his hair off his face with my fingers.

  Vincent opened one eye and looked at me warily. “Should I be scared?” he asked, only half joking.

  “No,” I began, “it’s just about this morning …”

  I was interrupted by a polite tapping at the door. Vincent rolled his eyes and roared, “What is it now?”

  The door opened, and Arthur leaned in. “My excuses. Violette had just one more question about the beheading of Lucien …,” he began.

  “I have already told Violette every single detail of every numa encounter I have ever had,” Vincent said with a groan. “I need one hour alone with Kate. Just one hour, and then I will join you and tell her everything I know. Again. Please, Arthur.”

  Arthur nodded, frowning, and closed the door behind him. Vincent looked back at me, began to speak, and then shook his head and stood up. “In five minutes someone else will be back here, bugging us again. Let’s go somewhere else. Put on your coat.”

  “Are you feeling strong enough to go out?” I asked as he threw on his coat and scooped some blankets out of a cupboard.

  “We’re not going out. We’re going up.” Taking my hand, he led me to the second floor, and then up another, smaller staircase at the far end of the hallway.

  “What is this?” I gasped as we stepped through a trapdoor and onto the roof. Vincent lowered the door panel into its place in the floor and flicked a switch near the ground. White Christmas lights snapped on, illuminating a roof patio arranged with outdoor furniture: tables, chairs, and reclining lounge chairs.

  “This is where we hang out during the summer. It’s better than the courtyard garden. Less shade. More wind. And a decent view.”

  The whole city was spread out around us, the midwinter nightfall settling in early. Even though it was barely five o’clock, the sky was already changing from cotton candy pink into a rash of brilliant red in one of Paris’s spectacular early-winter sunsets. Lights began twinkling from the buildings. “It’s so magical up here,” I sighed, drinking in the view.

  I finally tore my eyes from the scene and turned to see Vincent standing just behind me, hands in his pockets. “So what did you want to talk about?” he asked, concern flickering across his face.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, curious. “You look worried.”

  “Judging from the past, when you ask if we can talk instead of just going ahead and talking, I know I’m in trouble.”

  I smiled, and reached out to take his hand and pull him closer. “Fair enough. Okay, I was just wondering … this morning, before you ran for the truck, it looked like you were hesitating. Trying to make a decision. And it seemed like I was a part of that decision.”

  Vincent was silent, waiting for me to draw my own conclusion.

  “You were going to go for the pedestrians first, to try to throw them out of the way, weren’t you?”

  “That was my instinct, yes.” His face was blank. Unreadable.

  “And why didn’t you do it?” I asked, a cord of suspicion drawing tight in my stomach.

  “Because there was a strong possibility of my own death if I took that route. And I promised you not to die.”

  I exhaled, surprised to find I had been holding my breath. “That’s what I was afraid of, Vincent. That hesitation cost you a few seconds. What if that had been too much?”

  “But it wasn’t, Kate,” he said, looking uncomfortable.

  I put my arm through his and walked with him to sit on the edge of a large wooden sun bed that was pushed up against a low brick wall.

  “Vincent, about our deal—you know, your promise to me—all along I’ve been regretting it, because I thought it was going to be too hard on you—”

  “I told you, I can stand it,” he interrupted me, frowning.

  “And I have total faith in you. But whether or not you can stand it … I’ve been feeling like it was wrong of me to ask it of you.”

  “You didn’t ask me to do it. I’m the one who offered,” he said defensively.

  “I know,” I pleaded. “Just let me talk.”

  He sat, waiting to hear what I would say. Looking very unhappy.

  “This whole time I’ve been worried about what your promise not to die meant for me. And for you. But I never thought about what it might mean for those people out there whose lives will be at risk. Someone might actually die because of me, Vincent. Because of my weakness.”

  He leaned forward and rubbed his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut, then turned to look me straight in the eyes. “Kate, it’s not a weakness to be traumatized by death, especially after experiencing your own parents’ death. It’s not a weakness to want a normal relationship—one where you don’t have to watch your boyfriend be carried home in a body bag a couple of times a year. No one is going to die because of you. I can still save people without dying. I just have to be more cautious.”

  “But you had to go against your instincts today. Isn’t that risky?”

  “Honestly, Kate, yes. But I was able to come up with a plan B. You saw … it was probably an even better plan to stop the truck, since it would have hit a car or maybe someone else if it had kept going. So in this case, not following my instinct was a good thing.” He looked like he was trying to convince himself.

  I hesitated. “Maybe that’s why JB doesn’t encourage human-revenant relationships. Because that’s kind of what it comes down to, isn’t it? If you’re concerned about me, it will distract you from saving other people.”

  Vincent’s face grew dark. “You mean more to me than anyone else, and I will not apologize for that.”

  I felt chilled, but not from the winter air. “Are you saying that my life is more valuable than other people’s? That, say, my one life is worth a couple you could have saved if you hadn’t been worrying about me? Because, honestly, that would be pretty hard to live with.”

  Vincent took my hand back. “Kate, how long is a human life?”

  “I don’t know … eighty to ninety years, maybe?”

  “And you are seventeen. This is horrible to say, but …”

  His meaning dawned on me slowly. “I only have another sixty or something years to live. Tops. So you only have to hold out for that long.”

  His silence was as good as a yes. “During those years, the chances of a human dying because I don’t will be slim to none. I always walk with my kindred, and if there’s ever a life-or-death situation, they can be the ones to make the sacrifice.

  “From my point of view, the time you and I have together is short. After that … I can spend the rest of eternity making up for lost lifesaving time, if that’s how you want to think about it.”

  We sat in silence, the images called up by his words too disturbing for me to talk about out loud.

  “Okay,” I said finally. “Even so, Vincent, we’re still left with the fact that you’re going to spend the rest of my mortal life suffering. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t sound like a cake-and-ice-cream lifetime to me. To be honest, it makes me want to call off our agreement.”

  His eyes opened wide. “No.”

  “I don’t like to think about you going against your nature for me. I don’t want to watch you suffer. Your dying for people—like you’re supposed to—is the easiest solution to this whole mess. And I’m strong, Vincent. I think I can take it.” The quaver in my voice gave me away.

  A look of determination replaced his astonishment. He scooted closer and wrapped his arms around me. “Kate, knowing you, just thinking of my deaths will make you pull back from me. So please don’t give up on this plan yet. Not before you give me the chance to figure things out. I’m working on a solution. A way to make it all work. Give me time.”

  As he held me, the last remaining threads of my resolve snapped. I shrugged, feeling powerless. “Vincent, if you think you can come up with something that will sol
ve all our problems, then for God’s sake, do it. I’m just saying I’m releasing you from your promise, not that I’m leaving you.”

  “I’m afraid you will leave me—for totally understandable self-preservation purposes—if you think I’m going to die,” Vincent insisted. “So I won’t. Our agreement is still on. Okay?”

  I nodded, feeling awash in a sense of relief while at the same time kicking myself for it. “Okay.”

  Pulling back to see my face, he smiled ruefully and fingered a strand of hair that had fallen across my face. “Kate, I admit that we aren’t in the easiest of situations. But are you always this … complicated?”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but Vincent shook his head, grinning. “Actually, don’t answer that. Of course you are. I wouldn’t be so totally into you if you weren’t.”

  I laughed. And just like that, the force field of fear and worry dematerialized and I was kissing him. And he was kissing me. And as we touched, everything suddenly seemed very simple. It was just Vincent and me, and the world and all its complicated problems lost their importance. I pulled him closer to me.

  “You’re …,” he began.

  “Yes?” I said, tilting my head toward his.

  “Hurting me,” he gasped, clenching his teeth.

  “Oh no, what did I do?” My hands flew to my mouth.

  He pressed his hand to his chest and tested it gently. “I forgot about the rib,” he said. We looked at each other for a second, and then both started cracking up, Vincent laughing carefully, his eyes scrunched up in pain.

  “I guess I don’t know my own strength,” I joked, and leaned toward him again, holding him more softly this time and losing myself in the kiss. And then, in what seemed like seconds later, we were in the middle of the sun bed, Vincent lying down and me hovering above him on hands and knees with my hair draped around his face, sealing out the world. We were in our own mini universe. He reached up to hold my head in his hands as our lips met in a kiss that communicated everything we hadn’t been able to express with words.

  Vincent kissed me like it was his very last chance to touch me. And, feeling feverish and wild, I returned his kiss unreservedly.

  As if he could tell I was losing myself, Vincent’s kisses became softer. He pulled me down so that my body was covering his and every part of us was touching. Lying like that for the longest, sweetest moment, he brushed his lips against mine once more before sitting up, scooting back against the wall, and pulling me to him. I sat between his legs, leaning back carefully on his chest as he held me and we stared up into the night sky at the reflecting gold of the rising moon.

  Unfolding Vincent’s arms from beneath my breasts, I shifted around so that I was looking into his eyes. I didn’t need to say anything. Watching him was enough. But after a moment, he spoke. “Kate, I’ve spent a lifetime waiting for you. Before I saw you, I hadn’t cared for anyone for … well, for the good part of a century, and it felt like my heart had been permanently disconnected. I wasn’t even looking anymore. And without expecting anything … without any hope at all, suddenly you were here.”

  He raised his hand, and running his fingers from my temples through my hair, he spoke softly. “Now that you are here—now that we’re together—I can’t imagine going back to the life I had before. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you now. I love you too much.”

  My throat constricted. He had said the magical three words. Out loud. When he registered my stunned expression, his lips curled up at the corners. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

  My heart became a gooey mess inside my chest, and then he said it again.

  EIGHT

  IT WASN’T UNTIL LATER THAT NIGHT THAT THE idea occurred to me. I had returned to my grandparents’ apartment to find that they had left for a dinner party. Mamie had stuck a note to the fridge with dinner instructions. I pulled out the plate of leftovers she had prepared for me and sat at the table for a few minutes, picking at it distractedly as a plan took form in my mind.

  Vincent had said he was trying to come up with a solution for our quandary. Well, why did I have to sit around and wait for him to come up with all the answers? Maybe I could do some research myself. I was living in an apartment with a fully stocked antiquities library. It wouldn’t hurt to go digging around and see if I could discover something in Papy’s book collection.

  The previous year I had seen a Greek amphora in his gallery that was decorated with naked warrior figures he called “numina.” His startled reaction when I forgot myself and stupidly remarked that the word sounded like “numa” made me suspect that he had come across the term before. And if he had found out about revenants in the course of his research, that book might still be around.

  From everything I had heard at La Maison, revenants boasted a long and colorful history. Gaspard was constantly checking his documents for examples of past aberrations. Well, maybe Papy had some books that Gaspard didn’t. In any case, if Vincent was searching for an alternative, one might actually exist. And maybe I could find some information he didn’t already have.

  There was still so much I didn’t know. Vincent had told me the basics about revenants, and I had learned more by spending time with him and his kindred. Of course, I had searched for revenants on the internet as soon as I knew what Vincent was. But all I had found were references to the old French tradition of a revenant being a “spirit that has come back from the dead” and all sorts of contemporary spin-offs like zombies and other undead monsters. Nothing that spoke of “real” revenants—the ones I knew.

  I asked Vincent once if “revenant” was just the word used in France. He said that most languages used that same word with little variation, because it came from the Latin word venio: “to come.” So that was what I had to start with: the word “revenant”; a basic knowledge of what they were; the fact that their enemies were depicted on an ancient Greek vase; and … nothing else. It wasn’t much to go on, but I was determined that if anything revenant-related remained in Papy’s library, I would find it.

  I left my barely touched meal and hurried to his study. All four walls were lined with shelves. And all the shelves were packed with books. I had no idea where to start. Although some titles were in French and English, that didn’t even account for half. I recognized Italian and German, and Cyrillic letters clued me in that some books were Russian. At first glance, I felt completely overwhelmed.

  Break it down, I thought. I started at the bookcase closest to the door, pulling up a footstool to reach the highest shelf. The Church of Hagia Sofia. Architecture in the Ancient World. Roman Architecture and City Planning. Papy obviously organized his books by themes. The shelf beneath it was the same. As was the next.

  Underneath that began a shelf on Chinese funerary statues. And the bottom shelf was all about ancient Asian seals and snuffboxes. That was one whole column of shelves that could be ruled out, and it took only five minutes. This might be easier than I thought.

  An hour later, I had narrowed down Papy’s entire library to six shelves of interest. Although there were dozens of books on Greek pottery, I wasn’t going to pore over all of them to find another example like Papy’s numa amphora. Even if I was lucky enough to find one, it probably wouldn’t have the in-depth information I needed. No, it was the shelves on mythology that I would focus on.

  I began flipping through tomes on Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology. But they were all published in the twentieth century and were the type of books found in any library. Besides listing the major gods, the mythological beings were all the typical ones you’d come across in a Narnia book: satyrs, wood nymphs, and the like. No revenants. Of course.

  If they had managed to stay incognito for so long, they wouldn’t appear in a mainstream book. I began to skip anything that looked like it had been printed in the last hundred years and inspected more closely those that seemed to have been created on an ancient printing press. Papy protected most of these in archival boxes. One by one I pulled the boxes ou
t, placed them on his desk, and gently went through their contents. Some were just pages of manuscript, and I studied the old parchments for any words that looked like “revenant” or “numa.” Nothing.

  Finally I got to an ancient-looking bestiary—a type of old-fashioned monster manual. The margins were illustrated with pictures of the mythical beings described on the page. Or so I assumed, since I couldn’t make heads or tails of the Latin text.

  Flipping past griffins and unicorns and mermaids, I came across a page with an illustration of two men. One was drawn with an evil face, and the other had radiant lines around its head like it was shining. Its entry was entitled “Revenant: Bardia/Numa.”

  I shook my head in amazement. Trust Papy to have a book illustrating a species of undead beings who are so meticulous about preserving their identity that they’re completely unknown to the modern world.

  A shiver of excitement ran down my spine as I tried to decrypt the short paragraph beneath the heading. But besides those first three words, I didn’t recognize a thing. I felt like kicking myself for not taking more than a year of Latin in middle school. I pulled a sheet of paper from Papy’s printer and carefully copied the text onto it. When I finished, I put the book back in its place, grabbed the Latin dictionary off Papy’s reference shelf, and retreated to my bedroom.

  Due to Latin’s weird verb tenses and the fact that there seemed to be no order to where words appeared in a sentence, I worked on the short text for quite a while. Finally I had deciphered enough to understand that it defined revenants as immortals who are divided into the guardians of life—bardia—and the takers of life—numa. That both types are limited by the same rules of “death sleep” and “spirit walking.” That they take power from their human saves or kills. And that they are virtually impossible to destroy.

  Well, nothing new there, I thought with a pang of disappointment. Except for the term “bardia.” I wondered why the revenants didn’t use it for themselves, since the word “numa” was obviously still current.

  I looked back at my notes to translate a paragraph that had been written in smaller script at the bottom of the page. It was just two sentences, and I found them easier to decrypt than the rest, getting them pretty much word for word. As I deciphered them, I felt a chill creep through my body until, when I finished, my fingers felt numb.