Die for Me

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 co

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 pla

“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 u

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.”