“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.”