“Ashes. Remains,” I said, my brain working at double speed. “The ceremony needs something of Vincent to bind his spirit to the clay figure. Otherwise his spirit is dispersed.”
And then it hit me. “I have something!” I shouted, rising to my feet and tugging at the cord around my neck. From under my shirt, I pulled the pendants that I never took off: the signum and the memento mori that Jeanne had given me. The men looked at me quizzically as I held the locket toward them. “It holds a lock of Vincent’s hair.”
Adrenaline coursed through my veins, making me want to sprint back to the Met, dragging Papy and Bran with me, to try the ritual again. I couldn’t believe I had been wearing the missing puzzle piece around my neck for the past few days.
“Where did you get that?” Papy asked.
“Jeanne gave it to me. She keeps locks of hair from all of the revenants in her care in these little boxes.”
“How strange,” remarked Bran.
“Her mother did it and her grandmother, too. It’s, like, a family tradition.”
Papy pounded the table in excitement. “Which, quite obviously, started because of something like this,” he said. “Jeanne didn’t even know what she was doing by keeping the custom going, and perhaps neither did her mother or her grandmother. But somewhere along the way, a revenant keeper began that tradition in case remains were needed for this re-embodiment procedure. Fascinating!”
“So we found it!” I said, touching Papy’s hand and willing him to come with me. “We found the solution. We better get over to Mr. Gold’s to let him know.”
“I have his number,” said Papy. He took out his cell phone and began dialing.
Within a half hour we were all standing around the burner again, Jules having taxied over from Brooklyn the moment Mr. Gold called. A big exhaust fan was sucking up the smoke from the torch. Now that it was daytime, Mr. Gold was concerned that passersby on the street above or in the museum, once it opened, would smell the fire. The whole mess from the water mixing with the clay the day before had been cleaned up during the night. I suspected that was Mr. Gold’s work.
I sat down next to Jules, who was looking distinctly green.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m not that excited about cutting my arm open again,” he said, using a tiny scissors to carefully clip the stitches he had been given the previous night. “Vincent’s worth it—of course. But I’ll try to slash the same place so I won’t have two major wounds to manage until I’m dormant in a couple weeks.”
“How was last night with your New York kindred?” I asked.
“Good,” he said, eyeing me with an expression that said he didn’t feel like talking about it.
“Did you know anyone at the house?” I persisted.
“Yes. There were a couple of guys who came to Europe for a convocation about ten years ago.” He sighed and looked back down at his stitches, clipping another of the tiny black threads. “It was actually really nice. They had set out a whole welcome-to-America party for me, which kicked off as soon as the doctor sewed up my arm and lasted until I left this morning.”
“I was out like a light,” I admitted. “That’s got to be one of the huge perks of zombiehood: no jet lag.”
Jules smiled. A real Jules smile. It was nice to see.
“All right, we need to move now, people, before the first employees arrive,” prompted Mr. Gold.
“Joy,” remarked Jules drily. He stood and extended his good arm to help me up.
I took my place on the stepladder and peered over the rim of the thymiaterion at Clay Vincent. Jules stood on my right, and Bran directly across from us while Papy readied himself with the torch. A nervous hush settled over our small group. Bran had spread his hands out, and Jules was just lifting the knife when I heard Vincent say, No!
“What’s happening, Vincent?” I asked. Everyone froze.
Violette’s pulling me back. I feel myself being tugged away from here.
“Fight it, Vincent!” I urged.
“What is it?” Mr. Gold asked.
“Violette is trying to get him back!”
“Is he still here?” yelled Papy.
“Yes, but I can see him being pulled upward—though it seems he is resisting. We must proceed quickly,” said Bran, and spread his hands above the clay form.
Opening the locket, I pulled the lock of hair from inside and stood there, wondering what I should do with it. Then, making a split-second decision, I pressed it securely into the side of the clay man’s shoulder with my thumb.
I didn’t see Jules slit his arm a second time. I couldn’t watch. But there he was, bleeding profusely again on top of the golem, as I bent forward to blow lightly upon the face. I saw Bran reach up toward Vincent’s invisible-to-me aura. He made a motion like he was grasping it and pulling it down toward the clay man.
Kate, Vincent’s voice came. I don’t know if I can fight . . .
His voice disappeared. “Is he still here?” I cried, looking wildly across the cup at Bran.