It was dark when Ambrose dropped me off at home. Georgia had won her freedom and went out with some friends for dinner—friends who were probably unaware that they were being trailed by Arthur and another guard-revenant.
I let myself in. “Mamie? Papy?” I yelled, throwing my coat over the hall chair. The apartment was unusually silent. Most nights at this time Mamie was getting dinner ready and jazz or big band music accompanied her cooking. I hesitated in the dining room, feeling a little creeped out.
“Back here in my study,” came Papy’s voice.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I hung up my coat and headed back to his office. My grandfather was sitting in his favorite position, tucked in a corner in an old leather armchair with his lit pipe in one hand and a book in the other.
“Where’s Mamie?” I asked, perching on the edge of his desk.
“On a house call,” he replied, puffing a stream of smoke as he spoke. The room filled with the citrusy odor of Papy’s pipe tobacco, a smell I always associated with him.
I glanced at the marble clock on the mantel. “At seven p.m. on a Thursday?”
“It’s a foreign client, in town for a few days. Your grandmother’s gone to their hotel to inspect a painting they have out on approval from a Parisian art dealer.”
“She went to someone’s hotel room?” I asked doubtfully, picking up a glass paperweight and inspecting the iridescent beetle trapped eternally inside. “I can’t imagine Mamie meeting a client in a hotel.”
“Not just any hotel. The collector is staying at the Crillon, so Emilie felt it was worth it,” Papy replied, looking back down at his book and thumbing through the pages.
The paperweight crashed loudly against the hardwood floor, breaking into splinters and releasing its prisoner, who lay gleaming in the lamplight.
Papy leapt up from his chair, the alarm on his face echoing mine. “What is it, Kate?” he asked.
“The Crillon. Are you sure?”
“Yes. Kate. What in the world is the matter?”
“Violette is staying at the Crillon,” I said. My voice sounded like someone else’s, hollow, as if I were hearing myself from the outside.
“Violette?” my grandfather asked, confused.
“Violette. The medieval revenant who destroyed Vincent.”
“No,” Papy gasped, suddenly looking his seventy-two years.
From across the room came a string quartet ringtone. Papy strode over to his desk chair, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out his cell phone. His hand shook as he held it up to see the caller’s name. He raised the phone to his ear and sank down into his desk chair with a sigh of relief. “Oh, Emilie, thank God you’re there. Kate and I were . . .”
His face suddenly changed, and as he listened, the blood drained from his face. “What? No! But how . . .”
I could hear the tone of my grandmother’s voice through the earpiece. It was careful—measured and slow. Papy hung up the phone and lifted his eyes to meet mine.
I shivered, as if a gust of air had just rushed through the study and clasped me in its frigid fingers.
“Violette would like to speak to you and Vincent at the hotel. She’s keeping your grandmother as a guarantee that you will show.”
THIRTY-FIVE
OUR ARGUMENT TOOK ALL OF A MINUTE. PAPY didn’t want me to go. I didn’t want him to go. In the end, we both dashed out of the apartment, throwing our coats on and running down the stairs, too rushed to wait for the ancient elevator.
As usual, there were no taxis in sight. “How about the Métro, Papy?” I asked him.
“And risk a delay? No, thanks. It’s almost as fast by foot,” he responded. We resorted to speed-walking down the rue de Bac. The chilly March air and glowing lampposts lent the scene a false sense of security—as if all was right with the world—when in actuality we were on our way to a meeting that threatened to end with someone getting hurt. Or worse.
My phone rang. I fished into my pocket for it, and saw it was Vincent. “Where are you going?” he asked. I spun to look behind me, but didn’t see anyone following. “I asked, where are you going—without revenant escort?”
“Vincent, I’d rather not tell you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, sounding more angry than hurt. “Two bardia from Geneviève’s house are following you and your grandfather. They called me to check in—said you guys took off at top speed without even waiting for them.”
“Well, if they’re following us, then they’ll keep us safe. Why are you calling me?”
“Kate, what is going on?” Vincent asked, sounding alarmed.
“Violette has . . . she has Mamie at . . . They’re at the Crillon. Papy and I . . . we’re going there.” I was trying to speak clearly, but our hurried pace mixed with panic about Mamie made my words come out all garbled.
“Why didn’t you call me and tell me that? I would have come with you.”