I closed the shower door behind me, turned the lever to start the water, and watched as the powerful streams spat forth from the showerhead, sending a cloud of steam up around me. My aches and pains flew away under the steady pressure of the hot water.
Incredible, I thought for the thousandth time, as I considered this parallel world I was moving in. A few Paris blocks away I led a completely normal life with my sister and grandparents. And here I was sword fighting with dead guys—okay, “revenants,” so not really dead. Since I’d moved to Paris, this was the only place I felt I fit in.
I listened to the noises of the fight coming from outside my pinewood haven and thought of the reason I was here. Vincent.
I had met him last summer. And fallen hard. But after discovering what he was, and that being a revenant meant dying over and over again, I had turned my back on him. After my own parents’ death the year before, being alone seemed safer than having a constant reminder of that pain.
But Vincent made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He promised not to die. At least, not on purpose. Which goes against every fiber of his un-being. Revenants’ compulsion to die when saving their precious human “rescues” is more enticing and powerful than a drug addiction. But Vincent thinks he can hold out. For me.
And I, for one, hope he can. I don’t want to cause him pain, but I know my own limitations. Rather than grieve his loss over and over again, I would leave. Walk away. We both know it. And, though Vincent is technically dead, I’ll venture to say that this is the only solution we can both live with.
TWO
“I’M HEADING UP,” I SHOUTED.
“Be right there,” answered Vincent, glancing briefly to where I stood on the stairs. Gaspard took the opportunity to smash the sword from his hands, and it went clattering across the floor as Vincent raised his hands in defeat.
“Never . . .”
“. . . take your eye from the fight.” Vincent finished Gaspard’s sentence for him. “I know, I know. But you’ve got to admit, Kate is more than a bit distracting.”
Gaspard smiled wryly.
“To me,” Vincent clarified.
“Just don’t let her distract you from saving her life,” Gaspard responded, placing his toe under the hilt of the fallen sword and, with a quick movement, flicking it up in the air toward Vincent.
“This is the twenty-first century, Gaspard,” Vincent chuckled, catching the grip of the flying sword in his right hand. “Under your tutelage, Kate will be just as capable of saving mine.” He grinned at me, lifting an eyebrow suggestively. I laughed.
“I agree,” Gaspard admitted, “but only if she can catch up with your half century of fighting experience.”
“I’m working on it,” I called as I closed the door behind me, blocking out the earsplitting clash of metal that resonated from the resumption of their fight.
I pushed through a swinging door into a large, airy kitchen and breathed in the bready aroma of freshly baked pastry. Jeanne was bent over one of the slate gray granite counters. Nominally the cook and housekeeper, she was more like a house mom. Following the example of her own mother and grandmother, she had cared for the revenants for decades. Her shoulders shook slightly as she put the finishing flourishes on a chocolate cake. I touched her arm and she turned to face me, revealing tears that she tried unsuccessfully to blink back.
“Jeanne, are you okay?” I breathed, knowing that she wasn’t.
“Charlotte and Charles are like my own children.” Her voice cracked.
“I know,” I said, putting an arm around her ample waist and leaning my head on her shoulder. “But they’re not leaving forever. Jean-Baptiste said it was just until Charles gets his head sorted out. How long could that take?”
Jeanne straightened and we looked at each other, a silent message passing between us. A long time, if ever. The boy was seriously messed up.
My own feelings about him were mixed. He had always acted antagonistically toward me, but after Charlotte had explained why, I couldn’t help but pity him.
As if reading my thoughts, Jeanne jumped to his defense. “It’s not really his fault. He didn’t mean to endanger everyone, you know.”
“I know.”
“He’s just more sensitive than the others,” she said, bending back over her cake and concentrating on the placement of a sugar-spun flower. “It’s their lifestyle. Dying over and over again for us humans and then having to leave us to our fate takes its toll. He’s only fifteen, for goodness’ sake.”
I smiled sadly. “Jeanne, he’s eighty.”