If I Should Die (13 page)

“I recognize the symbol,” Papy confirmed.

“If you wish to return home and pack a bag, a car will be waiting outside your building in two hours,” Gaspard stated, all business. “I will ask Arthur and Ambrose to walk you and your granddaughters home.” My grandfather nodded his assent and Gaspard left to find Georgia and our revenant guardians.

“Do you have one of these, too?” Papy asked, as he looped the chain over his head and tucked the pendant into his shirt.

I hesitated, but heard Vincent's voice say:
You can show him
.

I pulled mine out and Papy's eyes grew wide at the dollar-coin-size gold disk. He reached out tentatively, fingering the edging of bright gold pellets and studying the flame-shaped design around the triangular sapphire. “You have been wearing that . . . out on the street?” he asked, his voice tremulous.

“Well, yes. I mean, underneath my clothes,” I said. His expression made me feel like I had done something crazy, like running naked through the streets of Paris.

Papy struggled to contain his awe, muttering, “I'm not even going to tell you what that is worth,
princesse
. How rare that piece is. Because if I did, you probably wouldn't dare wear it again.”

I heard Vincent chuckle in my mind, and I smiled. “It's just a
thing
, Papy.”

“Yes, Kate. A
thing
that guarantees you the revenants' protection. But it also serves as a symbol of what you mean to them. And if they chose this particular
signum
to represent your value—to display the care they are investing in you—I couldn't come close to competing with the protection that I myself can offer. It means you're priceless.”

My grandfather smiled at me tenderly and gave my hand a squeeze. “I'm officially outclassed,
princesse
.”

“It's not a contest, Papy,” I said, smiling. “It's a group effort. And now you're one of the group.”

Papy took my arm and led me out of the room. “Then let's get this show on the road.”

TWENTY-TWO

WE LEFT PARIS FROM CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT
at eight p.m., and through the magic of minus-six time zones arrived at JFK Airport at ten in the evening. I barely slept—whether from anxiety or excitement, I couldn't tell. Probably the two. Papy and Bran both dozed off as soon as we were in the air. Jules talked quietly to Vincent in the back of the plane and, after a while, settled in with a book.

A driver was waiting for us at arrivals with a handwritten sign that read “Grimod.” Piling our luggage onto a cart, he ushered us to a waiting limo outside. Snow lay inches thick on the ground, and an icy wind made me pull my coat tighter as I dodged ice patches on the sidewalk.

We were silent on the ride into Manhattan. I felt a strange numbness as I watched the twinkling city lights grow closer through the limo window. And it wasn't only from the lack of sleep and jet lag. It was because I was back.

Back to where I had grown up. Back to where I had lived for sixteen years—my entire life—with my mother and father, gone to school, learned to drive, kissed my first boy. This place was fact and Paris was fiction. So why did everything feel so surreal? I had an inkling that my numbness was covering something else: distress, perhaps. Or maybe reawakened pain I wasn't ready to face.

Bran peered out the window with wide eyes, taking in the vista with slack-jawed awe. He let out a little gasp when the spotlit Empire State Building came into view. Papy asked, “Is this your first time to America?”

“It's my first time out of France,” Bran responded, unable to tear his eyes from the sights outside.

“How about you?” I asked Jules, who was leaning back against the headrest, watching without emotion as our limo crossed the Manhattan Bridge high above the East River.

“The farthest I've been is Brazil,” he said, swinging his eyes lazily over to meet my own before shifting them back away. He had been acting differently ever since the Kiss. Distant. He sat as far away from me as possible on the trip to the airport and on the plane. Normally he would have been by my side chatting his head off with both me and Vincent.

He was obviously avoiding me. Understandably so. I had barely seen him since Saturday—two days ago. There was a definite sense of discomfort between the two of us. I deeply wished it would go away and things would return to normal. I loved Jules. Just not in
that
way. But being Vincent's best friend, he would always be a big part of my life.

My mind slipped back to the scene in his bedroom, as I tried to see it from the outside. From my point of view, it had felt like I was kissing Vincent. My eyes were closed and that's what I had seen in my mind. But now the picture that came into focus was of me in Jules's arms, the two of us holding each other in a desperate attempt to get closer.

Glancing up at Jules, I saw that he was watching me, and my cheeks ignited as I banished the image from my mind. He held my gaze—he knew what I was thinking, I could tell—and then closed his eyes and laid his head back against the seat.

Kate, are you okay?
I heard Vincent say.

“Yes. Just tired,” I responded, and then glanced quickly at Papy. He was trying not to look annoyed: Hearing me talk with Vincent volant freaked him out. He claimed it was rude to carry on a conversation that others couldn't join, but I knew it was really because he hated seeing his granddaughter talk to the air.

The limo driver headed north on Park Avenue and turned left when we got to the eighties. Driving to the end of the block, he stopped in front of a stately apartment building facing the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “We are here,” he said in a heavy Russian accent, and got out to help us with our luggage.

A uniformed doorman bustled out the front door, meeting us on the sidewalk and bringing our bags inside. He tucked them all behind a counter, and turned to face us with his hands clasped behind his back. “Mr. Gold is waiting for you. Please show me the tokens of your association.”

“Tokens?” I asked, confused.

“You are a part of Mr. Gold's club, are you not? I need to see proof of your membership.”

“The
signum
,” Jules prompted.

“Oh,” I said, and pulled the necklace from underneath my shirt. Papy did the same, flashing it at the doorman, and Bran pulled back his sleeve to show his tattoo.

The man showed no surprise at our strange “tokens.” Bowing slightly, he said, “Thank you. This way,” and held a gloved hand out to indicate the elevator.

He didn't ask Jules for a token
, I thought, as the doorman pressed the button for the top floor. I studied him more closely and realized with surprise that he was a revenant. But my shock wasn't because Mr. Gold had hired kindred to guard his building—it was because I had actually been able to tell what he was.

The weird special effects I had noticed around the numa were reversed in this man's case. The inch of space around him was packed with more vibrancy and color than the rest of the air, whereas numa sucked the color out of their surroundings, leaving them with a colorless penumbra.

I glanced at Jules. He had the same vivid nimbus around his body. I had spent so much time with him and the others that I just didn't notice it with them. Now that I was a part of the revenants' world and was aware that supernatural beings existed where I never would have expected them before, I was paying more attention to who was human and who was not. In the case of the doorman . . . not.

He's one of us
, Vincent said, confirming my deduction.

We got off the elevator, followed the man down the hallway, and stopped in front of a door. He unlocked it and ushered us into an apartment. “Mr. Gold will be right here. He asks that you make yourselves comfortable.” And with that he closed the door, leaving us to examine our surroundings in awe.

The apartment was massive and modern, all white walls and hardwood floors with floor-to-ceiling windows and barely any furniture. Stone pedestals held ancient pottery and metal objects: A Greek mask in gold. A bronze Roman helmet. A finely sculpted marble hand the size of a refrigerator. I had seen things like this in museums, protected under heavy glass. But here they were within arm's reach, tastefully arranged under gallery lighting that made them glow like jewels.

Papy's sharp intake of breath indicated that he was just as impressed as I was. Even Jules straightened a bit as he took his hands out of his pockets and went up to touch the exquisitely carved marble shoulder of a nymph. Bran just stood gawking with his regular astounded look, his magnified eyes taking in every inch of the room.

The door opened again, and in stepped a young blond-haired, blue-eyed man in a white suit. He bowed slightly. “Theodore Gold,” he said.

“But you're the doorman!” I exclaimed. He was barely recognizable without the uniform and hat.
The perfect disguise
, I thought.
No one looks a doorman in the face.

“Yes, I'm sorry about that,” the man said with upper-class, posh-sounding diction that sounded nothing like the strong Jersey accent he had assumed as the doorman. “I value my privacy, and prefer not to depend on others for security. I would rather screen my own guests than risk the outcome of someone else's error. Although you had a revenant with you”—he nodded toward Jules—“he could have been brought here under duress, used as a hostage if you wanted to get to me.”

“I take it you are Jules,” he said, greeting him with European cheek-kisses. “Welcome, kindred.”

“I'm Kate,” I said, and held out my hand for an American-to-American shake. Mr. Gold gave me a warm smile, and to my relief didn't ask for a clarification of why I was there. I didn't really feel like launching into an I'm-the-wandering-soul's-girlfriend conversation.

Bran was next. “Your tattoo tells me that you are the healer Jean-Baptiste spoke of. I have read of your kind. It is truly an honor to meet you.”

He turned to my grandfather. “You must be Monsieur Mercier. Gaspard phoned to inform me of your—and your granddaughter's—connection to the Paris kindred.” So, he knew.

That's one less thing to explain
, Vincent said to me.

“You read my mind,” I whispered back.

“I am Antoine Mercier,” my grandfather confirmed in his beautifully accented English. He peered at the revenant with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. “But are you Theodore Gold IV?
The
Theodore Gold? Author of
The Fall of Byzantium
?”

The man smiled. “Yes, that was my work.”

Judging from Papy's expression, he might as well have just met the pope. “But you are so young! I am in awe that I am actually meeting you. Your grandfather's book on Roman-era pottery is like my own personal bible.”

Amusement flashed across Theodore Gold's face. “Actually, Theodore Gold Junior was also me. As was Theodore Senior. I do try to change my writing style each time to make the whole necessary charade a little more convincing.”

Papy just stood there gaping.

Mr. Gold laughed and patted Papy on the shoulder. “Well, I am honored to have fooled someone as well versed in the field as yourself, Monsieur Mercier.”

My completely unflappable grandfather was still rooted to his spot. “A revenant,” he said. “There is only one Theodore Gold. The whole dynasty of eminent antiquity experts is . . . one person. And you are the G. J. Caesar I have been selling pieces to for the last few decades?”

“I think I may have actually bought a piece from you before that under Theo Gold Junior's alias, Mark Aurelius, before I passed the collection down to myself,” Theodore pointed out helpfully.

“May I sit down?” Papy asked, the color having drained from his face.

“Please,” said Mr. Gold, gesturing toward a couch. Set before it was a low table with bottles of sparkling water and a platter of mini-cheesecakes.

“I wasn't sure if you ate on the plane,” he commented as we all sat. “Now, we have much to talk about. May I guess that the volant revenant I sense is the bardia Vincent that Jean-Baptiste mentioned?” He waited and then nodded his head. “Good. So from what I am told, you are looking for a giant thymiaterion with instructional symbols engraved into the stem.”

Bran explained about his family's records, and retrieving the book from his bag, he read the passage aloud.

Mr. Gold looked impressed. “Incredible. It certainly is tempting to ask to see the rest of the book”—he paused as Bran shook his head—“but I realize that the information it holds must be confidential. I trust you are giving us all of the details you have on the matter?”

Bran nodded. “I've gone through my family's entire records, and this is the only mention of re-embodiment.”

“Fine,” Mr. Gold said, clasping his hands together. With his timeless look and white suit, he reminded me of a young Robert Redford in the seventies version of
The Great Gatsby
. Or a character straight out of an Edith Wharton novel: handsome and wheaten haired, with that tanned just-stepped-off-the-yacht look that very wealthy people have.

“I understand that time is pressing,” he was saying, “and that Vincent can be called back by the traitor at any time. How long has it been since she let you go?” he asked. “Yesterday before noon,” he repeated, looking at his watch. “It's eleven p.m. now, so in six hours or so we'll be coming up on two days, Paris time. Well, let's hope she doesn't feel like yanking you back sooner. We will need all of the time we can get to decode the symbols.”

He tossed back the rest of his glass and stood. “And on that note, we should be going.”

“Where?” I asked, as we all rose from the table.

“Why, to see the thymiaterion,” he said.

“It isn't here?” I asked, glancing around the room.

“No, I only keep a few of my favorite objects here. The world's most complete collection of revenant-themed art happens to reside across the street.”

“At the Metropolitan Museum of Art?” asked Papy, incredulous.

“Yes, my dear man,” responded Mr. Gold with a wry grin. “At the Met.”