If I Should Die

by Amy Plum

  Well, that’s more than Gaspard and Bran got. They couldn’t find anything resembling the object itself, and extended the search to anything else that might bear the symbols referred to in the story. Ones that would explain how a re-embodiment is performed.

  “Did they have any luck?”

  None.

  I walked into the library to see my grandfather shaking hands with Gaspard and then with Bran. The four men assembled around a table, and Jean-Baptiste held out a chair for me.

  Papy began by placing the auction catalogue on the table. He told them that if the thymiaterion wasn’t already in a museum or other major public collection—which it couldn’t be, because he would already be familiar with it—then it must be in a private collection. He explained about the flow of Middle Eastern antiquities into the antiques market between the wars, and his theory that the piece was moved from Turkey to a European or American collection during this period.

  He tapped the book with his index finger. “I own all of the records from the major auction houses during that time, and in one of them Kate found a sale that might refer to the object we seek.”

  He said we! I thought, marveling once again that my grandfather was joining forces with revenants—for me.

  Papy opened the catalogue and showed them the reference, then flipped back to the buyer list. “If a purchase of this nature was made for a museum or a major collector, the name would be listed. Instead, this important collection went to an anonymous buyer.”

  He turned to JB. “I am guessing that this library contains several books that were purchased from me.”

  “You would be guessing correctly,” Jean-Baptiste confirmed, just the slightest flicker of discomfort crossing his face as he revealed yet another of his secrets to an outsider.

  “Then perhaps you know who the other members of this worldwide confederation of secretive revenant-themed buyers would be.”

  “I would certainly know some of them,” Jean-Baptiste affirmed.

  “Well, there are only a handful of important antiquity collectors based in New York. And only one of those who I know to contact if I find a revenant-related object. I feel that the buyer who bought this auction lot might have been the father of a longtime client of mine based in the city.”

  Jean-Baptiste watched him, waiting.

  “But I have no way of communicating with this collector, who goes by the pseudonym ‘G. J. Caesar’ except by email. And I doubt he would respond to a request from me concerning something already extant in his collection.”

  As soon as Papy said the name, a shadow fell across Jean-Baptiste’s features, and I could tell that he was steeling himself for something unpleasant. Gaspard must have felt it too, because he made a kind of hiccupping noise and then began fiddling with some papers.

  Papy continued, undaunted, “That alias seems to ring a bell with you. I had hoped you would carry out the commission and ask if the piece is in his collection. He would surely be more open to sharing information with you than he would with me.”

  There was a long, uncomfortable moment in which Jean-Baptiste seemed to wage an internal battle. Finally, he stood and said, “I may know the man to whom you refer, but I don’t have his information easily accessible. Give me a day, Monsieur Mercier, and I will see what I can produce.”

  “That seems reasonable,” Papy responded, glancing at me. I was shaking my head.

  “We have less than forty-eight hours left,” I urged, “and Vincent says we’re not even sure that Violette will respect that offer. She could drag him back sooner.”

  “I know exactly how much time we have left,” Jean-Baptiste responded, stony-faced. “I just need a little while to think.”

  Gaspard’s fidgeting intensified, until he looked like he was about to blow a fuse. Rising to his feet, he faced his partner. “Jean-Baptiste, time is of the essence here. It is time to let bygones be bygones. I refuse to allow you to spend the day debating whether or not you will speak to Theodore. Fifty years is long enough for a dispute. Now, get on the phone and call him.”

  “I might not even have his correct number anymore,” Jean-Baptiste countered.

  “Vincent just updated the Consortium’s information in the database last month. I have no doubt he’s listed there,” Gaspard said, hands clenched tightly by his sides.

  My mouth dropped open. Gaspard was never this assertive—except for the personality transformation he underwent when he had a weapon in his hand. Jean-Baptiste seemed equally surprised because he stood there staring coldly at Gaspard before turning on his heels and stalking out of the room.

  Who is this Theodore? I wondered. I had never seen Jean-Baptiste act like this before—not to mention Gaspard react like this before. There must be some serious bad blood between the two revenants, and I was burning with curiosity to know why.

  Everyone sat uncomfortably for a moment, until we heard Jean-Baptiste’s voice come from his bedroom across the hallway. He was speaking to someone on the phone. Gaspard cleared his throat as if to muffle the noise and give JB privacy.

  After a tense moment, we heard the sound of a telephone slamming back into its set, and footsteps stomping back to the library. Jean-Baptiste appeared, his face a mask of composure but its mottled reddened tone belying his true emotions. He avoided looking at the rest of us and spoke directly to Gaspard.

  “Theodore, indeed, has a five-foot-tall thymiaterion with mystical symbols engraved around the pedestal, including the signum bardia. He knows of two others extant in the world: one in China and one in Peru, so he can’t be sure that his is the one that was mentioned in the guérisseur’s tale. But he assumes that that doesn’t matter as long as they were all created for the same purpose.

  “He said that he never discovered its use, but he’s excited by the theory that we are proposing—that it was created to facilitate a re-embodiment.”

  “Did he offer to bring it to us?” Gaspard asked.

  Jean-Baptiste shook his head. “He said it would take weeks to get the customs clearances to take an object like that out of the country.”

  My heart leapt to my throat, and I blurted out, “Then we have to go there!”

  “That is what he suggested,” Jean-Baptiste confirmed, turning to me. “Bran must take his family’s records. And a revenant must accompany Vincent in case he needs to inhabit a corporeal body while the process is attempted.”

  “Surely you should go,” urged Gaspard. “The head of France’s bardia should represent, since it is in a way as much a diplomatic mission as it is a—”

  “I will not,” Jean-Baptiste interrupted angrily, before visibly calming himself and continuing. “You made your case for my contacting Theodore, and rightfully so. But that is the extent to which I will be involved. You do not know what you are asking, Gaspard.”

  Jean-Baptiste tilted his head slightly, listening, and then said, “In any case, Vincent has made up his mind. He wants Jules to accompany him.”

  “Then Bran and Jules should prepare to leave,” Gaspard said.

  “I’m going too,” I stated, my eyes flickering to Papy as the words left my mouth. I lifted my chin, preparing for his refusal.

  “I am not letting you fly to New York with two men I barely know,” Papy said, scooting his chair back abruptly. He looked like he wanted to grab me and leave the house running.

  “Then it’s decided,” JB dictated. “Monsieur Mercier will accompany his granddaughter. Bran, you will want to prepare your things. Gaspard, please let Jules know of his appointment and call our pilot. You will all leave tonight.” And he turned and marched out of the room.

  Papy and I stared at each other in shock while Gaspard walked over to the phone and began dialing. Bran scooted off and began assembling his books, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Finally Papy unstuck from his frozen position and, taking me gently by the hand, said, “I don’t care who he is or how much power he holds. Monsieur Grimod will not make decisions for me regarding my
own granddaughter.”

  “Papy, I have to go with them. You’ve got to understand that,” I said, not pleading but simply stating it as a fact.

  “Kate, this could be dangerous,” he said.

  “How dangerous could it be? It’s a trip to New York on a private plane, a visit to an antiquities collector, some ceremony that involves Vincent—not me—and then we’re back again. In fact, it’s probably safer for me to be out of France—and away from Violette and the numa—than in it.”

  Papy stared around him, at Bran, eyes like an owl’s, as he glanced up from his books at us. At nineteenth-century Gaspard, holding the telephone inches away from his ear, as if it were a dangerous object from the future that just may infect him with progressiveness if it touched his head. “How can we trust these people?” he asked, resisting.

  “They’re better than the alternative, who have actually threatened us,” I reminded him softly, and in my mind corrected that to threatened me.

  “But . . . school—” he began, in a last attempt to dissuade me.

  “Is out for the week,” I responded. “Remember—winter ski break starts tomorrow. Papy, listen. If this works, Vincent will regain his body. I have to be there for that. If it doesn’t, then at least we will be face-to-face with this antiquities guy, who might be knowledgeable enough to know of another solution. Just think, you’ll be able to meet this client you’ve been dealing with for decades.”

  I could tell that Papy had already thought of that. He was tempted by the possibility of meeting the mystery collector and getting a glimpse at his collection. But this desire was overshadowed by his worry for me.

  Jules bustled into the room, looking like someone was pushing him. “Vincent informs me that I’m leaving ASAP for New York?” he said, looking around at us, confused.

  “Yes. Go pack,” Gaspard said, hanging up the phone. And Jules was off—no questions asked—back out the door and up the stairs to his room.

  Gaspard came over and looked Papy in the eye. “Your decision, sir?”

  Papy took a deep breath, glanced at me, and then said, “My granddaughter and I will go.”

  “You will need this, then,” Gaspard said, and handed Papy a small wooden box. Inside was a gold chain looped through a pendant: A flat gold disk engraved with the circle, triangle, and flames. “It is yours to keep, to signal to others that you are trusted by us.”

  “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 uniforme
d 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.