Die for Me
Page 26
Georgia gave both me and Vincent an evil glare and then stood abruptly and stormed out of the room.
Mamie broke the silence. “Vincent, could you clarify why you think Georgia shouldn’t be associating with this man?”
Vincent was staring at the coffee table. “Excuse me for causing this lovely dinner to end on a bad note. It’s just that I know of this person, and wouldn’t want anyone I cared about to have anything to do with him. But I’ve said enough. Again, my apologies for upsetting your granddaughter in your own home.”
Papy shook his head and held a hand up, as if it was no trouble, and Mamie stood to collect the cups. As I got up to help her, she said, “Now don’t worry yourself, Vincent. We try to keep a certain measure of openness and honesty in this household, so your comments are not unwelcome. I’m sure Georgia will apologize for her temper next time she sees you.”
“Don’t bet on it,” I said under my breath.
Hearing me, Vincent nodded grimly. “I should be going,” he said. “I’m sure you all have a busy day ahead of you tomorrow.”
“I’ll walk you out,” I said, intending to grill him as soon as we got outside.
Papy stood to get Vincent’s coat. After thanking my grandparents for the evening, Vincent stepped out into the hallway. I followed, taking my coat and closing the door behind us.
“What—” I began.
Vincent put a finger to his lips, and we maintained a tense silence until we got outside. As soon as the door shut behind us, he grabbed me by the shoulders and looked intently into my face. “Your sister is in grave danger.”
My confusion transformed into alarm. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with Lucien?”
“He’s my sworn enemy. The leader of the Paris numa.”
I felt like someone had picked me up and thrown me against a brick wall. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?” I asked, refusing to believe it. “Because when I met him—”
“You met him?” Vincent choked. “Where?”
“At that club where I went dancing with Georgia.”
“The same place you saw Charles?”
“Yeah—in fact, Charles was talking to him outside when I left. I don’t see—”
“No. This is terrible,” Vincent said, shutting his eyes.
“Vincent. Tell me what’s going on,” I said, a sick feeling rising in my throat. If Lucien was a monster, what did that mean for my sister? I shivered as I thought of the kiss Georgia shared with Lucien that night in his club. She obviously didn’t know about his dark side. Georgia couldn’t see past her own nose when it came to discernment. As my mom lamented once when a boyfriend of Georgia’s was arrested for burglary, “She can’t ever see the bad in people. Your sister’s not stupid, she just doesn’t possess an ounce of intuition.” This time that flaw could be fatal, I thought.
Vincent pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Jean-Baptiste? Lucien’s got Charles. I’m sure. Yeah . . . be there in a minute.”
“Please! Talk to me!” I begged him.
“I have to get home. Can you come with me?”
“No.” I shook my head. I had to go back and clean up the mess that Hurricane Vincent had left for my family.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Then I’ll walk you home,” I insisted. “You can tell me on the way.”
“Good,” he said, taking my hand as we began walking down the lamp-lit streets toward his house. “So, Kate. You know how there’s a bad guy in every story?”
“I guess.”
“Well, Lucien’s the bad guy in my story.”
“What do you mean your story?” I ventured uneasily. “I mean, is it just a case of the two of you being on opposite sides of the good-and-evil divide?”
Vincent shook his head. “No. It’s me against him. We have a long history.”
“Wait,” I said, putting together the puzzle pieces in my mind. “Is he the one you guys are always referring to? ‘The Man,’ or whatever?” I paused, thinking. “Was it Lucien you saw at the Village Saint-Paul . . . and who Jules spotted nearby when Ambrose got stabbed?”
Vincent nodded.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“As a human, during World War Two, he was part of the French Militia, or la Milice, a paramilitary force formed by the German-controlled French government to fight the Resistance.”
“The Vichy regime?”
Vincent nodded. “Besides executing and assassinating Resistance members, the Milice helped round up Jews for deportation. They were famous for their torture methods: They could extract information and confessions from anyone they captured.
“To be honest, they were more dangerous than the Gestapo or SS, since they were one of us: They spoke the language, knew the topography of the towns, and were friends and neighbors of the people they betrayed.” Vincent looked me in the eyes. “It was a dark time for my country.”
I nodded and remained silent. We crossed a tree-lined avenue and continued toward his house.
“Lucien betrayed hundreds, or indirectly, thousands, of his own countrymen to their deaths, torturing and murdering his way up through the organization’s ranks. He quickly became a top man in the Vichy regime’s information and propaganda ministry.
“In June of 1944, a group of Resistance fighters, dressed as members of the Milice, broke into the Ministry of Information building where Lucien and his wife had been moved for their safety. It was late at night. They found the couple in their bed and killed them.”
My jaw dropped. It seemed like he was telling the story from personal experience. “Were you one of them?” I ventured.
Vincent nodded. “Along with a couple of other revenants. The rest were humans who didn’t know what we were.”
“But Lucien was still human then. You told me revenants try not to kill humans.”
“Our order was to capture and imprison Lucien until he could be tried by the authorities for his crimes. But one human in our group had had his family killed by Lucien himself, and he couldn’t restrain himself. He shot them both.”
I shuddered at the gory scene reenacted in my mind. In stories like this, you always want the bad guys to be taken out. But thinking about the actual act: to be shot with his wife . . . in his bed. It was too horrible to consider.
“Lucien remembered our faces from that night, and when he came back as a revenant, he hunted us down. He succeeded in killing the majority of the humans who had taken part in the assassination, and was eventually able to destroy the other two revenants involved. I’m the only one left. We’ve come up against each other on several occasions, but he’s never managed to kill me. Nor I him.”
“Then why in the world would Charles have been talking to him?” I asked.
“This is what you have to understand about Charles. He’s not a bad kid. He’s just messed up. I told you he’s had a hard time accepting our fate. It’s a difficult existence, continually living and dying. When you save someone and see them go on to have a good life, it makes it all feel worthwhile. But sometimes things don’t turn out like that.
“The person you rescued from a suicide attempt tries again and succeeds. The kid you save in a drug deal gone bad doesn’t see it as a reason to mend his ways and returns to the mess he was in before. That’s one reason Jean-Baptiste doesn’t want us following our rescues’ lives too closely.
“But one of the worst feelings is when you try and fail. Charles couldn’t save the little girl. He saved the other child, but he can’t focus on that success. He is obsessed with his failure. And its consequences on the child’s mother.
“He has a good heart,” he continued softly. “Maybe too good of a heart. But this was the final straw for him. The only reason I can think of that Charles would go to Lucien is because he can’t cope with our lifestyle any longer. He wants to die. If he puts himself in their hands, all he has to do is ask them to kill him and burn his body. And they’d be all too happy to comply.”
“He’s committing suicide?” I stopped walking, horrified by the thought of Charles delivering himself to his death.
“That’s what it looks like.” Vincent took my arm and pulled me forward. We were almost there.
“If Lucien is a vicious killer, then . . . what about Georgia?” Charles’s story was heartbreaking, but all I could think about at the moment was the danger my sister could be in.
“What’s their relationship?” Vincent asked.
“It seems like they’re kind of dating.”
“Do you think it’s serious?”
“Georgia doesn’t do serious.”
Vincent thought about it. “Lucien is always surrounded by women, and he would have no reason to kill someone like Georgia. If she doesn’t let herself get sucked into his clan and their activities, then the worst she probably risks is getting used and dumped by him.”
Well, that’s comforting, I thought, not at all comforted. She’s swapping spit with a homicidal maniac, but if she doesn’t get too involved, she should be fine. Although I was still frightened, Vincent’s words had made me feel less panicky. It was true: Georgia never got too involved in anyone besides herself.
We arrived at Jean-Baptiste’s gate. Vincent took my hand in his. “Listen. I’m sorry if I’ve messed up things between your sister and your grandparents tonight. But I couldn’t just sit there and say nothing after hearing her mention that . . . monster.”
“No, you were right. And it didn’t matter where you said it, in front of everyone or one-on-one: Georgia would have had the same reaction.”
“You’ve got to talk to her,” he urged. “Even if things don’t go too far with Lucien, she’s hanging out with some dangerous people.”
I nodded at him. “I’ll do my best.”
Danger was constantly lurking in the shadows for Vincent and his kindred. But now that one of my family members was at risk, it seemed much more real. It made me feel closer to him. We now had a common foe. But I hoped that Georgia would listen to me and remove herself from that danger.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked.
“I’m going to get the others and start hunting Lucien down.” Vincent’s voice shifted an octave lower and his eyes blazed with anger. He looked lethal.
“You’re going to be careful, right?” I asked, fear gripping me as I realized what this could mean.
“I would take him out tonight if I could. But there’s a reason I haven’t been able to destroy him yet. If he doesn’t want to be found, we’re not going to find him. The cards are in his hands.”
Then, seeing my expression, some of the steeliness went out of his features. “Don’t worry, Kate. Try to come over after school tomorrow if you can.”
“Are you still going to be alive tomorrow after school?”
“Yes,” he said with his lips. But his eyes were telling a different story. He would do anything to destroy this enemy. It was clear that his own safety wasn’t his priority.
“I’m sorry I have to leave you like this,” Vincent said, drawing me to him and brushing his lips against mine. Every point of contact with his body seemed to trigger a shower of fiery sparks inside me. Is danger an aphrodisiac? I wondered. I’d rather him be safe than have a Fourth of July celebration in my nerve endings. But since I didn’t have a say, I grabbed him tighter and responded to his kiss.
Too soon, he pulled away. “I have to go.”
“I know. Good night, Vincent. Please be safe.”
“Good night, mon ange.”
I knocked softly on Georgia’s bedroom door. It opened violently a second later, and my sister stood there looking like a Fury. “What the hell was that about?” she raged, slamming the door shut behind me.
I perched on the edge of her bed while she threw herself belly-down onto a fluffy white rug in the middle of her floor and stared at me.
“I’m sorry Vincent embarrassed you in front of Papy and Mamie. But from what he’s told me, Lucien does sound like really bad news.”
Georgia almost spit her reply. “Oh yeah? What exactly does he say?”
“He said that Lucien’s kind of in a . . . Mafia type of organization.” I tried to remember how Vincent had described the numa that night in the Marais restaurant. “And that his colleagues are involved in all sorts of illegal dealings.”
“Like what?”
“Prostitution, drugs—”
“Oh, give me a break!” Georgia rolled her eyes. “You’ve seen Lucien. He’s an entrepreneur. He’s got bars and clubs all over France. Why in the world would he even need to be involved in stuff like that?” She looked at me with distaste.
“I really don’t think Vincent would make that up,” I replied.
“Yeah?” she asked bitterly. “How’s he know him?”
“He doesn’t,” I lied. The last thing I wanted to do was to make some sort of link between Vincent and Lucien with Georgia and me in the middle. “He just knows his reputation.”
I paused, weighing how far I should go. “He said there’s even talk of Lucien’s associates being involved in murders.”
Georgia looked shocked for a moment, and then shook her head. “I’m sure that in the world that Lucien moves in, there have got to be some shady dealings. It must go with the territory. But to suggest that he could work with murderers . . . I’m sorry, I just don’t believe it.”
Mamie broke the silence. “Vincent, could you clarify why you think Georgia shouldn’t be associating with this man?”
Vincent was staring at the coffee table. “Excuse me for causing this lovely dinner to end on a bad note. It’s just that I know of this person, and wouldn’t want anyone I cared about to have anything to do with him. But I’ve said enough. Again, my apologies for upsetting your granddaughter in your own home.”
Papy shook his head and held a hand up, as if it was no trouble, and Mamie stood to collect the cups. As I got up to help her, she said, “Now don’t worry yourself, Vincent. We try to keep a certain measure of openness and honesty in this household, so your comments are not unwelcome. I’m sure Georgia will apologize for her temper next time she sees you.”
“Don’t bet on it,” I said under my breath.
Hearing me, Vincent nodded grimly. “I should be going,” he said. “I’m sure you all have a busy day ahead of you tomorrow.”
“I’ll walk you out,” I said, intending to grill him as soon as we got outside.
Papy stood to get Vincent’s coat. After thanking my grandparents for the evening, Vincent stepped out into the hallway. I followed, taking my coat and closing the door behind us.
“What—” I began.
Vincent put a finger to his lips, and we maintained a tense silence until we got outside. As soon as the door shut behind us, he grabbed me by the shoulders and looked intently into my face. “Your sister is in grave danger.”
My confusion transformed into alarm. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with Lucien?”
“He’s my sworn enemy. The leader of the Paris numa.”
I felt like someone had picked me up and thrown me against a brick wall. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?” I asked, refusing to believe it. “Because when I met him—”
“You met him?” Vincent choked. “Where?”
“At that club where I went dancing with Georgia.”
“The same place you saw Charles?”
“Yeah—in fact, Charles was talking to him outside when I left. I don’t see—”
“No. This is terrible,” Vincent said, shutting his eyes.
“Vincent. Tell me what’s going on,” I said, a sick feeling rising in my throat. If Lucien was a monster, what did that mean for my sister? I shivered as I thought of the kiss Georgia shared with Lucien that night in his club. She obviously didn’t know about his dark side. Georgia couldn’t see past her own nose when it came to discernment. As my mom lamented once when a boyfriend of Georgia’s was arrested for burglary, “She can’t ever see the bad in people. Your sister’s not stupid, she just doesn’t possess an ounce of intuition.” This time that flaw could be fatal, I thought.
Vincent pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Jean-Baptiste? Lucien’s got Charles. I’m sure. Yeah . . . be there in a minute.”
“Please! Talk to me!” I begged him.
“I have to get home. Can you come with me?”
“No.” I shook my head. I had to go back and clean up the mess that Hurricane Vincent had left for my family.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Then I’ll walk you home,” I insisted. “You can tell me on the way.”
“Good,” he said, taking my hand as we began walking down the lamp-lit streets toward his house. “So, Kate. You know how there’s a bad guy in every story?”
“I guess.”
“Well, Lucien’s the bad guy in my story.”
“What do you mean your story?” I ventured uneasily. “I mean, is it just a case of the two of you being on opposite sides of the good-and-evil divide?”
Vincent shook his head. “No. It’s me against him. We have a long history.”
“Wait,” I said, putting together the puzzle pieces in my mind. “Is he the one you guys are always referring to? ‘The Man,’ or whatever?” I paused, thinking. “Was it Lucien you saw at the Village Saint-Paul . . . and who Jules spotted nearby when Ambrose got stabbed?”
Vincent nodded.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“As a human, during World War Two, he was part of the French Militia, or la Milice, a paramilitary force formed by the German-controlled French government to fight the Resistance.”
“The Vichy regime?”
Vincent nodded. “Besides executing and assassinating Resistance members, the Milice helped round up Jews for deportation. They were famous for their torture methods: They could extract information and confessions from anyone they captured.
“To be honest, they were more dangerous than the Gestapo or SS, since they were one of us: They spoke the language, knew the topography of the towns, and were friends and neighbors of the people they betrayed.” Vincent looked me in the eyes. “It was a dark time for my country.”
I nodded and remained silent. We crossed a tree-lined avenue and continued toward his house.
“Lucien betrayed hundreds, or indirectly, thousands, of his own countrymen to their deaths, torturing and murdering his way up through the organization’s ranks. He quickly became a top man in the Vichy regime’s information and propaganda ministry.
“In June of 1944, a group of Resistance fighters, dressed as members of the Milice, broke into the Ministry of Information building where Lucien and his wife had been moved for their safety. It was late at night. They found the couple in their bed and killed them.”
My jaw dropped. It seemed like he was telling the story from personal experience. “Were you one of them?” I ventured.
Vincent nodded. “Along with a couple of other revenants. The rest were humans who didn’t know what we were.”
“But Lucien was still human then. You told me revenants try not to kill humans.”
“Our order was to capture and imprison Lucien until he could be tried by the authorities for his crimes. But one human in our group had had his family killed by Lucien himself, and he couldn’t restrain himself. He shot them both.”
I shuddered at the gory scene reenacted in my mind. In stories like this, you always want the bad guys to be taken out. But thinking about the actual act: to be shot with his wife . . . in his bed. It was too horrible to consider.
“Lucien remembered our faces from that night, and when he came back as a revenant, he hunted us down. He succeeded in killing the majority of the humans who had taken part in the assassination, and was eventually able to destroy the other two revenants involved. I’m the only one left. We’ve come up against each other on several occasions, but he’s never managed to kill me. Nor I him.”
“Then why in the world would Charles have been talking to him?” I asked.
“This is what you have to understand about Charles. He’s not a bad kid. He’s just messed up. I told you he’s had a hard time accepting our fate. It’s a difficult existence, continually living and dying. When you save someone and see them go on to have a good life, it makes it all feel worthwhile. But sometimes things don’t turn out like that.
“The person you rescued from a suicide attempt tries again and succeeds. The kid you save in a drug deal gone bad doesn’t see it as a reason to mend his ways and returns to the mess he was in before. That’s one reason Jean-Baptiste doesn’t want us following our rescues’ lives too closely.
“But one of the worst feelings is when you try and fail. Charles couldn’t save the little girl. He saved the other child, but he can’t focus on that success. He is obsessed with his failure. And its consequences on the child’s mother.
“He has a good heart,” he continued softly. “Maybe too good of a heart. But this was the final straw for him. The only reason I can think of that Charles would go to Lucien is because he can’t cope with our lifestyle any longer. He wants to die. If he puts himself in their hands, all he has to do is ask them to kill him and burn his body. And they’d be all too happy to comply.”
“He’s committing suicide?” I stopped walking, horrified by the thought of Charles delivering himself to his death.
“That’s what it looks like.” Vincent took my arm and pulled me forward. We were almost there.
“If Lucien is a vicious killer, then . . . what about Georgia?” Charles’s story was heartbreaking, but all I could think about at the moment was the danger my sister could be in.
“What’s their relationship?” Vincent asked.
“It seems like they’re kind of dating.”
“Do you think it’s serious?”
“Georgia doesn’t do serious.”
Vincent thought about it. “Lucien is always surrounded by women, and he would have no reason to kill someone like Georgia. If she doesn’t let herself get sucked into his clan and their activities, then the worst she probably risks is getting used and dumped by him.”
Well, that’s comforting, I thought, not at all comforted. She’s swapping spit with a homicidal maniac, but if she doesn’t get too involved, she should be fine. Although I was still frightened, Vincent’s words had made me feel less panicky. It was true: Georgia never got too involved in anyone besides herself.
We arrived at Jean-Baptiste’s gate. Vincent took my hand in his. “Listen. I’m sorry if I’ve messed up things between your sister and your grandparents tonight. But I couldn’t just sit there and say nothing after hearing her mention that . . . monster.”
“No, you were right. And it didn’t matter where you said it, in front of everyone or one-on-one: Georgia would have had the same reaction.”
“You’ve got to talk to her,” he urged. “Even if things don’t go too far with Lucien, she’s hanging out with some dangerous people.”
I nodded at him. “I’ll do my best.”
Danger was constantly lurking in the shadows for Vincent and his kindred. But now that one of my family members was at risk, it seemed much more real. It made me feel closer to him. We now had a common foe. But I hoped that Georgia would listen to me and remove herself from that danger.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked.
“I’m going to get the others and start hunting Lucien down.” Vincent’s voice shifted an octave lower and his eyes blazed with anger. He looked lethal.
“You’re going to be careful, right?” I asked, fear gripping me as I realized what this could mean.
“I would take him out tonight if I could. But there’s a reason I haven’t been able to destroy him yet. If he doesn’t want to be found, we’re not going to find him. The cards are in his hands.”
Then, seeing my expression, some of the steeliness went out of his features. “Don’t worry, Kate. Try to come over after school tomorrow if you can.”
“Are you still going to be alive tomorrow after school?”
“Yes,” he said with his lips. But his eyes were telling a different story. He would do anything to destroy this enemy. It was clear that his own safety wasn’t his priority.
“I’m sorry I have to leave you like this,” Vincent said, drawing me to him and brushing his lips against mine. Every point of contact with his body seemed to trigger a shower of fiery sparks inside me. Is danger an aphrodisiac? I wondered. I’d rather him be safe than have a Fourth of July celebration in my nerve endings. But since I didn’t have a say, I grabbed him tighter and responded to his kiss.
Too soon, he pulled away. “I have to go.”
“I know. Good night, Vincent. Please be safe.”
“Good night, mon ange.”
I knocked softly on Georgia’s bedroom door. It opened violently a second later, and my sister stood there looking like a Fury. “What the hell was that about?” she raged, slamming the door shut behind me.
I perched on the edge of her bed while she threw herself belly-down onto a fluffy white rug in the middle of her floor and stared at me.
“I’m sorry Vincent embarrassed you in front of Papy and Mamie. But from what he’s told me, Lucien does sound like really bad news.”
Georgia almost spit her reply. “Oh yeah? What exactly does he say?”
“He said that Lucien’s kind of in a . . . Mafia type of organization.” I tried to remember how Vincent had described the numa that night in the Marais restaurant. “And that his colleagues are involved in all sorts of illegal dealings.”
“Like what?”
“Prostitution, drugs—”
“Oh, give me a break!” Georgia rolled her eyes. “You’ve seen Lucien. He’s an entrepreneur. He’s got bars and clubs all over France. Why in the world would he even need to be involved in stuff like that?” She looked at me with distaste.
“I really don’t think Vincent would make that up,” I replied.
“Yeah?” she asked bitterly. “How’s he know him?”
“He doesn’t,” I lied. The last thing I wanted to do was to make some sort of link between Vincent and Lucien with Georgia and me in the middle. “He just knows his reputation.”
I paused, weighing how far I should go. “He said there’s even talk of Lucien’s associates being involved in murders.”
Georgia looked shocked for a moment, and then shook her head. “I’m sure that in the world that Lucien moves in, there have got to be some shady dealings. It must go with the territory. But to suggest that he could work with murderers . . . I’m sorry, I just don’t believe it.”
