stately apartment buildings are grouped around a small park.
She walks up to one, and while opening the door, turns and casts a quick look behind her. Vincent and I duck our heads down and walk straight up the rue du Bac without her seeing our faces.
But I saw hers. And her expression is one I recognize—I’ve seen it many times during my existence. Especially in the line of “work” I’m in. The girl is suffering from terrible grief.
Vincent and I lock eyes, and I tip my head left. Toward home. He understands and we walk to the end of the block, turning eastward toward La Maison. It’s not like we can read each other’s minds. But when you’re best friends with someone for over half a century, you start to recognize their every gesture. We’re like an old couple. Words are almost unnecessary.
We walk for a while in silence, keeping an eye out for anything amiss. Ambrose doesn’t spot any activity at all in the neighborhood and is singing a Louis Armstrong song directly into my brain, probably to piss me off. “Who is the lucky lady tonight?” Vincent asks as he taps the code into our security panel. The gate swings slowly open.
“Quintana,” I respond.
“From?”
“New York, upstate somewhere. Over here doing an art degree.”
“Blond?” he asks.
“Negative,” I respond. “Dark hair with blue tips. Alternative chic.”
“Sounds like your type,” he jokes. We both know I don’t have a type. “Female” is my type.
Like I said. We’re an old couple—we need few words. But we couldn’t be more different. Vincent stopped dating decades ago, not that he had been much into it before. “What’s the point?” he had said. This was around 1980, and that year’s bouquet of Parisiennes was breathtaking.
“What’s the point ?” I exclaimed. “They’re beautiful. And soft. And they smell good. What do you mean, ‘what’s the point’?”
“We can only go so far, and then we have to disappear from their lives. It’s not worth it if we can’t even get close,” he sighed.
“Excuse me, but I make a regular habit of ‘getting close’!”
“I don’t mean like that,” he responded. “I’m talking emotional intimacy. And why risk exposure of our entire kindred for a girl you’re only going to spend a few nights with?” His expression was flat. Uncaring. But I knew there was an ocean of pain bottled inside him.
“Man, no one will ever compare to Hélène. It’s been seventy years since you saw her murdered by those Nazis and you’re still hanging on. You’ve just got to accept that your first love is your greatest, and everything else is going to be second-best. But second-best is better than nothing at all.”
My arguments fall on deaf ears with Vincent. If he won’t amuse himself with humans, the only other choice is to go revenant. And we know pretty much all of the female members of our kindred in France. They’re like sisters to us. Revenants do occasionally fall for one another. It happens. But it just hasn’t happened to Vincent or me. And until the next global convocation, we probably won’t meet any new bardia beauties.
Which is A-OK with me. Why settle for one girl if you can have a lot? It’s a good motto, I find. Works for drinks, friends, and women. Not so much for enemies. But our situation in France is stable. Similar number of numa and bardia. The balance of good and evil has reached an equilibrium in the past few years.
Which means I’ve got time to play.
TWO
“SAD GIRL AT TWO O’CLOCK.”
I look in the direction Ambrose nods, and see the girl sitting on the bench, hugging her knees and watching the water.
“How many times does that make this week?” I ask.
“Well, we saw her last Wednesday when you and Vin were acting like babies about the cold spell. Two nights later she was back. Nothing for a day, then three days in a row. This is the sixth time we’ve seen her in two weeks,” Ambrose calculates.
“And we’ve never seen her in the
She walks up to one, and while opening the door, turns and casts a quick look behind her. Vincent and I duck our heads down and walk straight up the rue du Bac without her seeing our faces.
But I saw hers. And her expression is one I recognize—I’ve seen it many times during my existence. Especially in the line of “work” I’m in. The girl is suffering from terrible grief.
Vincent and I lock eyes, and I tip my head left. Toward home. He understands and we walk to the end of the block, turning eastward toward La Maison. It’s not like we can read each other’s minds. But when you’re best friends with someone for over half a century, you start to recognize their every gesture. We’re like an old couple. Words are almost unnecessary.
We walk for a while in silence, keeping an eye out for anything amiss. Ambrose doesn’t spot any activity at all in the neighborhood and is singing a Louis Armstrong song directly into my brain, probably to piss me off. “Who is the lucky lady tonight?” Vincent asks as he taps the code into our security panel. The gate swings slowly open.
“Quintana,” I respond.
“From?”
“New York, upstate somewhere. Over here doing an art degree.”
“Blond?” he asks.
“Negative,” I respond. “Dark hair with blue tips. Alternative chic.”
“Sounds like your type,” he jokes. We both know I don’t have a type. “Female” is my type.
Like I said. We’re an old couple—we need few words. But we couldn’t be more different. Vincent stopped dating decades ago, not that he had been much into it before. “What’s the point?” he had said. This was around 1980, and that year’s bouquet of Parisiennes was breathtaking.
“What’s the point ?” I exclaimed. “They’re beautiful. And soft. And they smell good. What do you mean, ‘what’s the point’?”
“We can only go so far, and then we have to disappear from their lives. It’s not worth it if we can’t even get close,” he sighed.
“Excuse me, but I make a regular habit of ‘getting close’!”
“I don’t mean like that,” he responded. “I’m talking emotional intimacy. And why risk exposure of our entire kindred for a girl you’re only going to spend a few nights with?” His expression was flat. Uncaring. But I knew there was an ocean of pain bottled inside him.
“Man, no one will ever compare to Hélène. It’s been seventy years since you saw her murdered by those Nazis and you’re still hanging on. You’ve just got to accept that your first love is your greatest, and everything else is going to be second-best. But second-best is better than nothing at all.”
My arguments fall on deaf ears with Vincent. If he won’t amuse himself with humans, the only other choice is to go revenant. And we know pretty much all of the female members of our kindred in France. They’re like sisters to us. Revenants do occasionally fall for one another. It happens. But it just hasn’t happened to Vincent or me. And until the next global convocation, we probably won’t meet any new bardia beauties.
Which is A-OK with me. Why settle for one girl if you can have a lot? It’s a good motto, I find. Works for drinks, friends, and women. Not so much for enemies. But our situation in France is stable. Similar number of numa and bardia. The balance of good and evil has reached an equilibrium in the past few years.
Which means I’ve got time to play.
TWO
“SAD GIRL AT TWO O’CLOCK.”
I look in the direction Ambrose nods, and see the girl sitting on the bench, hugging her knees and watching the water.
“How many times does that make this week?” I ask.
“Well, we saw her last Wednesday when you and Vin were acting like babies about the cold spell. Two nights later she was back. Nothing for a day, then three days in a row. This is the sixth time we’ve seen her in two weeks,” Ambrose calculates.
“And we’ve never seen her in the
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