“I definitely got some—I felt it. Look, I filed these down to the nub this morning.” Charlotte holds her hands out, displaying nails that have already grown past her fingertips. “But I didn’t get the full surge—just a bit. Some of her energy definitely went to him.”
“Crap,” I say. “Whatever mystical forces created revenants, they sure complicated things by making us obsess over the people we save. That’s all Vincent needs. Even more of an urge to follow her around.”
Just then I feel a presence enter the room. Only one of us is volant this week, so I know exactly who it is. “Vince, man, you are so exceedingly stupid,” I say.
What was I supposed to do . . . let her die? he responds.
“Of course not,” I concede. “But you know what this means. You’re playing with fire, man. And I don’t want to be around when you come home with third-degree burns.”
I know what I’m doing, he insists.
“Like hell you do,” I say. I want to shake him and remind him of how much Charles suffered the time he fell in love with a human. But Charles is standing right there probably thinking the same thing, so I just grab my coat and leave to go to the one place where I am completely in control: I go to my studio and lose myself in my painting.
FOUR
AH, THE MARAIS. MY FAVORITE NEIGHBORHOOD in Paris. The vestiges of history within its two arrondissements span everything from the remains of a Roman wall to ultra-modern art galleries. Whenever someone proposes walking the Marais, they know I’m in.
So when a volant Ambrose mentions patrolling from the river to rue Saint-Denis, I jump at the chance. It’s easy to talk Vincent into coming along because he’s still mooning about meeting the American girl two days ago. I know, because every time he thinks about her he gets this stupid grin on his face, and he’s got it right now.
We start off at my gallery, where I show Vince and Ambrose some new figure drawings I’m working on, then zigzag down rue des Rosiers through the Jewish district, up rue Vieille du Temple past all of the trendy stores, restaurants, and bars, onto the rue des Francs-Bourgeois with its beautiful sixteenth-century mansions, punctuated by rows of fashion and cosmetic shops.
We head north toward some shadier neighborhoods, specifically the rue Saint-Denis, where our enemies are involved in the thriving prostitution and strip-show businesses. And just as we’re passing the Picasso Museum, Vincent says, “Sorry, not interested.”
“What’s Ambrose want?” I ask.
I was just suggesting to Vin that we pop into the museum for a little lesson in Cubism, he says.
Normally I would pass. I’ve seen every painting in there a million times. I saw several of them before their paint was even dry, since Pablo’s studio was down the hall from mine at the Bateau-Lavoir. But I have been thinking about the linear quality of one of his early self-portraits lately—which has suspicious similarities to one of my own works from that year. And truth be told, I wouldn’t mind inspecting it up close.
Within minutes we are inside the museum, standing in front of one of Pablo’s Analytical Cubist café-table-with-newspaper-and-bottle still lifes.
“It just looks like one big mess to me,” says Ambrose.
“No, see, he takes each individual item—the newspaper, the bottle, the glass”—I point each one out—“flattens them, and then rearranges those two-dimensional forms on the canvas. It’s genius, really, but the point is it wasn’t his idea. It was Braque’s. And the two of them got into this how-Cubist-can-we-get? competition until you’ve got canvases full of barely recognizable splinters of objects. But did Pablo give Georges credit for coming up with the idea in the first place? Of course not. Because he was a narcissistic megalomaniac.”
“Don’t look,” says Vincent.
“What do you mean, don’t look? The more you look the more you’ll see how I’m totally right and . . .”
“No, don’t look behind us,” he says.
So of course I do. And there she is: Not-Quite-As-Sad Girl, sitting there spaced out in front of one of Pablo’s abstracts. I can’t believe it.
No, actually, I can. “What an incredible coincidence, Ambrose,” I murmur, “that at the same moment you propose a lesson in Cubism, Vincent’s obsession is sitting right here in the Picasso Museum. Nice one.”
I hear Ambrose chuckle, and know he set the whole thing up. “This is not being helpful, Ambrose,” I growl. “It’s being hurtful.”
Vincent doesn’t seem to think so, he replies.
I turn to Vincent. “Don’t go talk to her. I’m warning you. This is the last thing you need. You’re too into her to make it a one-night stand, and having a mortal girlfriend is the worst thing that you could do. Just pretend you didn’t see her, and let’s walk. Look, she’s looking down. She won’t even see you.”
Vincent just stands there like he’s hypnotized or something.