Until I Die (24 page)

“You don't know he's the Champion, Violette,” I challenged, my eyes darting to my sister.
Don't. Drop. Her.
“That
guérisseur
you tracked down didn't even turn out to be the VictorSeer.”

“No, but she had all the information that I needed.” Violette's smile slashed like a knife.

“What?” I gasped. “But . . . she escaped you. Her son told me!”

“Ah, but she came back home,” stated Violette. “Or so my men here were informing me when your sister interrupted our meeting.”

My eyes opened wide in shock. “Gwenhaël. What did you do to her?”

“I, personally, did nothing. But my numa . . . well, it seems they had to go a bit far to get her to talk, and after that there was a little accident.”

“You killed her!” I choked, the air leaving my lungs like a balloon stuck with an iron spike.

“As I said, it wasn't me. My men just got carried away. And, although I hadn't planned things to happen quite like this, because of what she told us I am even happier to see you here, Vincent.”

“What did she tell you?” Vincent asked, his eyes narrowed to slits.

“Why, that you are the Champion.”

“She can't know that. She never laid eyes on me.”

Violette shrugged as if that wasn't important. “The information she gave us as good as verified it.” She shifted the balance of Georgia's body on the guardrail to lighten her load.
Don't. Drop. Her.
My body thrummed with alarm every time Violette so much as breathed.

“After Kate's visit, the
guérisseur
woman did her research. As I suspected, the timing is right. The place is right.” She smirked at me. “I know, Kate, I told you the contrary. But you're so gullible, it was just too tempting.”

“And . . . ,” prompted Vincent.

“And when she told my men this morning that the Champion was the revenant who killed the last numa leader—that would be you killing Lucien, my dear Vincent—well, that clinched it for me. Congratulations. You are the chosen one.”

Vincent raised his hand to his heart. “It just doesn't make sense.” The dark blotches under his eyes stood out against his unnaturally pale skin, and he stumbled a little as he took a step backward. He would be dormant in a couple of days and was looking even worse for being at the end of this month's grueling experiment.

“Look at you,” Violette stated, wrinkling her nose. “Even though your impressive display with the marble sword back there seems to have tired you out a bit, you should in actual fact be dead. Only someone with the strength of the Champion could follow the Dark Way for more than a few weeks. Absorbing all that numa energy should have killed you by now. You've had two forces battling within you: good and evil waging war inside your reanimated body.

“Gaspard was stupid to believe me when I told him it would make you stronger. Now you're weak enough for me to take you on myself. You know the prophecy. If I destroy the Champion, his power will be mine.”

“You're crazy,” I whispered.

Vincent put a slight pressure on my arm and pulled me slowly backward, behind him. “If anyone knows their dark prophecy, it's you, Violette. But even
I
know that if the Champion offers himself freely to his captor, his
full
powers will be transferred. I'll trade myself for the life of the girl, Violette.”

Violette hesitated, her grip on Georgia loosening.

She let him take one step toward her, allowing him to come an arm's length away. “It is written that if the Champion offers himself up to death by his own volition, his power will not be diluted by murder,” she said, greed flaring in her eyes. “You would be willing to face death for these humans?”

“I would,” said Vincent without hesitation.

“No, Vincent!” I cried. “What are you saying?”

Vincent wouldn't look at me. “You're right, Violette. I'm weak enough for you and your men to take. And I'll go with you. Just put the girl down and you have yourself a deal.”

Violette stared at him, weighing his offer.

And before I knew what was happening, a figure raced up on Violette's left. Arthur took advantage of Violette's focus on Vincent to wrench my sister's body from her grasp and pull her away to safety.

“Sorry, Vi. Deal's off,” Vincent said softly, as if consoling a small child.

She screamed and threw herself on Vincent, using her fingernails to scrape long, red lines down either side of his face.

And it was because I was staring at the crimson blood flowing down Vincent's cheek that I didn't see the numa coming.

As the giant man lunged toward me, Vincent turned from Violette and threw himself forward, grabbing the numa in a crippling embrace as the two of them smashed hard against the guardrail. I screamed as the force of the impact bent the rail backward, and locked in each other's arms, they toppled over the leaning barrier and out of sight.

My heart fell with them. It felt like my entire chest had been ripped out, lungs and all. I couldn't breathe as I ran to the guardrail and peered over, desperate for a miracle. Desperate for something from the movies—a branch sticking out that Vincent could grab on to. A ledge conveniently placed just feet below the rim of the precipice.

But this wasn't a movie. It was real life. And by the time I got to the edge, their bodies had already hit the ground, and neither one was moving. “No!” I shrieked, as a man in a fur coat rush into the area below, a couple of others following him closely. Turning, I saw that Violette was gone.

“Arthur, stay with Georgia!” I yelled. I arrived at the bottom in time to see the numa leap inside the back of an awaiting van and slam the doors behind them, and the van sped off. Panicking, I doubled back and ran toward the bottom of the cliff but stopped halfway there. There was nothing to see. The bodies were gone.

VINCENT WAS DEAD AND HIS BODY HAD BEEN
taken by the numa. The realization of what that meant filled me with an immobilizing horror. Normally, he would simply reanimate in three days. But the numa would never allow that to happen.

If they destroyed his body immediately, he would be gone. Forever. However, Violette could do worse. She could wait a day and destroy him once he was volant. Eternity as a wandering spirit, unable to take physical form again—that seemed like an even more horrific fate to me. I had to do something before the numa and their new leader had a chance to act.

I called Ambrose.

“Katie-Lou? You still at Montmartre? Has Vin got there yet?” he asked before I could speak.

“How did you know—” I began.

“Jules was volant at the house when you girls decided to tail Arthur, so he followed you. Once he saw where you were going, he let Vincent know and then came to get me. You guys okay? Hand Vin the phone, will you?”

“Ambrose, Vincent's gone. Violette and a numa killed him and took his body. They've got him, Ambrose!” My voice was starting to sound hysterical. It was all I could do to get the words out.

“What? Violette?” he yelled. “Where did they go?”

“They drove off from the base of the Sacré-Coeur staircase in a white truck. Like a delivery-van-looking thing.”

“How long ago?”

“It's been two minutes, tops.”

“Is Arthur still there?”

“Yeah. He's with Georgia. She's hurt.”

It took him all of three seconds to come up with a plan. “Okay. Arthur will know if Georgia needs a hospital or not. If she doesn't, the three of you get back to Jean-Baptiste's. I'm calling him now. He'll sound the alert for our Paris kindred to begin searching. You just hang in there, Katie-Lou.”

“Thanks, Ambrose.” My voice cracked as I hung up. But I couldn't let myself cry. If I did, I wouldn't be able to stop. And I needed to be strong.

Looking back up the staircase, I saw Arthur making his way down with a fully conscious Georgia, who leaned heavily against him. The handkerchief she held to her mouth was stained poppy red with her blood. I sprinted up the stairs toward them.

“I looked down and couldn't see his body,” Arthur said as soon as I caught up.

“Violette took him. I called Ambrose, and Jean-Baptiste's sending out a search party.” My voice was flat as I tried to rein in my emotion. Just a few more minutes and I could let go, I told myself, and wrapped Georgia's free arm around my shoulders.

“Took who, Katie-Bean?” Georgia slurred as she shifted some of her weight onto me. She had been knocked unconscious before Vincent arrived and had seen none of it. I didn't feel like explaining. Not yet.

“Should Georgia be moving?” I asked Arthur.

“She's injured, but I don't think any bones are broken. Some tourists at the top got a good look at her. I think it's better if we get away before someone calls the police.”

We made our way to the bottom of the stairway and onto the street, where we slipped into a cab that had just dropped off a group of black-habited nuns. I glanced up at the basilica. Two policemen were standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at us as people pointed in our direction. I closed my eyes in relief as the taxi pulled away. The last thing we needed was to be stopped for questioning.

Vincent's gone.
The thought raced through my mind and turned my body numb.
No. Don't think about it. Hold yourself together, or you won't be of any help.

I squeezed Georgia's hand as she leaned her head on my shoulder. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Very sore,” she said. “The inside of my mouth's bleeding where that bitch from hell kicked a tooth loose.”

I glanced at Arthur. “Ambrose said if she doesn't need a hospital, get her home to Jean-Baptiste's.”

“That's where we're going,” he confirmed.

“Um . . . I don't think so! I'm banned from even entering,” Georgia exclaimed.

“I'm not giving you a choice,” Arthur said firmly. “I'll call a doctor to meet us there. Better to get you private medical care than to take you to a hospital. And we can get some ice on your face right away instead of having to wait in a crowded emergency room.”

He reached over and laid his hand against her arm. Georgia immediately relaxed, resting her head against the back of the seat. “Don't think I don't know what you're doing, Mr. Tranquilizing Superpowers.”

The edges of Arthur's mouth curled up. It was the first smile I had seen on his face since the time Georgia had called him geriatric in the café. “Would you like me to stop?” he asked.

“Hell, no,” she replied. “Feels great. I just didn't want you to think you were pulling one over on me.”

His eyes flitted from my sister's face to my own, and the smile left his lips.

“I thought it was you,” I said numbly.

“I don't blame you,” he replied.

We just stared at each other, unspeaking, until I sank back in the seat, testing my painful shoulder and closing my eyes as the horror of the last half hour settled over me.

“What's wrong?” Georgia asked.

I exhaled deeply. “Oh, Gigi,” I said, using my pet name for my sister from when we were small children. “While you were knocked out, Vincent came. He and Arthur saved you, but the numa . . . they killed him. And then took off with his body.”

I was able to control myself for exactly one more second before I burst out crying.

“Oh, Katie-Bean.” She pulled away from Arthur and wrapped her arms around me. “Oh, my poor Katie,” she said, her voice wavering as her own tears began to fall.

And as the taxi drifted through the quiet Paris streets, my sister and I sat locked in each other's arms and wept.

The doctor was waiting for us when we arrived at Jean-Baptiste's. Arthur helped Georgia into the sitting room and then left, closing the door behind him. The man asked Georgia a lot of questions about what happened and how long she was unconscious, shined a light in her eye, and finally declared her healthy. He suggested she see a dentist for the loose tooth, and then gave her some instant cold compresses to put on her jaw and a box of painkillers.

My painful shoulder turned out to be a cracked collarbone. The doctor wrapped my chest and shoulders in an Ace bandage and told me to put an ice pack on it to reduce swelling. “You should both rest,” he told us.

Yeah, right
, I thought. As soon as I got Georgia home I was going to look for Vincent.

As I led the doctor to the front door, Arthur reappeared with an envelope. He handed it to the man, shook his hand, then pointed him to the front gate.

Turning to me, he seemed to be struggling as his face began to lose its aristocratic coldness. This minor transformation suddenly made him feel like a real person for once, instead of a statue from a wax museum.

“Kate,” he said, “I'm so sorry for what has happened. I should have done more to stop it. But Violette . . . she's gone through these strange phases before, and I thought I would be able to bring her around. I had no idea what she was up to.”

“If you even knew she was communicating with the numa, why didn't you say something about it? You put everyone in danger by staying silent,” I said, feeling a simmering fury at the pit of my stomach. If he had done something before, none of this would have happened.

“Everyone knew Violette had distant ties with the numa. And they all depended on that to get the information they needed. But no one, including me, knew exactly what she was doing.

“When she began communicating with Nicolas, I thought she was using him to get closer to Paris's numa. So she could taunt them. Flirt with them in a way before we dug in to destroy them. In the past she has enjoyed toying with our enemies before killing them. But when Vincent told me the numa knew how Lucien was slain, I began to suspect she had—unwittingly—given the information away. I never once imagined she was working in conjunction with them.”

I stared at him. He and Violette had been together for centuries. How could he have not known what she was up to? But his actions back at Montmartre, as well as the tortured look on his face as he watched me, convinced me that he was telling me the truth.

I looked up to see Jean-Baptiste making his way down the double staircase. His usual rigid-as-a-general posture had crumpled as he strode slowly across the hall toward me. I knew Vincent was his favorite. His second. That he thought of him as a son. He paused in front of me, and then, in a gesture that was so uncharacteristic of him that I did my best not to wince when my shoulder touched his, he solemnly took me in his arms.

“I'm sorry,” was all he said.

Those two words put the fear of God in me. This was Jean-Baptiste. And he was offering no long-winded speech about how we would get Vincent back. No encouragement about which options should be considered. Nothing except those two words—which might as well have been “No. Hope.” Because that's essentially what he was saying.