WHEN ARTHUR’S TEXT FINALLY CAME, WE MADE our way carefully out of the bunker and up some nearby stairs. Bran directed me to push open a wooden trapdoor at the top, and we emerged through the floor of a mausoleum, where above-ground marble tombs dominated the small room.
“This is so Buffy it’s not even funny,” Georgia said, supporting Bran as I waved curtains of cobwebs out of the way so that we could exit into the graveyard. Ambrose was waiting by the gate. As soon as he saw us, he sprinted over and hoisted Bran up in his arms. “Hurry it up,” he said. “It’s like numa central around here!”
He bundled Bran into the back of the car, and Georgia and I packed in on either side. As soon as Ambrose was in the passenger seat, Arthur sped off. “Perfect timing,” he said, peering into his rearview mirror. I turned to see a squad of numa round the corner of the cemetery wall and push open the gate we had come through just seconds before.
“Looks like our Evil Empress has got half of Paris’s numa trailing her as security,” Ambrose commented drily. “We sent Henri and some others to your shop, right after we talked to Kate,” he said, eyeing Bran. “But there was no sign of them. The door to the sewers had been smashed through so they could still be down there, weaving their way through toilet-level Paris looking for you.”
He shifted in his seat to shoot me an annoyed look. “And who do you think you are? Wonder Woman?”
“I would say Kate’s more Catwoman,” Georgia commented. “Much cooler. Less derivative.”
Ambrose ignored her. “What possessed you to go wandering off after I left you three messages to stay put since Violette and her numa were spotted heading toward Paris? Since when does ‘Stay in your house’ mean go directly to the location where your enemy is most likely to go?”
“I didn’t get your messages,” I admitted sheepishly. “I left my phone at home.”
He sighed deeply and shook his head in despair. “Gonna get you a cell phone holder that I can chain to your wrist. Vincent would kill me if he knew I let you anywhere near Violette.”
“Um . . . Vincent knows,” I said.
“What?” everyone exclaimed at once, except for Bran, who asked, “Who is Vincent?”
“The one I talked to you about on the phone last week,” I replied.
“The one suspected of being the Victor?” he asked.
I nodded, and then said to the others, “He talked to me when we were standing outside Bran’s cellar door.”
“What did he say?” Arthur asked, making a sharp turn to avoid a red light.
“He said he was bound to Violette. And that she had come looking for Bran because the power transfer hadn’t worked.”
“Well, that clears up why the brutes detained me,” Bran said. “Although after killing my mother, I don’t see why they’d expect me to volunteer to help them.”
“Um, I’m guessing that’s the reason they beat you up,” Georgia pointed out helpfully. “The whole point of coercion is that it doesn’t require volunteers.”
“Regardless, they would never have gotten it out of me,” Bran insisted stubbornly, and then wincing from some unseen injury, laid his head back on the seat and closed his eyes.
“Good man.” Ambrose leaned over the seat and patted Bran reassuringly on the knee before turning to Arthur. “Dude, can’t you drive this thing any faster?” he urged in a low voice. “Skeletor back there is fading fast.”
I watched Bran for a moment, wanting to ask him about Vincent—to see if he knew anything about disembodied spirits. His mother had mentioned family records when I had asked her to help Vincent resist dying. She had told me her line of healers knew some of the revenants’ secrets, and she would check their accounts to see if she could help us. I wondered if Bran knew everything his mother had. But seeing his exhaustion and battered face, I knew this wasn’t the time to ask.
In a record ten minutes we were entering the gate at La Maison, where a welcoming committee waited by the front door. Jean-Baptiste and Gaspard stood on either side of a concerned-looking Jeanne, who made a rush for the car as we pulled up.
Georgia and I helped shift Bran out, then followed as Arthur and Ambrose supported him, his arms propped around their shoulders. They got him to the front door, where Jean-Baptiste waited. “I’ll be fine,” Bran reassured his bodyguards, and they carefully set him down as he extended a shaking hand toward JB.
“Bonjour,” he began, but as his fingers touched the revenant leader’s hand, a bright light, like a camera flash, exploded between them, causing everyone around to shield their faces. I blinked several times before the spots began clearing from my vision, and saw that Bran had gone stiff. He let out a deep moan, his head fell forward, and he sank unconscious to the ground.