“Not really,” I respond, my chest still heaving with exertion, and then can’t say anything else because he is wrapping his arms around my shoulders, pulling me to him.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he says. And he takes my face in his hands and kisses me.
It is tender. It is deep. It is my first kiss in my new incarnation . . . since my heart stopped and started again. I am undead, and yet Vincent is kissing me, and my worries that he wouldn’t want me this way—that this would somehow change the way he felt about me—dissipate.
I kiss him back, pushing aside the rest of my fears and doubts and sorrow about what has been lost and abandoning myself to the pleasure of touching him again.
Drawing back from Vincent, I turn to see Charlotte standing nearby with a bow in her hand and a mischievous smile on her face. She’s glowing. Not just in a happy kind of way—the air around her body is actually glowing a golden red, and around her head is the halo of the bardia, “an aura like a forest fire,” as Gwenha?l had put it.
I glance at Vincent. He’s the same: golden haloed and the air around his body shimmers like flames. This is how I see now, I think with amazement, and wonder if I’ll ever get used to seeing my friends glowing and my enemies oozing red mist.
That is . . . if I live long enough. I remember that, though my immediate goal of escape is achieved, we are still in the middle of a numa-bardia war. Violette’s not going to let me dance away from this without wreaking vengeance. She’ll try to get me back, I think with a twinge of anger.
Charlotte pipes up: “Sorry for interrupting you two, but Violette’s boat is long gone and the others are waiting for us back at the cars.”
Vincent nods at her, and then pulls me in to give me one last kiss. He takes off his coat and wraps it around me, and pulls out his phone. He tells someone we’re on our way and instructs them to pick up the bodies of the numa for burning.
Charlotte takes me by the hand. “I know that now’s not the time to talk about this. And you’re going to have all sorts of decisions to make and things to figure out, but . . .” Tears spring to her eyes and she drops her bow and throws her arms around me. “Welcome, kindred.”
FORTY
FOUR VEHICLES AWAIT US AS WE WALK OUT OF the clearing toward the road. One is an ambulance. As we approach, two revenants in paramedic uniforms pull a stretcher out of the back and head into the woods in the direction we came from. “We’re taking ambulances everywhere we go now,” comments Vincent, nodding to them as we pass. “No numa bodies are left behind anymore. We’re trying to clear out the city.”
“How’s that going?” I ask. I know he’s trying to make conversation so as not to have to talk about Things. Whether it’s because he’s not ready, or he thinks I’m not ready, or because there are others around, I’m not sure. But I don’t mind playing along since I’m actually dying to know what happened while I was gone.
“Not well,” he responds. “We ambushed a few of them in JB’s residences, but word spread fast and they evacuated the rest. Now it’s like we’re starting from scratch, with no idea where to look.”
“And violence in the city is getting worse by the day,” Charlotte interjected. “According to JB’s police connections, since Violette left La Maison and became numa chief—full-time, that is—suicides have more than tripled, reports of child abuse and domestic disputes have skyrocketed, and the suburbs are exploding with gang violence. The more numa pour into town, the more incidents of violent crime are reported. We can’t even begin to keep up.”
“And you’ve been spending your time looking for me?” I ask, aghast.
“Of course,” Charlotte says, as if that goes without saying. She walks ahead, leaving Vincent and me alone.
He pauses, staring at the ground for a moment. “You know that Bran identified you as the Champion?”
I nod.
“It makes sense,” he says, his eyes showing concern mixed with something I can’t quite place. Is it fear? He wraps an arm securely around my shoulders as we arrive at the car.
Ambrose and Geneviève leap out and envelop me in a sandwich hug. “You just about scared me out of my wits, Katie-Lou,” Ambrose says.
He leans back and takes a look at me. I glance down and realize how I appear: covered in blood—my own and the numa’s—matted with mud, dark stains on my clothes that even a swim through the river didn’t manage to wash out, a knife slash through my T-shirt. I hold up my hands; where my fingernails don’t already have dried blood crusted beneath, fresh blood oozes.
“Zombie chic,” he concludes. “Only a Champion could pull it off.”
“You better watch out, Ambrose. I might just fry you with my eye beams if you piss me off,” I say.
He eyes me doubtfully. “You can do that?”
“Honestly,” I admit, “I have no idea what I can do.” I force a laugh, and Ambrose squeezes me to him again.