“Ambrose and Henri are here for my safety as much as for yours,” Vincent reassured me. “Tonight might be the moment the numa finally decide to attack. It would make tactical sense, with most of Paris’s revenants grouped together in one building. But even if they don’t, there are enough drunk weirdos wandering around on New Year’s Eve to make things interesting.” Vincent smiled his crooked smile and pressed a button next to the gate.
The automatic lights flicked on, and I looked up and waved at the security camera. If anyone ever bothered to look at the video, they would see me wearing an evening dress worthy of a red carpet, accompanied by two handsome men in tuxedos. Not bad, I thought, for a girl who never had a real date until a few months ago!
The moon was like a spotlight, casting molten silver onto the leaves of the ancient trees lining Paris’s streets. Couples in formal dresses and suits made their way home from their own celebrations, giving the town a festive, holiday feel. The mouth-watering smell of baking pastry dough wafted from a boulangerie whose pastry chef was conscientious enough to stick to his early-morning baking hours on a holiday. Danger was the very last thing on my mind as I squeezed Vincent’s arm.
But a couple of blocks from my house, the casual manner of my companions suddenly changed. I glanced around, failing to notice anything dubious, but both were on the alert. “What is it?” I asked, watching Vincent’s features harden.
“Henri’s not sure. Numa would be heading straight for us, but these guys are acting weird,” he said, exchanging a glance with Ambrose. They immediately picked up the pace. We jogged across the avenue, my high heels making me decisively more wobbly than my usual Converses would have. As we headed down a side street toward my grandparents’ building, I wondered what would happen if we were set upon by the revenants’ enemies.
“Numa wouldn’t do anything in public, would they?” I asked breathlessly, yet remembering how a couple of them had stabbed Ambrose outside a restaurant a few months earlier.
“We never fight in front of humans . . . if we can help it,” said Ambrose. “Neither do the numa. Our secret status would be a bit compromised if we started pulling out battle-axes left and right in front of mortal witnesses.”
“But why? It’s not like people are going to hunt you down and destroy you.”
“The human radar isn’t the only one we want to stay off,” he continued, one of his long strides matching two of my own. “Like I said, there are others—and no, I’m not going into a discussion of which supernaturals actually exist outside of fantasy novels. We all have our own code of honor, you know.”
“Henri says that whatever they are, they’re headed this way,” Vincent said, his grave tone erasing all further questions from my mind.
We sprinted the last few yards to my front door, and I speed-typed my digicode as if all our lives depended on how fast my fingers could fly. Vincent and Ambrose stood behind me like overdressed bodyguards, their hands on the hilts of whatever weapons they wore beneath their coats.
As the security lock released and I pushed the front door open, the noise of a speeding car came from the direction of the avenue. Headlights lit up the dark street, as the three of us turned to face the oncoming vehicle.
With radio blasting, an Audi full of teenagers pulled up in front of us. The door opened to allow a guy and a girl to spill from the passenger seat. The four partygoers sitting in the back let out a whoop as my sister picked herself up from the sidewalk and made a dramatic bow. “Good night, y’all,” she drawled in her best Southern belle impression.
The boy on whose lap she had been balancing stood, brushed himself off, and gave her a peck on the lips. “Door-to-door service. Only the best for Georgia,” he said, and leapt back into the car. “Bonne année! Happy New Year!” rang a chorus of voices as they sped out of sight.
Ambrose and Vincent let their coats drop back down over their weapons, so Georgia didn’t even notice our heightened state of alert.
“Hi, Vincent! And hello, Ambrose, you handsome thing,” she cooed, striding over to us in her short, lacy dress. Her pixie-cut strawberry blond hair was gelled into a dramatic style, feathering down around her freckle-dusted skin. “Just get a look at you boys in black tie. If only the Chippendale dancers we ordered for the party had been as handsome as you, then it might not have been a complete disaster.”
She glanced at her watch and gasped in horror. “It’s not even one thirty in the morning and I’m already home! How humiliating! Why the police think they have the right to close down a party for being too noisy on New Year’s Eve, I will never understand. This was the lamest night ever!”
She looked at where I was half-hidden behind the door. “Kate, what in the world are you doing?” Without waiting for an answer, she smiled her most dazzling smile at the boys, and then, giving my arm an affectionate squeeze, brushed past me into the building’s foyer.
“Is it just me, or is she in Georgia Overdrive?” chuckled Vincent.