Until I Die

TWENTY-FOUR



THE TWO WEEKS THAT HAD PASSED SINCE I HAD last been to Le Corbeau had seemed to stretch on forever. But finally it was Tuesday, and I was ready to dart out of my last class to go directly to the relic shop.

So when I walked out of the school’s front gate and saw Jules waiting for me, I felt like someone had just taken my wrists and slapped a pair of handcuffs on them. “Jules,” I said with undisguised disappointment, “what are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you, too, Kate,” Jules said, obviously amused. “Your boyfriend has asked me to be your bodyguard this afternoon.”

“He what?” I exclaimed.

Jules moved forward to kiss my cheeks, and I leaned backward so he couldn’t reach me, which made him laugh outright. “Hey—don’t blame this on me!” he said, backing away with his hands up in the universal “I surrender” gesture. “Vincent gets to handle the dangerous missions while I guard the damsel in distress.”

“I am so not distressed. But I did have something I wanted to do … on my own.” And then his words sunk in. “What dangerous mission?” I asked, searching his face.

“Ah! I finally get your undivided attention.” He grinned. “Could I tell you more once we are in the car and out of the bus lane?” Jules motioned to the BMW, which was parked illegally a few yards away. I saw a bus approaching, flashing its lights for him to move, and hurried to jump in before the bus driver could make a scene.

“Are we waiting for the ever-effervescent Georgia?” Jules asked as he slid behind the wheel and put the car in gear.

“No, she’s got drama club till six,” I answered absently, my mind on what Vincent could be doing.

I waited until he was off and said, “Okay. I’m in the car. Now spill!”

As we drove, Jules told me that the revenants who were house-sitting for Geneviève had called Jean-Baptiste that morning to inform him of a break-in. While they had been out, someone had entered the house and turned the rooms upside down. The door had been forced, the lock broken. But nothing seemed to be missing. Jean-Baptiste and Vincent had gone to investigate.

“And all that means I get a guard because …”

“Because everyone is wondering if this means the numa are back on the move, so Vincent was worried about you. And since JB insisted on him going along to Geneviève’s, I volunteered to pick you up,” Jules said with a satisfied smile, keeping his eyes on the road. “So where is this thing you wanted to do? I’ll take you.”

“It was a private errand. But I’ll do that another time,” I sighed. My stomach twisted with anxiety as I wondered when I’d have another opportunity to visit the shop. “So, how about you take me to Vincent?”

“How about I take you to my studio? Much less dangerous. Plus, I need a model and you could sit for me.”

“You want me to sit for a portrait?” I asked, stunned.

“Actually, at the moment I’m concentrating on full-length reclining nudes, in the spirit of Modigliani,” he said. He was making an effort to keep a straight face.

“If you think for even a second that I’m going to take off my clothes in front of you, Jules …,” I began.

He burst out laughing, slapping the steering wheel with his hand. “Just kidding, Kates. You’re a lady. I wouldn’t ask you to compromise your purity like one of my paid models—a bunch of low-heeled strumpets, the lot of them!”

After I’d seen a half-dressed model posing in Jules’s studio, Vincent had told me that the girls were usually university students needing cash for their school expenses. A far cry from “low-heeled strumpets.” Jules was trying the guilt-trip method of attack. And it was working.

“Okay, I’ll pose for you,” I conceded. “But under no circumstances will any article of clothing leave my body while I am in your studio.”

“And if you’re elsewhere?” he asked, breaking into a sly smile.

I rolled my eyes as we drove over the bridge and the Eiffel Tower came into view.



I inhaled deeply as we walked into his studio, taking in one of my favorite odors—the smell of wet oil paint. I had breathed in that same air since I was a small child, whenever I visited my grandmother’s restoration studio. In my mind the smell was indelibly associated with beauty. My eyes followed my nose expectantly, knowing that a reward must be right around the corner.

And what a reward! The walls of Jules’s studio were filled with color. Primary-hued geometric cityscapes and nudes painted in luscious pinks and flesh tones. My brain shifted into art mode. Surrounded by all that beauty, I felt whole. Fulfilled. Like a light had been switched on inside me, illuminating all my mind’s dark, musty corners.

My reverie was interrupted by a crashing sound from the next room. Jules rushed past me before I could even react, having grabbed a sword from an umbrella stand, and hurled himself through the doorway. I heard a howl and, by way of the connecting door, saw a man leap into the air.

Time stopped as I watched him suspended in space, unable to believe what I was seeing, before I was jolted back to reality by an earsplitting crash as his body hit the large plate-glass window and disappeared outside. I ran to the now-jagged opening, my shoes crunching splintered glass beneath them, and saw the man land on his feet on the cobblestone pavement two floors below. Unshaken by the fall, he brushed himself off and then, holding his hands to his torso to staunch the flow of blood from a wound, he ran across the courtyard and out onto the street.

I spun to see Jules standing with a bloody sword in hand, staring at the broken window. Next to him, a small desk was covered in art books and gallery brochures, which were strewn as if someone had thrown them all up in the air and let them land where they would. The desk drawer lay on the floor, empty.

“Did he … ?” Jules began, unable to finish his question.

I nodded. “He landed on his feet and ran off. But I think you got him,” I said encouragingly. “He was holding his side when he ran away.”

“What was a numa doing in my studio?” Jules murmured, looking shell-shocked. “And how the hell did he get in? The window and the door both have top-quality locks.”

Amid the glass shards, I spied a glint of metal. Picking my way carefully toward it, I bent to fish out a tiny silver set of tools strung on a chain. They looked exactly like the type of thing that could pick a door lock. I held them up for Jules to see. As he stared, his face turned a strange shade of purple. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit speed-dial.

“Vince? Yeah, she’s here. Just listen! They came here, too—to my studio…. Only one—he got away. No, she’s fine. Yes, I’m sure.” Jules passed me the phone.

“Kate, are you okay?” Vincent was speaking in the controlled tone he used when he was hiding panic.

“I’m fine. The guy didn’t even notice me. Jules went straight for him and he jumped through the window.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“There’s no reason, Vincent. We’re both okay. Finish what you’re doing—I’m going to see you tonight anyway.”

“We have to come. See if we can figure out what he was looking for. We’re probably only twenty minutes by cab, so just stay put. I have to see you to believe that you’re safe. Could you give the phone back to Jules?”

Jules listened as Vincent spoke for a moment, and then, putting the phone back in his pocket and shaking himself out of his stupor, he looked up at me as if he had finally noticed that I was there. Dropping the sword to the floor, he strode over and took my shoulders in his hands, gripping me a little too hard. “Kate, you’re fine? You didn’t get cut anywhere?” He searched my face.

I was so stunned by his intensity that I couldn’t speak. Jules was always joking around me, teasing me, but now his wide eyes held my own transfixed, and his expression couldn’t be more serious. I shook my head and managed to utter, “I’m not hurt.”

He exhaled as he registered the fact that I hadn’t been touched and, grasping me to himself, hugged me so hard I couldn’t breathe. After a few seconds, his grip loosened, but he didn’t let go until I finally moved, pulling back gently as I said his name.

His hands dropped to his sides, but he stayed—his face inches away from my own and his warm breath soft on my skin—for what seemed like forever. Then, abruptly, he turned and strode out of the studio. I heard his feet on the wooden stairway, and watched out the gaping hole of the window as he crossed the courtyard and stood motionless by the stone doorway to the street, waiting there for the others to arrive.