Until I Die

THREE



ONE OF THE BALLROOM WINDOWS SWUNG OPEN, and Vincent leaned out looking like an old-fashioned movie star in his vintage tuxedo. “Ladies, it’s almost midnight. And I, for one, hoped not to have to resort to kissing Gaspard when the clock strikes twelve.” He grinned and looked over his shoulder at the older man, who rolled his eyes and shook his head in despair.

Violette, Charlotte, and I made our way back to the room just as the guests began the New Year’s countdown. The air practically crackled with excitement. Considering how many times some of these people had celebrated New Year’s Eve, I found it intriguing that they hadn’t tired of it long ago. Humans saw it as the beginning of a fresh new year: one of only several dozen that fate would allot them. But with revenants’ unlimited number of fresh new beginnings, it was curious that they would treat this as a special day.

Vincent was waiting for me by the door and swept me into his arms as the counting continued. “So what do you think of our first New Year’s Eve together?” he asked, looking at me like I was his own personal miracle. Which, funnily, was exactly how I felt about him.

“I’ve had so many firsts lately, it feels like I swapped my old life for a brand-new one,” I said.

“Is that a good thing?”

In response, as the counting reached “one,” I pulled his head to mine and he wrapped me tightly in his arms. Our lips met, and as we kissed something inside me pulled and tugged until I felt my heart was going to burst. With a drowsy, eyes-half-closed smile, Vincent whispered, “Kate. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Well, I’m here because of you,” I whispered.

He looked at me quizzically.

“You saved me from my darkest place.”

I wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened if I hadn’t met Vincent and emerged from the prison of crippling grief that I’d been locked inside after my parents’ fatal car crash. I would probably still be curled up in a fetal position on my bed at my grandparents’ house if he hadn’t been there to show me that there was a very good reason to go on living. That life could be beautiful again.

“You saved yourself,” he murmured. “I was just there to lend a hand.”

He swooped me up into an eternal hug. I closed my eyes and let his affection soak through me like honey.

Finally releasing him, I held his hand and leaned my head on his shoulder as we took in the scene around us. In the flickering candlelight, Jean-Baptiste and Gaspard stood proudly side by side at the front of the room, their elbows practically touching in their yes-we’re-the-hosts-of-this-grand-event pose. Gaspard leaned over to whisper something conspiratorially, and Jean-Baptiste responded with a loud guffaw. The tenseness created by his speech had all but disappeared in the romance of the enchanted evening.

Ambrose was hugging a delighted Charlotte, holding her like a rag doll about a foot off the ground in his tree-trunk arms. Jules stood near the bar, watching me and Vincent. When my eyes caught his, he puckered his lips and gave me a sarcastic air-kiss, before turning to the sultry young revenant talking to him. Violette was standing next to Arthur, her head leaned affectionately against his upper arm as they surveyed the crowd. And I noticed several other couples among the revenants who were hugging or kissing.

Some do find love, I thought.

Charlotte had told me that Ambrose and Jules were players, dating human girls but never getting serious with anyone. Jean-Baptiste didn’t exactly encourage revenant/human relationships—he banned all human “lovers,” as he put it, from the house. Besides a few police officers and ambulance drivers the revenants had in their pocket—and a few other human employees like Jeanne, whose families had worked for Jean-Baptiste for generations—I was the only outsider who had been taken into their confidence and allowed into their home.

Since the enforced secrecy of their existence pretty much ruled out the possibility of their dating a human, finding someone among their own kind was the only possibility for love. And, as Charlotte had said, there weren’t a lot of revenants around to choose from.

An hour later the crowd began thinning, and I told Vincent I was ready to go home. “We have to wait for Ambrose,” he said, draping my coat around my shoulders. My heart fell a little. I had been dying to ask him about being Jean-Baptiste’s second and the whole “Champion” thing. But it looked like that would have to wait, since I doubted he would want to discuss it in front of Ambrose. Jules was right about Vincent’s modesty. Bragging wasn’t his style.

“Do I need two bodyguards?” I joked as we headed out the front door toward the gate.

“Three,” Ambrose responded. “We’ve got Henri, an old friend of Gaspard’s, along playing guard-ghost.”

“Oh, right. Bonjour, Henri,” I said out loud, thinking, Okay, that felt weird.

As I had learned a few months ago, for three days each month the revenants returned to a dead state, which they called being “dormant.” The first of those days they might as well be stone-cold dead. But for the next forty-eight hours their minds were awake and could travel. This was being “volant.” When they were out looking for humans to save, revenants walked in pairs accompanied by a volant spirit who, seeing a few minutes into the future, could tell them what was about to happen nearby.

“All this security for me?” I said, smiling as I took the arms of my two embodied escorts. “I thought Gaspard said I was getting better at fighting.”

“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 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.

“She’s making up for lost time after taking a five-week break,” I responded, remembering how Georgia had sworn off men after almost getting us killed by her then-boyfriend, numa leader Lucien.

“Well, we could definitely hire her as extra security. She and her entourage could scare off every shady character in the neighborhood,” Ambrose said with a smirk.

Which reminded me … “What happened to whatever was following us?”

“The mobile New Year’s party scared them off,” Ambrose responded.

“Listen, Kate,” Vincent said, peering warily down the darkened street. “Jean-Baptiste was right in saying that we don’t know when the numa will strike. And with whatever it was back there following us around, I’m wondering if maybe you could use a chaperone once in a while. I have some projects that JB has asked me to take care of”—he exchanged a look with Ambrose—“so I can’t be around all the time.”

“A chaperone?” I said with a different kind of alarm.

“What’s wrong with a guardian angel? Or two?” Ambrose asked. “You date a revenant, Katie-Lou, you better count on being followed around.”

“Well, if I’m not hanging out with you moving targets, I’m not of much interest to the baddies, am I?” I retorted. Walking around with my boyfriend was one thing. The idea of being trailed around Paris by other revenants was something completely different. I shook my head. “Do I get a good-night kiss or would that interfere with your chaperoning?”

I lifted my face to Vincent and he obliged with a slow, tender kiss that made my body turn to marshmallow.

“Bye, Katie-Lou.” Ambrose gave me a little salute and turned to leave.

“Good-bye,” I called as the two revenants walked away from me into the dappled moonlit shadows. When they were out of sight, I turned to follow my sister up to our grandparents’ apartment.

Georgia had already stripped off her party dress and replaced it with an oversize T-shirt by the time I got to her room. “What’s the deal with the two-man escort?” she asked.

“Three,” I responded. “Some guy named Henri was floating around above us. Vincent’s paranoid about me being leapt upon by bad zombies. With their leader gone, the numa are in hunker-down mode, and the revenants are waiting for a surprise attack.”

“Disappearing numa sounds like a good thing to me.” She leaned in toward her mirror and wiped her lipstick off with a tissue. “Personally, I’m happy I haven’t run into a murderous killer since, well … since you chopped my ex’s head off with a sword.” Although my sister was playing lighthearted, a shadow of fear still lurked behind her practiced carefree demeanor.

“Vincent’s talking about giving me a bodyguard when he’s not around.”

“Cool!” Georgia said, eyes wide with expectation.

“Nyet to the coolness,” I responded. “I don’t want someone following me everywhere I go. That’s so … weird.”

“Don’t think ‘following.’ Think ‘accompanying.’ And what difference would it make? You’re already with Vincent or one of his friends on a pretty consistent basis.”

I studied her face. She wasn’t saying it as a criticism. For my super-social sister, it was normal—even preferable—to have people surrounding you 24-7.

“Remember who you’re talking to, Georgia? It’s me. Your one and only sibling. Who is not queen of the Paris nightlife and actually likes to spend some of her waking hours alone.”

“Well then, just tell Vincent you don’t want a babysitter. He worships you as is. Your word should be his command.”

I rolled my eyes. If only. “He actually used the word chaper-one.”

“Vincent’s so hot when he talks like a grandpa,” she joked. “Next thing you know, he’ll ask Papy if he can start courting you, then everything will be downhill after that. False teeth. Saggy Y-fronts.”

“Eww!” I laughed, fake-punching my sister on the arm.

From somewhere inside her purse, Georgia’s phone started buzzing. She pulled it out and began texting. Then she looked up at me and said, “By the way, Katie-Bean, you look gorgeous in that dress.”

I leaned over and hugged my glamorous, social butterfly of a sister and left her to continue her New Year’s Eve socializing.