Until I Die

THIRTY-FIVE



MY SISTER AND I HUDDLED AT THE END OF THE rue de Grenelle, looking ridiculously suspicious as we hid behind the corner, throwing glances every few minutes down the road toward Jean-Baptiste’s mansion.

“What time is it now?” I asked, my teeth chattering in the February cold.

“Five minutes after the last time you asked,” Georgia growled. “It’s eleven oh five and we have been here a total of an hour and thirty-five minutes. How long do your training sessions with Gaspard run?”

“An hour,” I said. “But I’m sure that Violette and Arthur can go for longer than me, and we have no idea when they started.” My heart dropped an inch as our mission began to seem much stupider than it had within the hallway of our warm and safe school.

“Wait!” Georgia hissed in a dramatic whisper. “The gate is opening. And here comes … it’s Arthur! He’s wearing a motorcycle helmet, but I know it’s him—he’s got on the same leather jacket he wore at the café yesterday.”

I struggled to look past her, but she pushed me backward. “Shh!” she insisted, even though we were yards out of his hearing range. “He’s driving the motorcycle slowly to the end of the block. He’s getting off and walking the bike backward onto the sidewalk. Holy cow—he looks like he’s hiding!”

Georgia’s commentary was beginning to sound hysterical. “What do you mean ‘hiding’?” I pushed her out of the way. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Okay. Far end of the street. Just behind the last building. He’s hiding down there.”

“Did he see us?”

“No! He didn’t even look our way when he came out of the driveway.”

“Then why is he—”

“Wait!” Georgia interrupted me. I poked my head above hers, looking around the corner of the building. A taxi had just turned past us to drive down the road and was now parked in front of the hôtel particulier. The gate swung open again, and Violette stepped out, peering both ways before jumping into the cab. We pulled back, waited a second, and then stuck our heads around the corner.

The taxi drove to the end of the street and turned left on the one-way avenue. Georgia and I had our helmets on in a second and were on the borrowed scooter, heading down the rue de Grenelle, as we saw Arthur’s motorcycle pull out onto the road a safe distance behind Violette’s taxi. We turned left onto the avenue, a few cars behind Arthur.

The next twenty minutes were spent maneuvering our way between cars and trucks, trying to stay out of view even though Arthur never once looked around. His attention was fixed on Violette’s taxi, and he was obviously using the same defensive tactics we were to avoid her seeing him. We headed north over the river, and up past the Louvre and across town until we arrived at the steep hill called Montmartre and began inching up its tiny one-lane roads.

“They’re heading toward Sacré-Coeur,” I yelled, looking up at the white-domed basilica perched on the hilltop. A refrigerated yogurt truck that had served as our camouflage for the last few blocks stopped in the middle of the street, and its driver jumped out to make a delivery. We spied Arthur half a block up, parking his motorcycle at the base of the rue Foyatier staircase—the landmark that pretty much everyone in the world recognizes from black-and-white Paris postcards. Its multiple flights of steep steps are lined with old-fashioned black metal streetlights, and it is so Old Paris–looking that you half expect everyone on it to suddenly break out into an impromptu Moulin Rouge can-can routine.

“Quick!” I yelled. Georgia pulled up behind Arthur’s bike and locked the scooter to a lamppost. There were enough people around that even if he turned, he probably wouldn’t have noticed us huffing and puffing up the stairs a few flights behind him. Once he got to the top, he turned right and began jogging toward the far side of the church. The sun was directly overhead, and the church’s white stone was blinding in the midday light, making it difficult to follow Arthur’s form as he wove in between the groups of tourists and pilgrims lined up to enter the basilica.

He disappeared through the swarms of people around the far edge of the church. Pressing toward him through the crowd, I reached out to touch Georgia and instead grabbed an extremely hairy forearm. A tall man in a “Heck Yeah Cowboys” baseball cap looked down at me with an amused smile. “Well, hello there!” he said in a Texas accent.

“Sorry,” I blurted, and cast around for Georgia. I caught sight of her about thirty feet in front of me, being swept along by a crowd led by a tour guide waving an Italian flag. She had just begun to realize I was gone, and turned to look for me when the tour group surged and I lost her again.

Pushing my way out of the group of Americans, I followed Arthur’s path, turning the same corner that he had disappeared behind.

I was thrust into darkness as I came around the edge of the basilica onto a deserted stone patio to the side of the edifice. It took my eyes a second to adjust from the brilliant daylight to this sun-hidden courtyard that was empty of tourists and as quiet as a crypt.

The patio was large—the shape and size of a skating rink. Its outer edge bordered a precipice and was sided by iron guardrails to protect the monument’s visitors from the perilous drop. Hulking statues of saints and angels circled the patio, casting weird shadows in the half-light and creating a distinctly creepy atmosphere. Georgia was nowhere to be seen.

I blinked, looking for Arthur, and saw him nearby, hiding behind a statue. He was staring at some people who were half-concealed in the building’s dark shadows. Right in front of me was a larger-than-life figure of an avenging archangel, crouched with sword extended as it fought its invisible enemy. I took Arthur’s example and crept behind it, squinting out from under its sword-bearing arm at the figures across the terrace.

A jean-clad girl was speaking authoritatively to two large, menacing-looking men. With a chill, I recognized them as the numa from Papy’s gallery.

As the speaker gestured, her head turned slightly. My hand flew to my mouth to suppress a gasp. “No,” I whispered. What was Violette doing? She didn’t seem to be threatened by the numa. If anything, they seemed to be hanging on her every word.

I glanced over at Arthur. He was looking at the same scene I was, yet he was hiding. I didn’t understand.

And then—suddenly—I did.

As a wave of comprehension washed over me, I felt immediately and violently ill. I clutched my stomach and prayed that I wouldn’t vomit then and there.

Then a third man stepped forward from the shadows behind the church. It was the man I had seen Arthur talking to at La Palette. And now that I saw what he was wearing—a long fur coat that looked like it had been designed for a Renaissance lord in a costume drama—I knew where I had seen him before. He was the man between the tombs at Père Lachaise cemetery the day of Philippe’s funeral. I had been right to be afraid then. Because now, without a doubt, I could tell that the trick-of-light colorless thing going on in the air around him meant just one thing. He, too, was a numa.

He got down on one knee in front of the tiny revenant and, bowing his head, raised her hand to his lips. And just as Violette touched him lightly on the head, bidding him to rise, I saw someone sprint past me into the middle of the terrace. Blinded by the sudden change in light, she called, “Kate?”

I wanted to reach out and pull her to safety. I wanted to somehow warn her to run without giving her away. But it was too late. Because just then Violette turned and saw my sister.