I Should Die

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.

“You’re going to be okay, little sis,” he murmurs, and carefully tucks me into the backseat.

Vincent has been giving instructions to the driver of the first car, and now he returns and says, “Let’s go!” He settles next to me while Ambrose takes the wheel.

“I’ll ride with the others,” says Charlotte as Geneviève climbs into the front seat. I notice Ambrose’s eyes follow Charlotte as she jogs to the car in front of ours and jumps inside. Clenching his jaw, he guns our motor and spins the car out onto the road, doing an illegal U-turn to head in the opposite direction.

“Steroid rush?” asks Vincent drily.

Ambrose holds up his hands in denial. “This body is a hundred percent natural.”

“Hands on the wheel,” prods Geneviève.

“Thanks, Mom,” Ambrose retorts. “Do you know exactly how long I’ve been driving?”

“Wow. Great to be back,” I try to joke.

Vincent leans over and whispers, “How do you feel?”

“I’m okay,” I say, and then realize that I’m not. I’ve been trying to hold myself together for so long: to keep myself safe . . . to escape Violette. I’ve let myself reason through what happened, but couldn’t afford to let myself feel it.

But now that I’m out of immediate danger and under the protection of my friends . . . my kindred . . . I am suddenly overwhelmed by the events of the last few days and begin to tremble. Vincent takes me in his arms and holds me securely. After a few minutes, my shaking calms, but my teeth chatter and tears stream down my cheeks.

Geneviève turns to me and she places a steadying hand on my knee. “It takes most of us a while to come to grips with our new existence,” she says, her voice steeped in compassion. “Normally you would have time to acclimate to becoming a revenant before being tossed into the middle of things. I cried for two weeks after Jean-Baptiste found me and helped me animate. And it was months before I was mentally ready to face my destiny.”

“I assume Violette won’t allow me any coping-with-newfound-immortality time?” I ask.

“No,” Vincent says. “We figure that the only reason she has postponed a direct attack on us is because she wanted the Champion’s power first. Now that you’ve escaped her, she won’t wait long to make her move.”

He doesn’t want to say it. To call me the Champion. That’s what the look of fear is about. Vincent doesn’t want to think of me that way. I don’t want to think of myself that way. It’s too bizarre, and I don’t even know what it means. I feel like an unpinned hand grenade—about to explode but having no idea whether I’ll fizzle or blow up everything in the vicinity.

“Are we ready?” I ask, forcing that subject to the back of my mind.

“Our first priority was finding you,” Vincent says. “Now that you’re safe”—his voice catches on the last word—“now that you’re with us, we will plan our next move.”

I lean my head against the seat, weighed down by the scope of what is ahead. “We have to protect my grandparents and Georgia,” I say. “They’ll be the first ones Violette goes after now that I’ve escaped.”

“They’re already at La Maison,” says Ambrose, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “Charlotte and I took them there from the Crillon. Besides returning to their apartment to get things they needed, they haven’t left our house.”

I hadn’t doubted that Vincent would take care of my family, but feel immense relief knowing that they are safe inside the bardia’s walls. And then something occurs to me and my stomach ties itself back into knots. “Do they know . . . about me?”

Vincent turns my hand over and rubs his fingers up and down my palm. “I told them.”

Tears spring to my eyes, and I pull my hand away from Vincent to wipe them away. “How . . . what did they do?” I ask, my voice breaking.

Vincent’s eyes meet Ambrose’s in the mirror.

“After getting your grandparents outside, I went back to the hotel room,” Ambrose explains. “Vincent had been roughed up and knocked unconscious, and Violette and all her numa had left with your body. I smuggled him out of the hotel and back home. When he came to, he told us what had happened.”

“When Bran heard the story,” Vincent says, “he went apoplectic and confessed that he had known you would become the Champion. You already had the ‘star on fire’ aura, and it was so bright he couldn’t even look straight at you.

“I went from thinking you were dead to being informed that you were, not only a revenant, but the Champion, within a matter of moments,” Vincent says, lowering his voice. “I went from mourning you . . . to relief that you weren’t gone forever . . . to realizing this meant that you were out there somewhere being prepared for another death by Violette. If I hadn’t had to keep my wits together and organize the search for you, I would have gone crazy.”

“He was in major shock,” Ambrose interjects as if Vincent’s story needs backup. “I’ve known the man for almost a century, and I’ve never seen him so out of his mind. Arthur and I actually had to restrain him so that he wouldn’t hunt Violette down by himself.”

For a few minutes, the only sound is tires against asphalt. “I broke the news to your grandparents,” says Vincent finally. “And like me, they hung on to the hope that you had survived.”

Thinking of my family’s pain, I close my eyes and rest my head on Vincent’s shoulder.

Ambrose takes over the story. “JB showed up a couple days later, saying there was some crazy-ass revenant-in-the-making light like nothing he’d ever seen—visible all the way from Normandy.”

“That’s how we were sure you had animated,” says Vincent. “We hoped we would find you before Violette destroyed you. Kate, your grandparents are just going to be glad to see you again. Don’t worry about anything else.”

“I’ll call now.” Geneviève takes out her phone.

“I can’t . . . I can’t talk to them,” I stammer. “Not on the phone.”

“Don’t worry,” Geneviève says. “I’ll have Jeanne break the news. That will probably be easiest for them.” She makes the call, and I hear the housekeeper answer.

“We’ve got Kate,” Geneviève says. “She’s alive. And . . .” She pauses, considering how to put it. “She’s one of us now.”

I hear the sound of Jeanne’s relief explode from the other end of the line in a jumble of emotional French syllables before she hangs up.

“Can we have some music?” Vincent asks. Ambrose switches the radio on and repositions the rearview mirror, and Geneviève turns around to give us privacy.

We lay our heads against the seat back and look at each other. Neither wants to be the first to speak.

Looking down, Vincent picks some dried mud off my hand with his fingernail and says, “Although this isn’t what I wanted for you, it’s better than the alternative. Your being immortal is better than your being dead.”

“I know,” I respond, closing my eyes and exhaling deeply. When I open them his face is next to mine. His fingers stroke my wet hair, smoothing it down. “Let’s not talk about it now,” I whisper. “If we survive these next few weeks, we’ll have as long as we want to figure it all out.”

He nods. Leaning forward, he kisses my cheeks, my forehead, my eyes, my lips.

“Mon Kate, qui était à moi, qui n’est plus à moi,” he whispers as he kisses me. And then he says it in English. “My Kate, who was mine, who is no longer mine”—he tiredly rubs his bloodshot eyes—“because now you belong to fate.”