I Should Die

FORTY-FOUR



IT IS ONE A.M. WHEN WE LEAVE. I AM GLAD IT IS late. My grandparents will have no idea I’m gone. Hopefully we’ll be back before they wake up and they won’t have the time to worry.

The closest small grouping of lights is just north of us, where I see three clear red beams shoot into the night sky. We cross the Carrousel Bridge and walk through the Louvre’s courtyard, passing the sparkling crystal pyramid, and back out through the monumental archway.

Vincent walks beside me, checking from time to time to make sure the others are keeping up. We are followed by five groups of highly armed revenants, and heading toward three lone numa. So why is my heart thumping so hard?

Finally we turn down a small side street and I nod toward a large open gate halfway down on the right. “The lights come from inside there,” I say.

“I know that passageway,” says Charlotte. “It’s covered with a glass roof and lined with shops on either side. The shops will all be closed, but there are apartments above them on the second floor.”

“Okay,” says Vincent, and phones the group behind us. “Arthur. Our targets are inside Passage du Grand Cerf. Bring your group to the rue St. Denis side and secure that exit. Have the other groups guard the street. And call the ambulance to meet us here. We will have three corpses to pick up.”

“We’re just going to trap them and kill them?” I ask Vincent as we approach the arched gateway.

“Kate. They’re numa. They are murderers. And if we don’t kill them, they will kill us.”

I nod, but I still feel strange about it.

All of the shopfronts are dark, but a few lights are on in the second-floor windows. As we approach, one of them flickers off and footsteps can be heard coming down the stairs. A door in the middle of the passageway opens, and two men step out. Their shoes click hollowly against the black-and-white tiles.

“Stay here.” Vincent waves me back as he and the others stride quickly forward. The light catches the men’s faces: It is Nicolas and Louis. Violette’s second and her favorite in the same place at once! I think. We have stumbled into something important.

Seeing the young numa, I can’t help but follow Vincent and the others. Once I get within a few yards of them the red beacons extinguish, like they did when the numa got close to me on the riverbank, leaving only the misty red auras. I don’t see golden beams shooting up from the bardia’s auras, I realize. There’s only one reason a Champion would have this gift: to hunt numa.

I see the flickering gold inside Louis’s aura, and it seems to me like a tiny bit of hope has materialized as light and is struggling to free itself from the cold crimson glare. Something tugs at my memory, and I try to think where I have seen this before. And then it comes to me: the guérisseurs’ archives. The painting of the numa with the gold in his aura—the one crossing the stream and being received by bardia. That scene is about redemption, I realize suddenly. I think back to how Louis had seemed sympathetic to me on the boat, and had helped loosen my bonds. He actually helped me escape, which, even considering my persuasiveness superpower, is kind of incredible for a numa to have done. The color of his aura must mean that he’s like the numa I saw in the painting. Is it possible for some numa to change their destiny? To change sides? Vincent told me it wasn’t, but what if he was wrong? Violette crossed over to the other side—what’s to prevent a numa from doing the same?

“Nicolas!” calls Vincent, and the numa spin and draw their swords.

“Please don’t tell me you all were just popping by for some late-night shopping,” says the older numa drily, though he is unable to hide his shock.

“No,” says Ambrose. “Just doing a little tidy-up-the-neighborhood work, and thought we smelled some trash in here.”

Nicolas ignores him, keeping his gaze on Vincent. “So you are the bardia’s new leader? I would think you’d be more interested in hunting down our leader than chasing after her second-in-command.”

“There were three of you. Where’s the other?” Vincent asks.

Louis’s eyes flicker toward the apartment they just came from. And then, realizing what he’s done, he nervously grasps his sword in both hands as if he can protect the door from all ten of us. “Watch that door!” orders Charlotte, and Ambrose stations himself in front of it, sword drawn.

“Would you like to die fighting, or should we stand here all night chatting?” asks Vincent, and the revenants on both sides of the passage draw their swords.

I see the fear on Louis’s face, and my heart goes out to him. You don’t want to be here, do you? As soon as the words cross my mind, his eyes widen, and he looks around as if trying to locate a volant spirit.

No, I think with disbelief. Did I just communicate with Louis? Could I contact the mind of a numa? Only one way to find out. Louis, this is Kate. You told me your secret. And I want to save you. Are you willing to side with us? To turn your back on the numa and help the bardia?

He stands there confused until he locates me standing behind Vincent and Charlotte. He looks me straight in the eyes, his own widened in fear.

Do you want to escape the numa? Will you come with us? I ask again. Nothing. Well, DO YOU?

“Yes!” he yells. Dropping his sword, he puts his hands up in the air.

“What the hell are you doing?” asks Nicolas, looking Louis up and down.

Vincent catches my arm as I step past him. “Kate! What . . . ,” he begins.

“Amnesty,” I say to the numa. “I’m offering amnesty to both of you, if you agree to abandon your kind and come to our side.”

Nicolas begins laughing but keeps his sword at the ready.

“Kate, what are you saying?” hisses Charlotte. My kindred look at one another in shock.

“I am saying that, like anyone, they deserve a second chance before being slaughtered. That maybe, if given the opportunity, they will walk away from what they are.”

“Kate,” Vincent pleads, “that isn’t even possible.”

“Violette was a bardia and she became numa. It must be possible,” I insist.

“That rule was written in our texts. It was never actually tried—as far as we know—until she did it. But it can’t go the other way. That . . . that is unthinkable.”

“You know,” Nicolas says, “I think your Champion here has a point.” And he begins to lower his sword.

“Freeze right there,” says Geneviève with a permafrost voice, taking a step closer to him. “Don’t you dare move.”

Keeping his eyes on me, Nicolas ignores her and squatting carefully down, he lays his sword on the floor. Then, straightening, he spreads his hands before him, showing us that they are empty. “I have been waiting for this day. The day when someone finally asked me what I wanted.”

Louis draws his breath in in surprise and stares openmouthed at his fellow numa.

“And finally, it took the Champion to ask the right question. Do you think I like working for Violette, that miserable, obsessive, self-absorbed ex-bardia?” He looks from one incredulous face to the next. “Of course not. So when asked if I would rather die in her service or join you—help you defeat her—my response is . . .”

And his hand moves inside his coat and back out so quickly that I don’t even know what has happened until I look at Geneviève and see the knife sticking out of her neck. She makes a gurgling noise and crumples to the ground. Ambrose roars and leaps toward Nicolas, who dips down and retrieves his sword.

As they begin fighting, Vincent rushes forward and throws Louis to the ground, pinning him there with his foot. He lifts his sword over the boy’s back, ready to thrust it through his chest. “Let’s see you try the same trick from that position,” Vincent growls.

As Charlotte goes to Geneviève’s aid, I rush past her to Vincent. “Don’t,” I cry, grabbing his arm.

My resolve wavers for a second as I see Charlotte lower Geneviève’s dead body to the ground. I turn back to him. “Vincent, you have to believe me. I know what I’m doing is right.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. Arthur’s group is running toward us. Making a split-second decision, Vincent yells to them, “We’re taking this one alive.”

“What?” Arthur is incredulous.

Vincent moves his foot off Louis’s back, and Arthur bends down to jerk the boy to his feet. “Who is upstairs?” Vincent demands.

“Just . . . just another numa,” Louis stammers. “We were dropping off weapons for Violette. He is in charge of arming those who are arriving in town.”

Vincent and Arthur fling the door open and run up the stairs. A yell comes from inside the apartment. Sounds of fighting begin and just as suddenly stop.

I look over and see that Nicolas is now down, his body a heap under a fur coat, lying in a puddle of dark blood.

An overhead window flies open and Vincent leans out. “We got him, but he was on the phone. Call the other groups and let them know that enemy reinforcements may be on their way.”

“Enemy reinforcements are already here,” comes a voice from behind us. A dozen numa stand in the passage’s opening.