If I Should Die

by Amy Plum

  I glance at Vincent. He’s the same: golden haloed and the air around his body shimmers like flames. This is how I see now, I think with amazement, and wonder if I’ll ever get used to seeing my friends glowing and my enemies oozing red mist.

  That is . . . if I live long enough. I remember that, though my immediate goal of escape is achieved, we are still in the middle of a numa-bardia war. Violette’s not going to let me dance away from this without wreaking vengeance. She’ll try to get me back, I think with a twinge of anger.

  Charlotte pipes up: “Sorry for interrupting you two, but Violette’s boat is long gone and the others are waiting for us back at the cars.”

  Vincent nods at her, and then pulls me in to give me one last kiss. He takes off his coat and wraps it around me, and pulls out his phone. He tells someone we’re on our way and instructs them to pick up the bodies of the numa for burning.

  Charlotte takes me by the hand. “I know that now’s not the time to talk about this. And you’re going to have all sorts of decisions to make and things to figure out, but . . .” Tears spring to her eyes and she drops her bow and throws her arms around me. “Welcome, kindred.”

  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.”

  FORTY-ONE

  AS WE DRIVE INTO PARIS, THE SKY CHANGES FROM cotton candy pink to cantaloupe. Thin red beams appear amid the white lights of the city that begin to flicker on as twilight approaches. They look like lasers pointed into the clouds, and I wonder if the carnival has returned to the Tuileries Gardens.

  We turn a corner and the Seine appears, and upon seeing it, my heartbeat steadies like it does every time I see the river. It is a blue flag of continuity for me, symbolizing the continuous flow of time in an ageless city. Comforted, I take Vincent’s hand in mine and close my eyes until we arrive at La Maison.

  The gates swing open, and I see three figures seated on the side of the fountain. They stand as we drive into the courtyard, and I leap from the car into their arms.

  “Oh, Katya,” says Mamie, pulling me to her and wrapping her arms around my neck.

  “Princesse,” Papy says, encircling the two of us in a hug.

  “Are you okay?” Mamie asks, her eyes searching my face.

  “I’m fine, Mamie. I just had a fight with a couple of numa. But I won,” I say, attempting a smile.

  “We were so worried, Kate,” Papy interjects, and something catches in his throat. With a stiffness that sounds unnatural for him, he says, “Nothing matters except the fact that you are here now.” It sounds like something he has practiced. Like he’s trying to convince himself as he says the words.

  I see his distress. He is hugging me—the old Kate—while recoiling from the idea of hugging the new me. The undead me. I don’t blame him. Hopefully we’ll both be able to get used to it with time. If we have the time, I think, remembering that we are going into war and nothing is certain.

  Georgia stands quietly until my grandparents let me go. Her eyes are swollen and red, and it looks like she hasn’t slept in days. “Kate,” she murmurs. After seeing my mournful Papy, it breaks my heart to see my sister like this.

  “You don’t look any different,” she says, hesitantly touching my cheeks with her fingertips. “And you won’t ever look any different from this, even when I’m old. Even when I’m dead.” She smiles mournfully. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I should be cheering, ‘Huzzah, death!’” She rotates her finger in a halfhearted celebratory circle. “You’re immortal now, for God’s sake.”

  “Not if Violette has anything to do with it,” I respond.

  She studies me for a moment, and then I see a little spark of life flash behind her pale green eyes. “She obviously hasn’t seen our sword fighting skills,” she says, smiling with effort. “We’re just going to have to give her hell.” And taking my hand, she leads me into the house.

  Vincent follows us, walking beside my grandparents. Jeanne waits inside the foyer. She brushes tears away, gives me a silent hug, and then motions toward the sitting room. “Jean-Baptiste and Gaspard are waiting for you,” she says, and then, glancing toward Vincent, adds, “They will be leaving right afterward.”

  My grandmother and grandfather pause, unsure if they’re invited to join the meeting, but I can tell they don’t want to leave my side. “Come with me,” I say. Jean-Baptiste rises to his feet as we enter, and it is strange to see him acting like a guest in his own home.

  Hello, Kate, says Gaspard.

  “Hi,” I respond out loud, for the benefit of the others.

  Even if I couldn’t see it ahead of time, I knew you’d win against those brutes, he says with pride.

  “Thanks to your training,” I say, “and Charlotte showing up at the right moment with a well-aimed arrow.”

  Jean-Baptiste gives me the bises and then puts his hands on my shoulders as he inspects me. “You look the same. Eyes, cheekbones, lips, hair . . . ,” he says, balking a bit when his gaze reaches my straggly mud-blood-and-river-water coiffure. “None have been altered. Becoming one of us hasn’t changed you a bit. Incredible.”

  “Why would Kate change?” says Vincent, grinning. “I was ready to follow her to the ends of the earth when she was human. She doesn’t need anything extra to convince humanity to lay their lives in her hands.”

  Now that the conversation is turning supernatural, I glance back at my grandparents to gauge their reaction. Papy is staring longingly at the door, and Mamie is fidgeting and looking extremely uncomfortable. Georgia raises an eyebrow at me. I can tell that she too feels this conversation isn’t making anything easier for my family.

  “So,” the older revenant says, “our very own Kate is the Champion. When I saw the light you gave off from inside that houseboat, I knew something special was happening. Imagine my astonishment that it was you, my dear. Under my nose this whole
time, when I had believed that Vincent was the chosen one.” He peers closer at me and touches my cheek.

  “It all makes sense in hindsight,” he continues. “At least now I can forgive myself for letting you into the house the day you discovered Vincent dormant. Being persuaded by a teenage girl is one thing. But being persuaded by the Champion . . . well, I can handle that.”

  “I’ll try to take that as a compliment and not a dis, Jean-Baptiste,” I say, smiling.

  “That makes one thing I can forgive myself for,” he admits, a shadow falling across his features. “My kindred have much more to pardon. Which is my cue to go. Shall we, Gaspard?”

  “We never asked you to leave,” Vincent says, blocking the door.

  “I know that,” Jean-Baptiste replies. He grabs his cane out of an umbrella stand and taps Vincent’s leg gently with it. Vincent pauses and then steps aside. JB walks past us into the foyer and stops under the elephantine chandelier.

  “But I should not be here”—the bardia’s former leader continues—“in the middle of a black and white war, diluting the good side with my grayness. The fact that my intentions were good doesn’t excuse the sin I committed to win my kindred’s protection. And in the end, it did no good. Gaspard and I must go. Au revoir,” he says, and steps out the door.

  This feels wrong. Vincent doesn’t want them to leave, and neither do I. “Wait,” I call. Jean-Baptiste hesitates. “I want you to stay,” I say. He turns and peers at me. “I don’t agree that it would be better for your kindred that you go,” I continue. “You’ve been their leader for centuries, and now they”—I hesitate and then, taking Vincent’s hand, continue—“we are facing a great danger. Stay and help us.”

  “My dear, haven’t you been listening to me?” Jean-Baptiste says sadly. With one finger, he adjusts the ascot at his neck, as if it’s suddenly tightened. “With what I have done, it is better that I not lead my kindred into battle.”