Until I Die

by Amy Plum

  “I’m sure! It must cost a fortune each time you go somewhere!” I said, and stepped into the eight-person cabin.

  “It’s not actually that,” Vincent said. “It’s justifying the carbon footprint.”

  Trust a supernatural whose mission is saving the human race to think green, I mused while looking around myself in spoiled delight.

  An hour and a half later we landed in Nice. Charlotte was waiting for us at the arrival gate. As soon as we stepped past airport security, she put an arm around each of us, squeezing us into a sandwich hug.

  “I cannot tell you how good it is to see your faces. Much longer without my friends and I would have come to Paris, so thanks for saving me the trip!”

  Her eyes shifted from my face to Vincent’s, and she gasped. “Oh my God, Vincent. You look awful!” She raised a finger to trace the bruiselike patches under his eyes. It had been almost three weeks since Vincent had been dormant. He already looked as bad as he did at the end of the last month, and he still had one more week to go.

  Though he claimed he was hopeful his experiment was working, I didn’t want it to go on any longer. Next week I would talk to Gwenhaël, and if she had come up with some alternative plan, I would ask Vincent to call off this awful experiment.

  “Look at you!” I exclaimed, changing the subject. Her hair had grown out to shoulder length. “I only saw you six weeks ago. How in the world did you grow your hair out so quickly?” I asked, and then laughed, realizing who—or what, rather—I was talking to.

  Charlotte giggled. “Geneviève and I haven’t just been on vacation here. And I have a feeling that Vincent and you don’t talk about hair care. When we’re busy saving people, getting all that transferred energy, we have to get a haircut about once a week.”

  “Doesn’t your coiffeur catch on?”

  “I have four in Paris,” Charlotte responded, “and use them on a rotating basis so no one notices.”

  Just one more detail I would never have thought of, I mused, wondering if there would ever be a point where I would stop being amazed and the whole revenant thing would be old hat.

  We made our way arm in arm through the small airline terminal and into the early evening darkness outside. It was chilly, but not as cold as in Paris. I took a deep breath. The air had a slightly salty seaside flavor.

  Geneviève was waiting for us at the curb in a bright red Austin Mini. She leapt out of the car when she saw us and ran over to squeeze me enthusiastically. “It’s so good to see you!” Leaning in to kiss Vincent, she shuddered. “Vincent, I’ve just got to say it: You look terrible. Let’s get you guys home.” And she hurriedly slid behind the wheel.

  Charlotte and I sat in the tiny backseat, while Vincent took the passenger side, his legs folded so tightly that his knees were practically at his chest. Although it was dark, a million tiny lights lit the highly populated coastline between Nice and Villefranche-sur-Mer. We drove along the beach before continuing onto a treacherous-looking two-lane road scaling the sheer cliffs that overlooked the sea.

  Twenty minutes after we left the airport, we pulled off the main road onto a steep drive and up to a glass-and-wood house perched on the side of a hill. It looked more like a contemporary art museum than a home.

  “Here we are!” crowed Charlotte enthusiastically as we winched ourselves out of the tiny car. “And you got here just in time for dinner.”

  “Come in, come in,” said Geneviève, waving us through the front door.

  I turned to Vincent, who was watching my face carefully. “This is amazing. Thank you,” I murmured, going up on tiptoes to give him a kiss.

  “My pleasure,” he said. It was a strange and new feeling seeing him outside of his regular Parisian setting, and I could tell he was thinking the same about me.

  The house couldn’t have been more different from Jean-Baptiste’s hôtel particulier. The architecture’s twentieth-century minimalism was echoed by the furniture: the whole effect meant to emphasize the view outside. I walked across the room and pulled aside a sliding glass door to step out onto an enormous wood terrace balanced high above the ground and facing the sea. We were practically overhanging the ocean. The twinkling lights of the town of Villefranche-sur-Mer stretched out beneath us, wrapped around a U-shaped harbor with a battalion of luxury yachts moored offshore.

  “I can’t believe you’re living here,” I said to Charlotte, who leaned against the waist-high guardrail beside me. “It’s like you’ve got front-row seats to the most beautiful place on earth!”

  “I know!” she replied, looking out toward the sea. “It’s like living in a dream. I shouldn’t complain about being away from home. It’s just that I miss everyone.”

  “Well, we’re here to cheer you up,” I said, wrapping my arm comfortingly around her and realizing with a sharp poignancy how much I had missed having her around. Violette was a fun friend to go out with. But we hadn’t connected the way Charlotte and I had. With Violette, friendship was an effort. With Charlotte it was the most natural thing in the world.

  We ate dinner in a glass-enclosed dining room adjacent to the terrace, our chairs arranged in a half circle before the spectacular view.

  “So, tell me about Charles,” Charlotte said as soon as we sat down.

  “He’s doing well, Charlotte.” Vincent’s voice was both comforting and honest. “Apparently, he met someone from Berlin a few years ago at a convocation and decided to look him up.”

  “Hey, I remember that guy. Charles was fascinated by him. He was kind of . . . punk. Blue hair and lots of piercings.”

  Vincent raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, they all look like that in that particular clan.”

  “Charles, too?” Charlotte’s eyes were wide.

  He laughed. “It actually kind of suits him.”

  “What!” Charlotte gasped. “Did you get a picture?”

  “No, I was kind of too busy carrying out a mission for Jean-Baptiste to photograph Charles’s hair.”

  “We don’t care about his hair,” Geneviève said, laughing. “Tell us how he is. What he’s doing there. When he’s coming back.”

  “See, this is why I think he’s in exactly the right place.” Vincent leaned forward, speaking eagerly. “That particular clan in Berlin is made up of young revenants, who at some point all became disillusioned with our mission. Bitter about our fate. The place is like an undead Alcoholics Anonymous. They have meetings all the time where they talk about their feelings.

  “And their leader is really motivational. Always going on about how revenants fit into the whole cycle of life. That we’re angels of mercy, allowing humans who haven’t lived out their destiny to survive until they can. So when Charles and his kindred walk, it’s like they’re truly on a mission. They’re so psyched about it . . . it’s really amazing to see.”

  Charlotte was closing her eyes as she listened, imagining it. When Vincent finished, she gave a rueful smile. “I can’t even tell you how good it is to hear you say that. It’s been awful not knowing where he was or what he was doing,” she said. “He never really recovered from his depression after the whole thing with Lucien, and I was afraid that he was going to do the same thing again: find some numa to destroy him. But I figured he had intentionally gone somewhere far away this time, where it wouldn’t put the rest of us in danger.”

  Geneviève spoke up. “Maybe our little group is too tight for him in Paris. He didn’t have room to grow—to find himself. It is pretty intense living with the same people for decades.”

  “You’re right,” said Charlotte. “Being on his own is obviously what he needs right now. But . . . do you think he’ll come back?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know,” Vincent said.

  There was a minute’s thoughtful silence, and then I asked, “How are you, Geneviève?”

  “I’m taking it one day at a time,” she responded, her eyes losing their sparkle. “Charlotte does a good job distracting me. It would have been hellish to have stayed in Philippe’s and my h
ouse in Paris. The new scene is good for me, and we’re close to Nice, where a group of around a dozen of our kind have been living for a while.”

  “Anyone interesting in the group?” I teased Charlotte.

  She shook her head. “Interesting friend-wise, but no one special. My feelings haven’t changed.” She glanced quickly at Vincent, who looked away as if to give us some privacy.

  We talked into the night until I could barely keep my eyes open. “Sorry, I’m beat. I know you guys will be up all night but I, for one, need a bed.”

  “I picked out your bedroom,” Charlotte said. “I’ll show you where it is.”

  “I’ll come check on you later,” Vincent said with a sexy wink as I rose to follow Charlotte out of the room.

  “Wow,” was all I could say as I put my bag down next to a king-size bed facing a floor-to-ceiling window with a harbor view.

  “Nice, no?” Charlotte grinned.

  “This is perfect, Charlotte. Thank you so much,” I said, hugging her. “I really do miss you.”

  “And I miss you,” she said. “All of you.” She looked out the window at the sea, and her sadness was tangible.

  “Does he ever call?”

  Charlotte took a deep breath, and then said, “Ambrose calls all the time. Just not for me.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, and then it dawned on me. “No!”

  “Yes. I mean, it’s innocent. So far. Geneviève just thinks he’s being nice. Caring. But he confessed it to me. He said he’d been in love with her for decades. Ambrose thought that when Philippe died he might have a chance at winning her heart. He asked me not to say anything. He doesn’t want to rush her, because he knows it will take time for her to get over her husband’s death. He’s just so in love that he wants to know how she’s doing all the time.”

  “Oh my God, Charlotte. That’s just awful.”

  “Awful for me. But maybe not awful for them. Who knows? Maybe Geneviève will fall for Ambrose someday.”

  I took her in my arms again, and as I hugged her, she started crying. “Oh, Kate,” she whispered. “I wanted him to choose me.”

  “So did I, Charlotte. I’ve been hoping for that this whole time. It’s really not fair. You would be perfect together.”

  “I thought so too.” She sniffed and wiped her tears away. “But I can’t think like that now. I love Geneviève and I love Ambrose, and if they could be happy together, then I would never get in their way.”

  Charlotte gave me another squeeze and then left me alone. I didn’t even bother getting undressed. Wondering why life—or death, in Charlotte’s case—couldn’t be easier, I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes, and let the sound of the waves lull me into unconsciousness.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  TWENTY-NINE

  THE NEXT MORNING I AWOKE TO SEE VINCENT lying beside me, watching me sleep. “Bonjour, mon ange,” he said, playing with a strand of my hair. Then, rolling over, he plucked something out of a bowl on the bedside table and, before I could see what it was, popped it into my mouth. I bit down in surprise. And my mouth was filled with the sugary sweetness of a strawberry.

  “What—” I began, but couldn’t talk around the berry.

  Vincent tried not to laugh. “When I was volant, you made such a big deal about not having to brush your teeth before talking to me that I thought I’d run a better chance of getting a first-thing-in-the-morning kiss if I spared you the indignity of morning breath.”

  “So now I have strawberry breath.”

  “My favorite,” he responded with a teasing smile.

  “Wanna try?” I proposed, and leaned forward for a kiss.

  “Mmm,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “Good. Good. But just for the record, I think I prefer Kate au naturel.”

  I laughed and put my arms around him. “This is the best, waking up next to you.”

  “We’ve spent the night together,” he replied, “when I’ve been volant.”

  “Yeah but I couldn’t do this,” I said, and pressed my lips back to his. He took my head in his hands, returning the kiss, and then, wrapping me in his arms, he pulled me toward him. Our limbs wound themselves around each other’s until our bodies were completely tangled, and I couldn’t feel the point where mine stopped and his started.

  His hand moved inside the back of my shirt, and the novelty of his warm skin brushing against mine sparked a powerful longing inside me. I didn’t want him to stop until he had marked every inch of my body with his touch. And as he continued, it felt like I was expanding. Like my body was too small to contain me and I would burst out of my skin like a supernova.

  “Kate.” Vincent’s voice sounded like it was coming from a distance. “Are you ready for this? Do you want it to be now?”

  “Yes,” I said automatically, and then, opening my eyes, I hesitated. Vincent had sat up and begun pulling his shirt over his head, and I saw that his chest was marked with bruises—bigger, darker facsimiles of the ones under his eyes. And although they didn’t repel me—if anything, they triggered something in me that wanted to take care of him—they were shocking enough to clear away the mist from my passion-muddled thoughts.

  We’re both hiding something. The words flashed through my mind with a clarity that made me wonder if they had been spoken out loud.

  It was true. We were both keeping something important from the other. And suddenly it seemed dishonest for our bodies to join when our spirits were divided. That’s not how I want this to start, I thought, and as he folded me back into his arms, I said, “Wait, Vincent. I’m not . . . I’m not ready yet.”

  Vincent ‘s grasp on me loosened. He paused, then moved his mouth next to my ear. “That’s okay,” he said, his hot breath on my skin making me shudder. “I’ve waited this long for you—I’m in no rush. We’ll have all the time in the world.”

  We lay there motionless for a few minutes as I savored the sweetness of feeling his body pressed against my own. Finally we eased apart enough to look into each other’s eyes. “Kate. Don’t cry.” Vincent looked concerned.

  “I’m not,” I said, and then realized that my eyes were filled with tears.

  I wasn’t crying from frustration: My desire for Vincent wasn’t only physical. It wasn’t confined to the here and now. I wanted him, body and soul. And I wanted the hours we had together to be full of life and love and joy at having found each other.

  But looking at the boy lying inches from me was like being laughed at by misery and death. Besides the bruises on his chest, his lovely face was marred by the pallor of exhaustion and the circles under his eyes. And although he was still stronger than any boy I knew, his strength had been markedly sapped.

  Seeing him waste away before my eyes was making our future feel even bleaker than ever. This was not how things were meant to be. We had avoided it for long enough . . . now it was time to talk.

  “You did what?” Vincent said, aghast.

  We sat facing each other in the middle of the bed. I grasped his hands firmly between mine, unsure if my death grip was meant to keep him calm or provide myself with the support I needed to spit the story out.

  “Vincent, are you even hearing me? There is a guérisseur. A long line of guérisseurs, actually, who have had a special relationship with revenants. I am positive that Gaspard doesn’t know about them. Because the healer said it had been centuries since her family had even seen a revenant. This is new information. She might actually be able to help us.”

  “Kate, how could you even think of doing something like that without me? You could have been in serious danger. This is my world we’re talking about here. A world where death is always present.”

  “It’s my world now too.”

  That shut him up. And I took advantage of his silence to tell him the whole tale, beginning with finding the references in the books to tracking down the shop to seeing th
e signum in the guérisseur’s bowl and what followed. As I finished my story, I saw the glimmer in his eye. If it wasn’t an actual glimmer of hope, it was at least a glimmer of interest.

  “Okay, Kate. I agree that this could be promising. But I wish you had told me about it before. I can’t help but freak out when I think of you going alone to see someone who could have been a complete wacko. You could have been hurt . . . or worse. And I would never have known where to find you.”

  “Jules came with me,” I said, trying to sound firm, but the confidence that I had begun the conversation with was quickly fading.

  “JULES?” Vincent responded, incredulous. “Jules took you to see this guérisseur?”

  “Well, he didn’t exactly know where he was taking me—or why—until after it was all over.”

  My heart sank as I recognized the expression on Vincent’s face. It was a look of betrayal, as he realized that his best friend and his girlfriend had done something behind his back.

  “Vincent, stop!” I insisted. “I talked Jules into it. If there’s anyone you should be mad at, it is me. If it helps at all, Jules was furious and said if I didn’t tell you about it, then he would. I did not do this with the express purpose of deceiving you, Vincent. I did it to help us: you and me.”

  “I am already doing everything I can to help us.” Vincent’s eyes flashed with anger.

  “What? What is it exactly that you are doing?” I said, my voice rising. “Because from what it looks like to me, whatever you’re doing is causing you more harm than good.”

  “That’s because you don’t understand how it’s supposed to work,” Vincent shot back, rubbing his temples in frustration.

  I touched his knee. “Then explain it to me.”

  Our eyes met, and we held the gaze for a long while before he exhaled. “Fine. Just give me a little time to think. But we’ll talk tonight, I promise.”