“And my granddaughter?” Papy asked, raising his chin to show that he was not afraid.
“I’ll be fine, Papy,” I urged. “Just don’t do anything to upset them.”
Nicolas followed us closely through the door. I heard Papy’s protests cut off by a gruff command of “Sit down, old man!”
And suddenly I was so furious I felt like going back and challenging that guard. My anger chased my fear away, at least temporarily. I spun to face Nicolas. “You won’t hurt my grandparents,” I said, telling not asking.
“Besides serving as bait, they are of no use to us,” responded Nicolas as he prodded me to continue. “The door to your left,” he indicated.
Vincent turned the knob and, instead of holding it open for me as he usually would, strode first into the room.
“Ah, there you are.” I heard Violette’s little-girl voice before my eyes found her, sitting with my grandmother at a table set for tea. In front of Mamie, a full cup of coffee and a plate of pastries sat untouched.
“Kate!” she gasped when she spotted me, but though she was trembling, she didn’t make an effort to rise. I spotted her hands curled into fists beneath the table and could tell she was trying to control her shaking. The same indignation rose inside me seeing my strong grandmother reduced to the state of a panic-stricken hostage. I wanted to rush Violette and throttle her then and there, but restrained myself as I noticed there were other people in the room; two numa bodyguards stood against the wall directly behind us, their arms folded across their chests as they monitored the scene.
Violette took a sip from her cup before lowering it to the saucer. “It’s so good to see you again, Kate,” she said, rising from the table. At her waist, a jeweled knife handle glittered atop its leather scabbard.
“And you, Vincent. How surprised I was when my sentries told me you were all back in one piece again! I can only imagine you figured out the secret of re-embodiment, a method we scholars have been searching for for centuries. How clever of you.” She looked at him hungrily, as if she wanted to snatch the details straight out of his head.
“It was the guérisseur, wasn’t it?” she said as she advanced. “He must have had the information. I can’t imagine Gaspard would have neglected to inform me of such an important discovery.”
Vincent ignored her question. “Let the woman go, Violette.”
I still couldn’t figure out why Mamie hadn’t moved an inch, until I saw that someone sat just behind her holding a sword to her back. It was a boy. He must have been thirteen. His longish, light brown hair swept down over his eyebrows, nearly hiding his dark brown eyes. The monochrome numa aura outlined his body. A young numa. This must be Violette’s new companion.
She saw me staring at him. “Louis, you can let Madame Mercier go. Manners maketh man, as they say. And even though we are no longer officially ‘man,’ we still have our code to follow, don’t we, Vincent?”
“You are still bardia in body,” Vincent said, “but in your mind you are already numa. Therefore you have no code and I have no faith in your words. Let me escort Kate and her grandparents safely away from the building and then I will return.”
“Yes, please let my granddaughter and me leave,” pleaded Mamie, now standing.
Violette’s civilized demeanor exploded, shattering into a million glass shards. “You will all do exactly as I say!” she screamed, her eyes narrowed. Everyone froze and stared at her. The bodyguards unfolded their arms and took a step in our direction before receiving a glare from Violette that stopped them in place.
She pressed a hand to her chest, and closing her eyes, she sighed. Then, in a voice little louder than a whisper she said, “Nicolas, dear, escort Madame Mercier out.”
Louis took my grandmother by the arm and walked her quickly past us, handing her off to Nicolas. He whisked her into the hallway, closing the door behind them. I caught a whiff of her gardenia perfume as she passed, and my chest clenched painfully as I wondered again if any of us would get out of this alive.
“Now. Where were we?” said Violette, and turned to us. “Oh yes, Kate and Vincent. It is time for us to conclude some unfinished business.” She strode toward us, snakelike in her smooth predatory movements.
“You,” she said, pointing at Vincent, “belong to me.” And for the first time I noticed something strange about her right hand. It looked disfigured. Unbalanced. A thread of panic ran its way down my spine as I saw what was wrong: Her little finger was gone. Where the knuckle would have joined it to her hand was an angry red scab with black stitches poking out of it. That was the flesh-and-bone sacrifice she had made to bind Vincent to her. Uselessly. I stared at the amputation and wanted to vomit.
“I never belonged to you,” Vincent responded, each word dripping contempt. “You used Kate and her grandparents to get me here. Now you’ve got me, and unsurprisingly, you’ve got a fire”—he nodded toward the blaze burning in the stone hearth—“and apparently you figured out what you did wrong last time. So let Kate go and let’s get on with it.”
Violette nodded to the bodyguards. They stepped forward and each took Vincent by an arm. He looked toward me, eyes pleading for my compliance, as he let them grab him without a struggle.
Vincent was not going to sacrifice himself to save me. A red-hot poker of fury pierced my heart and propelled me as I lunged toward him. “Vincent. You can’t! Not again.” My head jerked forward as I felt strong hands grasp my arms from behind. I whipped around to see that the boy, Louis, was my captor. And he was stronger than he looked. His eyes flicked to mine, and barely moving his lips, he said in an almost inaudible voice, “I’m sorry.”
His words confused me, but I turned quickly away as Violette stopped inches from Vincent. She held the knife under his chin while he stared defiantly into her eyes.
“Take me instead of him,” I insisted.
Lowering the knife and taking a step backward, she switched her gaze from him to me and laughed. “Now, tell me, Kate. Besides the pleasure it will give me to kill your boyfriend . . . again . . . before your eyes, why in the world would you imagine I’d want you?”
I struggled against Louis’s grasp, and thinking quickly, I spat, “I could be your first human kill. Isn’t that how it works? You could be a numa like you want to be. Just don’t kill Vincent again. Let him go and take me instead.”
“Well,” said Violette, an amused expression crossing her features as she glanced behind me to meet Louis’s eyes. “Now, isn’t that a charming gesture? One might even say a self-sacrificing offer. How benevolent of you, Kate.
“You were right, Vincent,” she said, focusing her attention back on him. Her lips curved into a sick smile. “I did figure out what I did wrong last time.” Her eyes studied his face, and she tilted her head girlishly to one side. “I chose the wrong Champion.”
And, lunging forward, she plunged the knife into my chest. Her movement was so fast that I didn’t know what had happened for a full second, until I looked down and saw it sticking out of my torso, still clenched in her tiny, porcelain-white fingers.
Then, grabbing the hilt with both hands, she pulled the blade in a quick upward motion, and I only had time to look toward Vincent and see the terror in his eyes before a rushing sound erased his scream and the darkness drowned me.
PART II
THIRTY-SIX
I’M SO THIRSTY. MY MOUTH FEELS FULL OF SAND, but my lips part and I realize it’s my swollen tongue that is choking me. I wrench my eyes open, but I am sightless. My lungs want to explode. And then my throat releases and I am gulping air, frantically inhaling it into my burning chest.
A hand takes my chin and holds it roughly as liquid is poured into my mouth and spills over my lips. But I am able to swallow, and the presence keeps feeding me until my mouth closes and my head settles back. My consciousness ends there.
I am cold, though I sense a fire close by. My body feels like it has been frozen solid and is now defrosting, sharp needles stabbing the entire surface of my skin. My muscles cramp painfully and I feel my arm jerk up to my chest, the joints in my fingers spasming, clenching my hand into a claw. I still can’t see, and my mouth is parched. I hear footsteps and the hand is back, feeding me water—I can taste now.
Something brushes my lips and forces its way past my teeth. I bite down and taste the sweet juice of a fig and feel its pulpy texture fill my mouth. I swallow and take another bite, desperate to get the food inside my cramping belly. The fig is followed by walnuts. Three. I swallow them, and then immediately turn my head to the side and vomit them up, retching past the point of emptying my stomach. Retching and crying and shaking violently. The hand waits until I’m done, wipes my face, and starts over. Water. Fig. Three walnuts. This time I keep it down. The footsteps walk away and my mind shuts down once again.
I hear water lapping close to my head. My eyes fly open. I am staring at a wooden ceiling. I can see. I try to sit up, but something restrains me. I pull my head up far enough to see that I am bound to a bed by cords. I am dressed all in black . . . no, not black. Dark red—my fingertip brushes against my leg—and crusty. With horror, I realize that my clothes are saturated in my own dried blood.
Feeling panic, I try to get my bearings. The wall next to me is painted metal. I swing my gaze across the sparsely furnished room and out a window across from me to see an expanse of water stretching to a riverbank.
I’m on a boat. Tied to a bed.
“Ah, she’s awake,” a voice says, and I crane my head to see Violette walk into the room. Behind her, Louis stoops to get through the low door.
I recoil as they come into view. Something has happened to my vision. The colorless inch-wide aura I used to see around numa has disappeared and instead there are mistlike crimson haloes encircling their heads. Inside me, something new screams that numa are near. As if I didn’t already know. A nauseating fury overcomes me and I shudder and taste bile.
They stand above my head, upside down, staring me in the face. Louis looks worried and Violette triumphant. “Welcome to the afterlife,” she says.
I stop straining against the cords and gape at her. I try to speak, but my throat makes a croaking noise.
“This is so fascinating!” she says, clasping her hands together. “I’ve never witnessed an animation before. It never actually interested me until now.”
I don’t understand what Violette’s talking about for a minute, and then—suddenly and sickeningly—I do. She stabbed me, I remember. But did I die? No, I couldn’t have. Violette has kept me alive, suffering and on the brink of death, so she can continue to torture me.
I struggle against my bonds, kicking and straining—uselessly, I know—but I am furious and the fight makes me feel better. I whip my head toward Violette and try to form words with my bone-dry mouth. “You . . . are . . . ,” I rasp.
“Yes, dear?” she says, beaming. “I am what?”
“A . . . psychotic . . . bitch,” I manage to say, pouring all of my hatred and fear into my words, willing them to hurt her with every drop of energy I still possess.
“Aww. Isn’t that cute,” she says, laughing delightedly, and sweeps out of the room with Louis following closely behind. “And how appropriate as Kate’s first words as a revenant,” I hear her comment as she shuts the door behind her. “Shows she’s got spunk! This will be more fun than I thought.” And her voice fades as they walk away.
I lie there, stunned. What is she talking about? Me—a revenant? I can’t be. But after a moment, I push aside the doubt and let myself consider it.
Not only would I have had to possess that mystical revenant predisposition or gene or whatever, but I would have had to die saving someone. Violette tried to murder me. I didn’t sacrifice myself for anyone.
And then, with an icy chill of realization, I remember the scene in Violette’s room at the Crillon when I offered to be her first human kill—for her to take me instead of Vincent. What had her words been?
I hear them as clearly as if she were standing in the room next to me. “Now isn’t that a charming gesture? One might even say a self-sacrificing offer. How benevolent of you, Kate.”
Violette tricked us. She planned the whole thing so that I would die for Vincent. But why?
I check my body to see if I feel differently—and I do. It’s in the way my heart beats more slowly and the sluggish pace that my blood pumps through my veins. But that could be because I’m dying. Bleeding to death.
No, something else has changed. Though I am weak and parched, it’s like there’s a sun—a flaming ball of white-hot energy—inside me that’s radiating through my pores. There was my body’s response, a painful physical reaction, when Violette and Louis entered the room that warned me numa were near. And then, there are their auras. The colorless penumbra I saw around numa before I died has been replaced by haloes of red mist, just like the guérisseur artists had presented around numa in their cave paintings. I see auras like they did. I have changed. I am no longer human.
“No!” I manage to scream before my voice gives out. I yank at my bonds again, kicking and pulling and thrashing my head around, until I finally give up and begin crying. No, not crying, sobbing. Weeping. The tears run down the sides of my face, and I try to lift my hands to wipe them away before remembering that I am bound.
Something pinches my arm. Hard. I open my eyes to see Violette’s face hovering above mine. “It seems you passed out,” she says in a practical voice. “A typical symptom of animating after such a violent death.”
“I’ll be fine, Papy,” I urged. “Just don’t do anything to upset them.”
Nicolas followed us closely through the door. I heard Papy’s protests cut off by a gruff command of “Sit down, old man!”
And suddenly I was so furious I felt like going back and challenging that guard. My anger chased my fear away, at least temporarily. I spun to face Nicolas. “You won’t hurt my grandparents,” I said, telling not asking.
“Besides serving as bait, they are of no use to us,” responded Nicolas as he prodded me to continue. “The door to your left,” he indicated.
Vincent turned the knob and, instead of holding it open for me as he usually would, strode first into the room.
“Ah, there you are.” I heard Violette’s little-girl voice before my eyes found her, sitting with my grandmother at a table set for tea. In front of Mamie, a full cup of coffee and a plate of pastries sat untouched.
“Kate!” she gasped when she spotted me, but though she was trembling, she didn’t make an effort to rise. I spotted her hands curled into fists beneath the table and could tell she was trying to control her shaking. The same indignation rose inside me seeing my strong grandmother reduced to the state of a panic-stricken hostage. I wanted to rush Violette and throttle her then and there, but restrained myself as I noticed there were other people in the room; two numa bodyguards stood against the wall directly behind us, their arms folded across their chests as they monitored the scene.
Violette took a sip from her cup before lowering it to the saucer. “It’s so good to see you again, Kate,” she said, rising from the table. At her waist, a jeweled knife handle glittered atop its leather scabbard.
“And you, Vincent. How surprised I was when my sentries told me you were all back in one piece again! I can only imagine you figured out the secret of re-embodiment, a method we scholars have been searching for for centuries. How clever of you.” She looked at him hungrily, as if she wanted to snatch the details straight out of his head.
“It was the guérisseur, wasn’t it?” she said as she advanced. “He must have had the information. I can’t imagine Gaspard would have neglected to inform me of such an important discovery.”
Vincent ignored her question. “Let the woman go, Violette.”
I still couldn’t figure out why Mamie hadn’t moved an inch, until I saw that someone sat just behind her holding a sword to her back. It was a boy. He must have been thirteen. His longish, light brown hair swept down over his eyebrows, nearly hiding his dark brown eyes. The monochrome numa aura outlined his body. A young numa. This must be Violette’s new companion.
She saw me staring at him. “Louis, you can let Madame Mercier go. Manners maketh man, as they say. And even though we are no longer officially ‘man,’ we still have our code to follow, don’t we, Vincent?”
“You are still bardia in body,” Vincent said, “but in your mind you are already numa. Therefore you have no code and I have no faith in your words. Let me escort Kate and her grandparents safely away from the building and then I will return.”
“Yes, please let my granddaughter and me leave,” pleaded Mamie, now standing.
Violette’s civilized demeanor exploded, shattering into a million glass shards. “You will all do exactly as I say!” she screamed, her eyes narrowed. Everyone froze and stared at her. The bodyguards unfolded their arms and took a step in our direction before receiving a glare from Violette that stopped them in place.
She pressed a hand to her chest, and closing her eyes, she sighed. Then, in a voice little louder than a whisper she said, “Nicolas, dear, escort Madame Mercier out.”
Louis took my grandmother by the arm and walked her quickly past us, handing her off to Nicolas. He whisked her into the hallway, closing the door behind them. I caught a whiff of her gardenia perfume as she passed, and my chest clenched painfully as I wondered again if any of us would get out of this alive.
“Now. Where were we?” said Violette, and turned to us. “Oh yes, Kate and Vincent. It is time for us to conclude some unfinished business.” She strode toward us, snakelike in her smooth predatory movements.
“You,” she said, pointing at Vincent, “belong to me.” And for the first time I noticed something strange about her right hand. It looked disfigured. Unbalanced. A thread of panic ran its way down my spine as I saw what was wrong: Her little finger was gone. Where the knuckle would have joined it to her hand was an angry red scab with black stitches poking out of it. That was the flesh-and-bone sacrifice she had made to bind Vincent to her. Uselessly. I stared at the amputation and wanted to vomit.
“I never belonged to you,” Vincent responded, each word dripping contempt. “You used Kate and her grandparents to get me here. Now you’ve got me, and unsurprisingly, you’ve got a fire”—he nodded toward the blaze burning in the stone hearth—“and apparently you figured out what you did wrong last time. So let Kate go and let’s get on with it.”
Violette nodded to the bodyguards. They stepped forward and each took Vincent by an arm. He looked toward me, eyes pleading for my compliance, as he let them grab him without a struggle.
Vincent was not going to sacrifice himself to save me. A red-hot poker of fury pierced my heart and propelled me as I lunged toward him. “Vincent. You can’t! Not again.” My head jerked forward as I felt strong hands grasp my arms from behind. I whipped around to see that the boy, Louis, was my captor. And he was stronger than he looked. His eyes flicked to mine, and barely moving his lips, he said in an almost inaudible voice, “I’m sorry.”
His words confused me, but I turned quickly away as Violette stopped inches from Vincent. She held the knife under his chin while he stared defiantly into her eyes.
“Take me instead of him,” I insisted.
Lowering the knife and taking a step backward, she switched her gaze from him to me and laughed. “Now, tell me, Kate. Besides the pleasure it will give me to kill your boyfriend . . . again . . . before your eyes, why in the world would you imagine I’d want you?”
I struggled against Louis’s grasp, and thinking quickly, I spat, “I could be your first human kill. Isn’t that how it works? You could be a numa like you want to be. Just don’t kill Vincent again. Let him go and take me instead.”
“Well,” said Violette, an amused expression crossing her features as she glanced behind me to meet Louis’s eyes. “Now, isn’t that a charming gesture? One might even say a self-sacrificing offer. How benevolent of you, Kate.
“You were right, Vincent,” she said, focusing her attention back on him. Her lips curved into a sick smile. “I did figure out what I did wrong last time.” Her eyes studied his face, and she tilted her head girlishly to one side. “I chose the wrong Champion.”
And, lunging forward, she plunged the knife into my chest. Her movement was so fast that I didn’t know what had happened for a full second, until I looked down and saw it sticking out of my torso, still clenched in her tiny, porcelain-white fingers.
Then, grabbing the hilt with both hands, she pulled the blade in a quick upward motion, and I only had time to look toward Vincent and see the terror in his eyes before a rushing sound erased his scream and the darkness drowned me.
PART II
THIRTY-SIX
I’M SO THIRSTY. MY MOUTH FEELS FULL OF SAND, but my lips part and I realize it’s my swollen tongue that is choking me. I wrench my eyes open, but I am sightless. My lungs want to explode. And then my throat releases and I am gulping air, frantically inhaling it into my burning chest.
A hand takes my chin and holds it roughly as liquid is poured into my mouth and spills over my lips. But I am able to swallow, and the presence keeps feeding me until my mouth closes and my head settles back. My consciousness ends there.
I am cold, though I sense a fire close by. My body feels like it has been frozen solid and is now defrosting, sharp needles stabbing the entire surface of my skin. My muscles cramp painfully and I feel my arm jerk up to my chest, the joints in my fingers spasming, clenching my hand into a claw. I still can’t see, and my mouth is parched. I hear footsteps and the hand is back, feeding me water—I can taste now.
Something brushes my lips and forces its way past my teeth. I bite down and taste the sweet juice of a fig and feel its pulpy texture fill my mouth. I swallow and take another bite, desperate to get the food inside my cramping belly. The fig is followed by walnuts. Three. I swallow them, and then immediately turn my head to the side and vomit them up, retching past the point of emptying my stomach. Retching and crying and shaking violently. The hand waits until I’m done, wipes my face, and starts over. Water. Fig. Three walnuts. This time I keep it down. The footsteps walk away and my mind shuts down once again.
I hear water lapping close to my head. My eyes fly open. I am staring at a wooden ceiling. I can see. I try to sit up, but something restrains me. I pull my head up far enough to see that I am bound to a bed by cords. I am dressed all in black . . . no, not black. Dark red—my fingertip brushes against my leg—and crusty. With horror, I realize that my clothes are saturated in my own dried blood.
Feeling panic, I try to get my bearings. The wall next to me is painted metal. I swing my gaze across the sparsely furnished room and out a window across from me to see an expanse of water stretching to a riverbank.
I’m on a boat. Tied to a bed.
“Ah, she’s awake,” a voice says, and I crane my head to see Violette walk into the room. Behind her, Louis stoops to get through the low door.
I recoil as they come into view. Something has happened to my vision. The colorless inch-wide aura I used to see around numa has disappeared and instead there are mistlike crimson haloes encircling their heads. Inside me, something new screams that numa are near. As if I didn’t already know. A nauseating fury overcomes me and I shudder and taste bile.
They stand above my head, upside down, staring me in the face. Louis looks worried and Violette triumphant. “Welcome to the afterlife,” she says.
I stop straining against the cords and gape at her. I try to speak, but my throat makes a croaking noise.
“This is so fascinating!” she says, clasping her hands together. “I’ve never witnessed an animation before. It never actually interested me until now.”
I don’t understand what Violette’s talking about for a minute, and then—suddenly and sickeningly—I do. She stabbed me, I remember. But did I die? No, I couldn’t have. Violette has kept me alive, suffering and on the brink of death, so she can continue to torture me.
I struggle against my bonds, kicking and straining—uselessly, I know—but I am furious and the fight makes me feel better. I whip my head toward Violette and try to form words with my bone-dry mouth. “You . . . are . . . ,” I rasp.
“Yes, dear?” she says, beaming. “I am what?”
“A . . . psychotic . . . bitch,” I manage to say, pouring all of my hatred and fear into my words, willing them to hurt her with every drop of energy I still possess.
“Aww. Isn’t that cute,” she says, laughing delightedly, and sweeps out of the room with Louis following closely behind. “And how appropriate as Kate’s first words as a revenant,” I hear her comment as she shuts the door behind her. “Shows she’s got spunk! This will be more fun than I thought.” And her voice fades as they walk away.
I lie there, stunned. What is she talking about? Me—a revenant? I can’t be. But after a moment, I push aside the doubt and let myself consider it.
Not only would I have had to possess that mystical revenant predisposition or gene or whatever, but I would have had to die saving someone. Violette tried to murder me. I didn’t sacrifice myself for anyone.
And then, with an icy chill of realization, I remember the scene in Violette’s room at the Crillon when I offered to be her first human kill—for her to take me instead of Vincent. What had her words been?
I hear them as clearly as if she were standing in the room next to me. “Now isn’t that a charming gesture? One might even say a self-sacrificing offer. How benevolent of you, Kate.”
Violette tricked us. She planned the whole thing so that I would die for Vincent. But why?
I check my body to see if I feel differently—and I do. It’s in the way my heart beats more slowly and the sluggish pace that my blood pumps through my veins. But that could be because I’m dying. Bleeding to death.
No, something else has changed. Though I am weak and parched, it’s like there’s a sun—a flaming ball of white-hot energy—inside me that’s radiating through my pores. There was my body’s response, a painful physical reaction, when Violette and Louis entered the room that warned me numa were near. And then, there are their auras. The colorless penumbra I saw around numa before I died has been replaced by haloes of red mist, just like the guérisseur artists had presented around numa in their cave paintings. I see auras like they did. I have changed. I am no longer human.
“No!” I manage to scream before my voice gives out. I yank at my bonds again, kicking and pulling and thrashing my head around, until I finally give up and begin crying. No, not crying, sobbing. Weeping. The tears run down the sides of my face, and I try to lift my hands to wipe them away before remembering that I am bound.
Something pinches my arm. Hard. I open my eyes to see Violette’s face hovering above mine. “It seems you passed out,” she says in a practical voice. “A typical symptom of animating after such a violent death.”
