by Amy Plum
I touch his arm thoughtfully. “Do you know what my powers are, Bran?” I ask.
“I have no information besides what is contained in the prophecy. But you already performed one of your most important roles: You single-handedly reunited the flame-fingered with our bardia wards after centuries of being lost to each other. That role in itself saved your Vincent. Once I master the gifts of ease of bardia suffering and dispersion, our continued alliance in the future can only be beneficial.”
With effort, he shifts his eyes to look straight into mine. His face takes on an unreadable expression: something between sadness and hope.
“Be careful, Kate,” he says. And leaning forward, he gives me an awkward back-patting hug.
Charlotte is waiting in my room when I arrive. She has brought my fighting gear up from the armory, and is already dressed in hers, ready to go. She sits beside a low table helping herself to a tray of food. I pop a cheese gougère into my mouth and savor its flakey goodness as I pull up a chair. “I’m ravenous!” I admit.
“When’s the last time you ate?” she asks.
“On the boat. Violette was feeding me so that I would get my strength back and fully animate. Looks like that worked a little too well for her!” I think back to the strange, sad numa boy, Louis, and something tugs inside me.
Charlotte munches on an apple slice, looking pensive.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask.
“Ambrose,” she responds. “He’s been acting really weird lately.”
“Weird good or weird bad?” I ask, popping a melon ball into my mouth.
“Weird freaky,” she replies, looking troubled. “He keeps watching me. I wonder if he questions JB’s decision to name me as second. Maybe he’s waiting for me to slip up or something.”
“Hmm,” I say, unable to keep my lips from crooking up at the corners.
Mercifully, there is a knock on the door and Arthur sticks his head in. “Fifteen minutes,” he says. My heart skips a beat and I realize that I’m nervous. The other times I fought, the fight came to us. I’ve never had time to think about it in advance.
“Man, he’s got it bad for your sister,” Charlotte says after he’s gone. “But she is really playing it cool.”
“It could be because Papy and Mamie would completely freak if they thought that another of their granddaughters was falling for a revenant.”
Charlotte shrugs. “Your grandparents are involved now, whether or not they want to be. You’re one of us—it’s not like they can just pack you up and take you home.”
I think about Mamie and Papy and their response to seeing me: joy and relief mixed with horror and despair. My heart aches. Will they ever be able to look at me the same as they did before? I change the subject. “How does it feel to be Vincent’s second?”
“Like I was born for it. Like I’ve been waiting for this role for the last fifty years.” She smiles. “It’s time for you to get suited up. I’ll wait for you in the foyer.” She stands and turns to go.
“Charlotte?”
“Yes.”
“Please don’t leave.”
She looks at me curiously, and then comes over to put her arms around me. “This is scary, isn’t it?” she asks.
“Yep.”
She gives me a squeeze and then walks over to the bed and picks up a pair of leather pants. I shuffle out of my jeans and take them from her.
“Violette’s timing really sucks,” she says. “You shouldn’t have to jump right in like this before you even have time to test yourself. But we’re going into it together. You, me, Ambrose, Vincent, and the rest of our kindred. We never work alone. You will always be one part of a whole. Together we can win this fight—I am sure of it.”
Charlotte’s courage is contagious. As I pull on layers of protective clothing, I begin to feel emboldened, and a sense of purpose sparks my will. I am bardia. Whether or not I feel capable, I was made for this.
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 fl
icker 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.
FORTY-FIVE
I HADN’T SEEN THEM COMING. I KICK MYSELF FOR not being more attentive, but my focus had been on saving Louis and not on protecting my own. I glance around to see how many we are. Ambrose, Charlotte, Vincent, Arthur, and the four revenants in Arthur’s group. With me, that makes nine. Ten if Louis fights with us.
The other groups, another fifteen bardia, are somewhere on the outside. Or at least, they were. Either they have already been defeated or they can still come to our aid. In any case, at the moment we are outnumbered by double. But for some reason, this doesn’t scare me. It just feeds my determination.
Breathing deeply, I draw my sword and bounce on my toes, adrenaline sizzling in my veins. I am ready for this, I think, and run at the first numa I see, attacking before he can get to me. I catch him by surprise and slash at his sword arm before he can lift it. He drops his weapon and crouches down to recover it. As he stands, I lunge. My sword pierces his chest. I drive it deeply in and then quickly pull it out.
He stares at me, eyes bulbous. Grabbing his chest, he coughs up a small stream of blood and then falls forward, his sword clattering to the ground beside him.
I can’t believe I just killed someone. I expect to feel sick like I did at the riverside, but instead I feel exhilarated. It’s us against them: bardia versus numa in a fair fight. Death in this case serves the larger good, I tell myself. But with a pang of realization, I know those words are to comfort the old Kate. New Kate has more numa to kill.
Charlotte is fighting like a madwoman. Geneviève’s body has been pushed to the side of the passageway, out of the melee. Arthur and his four are standing back-to-back with us, fighting the numa coming from the other end of the passageway. Louis stands behind me, weaponless.
Are you with us? I ask him silently.
Nodding, he sweeps his long brown hair behind his ear. I scoop his sword from where Vincent had kicked it aside, and meet his eyes as I hand it to him. With the slightest of smiles, he moves to my side and we advance on two numa. “What in the . . . ,” says the one directly in front of me, gaping when he sees Louis beside me.
Louis’s sword skills aren’t very good, but thanks to the split second of surprise his kindred experience when they register his defection, he’s given the advantage, and together we take out our opponents. As more rush in to take their place, I see that two in Arthur’s group are down. Ambrose smashes away at an opponent with one arm, the other dangling uselessly by his side.
We have formed a small circle facing outward as we fight off numa that number twice our ranks. “What do we do?” I yell to Vincent as I strike at a dusky-skinned numa with a mustache.
He pulls a second sword from his belt. “We do our best,” he answers. “And if we die, we hope that our backup arrives to rescue our bodies.”
I ready myself for my next opponent when, from behind the line of numa, I see the worst possible thing: More fighters approaching. Another ten at least. My mouth fills with a me
tallic tang. I can taste our defeat. We are lost.
These newcomers are like no numa I have seen before. Their punk hair is bleached and dyed in every possible color, and their skin is covered with tattoos. And as they stride through the arched gateway, the noise of battle is suddenly drowned in a wave of speed metal. One of them actually carries a boom box on his shoulder, which he swings down and places near the entrance of the passageway. He pauses to turn the music up to maximum volume before straightening and positioning himself with his compatriots, hands on waists, across the width of the entrance.
The fighting stalls as everyone looks their way. And then I notice their auras. Not red. Gold. They are bardia! I realize with astonishment. They draw their weapons, and one of them steps forward.
His long hair is black, tipped in red, and stands on end like a lion’s mane. His eyebrow and lip are pierced and his eyes are lined with kohl. He scans the fighters until he spots Charlotte, and one side of his mouth turns up in a grin. “Hey, sis,” he calls.
Charlotte is stunned, her sword hanging by her side and her eyes wide with shock. “NO WAY!” she yells, and then with a whoop of joy she springs back into action, swinging at her enemy with such intensity that she beheads the distracted numa with one blow.
Chaos descends. Charles’s kindred shout some kind of battle yell in German and plunge into the fight, swinging curved sabers and battle-axes.
The numa facing Arthur and his men fight fiercely for another minute, pushing us forward into a tight band of flailing limbs and flashing weapons. But as our defensive circle widens, confusion takes over. A couple of numa run toward the passageway’s exit. They are quickly followed by more, one or two pulling wounded kindred with them, but most thinking only of their own escape.
In five minutes it is over. The blaring music mixes with the moans of our wounded foes, who are quickly dispatched. The owner of the boom box marches over and turns the music down. He shrugs when he sees me staring. “Hey, noise pollution elicits fewer phone calls to the police than screaming and battle sounds. At least, that’s the case in Berlin,” he says.