Until I Die - By Amy Plum Page 0,104

month’s grueling experiment.

“Look at you,” Violette stated, wrinkling her nose. “Even though your impressive display with the marble sword back there seems to have tired you out a bit, you should in actual fact be dead. Only someone with the strength of the Champion could follow the Dark Way for more than a few weeks. Absorbing all that numa energy should have killed you by now. You’ve had two forces battling within you: good and evil waging war inside your reanimated body.

“Gaspard was stupid to believe me when I told him it would make you stronger. Now you’re weak enough for me to take you on myself. You know the prophecy. If I destroy the Champion, his power will be mine.”

“You’re crazy,” I whispered.

Vincent put a slight pressure on my arm and pulled me slowly backward, behind him. “If anyone knows their dark prophecy, it’s you, Violette. But even I know that if the Champion offers himself freely to his captor, his full powers will be transferred. I’ll trade myself for the life of the girl, Violette.”

Violette hesitated, her grip on Georgia loosening.

She let him take one step toward her, allowing him to come an arm’s length away. “It is written that if the Champion offers himself up to death by his own volition, his power will not be diluted by murder,” she said, greed flaring in her eyes. “You would be willing to face death for these humans?”

“I would,” said Vincent without hesitation.

“No, Vincent!” I cried. “What are you saying?”

Vincent wouldn’t look at me. “You’re right, Violette. I’m weak enough for you and your men to take. And I’ll go with you. Just put the girl down and you have yourself a deal.”

Violette stared at him, weighing his offer.

And before I knew what was happening, a figure raced up on Violette’s left. Arthur took advantage of Violette’s focus on Vincent to wrench my sister’s body from her grasp and pull her away to safety.

“Sorry, Vi. Deal’s off,” Vincent said softly, as if consoling a small child.

She screamed and threw herself on Vincent, using her fingernails to scrape long, red lines down either side of his face.

And it was because I was staring at the crimson blood flowing down Vincent’s cheek that I didn’t see the numa coming.

As the giant man lunged toward me, Vincent turned from Violette and threw himself forward, grabbing the numa in a crippling embrace as the two of them smashed hard against the guardrail. I screamed as the force of the impact bent the rail backward, and locked in each other’s arms, they toppled over the leaning barrier and out of sight.

My heart fell with them. It felt like my entire chest had been ripped out, lungs and all. I couldn’t breathe as I ran to the guardrail and peered over, desperate for a miracle. Desperate for something from the movies—a branch sticking out that Vincent could grab on to. A ledge conveniently placed just feet below the rim of the precipice.

But this wasn’t a movie. It was real life. And by the time I got to the edge, their bodies had already hit the ground, and neither one was moving. “No!” I shrieked, as a man in a fur coat rushed into the area below, a couple of others following him closely. Turning, I saw that Violette was gone.

“Arthur, stay with Georgia!” I yelled. I arrived at the bottom in time to see the numa leap inside the back of an awaiting van and slam the doors behind them, and the van sped off. Panicking, I doubled back and ran toward the bottom of the cliff but stopped halfway there. There was nothing to see. The bodies were gone.

THIRTY-SEVEN

VINCENT WAS DEAD AND HIS BODY HAD BEEN taken by the numa. The realization of what that meant filled me with an immobilizing horror. Normally, he would simply reanimate in three days. But the numa would never allow that to happen.

If they destroyed his body immediately, he would be gone. Forever. However, Violette could do worse. She could wait a day and destroy him once he was volant. Eternity as a wandering spirit, unable to take physical form again—that seemed like an even more horrific fate to me. I had to do something before the numa and their new leader had a chance to act.

I called Ambrose.

“Katie-Lou? You still at Montmartre? Has Vin gotten there yet?” he asked before I could speak.

“How did you know—” I began.

“Jules was volant at the house when you girls decided