If I Should Die
Page 4
“Tuck it under your right arm,” I instructed, and picking up my end, I winced and adjusted my hold as the heavy object sent a shockwave of pain through my collarbone. “We’re going to slam the lock battering-ram style from the side. I don’t think we can break the padlock, but the ring it’s attached to looks pretty rusty. Let’s aim for that.”
As we backed up a few steps, my eyes met Bran’s, and I saw a look of regret as he stared at the candelabra. “This is a really expensive piece, isn’t it?” I asked, unable to repress a nervous smile.
He nodded sadly and then shrugged. “Go!” I yelled, and Georgia and I ran toward the lock, smashing it with the sharp end of our improvised bludgeon. The lock didn’t budge, but a decorative bronze leaf snapped off the candelabra. Bran winced.
“Let’s try it again,” I said, adjusting my Ace bandage under my shirt and gingerly pressing my sore shoulder. Then backing up, we ran full force toward the lock, this time smashing the old ring to bits. The padlock hit the ground with a metallic clink and the door swung open. I rushed into the space, and even though it was Bran—odd, scarecrow-looking Bran—I stooped to hug him quickly before inspecting his bonds.
His attackers had used black duct tape across his mouth, as well as around his wrists, chest, and ankles. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, pausing.
He rolled his eyes and nodded as if to say, Just get on with it.
I picked at the tape with a fingernail, loosening a corner on his cheek, and then gritting my teeth, yanked it off with one quick motion. Bran’s mouth dropped open and he gasped in a few choking gulps of air as tears of pain and relief coursed down his cheeks. He struggled against the bonds attaching him to the chair, but they held fast. “You must hurry, child,” he urged me. “They’ve been gone for hours. They could come back at any moment.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked, leaning in to hear him since his voice came out in a breathless wheeze.
“Numa. They’re holding me until the small ancient one arrives to question me.”
The small ancient one? I thought, and then shouted, “Wait, Violette is coming here?”
“Yes.” Bran was trying not to panic, but the urgency in his voice gave his fear away. “Do you think you might . . .” He held up his taped wrists.
“Quick, Georgia. Find something sharp,” I yelled.
“Already did,” she said from just behind me. I turned to see her wielding a plastic box cutter. She flicked the blade out and handed it to me.
Within minutes Bran was standing up, feebly shaking his legs and windmilling his thin arms to get the circulation back. “My glasses,” he croaked. “They fell.”
I found his bottle-thick glasses a few feet away from the chair, twisted and cracked. I did my best to bend them back into place and handed them to him. Even though he barely had a slit of an eye to see through, once he had slipped them on, he seemed to transform from a beaten pulp back into his weird, magnified self. He took one step toward me and then collapsed back into the chair.
I rushed to help him. “Are you going to be able to walk?”
“I’m afraid my attackers beat me badly,” he responded. “I might need your assistance.”
“We should get you to La Maison,” I said, draping his arm over my shoulder and pulling him up to a standing position. Georgia held the cage door open for us, and I hobbled with him into the room. “You’d be safe there, at least . . . ,” I began. But before I could finish the thought, the sound of the shop’s front door opening and closing and the creaking of footsteps on the wooden floor came from above our heads.
“You aren’t expecting any customers, are you?” Georgia squeaked, eyes like saucers.
“Quickly, over there!” Bran whispered, nodding across the room to where a child-size metal door sat at the bottom of a flight of ancient stone stairs. Georgia moved to his other side and we speed-dragged him to the door. He fished a key out of a niche in the wall and stuck it in the old lock.
From above us came a voice I immediately recognized. The voice of a young girl. “Where is he?” Violette demanded. There was a bang as the back door slammed and footsteps pounded down the stairway.
“For the love of God, get that friggin’ door open!” Georgia hissed, as Bran wiggled the key in the lock. The door popped forward, and we stooped to scramble through the low frame into the dark, cavernous space beyond. I had enough time to see the reflection of a river running beside us before Bran swung the door closed and locked it. We were instantly enveloped by the odor of something sour and rank and the sound of rushing water.
“Take the bar and block the door with it,” Bran told me, and shifted his full weight onto Georgia, who staggered a little before recovering her balance. There was enough light spilling through the cracks between the door and its frame for me to see a heavy iron bar above the lintel. I grabbed it and wedged it into brackets on either side of the door frame.
“This way!” Bran said, and Georgia teetered off with him into the dark. Cries of surprise and anger came from the other side of the door.
And then a voice appeared in my head—the one I had been listening for since it disappeared over the river. Kate, run!
Vincent was here! He had survived being burned—at least his spirit had. Relief hit me like a tsunami, leaving me dizzy and disoriented. “Vincent, it’s you!” I whispered.
I’m bound to Violette, and she’s just a few feet away from you on the other side of this door. They don’t know which way Bran’s gone yet. You better get out of there before they figure it out and break the door down.
Ignoring his warning, I asked, “Are you okay?” My mouth was so dry I could barely get the words out.
The power transfer didn’t work, so Violette kept me with her. She needs Bran to figure out what she did wrong. Now, Kate . . . go.
“First tell me what we can do to help you . . .”
Now!
“Kate, come on!” Georgia urged from a few yards ahead. “What are you doing just standing there?” It took all of my strength to tear myself away from the door—away from the possibility of being near Vincent’s spirit—but once I had made up my mind, I sprinted to catch up with my sister and Bran.
“I can’t see a thing,” I said after a few seconds.
“Me either,” Georgia responded. “Here, take him.” I propped myself under Bran’s right shoulder, draping my arm securely around his waist and helping him move forward. He was so light that, if it weren’t for my own injury, I probably could have carried him.
From behind us, a strong light switched on, illuminating the space around us. I glanced back at the glowing rectangle Georgia held aloft. “iPhone flashlight app,” she said proudly.
“Quick,” Bran urged, and directed us around a corner and down another passageway.
As we struggled forward in the glow of the cell phone flashlight, I took in our surroundings. We were heading down a large tunnel with vaulted ceilings lined with brick. A river ran down the middle, and on either side was a sidewalk wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. Though I’d never been here before, I knew exactly where we were: the Paris sewers. A network of over a thousand miles of tunnels carrying rainwater, drain water, and . . . yes . . . the sewage of Paris.
“If I see floating poo, I’m gouging my eyes out with this box cutter,” Georgia called from behind me.
I ignored her, and shifting my hold on Bran, I got a better grip on him so that we were almost running. Finally, I allowed myself to think about Vincent.
The power transfer hadn’t worked. A very good thing, I reassured myself. She hasn’t figured out how to drain Vincent of the Champion’s power. But my bubble of hope burst when I remembered that she had still succeeded with the binding ceremony. Vincent’s spirit was trapped, unable to leave her side.
And here I was running away from them. I felt like screaming from frustration and rage. Knowing that Vincent was powerless in the evil revenant’s hands made me more determined than ever to figure out how to free him.
But first, we had to get Bran to safety. He could hold the key to helping Vincent. It would be hard for the numa to break down a metal door blocked by an iron bar. But almost every building in Paris held an access to the sewers. Once Violette figured out how Bran had escaped, she could be after us in the time it took her to break into the basement of a nearby building.
Bran directed us through the corridors around multiple twists and turns. It obviously wasn’t his first time in the sewers—he knew exactly where he was going.
After thirty minutes of half-running half-hobbling beside the fetid water, squeezing through tight openings, and shuffling through low connecting passages, we arrived in front of another locked door. Bran removed a brick to the right of the door frame and pulled out a massive skeleton key. I opened the door with it, and Georgia led him through.
“Lock it from the inside,” Bran called. Georgia helped him settle him into a chair, where he sat panting.
I found a lighter and a glass lantern holding a candle. Georgia turned off her phone light after I lit the lamp and the space around us flickered into view. We were in a small room furnished with two cots, a couple of old ratty armchairs and shelves stocked with first aid supplies and canned food. “What is this place?” I asked.
“Old Resistance hideout, made by my grandfather,” Bran replied breathlessly. “Since the war, my family has kept it as a safe place. But we never needed to use it as such until last week when my mother hid from the ancient one and her numa. We can’t stay long, though. If they know we’re down here and come back with reinforcements, they could find us.”
“We should take you to La Maison,” I said. “But that’s in the seventh arrondissement, all the way across town. It would take hours to walk there if we stay in the sewers. And with the shape you’re in, I’m not sure you could even make it.”
Bran shook his head. “I can’t walk much farther. And even if I could, I only know my way around the tunnels under our neighborhood. I could never find my way to the other side of the river.”
“So we’ll have to go aboveground,” I said.
A buzzing sound came from Georgia’s coat. She fished her cell phone from her pocket and looked at the screen. “Arthur. Again.”
I stared at her. “What do you mean, again?”
“He’s been leaving me messages all morning, wondering how I’m doing,” she replied with a shrug.
“Why don’t you answer?” I asked, incredulous.
Georgia made a face. “I don’t want to look too interested. That’ll just scare him off.” She looked as offended as if I had suggested that she marry him on the spot.
I grabbed the phone out of her hand and answered the call. “Arthur? Yeah, this is Kate. Violette and some numa are after us, and we need your help. We’re hiding in the sewers. . . .” I turned to Bran. “Where are we exactly?”
“Under the northern tip of Montmartre Cemetery,” Bran responded. “You can tell them to meet us right inside the north gate.”
I handed the phone back to Georgia. “He said they’ll be here in twenty minutes, and to stay in our hiding place until he texts us.” Bran nodded and, settling his head on the back of the armchair, closed his eyes in exhaustion.
“Did he say anything else?” my sister asked, eyeing me.
I rolled my eyes. Even in an underground hideout, at mortal risk of being discovered by evil undead, Georgia was thinking about boys.
“Well, did he?” she insisted.
I sighed. “He asked if you were okay,” I admitted.
My sister threw herself onto one of the cots with a satisfied grin and stared dreamily at the ceiling.
SIX
WHEN ARTHUR’S TEXT FINALLY CAME, WE MADE our way carefully out of the bunker and up some nearby stairs. Bran directed me to push open a wooden trapdoor at the top, and we emerged through the floor of a mausoleum, where aboveground marble tombs dominated the small room.
“This is so Buffy it’s not even funny,” Georgia said, supporting Bran as I waved curtains of cobwebs out of the way so that we could exit into the graveyard. Ambrose was waiting by the gate. As soon as he saw us, he sprinted over and hoisted Bran up in his arms. “Hurry it up,” he said. “It’s like numa central around here!”
He bundled Bran into the back of the car, and Georgia and I packed in on either side. As soon as Ambrose was in the passenger seat, Arthur sped off. “Perfect timing,” he said, peering into his rearview mirror. I turned to see a squad of numa round the corner of the cemetery wall and push open the gate we had come through just seconds before.
“Looks like our Evil Empress has got half of Paris’s numa trailing her as security,” Ambrose commented drily. “We sent Henri and some others to your shop, right after we talked to Kate,” he said, eyeing Bran. “But there was no sign of them. The door to the sewers had been smashed through so they could still be down there, weaving their way through toilet-level Paris looking for you.”
He shifted in his seat to shoot me an annoyed look. “And who do you think you are? Wonder Woman?”
“I would say Kate’s more Catwoman,” Georgia commented. “Much cooler. Less derivative.”
Ambrose ignored her. “What possessed you to go wandering off after I left you three messages to stay put since Violette and her numa were spotted heading toward Paris? Since when does ‘Stay in your house’ mean go directly to the location where your enemy is most likely to go?”
As we backed up a few steps, my eyes met Bran’s, and I saw a look of regret as he stared at the candelabra. “This is a really expensive piece, isn’t it?” I asked, unable to repress a nervous smile.
He nodded sadly and then shrugged. “Go!” I yelled, and Georgia and I ran toward the lock, smashing it with the sharp end of our improvised bludgeon. The lock didn’t budge, but a decorative bronze leaf snapped off the candelabra. Bran winced.
“Let’s try it again,” I said, adjusting my Ace bandage under my shirt and gingerly pressing my sore shoulder. Then backing up, we ran full force toward the lock, this time smashing the old ring to bits. The padlock hit the ground with a metallic clink and the door swung open. I rushed into the space, and even though it was Bran—odd, scarecrow-looking Bran—I stooped to hug him quickly before inspecting his bonds.
His attackers had used black duct tape across his mouth, as well as around his wrists, chest, and ankles. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, pausing.
He rolled his eyes and nodded as if to say, Just get on with it.
I picked at the tape with a fingernail, loosening a corner on his cheek, and then gritting my teeth, yanked it off with one quick motion. Bran’s mouth dropped open and he gasped in a few choking gulps of air as tears of pain and relief coursed down his cheeks. He struggled against the bonds attaching him to the chair, but they held fast. “You must hurry, child,” he urged me. “They’ve been gone for hours. They could come back at any moment.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked, leaning in to hear him since his voice came out in a breathless wheeze.
“Numa. They’re holding me until the small ancient one arrives to question me.”
The small ancient one? I thought, and then shouted, “Wait, Violette is coming here?”
“Yes.” Bran was trying not to panic, but the urgency in his voice gave his fear away. “Do you think you might . . .” He held up his taped wrists.
“Quick, Georgia. Find something sharp,” I yelled.
“Already did,” she said from just behind me. I turned to see her wielding a plastic box cutter. She flicked the blade out and handed it to me.
Within minutes Bran was standing up, feebly shaking his legs and windmilling his thin arms to get the circulation back. “My glasses,” he croaked. “They fell.”
I found his bottle-thick glasses a few feet away from the chair, twisted and cracked. I did my best to bend them back into place and handed them to him. Even though he barely had a slit of an eye to see through, once he had slipped them on, he seemed to transform from a beaten pulp back into his weird, magnified self. He took one step toward me and then collapsed back into the chair.
I rushed to help him. “Are you going to be able to walk?”
“I’m afraid my attackers beat me badly,” he responded. “I might need your assistance.”
“We should get you to La Maison,” I said, draping his arm over my shoulder and pulling him up to a standing position. Georgia held the cage door open for us, and I hobbled with him into the room. “You’d be safe there, at least . . . ,” I began. But before I could finish the thought, the sound of the shop’s front door opening and closing and the creaking of footsteps on the wooden floor came from above our heads.
“You aren’t expecting any customers, are you?” Georgia squeaked, eyes like saucers.
“Quickly, over there!” Bran whispered, nodding across the room to where a child-size metal door sat at the bottom of a flight of ancient stone stairs. Georgia moved to his other side and we speed-dragged him to the door. He fished a key out of a niche in the wall and stuck it in the old lock.
From above us came a voice I immediately recognized. The voice of a young girl. “Where is he?” Violette demanded. There was a bang as the back door slammed and footsteps pounded down the stairway.
“For the love of God, get that friggin’ door open!” Georgia hissed, as Bran wiggled the key in the lock. The door popped forward, and we stooped to scramble through the low frame into the dark, cavernous space beyond. I had enough time to see the reflection of a river running beside us before Bran swung the door closed and locked it. We were instantly enveloped by the odor of something sour and rank and the sound of rushing water.
“Take the bar and block the door with it,” Bran told me, and shifted his full weight onto Georgia, who staggered a little before recovering her balance. There was enough light spilling through the cracks between the door and its frame for me to see a heavy iron bar above the lintel. I grabbed it and wedged it into brackets on either side of the door frame.
“This way!” Bran said, and Georgia teetered off with him into the dark. Cries of surprise and anger came from the other side of the door.
And then a voice appeared in my head—the one I had been listening for since it disappeared over the river. Kate, run!
Vincent was here! He had survived being burned—at least his spirit had. Relief hit me like a tsunami, leaving me dizzy and disoriented. “Vincent, it’s you!” I whispered.
I’m bound to Violette, and she’s just a few feet away from you on the other side of this door. They don’t know which way Bran’s gone yet. You better get out of there before they figure it out and break the door down.
Ignoring his warning, I asked, “Are you okay?” My mouth was so dry I could barely get the words out.
The power transfer didn’t work, so Violette kept me with her. She needs Bran to figure out what she did wrong. Now, Kate . . . go.
“First tell me what we can do to help you . . .”
Now!
“Kate, come on!” Georgia urged from a few yards ahead. “What are you doing just standing there?” It took all of my strength to tear myself away from the door—away from the possibility of being near Vincent’s spirit—but once I had made up my mind, I sprinted to catch up with my sister and Bran.
“I can’t see a thing,” I said after a few seconds.
“Me either,” Georgia responded. “Here, take him.” I propped myself under Bran’s right shoulder, draping my arm securely around his waist and helping him move forward. He was so light that, if it weren’t for my own injury, I probably could have carried him.
From behind us, a strong light switched on, illuminating the space around us. I glanced back at the glowing rectangle Georgia held aloft. “iPhone flashlight app,” she said proudly.
“Quick,” Bran urged, and directed us around a corner and down another passageway.
As we struggled forward in the glow of the cell phone flashlight, I took in our surroundings. We were heading down a large tunnel with vaulted ceilings lined with brick. A river ran down the middle, and on either side was a sidewalk wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. Though I’d never been here before, I knew exactly where we were: the Paris sewers. A network of over a thousand miles of tunnels carrying rainwater, drain water, and . . . yes . . . the sewage of Paris.
“If I see floating poo, I’m gouging my eyes out with this box cutter,” Georgia called from behind me.
I ignored her, and shifting my hold on Bran, I got a better grip on him so that we were almost running. Finally, I allowed myself to think about Vincent.
The power transfer hadn’t worked. A very good thing, I reassured myself. She hasn’t figured out how to drain Vincent of the Champion’s power. But my bubble of hope burst when I remembered that she had still succeeded with the binding ceremony. Vincent’s spirit was trapped, unable to leave her side.
And here I was running away from them. I felt like screaming from frustration and rage. Knowing that Vincent was powerless in the evil revenant’s hands made me more determined than ever to figure out how to free him.
But first, we had to get Bran to safety. He could hold the key to helping Vincent. It would be hard for the numa to break down a metal door blocked by an iron bar. But almost every building in Paris held an access to the sewers. Once Violette figured out how Bran had escaped, she could be after us in the time it took her to break into the basement of a nearby building.
Bran directed us through the corridors around multiple twists and turns. It obviously wasn’t his first time in the sewers—he knew exactly where he was going.
After thirty minutes of half-running half-hobbling beside the fetid water, squeezing through tight openings, and shuffling through low connecting passages, we arrived in front of another locked door. Bran removed a brick to the right of the door frame and pulled out a massive skeleton key. I opened the door with it, and Georgia led him through.
“Lock it from the inside,” Bran called. Georgia helped him settle him into a chair, where he sat panting.
I found a lighter and a glass lantern holding a candle. Georgia turned off her phone light after I lit the lamp and the space around us flickered into view. We were in a small room furnished with two cots, a couple of old ratty armchairs and shelves stocked with first aid supplies and canned food. “What is this place?” I asked.
“Old Resistance hideout, made by my grandfather,” Bran replied breathlessly. “Since the war, my family has kept it as a safe place. But we never needed to use it as such until last week when my mother hid from the ancient one and her numa. We can’t stay long, though. If they know we’re down here and come back with reinforcements, they could find us.”
“We should take you to La Maison,” I said. “But that’s in the seventh arrondissement, all the way across town. It would take hours to walk there if we stay in the sewers. And with the shape you’re in, I’m not sure you could even make it.”
Bran shook his head. “I can’t walk much farther. And even if I could, I only know my way around the tunnels under our neighborhood. I could never find my way to the other side of the river.”
“So we’ll have to go aboveground,” I said.
A buzzing sound came from Georgia’s coat. She fished her cell phone from her pocket and looked at the screen. “Arthur. Again.”
I stared at her. “What do you mean, again?”
“He’s been leaving me messages all morning, wondering how I’m doing,” she replied with a shrug.
“Why don’t you answer?” I asked, incredulous.
Georgia made a face. “I don’t want to look too interested. That’ll just scare him off.” She looked as offended as if I had suggested that she marry him on the spot.
I grabbed the phone out of her hand and answered the call. “Arthur? Yeah, this is Kate. Violette and some numa are after us, and we need your help. We’re hiding in the sewers. . . .” I turned to Bran. “Where are we exactly?”
“Under the northern tip of Montmartre Cemetery,” Bran responded. “You can tell them to meet us right inside the north gate.”
I handed the phone back to Georgia. “He said they’ll be here in twenty minutes, and to stay in our hiding place until he texts us.” Bran nodded and, settling his head on the back of the armchair, closed his eyes in exhaustion.
“Did he say anything else?” my sister asked, eyeing me.
I rolled my eyes. Even in an underground hideout, at mortal risk of being discovered by evil undead, Georgia was thinking about boys.
“Well, did he?” she insisted.
I sighed. “He asked if you were okay,” I admitted.
My sister threw herself onto one of the cots with a satisfied grin and stared dreamily at the ceiling.
SIX
WHEN ARTHUR’S TEXT FINALLY CAME, WE MADE our way carefully out of the bunker and up some nearby stairs. Bran directed me to push open a wooden trapdoor at the top, and we emerged through the floor of a mausoleum, where aboveground marble tombs dominated the small room.
“This is so Buffy it’s not even funny,” Georgia said, supporting Bran as I waved curtains of cobwebs out of the way so that we could exit into the graveyard. Ambrose was waiting by the gate. As soon as he saw us, he sprinted over and hoisted Bran up in his arms. “Hurry it up,” he said. “It’s like numa central around here!”
He bundled Bran into the back of the car, and Georgia and I packed in on either side. As soon as Ambrose was in the passenger seat, Arthur sped off. “Perfect timing,” he said, peering into his rearview mirror. I turned to see a squad of numa round the corner of the cemetery wall and push open the gate we had come through just seconds before.
“Looks like our Evil Empress has got half of Paris’s numa trailing her as security,” Ambrose commented drily. “We sent Henri and some others to your shop, right after we talked to Kate,” he said, eyeing Bran. “But there was no sign of them. The door to the sewers had been smashed through so they could still be down there, weaving their way through toilet-level Paris looking for you.”
He shifted in his seat to shoot me an annoyed look. “And who do you think you are? Wonder Woman?”
“I would say Kate’s more Catwoman,” Georgia commented. “Much cooler. Less derivative.”
Ambrose ignored her. “What possessed you to go wandering off after I left you three messages to stay put since Violette and her numa were spotted heading toward Paris? Since when does ‘Stay in your house’ mean go directly to the location where your enemy is most likely to go?”
