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To Die For

A Die for Me Novella

To Die For (Revenants, #6)

Amy Plum

Copyright © 2021 by Amy Plum

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Amy Plum.

Interior Design by Jasmine Aurora / jasmineaurora.co.uk

To Die For / Amy Plum—1st edition

ISBN print book: 978-2-9575891-2-8

Also by Amy Plum

The Die for Me Series

Die for Me

Until I Die

If I Should Die

Die for Her

Die Once More

Inside the World of Die for Me

After the End

Until the Beginning

(a duology)

Dreamfall

Neverwake

(a duology)

Chapter One

The first time I died, it was by bullets. Totally my fault.

I had instigated a gun battle, having ratted on my mom’s abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend—Frankie—hoping it would get him out of our lives. Instead, it got him dead...along with me and my brother. I was thirteen at the time.

Remember that. It’s important.

The second time I died, it was arrow through the forehead. Six months later. Again...totally my fault. I threw a knife at Violette—the undead evil overlord who had ensured my thirteen-year-old corpse animated as an immortal bad guy. (Stick with me. I promise to explain.) My knife-in-the-chest didn’t kill her; it just pissed her off. So, she ordered her archer to shoot me.

Bull’s eye.

The third time, I drowned. Pure stupidity.

Bran had taken me to Brittany to recover from death number two. After a year, I’d become bored—so I taught myself to surf. I’m not supposed to mingle with humans. I only went out on the water when they weren’t there. Like at night or in bad weather. I got struck by lightning. It stopped my heart, I went under—and once I was fished out of the ocean, I had to start the healing process all over.

Long story short, it was thanks to a genetic lottery ticket that I reanimated as a “revenant” after death. But it was a technicality that turned me into an evil one instead of a good one. Since I died betraying someone to their death, even though it was Frankie and he totally deserved it, I turned into an evil “numa” instead of a “bardia,” the good-guy revenants who repeatedly die saving people’s lives.

But I’m not evil. I swear.

Kate, the revenants’ Champion, saw my underlying good nature and gave me the chance to redeem myself. Which I did by helping her kill Violette. After that fatal act, Kate asked Bran Tandôrn, a healer, or “guérisseur,” to take my corpse to his home on the northwest coast of France and transition me from numa to bardia. Or at least, to try. It hadn’t been done for a millennium or so.

When a revenant (good or evil) dies, they come back to life three days later at the age of their original, human death. Remember when I said it was important that my first death was at thirteen? Under the normal rules, I should stay thirteen forever. Which would totally suck. Who in their right mind would want to be stuck in perpetual puberty?

But Bran figured I was a special case. He should know. Guérisseurs are rare, but fairly well known in France. And Bran’s one of an even smaller group who specialize in healing revenants. They’re called Flame-fingers, and he’s the one Kate contacted when Paris’s bardia needed help. He’s been my guardian since Kate entrusted me to his care.

Between the time I got to Brittany and my unfortunate run-in with lightning, I actually aged. I grew a few inches and hair sprouted...everywhere. Which was exhilarating. I wasn’t trapped in a child’s body, after all. I was beginning to prove Bran’s theory that during my transition from numa to bardia, I would age at the same rate as a human. Which was further proved when I woke back up from my lightning-strike death with my age reset at thirteen, shorter and less hairy, the telltale red lines of a numa threading back through my aura. (This especially sucked. They had almost disappeared.)

So, Bran strictly forbade me from dying. And it worked. It’s been four years, and now I have the body of a seventeen-year-old. After working out daily and following weapons training videos that Ambrose and Gaspard post on a private server for me, my shoulders are broader, and I have the beginnings of a six-pack. I’m too slim and lanky to ever be as jacked as Ambrose, but I’m...not bad.

Bran assumes my aging will stop when I die as a bardia, saving someone’s life. Right now, I don’t have the urge to die, like bardia do. And I don’t have the craving to betray, like numa do. But I don’t sleep and I’m dormant three days a month, so I’m somewhere in between. I’d like to keep it that way for a few more years. See if I get any taller and bulk out a bit. You know...finish growing. Become a little more adult before my default reset age is set in stone. I’m thinking twenty-two seems like a good age to die a fourth time.

Avoiding death wouldn’t be a problem if I stay here in Brittany. We’re in the middle of the countryside. All cows and sheep and farming and...that’s pretty much it. It’s officially the most boring, uneventful place on earth. That’s what Bran had planned...a few more years of this snoozefest and I would, as he said, “achieve my full potential.” But yesterday I got the call. I’ve been invited to move to Paris. Why? Bran just said that my “bardia kindred” would fill me in. (I always feel uncomfortable when he uses that term, since it isn’t technically accurate: I’m not yet a bardia, so I haven’t earned the status of “kindred.”)

Paris is where I grew up. But this time will be different. The thought of being with people I’ve basically idolized for the last five years fills my heart with both dread and excitement. I knew Kate a little. I spent a few days weaning her back to life after Violette killed her. But the rest of her kindred I only met on the day of the Final Battle, just before I died and was whisked away to Brittany. Jules and Ava stopped by about three months after I moved in with Bran, but they only stayed a day.

I’ve begged Bran to tell me everything he knows about Paris’s bardia. Googling is useless, because they use aliases when they save lives or do anything in the public eye. So basically, I’m moving in tomorrow with a bunch of undead superheroes who I barely know but secretly worship. And even though I used to be their enemy and haven’t technically yet become one of them, they say they want my help.

So...no pressure or anything.

Chapter Two

“Here he is! The lean mean fightin’ machine, come all the way from Bumfart Brittany to give me some exercise!”

A man the size of a tank appears in the grand archway of the massive stone Paris mansion the bardia call “La Maison,” flinging the doors open before I can get close enough to knock. I have to look up to meet his eyes. Ambrose is about twice as big as I remember him; the training videos do no justice to his sheer bulk.

He throws a meaty arm around my shoulders and squeezes, making me feel like a very fragile pencil. “You don’t have to knock, man, you’re kindred,” he says, pulling me into the foyer, then yells over his shoulder, “Hey baby, look what the Crow dragged in!” He lets go of me and reaches for Bran. (Bran’s name means crow in Breton, and with his bottle-thick glasses, black, slicked-back hair, ivory skin and sharp nose, the nickname suits him.) My mentor does a fancy sidestep to avoid Ambrose’s grasp, and slips past us.

Charlotte is coming down the winding marble staircase, arm in arm with Gaspard, their heads almost touching in what looks like a serious discussion. The last time I saw her, she was dressed in black, wielding a crossbow—a fierce teenage fighter ready to sink bolts into numa heads. Now her blonde hair is pulled back from her peaches and cream complexion and she looks like an older, more responsible version of warrior-Charlotte. That is, until she sees me.

She squeals, “Oh my god! It’s Louis!” then takes the rest of the stairs at a run and throws herself on me. “Welcome, kindred. You’re finally here. We’ve been waiting forever!”

“Five years,” I say, when I can breathe again.

She holds me back to inspect me, and I self-consciously tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “Look at you. You’ve grown up! What are you now? Six feet?”

“Six foot two,” I reply, embarrassed by the attention.

“Now all we have to do is bulk you out,” Ambrose says, squeezing my barely-existent bicep.

I want to find a table to hide under, but Charlotte’s still talking. “We would have come to visit you in Brittany, but we weren’t allowed.”

Ambrose drapes his arm around her and wiggles his ring finger to show off a thick gold band. “We invited you to the wedding.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “I really wanted to be there, but it was just a few months after I arrived at Bran’s, and he said I was under lockdown.”

“You missed the event of the century. Maybe even the millennium,” he muses.

“Don’t rub it in,” I say. “I spent the last five years in the middle of nowhere with absolutely zero social life.”

“What about school?” Charlotte asks.

“Homeschooled.”

Ambrose’s mouth puckers like he bit a lemon. “Man, that’s harsh. Hey, remember that time you got struck by lightning?”

“Um, yeah.” I grin. “Kind of hard to forget.”

“Well, when Bran called, I had the car out front in seconds, but Gaspard said only Kate and Vincent could go. Kate said she saw your aura from the highway when they were still three hours away.”

“Good thing,” I say. “My body had floated so far out to sea, they had to borrow a boat to come get me. But by the time I reanimated, they were back in Paris. So even if you had come, I wouldn’t have been awake to see you.”

“Sounds lonely.” Charlotte gives me a look of pity.

Ambrose pats me on the back. “I can’t imagine five years with only Bran for company. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a quality guy. But he acts like a grandpa, and I’m sure you could use some excitement.”

Bran, who went out to retrieve a notebook from the car, chooses this moment to return. He clears his throat to indicate he heard what Ambrose said.

“No offense, man, but you know it’s true,” says Ambrose, unapologetically.

Charlotte has been grinning mischievously, like she’s already plotting my future social life. She lunges back in for another smothering hug. Ambrose wraps his arms around both of us.

Gaspard has been standing, hands behind his back, studying this reunion with a slight grin on his lips and eyebrow raised, like he’s witnessing a curiosity. Now, he steps around the person-sandwich I’ve become and gives Bran a couple of formal cheek kisses. His raven black hair makes him look as though his grooming routine is limited to sticking his finger in electrical sockets. “Good to see you, old friend. I assume your journey was without incident?”

“The TGV is a thing of wonder,” Bran says. “I would much rather take a high-speed train than maneuver my old station wagon through the streets of Paris.”

“And Louis,” Gaspard says, turning to me. “You look better than when I saw you last time.”

“Less dead,” I say.

Gaspard lost his longtime partner, Jean-Baptiste, in the Final Battle. The numa had killed him and burned his body—the only way to permanently destroy a revenant. Even though I barely know Gaspard, I can see how deeply it must have affected him. The lines in his face seem etched by sorrow instead of age.

“How is Louis’s aura?” he asks, turning to Bran.

As a Flame-finger, or healer specializing in revenants, Bran can see things we can’t. Like auras. Or volant spirits. But I’ll get to that later.

He studies the space around my head, which feels weird, but trust me, I’ve gotten used to it. “The red threads have completely disappeared. But he does not yet have the golden aura of a bardia. That won’t happen until his first rescue. He is, I suppose you would say, a blank slate of a revenant.”

And there it is. The whole source of my anxiety in a nutshell. I’m not yet one of them. It’s a fact. But from the way Charlotte and Ambrose stand, each with an arm around me, they don’t seem to care.

“Good, good.” Gaspard inspects me like I’m a scientific specimen. Which I guess I am, seeing as I’m the first numa to have “transitioned” during any of their lifetimes.

“You are welcome here, kindred,” he says. “We are pleased that you are moving in.”

“Thank you,” I say, bending in a formal bow before I can catch myself. Ambrose chuckles and my face gets hot. Where did that come from? I think. I’m pretty sure I’ve never bowed in my life. Gaspard brings out the Louis XIV in me.

As he starts up the stairs with Bran, he calls, “Ambrose, would you let everyone know Bran and Louis have arrived and that we will convene in the library?”

“Don’t you think Louis needs time to freshen up?” Ambrose asks. “Maybe eat a meal? Get in some training?”

I look between Ambrose and Gaspard and shrug. “I’m actually good.”

Gaspard raises an eyebrow at Ambrose. “Apparently, he is good.”

Ambrose mumbles something about just trying to be hospitable and heads toward the kitchen.

Charlotte takes my arm. “We all know it’s Ambrose who wants the meal and the workout. But we should go ahead and discuss what you’ll be doing here. After the meeting, you’ll have plenty of time to get settled.”

She leads me up the stairs toward the library, and I try not to gawk at everything. The crystal chandelier the size of a Volkswagen Beetle hanging over the foyer. The upstairs hallway lined with antique carpets. The marble pedestal holding a vase of fresh flowers that smell like Bran’s garden after the rain.

Kate brought me to La Maison, located in a super-posh tree-lined neighborhood in Paris’s sixth district, for a few hours before the Final Battle. But I was too shell-shocked from having deserted the group of evil undead who had resurrected me to have the bandwidth to appreciate the decor. Plus, I spent most of that time in a dark room giving intel—filling the bardia in on everything I had witnessed during my months with Violette and the numa.

Now that I know I’m going to stay, I’m hyper-aware of my surroundings, and realize how impressive the house is. It’s a hotel particulier, a palace inside the city, complete with a garden and hidden behind a high stone enclosure. But it doesn’t feel cold and historic, like Violette’s castle, where bleakness practically oozed from the cold grey walls. No, this place is warm. It feels alive.

If I’m honest, it seems way too good for me. I know I shouldn’t get hung up on it, but I can’t help it. However unwillingly, I worked with their enemies. And I haven’t even proved myself by saving a human life. So, I don’t feel like I deserve to be embraced so warmly. But I want to. Desperately. I’m determined to earn the trust they’re investing in me.

In the library, Gaspard and Bran are deep in conversation, seated at a large round oak table surrounded by a dozen chairs. Stacked in the middle are piles of books and a laptop that sticks out like a sore thumb since it’s the only electric item in the room besides the lamps.

Although I’m not a big reader, libraries impress me. They have that hushed, holy feeling of churches. This one feels more like a cathedral. Its ceiling towers twenty feet overhead, and there are wooden ladders to access shelves that are too high to reach. The smell of furniture polish hangs in the air, mixed with the odors of old paper and candlewax.

Charlotte and I take chairs across the table from others, not wanting to disturb them. She leans in and says in a hushed voice, “I’m so glad you’re here. I feel like I already know you. Kate told me how you helped her escape the houseboat where Violette imprisoned her, and I saw your courage when you turned your back on the numa and joined us. I just want you to know how brave I think you are.”

I can tell my face is flushing. I’m not used to this sort of sincerity, and definitely not this type of praise.

“I can see I’m embarrassing you, so I’ll stop,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “But, you know, I suffered a traumatic childhood like you did. Most of us have some sort of damage in our past. So even though you’re new here, and you may not feel you fit in, just know there are things we all share that makes you one of us.”

Luckily for my tear ducts, Ambrose takes that moment to burst into the room like the door’s too small for him. “Mission accomplished.” he announces to Gaspard. “They’re on their way.” He plops down into the chair next to Charlotte and rubs his hands together in anticipation of the meeting.

Hey kid. I hear the words in my mind and look around in surprise.

Ambrose leans back in his chair to peer at me from behind Charlotte. “Arthur says to say hi. He’s flying around here somewhere.” He twirls his finger toward the ceiling.

I had almost forgotten about being “volant” since I don’t have that ability yet. Most revenants, bardia and numa alike, have two stages of dormancy each month. The first day, they’re “mind and body dead.” Then, the second and third day, their mind wakes up, and they’re “volant,” which basically means a ghost. Their body lies there, skin cold, heart stopped, but their spirit can travel, speak telepathically to other revenants, see a few seconds into the future, and (in cases of extreme need) possess the body of another revenant, or even a human, although that’s not the best idea. Makes the human go crazy, thus inadvisable.

You can’t even imagine how many revenant rules there are. After five years of studying, I still don’t know some of them. So yeah, today Arthur’s a ghost. “Hi,” I say out loud, because, except for with Kate, who has some kind of Champion ESP, the telepathy doesn’t go both ways. (That would be Revenant Rules #3,641 and #3,642. Kidding. Kind of.)

You’re looking good, he replies. Seems this afterlife’s treating you well.

“Thanks, Arthur.” I feel self-conscious conversing with the air, although from the way everyone ignores me, it’s clear they’re all used to it. Besides Kate, Arthur’s probably the bardia I talked to the most before leaving for Brittany. After the skirmish where I switched sides, Vincent told him to guard me on the walk back to La Maison. He was giving me these weird looks, like he was trying not to laugh. I finally asked, “What?”

“You’re Violette’s new consort?”

I didn’t respond. The word “consort” made it sound like we were a couple, when I was actually just the person she wanted around while she bitched about things and ordered people around.

He patted me on the shoulder and said, “You decided to run away after being with her for six months? You should have tried five hundred years.”

I hadn’t realized he was the Arthur—the one Violette chose me to replace after he turned against her. But once I did, man, I felt bad for him. So, we were able to have that bonding moment before she ordered someone to put an arrow through my head.

Vincent is next through the door. He looks the same as he did five years ago. That dark, handsome, brooding look, like the tortured hero of a graphic novel. His eyes meet mine and he frowns.

My stomach twists into a knot as he walks up to me. I force myself to stand and shake his hand. “Welcome,” he says. Everyone looks up, waiting, but he doesn’t say anything else. The omission makes it clear: He doesn’t see me as kindred. Just as I had feared.

When Kate offered me amnesty during the skirmish, Vincent was against it. He had knocked me to the ground and was about to run his sword through me when Kate stopped him. And though I fought side-by-side with her after that, he still didn’t trust me. He had me tell him my story as we walked back to La Maison, and afterward I overheard him say to Kate that even though my case was “different,” my destiny had been decided. Once a numa always a numa, even if it wasn’t fair. Kate defied him, and he finally caved.

I proved whose side I was on when I threw the knife at Violette, but even that didn’t win him over. For the last five years, he’s kept his silence. I’d wondered if, over time, he’d changed his opinion of me. Now the answer’s clear.

He takes the chair next to Bran and leans in to listen to what others are discussing. I must look as uncomfortable as I feel, because Charlotte pats me on the arm and whispers, “Don’t take it personally. Vincent’ll come around.”

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