Eternal (25 page)

He’s no Old Blood, but she is. She’s among their most admired and feared.

I suspect that at one time she imagined herself in my blue slippers, as the dragon princess, if not as queen.

The implication of her words constitutes treason. It’s brave of her to direct them at me, Dracula’s daughter.

“They say,” Sabine adds, “as he prematurely heightens his abilities through magic, he loses his mind.”

“It’s true,” I reply. “I’m his favorite.” I untie the black ribbon around my neck to reveal the scabbed knife wound. “And look.”

Sabine’s hand flies to her throat.

Sabine, who once chose damnation over the guillotine.

It hasn’t been long since her actions placed her temporarily outside Radford’s good graces. I tell her about the fire in my bedroom, and I can almost hear her wondering about the one in the Latin Quarter. I wouldn’t be surprised if Radford had ordered it set.

“His affection for you,” she says. “It is now an obsession.”

It works to my advantage that I showed her mercy when he likely wouldn’t have. Sabine holds up a finger, glancing again at the courtyard scene below.

“There are rumbles among the aristocracy,” she adds in a soft voice. “It did not help that the master never appeared on his international tour. His media manipulations may have fooled the middle class, the peasants. The elite, we know. His instability puts the Mantle at risk. It is a dangerous time, princess — not only for the royal family but for the aristocracy as well. Of late, across the continents, we are more and more questioned, more and more dismissed by the gentry, even the common citizenry. Just over a year ago, the entire Southwest U.S. aristocracy was destroyed in a series of bombing attacks.”

Almost there. “The master can’t even rule his own castle,” I agree, “let alone the underworld. It must be done. Tonight at the party. We’ll catch him off-guard.”

Sabine raises her small chin. “You are doing this for the angel.”

I don’t deny it. “Not only for Zachary, but, yes, he is part of it.”

“You love him.”

Sabine may be wicked, but she understands love.

“Help me,” I say, “and you will be rewarded. I am the rightful heir. I can facilitate the smoothest transition.”

“I like you, princess. I do. But we are beings of self-interest, not of honor.”

I don’t blame her for doubting me. I play a card I have no right to. “I’m not only giving you my word, Sabine. I’m giving you the word of my angel, too.”

She audibly gasps. “The word of God?”

It’s blasphemous to agree. For all I know, doing so may cause me to burst into flames. Hopefully, though, He will forgive me this, if nothing more. “Yes.”

I’M CHAINED FLAT ON MY BACK
to the thirty-foot-long buffet table in the middle of the courtyard. I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve never felt so helpless, stupid, or ridiculous in my entire life. It was one thing to have thought I was a fallen angel. Another to hear from Joshua that I’ve only “slipped.” But being laid out as the decorative centerpiece of The Dracula’s social high point must go down in the history of heaven as the single most revolting performance by an angel of the order guardian.

As Harrison unbuttons my shirt, I spit in his face.

“I like it,” his brother, Freddy, says. He backs away, positioning his hands like a movie director trying to figure out the camera shot. “I like the drama, the composition. An angel, you say?”

“A fallen angel.” Harrison scowls as he wipes his cheek.

“Foolish, fallen angel,” Drac proclaims, puffing on his stogie. He slams the kukri knife into the wood, through the light-blue tablecloth, alongside my temple. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to have changed sides?”

Where is Miranda? I wonder. Where?

“The first guests are parking in the west lot,” Harrison announces.

At that, Drac dissolves into mist.

Freddy flips open his cell and talks as he walks the perimeter of the setup.

Harrison risks leaning over me, back into spitting range. “I knew you were too good-looking to be human.” His voice drops. “I didn’t know there were angels.”

I may have failed with Miranda. But I give the pitch another try. “You knew firsthand about the demonic. Why wouldn’t you believe in us?”

“We were raised in this world, Freddy and I, children of servants who were children of servants for generations. It’s all we’ve known.”

I’m buying that only up to a point. “Your brother doesn’t want to vamp out.”

“No,” Harrison agrees. “He would’ve run from this life long ago . . .”

“If it weren’t for you.” That’s what I figured. That whole Hannibal-Lecter-party-planner shtick might fool the vamps. Not me. “It’s not too late,” I tell Harrison, hoping I’m right. “You can still make a choice for good.”

Before Harrison can reply, Freddy rejoins the conversation.

“You’re lucky that this one showed up, Harrison,” he says. “The master’s original plan for tonight was to put
you
in the holy-water dunking tank.”

Harrison nods absently. “You have a little angel tattooed on your chest,” he tells me, like I don’t know that. “A cherub.”

Freddy pushes up his wire-frame glasses. I almost swallow my tongue when he says, “That is not one of the
cherubim.
That is a fat, naked white baby with wings.”

Where did I hear that before? Joshua. Amtrak.

It’s no coincidence. It’s what? Divine nudging, I suppose.

Freddy is a human being. He has a guardian angel. Freddy, Nora, all of the human servants scheduled to be killed. Their angels must be doing what I used to. Indirectly encouraging, inspiring. Pulling strings.

Even if Miranda has deserted me, I’m not alone in this. I remember what Josh said at the museum. Heaven is on my side.

“Speaking of the fallen,” Freddy adds, “oh, brother of mine . . .”

“Not now,” Harrison says, walking off. “There are guests to greet.”

“What’s going to happen next?” I ask.

Freddy begins tossing blue and white rose petals on me. Artfully. “Well, we’re going BYOB since the party favors are AWOL. The resulting kitsch factor at a royal gala is in itself something, but it’s not that nifty. So, the idea is to cut out your heart, the heart of an angel, and exhibit it around on a silver platter. The guests will be warned not to taste but invited to stab it with their lobster forks.”

“You’re going to do that?” I ask Freddy. “Cut out my heart?”

When we first met, I would’ve believed it of him in, well, a heartbeat. But since then I’ve been getting a much more complicated vibe.

“Oh, no,” he clarifies, working the blade of the knife free. “The master is reserving that honor for the princess.”

I TWIRL THROUGH THE GALA
, biding time, until Sabine moves to my side beneath the south wall overhang.

“Philippe has seen to the sentries,” she says. “Only three are left. They are taking a little nap.”

I know this isn’t Sabine and Philippe’s first coup d’état, but I’m still impressed. “The crowd?”

“The local aristocracy is more loyal to the master than the international set is, but they are survivors. They will gauge the situation. Even if most of the domestic eternals stand with Radford, we will not be without support.”

An underworld war. Sabine speaks English fluently, but her accent is noticeably thicker. She’s nervous, too.

“Be ready,” I tell her, turning the kukri knife. “Philippe, too.”

She raises a large brass goblet as if to toast me, but doesn’t drink.

Later, at the buffet, I don’t have time to say anything to Zachary. He can’t see me because of the blue silk blindfold. He can’t say anything because of the matching gag.

Radford appears immediately by my side.

The hilt of the knife I’m holding is cold to my touch and at times seems to vibrate slightly. Or maybe that’s my hand shaking.

It might seem ill advised, Radford’s decision to have the knife placed in my hands. Yet he’s always surrounded himself with deadly materials — the weapons throughout the castle, the fire of the torches and candles, the holy water in the reflecting pool. Furthermore, he’s yet to let his gaze stray from the blade while I’m within striking range.

Harrison rings his handbell, calling the attention of all assembled. As befitting their seniority, Sabine and Philippe flank us. She to Radford’s right, he to my left.

Once the crowd quiets, Harrison announces, “Tonight it is the great pleasure of The Dracula, exalted master of eternals, king and ruler of the Mantle of Dracul, to present for public torture and humiliation an angel of the Lord.”

The crowd shrinks back. A few raise their faces to the heavens. Some stare at Zachary like he’s a sideshow freak. Others stare at Radford in awe.

He booms, “Understand that your master is no fool. I know there are those among you who have doubted my capacity to rule. Yet I present to you the desecration of a holy being. No mere human devotee of the enemy, but one who foils our efforts on a universal scale. He is an angel fallen — stripped of flight and radiance — but still in the service of the opposition.”

Zachary protests against the gag, struggles against the chains.

“Sugar,” Radford prompts.

I’ve been improvising as I’ve gone along, but now I don’t know what to do next and I’ve run out of time. I raise the kukri knife in both hands high over my head as if to plunge it into Zachary’s heart. I’d meant to stab Radford instead, but my positioning is wrong. The master vampire is too attentive.

For the first time since I died, I close my eyes and pray.

“One moment, Your Highness! Excuse me. Coming through.” Freddy steps in front of the onlookers to record the moment on video. “Look this way! Exalted Master, Princess Cutie.” He pans. “Frenchies?”

Even under the circumstances, I can’t help being amused.

Freddy gets away with the attitude because he’s the best at what he does, and Radford insists on having the best. He demanded the finest effort of his “princess” from the beginning, and tonight that’s what he’s finally going to get.

Freddy adjusts his focus. “That’s fantastic! Carry on!”

The lure of preening for the camera distracts Radford. I take one last look at him, my murderer, the monster who ripped me from everyone I loved, the one who stole my future and reinvented me for his own wicked purposes.

He’s handsome, distinguished-looking, there’s no denying it. But those
GQ
looks and the royal posturing, they’re a lie. I’m sick of lies. I’m sick of this whole existence.

I take a half step closer to Philippe, tighten my grip on the knife, and bring the blade down at an angle, driving it through the tux and into Radford’s abdomen.

It’s not a killing blow. But if I’d tried to turn and strike upward through the heart, he would’ve blocked me.

Radford reaches out, his hand breaking the scab around my neck.

This is it, I realize, the moment I find out whether my alliances hold.

And then Sabine tosses the contents of her goblet into Radford’s face. He lets go of me with a piercing cry, covering his burning skin with his hands, only to burn his palms, too. Holy water, I realize. The knife is still firmly lodged, bleeding him out, as he staggers backward and falls to his knees.

Victor — he of the baby-teeth necklace — is next up, rushing to his master’s defense, only to be blasted by an electric charge from Philippe’s bat-head cane.

Elina leaps over the buffet table to land in front of me. She pauses just long enough to show off her forked tongue. It’s all I can do to dodge the attack when Sabine steps between us, knocking out Elina’s fangs with one punch.

As for me, I have powers but no clue about hand-to-hand combat. It was one subject Radford overlooked in my training.

I’m the only one of my kind, though, who seems to have that problem. The courtyard has become a frenzied battle zone. Vampires are skittering up and down the walls like scorpions, leaping into battle. Three in wolf form collide in the middle, a blur of flying fur and dripping jaws.

Freddy and Nora shout to the human PAs, food servers, and the harpist, herding them out of the way, out of the fray, through the castle to safety.

The parking lot will empty fast.