Eternal (27 page)

On one hand, I’m proud of her. On the other, I’m mortified. Why the hell would she want the Mantle of Dracul?

As I walk in, Miranda picks up the kukri knife. Slices her right palm open.

“What are you doing?” I exclaim.

She winces. Squeezes her hand into a fist. Urges the dripping blood into an inkwell. Then she dips in a pen and scribbles something.

Still ignoring me, Miranda turns the paper toward Philippe and gives him the quill. After he makes a notation, she picks up a brass ink stamp, wets it on a pad, and with a small thud pounds it against the page.

In a businesslike voice she says, “If you track down Harrison, he’ll make and file the requisite number of copies.”

Philippe struggles to stand. Reaches for his bat-head cane. “
Merci,
princess.”

She begins, “I’m not —”

But he waves his hand. “I speak for myself and Sabine when we beg to disagree.” Philippe offers a deferential nod to me on his way out.

Once the door closes, I can’t keep my mouth shut. “What are you thinking? Taking out Drac — kudos on that. Really. But is
this
why you did it? So you could become the biggest, baddest vamp of them all?”

Miranda extends her nails and raps them on the metal desk. “You say you were my guardian angel. Does that mean you watched me
all
the time? Like when I got my period or doctored a zit or took a shower or —”

“I’m an angel, not a Peeping Tom.” I can’t meet her eyes. Shower time was one of my favorites. “I knew what I was doing then.” It’s a bald-faced lie. If I’d known what I was doing, we’d never have been in this situation in the first place.

Suddenly, I know why I’m still incapable of becoming ethereal. As glad as I am to have seen Drac bite it, I’m not the one who fulfilled the mission of the Big Boss. It was Miranda who beheaded the monster.

Heaven’s gates are closed to me forever.

“AND I KNOW
what I’m doing now!” Did I actually say that? “Biggest, baddest vamp of them all. Is that what you think of me?”

“I . . .” It’s not his best comeback.

I need a drink. I walk to the reception area. The glass of blood wine tastes too good. It’s a human blend. Radford must’ve changed it during his brief reemergence. “I’m not The Dracula, not anymore. I just abdicated the Mantle to Sabine. Philippe signed the decree as my witness.”

“Oh.” Zachary says, looking appropriately chastened. “Sorry.” It takes him a moment to regroup. “Why have a Dracula at all?”

The good can be so simple. “Until the last vampire fades away, The Dracula is necessary for order. If there is a power vacuum, there’ll be an undead free-for-all. Our laws and traditions don’t exist without reason. Ultimately, they protect the humans as much as they do us.”

“Until the last vampire fades away,” he murmurs, likely wishing this was that night. “You’re sure about this?”

I let the blood play on my tongue. “Yes and no.”

Part of me is relieved when Zachary takes the glass. Part of me wants to tear his throat out for it. Thank God I can’t drink him.

I’m thinking how unworthy I am when he falls to his knees. “I have to tell you something,” he says, and my first thought is ludicrous — that he’s proposing marriage.

Instead, he offers me the most extraordinary story about the night I died.

Call me naive, but it never occurred to me that my abduction and murder had been planned. I never thought to question what Radford was doing in the cemetery.

He meant to kill Lucy. He used Kurt, an undercover undead DVD rental guy, to identify her and lure her out that night. Why? Because she thought bad boys in black leather were sexy? Because she liked scary movies and chatting online with her fandom buddies?

Because, I realize, thinking back to the old photo from the feature story, she was the living image of Radford’s human daughters.

In all the years he was a vampire, Radford never stopped mourning his life. That girl who was in the dungeon and looks like Lucy, the one I couldn’t drink . . . She must’ve been a near miss, a discarded candidate for princess.

I think of all the girls who have died over the centuries. Who knows how many of us have been snuffed out since the reign of Dracula Prime.

Not Lucy, though. She’s alive even though she was specifically targeted by — as Zachary would say — the biggest and baddest of vamps. How miraculous is that?

MY GIRL OFFERS ME THE HEALTHIEST
, most wholly human smile I’ve ever seen. “Thank you, thank you.”

She’s cracked. I’ve pushed her over the edge.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” I ask, standing.

“Yes!” Miranda leaps to hug me. She kisses my right cheek, my left, and the tip of my nose. “You saved Lucy. She’s my best friend, the only close friend I had before you.”

It’s amazing. Inspiring. I didn’t know any vampire could think that way. Few humans would be so selfless.

I’m still a work-in-progress myself.

I’ve wondered why vampires still exist. Why the archangels weren’t asked to wipe them out a long time ago. Michael alone could level an army of the undead. But if some of them, if
any
of them, are like Miranda — soul and salvation still in play, maybe the reason is as simple and astounding as that.

Whatever my girl is, whatever she’s done, how could the Big Boss reject her?

How can I? I’m tempted to suggest a visit to the four-poster bed in my second-floor quarters. Right now, I’m aching for all of her passion, even the demonic.

I have to remember, though, that she’s still a teenager. We’ve hardly more than kissed. The upside is that we’ll both walk the earth for centuries.

Walk away from this foul place. Find solace somewhere in the shadows between good and evil. Make love until the End Days.

ZACHARY SAYS THE NICEST THING.
“I missed you this week.”

I wonder if I’ve drunk enough blood to blush. “I’m sorry I fired you.”

I mean it. I do. The words sound funny, though, out loud. Before I know it, we’re both laughing, and Zachary’s dipping in for a kiss.

If I start touching him, I’ll lose my courage in the pleasure. “I still have something to do tonight. Why don’t you clean up? Meet me in the central courtyard in ten minutes?”

I need to center myself. I have to remember that Zachary is a holy being. I don’t deserve his love or touch. I don’t deserve to go on. I can’t go on like this.

The last lines of
A Tale of Two Cities
come back to me: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

My English teacher would approve, but I have to find my own words to explain to Zachary what must be done. Tonight is our last.

This time, I press SEND.

THE WRECKAGE FROM THE PARTY
has been cleared. The stone has been hosed down.

I could order the reflecting pool refilled with holy water, but the longer I wait, the more likely I am to lose my nerve. I hear my angel’s footsteps, drawing closer to where I’ve seated myself on the foot-high rock border wall.

“It’s empty,” I say.

Zachary solves the mystery. “After Harrison dumped Drac’s remains, he drained it. Said it was a health hazard.”

Harrison would say that.

Zachary offers his hand, and I take it, rising.

“What’s your pleasure?” he asks.

I’m surprised by the invitation in his words and tone. I realize he’s somehow convinced himself that we could have a future. It’s the biggest compliment anyone’s ever given me. I only wish it were true. “I have a favor to ask. Two actually.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Anything for you.”

We walk, hand in hand, to the middle of the castle courtyard. The horizon has lightened. The stars have faded. We’re moments from a new day.

“You’re stuck on earth, right?”

“I used to think so.” His smile is wry. “That I was stuck. Now, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

I shut my eyes against the pain I’m about to cause. “Guardian angels help people?”

“We try,” he says. “There are limits. But yeah, we do our best.”

I rest my palm over his heart, noticing the Band-Aid covering his neck wound. “I wonder if you could help vampires like me, if they’re not too far gone.” When Zachary hesitates, I press, “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing here, trying to help?”

He brushes stray hair from my face. “You could say that.”

It’s a burden, a duty, more than I have the right to ask. Still, I know he loves me. Is there a difference between love and duty? I haven’t walked on this earth long, but I don’t think so. Love isn’t only passion and joy. It’s also sacrifice.