Eternal (28 page)

“So will you?” I press. “Will you try to save other vampires?”

Zachary doesn’t take long to answer. “It’s not all up to me,” he says with a meaningful glance upward. “And ultimately, each will have to decide their fate for themselves. But I’ll do what I can.”

Before I can thank him, his lips send a surge of energy into my body. The fact that I’m the least vampy vamp in vamp history? It doesn’t matter. In that moment, I’m all girl, ravenous, desperate for more. I let my hands roam, searching, discovering.

I’m tempted to take what pleasure I can, here on the rock, as the sun breaks through the darkness, as spring pushes away winter, as heaven sings down.

If Zachary keeps me, if he loses himself inside me, in my body and my love, though, he’ll be a lost cause, too. Truly fallen, eternally damned. I can’t let that happen, even if it means we could stay together, even if his touch humbles me, humanizes me, and despite the ecclesiastical stakes, makes me long to tie him to the wall in classic Dracul fashion and lick him like a Bomb Pop. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“What?” he asks. “Touch you?”

“About the other favor,” I say, removing myself from his arms. “I can’t be this thing anymore.”

He doesn’t understand. “We’ll take it one night —”

“No.” I say it fast. “I mean, it
ends
tonight, this excuse for an existence. The blood by moonlight, the power through intimidation, the trafficking in innocents, the lost conscience, lost self.” I let the words “lost soul” remain unsaid. “I need —”

“Suicide is —”

“Not what we’re talking about.” I knew he would fight me. Yet I can’t leave him without a good-bye, an explanation. I hate this, but he has to understand. He has to. “What I did tonight to Radford, was that murder?”

“No. No, it wasn’t. But why can’t you —”

“I’m walking, I’m talking, but Zachary . . . I’m dead. I have been for quite a while. To borrow an expression from Grandma Peggy, it’s high time I started acting like it.”

He shakes his head. “You’re not that . . . I mean —”

“Please understand. This is my chance to die as some remnant of the girl I was, not the . . . what I’ve become. Your influence has been powerful, but it’s a thin line I’ve been gnawing on. I’ve already broken through it more than once.”

I briefly put my fingertips over his lips. “You know the maids? I’m the reason their tongues were cut out.” That’s not the worst of it, but I can’t bring myself to recite my full list of crimes.

“Why don’t you bite me and be done with it?” he snaps.

I keep my voice gentle. “Because that’s not who we are.”

Zachary wants to stop me, to keep me safe by his side. Obviously, he doesn’t doubt that there’s a heaven, so the problem must be . . . “I’m going to hell, aren’t I?”

His answer won’t change what has to be done. If not for me, then for every victim I’d take. For those I’ve already taken.

He clenches his fists. “I don’t know. It’s not up to me.”

I shouldn’t have asked. “Um.” I glance at the empty reflecting pool. “I was planning this elegant moment with a
whoosh
and everything, but that’s not happening.”

Zachary doesn’t reply.

“You said the way you tried to save me in the cemetery was a mistake. So long as it’s my decision, will you make things right again? Will you set me free?”

It’s too much to ask, but from the beginning, we’ve been in this together. Together, we have to see it through.

Somehow I know he can help, and that ultimately, he’ll be glad he did.

“You’re sure this is what you want?” he asks. “It’s your own free will?”

What a strange question. “Yes.”

Zachary’s head drops for a moment, and when he raises it, his body begins to glow. He shows his wings, and I’ve never seen anyone more magnificent.

I take one step, then another, basking in his radiance. It’s not always about reaching for heaven, I realize. Sometimes it’s about heaven reaching for you.

The pain comes. It boils my cells and rips into my organs. Needles shoot through my body, into my skin, my throat, beneath my nails, into my eyes. My body shakes, and my teeth chatter. I hear a scream and recognize it as mine.

Zachary blurs into the golden glow, or perhaps it’s me, blurring. With each step, my form grows lighter, and then the agony fades. It’s too soon, though, too fast. He rushes closer — his lips on mine one last time. The light is everywhere. It fills me, fulfills me. I feel a last echo of pain, a last whisper of fear. “Zachary!”

I can’t see him now. The shadows have come. I’m all alone in the dark.

Then suddenly, I’m rising, weightless, in a sea of black-and-blue butterflies.

The last earthly sound I hear is my angel’s voice. He says, “Have faith.”

I DOUSE MY RADIANCE.
I hide my wings. Miranda is gone. Her body disintegrated.

If an angel could die, what just happened would’ve killed me, too. I felt the pain pouring through her skin. I watched the spark fade from her blue eyes. I watched her burn to nothingness. I watched her vanish by my own light.

I could’ve said no. I could’ve insisted on fighting a losing battle alongside her. I could’ve held on to the last dwindling moments until the real her was gone. But that would’ve sacrificed us both and in a much more devastating way.

That night in the Dallas cemetery, I told myself I was doing the right thing for her when really it was about me. I wanted to hang on to her longer. I was selfish. Vampiric. I broke the rules and indulged myself at the possible expense of her soul.

No matter how hard it was, Miranda was right. Ending what Dracula did to her was the best way I could’ve shown my love.

I hear boots touch down. “Josh?”

It’s the archangel. Michael. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asks, standing behind me.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Besides, you already know.” I shouldn’t speak to him that way. Not Michael. Not that, at the moment, I care. I’m a failure. I failed Miranda. I failed the Big Boss. What more is there to say?

Then I turn, heartened, overjoyed to see the archangel cradling Miranda’s sleeping soul. It’s a transparent, sparkling blue echo of my girl.

“You did well,” Michael announces. “You have fulfilled your mission.”

Now I’m confused. “My mission?”

I think back to that conversation on the train. Josh said I was supposed to wipe out something of tremendous significance. Could he have meant Miranda? Was she the significant one?

Michael looks down at her spiritual form. “Yes, your mission. She has already given you your next one. Fulfill it, and you’ll be welcomed back to heaven. Until then, earth is your home.”

I struggle to unravel the grand scheme. My girl asked me to help save those vampires who could be redeemed. Michael just signed off on that. Since the beginning, such a thing would’ve been unthinkable. Angels had automatically written off the undead. But clearly, that’s no longer the case. Miranda shifted the universe. She changed everything. And Michael’s retrieving her soul means that she also saved herself.

Before I can thank him, they’re gone.

My right hand falls to the hilt of a sword. My first thought is that I don’t have a sword. Then I realize it’s a gift from the archangel. I withdraw the weapon from its sheath and raise it, flaming, in the warm spring wind to the fading stars and rising sun.

I vow to honor my girl’s wishes and take the challenge set before me. I vow to someday return upstairs to our community of heavenly beings and ascended souls.

I vow to be reunited with Miranda. No matter how long it takes, I can be patient.

After all, we have eternity.