Eternal

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  Virginia artifacts aside, Father doesn't encourage references to human lives. We've had only that one phone conversation about his human daughters, about that aspect of his past. However, he's not here. He's not even on the continent. "I'm from Dallas originally. Wouldn't it be funny if we were there at the same time?"

  Zachary massages soap into the stain. "I don't think this is coming out."

  I take the hint and try another line of inquiry. "Why the tattoo?"

  His smile is wry. "Would you believe I was so drunk I don't remember?"

  "You don't remember getting a baby angel tattooed on your chest?"

  Exiting the bathroom, he says the oddest thing: "There's no such thing as baby angels. Angels are created full grown and look the same forever."

  Like eternals. No, that's a blasphemous thought. If there are angels, they're not like eternals at all.

  I follow Zachary into the suite, where he lounges on the sofa. The lights are all on, the television is turned to

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  a dinosaur program, and he's flipping through the room-service menu.

  "Do you want popcorn?" he asks. "It's a twenty-four-hour kitchen."

  I'm briefly reminded of movie nights with Lucy. The mood here is different, though. Much. "Buttered," I say. "And a bottle of Shiraz." I'll pretend it's a blood mix.

  While Zachary--still shirtless--phones in our order, I channel surf. Urban Cowboy wouldn't be my first choice. However, the hotel only offers a handful of channels, the movie is romantic, and I miss seeing people in boots and hats.

  I douse the lights.

  "It'll take forty-five minutes to harvest and pop the corn, uncork the bottle, pour the wine, and bring it all up on an elevator," Zachary says, amused. Glancing at the screen he adds, "I love this flick."

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  Zachary

  WHEN I TOOK THE SHIRT OFF, I figured there would be a complimentary robe. But the closet is empty. I ask for one when I call room service.

  By the time I hang up, Miranda's found a movie to watch. The Texas setting of Urban Cowboy fits in with my theory that she's homesick. She misses the girl she used to be.

  Sissy and Bud are dancing in their wedding duds at Gilley's when Miranda begins tracing my collarbone with her index finger. This time when she touches my chest, I can't bring myself to stop her. Using the remote, she turns off the movie.

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  I was there when Miranda took her first breath. Her baptism. Her first step. On her first day of school and when she had the chicken pox. In the middle-school girl's locker room when Denise Durant made fun of her bra size. In algebra when she mooned over Geoff Calvo and got a C. When she wrote BFF on Lucy's arm cast and when she adopted Mr. Nesbit. I was there when Grandpa Shen was buried with military honors. When Miranda chickened out of going on the Steel Eel. When her MBA dad and beauty-queen mom told her that their fairy tale had gone bust.

  The night, maybe the moment when Miranda was closing out the cash register at the mall movie theater and, suddenly, I realized that she wasn't a little girl anymore and that I didn't just love her. I was in love with her, too.

  Tonight the bridal suite of the Edison Hotel is lit by the glow of city lights. They shimmer against a Baccarat chandelier and reflect in the mirror over this sofa.

  Tonight I kiss Miranda for the first time. I taste mocha and black pepper from the wine. Heat from the mango salsa. The kiss is tentative. Uncertain.

  It doesn't feel wrong.

  Then she says, "It's one thing to die a virgin. It's another to be an undead one."

  It's her turn to initiate a kiss. Miranda sweeps her tongue across my lower lip. Through the turtleneck top, her small breasts press against my bare chest. I inhale.

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  Expect the lemongrass scent of her onetime body wash. She smells like lavender instead.

  I remember Nora lighting lavender tapers in the dining-room candelabra. The master's favorite, the chef explained. Like Miranda. She's his favorite, too. What did she just say? "Die a virgin."

  "Undead."

  I scramble to my feet. It was stupid of me to let things go so far. I may have known her from day one, but Miranda just met me. To her, I may look twenty-two, but I'm a hell of a lot older than that. And together we're impossible. Forget love. Forget passion. The absolute last thing I should do is deflower the undead.

  "What's wrong?" she asks. Her fingers go to her lips. "Did I do it wrong?"

  "I'm sorry," I say. "I shouldn't have..."

  She stands. "It's because of what I am, isn't it? Don't you understand? You can join me, if you want to, but I can't go back."

  "Miranda, it's not your fault. This wasn't your choice. I know you've done terrible things. Just, have you considered that you could still be --"

  "Saved?" she asks like it's ridiculous.

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  Miranda

  I CAN'T BELIEVE we're having this conversation. Why did he interview at the castle? What did he think it was, Gymboree? I hoped Zachary would be mine forever. When he kissed me, I was ready to offer him forever. "Pick someone else to proselytize."

  He's not going to work out, and it's not an option for him not to work out. Servants to eternals can't simply quit. They can run and hide and spend their lives haunted by termination orders, or they're sucked dry before they make it off the property. I have to get him out of here. I show him the face of a gargoyle. "Leave!"

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  "Miranda, please, let's just--"

  I shove him, and he flies into the hotel-room door. "Open it."

  "You're overreacting. We --"

  "If you're not out of here in two seconds, I'll kill you myself."

  Perhaps it's shock, but when he doesn't react, I reach behind him, rip the doorknob out of its socket, let it drop from my hand, and toss Zachary into the hall.

  "Why did you ever come to me?" I demand. "Why apply for PA in the first place? Why did you kiss me? Why?"

  He shakes his head, climbs back to his feet, and turns to walk away.

  After Zachary is gone, I sob, hard and ugly, until it feels like something breaks inside. I bend over, take staggering steps, and catch myself against a wall. My fingernails curl into the ornate gold-and-red wallpaper.

  I reach with the other hand, higher. Blinking back tears, I'm intrigued. It's as if my body is weightless. I try another hold farther up.

  A second later, I'm skittering across the ceiling, down another wall headfirst, navigating my way around the framed print of the Old Water Tower.

  It's wickedly unnatural. Like Spider-Man, only much,

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  much creepier. I'm not a real girl. Until now, tonight was a lie. This is what I am.

  "Hello? Hello?" the room-service employee calls, knocking on the knobless door. She pushes it open to enter with a tray of buttered popcorn and a bottle of Shiraz. There's a white robe draped over her arm.

  Hanging from a corner of the ceiling, I tilt my head, spiderlike.

  She looks to be in her late teens. I admire her hoop-shaped earrings with floating hearts. She's tall, long-legged. I wish I had legs like that.

  The girl sets the tray on the desk. Slowly, she looks up at me, like she already sensed a predator.

  She's a shifter. A weredeer. Perhaps an Antelope.

  It's that deer-in-the-headlights look that tips me off.

  The thirst rolls, cascades through my body. Insistent, entitled.

  I recall what my minister said back home. They're not people. They're animals in people skin. I wonder what it would feel like to pierce hers. What could it hurt? I'll enthrall her like I did Geoff, and she'll never remember.

  I flex, releasing my grip on the ceiling, falling to seize the girl's neck as I land, covering her mouth.

  Downy light brown fur ripples across her body. Her ears extend, fold. Her hands and feet collapse into hooves. She tries to buck me off, but I'm stronger and needier.

  ***

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  I don't realize in time that I
've drunk too much.

  As she dies, the Deer reverts to human form. With my bearing down on her, she hadn't been able to concentrate enough to lock in her shift.

  I sink beside her. "I didn't mean to. I thought I could stop."

  Popcorn is scattered. Red wine stains the thick beige carpeting. The room smells of both and a hint of meadow.

  My cell phone rings, and I grab it, half hoping for Zachary's voice.

  "How is my sugar?" Father wants to know. "I haven't heard from you lately."

  I glance at the dead Deer. Like me, a vampire took her life. To think, I used to be afraid of people like her. Lucy was right. I was prejudiced.

  "I'm fine," I lie. "I tried to call a few days ago, but there was no answer."

  "Hmm. And how is your new personal assistant?"

  Did I tell him about Zachary? I can hardly remember. Maybe Harrison did, before his elevation. Or maybe Father simply assumes I must've found someone by now.

  I can't simply pretend that Zachary never held the position. Too many people have seen him. I could say I killed him, but what if we cross paths again? I feign confusion at the rules. "I gave him a brief tryout, but his references never called back. He's nice to look at, but the world is full of attractive toys."

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  It's delivered with the attitude Father has been trying to cultivate.

  "We don't engage in 'tryouts, " Father replies. "He's a loose end."

  "Not to worry," I say. "I wiped his short-term memory."

  I bask in Father's praise of my growing abilities and distract him with news that Harrison is one of us now. "I didn't know you'd chosen to elevate him."

  "I didn't," Father confirms.

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  Chicago Sentinel Sunday, April 27 OBITUARIES

  CHICAGO--Tamara O. Williams, age 21, died at the Edison Hotel in Chicago on April 25 in a work-related accident.

  Williams was a graduate of Dorothy Pearl Walker High School in Indianapolis, where she was captain of the girls' varsity swim team. She had been recently accepted to begin studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

  Williams is survived by her parents, Laura and Donald Williams; her sister, Jennifer; her brother, James; her grandparents Alma and Frederick Williams; her grandmother Peggy Richards; her nephew, Ryan; and her fiancé, Marc Wojeck. She was preceded in death by her grandfather Simon Richards.

  Funeral services will be held at 1 PM April 30 at the First Baptist Church in Holt, Indiana. In lieu of flowers, a memorial fund has been established in Williams's name at the Art Institute.

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  Miranda

  "HERE YOU GO, HON," Nora says, sliding a fresh champagne glass across the stainless-steel counter toward where I'm seated on a kitchen stool. "It's pig juice and Cabernet."

  I take a sip and set aside today's newspaper. I try not to think about how much more satisfying the Deer, Tamara, tasted.

  Hotel management covered up my crime. An efficient man with a thin mustache apologized for the mess and switched me to the presidential suite overlooking the lake and Buckingham Fountain. I crawled into the king-size

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  bed in the new room and stayed there until sundown tonight.

  When thirst conquered the grief and guilt, when I felt like I might claw through the hotel wall to get at the nearest beating heart, I called Laurie. I asked her to stay put and send a sentry (with a bottle of pig's blood) in one of the limos to pick me up and then drop off one of his cohorts at the Hancock Center garage to drive the Impaler home.

  I've been back at the castle for less than an hour.

  "You want to talk about it?" Nora asks, resting her elbows on the counter.

  I shake my head. She's the only human servant I've seen since I arrived. I'm not even sure I should be here with her. I'm developing a pattern of picking food-service professionals as my fatality victims.

  I can't get Tamara out of my mind. I flip to the first page on shifters in The Blood Drinker's Guide. It says they're natural, children of God. Tamara was a Deer, but she also was an artist and engaged to be married. She had a grandma Peggy, like I do.

  Nora nods at my glass. "More where that came from."

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  Miranda

  THE BLACK-AND-BLUE BUTTERFLY emerges like magic from the dense fog and lights on my palm. "Aren't you early?"

  It raises and lowers fringed wings. The answer is no. Spring is overdue.

  After a moment, it flies away, and I watch it go from my seat in the lookout tower. I'm not sure what I'm looking for up here--answers, forgiveness, a second chance? I can't see anything tonight.

  The castle feels empty. With Father overseas, Gus dead, Harrison undead and AWOL, two maids and the handyman on the run, the security guard recently eaten, and Zachary...I have no idea what's become of him.

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  He's been gone five nights. He hasn't used his cell. There have been no charges on the credit card I gave him. I don't know how much cash he had left in his pocket.

  It's strange. I'd grown accustomed to this existence, accepted it more and more with each passing night. No, more than that. I embraced the power. At moments, I even relished it.

  Zachary changed that. The longer that I was with him, the harder it was to face the reality of being an eternal. I was starting to act and think like the girl he wanted me to be, like the girl I was before Father killed me.

  When Zachary left, though, it was like I spiraled into relapse. It was Tamara's bad luck to cross my path just then. I haven't felt bloodlust like that since my first hunt, when I drank that waiter in Greek Town.

  "If it isn't a princess in a tower," Nora says by way of greeting. Breathing heavily, she joins me on the hard stone bench and hands me a glass of pig-blood wine. The castle has elevators, but they don't open on the roof. It takes another staircase from the third floor to reach it and then one more, topside, to arrive at this circular outdoor room.

  Nora's bundled in the rose-pattered cashmere shawl I gave her for Solstice.

  With two of the maids gone, she and Laurie have been helping to deliver food to the dungeon. I haven't said anything to the chef about how she's upgraded the

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  prisoners' menus. No more hamburger gravy. Tonight Father's bleeding stock was served quiche Lorraine.

  I take a sip. Nora is keeping me well fed, too. "May I ask you a question?"

  She waves her hand through the fog, frowning at it. "You can ask."

  I choose my words carefully. I'm not judging. I have no right. "I understand Harrison. He never hid his ambition to become an eternal. He knew what it meant and seemed to crave all it implied. I didn't know Gus well, but..."

  "He was wacky in the head."

  She said it. "Why are you here?" I ask. "You and Laurie and the maids?"

  "As for the maids, I don't know. They kept to themselves, even before..." It's kind of her not to say it. "The other two are gone now, too."

  An echoing howl rises up, one of the sentries.

  "Good for them," I say, waiting for the rest of the answer.

  "They appear to have taken Jonathan Harker's kukri knife," Nora adds.

  I suppress a sigh. All it'll buy them is more of Father's vengeance.

  We share an uncomfortable silence. Half the contents of my glass are gone before Nora speaks again. "I didn't have a choice, or at least I didn't see a choice at the time.

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  The master read about my catering business in Southern Living and decided to acquire me, like he would one of his knives or antiques or properties."

  Like he acquired me.

  "I'd been a teen mom. My parents threw me out of the house, and Toby's father, he had other things to do. That didn't stop me none. Over the years, I built up my reputation as a chef. Then the master decided I would come here. He showed me what he was. He knew my Toby was a sophomore at Boston College. He knew Toby's street address. That was over twelve years ago, and the master reminds me now and then that he keeps
tabs on my boy."

  She doesn't have to fill in the blanks. I notice how deep the lines on her face are. To protect her son, she had to make herself a party to Father's madness. An accessory, a court would say, if the courts had power over us.

  "Laurie showed up only a couple of months before you arrived." Nora folds her arms beneath her ample bust. "She's dying. It's a cancer of some kind. It may be too late to treat it." After a pause, Nora adds, "She's somehow related to the master. Her family speaks of him in whispers. He briefly reappears in their lives every other generation or so. Their reputation, their standing, is important to him, and he pours in the money whenever needed. Laurie is afraid to die, you see, and she thought--"

  "She thought becoming a vampire would be the answer to her problems."

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  Nora nods without reacting to my use of the V-word. "What's left of the southern gentleman in him offered her the position of chauffeur while she decides."

  "I can't imagine her going through with it, now that she knows what it means." Laurie reminds me a little of myself, or at least of the girl I used to be. "I think she'll cheat him in the end. I think she'll choose..."

  "A good death," Nora says.

  It's an interesting way to put it, but, yes, that's what I meant. I'm grateful for Nora's company. "It's nice of you to spend time with me. More than nice--courageous."

  She sets a warm hand on my shoulder. "I've been praying for you."

  I'm mystified. Nora knows what I am, what I've done. "Thank you, but why? I mean, considering..."

  Her smile is thoughtful. "Call it faith."

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  Zachary

  I'M DWARFED BY THE TYRANNOSAUR SKELETON at the Field Museum. Forty-two feet long, thirteen feet tall at the hips. It was found buried in the Hell Creek Formation in 1990.

  The last time good and evil went head-to-head, no punches pulled, the dinosaurs died out. Lava flowed in oceans as large as the United States. Tsunamis tore apart the shores. Fire engulfed forests, and the sky turned to ash.

  According to Angels to Zombies and the scuttlebutt I remember from upstairs, we're shaping up for another showdown. And this lame-ass angel?

  I can't even handle one teenage vampire princess. Me, the guy who knows her better than anybody else. After

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