Eternal

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  294

  Vicious fellow, but you have to love him. "Of course," I agree. "Please do."

  When he reaches my side, I say, "Thanks" under my breath.

  Harrison straightens his spine and his bow tie. "My pleasure, Your Majesty," he says with a wink. "It's apparently the only sort of thing I'm good for around here."

  The party resumes as if the battle never happened. As the Bears and rooftop warriors retreat, Zachary, still airborne, announces to all that they're under his protection. Human servants, those who survived and decided to stick around, clear the bodies. Freddy administers first aid to anyone with a pulse who isn't badly hurt. Nora coordinates hospital runs for the more seriously wounded.

  By undead standards, it's the best party in centuries.

  My angel descends. He takes my hands in his. "What the hell just happened?"

  "I'm the scariest vampire in the world," I reply. "I'm the new Dracula."

  295

  Zachary

  I PERSONALLY ESCORT the Bears and the holy-balloon bombers (as they're calling themselves) through the subdivision to a couple of parked minivans. I'm relieved to have them out of harm's way.

  Along the way, no one says much. They're pretty star-struck, though I've ditched the wings. After the humans are loaded, the Bears shift back. It looks painful and smells like an evergreen forest on steroids. We all do a bang-up job of pretending that the fact that they end up naked is no big deal.

  As the Bears throw on long cloaks, Brenek quickly fills me in on the prisoners' escape--minor injuries but zero

  296

  fatalities on our side. It's the best news I've heard in ages. As for the sentries, Brenek tore off one of their heads himself. The flamethrowers took out two more, and he's not sure about the rest. I wonder how Delta fared.

  "If you ever need anything..." Brenek offers his large hand, and I shake it with both of mine. "Seriously," he adds. "Standing offer."

  "All the kids are safe," Papa Bear assures me. "We made sure everyone who needs medical treatment is receiving it. The rest are at the house with my brothers."

  I hand him Father Ramos's business card. "This man should be able to help get everybody home." I remember what Miranda said about how some of the prisoners were from worse places or had been sold by their parents or pimps. "Or someplace better."

  "Thank you," Mama Bear says. A substantial woman at six foot five, she explains that the local Bear community had been searching nonstop for Brenek. It had been weeks. They'd begun to lose hope. Her words dissolve into sobs. She puts aside her awe to hug me.

  Once the taillights fade in the distance, I try to change myself to ethereal form, planning to reappear back in the castle. It doesn't work.

  I focus more fully. Still no luck.

  Flight and radiance may have been returned to me. But all is not forgiven.

  I'm still stuck on the mortal plane.

  297

  I find Miranda with Philippe in her office. She's seated behind the massive metal desk, and he's perched in the chair across from her.

  I'll never forget tonight. Miranda--a girl who as a human cowered before standard-issue high-school divas and didn't have the strength to climb the rope in Gym, claiming the worldwide throne of the undead.

  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

  298

  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.

  299

  Miranda

  "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?"

  300

  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.

  301

  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?

  302

  Zachary

  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 ri
ght 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.

  303

  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.

  304

  Miranda

  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?"

  305

  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.

  306

  Missing Miranda COMMENT Zachgirl

  What a cool blog! I'm wowed by how much time you've put into it.

  It looks to me like you're the BEST best friend in the world.

  Maybe you should visit Miranda's house sometimes and play with Mr. Nesbit. I bet her mom wouldn't mind. She might even let you bring him home and take care of him.

  I'm sure that if Miranda ever surfed by, she'd want to say thanks for everything. She'd want to tell you that she loves you and wants you to be happy and to enjoy the blessings of life.

  This time, I press SEND.

  307

  Miranda

  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.

  308

  "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

  309

  I don't think so. Love isn't only passion and joy. It's also sacrifice.

  "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."

  310

  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.

  311

  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. "Urn." 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.

  312

  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."

  313

  Zachary

  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.

  314

  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.