Eternal (14 page)

“My thanks, Your Highness,” he says. “I’m terribly sorry. I ache at the thought of having complicated your evening. You see, these past few months, I’ve committed many heinous deeds, wrought havoc on the innocent, become a parasitic plague. When I received the summons, I knew . . . I knew I would be held accountable.”

Summons? There was a summons? At least I know why. From the report, I see that Penelope (Harrison’s childhood mistress and one of the cochairs of our Neighborhood Watch program) reported Theo for stalking a human girl who lives in the next town. In Illinois, the only approved hunting grounds are within the city limits of Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington-Normal, Peoria, East St. Louis, Rockford, Springfield, and Chicago proper.

I reach for my blood wine.

Meanwhile, Theo drones on about his pain and angst.

“You do know what you did wrong, don’t you?” I ask, taking a sip.

“I walk the earth, terrorizing humanity with —”

“Silence,” I say. All he has to do is apologize, agree with whatever I say, and go along his scary way. What’s so hard about that?

“You’re a blessed and elevated being. You have as much right to consume human blood as a shark does angelfish. You are at the top of the food chain. All this regret, this self-flagellation, it’s your soul sickness talking.” Pushing away the memory of my own misplaced conscience from my time as a neophyte, I spell it out. “The problem isn’t that you would’ve killed the girl or that you wanted to. The problem is that she’s not in an approved hunting zone, and besides, she’s a JV cheerleader with new-money parents. Her father is a major political fund-raiser. He’s connected.”

Upon reflection, part of me whispers, this isn’t the sort of behavior we can continue to let slide.

I set my glass on the coffee table and reach behind the sofa to wrap my hand around the battle-axe handle I positioned for such occasions. “Do you have
any
idea how much twenty-four-hour television news stations salivate over film of missing young blondes?”

“I would miss her,” Theo replies. “Miss the very idea of her.” Fat tears roll down his ruddy cheeks. “Each of them is precious, unique, like a snowflake.”

That does it. “This is not an Anne Rice novel!” I exclaim, bringing the weapon up, pulling it back like a baseball bat, and, in one smooth motion, beheading him with the sharp blade.

Unfortunately, Theo wasn’t old enough to crumble into dust. Blood spurts like a fountain, all over my gray upholstered furniture and silver throw rug. I leap out of the way and land unsteadily, in my black pumps.

I didn’t know to expect it. I’ve never seen a beheading before. I guess that’s because, like a staking, Father considers them unimaginative. “Zachar —!”

He runs in before I utter the last syllable. “Are you . . .” He takes in the display. “All right?”

I adjust my dress. “It’s a messy night. That happens around here.” Do I sound suitably nonchalant? Not really. I clear my throat and try again. “I need you to clear out Theo’s remains and take them to the crematorium in the dungeon.”

Zachary turns slightly green and covers his mouth and nose with one hand to block the enticing smell. “What did he do?”

I lick my lips. “Do?”

He looks down, realizes he’s standing on spilt blood, and steps back. “Theo.”

“Oh, well, he tried to kill a human girl, which . . .” I’m not inclined to elaborate, and I certainly don’t owe my PA any explanations. “Let’s just say it’s complicated.”

I FEEL THE SLIGHTEST BIT BETTER
about Miranda after she tells me that she beheaded Theo because he tried to kill a human being. Better still after I get the body and head into plastic trash bags and onto a rolling metal cart from the supply room, throw up in one of the half baths on the first floor, and scrub my hands twenty times.

I feel a hell of lot worse when I get off the service elevator in the basement.

So this is the dragon’s dungeon.
CREMATORIUM
has been marked with signs and arrows. I quickly find myself walking through a no-frills prison. Chillingly modern. Antiseptic. Most cells are empty.

I count about forty people, teenagers mostly. A third or so in their early twenties.

From their mutterings, I can tell that maybe half are immigrants or “imports.”

Each has been allocated a numbered pen — I’m guessing seven by fourteen feet — with steel bars, white rock walls that match the rest, and gray concrete floors. A sleep platform (no mattress) is mounted to each side wall. Every unit is equipped with a small sink and toilet.

The prisoners are barefoot, dressed in paper-thin light-blue hospital gowns. The kind that tie at the back and hang open. Though the lights are muted, I can make out puncture wounds on their arms, legs, and necks.

Most are sleeping. A few cry softly.

The rolling cart’s wheels echo, drawing attention.

As I push the cart by, a boy mutters, “God damn you. God damn you.”

He looks no older than sixteen. But he’s big. Tall and burly. The kind of guy you look at and think: girth. Future NFL defensive-line material. By human standards, I’m built, but he’s huge. We’re talking six four, maybe two hundred and fifty pounds.

Three cells down, a girl with vacant eyes, her body folded like a cricket, pounds the bars. Her fisted hand is bruised and swollen, speckled with dried blood. Her hospital gown gapes, exposing a stripe of skin. Twin crusted holes rest a breath above the split of her buttocks. With her spare hand, she reaches to scratch them raw.

Moments later, a pocked man rises from behind a beat-up wooden desk. He’s polished off half of a pizza. Deep dish. Sausage, mushrooms, and green peppers.

I’ve been able to smell it since I turned the last corner.

He introduces himself as Gus, the dungeon manager, and says Harrison has already told him all about me.

“You run this place?” I ask, horrified.

“Hell of an operation, ain’t it? We feed ’em once a day. That Nora, she’s some cook. Spoils ’em, if you ask me.”

I didn’t. In the cell block, a toilet flushes.

Gus points to a metal sprinkler mounted to the ceiling. “Water ’em once a day, too, to ward off the stink. We also got temperature control and ventilation and air purification.” He motions toward an industrial-looking workstation.

A large console features half-inch toggles numbered to correspond to the cells and what looks like one large master switch. Key cards, likewise numbered, are stored in slots on a panel secured by bolts onto the rock wall.

“Solid cages,” Gus goes on, “strong enough to hold most shifters or even a young vampire. These scrawny human brats, they don’t got a prayer. You got to keep an eye on them so’s they don’t off themselves. Last week when I was sleepin’, some chick yanked out enough of her own hair to shove it down her throat and choke to death.”

I feel like my throat is closing, too.

“In the storage closet, we got ropes for the humans and chains for the spooky types. It’s sexier to chain humans, but then they’re harder to rip off the walls and —”

“How do you restrain old eternals?” I ask.

He barks a laugh. “You don’t.”

Joy.

“Furnace is over here,” he says, like I wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise. He tosses Theo’s head into a corrugated cardboard box atop a long metal tray resting on a conveyor belt. “I’ll crank ’er up after I finish my pizza.”

I help him move the plastic-wrapped body into a larger box.

“If they get sick,” Gus adds, “something contagious, we burn the whole stock. The master doesn’t like to take chances when it comes to phlegm.”

“It’s dangerous to him?”

Gus chuckles. “Nah, it just grosses him out.”

Excellent. So far I’ve ruled out mucus as a weapon. “About the puncture marks,” I begin again. “The eternals don’t kill the prisoners?”

“Depends.” Gus wipes his hands on his wife-beater T-shirt. “We got syringes that work as good as fangs.” He grabs another slice of pizza. “Want some?”

I shake my head.

“Suit yourself. The master likes to keep the sentries hungry, mean, and furry. They get theirs in buckets back behind the garage. As for the little princess, her appetite leveled off after the first big wave, and back then she took hers off the streets. She doesn’t have the stomach for the kill, if you ask me. Not yet anyway.”

He has my complete attention. “How so?”

Gus takes a bite, spends forever chewing, and swallows. “Pretty much it’s the master who sucks ’em dry here, and that’s only when he doesn’t hit the city. But if there’s a party, big crowd and all, that can turn into a real bloodbath. Literally.” He grins. “Sometimes with bathtubs and everything. We got a few old-fashioned dragon-footed numbers.”

I peek at the paperwork on his desk. Numbered columns correspond to occupied cells. It looks like blood extraction is managed. I wonder how long the prisoners are kept.

I clear my throat. “I have a tub like that in my quarters.”

“How nice for you, just arrived and already the exec perks. I guess you got the looks for it.” Gus seems on the verge of a rant but shakes it off. “So, you know, the tubs are antiques but real nice restorations. We got more in storage.”

I almost hate to ask. “Why?”

“A couple of years back, the master had ’em all hauled out to the main courtyard and . . . You okay there? You’re lookin’ pukey around the gills.”

“Go on.”

“Let me put it this way,” Gus clarifies. “They called it ‘a tribute to the Countess Elizabeth Báthory.’ You heard of her? Human chick from way back when. She bathed in maidens’ blood to keep herself lookin’ young and hot. Get it? Bath? Báthory?”

“Hysterical.” I can’t hide the shudder. “But I don’t think that’s how the name is pronounced.”

A sliver of green pepper is stuck between Gus’s front teeth. “Don’t sweat it, pal. They don’t got another shindig scheduled till the master returns, and anyway, nobody but sweet thing herself is gonna take a bite out of you.”

My gaze flicks to his desk again. I spot the order form. He’s requesting a delivery of fresh prisoners in mid-May. That’s what? Just under a month from now.

I’ve been telling myself I can hide in plain sight. Bide my time. But it’s one thing to order Miranda’s paper clips and drop off formerly undead body parts. It’s another to play servant boy, knowing what’s happening down here.

What the hell is Michael thinking? Where’s Josh?

Gus winks at me. “How’s life with Her Highness? Some gig you landed, pal.”

I can’t blow my cover. But I really want to punch him in the face.

That last night in the cemetery, Miranda was barely past girlhood. A dreamer, a reader, an animal lover. Never superficial enough for her mother. Taken for granted by her dad. Ignored by that popular boy, Geoff Calvo. But committed to being Lucy’s best friend in the world. A loyalty so strong that it was part of the reason she died.

But what is she now? Does the fact that those theater posters hang in her office mean anything? Does she still care about her human dreams?

What do I really know about demonic infection? Vampirism? Anything?

I walk away. Back down the long hallway toward the service elevator.

“God damn you. God damn you. God damn you,” the boy chants as I pass again.

STARING AT MY BLOOD-SOAKED OFFICE
, I’m reminded that Father admires not only mercilessness, but orderliness as well. Replacing the lounge area — the upholstered furniture, pillows, and rug — won’t be difficult. However, Zachary is still off disposing of Theo, and I want everything that’s been ruined cleared away immediately.

I hit a button on my desk phone. “Harrison, send in the maids, all of them.”

Within three minutes, Charlotte and Lisa (I think) have arrived with buckets and brushes. I direct them to the seating area, and they begin breaking it down without eye contact or hesitation. They’re doing their best, desperate to please, but it’s a substantial task, especially for only two people. The sofa is heavy. Besides, I didn’t request only two of them. I return to my desk and call again. “Harrison?” No response. “Harrison?”

I try another button. “Nora? Have you seen, um, Renée and Katerina?”

“Honey, they . . . They took off before daylight in one of the white vans.”