Eternal (22 page)

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.”

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.”

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 what happened last week between me and Miranda, I feel like I’m the one buried in Hell Creek.

I’ve spent nights at a South Side homeless shelter (and picked up a shirt and jacket there). I’ve spent days haunting the city streets.

Someone walks up from behind, whistling. Joshua.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“I’m bored. What is this, intermission? Are you just gonna give up?”

He’s wearing a White Sox baseball cap, a Shedd Aquarium T-shirt, and blue jeans. He’s cuddling a stuffed woolly mammoth toy.

“She fired me,” I say. “It’s over.”

“
She
fired you?” he exclaims. “Did you forget who you’re working for? Or have you changed sides?”

“You know what happened. You know what I mean.”

I’m not fooling myself. There were a million things I could’ve done when Miranda tossed me out. But I’m the one who initiated that first kiss. I don’t think I could ever touch her again without risking who I am or at least who I need to be.

Josh motions toward the less-crowded Mammals of Asia exhibit and leads me that way. “Okay, but why are you here at the museum? Most self-respecting angels would’ve chosen a religious refuge. Like a church, a synagogue, a temple, Wrigley Field.”

I’m surprised it took him this long to start nagging.

“What about your mission?” Josh wants to know.

I shush him as we enter the exhibit and pass two young women. One looks too much like Miranda for it to be a coincidence. “You suck at subtlety.”

He grins. “Part of my charm.”

It’s a little darker in here. Spookier. Dead animals are mounted behind glass. They’ve been posed in pairs, families, small herds. The crouching leopard is alone.

I keep walking when Joshua slides onto a long wooden bench. I keep walking when he plops down on fake suede in the octagonal seating area.

Sounds of wind, crunching ice, and animal calls bleed in from Messages from the Wilderness next door. It might as well be called Messages from the Big Boss.

“Well, let’s see,” I say as Josh jogs to catch up. “I’m powerless. No wings, no radiance. But big deal! So what if I’m persona non grata at the castle. All I have to do is smite Drac and save Miranda’s soul, even though she literally threw me out of her afterlife.”

“Is that all?” Josh prompts, smug.

“I know, I know. I’ve also got to free the prisoners despite the locked cells, the wolfed-out vamp sentries, the twelve-foot wrought-iron fence, and a neighborhood chock-full of bloodsuckers.”

“Excellent!” Josh hugs me. “Dude, that’s so ambitious!”

“But is it possible?” At his double take, I clarify. “About Miranda. Her soul. With faith, repentance, and sacrifice, anybody can be redeemed, right? Anybody. She’s still somebody. Maybe it’s harder for a vamp to be good. But you could say the same of the poor or the oppressed or politicians. She didn’t fall, Josh. What she is had nothing to do with her free will. She was taken.”

He trails me into a larger, more open room. Past the mounted cheetah family and the small kudu herd. We stop in front of the Lions of Tsavo. Two male lions. Maneless. One stands, paw poised to take another step. The other is positioned low, like he’s slinking forward. They don’t look like man-eaters. Just curious. Ready to play. The way Miranda looks sometimes. But they mauled and ate almost 140 railway workers along East Africa’s Tsavo River in 1898 (I read the sign). That’s not typical lion behavior. But disease killed off the zebras, gazelles, most of their prey. And the local humans used poor burial practices. It’s a good reminder. You have to be careful with the dead.

“Uh,” Josh begins, “there’s something you should know.” He tucks the toy mammoth under his arm like he’s trying to protect it.

“Just tell me.”

“You’re not totally without hope,” he says. “You’ve still got your looks, your sex appeal (or what passes for it), your immortality, and — this is key — your influence.”

That makes sense. Like immortality, it’s less a power per se, more inherent. Plus I’ve had practice. “Angel on my shoulder” and all that crap. “Your point?”

“For the last week, Miranda’s been handling the vampire thing on her own.”

I glance at the lions, afraid to ask what she’s done. “So, you’re saying her soul . . .”

“Sorry, man. You know as well as I do that the Big Boss is a romantic. Heaven itself is rooting for you. But it’s not like she vamped out yesterday. She’s done some serious wrongs. And you can’t save someone else. It has to be her decision. She has to face her own inner monster and do what’s right.”

Sure, I know that. But Miranda’s always been bigger on hiding from her problems than tackling them head-on. Not that this week I’ve been doing much better.

“From where I stand,” Josh adds, “it looks too close to call. Tonight’s party —”

I grab his arm. “Tonight’s? What do you mean
‘tonight’s’
? Drac’s supposed to be on a jet to . . . I don’t know . . . Sydney right now!”

Josh’s voice lowers. “We rely on travel itineraries provided by the dark master since when?”

I STROLL BY WEARING
a new backpack. Laurie looks at me from her small windowed office in the castle’s detached garage. She’s drinking coffee and reading a paperback mystery. “You’re back?” she asks over the microphone from behind bulletproof glass.

I hold up the flamethrowers like they’re tribute. “Romantic, huh? Most guys go for girls who like flowers.”

She sets the book beside a brochure from the Mayo Clinic. “Yes, most do.”

At the museum, I borrowed Josh’s cell to call Father Ramos at Holy Cross in Winnetka. The priest picked me up outside and drove me to his church. Then he gave me the weapons, the backpack, and the station wagon. No questions asked.

Father Ramos offered to come along, too. But my mission is on the stealth side. He’s not the type that could pass for a bloodsucker or even a wannabe. And I wouldn’t want to risk losing him.

I exit the garage and head to the castle wall. The tunnel entrance looks like a cross between a storm cellar and Fort Knox. I use the master key, open the door, and walk down the stairs and through the tunnel. It’s a narrow, water-stained concrete hallway lit with motion-sensor lights.

Once inside the dungeon, I set the flamethrowers and backpack on what used to be Gus’s desk. It’s not a sophisticated system. I throw the master switch. The cells unlock.

Some of the prisoners exchange glances, but no one moves.

“Hey! I’m trying to help you escape!” I run to Brenek’s cell. “Come on.”

“We’re not stupid.” He shoves aside the door with the broken lock to face me in the center aisle. “Why do you think we didn’t make a break for it after Gus croaked? I saved you from Harrison because you don’t smell like one of them. But there are bloodsuckers patrolling the grounds. I can’t protect everyone by myself.”

Brenek is fast. I’m sure he’s some kind of shifter. But a toe-to-toe battle between only one vamp and (assuming we’re talking predators), oh, a Wolf is even money. Here, we’re looking at multiple fiends. What makes him think
he
can protect anybody?

Brenek is clearly the alpha of the group, though — the guy I have to win over. “Drac’s back in town.” I check my watch. “Or at least he should be any minute. You’ve got two choices. You run and take your chances against the sentries, or you’re hauled to the central courtyard to die for sure.”

“Party?” Brenek asks.

“Blowout,” I reply.

“We will never make it over the fence,” says the girl with the Jamaican accent.

“The front gate is open,” I reply. “I just drove through it. It’ll be open all night for the guests to come and go.” I’m hoping the neighborhood undead will be too preoccupied with party prep to give chase. But . . . “There’s something else: this whole town is vamp-controlled.” Harrison mentioned once in passing that the no-local-hunting rule doesn’t apply to escapees. It’s bad news. Enough to quiet everyone for a moment.

“I’d rather die fighting than run,” puts in a preppy kid — maybe eighteen. His nose has been shattered. His whole face is a green-and-yellow bruise.

“I’ll show you how to use a flamethrower,” I reply.

“Easy, Kyle,” interrupts a girl to my right, and I notice she looks kind of like Lucy. Only thinner, more hollowed, and sad.

“You’ve got weapons?” Brenek asks.

I should’ve mentioned that first. “Two flamethrowers, stakes for everybody.” It doesn’t sound like much. But guns wouldn’t slow down the sentries for long. Bombs would make too much noise. “I brought what I could carry.”

A small crowd gathers, debating. The more athletic-looking and more pissed off want to know how many vamps are in the castle. Where they sleep. They want payback.

A girl speaking a language I don’t recognize is becoming hysterical.

“She won’t leave her brother,” Brenek says. “The traders that brought him here broke his leg when he tried to run off. He can’t walk.”

“So they die,” declares another prisoner, following her preppy wingman to check out the weapons. “Some of us will, no matter what.”

Brenek moans, and the mixed smell of wet fur and pine and mud fills the air. He falls with a resounding thud, catching his weight on his hands. A rapidly forming beard expands. So does the unibrow. They cover his face. Thick brown hair shoots across his body. He moans again and shakes his head. The muscles bulk out, splitting the long underwear into scraps. His face unfolds forward. His hands burst into clawed paws.

With a silent roar, the werebear opens his jaws.

“Ladies and gentleman,” I breathe, “your odds just got a lot better.”

The girl who was in the cell next to Brenek reaches to stroke the damp fur. He nuzzles her hand. It’s clear why he didn’t try to escape. A Bear might have a fighting chance against the sentries, but not with someone to protect. Or, I realize as the rest crowd in — hugging one another — a lot of someones.

Humans and shifters don’t always, make that usually, get along. This group is beyond that. They’ve bonded. Brenek chose not to leave anyone behind.