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
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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.
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Miranda
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
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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, Renee and Katerina?"
"Honey, they...They took off before daylight in one of the white vans."
"Off as in...?"
"Skedaddled, hit the road, vamoosed. I think they were waiting for the master to clear town. The sentries figured they were running out for supplies and let them go."
I'm appalled. "Why didn't Harrison tell me?"
Nora is unfazed. "Maybe he figured you were busy with that handsome new boy."
Or perhaps Harrison hoped he could handle it before I found out. This doesn't speak well of his administration of our staff or, now that I think about it, my oversight of the servants as a whole. What will Father think?
It occurs to me then that perhaps Harrison has already contacted Father about the missing maids and that it's equally possible he's also reporting on my performance.
They're both unsettling thoughts. After all, Father left me in charge here, and so far, I have a--however gorgeous--mouthy new hire, my office is a bloody mess, and two of the castle servants are on the run.
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I beep off and glare at Lisa and Charlotte. They're stacking cushions. I should smite them for their missing sisters or cousins or whatever they are, but then I wouldn't have any maids at all. "Faster! For now, you'll do the work of four!"
"Dinnertime," I announce when Zachary returns from disposing of Theo. "Nora will have a meal ready for you. I remember something about veal tenderloin on the chalkboard outside the kitchen. Typically, servants eat there, but we have so much to do."
Charlotte is rolling up the rug. Lisa just took a load out.
"Obviously, you'll need to reorder furniture and so forth for in here. Do it later. Right now, we have a gala to plan." Glancing at the post-decapitation scene, I decide it's not the most conducive work environment. "Let's move to the formal dining hall. On the way, you can pick up your meal and fetch me another glass of--"
"Some dungeon you've got," Zachary says.
The restrained fury in his voice catches me off-guard. I raise my hand, snapping my fingers once. Charlotte abandons her task and retreats.
"Is there something you'd like to say?" It's the right response, or close to it. Spirit is desirable, but disrespect isn't, and the castle already has Harrison to contend with.
Still, I don't want Zachary unhappy. I'd rather not lose
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him. With all I have to do, I need a PA right now. I don't have time to waste hiring a replacement. What's more, I'd never find anyone so deliciously intriguing. Even in the short time that we've known each other, I've been unable to simply default to royal mode in dealing with him. He demands more, and on some level, I've been enjoying that.
Besides, if the job doesn't suit, Zachary can't simply leave. The relationship between an eternal and his or her PA is a lifetime commitment, a till-death-do-us-part arrangement, although the most successful relationships persist beyond.
He sets my striped chair upright. "It doesn't bother you, the people down there? The way you use them?"
I remind myself that Zachary is new here. It took me time to adjust, after all. With training, I'm certain he'll make a capable PA, perhaps even a loving consort.
Father has spoken to me of enthralling humans in the hunt and in seduction. It's not a power all eternals have, and some who do have it consider it cheating. It works best on the weak-willed, the frightened, or those under undo stress. Perhaps Zachary's on-the-job experience tonight has placed him in the last category.
I warm my tone. "I'm sure this is all overwhelming at first."
Zachary hoists the battle-axe, weighing it in his hands. He looks out of place in my office, so clean and pure and hunky against the bloody background.
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"What you must understand," I continue, drawing nearer, "is that those humans in the dungeon are there for a reason. It's their natural role."
"How do you know?" he asks.
"I know," I reply. "I know many things." That sounded stupid. "Think of what I could show you, what we could do together." That was worse. How do women do this? Be saucy, be sexy?
"Have you visited them? Talked to them?" Zachary counters. "They're just kids."
I shift my hips, take a few steps in my heels, and wobble on the right one. "Let's speak of the future," I suggest. "Our future. There are castle rooms we've yet to visit."
Rooms with beds, rooms with werebear rugs, rooms not drenched in Theo's blood. Doesn't Zachary find me tempting? Doesn't he want me?
"Right now," he says, "I want to talk about the dungeon."
This is going nowhere. He doesn't even seem to realize what I'm offering. But why not? He sought out this job. He sought me out specifically.
Perhaps the wavering eye contact is the problem. I could take his chin and force his gaze to mine. I consider and dismiss the idea.
It's a shame. Here I am, in the company of the most drinkable boy...
Oh, well. However intriguing, if he doesn't come
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around soon, I can always toss him downstairs with the cattle he cares about so much.
I snatch away the battle-axe, giving up for the night, and reposition it on the sidewall next to the Little Shop of Horrors poster. "I'm not merely an eternal citizen or even an aristocrat. I'm royalty. It's unrealistic to expect me or Father, as busy as we are, or the sentries who guard our grounds to go hunting in the city every night. Besides, no one else wants those humans. They're only good for their blood."
"How do you know?" my PA asks again
"I know. Nobody ends up here by accident."
He blinks like I've slapped him across the face. Then, as if I'm his own kind, as though he needs no invitation and has every right, Zachary bridges the distance between us and threads his fingers through my hair. When he speaks again, his voice isn't angry. It's comforting. "Are you talking about them or about yourself?"
"They're runaways," I say, batting his hand away. "Or throwaways or shipped in from places more miserable than this. Some are bought outright from their pimps or their parents. What difference does it make? You'll draw from them, too, sooner or later. Or at least that's your goal, right? That's why you're here, isn't it? To become one of us?"
The look on his face...It's as if I've wounded him. As if
he doesn't know who he is.
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Zachary
AFTER OUR SPAT LAST NIGHT over the prisoners, Miranda excused me to enjoy her blood wine in private and summoned the maids back into her office. I suspect that tonight we'll get started on party planning. Put mildly, I'm not looking forward to it.
After what Gus said about the literal bloodbaths, I'm sure we're not talking face painting, fireworks, or pin-the-tail-on-the-weredonkey.
But Miranda isn't up yet. So I take advantage of the lull in my schedule to roll a cart stocked high with cardboard boxes into the dungeon. The boy who last time said "God damn you" as I walked by settles for glaring at me.
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"What's that?" Gus asks from his intake desk. He looks up from a handheld video game. It's one of those urban shoot-'em-ups so popular with budding sociopaths.
"Long underwear," I say. "Orders from upstairs. The hospital gowns are tired."
"Little princess doesn't like her food bare-assed, huh?" Gus frowns down at the screen as he's virtually killed. "Eh. The master will just change them to something else when he gets home." He reboots the game. "Have fun."
"Fun" is too strong a word. It makes me feel only marginally better to distribute the new long-sleeved shirts and elastic-waist pants, courtesy of Miranda's platinum card and same-day delivery. I wanted to buy mattresses, too. But I'm already pushing my luck.
About half of the kids ignore me or shrink back when I approach. I drop theirs in the cells. Others waste no time pulling on the duds.
I only wish I could give them some hope to go with the polyester.
"Thank...Thank you," mumbles a girl with a Jamaican accent. She slips the pants on under the hospital gown. Turns to the corner of her cell to wiggle into the top.
I avert my eyes, catching a whiff of cigar smoke. I can't tell where it came from.
The next prisoner reaches through the bars. "Gimme, man."
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"What's this?" asks the burly guy, the one with the unibrow. "You playin' us?"
"I'm trying to help," I say.
He looks skeptical. But he, too, takes what I offer.
Who are the angels assigned to these kids? Not that they could've necessarily prevented this. At the risk of stating the obvious: crappy things happen to good people. The influence of angels is touch-and-go, and most don't interpret the rules on indirect intervention as liberally as I used to. As I toss out another set of long underwear, I consider the possibility that maybe it was the prisoners' GAs who lobbied Michael to send me here. That, in addition to taking out Drac, I may be the only one who can make all this better somehow. It's an overwhelming thought.
Before I can dwell on it, a guttural noise echoes through the chamber. I look in the direction of the sound. It's Harrison. Drac's flunky His hair sticks out in every direction. His eyes are blazing red. He's wearing house slippers and a black silk kimono with a crimson dragon embroidered on the back. He's one of them now. A vampire.
Harrison lunges at the first cell and shakes the bars. Roars at the sobbing, half-naked girl inside. He tries another across the hall. Back. Forth. Beyond reason.
It's a tragedy. A life and soul lost. Underneath the snooty exterior, he was a smart, possibly salvageable guy. I'd been planning to try talking him into another career choice.
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Now it'll be a miracle if I can escape his raging appetite. I'll never slip past him. I can't outrun him in the other direction either. I've got no place to hide.
As the other kids dive under their sleeping platforms, the big one slides open his cell door and yanks me fast, inhumanly fast, inside and behind his broad back. The door slams back with a clank into what I notice is a broken lock.
At the noise, Harrison looks ahead. Down the long empty hallway. At Gus.
I hear the dungeon manager grunt. Imagine he's hit a broad hip on the corner of his desk. Hear him stumble.
Harrison locks on him like a weapon. Takes him down like a cheetah.
Their bodies crash against the control center.
"Who are you?" I whisper to my formidable-looking companion.
"Brenek," he answers over Gus's gurgling cries.
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Miranda
THE RING OF MY CELL sounds incredibly loud in my closed casket. "Miranda here."
"Honey, I'm sorry to bother you. I know we're not supposed to disturb --"
"What is it, Nora? What's wrong?"
"It's Harrison." She goes on to explain that tonight he's risen as an eternal. Gus has been killed, and she and the other servants are holed up in the kitchen.
"Zachary?" I'm already running to the cellar door. "Is he--"
"Just fine, though it was a near miss. He's right here."
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I all but fly up the torch-lit stairs. "What happened?" I ask, still on the phone.
"The boy was in the dungeon when Harrison went after Gus."
Zachary's all right, I remind myself. Nora said he was all right. "Near miss" means okay. I just want to be sure. That's only natural. He's my responsibility. Nora, too. All the servants are. I pour on the supernatural speed though the halls, flinging open the steel swinging door leading to the kitchen, and slide in my slippers across the tile.
I lose my balance and wave my arms, trying to catch myself. Zachary steadies me instead. It's the second time he's stopped me from falling. The first was in my office at the beginning of his job interview.
"Everyone's fine," Zachary says. "Harrison took the tunnel leading outside."
I shrug off my PA, my eyes scanning for contusions or puncture marks, before surveying Nora, who's teary, and the two maids, who are crouched side by side, peeking out the farthest window. "Where's what's-his-name?" I demand. "The handyman?"
Again, it's Zachary who answers. "Nobody's home at the cottage. Boris left a note this afternoon saying he was going to the city for a haircut and a new snowblower. I left a message on his cell."
"Why isn't the door locked?" I ask.
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Nora wipes her eyes. "There's no lock on it, not that one would help."
Oh, right. Any eternal can break a simple lock or, for that matter, a bolted one. There's not a heavy enough barricade in here that the servants could move to stop Harrison. All these people have for defense is me. I'm guessing that's not their most comforting thought.
I cross to my regular bar stool, rest one hand on the back of it, and pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to think. Father said nothing about elevating Harrison, and I doubt he'd schedule a first rising during his absence.
That strongly suggests he wasn't the one to do it. For a PA to go behind his master's back, especially the exalted master, and drink from another eternal...That's unheard of. I doubt the blood was forced on Harrison. He would've told Father, who would've told me. I raise my head. "Harrison has left the property? Do we know?"
"We hope so," Nora replies, blowing her nose.
"What about the sentries?" I ask.
Nora and Zachary glance at each other. She shakes her head. He shrugs.
Harrison could've left as if he were going about his business for the Mantle, but not as a raging neophyte...unless it was one of the sentries who elevated him and let him leave. Then again, drinking from Gus should have calmed him. Maybe Harrison did just stroll out the front gate.
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I glance at the few (hopefully) still-loyal servants. Zachary has his arms crossed in front of his chest and is looking at me like the whole ordeal is somehow my fault. Nora has moved to the maids, and she hugs each in turn.
How am I going to tell Father? After me, Harrison is his favorite.
I shake my head, frustrated. Is this my responsibility? According to what Father told me, it takes about a month, usually characterized by mood swings and erratic behavior, for the transformation from human to eternal to fully manifest...unless, of course, the chosen is killed first during that time (without beheading, fire, insurmountable exposure to holy water, or the
piercing of the heart), in which case, the change happens immediately.
Assuming Harrison wasn't a premature kill, though, he must've been initially blessed sometime in mid-March. Yes, I realize, it was about then that he began acting differently. Mouthing off within Father's earshot, sending in Flavius the bug eater to interview, failing to detect the young "vampire hunter's" stake. Who knows what other signs I may have missed?
Regardless, I'm the one in charge here now. Our dungeon manager has been killed, and for whatever reason, Harrison is the fourth castle servant we've lost in less than a week.
"Did you call the enforcers?" I ask Zachary, my voice tight.
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"The what?"
"Never mind. I'll do it myself."
It shouldn't be difficult for the Chicago-area enforcers to fetch Harrison. I'll order them to leave him intact for us to deal with. Then I'll see what the sentries have to say.
I flip open the top of my cell, remembering the way Flint evaporated in the holy-water dunking tank. I would rather that not happen to Harrison. Perhaps there's a reasonable explanation. Perhaps he'll come home on his own. We are friends...sort of.
Shutting the phone again, I say, "No rush."
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Zachary
TONIGHT, WE'RE IN a third-floor bedroom. It's decorated in pink and black. It's, hands down, the most girly room I've seen so far in the castle. When we arrived, Miranda proudly told me it had been her nursery, whatever that's supposed to mean.
The last time I looked, she was seated toward the foot of the immense canopy bed, flipping through the Neiman Marcus catalog for party-favor ideas, her feet tucked to one side, sporting leggings and a Chicago Cubs T-shirt at least two sizes too big. It reminds me of how she used to look, except the T-shirt would've read Dallas Cowboys.
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I'm standing in only white boxers (with a fanged smiley-face print) behind a tall wooden screen decorated with a heron design, staring at various suits hanging from a coatrack.
"Try the white tux next!" she calls.
It'll look dorky. "And will I get the rest of my barbershop quartet to go with it?"
"You're not to argue. You're to obey."
"Whatever you say, Your Highness." I slide the slacks from the padded hanger. "The coats are all too tight through the shoulders."
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