Free Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith Page B

again. If I begin obsessing over that night — over the sweet, fearful sound of Miranda’s voice calling out to her friend — I’ll be no good to the Big Boss. The mission is what matters now. It has to be.
    A third cab pulls up with the driver’s window down. It’s an old sedan, but freshly painted under the spray of road salt and slush. The cabbie is a young man, and he’s giving me the once-over.
    Holding my ground, I rattle off the address again. I mention the tip and add that I’ll need to make a quick stop along the way.
    “Get in,” is the answer. “No extra charge.”
    I hesitate. “You’re sure?”
    His warm brown eyes gaze into mine. “It is okay. I am good with God.”
    I’m not about to argue with that.
    Once I’m settled in the backseat and we make the illegal U-turn to head north, I begin: “Uh, about that stop, do you know where I could buy a —”
    “Weapon?” he asks. “For where you are going?” The driver pops open the front seat armrest and hands me a sharp wooden stake. “Here.”
    I slide it up my sleeve. “Thanks.”
    If I ever make it back upstairs, I owe this guy’s GA a beer.

OUR HUMAN HIRES , much like the White House staff and funeral directors, tend to have been born into the tradition. Part of it’s a matter of discretion. Part of it’s the sensibility of those being considered. They’ve grown up in the business.
    Turnover is steady. Humans tend to be fragile creatures, the longest living of them rarely surpassing their eighties, and, for the most part, their physical decline makes them ugly and useless to us long before that. Still, it’s safer than one might imagine, working for the eternal royalty and aristocracy. House servants, especially personal assistants, are most useful. Those exceptionally well placed enjoy a higher standard of living than the average eternal, and if approved for elevation, they enter their new existence with the most desirable of connections. A royal servant may become a royal family member someday. It’s all very Cinderella-meets-
The Addams Family.
On the other hand, any failure to please may result in a quite literal termination of service.
    “Ready, mistress?” Harrison asks. Any other servant would wait for orders, but he can be cheeky that way.
    “Send the first one in.”
    At sunset, I decided to field applicants in my office and slipped on a turquoise chenille sweater, prefaded jeans, and running shoes. With Father gone, it seemed an opportune time to take a break from the Goth glam.
    I scan the long, rectangular room. My office is lit by two candle chandeliers, one over my mammoth 1950s-style industrial desk and one over the plush gray seating area. The room is otherwise furnished with floor-to-ceiling barrister bookshelves on one side and more of the same three rows high on the other.
    Above the shorter cases, the rock walls are punctuated with matted and framed theater posters —
Little Shop of Horrors, My Fair Lady, West Side Story.
    I considered and rejected
Romeo and Juliet.
    Notepad? Check. Pen? Check. Résumés? Check. Battle-axe? Check.
    The latter was a gift from Father. Apparently, every eternal worth his or her hemoglobin has a custom axe mounted on an office wall (although Father himself doesn’t actually bother with an office). Mine is forged of steel. The twenty-four-carat gold inlay handle features a repeating design of dragon heads with emeralds for scales and rubies for eyes. A five-carat, round-cut diamond, embedded in platinum, decorates the end.
    Last night before turning in, I asked Harrison to cull through the candidates.
    I glance over the application at the top of the stack. Flavius Fielding: age twenty, originally from Peoria, a recent truck-driving-school dropout.
    I frown at the typo — an
e
at the end of
Chicago.
The paper is rumpled. A dark-green sticky splotch clings to the top right-hand corner of the page.
    I did mention a preference for candidates between ages seventeen and twenty-five,