Juliet Immortal

birds from their nests. They leap into the air, wings snapping like sheets hung to dry in the wind, so loud I hunch lower in my blanket, letting it cover my ears. There are hundreds of them, so many the floor is mounded with waste, humming with flies.
    This hole isn’t fit for anything human to live in.… It is perfect for me.
    “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.” The voice comes from the door, a melody of chipper notes that sting at what is left of my skin. It’s a woman, a beautiful redhead with flesh so pale the blue of her veins show through at her temples and beneath her dark brown eyes.
    “That’s quite a trail you left.” She smiles at me, the bow of her lips curling with hard determination.
    So she’s come to gloat. I’d thought the Ambassadors above such petty pleasures, but she’s definitely one of them. One of the golden ones, maybe even Juliet’s Nurse. Her aura is certainly bright enough, so bright it outshines the morning sun cutting through the broken windows, makes me squint and turn away as she crosses the room and squats down by my side.
    “Now then, Romeo. How are you finding your retirement?”
    I turn to her, slitting my eyes, letting a hiss escape my mouth.
    Instead of running for her life, she laughs, a soft chuckle that assures me I am a very small, very foolish monster indeed. “As good as all that?” She nods. “I thought that might be the case. That’s why I’ve come. To offer you a way out.”
    A way out. I freeze, my raw soul shivering inside me. I haven’t allowed the possibility to enter what’s left of my mind. There is no way out. This is the way I will end. This is the inescapable pit at the end of the last road. This is all there is.
    But what if … what if …
    “The Mercenaries have been stealing our converts for centuries,” the woman says, reaching out, tugging down the edge of my blanket until my head pops free. “Some of my friends disagree, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t do the same. Such acomplete reversal of allegiance generates a great deal of power. We need that now, when so many of our high ones have been lost.”
    Not lost, murdered. Slaughtered by the Mercenaries who fight dirty, who kill for what they want, who will not stop until their fires are the only light burning at the end of the world.
    “Is that something you would consider?” she asks. “Becoming one of us?”
    I know relatively little about the inner workings of the Ambassadors, but I know the Mercenaries. And I know they will win. The Ambassadors are weak, their hands tied by the goodness required of their magic. Becoming an Ambassador would be suicide.
    I smile and nod like a puppy. Yes, I will shift my allegiance. Yes, I will serve the Ambassadors. Yes, I will trade this misery for mindless years in the mist and long days in bodies that can feel. Yes, I will serve for however many hundreds of years they require, and then I will be free. To die as she died. It is more than I could have hoped for, if I’d dared let that feathered thing take roost in this cage.
    “Excellent.” She holds my chin in her hand, as if I’m not a vile creature, as if I am something precious she has plucked from the water just before the current carried it away. “But you must prove yourself true, Romeo. You must prove your commitment to us above all else. If you do so, I will come to you and administer the vows of a peacekeeper, one of our most valuable servants. If not, the magic I’ll lend you will run dry and you will find yourself back here in this body, without a single hope in the world.”
    My head bobs again, brushing against her hand, smearing my death on her clean fingers. I will be true; I will be faithful. Iwill serve as no Ambassador has ever served because no Ambassador has ever known the horror of being what I have been.
    “Good. Here is what you must do.” She leans in close, whispering into my ear, telling me impossible things, spinning an improbable scenario, tying it all up with a promise to come for me at the end when I have saved a life and perhaps even the world.
    I. Romeo.
I
will save the world. Or at least, one version of the world.
    A strange sound rasps in my throat. It takes a moment to realize it’s laughter. When I realize, I laugh again, just to see if she will pull away from me, to see if she will recognize what a broken thing I am.
    But she only pats my back, tilts her face closer to mine. “You will do as I say? You will fight for me? Love