Kiss of Pride

  “Anyhow, it’s warm in Tampa, where we’re going. And we have to blend in.”

  Alex had news for him. He and his brothers did not blend in, anywhere, but that wasn’t something she needed to point out now. A tear slipped down her cheek, unexpectedly.

  “Dearling,” he said in soft reprimand. “Do not start again.”

  “I won’t. Don’t forget your holy water wipes.”

  He patted one of his shorts’ pockets, then leaned down and kissed her softly. “I love you, heartling. Be good until I return.”

  “Be safe,” she said in return.

  Alex did something then that she hadn’t done in a long time. She prayed. Could it be her own version of a soldier’s foxhole conversion?

  Fighting Saxons was a piece of cake compared to this . . .

  Vikar, his brothers, and a number of the vangels were staying in a dingy hotel overlooking the harbor in Tampa where the Lilith was berthed. And wasn’t that a perfect name for a Sin Cruise, honoring Adam’s evil first wife. Lilith was the Sumerian name for a female demon.

  High-powered telescopes were trained on a dozen different spots on the huge vessel, and twenty vangels had taken jobs on the ship . . . everything from mechanics to waiters, even a singer for one of the sordid musical revues.

  Passengers would start boarding tomorrow morning for the cruise that was scheduled to start before noon. It would never happen, thanks to some brilliant computer hacking by Harek that was timed to take place tomorrow just as the cruise was to begin. Dynamite would have been his choice, but they couldn’t destroy the whole ship and everyone on it. First of all, killing a Lucie by normal means just caused them to “die” and go back to Horror for rejuvenation; they had to be killed and dissolved. Then there were those sinners on board; the vangels had to attempt a save for those who might repent before dying. He and some of the others had been working the hotel lobbies and bars where early arriving passengers could be found.

  All this had to be accomplished with stealth. They did not want Jasper alerted to the VIK presence. Yet. Although he had to be aware of some of his demon vampires gone missing.

  Vangel missions were always complicated, Vikar thought with a sigh, this one more so because of its size and importance. Just then, he heard the key card being put in the lock and Ivak came in, looking as exhausted and bone-sad as they all were after two days in Jasper’s proximity. It would be Vikar’s turn to go out now.

  Vikar pulled a cold beer out of the room’s mini fridge that was barely working and handed it to his brother, who sank down onto one of the two beds in the room. Ivak took a sip, then frowned. “Warm beer?”

  Vikar shrugged. “We are spoiled. Remember the old days? Without refrigeration, warm beer was the least of our worries. ’Tis a wonder our people did not die in great numbers from rancid meat.”

  Ivak cocked his head to the side. “I do not recall that so much. Game was so plentiful that we could hunt daily. There was no need for long storage, except in the winters when it was cold enough to freeze the ballocks on a boar.”

  Vikar smiled and sat down next to Ivak on the bed. “Mayhap you look on the old days as rosier than they were.”

  “No, I know what was good and what was bad. We Vikings liked our baths, but there were some who were a bit ripe betimes. I recall being in the midst of tupping Sorcha from the Danelands and almost hurling the contents of my belly at her stink.”

  “Ivak! Sorcha was a goatherder. What did you expect?”

  They smiled at each other.

  But then Vikar turned serious. As annoying as Ivak could be, he was his brother, and whilst Vikar hardly knew him when they were alive, he’d come to love him after death. Same was true of all his brothers. “How did it go this afternoon?”

  Ivak gulped several times from his beer. “I wiped out three Lucies, and I saved a woman at the Marquis Hotel pool. She is on her way home to Memphis. Seems her husband has been talking her into some perversions of late. She wasn’t aware of what would be expected of her on this cruise.”

  Good work for an afternoon, but minor when considering there had to be a hundred Lucies in the area, mayhap even two hundred, and God only knew how many sin-tainted humans about to go to Hell unless the vangels were able to save them.

  “Mordr wants us all to meet at five at the warehouse,” Ivak told him. They’d rented a large room, more like a giant storage locker, where they’d secured all their weapons and had set up tables with computers and recording devices. All the vangels wore ear buds, connected to Harek’s central communication system, even though they could usually telepath thoughts, to some extent.

  Vikar glanced at the watch on his wrist and said, “Why don’t you shower and sleep for a while. I’ll wake you in an hour and a half. I’m going out to study the situation up close. Holy heavens, but I would like to run into Jasper. Bringing him down would give me immense personal satisfaction, wiping the world of evil personified.”

  “And you’d score extra brownie points from Mike,” Ivak noted with a wry grin.

  “There is that.”

  Moments later, Ivak was in the shower and Vikar was gearing up with pistols, knife, and holy water. No place to hide a sword under his loose shirt and shorts. In this hot climate, cloaks would be as out of place as a bikini on a polar bear. The specially made bullets that he loaded into his pockets contained bits of the True Cross, or slivers specially blessed by He who had hung there. The knives had been quenched in the symbolic blood of Christ, based on an ancient method of warfare in which knives and swords were heated to white hotness, then doused to hardness, not in cold water but in the blood of their enemies.

  Vikar stood in an alleyway close to the ship, watching the activity to and fro along the boardwalk and the gangplank. Some of the workers he recognized as his own vangels. Svein, for example, was pushing a metal contraption on wheels that contained boxes stacked one atop the other. It might be food supplies, but Vikar suspected they were sex toys. Yes, he could see better now. One of the boxes read: “Whip It Up: Fantasy Fun.” Jogeir, who was working as a cook, said that one room on the ship contained hooks on the ceilings with hanging chains. Wrist and ankle cuffs were attached to the walls at strategic places so that a body would be spread-eagled whilst still upright. Torture 101 was Vikar’s guess.

  Lucipires were humanoids in that they could take on any form they wanted, to hide their usual grotesque demon characteristics. As a result, many handsome men and beautiful women manned the cruise ship.

  If only Vikar knew which one was Jasper! What a coup that would be to take down the Lucie prince! It was hard to guess, though, whether Jasper would be strolling the decks or barricaded in some luxury suite.

  Lucipires could mask their scent, as vangels could, too, but the mask was short-lived and not always strong enough. Speaking of scents, Vikar went stiff. A gorgeous female was strolling toward him.

  If she was a hooker, she was high-class. With big blonde hair, flawless skin, a thigh-length, strapless red dress, and what appeared to be five-inch red high-heeled shoes. She smiled as she got closer and Vikar grabbed the first thing that came to hand. A small vial of holy water. He tossed it at the woman, cringing at her scream as her skin began to melt off. He must move quickly before they drew attention. Although this was a seedy section of town where people tended to ignore what was happening, he could take no chances.

  The fangs came out on the Lucie, along with scales on her slimy skin. She was no longer the beauty she’d been a few moments ago. With a hiss of outrage, she lunged for him, but he ducked back. They were both in the alley now, and he was fighting off her clawing hands. What he couldn’t allow was for the Lucie’s fangs to get into him. He could very well end up in the same condition Harek had been for weeks. Not the way he wanted to return to his Alex.

  The Lucipire’s skin sizzled as it melted off. Of course, it would eventually grow back if she escaped, something he could not allow. Pulling out the knife hidden in his high-topped hiking boots, he rushed fo
rward, thrusting the knife into her evil heart. With a gasp, the Lucie began to dissolve before his very eyes until nothing was left but a puddle of sulfur-smelling slime. One less demon vampire to haunt the world!

  Panting for breath, Vikar wiped his knife on a patch of grass and headed back toward the hotel. Along the way, though, he saw three young women . . . well, thirty to thirty-five years of age . . . standing on his side of the street, staring across the road at the cruise ship.

  “I don’t know, Crystal, it’s one thing to go on one of those online bondage websites, but five days trapped on a ship with a bunch of perverts? Some of those women we saw signing up at the hotel registration looked liked whores. Even, well, depraved, especially the one with all the body piercings.” The woman speaking looked more like a librarian than a bimbo. She wore shorts and a shirt with straps, but they were loose. Modest by Florida beach standards.

  “Oh, Bonnie, you are such a prude!” The woman named Crystal licked her crimson lips. She had red hair of an odd, garish shade, short and spiked. Her tall, too-slim frame was clearly outlined by a skin-tight body suit. Were there really nipples that large on a woman? Maybe she’d had nipple enhancement surgery, just like some women had breast enhancements. Was there such a thing? “Bonnie, honey, did you see the guy from Jasper, Inc. at the welcome breakfast? Yummm!”

  Crystal, honey, I saw the man, too. If you only knew what he really looks like! Red eyes, lolling tongue, a tail.

  Crystal was still raving about the Lucie. “Man, he could be master to this slave girl any day. I swear, he looked just like Brad Pitt.”

  Ha, ha, ha! Brad Pitt with drool, maybe.

  “And that other guy from Jasper, the one trying to get us to sign up for the nude pole dancing contest, he could be a young Kevin Sorbo from that old Hercules TV series.”

  Crystal, you are in for a rude awakening if you step on that boat. Very rude!

  “Oh, Crystal, you always say things like that! I don’t think you do half the stuff you claim to. You wouldn’t really pole dance, naked, in front of men, would you?” Bonnie giggled nervously as she addressed her friend. Then she turned to the third woman. “What do you think, Trish?”

  “I know we only met online, but I feel as if we’re friends,” Trish said carefully. “We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to. I say, let’s go on the cruise. We can pick and choose what activities we’re comfortable with.” Trish was attractive in an unobtrusive way. Brown hair, straight down to her shoulders. A beige silk blouse tucked into camel-colored slacks. Her eyes gave her away. Even with contact lens the red showed through, giving the blue color a purplish tint. She was a Lucipire.

  Vikar followed them into a casual restaurant down the street. Sitting at the counter, he ordered a cup of coffee, a beverage he hated, although the caffeine would be welcome after so little sleep. The three women were sitting in a booth, chattering away over their lunches.

  When Bonnie, the one most likely to be saved, went to the ladies’ room, he followed discreetly behind. When she came out, he put a hand over her mouth and dragged her out a side door. “Do not be frightened, Bonnie. I mean you no harm. Do you understand? Nod your head.”

  She nodded, clearly terrified.

  “You must get away from here as soon as possible. Do not get onto that ship. Let me tell you what Jasper and his ‘shipmates’ plan for you.” He then detailed all that would happen to her, in graphic detail, and the ultimate outcome. Death. He wasn’t sure if she believed him, but her eyes had gotten wider and wider as he’d talked. He removed his hand from her mouth and asked, “Didn’t you look at the agenda on the Sin Cruise website?”

  She shook her head. “Crystal took care of all the details. She told me it was like a singles cruise with perks.”

  “Pfff!” he said. Then, “Do you want to go back inside, or would you prefer to go back to your hotel, alone, and leave?”

  “Shouldn’t I talk to Crystal first?”

  He gave her a skeptical look.

  “Right. She would probably talk me into staying.”

  Vikar put his hand on her head then and closed his eyes, letting her feel his “angelic” energy. While he had her in stasis, he leaned forward and bit her neck, taking in a small amount . . . no more than a half cup, of her sweet blood. When he opened his eyes, she was unaware of what he had done to him, but sensed something important had happened. She was staring at him. “Who are you?”

  “Your guardian angel?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “You better hurry,” he advised.

  “Thank you,” she said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. Then she ran in the opposite direction.

  Vikar had no chance to pat himself on the back when he reentered the restaurant and noticed one of the other women coming toward him. The Lucie. His stars must be aligned today.

  She hesitated in the hallway, looking over his shoulder to see where her friend . . . rather, potential victim . . . had gone. Then she looked directly at him.

  He crooked his finger at her, then smiled, showing her his fangs. Before she could register whom she was facing, he took a quick, whooshing step, grabbing her by the neck, and hauled her out the side door and then into the back, trash-bin section of the restaurant. This Lucipire wasn’t as strong as the other had been, even though she was actually a he. Lucies could take on either of the sexes, at will. Within moments, he was staring at a pile of slime at his feet.

  “Two points, our side,” he said, pumping his fist in the air, then immediately teletransported himself back to the hotel where Ivak was sleeping like a baby. A big, six-foot-four, naked baby with a sleep hard-on big enough to impress Goliath’s sister, if Goliath had a sister.

  “Jeesh!” he muttered, the things an older brother had to do! He knocked on the wall, to wake his brother up.

  To Ivak’s credit, he awakened, immediately alert, a necessity in a world where demon vampires flourished. With no embarrassment whatsoever for his condition, he stood, stretched, and yawned loudly before walking over and grabbing a pair of boxer briefs from his carry bag. He put a hand over his cockstand to ease the tighties over his still engorged thickening.

  “Don’t you have to do something about that before we leave?” Vikar asked.

  “No! If I had to ‘take care’ of tweaking the Twinkie”—he glanced downward at the huge bulge in his underwear—“every time it popped up, I’d have permanent tendonitis in my right hand.”

  Twinkie? Way more information than Vikar needed to have imprinted in his brain.

  “Pee-you!” Ivak exclaimed. “You smell like rotten eggs.”

  “Two Lucies,” Vikar preened, “and one save.”

  “All in one hour? I’m impressed,” Ivak said. “Are you going to shower before the meeting?”

  Vikar shook his head. He was hoping there would be more “kills” before the night was through. “You do know that masturbation is a sin, don’t you?” he remarked to Ivak as they left their room.

  “A venial sin,” Ivak emphasized. “It better be.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “If I were you, I would worry more about what kind of sin ‘near-sex’ is going to be, instead of a little ol’ jacking off.”

  Ivak was right about that.

  “What are you two arguing about?” Trond asked, coming out of a door down the hall from their room.

  “Vikar has suddenly become the expert on sex sins. What think you of tweaking your Twinkie?”

  “What?” Trond frowned with puzzlement. “Do you mean—”

  “A hand job,” Ivak explained.

  Vikar put his face in his hands. Then he said, “Please! Trond is the one who told me about near-sex to begin with. What do I care what he thinks of . . . self-pleasuring?”

  His brothers laughed then, and he couldn’t help but join in. Betimes a man just had to laugh at himself. Or cry.

  They were the last to arrive at the warehouse where the other brothers had already gathered, along with a
bout twenty vangels. Other vangels were on board, but they would be informed via their ear buds later of any changes in plans.

  Vikar noticed something interesting then. He and most of the other vangels in the room had golden, suntanned-looking skin. Saving a human, even the small amount of blood taken, was like heavenly Vitamin C to a vangel. Lack of a saved’s blood over time turned the skin white and then transparent. But feeding thus was pure health.

  After each of the vangels gave a report, Harek summed up the results. “Thirty Lucie kills thus far, including two mungs and one haakai. Plus, eighteen saves. Under normal circumstances, that would be great work for a two-day period, but there are a lot of Lucies here. More than I have ever seen in one place in the past five hundred years.”

  “In our defense, we’ve been trying to scatter our kills so they’re not all in one place or one time. The saves won’t be detected by the Lucies until folks who signed up for the cruise fail to show up,” Cnut said. “We’ve been trying not to call attention to our presence until the last minute.”

  “They must know we’re here by now,” Sigurd contended. “When I talked to Svein a few minutes ago, he mentioned a lot of hush-hush talk about the ship. Small groups here and there. You can bet they’ll be on guard now, more than usual.”

  “Has anyone seen Jasper?” Ivak asked.

  They all shook their heads. No one knew what disguise the Lucipire master would be in.

  “Come over to the tables,” Mordr said then. He was in charge of this operation, being the most skilled in military tactics. “Here is the plan.”

  Despite the danger of being recognized, all of The Seven, except Harek, would be slipping onto the ship and killing as many Lucies as they could find. Most important, they wanted to find Jasper and eliminate him for good. In addition, they would be herding any employees or passengers on the cruise into a locked room where they could attempt to save them. Timing would be everything if this was to work. Sabotaging the cruise wouldn’t preclude it ever happening in the future, but they would worry about that later.