Kiss of Pride

  Harek showed them the computer setup and what he would do to disable the ship, but it was like speaking a foreign language to Vikar. And Vikar was proficient in fourteen languages. Geek speak, that’s what it was. He could tell that Mordr felt the same way because his blue eyes were starting to glaze over.

  At the end of the meeting, when they’d all been given assignments, they knelt down to pray, as they did before all important missions. “Dear Lord, please lead us in this battle. Dear St. Michael, have your wings at our backs.”

  Fifteen

  It was the biggest longship he’ d ever been on . . .

  The time had arrived.

  Vikar stood guard in the corridor outside the engineering center of the cruise ship. The Lilith was small by cruise ship standards, only five decks and a passenger capacity of fifteen hundred, but its brochures promised the luxury of a QE2 in a smaller, more intimate setting. Intimate being the key word for the types of activities planned. The boat was registered in Libya, so many of the technical crew did not speak English, an asset when all the Lucipires on board were discussing their evil intents.

  Vikar and all the vangels were arranged in strategic places around the ship and on the shore, including the warehouse where Harek’s important role in this mission was about to take place. One by one, the vangels reported to one another via the ear buds and hidden mics on their shoulders. Wherever possible, they’d made contact with the cruise line employees, those who were not Jasper’s vassals, and with passengers already on board, herding out those who could be saved. They were all in a separate locked stateroom on the ship and would disembark eventually, if all went according to plan.

  Unfortunately, some sinners had already been taken by the overanxious Lucies; those fallen were already on their way to Hell, or Horror. Vikar had no idea at this point how many were lost, and he might not know for weeks when the authorities would start reporting missing people. He and the vangels would be long gone by then.

  An additional fifteen Lucies had been dissolved since he and his five brothers had come on board, but mostly they were lower-level imps and hordlings, the foot soldiers in Jasper’s army. The goal of the operation today was to prevent the cruise from taking off into international waters, and to wipe out as many Lucies as possible in the process. If they could save some humans who’d not yet crossed the line into unredeemable mortal sin, that would be good; the sinners would have time to repent when released, if they so chose.

  Passengers had begun boarding at eight, and they were set to launch by eleven . . . only forty-five minutes from now. Vikar had been on the ship for the past seven hours, since four a.m., and he’d seen plenty. The Lilith could only be described as a moving bordello, except it was way worse than that.

  Vikar had seen some sinfully amazing things in his time, but the things Jasper intended as entertainment for his “prisoners” on this cruise amazed him. Some of the sex toys could be better described as sex torture instruments. And, yes, that’s what the passengers would be, prisoners, before being killed, thus ensuring a quick chute to Hell, or being taken back to Horror if they showed potential for being turned into Lucipires.

  The ship abounded with seemingly handsome men and beautiful women in scant attire just dying to get it on with the passengers, no matter what they looked like, their age, or their experience. Meat, that’s all the passengers were to the Lucies. New meat for Hell’s fires or Horror’s chamber of . . . well, horrors. The public address system played constant music with a sensual beat, setting the stage for what was to come. Various Lucies were already cajoling the newcomers to come partake of some titillating activity.

  Vikar liked to think that he would not have been attracted by such a scene when he’d been alive, but who could know for sure what temptation, even the most disgusting type, would do to a weak man? And weren’t all men, and women, weak in some areas of their lives? It made Vikar wonder if the sexual orgies that had occurred in ancient Rome weren’t Jasper’s doing, as well.

  “Well, well, well. Vikar Sigurdsson,” a smooth, accented voice drawled.

  Vikar swiveled, fully expecting to confront Jasper, but instead it was one of Jasper’s haakai captains, Gregori Petrov.

  The Russian’s fangs were out, and although he was still in humanoid form, wearing a cruise line uniform, he was slowly changing over as his bloodlust overtook him. The eyes were turning red, and he appeared to be growing taller.

  There was no time to wait. Vikar raised his Sig and fired, but Gregori lunged at the same time, and the bullet missed his shoulder by a hairsbreadth. Vikar’s weapon had a silencer on it, so no ship personnel were alerted. Yet.

  A fight to the “death” ensued then, and Gregori more than matched him in strength and skill. By sheer luck, Gregori slipped on his own slime, and Vikar was able to get off another shot from his pistol, directly between the Russian’s two red eyes, then another into his heart.

  Vikar felt no overwhelming triumph in defeating this once great Russian general, but a relief that he was gone, forever, and a sadness that great men could be brought so low.

  Just then, a woman screamed behind him.

  Vikar swiveled, weapons at hand.

  A female Lucie gaped at the body dissolving at Vikar’s feet. He remembered her being at Gregori’s side on that Canadian mountaintop. He could almost believe there was love on the hordling’s face for her fallen lover, but then she straightened, hissed her outrage, and flew at him.

  He was prepared, a knife at the ready. Her heart, which presumably was already breaking, broke indeed now, under his special blade, and her slime soon mixed with Gregori’s.

  Vikar’s attention was immediately diverted by the sense of movement underfoot. The cruise ship had launched. Already? The engines had been turned on over an hour ago, but departure wasn’t set for another half hour.

  Into his mic, he yelled, “Harek? What’s going on?”

  “Cool your jets, bro. I want them out in the water a bit before I shut them down.”

  “You want, you want . . .” he sputtered. “You’re going to screw around and ruin the whole mission.”

  Another voice interrupted in his ear, “He knows what he’s doing, Vikar. He got orders from Above.” It was Mordr. “You’ve got more to worry about. I fully expect Jasper to show up there once the engines stop. Be prepared. I’m a bit . . . occupied at the moment.” In the background he could hear the scream of a Lucie, then Mordr muttered, “Damn, damn, damn! I hate slime.”

  Vikar’s attention was drawn to the closed door of the engineering room now where he heard a commotion. Chairs being moved, voices raised. There were no Lucies in there, only professional cruise members working. Luckily, these spoke English, although Vikar spoke Arabic in various dialects and could have understood their words if they’d been Libyans.

  “What the hell . . . ?” one man inside shouted. “My settings are going wacko.”

  Another said, “We aren’t supposed to move yet. Who the hell gave the launch order?”

  Still another man said, “I liked it better in the old days when engines were fired by coal and we didn’t have to depend on friggin’ computers.”

  “Miguel, you were around when they rowed the boats.”

  “Ha, ha, ha!” the Hispanic-sounding Miguel countered. “Even cars are ruled by computers today. My Toyota truck went haywire, and the regular shop wouldn’t even look at it. Had to take it back to the dealer where they have a specialist.”

  “Whoa! Did you feel that? We’re already a mile out from port. And, sonofabitch, look at those dials. They’re spinning numbers so fast I can’t keep up.”

  “Me too. In fact, my monitor just went dead. Should we call a Mayday?”

  “You’re an idiot, Miguel. Maydays are for when the ship is sinking. We aren’t sinking. We’re . . . oh my God! We’re already three miles out, and we’re doing . . . what the hell . . . are we doing figure eights in the water?”

  “Impossible!”

  “Somebody better ale
rt the captain that we need help here,” Miguel said. “And somebody better call that creepy character, Jasper, who’s running this freak parade. He’s gonna have a shit fit.”

  While one of the men was presumably calling, one of the others remarked, “Man, I knew this particular cruise sounded too good to be true. Here I was planning on having a little fun on this trip, for a change.”

  “Me too,” Miguel whined. “A blonde in housekeeping asked me to meet her tonight in the dungeon, whatever that is. Some new club, I guess.”

  Vikar stepped back into a hidden alcove and watched and waited. People came and went, including a ranting chief officer of the cruise ship. Vikar managed to kill two more Lucies, but he was waiting for a bigger fish. Jasper.

  Throughout the ship, he could hear via his ear buds all the other vangels hard at work. Sounded to Vikar like there would be a lot fewer Lucies by nightfall. And pandemonium seemed to reign on the open decks as passengers realized the ship was probably going nowhere other than in wide loops, at least for the time being. If Harek did his work as planned, the ship would be disabled for more than a few hours, more like days, or weeks. By then, Jasper and his crew should be gone. Maybe for good.

  Just then the air seemed to crackle and all of Vikar’s senses went on full alert. If evil had an odor, it was approaching. Both vangels and Lucipires had heightened senses, including smell. Jasper had a distinct scent, when up close, as did The Seven. Into his mic, Vikar whispered, “J, on the way.”

  “Ten-four,” Mordr said. “Be there in a sec. I have to . . . oomph! Correction. I have a little problem to take care of here. Come here, you friggin’ creep. Time to go home to Papa Lucifer.”

  Okay, Vikar was on his own, unless one of his brothers managed to show up. He pulled out his Sig, which was a bit bulky with the silencer, a knife, and even some specially treated throwing stars. The floor of the corridor almost seemed to shake as the figure approached. Vikar’s heart raced with anticipation. He made a sign of the cross over his chest reflexively.

  He’d seen Jasper before. Of course he had. Over a thousand-year period, they had to have the occasional run-in, but the head Lucie was always in disguise. Today was no different.

  In fact, it would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic.

  Vikar was about to duke it out with Clark Gable. Good ol’ Rhett, complete with mustache, in a white plantation-style suit with a red shirt and white silk tie, all designer quality, no doubt. But from his stateroom above, or wherever he’d been holed up, storming down here in a rage, he was already transforming. His eyes gradually turned from brown to crimson, matching his shirt, and his fangs inched out until they almost touched his jaw.

  When Jasper saw him, and recognized him as one of The Seven, the Supreme Lucipire reared up, almost like a dragon about to breathe fire at him, and roared. He actually roared.

  The door of the communications room opened a crack, three faces peering out, then immediately slammed shut when they saw the two of them. Vikar spun a star at Jasper’s neck, but it just glanced off. Jasper must have the hide of a rhino.

  Before Vikar had a chance to aim his Sig or get a firmer grasp on his knife, Jasper tackled him to the floor and tried to bite his neck. Fortunately, Vikar was able to shift quickly enough that his skin was only grazed, but already he could feel the burn of the Lucie’s poison. Over and over, they rolled, each striking blows. Finally, Vikar had control. Jasper was on his back. And Vikar had his knife raised high.

  Without warning, Vikar felt a blow across his head, knocking him off Jasper and against the wall. But the blow hadn’t come from a weapon. No, it was an enormous paw of a hand, which now reached out and lifted its master from the floor. Vikar recognized the seven-foot-tall mung assistant who hefted the severely injured Jasper up and over his shoulder.

  When Vikar tried to attack, the mung shoved him aside like he was a bothersome fly and began to stomp away.

  “Attack, Sabeam! Attack!” Jasper was yelling as he struggled to get out of Sabeam’s fireman’s carry.

  By now, Jasper was in full Lucie mode, complete with tail, which kept slapping at Sabeam’s face. Jasper was screaming obscenities at his assistant, who paused, confused as to what he should do.

  Vikar managed to get two shots off, one between the shoulder blades and another into the back of Sabeam’s thigh.

  The injuries didn’t slow down the mung, who’d resumed lumbering away. The wounds would be fatal to him later, though. The effect of vangel bullets in a Lucipire could not be reversed.

  Of course, Vikar had lost Jasper, which was more important.

  Trond arrived then to help him up off the floor where he’d sunk down, trying to stop the flow of blood from his head wound. Sabeam’s hand was sharp with scales, not to mention heavy. Before he had a chance to speak, Trond was turning Vikar’s face this way and that, examining his neck, and then he was searching his arms. He even lifted his T-shirt, to see if he had any bites there.

  “If you dare to pull down my shorts, I swear you will be sorry,” Vikar said, scrambling to his feet. “It’s only my pride that’s injured.” Well, that wasn’t quite true. He was bruised and scratched, just not bitten.

  “I lost him,” Vikar told Trond. “I had Jasper in my grasp, and I lost him.”

  “Win some, lose some,” Trond replied.

  Vikar arched his brows.

  “Okay, some losses are bigger than others.”

  “Mike is going to be livid.”

  “Mike is always livid. Anyhow, you have to come up on deck and see what’s happening.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Just amazing.”

  Before they left, Vikar knocked on the communications center door and said, “Hey, guys, you can come out now.”

  The door opened a little once again, and one fellow peeked out. Seeing that Jasper was gone, he opened the door wider. Seeing him and Trond, who looked relatively normal with their fangs retracted, the guy asked, “What the hell is going on?”

  “Beats me,” Trond replied. “I think there was some kind of break in the electrical circuits.”

  Vikar gave his brother a glance, impressed with his quick thinking.

  Trond winked at Vikar.

  When they got up to the deck, the ship came to a lurching stop. Passengers and crew members alike were scurrying around like chickens with their heads cut off. Unable to disembark from the vessel since it was a short distance from shore, people were shrieking, crying, screaming, talking animatedly. Some even questioned whether it was part of the Sin Cruise’s launch agenda.

  The Lucipires seemed to have disappeared. Now that the element of surprise was gone, the vangels would leave, too.

  “This is what you wanted to show me?”

  Trond shook his head. “Look out there. You thought the boat was moving in a figure eight. But look closely at that design left by the bilge water.”

  It wasn’t a figure eight he saw, and forget bilge water. The design in the water was a set of shimmery silver wings.

  “Michael!” he and Trond said at the same time. The archangel always had to get in the last “word.”

  There were news helicopters overhead, and police sirens could be heard in their open mic to Harek onshore. He and the other vangels would have to teletransport out of here ASAP.

  They were all back in the warehouse two hours later, packing up their supplies, laughing and teasing each other about the roles they’d played that day. It felt surreal after all they’d just experienced. Was the mission a success or a failure? Hard to say, although Vikar personally felt like a failure.

  Besides, five vangels had been lost in the melee that had occurred while Vikar had been below fighting Gregori, and then Jasper and Sabeam. Fortunately, those vangels had been killed and were now hopefully in Tranquillity. The worst possible outcome would have been for any one of them to be captured. Despite those losses, fifty-five Lucies were gone and an equal number of souls saved.

  But there were so many demon vampire
s still out there, and so many humans to be saved. Sometimes Vikar was just weary of it all. The VIK mission seemed endless.

  Well, they would find out soon enough whether they’d succeeded or failed. The Reckoning would be held in less than a week, and Mike was not shy about expressing his opinions. Vikar would have much to reckon for.

  But then his mood lightened.

  Before the Reckoning, he still had time to be with Alex.

  When he glanced at Trond, his brother shook his head at him with amusement. Vikar suspected he had a goofy grin on his face . . . again.

  When all else fails, bring out the Krispy Kremes . . .

  Alex sat in the backyard on a kitchen chair she’d dragged outside. She was letting the sunshine dry her newly shampooed hair that she’d combed back off her face and tucked behind her ears.

  But she was a born multitasker, never able to just sit still. So, with her bare feet resting on a low stool, her knees were raised, helping to hold in place the laptop that she was tapping on energetically in yet another attempt to draw an article out of her stay here in Transylvania. The problem was that the story kept changing, or maybe the real story was just being elusive and she hadn’t discovered it yet.

  Who was she kidding? She was worried sick about Vikar, who had been gone four days now, and the words she was typing out could very well be gibberish.

  She had a glass of diet lemonade and two Krispy Kreme donuts sitting on a tray on the ground. If Vikar didn’t get back soon, she was going to gain ten pounds. Krispy Kremes had become her comfort food of choice, especially the glazed ones that oozed white cream icing.

  The wet lick on her shoulder was her first clue that she wasn’t alone, but the familiar nip of fanged teeth told her loud and clear that Vikar was back. “Vikar!” she cried as she closed her laptop and set it on the ground.

  At the same time, Vikar reached and lifted her by the waist up into a tight embrace. It was hard to tell who squeezed tighter then. Alex with her arms wrapped around Vikar’s shoulders, her face burrowed into his neck? Or Vikar with his muscled arms a vise around her lower back?