Vampire in Paradise

  “Investing in Sensual Entertainment.”

  Add sensual to the list of okay words for porno.

  If Marisa had the cash, pornography was the last place she would put it.

  “To Wax or Not to Wax. (Demonstrations Optional).”

  Okay, this is really going too far.

  “Fifty Shades of New Sex.”

  Enough with the Fifty Shades already!

  “Bondage in the Bedroom.”

  Marisa’s mind had been wandering. Harry had been continuing to talk. He said now, “You all can break up into your separate groups now, by employment. Good luck and have fun.”

  The crowd applauded and began to stand and stretch, looking around for signs proclaiming their particular work descriptions. Household maintenance. Landscaping. Restaurant services. Lifeguards. Security. Electronics. Health spa. Beauty salon. Etc.

  “See you later,” she and Inga said to Tiffany and Doris, who went off in opposite directions.

  “I’ll go with you to the restaurant group, then head over to the spa one,” Marisa told Inga, who couldn’t stop giggling at everything they heard and saw.

  As they passed the medical group, Marisa burst out laughing.

  Sigurd appeared to be arguing with a nurse. Whether she was an actual nurse, or someone hoping to get a video role as a nurse, she had dressed to fit both parts. A white nurse’s uniform cut so high on her thighs that Never Never Land would be exposed if she bent over even a little bit. Her well-endowed bosom was barely contained, with the top unbuttoned down to her abdomen. An old-fashioned nurse’s cap sat on mile-high, teased blonde hair. She wore five-inch, white, stripper high heels. Bloodred lips matched her bloodred nails. She had piercings in her eyebrows, nose, lip, and God only knew where else.

  “I can so give shots,” she heard the woman whine.

  “With those nails? You would pierce a patient’s skin from twenty paces.”

  “I’ll have you know, these sculptured nails cost me five hundred dollars. No way am I cutting them!”

  “They breed germs, you lackwit.”

  “Do not! I’m gonna tell Mr. Vanderfelt on you.”

  “Feel free.”

  Sigurd was dressed for the part, too. Blue scrubs enhanced his clear blue eyes. Had he been in surgery? Or was he just playing a part? His blond hair was held off his face with a rubber band at the nape. He had both hands on slim hips, and white bootied feet covered his shoes.

  The man was drop-dead, be-still-my-heart gorgeous.

  An old rock tune bounced in Marisa’s brain and she thought with what was probably hysterical irrelevance, This “Doctor, Doctor” can give me “the news” anytime he wants.

  What news? This is silly. When was the last time Marisa had felt such an overwhelming attraction to a man?

  Probably when she’d succumbed to Chip’s pleas in college and ended up pregnant. No, even then, when her hormones had been humming like drunken bees, Marisa hadn’t felt like this. The sensation of her blood heating and zinging to all the intimate parts of her body both frightened and exhilarated her.

  Oooh, I am in big trouble.

  Sigurd glanced up at that moment, noticed her perusal, and shrugged.

  Zing!

  The news was not good. Not for a woman with a sick child who needed to focus.

  He winked at her then.

  Double zing.

  The zings stopped when she got her first look at the Phoenix waitress uniforms. Little black nylon, form-fitting dresses that ended high on the thigh and were unbuttoned on top practically down to the wide red belt. Worn with red high heels. Even worse was the white tank-top bodysuits that spa employees were expected to wear. Also worn with the red high heels, which seemed to be standard issue foot attire for the women employees at the conference!

  When she protested, the restaurant manager said, cold as ice, “Wear it or go home.”

  The spa director, Hedwig or Hedy Meyer as Eleanor had mentioned on her initial interview, was a little kinder. Hedy was a no-nonsense, business-like, burgundy-haired (dyed, of course) German woman of middle years. With the shoulders of a linebacker and a flat-chested, muscled body (her biceps were remarkable for a woman), the bodysuit made her look more like an oversize gymnast than a masseuse.

  “Wear Band-Aids and a G-string and no one will know you’re not completely naked under the silly thing.”

  If this was what it took to earn extra money for her daughter’s operation, Marisa was beginning to think that Harry Goldman was looking better and better.

  There was a definite stink in the air, and it wasn’t the ocean breeze . . .

  Sigurd had called for a meeting in his hotel office late that afternoon. His five men sat in folding chairs around the small room, and he had Vikar on the speakerphone.

  Sigurd gave Vikar a description of this bizarre event and its bizarre attendees, including his last patient of the day. A man who had an industrial-size bolt in his scrotum.

  The men in the room winced and Vikar asked, “How could that happen? Was he working on some construction job? No, I cannot imagine any circumstance where that could occur. Although . . . remember Olaf Dimwit who managed to get a splinter the size of a lance stuck in his buttocks one time when he was swiving an energetic maid on his longship?”

  “Remember? Remember? I was called to remove it. He bled like a stuck pig and cried like a babe for fear my knife would slip and cut his favorite body bits.”

  They all smiled at that.

  “A man asked me today if I ever use my bristly haircut to enhance my sex partner’s pleasure,” Karl told them then.

  “Have you?” Jogeir asked.

  Karl gave Jogeir a jab in the upper arm. Being newly re-wed after an exceedingly long period of celibacy, Karl would likely do just about anything. “No, but I am always open to new ideas.”

  “That is nothing,” interjected Svein. “When I was patrolling the beach, a woman was sunbathing. Nude. As I got closer, she spread her legs wide, and I saw that she was bare as a plucked chicken down there.”

  “Waxing. Modern women do that. Betimes with unusual patterns,” Armod explained. “A landing strip. Stars. Half moons. Diamonds.”

  All four of them gaped at Armod, whom Sigurd could swear hadn’t seen a woman’s private parts in fifty years.

  “There was a special on one of those women’s cable television shows. I was flipping channels looking for music programs.”

  “Special?” Sigurd choked out.

  “On the history of female waxing. Truth to tell, it started in the 1960s with the beginning of pornographic videos,” Armod elaborated, “when, for the first time, female private parts were being seen up close like.”

  “How come I don’t ever see those shows?” Jogeir complained.

  “Because you much prefer war movies,” Armod pointed out.

  Vikar made a coughing noise over the speakerphone. You could be sure he would be repeating this conversation to his wife, Alex. Not to mention his brothers. “We’re getting off the subject here. Give me an update, Sig, and I’ll pass it on to the others. Mike is bugging me to find out what you have accomplished thus far.”

  “What? I’ve been here less than a day. What does he expect me to . . . ?” He inhaled and exhaled for patience and gave his report. “There are evil men and women on this island. Whether that is due to Lucie influence or their own bad acts, I cannot say for sure. Perhaps it is just that this type of sordid event attracts sordid people.”

  “And Lucies?” Vikar prodded.

  Sigurd nodded, as if his brother could see him. “They are here. I smelled and saw evidence on one human, and where there is one Lucie there are bound to be others.”

  “At the least, you five can attempt to redeem those sinners who make the choice to repent, whilst searching out Jasper’s minions,” Vikar mused.

  Actually, vangels didn’t go out seeking sinners in general to save. That was a job for priests and theologians. If they did approach any sinner they came upon, tha
t’s all they would ever have time to do. Suffice it to say, sinners flourished in this new world. No, vangels were to go after those who had been targeted by the Lucies.

  “I will send more vangels when needed,” Vikar added. “Hmm. Now that I think on it, I will send them, anyway. For a certainty, if there is such an aura of evil as you describe, the Lucies will consider it prime hunting ground.”

  Sigurd agreed.

  “I heard an alarming rumor,” Jogeir interjected. “There is a boat coming tomorrow with prostitutes. Sex trafficking. They will be provided to sate the perverted tastes of some of the men . . . and women, I suppose.”

  Sigurd frowned. “I cannot imagine why they would do that with the news media watching their activities.”

  “They will probably keep them out on the water, on one of yachts,” Jogeir guessed. “International waters, no laws being broken. Pimps, especially these big-scale operators, find ways to avoid arrest, especially of clients with money and a preference for children.”

  “That is a vile practice,” Karl said, summing up the opinion of them all.

  Armod looked particularly disturbed, having been subject to just such evil as a young boy. Karl reached over and squeezed his forearm in understanding.

  “I will kill them with my bare hands,” Armod vowed, his fangs emerging long and deadly.

  “No, Armod, you will follow my directions. No hasty actions that will call attention to us vangels,” Sigurd said, then softened his tone. “Do not worry. You will have your opportunity to avenge yourself on these miscreants, but only in the proper vangel manner.”

  Armod nodded reluctantly.

  After they concluded their meeting, Sigurd said to the others, “So, anyone want to party tonight?” He explained about Harry Goldman and the yacht festivities.

  Armod had dance rehearsals. The others claimed job duties as well.

  Thus it was that Sigurd was alone when he teletransported himself that evening out to the yacht. For a while, he just prowled about, admiring the fine workmanship. Teak woods. Brass fittings. Sleek lines. Sigurd loved boats. All kinds, but especially oceangoing vessels.

  Sigurd had to admit, he envied Harry this fine specimen. Why did evil men such as Harry get such prizes while he worked away, endlessly, for a greater good? It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t.

  It was a useless question, the type he avoided under normal circumstances. Envy would ever be his bane.

  His distraction caused him to miss the fact that he was not alone on the lower deck. And the first “person” he encountered was one of Jasper’s mungs. No one else was about.

  It didn’t look like a mung, at first. Instead, Sigurd saw a tall, handsome man in white dinner jacket, silk shirt, bow tie, and black pants. Immediately, they sensed each other for what they were, and with a hiss the mung morphed into its true demonic form.

  There was a hierarchy in the Lucipire society: the elite haakai, mungs, and then Jasper’s foot soldiers, the imps and hordlings. Mungs were big creatures, often more than seven feet tall, and like the other demons, had scales, claw-like hands, red eyes, fangs, and a whopping big tail, which they could swish like a deadly weapon. In addition, mungs oozed poisonous slime, or mung; thus they were aptly named. This character was all that and more. Sometimes mungs were mute. Not so in this case.

  “Vangel!” it hissed and gnashed its teeth. “You are mine!”

  “I do not think so, beast!”

  Lucies hated to be called “beast,” and this one growled with outrage, rising even taller. “Sinner!” it howled.

  Vangels hated to be called sinners, although that was precisely what they were. Why else would they be vangels? But somehow, being called “sinner” by a Lucipire put them in the same repulsive class.

  Sigurd’s fangs elongated with a shssshing sound, and he could feel the bloodlust of a warrior race through his body, giving him extra-human strength. One of the vangels back at the Transylvania castle was an experienced tailor. Sigurd was wearing one of Calvin’s specially designed sports coats with unique, hidden interior pockets and loops. Vangels almost always wore jackets, or loose-layered shirts, or even cloaks to hide their arsenals, everything from knives to guns.

  Faster than a blink he had a throwing star in one hand and a long-bladed knife in the other. At the press of a button, the knife became a sword, a switchblade sword, to be precise, that had been invented by a vangel who’d been a blacksmith in another lifetime. Both weapons had been treated with the symbolic blood of the Lord. They’d been hidden under his jacket.

  The mung lunged for him with its own weapon raised high—a heavy broadsword like those once used by Vikings and Saxon knights alike. Sigurd sidestepped and the mung’s blade cut deep into a wood railing. If the demon had managed to hit Sigurd, he would have been cleaved from head to belly.

  Vangels felt the same physical pains as humans did, but they could recover almost miraculously from the most dire wounds, ones that would prove fatal to humans. But some injuries could not be reversed, such as a split skull. Those vangels who died before their time went to Tranquility, which was a holding place similar to Purgatory, where they would await the final Judgment Day.

  While the mung attempted to yank the sword up and out of the wood, Sigurd aimed a sharp-pointed star for the back of its head. A blow that would render it dead, if not immediately, eventually, but that was not good enough. Unless Sigurd pierced its heart, the demon would resurrect itself later and come back in Lucipire form.

  Angry at having been thwarted, the Mung abandoned the broadsword and went for Sigurd with outstretched claws and fangs that were at least four inches long, oozing mung.

  A mistake, thank the Lord! That position gave Sigurd the opportunity to thrust his sword up and into the beast’s heart, but not before it had swiped the side of Sigurd’s face. Immediately, the Lucipire began to dissolve into a pool of slime, leaving behind only its clothing and a shiny, expensive-looking watch that had no doubt been pilfered from one of the party guests.

  “Hey, what’s going on here?” a voice yelled from behind Sigurd.

  Immediately, he retracted his sword and tucked it and the throwing star into his hidden, interior jacket pockets. And he made sure his fangs were retracted before turning to see what must be one of the waiters coming toward him. He wore black pants, a white shirt, and a red bow tie. His name tag said “Barry Hinton.”

  “Some dude just hurled his guts out. You better not get too close,” Sigurd warned.

  “Phew! That stinks. I’ll have to get maintenance. I’m not touching that crap.”

  Sigurd nodded and stepped away from the mess.

  Barry frowned. “Why are those clothes sitting in the middle of the barf?”

  “The idiot was knee-walking drunk. Said something about being hot. Took off his clothes and then hurled. I couldn’t get around him.”

  “Where is he now? Oh no! Did he go overboard? These drunks are a hazard to themselves. Oh shit, shit, shit!” The waiter looked as if he might very well do just that in his own pants.

  Quickly, Sigurd told him, “No! He ran away . . . rather staggered away . . . in that direction.” He pointed to the area opposite from which the waiter had approached. “He said something about needing to piss.”

  “Why didn’t he just piss over the railing? Never mind. I’ll let security take over.” Hinton narrowed his eyes at Sigurd. “What are you doing down here? It’s for employees only.”

  “I was looking for a men’s room. The one on the upper deck had a line outside.”

  “That’s what happens when the booze flows. There’s a men’s room over there.” He pointed to the left. “Then you better get back to the party.”

  “Right.”

  “Hey, bud, your face is bleeding. Did you know that?” Barry was looking suspicious again.

  “Cat scratched me,” Sigurd lied.

  “Here? On the boat?” Barry asked incredulously.

  “No. Back on the island. I thought it had stopped bleeding.?
?? He put a hand to his cheek and shivered. “I hate cats.”

  “Me too.” Barry grinned and waved him off.

  With a sigh of relief, Sigurd went into the small room, locked the door, and washed his face and hands. The scratches on his face were not deep. In fact, they would be healed before the night was over. But he had to make sure there was no poisonous mung in the cuts.

  He called his brother Vikar on his secure cell then. “Hey, Vikar! Sigurd here. I just erased a Lucie.”

  “What was it?”

  “A young mung.”

  “Only one?”

  “So far.”

  “They are definitely on the island then.”

  “Yes, but this was out on a yacht called Brass Balls.”

  Vikar laughed at that name. “Those idiots definitely have that.”

  “I’m going to the upper deck now. I’ll investigate and let you know if I see more. Still, you better send backup.”

  Sigurd had an alarming thought then. If there were Lucies on board, and if Marisa had been fanged even slightly as he suspected, her scent would lure the demon to complete the job. A fate worse than death because the human sinner would then go not to Heaven or Hell, or those other holding places, like Purgatory or Limbo or Tranquility, but become a Lucipire for eternity.

  Ending his call, Sigurd was on the upper deck in a flash and found Marisa almost immediately. Talking to that evil person, Harry Goldman. She was wearing a red strapless dress.

  How is the damn thing being held up? Oh. Oh!

  The dress ended mid-thigh . . .

  I am not thinking about what is only a few inches higher. No, I am not. But I am imagining.

  . . . leaving miles of legs and shoulders exposed.

  Is her skin actually sparkling? Yes! She must have sprinkled herself with crystal dust. I wonder if it is edible.

  Her hair was upswept, baring her nape, like a Lucie, or vangel, target.

  Mayhap she would not notice if I just dropped a fly-by lick on the curve where shoulder meets neck. And just the tiniest bite.

  She wore black strappy high-heeled shoes, making her a half head taller than Goldman.

  A perfect fit for me. For talking. I do not have to crick my neck to speak with her. That is the only fit I was imagining, just in case someone up there is listening to me. Not that someone up there ever listens, when I want someone up there to listen. Aaarrgh!.