“You said it!” Sigurd glanced at his watch. It was one-fifteen.
“Is it time?” Vikar asked.
“Almost. Wait here a minute. I have to do something.” He’d just noticed Tiffany, Marisa’s lackwit bungalow mate, struggling against a man who was attempting to tug her outside the room. It was a Lucie who was doing the tugging.
The woman was a Lucie target if there ever was one. He’d heard her proclaim her dreams of wanting to be an adult movie star. He’d seen some of the lowlife film producers she’d been associating with while here at the conference. He’d even seen her come out of one of their hotel rooms earlier this evening, disheveled and clearly having been compromised. If she was even capable of being compromised.
Still, she was a sinner, and he had to offer to save her.
In a darkened corridor marked “Employees Only,” the Lucie was attempting to back Tiffany up against a wall. “Ah don’t want to. Ah changed mah mind. Let me go,” she was protesting. Surprisingly agile, despite her very high heels, she ducked under his arm and danced away.
The Lucie went after her, doggedly pursuing his prey. “You can’t change your mind now, bitch,” said the young man dressed in surfer shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops. His blond hair was spiked. His fangs barely showed, yet.
“Did you call me a bitch?” Her eyes were darting this way and that, looking for an exit.
“No. I said ‘witch.’ Like ‘sweet witch.’ Come here, witchie, witchie. Come here now.” The Lucie, whose eyes were turning red and his skin starting to scale, was beckoning Tiffany with a forefinger. Soon he would be in full demon form and unable to hold off pouncing.
“Uh, not today,” Sigurd said, already drawing a long-handled knife from an interior sheath of his cloak.
The Lucie was a low-level hordling, and not all that old. Only two hundred or so years. Thus not as strong as Sigurd, not even close. The demon spun on his heels and morphed into full demonoid form. As it raised a clawed hand, Sigurd thrust his specially treated knife into the beast’s heart. Before his eyes, and those of a stunned Tiffany, the demon dissolved into a puddle of stinksome sulfur.
“Give my regards to Lucifer,” Sigurd said, wiping his knife against his pant leg, “because you will no longer be answering to Jasper, my friend.”
Now that he’d dispensed with the Lucie, Sigurd turned his eyes to Tiffany, who was gazing at him with the same fear as she had for the Lucie. No wonder. His fangs were out and fully extended. And he’d just killed a monster, without hesitation. She probably thought she was next.
“Here’s the deal, Tiffany, and we don’t have much time. You are a sinner who has been bitten by a demon vampire. You can either change your ways by agreeing to a fanging by me to remove the sin taint, or you can go on your merry way. But this I guarantee, you will be a Lucipire by morning unless you change your ways.”
“Ah doan . . . Ah doan understand,” she stammered in a deep Southern accent, cowering against a vending machine in the hallway. “Who . . . what are you?”
“I am a vampire angel. One of the good guys.”
She was weeping silently, her eye cosmetics running rivulets in dark tracks down her face. Like a girling she appeared now, a girling in harlot attire. “What do you want?” she sobbed.
“’Tis not what I want, but what you need. Do you wish to continue on your sinful ways? Is this really the life you want?”
She shook her head. “Ah wanna go home.”
“Then you must agree to let me remove the sin taint from you by sucking a small amount of blood from your neck. It won’t hurt much, if at all, but it must be your choice.”
She nodded reluctantly.
He performed the ritual, quickly and painlessly, for the most part. When he was done, he told her, “Go and sin no more.” Or at least try not to sin too much.
Smelling sweet and not at all lemony now, she swiped at her eyes with a handkerchief he handed her. “Thank you fer helpin’ me. Ah’m goin’ back ta mah room ta pack. Ah’m gonna call my boyfriend and tell him Ah’m comin’ home. Maybe Ah kin get mah job back at the hair salon.”
“Good,” he said. “You might want to try convincing Marisa to go with you.”
He knew from Svein’s call that Marisa was back at the bungalow, having ended her date with Goldman. He’d almost had a heart attack when he learned that her dinner date had been out on Goldman’s yacht. The woman was too stubborn by half. The hardheaded witch hadn’t ended her relationship with the evil man totally. Of course, she didn’t know just how evil he was. Still he shivered with distaste at what Svein had told him about Goldman’s perverted sexual tastes and what he had asked of Marisa, but that was not the old man’s most evil side. Turns out he was heavily involved in the sex trafficking, and that was what had called him away from his encounter with Marisa on the yacht. The boat carrying new “goods” had arrived earlier than expected and the procurer had wanted Goldman to take custody sooner than he had planned.
In any case, it was all moot now. Goldman was heading for the slammer, if all went according to plan.
The FBI was making arrests out on the boats right now. Helicopters and law enforcement boats had them surrounded. Sigurd had decided to relinquish any of the vangel targets on those boats so that the federal agents could take over. Yes, they lost some converts and Lucies in the bargain, much to Harek’s displeasure—he had wanted to take those particularly vile miscreants down himself—but this way the FBI’s attention would be diverted away from the vangel mission here on the island. Which was about to take place in full force any minute now.
It horrified Sigurd to realize that Marisa might have been out on the yacht in the midst of all this. He’d given Svein orders to take any steps necessary to keep her in the bungalow for the rest of the night.
Coming back to the ballroom entrance, he gave a nod to Vikar and the two of them began to stroll slowly and openly across the vast space, deliberately attracting attention, something they normally avoided. Along the way, he could see heads shoot up, male and female Lucies sniffing the air, getting the scent of not just vangels in the room, but members of the VIK. Any Lucie who caught one of them would be rewarded greatly by Jasper.
By the time they left the building and were on the grounds, several dozen Lucies were on their tails. Not to worry. Cnut and Harek and a troop of vangels were spread like a net. If any of these Lucies escaped tonight, it wouldn’t be for the vangels’ lack of trying.
A half-dozen vangels were stationed at the various exits of the hotel, as well, to prevent any humans from coming out and witnessing the battle to ensue, especially with the Lucies in full, frightening demonoid form. If even one human pulled out a phone camera, all the news media in the world would pounce on the story. Secrecy was important.
And it was a battle that ensued. There were imps and hordlings galore, who were dispensed quickly, those being the weaker of the Lucies. But the huge mungs and the much stronger haakai stood their ground with swords and knives flashing. Screams of death. Roars of outrage. Shouts of triumph. Grunts of defeat.
Near the end, Sigurd recognized Reynaldo, one of Jasper’s haakai du jour, a new favorite that was being considered for promotion to the Lucipire council of commanders, according to Zeb. Reynaldo recognized Sigurd, too. “Ah, the VIK who stole the woman from me.”
Woman? What woman? Oh. Sigurd realized that this must be the Lucie who’d fanged Marisa, the one who’d stood with Jasper in Marisa’s bedroom “dream.”
He pulled his switchblade sword from its special scabbard at his back. By pressing a button, the weapon doubled in length. In his other hand, he held the long knife he’d used earlier on the Lucie attacking Tiffany. Guns were to be avoided, whenever possible, because of the noise. “Where is Jasper?” he bellowed.
“Nowhere you VIK can find him,” Reynaldo said with a grunt when he lunged with his long sword and just missed Sigurd’s thigh.
“We will. Eventually,” Sigurd countered, feinting with his sword but then
swiping his knife in a wide arc.
Reynaldo, who was a formidable opponent, ducked and swiveled, coming back at Sigurd with another lunge, which hit home, slicing across his upper arm. Luckily, it was his left arm. The demon beast smiled. Not a pretty sight with its four-inch fangs, drooling mouth, and red eyes. “Hah! You assume good will conquer evil.”
“Of course.”
“I will have great fun toasting you in Horror tonight, and I do not mean with an alcoholic beverage,” Reynaldo boasted.
Enough of this baiting! Sigurd pitched his knife directly at the Lucie’s heart, and his aim would have been true, except that two things happened at once. He heard his brother Vikar yell, “Sig! Watch your back!” At the same time, there was the most piercing pain in his right shoulder.
Then, the blackness came over him. Total, all-encompassing oblivion.
It was like no other morning after . . .
“Marisa! Wake up. How can you sleep through all of this? Wake up, for heaven’s sake!”
Through bleary, half-slitted eyes, Marisa saw Inga standing in their bedroom, next to the queen-size bed they shared. It was still dark outside, but a bedside lamp provided enough soft light for her to see. Her alarm clock said three a.m.
“What?” she asked, sitting up. Her head felt like an axe was embedded in it. Too much alcohol on top of stress equaled one pounding headache.
“All hell is breaking loose on the island and out on the boats. Didn’t you hear the sirens? Doris is away on her FBI work. All her stuff is gone. She left, without a word, even. And Tiffany is packing up to go home. We should probably be doing the same. I can’t imagine that this conference will continue after tonight.”
Whoa! She must have slept through something momentous. “Make some coffee while I get dressed. Or undressed,” she said, looking down at the black sheath she still wore. She staggered off to the bathroom, where she took three aspirins and then let out a shriek of fright when she saw herself in the medicine cabinet mirror. Her hair and smeared makeup were a sight to behold, and not a pretty sight, either.
It took her ten minutes just to get a comb through the tangles, and she had to soap and rinse her face three times before she got all the foundation and mascara off.
“Where were you so late, Inga? Partying?” she asked first thing, after taking a long sip of the black coffee.
“No partying, thank God! Oh, Marisa! I met a man. I think I’m in love. I think I’ve finally met ‘The One.’”
Marisa arched her brows at Inga. Her friend liked to party, and she dated a lot. But The One was not a term she used loosely.
“Rob Lowry. He’s thirty-five years old. Divorced. No children. He owns a water taxi service out of Key West with six boats that travel back and forth to the various islands. He went to West Point, served six years in the Army, was honorably discharged as a captain when he had to come home to take over the family business after his father’s death. His mother still lives, and acts as bookkeeper for the company. He has no brothers or sisters. He’s tall, well-built, bald as a golf ball, has one chipped front tooth, kisses like a pro, and is sexy as hell.”
Marisa had to smile. “You learned all that tonight?”
Her friend blushed, and she almost never blushed. “We spent the night on one of his boats, just talking and drinking wine, but mostly talking. Seemed like we had so much to say to each other. Like we had to catch up on all the years we’d been waiting to meet each other. That sounds corny, doesn’t it?”
“No, honey, it sounds just perfect,” Marisa said, putting her cup down and squeezing her friend’s hand. “I’m happy for you.”
Just then, the sound of helicopters flying low could be heard.
“This has been going on for the past hour. FBI and Coast Guard choppers coming and going from the mainland to some of those yachts out there. Rob says people in town have been aware that something big was going to come down.”
“Drugs?”
Inga shrugged. “No one knows.”
“Oh my God! You mentioned yachts. Was Harry’s one of them?”
“I really don’t know. Good thing you got out of there, just in case, huh?”
In more ways than one, she thought.
“But, honey, there’s much more. That big party that was to be held at the hotel tonight . . . whoa, boy! What a dirtbag affair it turned out to be. For all of Vanderfelt’s hype about FOE and pornography is not all that bad, this was the worst of the worst.” Inga went on to explain some of the amazing happenings, which would be disgusting to most sane people. “Even worse . . .” Inga began.
“There’s more?”
“Oh yeah! There appeared to be some kind of fight that took place outside between Sigurd and his guys and some dragons.”
“Dragons? C’mon! Really?”
“Well, no one really witnessed the fight firsthand. But supposedly there were these beasts the size of buses with tails and claws.”
Marisa would have laughed, except that she recalled the waiter turned beast who’d appeared on her patio, the one Sigurd had destroyed into a puddle of slime. This nightmare kept getting more nightmarish.
“I’m beginning to think it was a mistake for us to come here,” Inga said.
“Ya think?” Marisa couldn’t be angry with Inga, even though she was the one who’d pushed Marisa into coming.
Something occurred to Marisa then. “Tiffany? Oh my God! Where was she in the midst of all this crap? Do you think she got hurt? You mentioned she was packing, but . . .”
They both stood at the same time with alarm.
Marisa knocked on the other bedroom door. “Tiff? Are you in there? Are you okay?”
There was a mumbling noise from inside.
“Can we come in?”
“All right,” Tiffany said sleepily.
Marisa opened the door and clicked on the wall light switch. She and Inga stepped inside.
Tiffany, under a thin blanket on the bed, blinked against the sudden light. “What?” Her luggage was packed and sitting next to the door. She’d probably gone to bed until the morning boats would operate back to the mainland.
“Are you all right?” Marisa asked.
Tiffany sat up and began to weep.
“What’s wrong? What happened? Were you at the awful party tonight?” Inga asked.
The weeping turned to bawling.
Marisa sat on one side of the twin bed, and Inga sat on the other, each holding one of Tiffany’s hands.
“It was awful,” Tiffany wailed. “First, Ah was at the party up at the penthouse. Ah think Ah musta had a funny drink, ya know what Ah mean. Ah had sex with the movie director Ah tol’ ya ’bout, but mah brain is fuzzy ’bout the rest. Ah mighta had sex with some others.”
“Oh, Tiff!” Marisa said, leaning forward to give her a quick hug.
“After that, Ah somehow got ta the party down in the ballroom. Ah’ve never seen anythin’ so disgustin’, not even in some of the bad adult videos, and y’all know Ah’m no prude when it comes ta that stuff.” She shivered and pulled her hands free to tug the blanket up over her shoulders.
“This man tried to force me . . . Ah said no, but he kept following me, but then Sigurd saved me. Ah don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Before she pulled the blanket over her head, Tiffany held Marisa’s gaze for a moment, and Marisa understood the horror she saw there. The rapist had been a Lucipire, in demon form, and Sigurd had destroyed it in front of Tiffany. “Ah jist wanna go home,” Tiffany whined under the blanket.
One last thing Marisa needed to know. She tugged the blanket down slightly and saw what she’d suspected. Fang marks on Tiffany’s neck. “Oh no!” Marisa said, putting her fingertips to the marks.
“It’s okay,” Tiffany told her. “Sigurd removed the . . . Ah mean, he saved me.”
Marisa could tell that the girl didn’t want to say more. Heck, she probably didn’t really know what Sigurd had done, especially if she’d still been under the influence of drugs. But Marisa did. He??
?d removed Tiffany’s sin taint, just like he’d removed hers. Not that it had done her much good, since she went on her date with Harry anyhow. And still would, truth to tell, if he was around tomorrow. After all, nothing had changed regarding Izzie.
“Ah’m leavin’ first thing in the mornin’,” Tiffany told them, after she blew her nose loudly into a tissue. “Tee-Beau is gonna drive up from Georg-ah and meet me in Key West ta take me home. Ah’m never gonna leave him again, Ah swear.”
“I’m leaving in the morning, too.” Inga patted Tiffany on the arm and stood. “We can take the water taxi back to the mainland together.”
They both looked at Marisa, who stood, too. “I’ll decide tomorrow.”
“Marisa,” Inga protested.
“Tomorrow,” Marisa insisted.
The next day, the choice was taken out of her hands.
Chapter 20
His wings were clipped . . .
Sigurd was lying, pain-ridden and stiff as death, in a castle bed in Transylvania when he regained consciousness.
Last thing he recalled was his encounter with Reynaldo, the haakai Lucipire, and someone coming up to stab him in the back. Vikar had called out a warning to him, but too late for Sigurd to escape injury. Even so, Vikar must have saved Sigurd from a fate worse than death for a vangel—being taken to Horror and tortured into becoming a demon vampire—by killing the Lucipire who had come up behind him. Otherwise, Sigurd would be in Tranquillity, not a castle bedroom. Tranquillity was the place vangels went, those who died before their time. It was a holding place until Judgment Day, much like Purgatory.
“Infection” was always a problem when anyone was injured by a Lucie weapon, which would have been treated with poisonous mung. Even if a fatal blow hadn’t been made, the slime itself in an open wound could cause death. That must be what happened to him.
He tried to sit up but fell back weakly onto the bed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You are not ready to get up yet,” Karl said, rising from an overstuffed chair where he had been reading a paperback book, probably one of the mystery novels he devoured. Karl leaned over him, adjusting a blanket and straightening the PICC lines that ran from an IV pole beside the bed into his arm.