Vampire in Paradise

  She was disoriented when it ended, but still she was able to ask, “How sick have you been?”

  “Very sick. Did you think I could have stayed away otherwise?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. Nothing had changed since Sigurd had admitted to the child killing, and yet everything had changed. She somehow sensed that it didn’t matter. She somehow sensed that he was not a bad man. There must be an explanation. She trusted that there was. But she no longer needed details.

  He tapped her chidingly on the chin. “Woman, don’t you know I love you?” She could tell he was surprised by his own words. But then he laughed and repeated the words, “I love you. ’Tis true. I love you. I have nothing to offer. I don’t even know where I will work after this. Or even if I will continue to be a doctor. For all I know, I will be a farmer. My life is not my own. No future. Just now. But I hot damn love you.”

  And that was enough for her. For now. Because now was all she had in this dream. She rolled over onto her back and pulled him over her. “Show me. Show me how much you love me.”

  “Demanding woman!” he said with a grin.

  “The demanding woman who loves you back,” she said, putting her hands to his nape and drawing him down. His long hair was loose and hung down over her head like a silky curtain.

  “Ah, that makes all the difference then.”

  Somehow he was naked, and so was she—the magic of dreams, she supposed—and when he entered her it was with the slow, excruciatingly slow strokes of love. Over and over and over again, he told her with his body how much he adored her. The words had been said. The body spoke now.

  Sigurd’s lovemaking back at the island hotel had been raw and lusty. This was different. Still expert. Still bespeaking a deep hunger. But it was like riding a sensual wave, each escalating to a more intense level. When he fanged her neck near the end, she didn’t protest. It seemed a natural part of this undulating ride she was on. She could only hold on for the peaks, and there were many of them, before they both crashed into a bone-melting orgasm.

  “Love you. Always,” he said against her neck. She thought she felt tears.

  She slept deeply then, and it was full morning when she finally awakened, feeling more rested than she had in weeks. Well, who wouldn’t after a dream like that? It must be what men referred to as a wet dream.

  Normally, she got up often during the night to check on Izzie. She’d been surprisingly quiet last night. That caused Marisa’s eyes to shoot open and she jumped out of bed to check on her.

  Izzie was sleeping peacefully. Her complexion was almost normal, not the pale, somewhat yellowish tint of the past weeks. And she seemed pain-free, although she hadn’t had any meds since midnight. A quick digital thermometer on her forehead showed no elevated temperature at all.

  Strange.

  “Mommy?” Izzie said, opening her sleepy eyes slowly. “Can I have butter toast fingers for breakfast. With peach jelly. And orange juice.”

  Izzie hated orange juice, and Marisa wasn’t aware that her daughter had tasted peach jelly ever in her young life. Strawberry, yes, and grape, but never peach.

  Very strange.

  That was when Marisa noticed the object Izzie was cradling in her arms.

  A seashell.

  And it wasn’t even his birthday . . .

  Sigurd should have been surprised, but was not, to find himself back in his bedroom at the Transylvania castle. He took off his pajama bottoms and put on some denim jeans and a T-shirt with athletic shoes. Then he lay on the bed, his hands folded behind his head, waiting. For something, he wasn’t sure what.

  It was a mystery how he’d gotten back to the castle. He didn’t recall teletransporting back. Well, not so much of a mystery. He had a sneaky suspicion— “Sigurd! What the hell are you doing out of bed? And the IV lines? Tsk, tsk, tsk!” Vikar stepped into the room and scowled. His oldest brother did a lot of scowling, except at his wife Alex, and the two children, of course. Maybe it was just Sigurd who brought out his sour side.

  “Mike wants to see you. He’s coming up here now. We thought you were still connected—”

  “I can speak for myself, Viking,” Michael said, stomping into the room. And he really was stomping today, wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots.

  “Yippee-ki-yay?” Sigurd inquired with a grin.

  “Get along little dogies?” Vikar added, also grinning.

  “Very funny! I have serious business with some vaqueros in Mexico that are about to have their spurs trimmed. I need to slip in without being noticed.”

  Sigurd had news for Mike. A plaid shirt? He’d gotten his cowboys mixed up. But then, Michael was going to be noticed, no matter what he wore.

  “You are feeling better. Good,” Michael said. “Come with me then. I have something to show you.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heels and left the room. Clomp, clomp, clomp, he went down the hall.

  Sigurd arched his brows at Vikar.

  Vikar shrugged.

  Sigurd rose, and the two of them followed Mike along the corridor and down the wide staircase to the first floor, then out the front door.

  “A little gift for you, Sigurd, to show that We are well pleased with the job you did on the island,” Michael said and stepped aside.

  Sitting on the front driveway was a shiny new—well, restored vintage—red Corvette Stingray. A real man’s wet dream, though he wouldn’t say that to the saint.

  Sigurd’s jaw dropped. “For me?” The vehicle must be worth more than a hundred thousand dollars. Maybe two.

  Michael smiled. “For you. I know how envious you were of that doctor at Johns Hopkins. This is a different type of automobile, but We thought—”

  “It’s great. It’s fantastic. I just can’t believe . . .” He walked up and ran his fingertips over the warm surface of the roof. If a man could make love to a car, this would be the model.

  “Hey, how come I don’t get a kickass car like this?” Vikar complained. “I’ve completed lots of successful missions. More than Sigurd, I wager.”

  “Vikar, Vikar, Vikar. You have a wife and family. Do you begrudge your brother this small pleasure?”

  “Well, no.”

  Sigurd understood then what the car represented. No wife or family for him, but instead a material item to feed his sin of envy. It was called giving with one hand and taking with the other.

  Well, bull-fucking-shit!

  He was about to turn on his heel and go back into the castle to sulk, but then he had a second thought. “Is the title in the glove box?”

  Michael nodded hesitantly. “It is. And it’s in your name.”

  “Well, thanks for the gift, then. I think I’ll give it a spin.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Vikar asked.

  “No!” Sigurd said, way too loudly.

  It was only as he’d left the castle grounds and was cruising down the turnpike, heading south, that he phoned Harek and asked, without preamble, “Where’s the nearest classic car sales company?”

  Miracles really do happen . . .

  Marisa called Dr. Stern to see if he could see Izzie that afternoon.

  Her daughter had been acting surprisingly well since she awakened that morning. Eating a hearty breakfast. Begging to go to the pool. Chasing the neighbor’s new puppy around the yard.

  Even her mother noticed, especially when Izzie said, “Abuela, can we make torticas de moron t’day?” The Cuban shortbread cookies with guava and lime centers were time-consuming and took more energy than Izzie had been capable of for a long time.

  Sometimes terminally ill people had sudden bursts of good health before they died. Marisa was very much afraid that Izzie was dying.

  Therefore she was stunned when Dr. Stern called her into his office following hours of first, consultation, then testing, then further testing. He’d told Marisa’s mother to take the child out into the waiting room while he spoke to Marisa. She and her mother had exchanged worried looks
, expecting the worst.

  “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it,” the sixty-something doctor said, taking off his eyeglasses and cleaning them with a tissue. “In all my years of practice!” He appeared to have tears in his eyes.

  Oh, this is bad. I don’t know if I can bear it. But I must. I must. For Izzie. “What? What’s wrong? Is it even larger than you expected?” Tears were already brimming in her eyes, too.

  He shook his head. “Marisa, my dear, the tumor is gone.”

  She had been standing, but she sank down into a chair. “How can that be?”

  “Who knows? A miracle? Izzie must have a guardian angel,” the doctor quipped.

  Marisa knew exactly what had happened then.

  Sigurd.

  He really was an angel. She was in love with an angel. A hot-as-sin angel.

  The tears streamed down her face then. Tears of joy.

  How could she ever thank Sigurd?

  For now, she jumped out of her chair and ran out into the waiting room, where she hugged Izzie and then her mother and then Izzie again.

  “Let’s go home and make cookies,” Marisa said suddenly.

  “Yippee!” Izzie said, dancing around. Her mother looked at Marisa as if she’d lost her mind.

  “But instead of the guava, let’s use peach preserves. I think I know someone who deserves a cookie.”

  He knew he was good, but that good? . . .

  Sigurd sold the car for a cool one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a bargain for the Philadelphia dealer, who pounced on Sigurd’s offer. Apparently, the Stingray was worth at least fifty thousand more. Sigurd could not care less.

  While he was in the bank later that afternoon, having a cashier’s check drawn, he called the clinic in Switzerland where Izzie was to have her operation. After some phone tag, he was finally connected with a woman named Adrian. He explained that he had the money for Izzie’s operation and asked to what account he should wire the funds.

  “Uh, Ms. Lopez called today and canceled the operation.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. She did. An hour ago.”

  “Why? Oh no! Did Izzie . . . Did she . . . ?” He couldn’t say the word die. He just couldn’t. After all his efforts, surely God would not be so cruel. No, he couldn’t think like that.

  “I’m sorry, but I cannot discuss one of our patients with you. I appreciate the gesture you were going to make, and I’m sure Ms. Lopez would, too. Perhaps you should contact her.”

  He hung up without responding.

  Now what? If Izzie had passed, Marisa would be devastated. Should he go to her? Or should he wait?

  Teletransporting used up lots of energy. With that, on top of Sigurd’s recent illness, he would probably look like an albino when he next saw Marisa, despite all his saves on Grand Keys Island. The hell with that! He teletransported, anyway. And landed on his arse in the backyard of Marisa’s home in Miami. What was it with the landing on his arse lately? Probably some warped archangel idea of funny.

  Thus he was standing, dusting off his behind, when Marisa opened the back door. “What took you so long?”

  “Huh?”

  She threw herself into his arms, and, yes, knocked him on his arse. Again.

  She didn’t seem to mind. She was kissing his face and neck, and crying, and laughing, and saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  He was laughing then, too, but he had no idea why.

  Finally, he recalled his reason for being here. Izzie. Something had happened to Izzie.

  But wait. Marisa wasn’t acting like a grieving mother. Maybe her sorrow had pushed her over the edge. “Marisa, heartling,” he lifted her up off him and still sitting, legs extended, placed her on his lap, “I am so sorry about Izzie.”

  “Sorry? Why are you sorry?”

  “Because she . . .” He paused. “Why were you thanking me?”

  “Because you saved her, you wonderful man, you!”

  “Me? I did? How?”

  “A miracle. You cured my baby. You really are an angel, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I’ve never done any miracles before. Marisa, are you sure?”

  “That she’s cured? Or that you’re responsible?”

  “Both. Where is she?”

  “Inside. Taking a nap. My mother and father went to the grocery story. He came home from work early to celebrate. They’ll both want to thank you, too.”

  “Marisa, I don’t think—”

  “C’mon inside. I’ll show you.” She jumped off his lap and stood, holding a hand out for him to stand.

  When they entered the kitchen, he was hit with the sweet smell of cookies . . . and peaches. That on top of Marisa’s ginger-honey woman scent was enough to intoxicate him. He was feeling a bit woozy.

  “Izzie made them for you,” she said, pressing one of the cookies against his mouth. It was delicious.

  After creeping into Izzie’s bedroom and seeing that she did indeed appear to be sleeping normally, he went into Marisa’s bedroom with her. They closed the door.

  Before he made love to Marisa again, he wanted to clear the air first.

  “Marisa, I killed my little brother a long, long time ago.”

  “How?”

  “By neglect.”

  She made a scoffing sound.

  “’Tis true. I had healing talents, even back then, but I was envious of my brother Aslak, who was only five years old. Like your Izzie. When he became ill, I did nothing to save him.”

  She winced, but then she asked, “Sigurd, how old were you?”

  “Ten.”

  “Oh, Sigurd!” She hugged him. “As you said, it was a long time ago.”

  “I am a grave sinner. Always envious of others. And I am selfish, too, so selfish that I want you to marry me.”

  “Why is that selfish?”

  “Because you have a child. You would stay the same age, as I would, as long as I remain a vangel, while Izzie would grow older, as humans do. But then, if I should die, you would, too. What would happen to Izzie then?”

  “What would happen to your brothers’ children if they should die?”

  “We care for each other. We are all one large family.”

  “See. If my parents weren’t still alive, your family would care for Izzie, right?”

  “Right. You make it sound so simple.”

  “It is, if we love each other. Will Michael approve of us being married?”

  “I think so. I think it’s why he offered me the big temptation, as a trick.”

  “What big temptation?”

  “I’ll explain later. Suffice it to say, I have a hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar check in my pocket,” he said, picking her up, her legs wrapped around his waist, and spun several times before dropping them both down to the bed. It was surprising the bed frame didn’t break, with that falling on his arse nonsense again. “But first, I want to pledge my troth to you, Viking-style.”

  And he did.

  Vikings did it better than anyone.

  Vikar said so.

  Marisa said so, too.

  Much later.

  Epilogue

  And the vangel beat goes on . . .

  Sigurd and Marisa were married a month later in a Miami church by a visiting clergyman named Father Michael. They would have been married at the castle, which Marisa and Izzie had already visited, except it would have been impossible to have Marisa’s parents, her newly paroled brother Steve, her friend Inga, and others as guests where there were always dozens of vangels in residence.

  Even so, all of Sigurd’s brothers were in attendance along with Vikar’s wife, Alex; Trond’s wife, Nicole; Ivak’s wife, Gabrielle; Karl and his wife, Faith; Gunnar and Gunnora; and the new baby, Michael. Izzie had already made great friends with Gun and Nora as they raced around the reception hall after the ceremony. You’d never know the little girl had been sick.

  Marisa was beautiful in a long, cream-colored wedding dress by Nicole
Miller, the real deal, not a knockoff. Inga, her maid of honor, wore Vera Wang, and that’s all she would say on the subject. Steve had offered to get Hugo Boss tuxes for the men, but Sigurd had politely declined. He and his brothers wore plain black suits. “You’re lucky we aren’t wearing cloaks,” he told his fiancée when she suggested a visit to a downtown tailor.

  Marisa’s parents had gone all out in arranging a traditional Cuban wedding reception with exotic foods and rum punches, although many of the Vikings preferred their beers. There was a cooler of Fake-O in a back room for any vangels in need of emergency sustenance. The band played nonstop salsa, except for the occasional Michael Jackson song requested by Armod.

  “Just out of curiosity, why did you give in so easily?” Sigurd asked Father Michael during one of the breaks. The archangel was holding a sleeping baby Michael in his arms. Did I mention that Ivak was a suck-up? “I mean, you didn’t even raise a protest when I told you I wanted to marry Marisa.”

  “I gave up. It has become a losing battle with you Vikings. I am thinking I should just marry off the rest of you VIK and be done with it, except I would do the choosing this time. There is this ex-nun in Poland, a pretty girl, despite the unfortunate warts. Or how about Regina? Two vangels together might be a good partnership.”

  Harek and Cnut overheard those remarks and gasped with horror, seeing as how they were the only VIK left unwed. They were seen leaving the party early for parts unknown.

  “By the way, I’ve decided what you can do with that check that’s burning a hole in your pocket,” Michael continued. “Along with Marisa's hundred thousand.”

  Sigurd had been hoping that Michael had forgotten about that.

  “A down payment on an island.”

  “What?”

  Marisa came up to stand beside him, and he reflexively put an arm around her shoulders, tugging her close to his side. She fit perfectly.

  “I was just telling Sigurd about his new assignment. Both of yours, actually, since you are now partners.” Michael smiled, and it was not a nice smile.

  Marisa stiffened slightly. She was not yet accustomed to being dictated to. She would learn.