With Trond dead to the world, Nicole had a chance to study him a bit. His rifle was propped against the wall beside him, the safety on, she was quick to note. His K-Bar was secured in its sheath on his leg. He wore a drab green T-shirt tucked into camouflage pants, and heavy boondockers. Having dark hair meant he also had a dark beard that was emerging already, though he had surely shaved this morning.
His arms were at rest, his hands laced on his lap. The fingers were long and blunt-tipped. Sexy.
Now where did that thought come from?
Well, she knew, of course. It was the memory embedded in her brain of what those fingers could do to a half-clothed woman. Meaning her. Even when he hadn’t really been attracted to her.
He had a nice, well-shaped face. A strong nose. Full, slightly parted lips. And beautiful eyelashes.
Suddenly, the suppressed imp in her rebelled and burrowed into her weary brain, causing her to blurt out, “I’m thinking about getting a Brazilian wax. Do men really like bare . . . you know?”
Flared nostrils, but still silence.
She’d never known a man to sleep so soundly. It probably went with his lazy personality.
She went for broke then and leaned forward to whisper, “Wanna have sex?”
His eyes shot open.
Apparently not such a whisper.
And apparently he’d been awake all along.
“Oops!” she said.
“Oops?” Trond stood in one lithe movement. “Still testing my sexual orientation, Nicole?”
She shook her head. “No, it just slipped out.”
Trond arched his brows with disbelief and walked away.
A short time later, she got the answer to at least one of her questions. She came across Trond and Karl behind a storage shed. Trond was leaning back against the wall, and Karl was pressed up against him, his lips kissing Trond’s neck. At least, that’s how it looked to Nicole.
Trond’s gaze connected with hers over Karl’s shoulder.
This was no game to him.
He really was gay.
Fourteen
Was this Candid Camera? . . .
Enough was enough! Tonight was the night he and Karl would save a couple of sinners, or their souls be damned!
JAM had almost shot a round of ammunition into a dark, crowded room of his buddies this evening, and only Trond knew it wouldn’t have been an accident. It had been late in the day, dusk, at the kill house and JAM had suddenly started shooting, randomly. Live ammo. Fortunately, Trond had sensed what was about to happen and tackled the man to the floor. Afterward, JAM had appeared stunned, unaware of what had just happened. Trond had explained away JAM’s action to their superiors by saying JAM must have thought that was part of the exercise, to prevent a covert tango from taking out any of the team.
JAM had just stared at him afterward with a mixture of anger and confusion.
Kendra had broken off her short-lived engagement to Sly, for reasons unspoken. By the fear Trond saw in her eyes when she glanced toward her former fiancé, Trond suspected he had assaulted her in some way.
Zeb or some of his Lucie cohorts must have been at these two SEALs again, possibly after Trond had left the Wet and Wild, before their lockdown on the base. The scent of lemons was so strong on the two of them that the sin taint was almost ensured. Usually the process was completed in one encounter, but the Lucie needed ten or more uninterrupted minutes to feed after stasis. One more fanging of JAM and Sly by a Lucie and they would be over-the-cliff evil sinners, ripe for the plucking to Jasper’s version of Hell.
Trond and Karl had to complete this part of their mission tonight, or acknowledge failure in this particular battle of good against evil. He had no time to think about Nicole and the expression of shock, and maybe even hurt, on seeing Karl feed on him earlier tonight. It had been a necessity when he’d seen the state Karl had been in. No time to seek out the blood ceorl at the Del. No time for Fake-O, which would have been ineffective at that stage anyhow. It was all for the good that she would now be convinced that he was definitely not of the woman-loving persuasion.
So, why did it feel so wrong?
Why did he feel as if he’d crushed his best friend?
Shaking off these maudlin emotions, he waited outside the showering chamber for JAM. When the SEAL emerged, wearing only low-riding boxers and a towel wrapped around his neck, he stopped short, no doubt recognizing something different about Trond, who was in vangel mode.
“What’s that blue cloudy stuff by your shoulders? Looks like wings.”
Trond ignored JAM’s observation. The wispy wings came out on occasion. He’d never seen them himself, but others had told them that the blurry images appeared when his emotions were high.
Nothing he could do about it. Instead, he insisted, “You must come with me.”
“Where?”
“Just follow me.”
“Without telling me where? Bullshit!”
“There are things you need to know.”
“Is this a joke, Easy? Note, I am not laughing. Tell me what’s up or get out of my face.”
Trond shook his head. “These things must be said in private.”
“What things?” JAM attempted to walk around Trond, but Trond blocked his way by spreading his ethereal wings, which JAM just walked through. “This is so not funny.”
Trond sighed. Why couldn’t these things go easy? “About your everlasting soul, my friend.”
At first, JAM’s jaw dropped, then his chest rumbled with laughter. “The only one who needs to be concerned about my soul, my friend, is me and the God I no longer believe exists.”
“He exists, all right,” Trond told him. “He sent me to save you.” With those words, he flashed JAM his fangs and saw the SEAL’s eyes fix on his mouth, then dart to the diaphanous blue wings at his back. “Jesus Christ!” JAM exclaimed, backing up from him with fright.
“Precisely.” On that single word, Trond grabbed JAM by the upper arms and, despite their similar heights and weights, teletransported them both to a small lounge for maintenance workers in the BQ’s basement. It contained only two straight-backed chairs, a torn leather sofa, a card table, and on the counter a portable TV and a microwave oven.
Karl, his fangs out but his color fairly good, thanks to his feeding on Trond hours ago, had been sitting on the sofa watching Sly squirm on the one chair, now joined by JAM on the other chair. Although neither SEAL was restrained, they could not stand up, for the moment. But their mouths could move, and they did.
“You fucking idiots! Who the hell are you?” Sly demanded to know.
“Are you tangos? Oh God, has Al-Qaeda infiltrated SEALs?” JAM added. He and Sly exchanged worried glances.
“We’re not tangos. We’re here to help you,” Trond told them. To no avail, of course.
“Easy and Mortensen both have fangs,” Sly remarked to JAM. “Like frickin’ vampires.”
“And wings,” JAM remarked back to Sly. “Like frickin’ angels.”
Actually only Trond had the wings, but he and Karl did both have visible fangs now.
The SEALs turned back to him and Karl, eyebrows arched in question.
“We’re vampire angels. Viking vampire angels, to be precise. Some calls us vangels,” Trond told them.
“What the fuck? Am I sleeping? Is this a nightmare?” JAM wanted to know.
“Pfff! Can we both be having the same nightmare?” This from Sly.
“Let me explain,” Trond said. “Are you willing to listen?”
Both men hesitated, then nodded.
“Thousands of years ago, Satan became impatient with the usual method for obtaining new souls for Hell. That would be humans dying while in the state of sin. To speed up the process, he created demon vampires called Lucipires.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Sly jeered.
Trond ignored the man’s skepticism; he would be skeptical, too.
Karl picked up the ball for Trond by continuing the explanation. “When th
e Lucies . . . that’s our nickname for Lucipires . . . sense a weak human being, one on the verge of sin, they sink their fangs into them, infecting them with a sin taint. Usually, the process is completed in one feeding, but sometimes they are interrupted, and must come back to complete the process. Then, when the human commits that contemplated mortal sin, or many others by then, the Lucies swoop in and drain them dry. Their human bodies dissolve, but their souls are taken to Lucipire hell, a place you do not ever want to visit.”
“Some story!” Sly spat out at Karl. “What’s up, Salt? You turnin’ into some kind of Stephen King?” Salt was Karl’s SEAL nickname, as in Morton salt.
“What has any of this crap to do with us?” JAM demanded, as well.
“You’ve both been infected,” Trond replied. “Not once, but twice, I suspect. Maybe even three times. First time on San Clemente Island. Second time in the parking lot of the Wet and Wild on Friday night.”
“Are we being punked or something? Is Ashton Kutcher gonna come jumping in here with a TV crew?” Sly laughed, but it was a fearful sound, unsure.
“Ashton Kutcher doesn’t do that show anymore,” JAM told Sly, even though it was obviously irrelevant to their situation.
“This is no joke,” Karl said. “I was a Marine in ’Nam when I got saved.”
Sly and JAM looked at Karl as if he were an alien.
Then Sly asked Trond, “And you, when did you get changed into whatever the hell you are now? In Viking times?”
Sly had not been serious, but Trond was when he said, “Actually, yes. In the year 850. My six brothers and I died and entered the realm of vangeldom.”
“You’ve met God?” JAM asked, interested, despite himself.
Trond shook his head. “We work with a different heavenly being.” He hesitated but then revealed, “St. Michael the Archangel.”
JAM and Sly burst out laughing.
“Are you going to force us to become . . . whatever it is you are?” Sly wanted to know.
“Not at all. We’re going to give you a choice. Good or evil.” Time to cut to the chase, Trond decided. “Do you wish to continue on the course you are following now?”
“If this is about the incident today with my weapon going off, that was an accident,” JAM proclaimed.
“Do you really believe that?” Trond asked, staring him in the eye and holding his gaze “Do you sense nothing different about yourself? A man who once contemplated the priesthood now talks about bombing an entire country, women and children be damned?”
JAM ducked his head, perhaps realizing at last that something had happened to him. “Lots of SEALs burn out after they get too good at killing.”
“There’s a difference in killing for a just cause but not enjoying it. When a man starts to enjoy killing, he has crossed a line.” Trond knew that only too well. He and the other vangels had to restrain their killing instincts all the time. “And that goes for you as well, Sly. The powers above have noted your sinful slide as well, and not just in your lustful perversions.”
Both men were released from their invisible bonds now. They could rise and leave the room, if they chose.
“What happens if we don’t want to change? Maybe we like the way we are?” Sly’s belligerence was telling.
“You’ll die. Maybe not today or tomorrow or even next week. But soon,” Trond replied. “And your destination will be horrific beyond human comprehension, but the greatest pain will come from the knowledge that you will never see your Heavenly Maker. I know, that sounds like a cliché, like something one of those Sunday morning evangelists would spout, but it is what it is. Still, you get to choose.”
JAM suddenly dropped to his knees and made the sign of the cross. “Oh my God, I am heartily sorry, oh my God, I am heartily sorry,” he kept murmuring over and over. Tears streamed down his face. “I want to change. I do.”
Sly gave JAM a look of disgust. “What a crock! I don’t give a rat’s ass about God or being saved or leading the good life. I’m outta here.”
“No one will believe you if you tell what you have seen and heard here tonight,” Karl pointed out.
“Wanna bet, Salt?”
Karl just shrugged.
“One more thing . . .” Trond suddenly recalled an important fact. “Your brother Raymond who died in the Twin Towers . . . he is in a better place now, and he prays for your salvation.”
Sly’s hand was on the doorknob, already turning it, but he stopped. “That was a low blow, asshole, and total bullshit. Everyone here knows about my brother Raymond.” And then he was gone.
“In Sly’s defense,” JAM said, “I am more inclined to accept your outrageous story because of my background in seminary and an innate belief in miracles, which I have apparently not yet lost completely. Plus, I’ve been involved in some pretty way-out woo-woo experiences with the other Vikings here. I refer to the time travel, which I assume you are aware of by now. I’m rambling, aren’t I?” JAM sighed deeply. “Okay, do your work, whatever it is.”
“I must suck blood from your body,” Trond said.
JAM cringed but didn’t bolt from the room. In fact, he was still on his knees.
Trond sank down to his knees in front of him. “Ordinarily, my taking the sin taint from your body by feeding on you would be enough, but you will be weakened and might not be able to engage in the strenuous SEAL exercises required of you tomorrow.”
“So?” Jam asked hesitantly.
“After I feed on you, you will take blood from Karl. Mine will be tainted by then.”
“How will I take blood? I don’t have fangs. Do I?” JAM ran his tongue over his upper teeth and his relief was obvious.
Hey, Vikings weren’t too fond of the long incisors, either. He understood JAM’s revulsion perfectly. “Are you ready?” Trond asked. When JAM nodded, Trond made the sign of the cross, murmured a short prayer, and put his hand to JAM’s chin, tilting his head to the side. With no further warning, he sank his fangs into the man’s throat and drank greedily.
To a vangel, the blood of a sinner in the process of being saved was pure ambrosia. Sweet sustenance. He had to stop himself from taking too much. One time, in the early days, he had inadvertently drained a man to death. When he was done, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth.
JAM looked like he might keel over with shock. Quickly, Trond went behind JAM to brace his shoulders, and Karl put his already lacerated wrist up to the man’s mouth. At first, JAM balked, but then he, too, drank greedily from the open wound in Karl’s wrist.
When they were done, all of them felt depleted, but in a good way. JAM was back to normal, the way he would have presumably been before his first Lucie fanging. JAM’s blood in Trond’s veins would sustain Trond for weeks. His skin color would improve. And he would not need to drink Fake-O as often. Karl would feed later from the blood ceorl, although he was not in as dire a need as he had been earlier when Trond had forced him to feed on him.
Which caused Trond to remember Nicole then, and the expression on her face when she’d seen Karl, seemingly in his embrace. What would she think of what had just transpired in this room? Could she, like his sister-by-marriage, Alex, ever accept him for the freak that he was?
Never! he answered his own question.
“Now what?” JAM asked, standing with effort, looking a little wobbly.
By now, Trond and Karl were standing, too. Karl handed JAM his own clean handkerchief, and JAM appeared stunned to see bloodstains when he wiped his mouth.
“Now, you go in peace and try to lead a good life,” Trond advised.
“Am I going to be like a . . . I don’t know . . . a saint?”
“Hardly,” Trond said with a laugh. “We just stopped you from becoming demon fodder. That’s a far cry from sainthood.”
“Do I have to quit SEALs?” JAM inquired, clearly concerned that he might have to give up his longtime career. It was touching that he would apparently be willing to do so if it was deemed a necessity.
>
Trond shook his head. “Strong and good are not incompatible. A man can be a soldier for just causes, without sinning. The Bible is riddled with such men. Joshua, for one, comes to mind.”
“I personally think there’s a special place in Heaven for those brave warriors who fight to protect the innocent. They do the dirty work so the rest of the country can be safe and free, even the tongue-flapping hate mongers. I’d like to be at one of those cemeteries where lunatic fringes are picketing a dead soldier’s funeral. I’d show them who earned them the right to rant and rave. I’d show them where they could put those pickets.” Karl ducked his head with embarrassment at having spoken so passionately. Karl had been one of those brave ones, even if he’d been mired in evil at the end.
“You guys go on ahead. I need some time alone to . . . think,” JAM told them. What he probably meant was pray.
Trond knew that JAM had many questions that he would be asking them over the next few days, but he was surprised by the comment he made now as Trond and Karl were about to leave. They were walking, not teletransporting this time.
“I wouldn’t mind being what you guys are,” JAM said.
“No!” he and Karl exclaimed at the same time.
At JAM’s arched brow, Karl said, “Believe me, you would mind.”
And Trond gave a two-word, succinct explanation: “Eternity sucks.”
The only thing missing were the umbrella drinks . . .
“Bring me the girl.”
Jasper’s demand hit Zebulan while he was distracted, watching with morbid fascination as several of Jasper’s hordlings turned the screws, literally, on one of the naked victims pinned to a butterfly-type display board down in the dungeon of Horror, Jasper’s Arctic castle. They were sitting in soft chairs in Jasper’s lounge, a revolving dais raised about ten feet above the stone floor. A sound system was blaring out that old Ricky Martin song “La Vida Loca.” The demon master did like his material comforts.