But, no, if she denied those horrid beasts devouring humans in Najid’s courtyard, or the concept of teletransportation, or men with fangs, then she would have to deny her love for Trond, a Viking vampire angel.
Aside from yet another debriefing—and she’d been questioned and questioned, then questioned again about what had happened to her and Trond in Davastan—all special forces operators when they returned from a mission involving deadly force were required to meet with the base psychologist. To make sure their heads were still screwed on right. Killing changed people, and the military wanted to make sure they handled their roles in taking out tangos without going bonkers. Some did.
The Octopus mission was deemed a success. Well, not a total success since two of the hostages had died, and Trond was gone and presumed dead, but overall there had been none of the planned explosions, thanks to careful special ops planning, and most of Najid’s followers had been destroyed or scattered to far parts. Oh, there had been efforts to pull the stragglers together in Osama’s name by another of his illegitimate sons, but the effort petered out. That did not mean it was the end of terrorism, by any means, but hopefully one more step had been taken, making the world a little safer and freer.
She was worried sick about Trond, of course. And Zeb. If only she’d realized that Trond would give himself up to that evil Jasper to save Zeb—and that is what she was convinced had happened now that she’d had time to think about it—she would have tried to do something to stop him. What, she wasn’t sure. She presumed it was the angel thing to do. The right thing to do. That didn’t make it any easier to handle the images in her head of what horrific torture he might be undergoing at the moment.
As soon as the commander released her from questioning the first day back, she’d gone seeking Karl to see if he could help her find Trond, or contact St. Michael the Archangel—she’d felt foolish even saying such a thing—to see if he could help. But Karl was gone, too, supposedly back to his Jaegers unit in Norway, but she knew better.
Interesting, though, that before he’d left, Karl had been meeting daily with Sly over in the mental wing of the base hospital, and apparently Sly had recovered his mental faculties. Karl must have saved him.
And here was the icing on the cake. Sly and Donita had reunited and gone off to be married in Las Vegas, where they still were, honeymooning.
Torolf “Max” Magnusson had taken her aside yesterday and questioned her about Trond. “I really regret not having gotten to know him better. My father will be especially sorrowful at not having made a connection with a fellow Viking.”
Nicole had been given another week off from her WEALS duties, only reporting for her daily psychiatric session with Dr. Feingold and light PT. Marie had gone home to Louisiana for a short break. So, she was home alone at one a.m. when the doorbell rang.
At first, her heart raced, thinking it might be Trond, but, no, he wouldn’t bother with any doorbell or a door, for that matter. Her visitor was equally surprising, though.
A girl stood on her doorstep, wearing skinny jeans, a cropped T-shirt, and too much makeup. A small suitcase sat at her feet on the stoop.
“Nic?” the girl said.
She tilted her head to the side. “Teresa?”
The girl, whom she could see now was not a girl but a young woman of about eighteen, nodded and started to sob.
Nicole gathered her baby sister into her arms and led her inside. “What’s wrong, honey?” As if she couldn’t guess.
After much blubbering and a half box of tissues, and words like “the ass,” “Daddy said,” “college,” “a slap,” and then an amazing, “Mom told me to come to you,” the gist of it was, she didn’t want to marry Billy, the ass, who’d told her she couldn’t continue her college classes when they married. She’d been planning to go to nursing school. When she’d protested, he’d slapped her, and their dad had told her she must have deserved it because she was getting mouthy at home, too. “But Billy told me he was sorry right away,” she’d quickly amended.
The same old Billy!
“And Dad said Billy would probably change his mind about college after we were married.”
Yeah, right!
“So, what do you want to do?” They were in the kitchen now eating store-bought cookies, hers washed down by a cup of herbal tea and Teresa’s by a cold Pepsi.
“I don’t want to get married right away. And . . . and I don’t think I want to marry Billy at all.”
“Okay. What do you want to do?”
“Nursing school, but not in Chicago. I was accepted at three schools. One of them is in Florida. That’s where I want to go.”
Good idea. Get away from them all. “Will Dad pay for your school?”
“Grandma put some money in trust for my education. She put money aside for you, too.”
Well, that was news to Nicole. “When do classes start?”
“Next week.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes. Can I stay with you for a few days?”
“Of course, sweetie.”
“I admire you so much, Nic.”
“You do?” The compliment pleased her inordinately.
“But I missed you. And you never came home.” She started crying again.
They both did.
And over the next two days, while Nicole handled the phone calls to her father—not pleasant!—and the two of them went shopping for school clothes appropriate for a warmer climate, and Teresa went googly-eyed over all the hot men in uniform, they got to know each other again. Billy made a halfhearted attempt to change Teresa’s mind, but her little sister was braver by phone, and convinced him it was over between them. He blamed Nicole, of course. By the time Nicole put her sister on a plane, they had bonded as if the past seven years of separation had never existed.
Oh, there had been some arguments. Mostly over little things, but Nicole came to a long-overdue realization as she drove home, one that would probably require her to make an effort to reconcile with her mother, despite her father. Her sudden epiphany was ridiculously simple: Family is so important.
Which suddenly caused a spark of memory to light in Nicole’s lately dulled brain. Trond had family. There was a family home.
With a little yelp of glee, she pounded on her steering wheel, causing other drivers at the red light to stare at her as if she’d gone crazy. Maybe she had.
Phone calls to the commander cemented her one-week liberty. She spent the rest of the day packing and making travel arrangements. She played some of her motivational tapes, which she’d been ignoring since her return, having forgotten the importance of optimism.
She needed to find out what had happened to Trond. As horrific as that news might be—she was imagining the worst types of torture anyhow—she needed to know. And maybe, just maybe, there might be a way for her to help him.
She was going to Transylvania. Transylvania, Pennsylvania.
Home, Sweet Castle . . .
After Trond had left Nicole in Davastan, he went immediately to bloody damn cold northern Norway searching for Jasper’s Arctic castle. But there was an invisible shield around the perimeter that he couldn’t breach.
So, while he stood shivering in his head-to-toe furs, contemplating his next move, he glanced sideways. Then did a double take.
There stood Mike leaning against a stark, leafless tree, wearing nothing but a white, belted gown. He wasn’t shivering at all.
“Going somewhere, Viking?” Mike asked coolly.
He nodded. “I have to save Zeb.”
“Oh, really?” Sarcasm from an archangel was not a pleasant thing.
“Zeb gave himself up for me and Nicole,” he explained, which was silly of him to point out, really. Mike undoubtedly knew that already. He knew everything, it seemed.
“And how, pray tell, did you plan to do that, Viking?”
“Um.”
“Perchance, were you going to offer yourself up in his place?”
Trond gu
lped. Despite his best attempts at bravery, he feared what would befall him once he entered Jasper’s domain. “Yes.”
“And did you ask my permission to do so?” When Trond didn’t answer, Mike added, “Ah, you must have forgotten.”
“Mike, I beg of you,” he said, “Zeb is not all bad. He deserves . . . something.”
“The arrogance of a Viking!” Mike shook his head from side to side with seeming dismay. “When will you learn? That is not a decision for you to make.”
And before Trond could blink the snow off his eyelashes or wipe the frozen snot hanging from his nose, he found himself flat on his ass in the back garden of the Transylvania castle with Mike hovering over him, wings widespread. Sternly, the archangel admonished him, “Do not dare move from here, Viking, or you will suffer the consequences.” By past experience, Trond knew what “consequences” meant, and it wasn’t a light slap on the hand. But then, Mike added, “And no contact with humans outside the castle.” He meant Nicole.
Trond made his way into the castle kitchen, where their cook, Lizzie Borden, was grumbling over an enormous pot she was stirring on the stove, something about, “Pasta, pasta, pasta! What do they think I am? A bloody Eye-tal-yan?” Her fangs hung over her lips as she glanced up at him and she didn’t even bother to say hello.
He found his brother Vikar on the floor of the main parlor playing with the two little toddlers, Gunnar and Gunnora, that he and Alex had adopted or inherited or something. The sight was amazing. A six-foot-four Viking warrior letting little gremlins crawl all over him.
“Welcome home,” Vikar said, as if it was not unusual for him to show up suddenly. Well, actually, it hadn’t been unusual in the past.
Trond mumbled something about this not being his home, not that he had any other home, and he didn’t want a home. Nicole immediately came to mind. He pushed that impossible thought away.
“Have you met our prisoner yet?” Vikar asked.
“Huh?”
“Mike delivered a prisoner to us.” Vikar was tickling one of the twins’ bellies while the other was doing jumping jacks on his buttocks.
“He did? When?”
“Yesterday.” Vikar looked up at him then, grinning, a clue that Trond was not going to like whoever this prisoner was.
“Where is this prisoner?”
“In the dungeon.”
“You have a dungeon?”
“Well, no. Remember, we converted the dungeon into a weight room. We have the prisoner locked in the tower.”
“Alex’s tower?” When Alex had first come to visit the castle as a reporter, Vikar had kept her locked in a tower bedchamber. Later it became their love nest. Somehow he couldn’t see these two lovebirds, wed only a few months, turning their special room into a jail cell.
“No, the other tower.”
“The one with all the bats?”
“That would be the one.” Vikar was grinning again.
Trond took the steps two at a time, all two thousand of them—or what seemed like two thousand—before he got to the second of four towers. He tried the knob, and it wasn’t even locked. Some dungeon/jail!
Inside, eating a bowl of Lizzie’s pasta, was none other than . . . Zeb.
The demon didn’t seem at all surprised to see him as he casually dabbed at his mouth with a cloth napkin. Some prisoner! Where were the chains and torture implements?
“You idiot! I went to the Norselands to give myself up to Jasper in exchange for your freedom while you sat here basking in luxury.”
Zeb gave the stone walls and cobwebbed corners a disbelieving survey. Then he bowed his head at Trond. “You were going to sacrifice yourself for me. I was going to do the same for you. Tit for tat. It appears as if we both failed in our noble attempts. I wonder why.”
They both exclaimed at the same time, “Michael!”
Trond couldn’t help himself then. He pulled the man up into an embrace and hugged him. In a manly fashion, of course.
He soon learned that the shield around Jasper’s castle had been Mike’s, not Jasper’s, and when Zeb had attempted to return to Horror—that was the appropriate name of Jasper’s domicile—Mike had jerked him back, just as he had Trond. And dragged Zeb by the ear—it would have been the tail, if his tail had been out, according to Zeb—back to the vangels’ headquarters in Transylvania.
Michael’s admonition in placing him here had been similar to Trond’s as well: “Do not dare move from here, demon, or you will suffer the consequences.”
So now, a week later, Trond was stomping about, missing Nicole, complaining, complaining, complaining.
Although there were dozens of vangels working about the place, Vikar was his only brother in residence. The others were out on various missions. Vikar told him to go talk with Zeb, that he was personally sick of sharing in Trond’s misery.
Trond found Zeb on his knees working in Alex’s flower garden out back. “Some prisoner you are!” he observed.
“I guess you could call this work release,” Zeb replied. For some reason, Vikar and Alex and the other vangels sensed the same thing about Zeb that Trond did. There was goodness in the demon, enough so that they did not fear his presence in their home, even around the two toddlers. It was puzzling, really. And scary. Because if there could be goodness left in an ancient demon, there could be evil left in an ancient vangel.
He plunked down on a bench and sighed.
“I think this place needs a grape arbor,” Zeb said right off. “I used to be a vintner, you know. The climate’s not perfect for vines, but some varieties would do well here. Maybe along that sunny wall there. We could even press a wine, or two. It’s not that hard.”
Trond hated to break the news to Zeb, but he probably wouldn’t be here long enough to see any vines take root, let alone stomp any grapes. He wouldn’t tell him that, though.
“I have a philosophy,” Zeb said. “The man who has garden dirt under his fingernails is planting seeds of grace in Heaven.”
“Bet that philosophy went over great in Jasperland.”
Instead of being offended, Zeb just smiled and tossed what smelled like cow shit onto the roots of some roses. At least he hadn’t thrown it at Trond, as he deserved.
Trond braced his chin over one fist with his elbow resting on his knee and contemplated his fate, whatever it might be.
“I don’t understand why you’re so miserable,” Zeb said. “It’s wonderful here.”
Trond glanced around at the crumbling castle that had scaffolding up on four sides, as it had for months for workmen to repoint the stonework and reglaze the windows. The slate roof was apparently intact, but not much else. There were seventy-five rooms, give or take, in this gray monstrosity. It would take Vikar forever to get it in shape. But then he had forever, or close to it.
“You have family. You have a roof over your head, such as it is, and a warm bed to sleep in. You have good work. You have peace and . . . and hope.”
Now Trond felt guilty for being so mean-spirited. Still he had to say what was on his mind. “But I don’t have Nicole.”
“Ah!” Zeb said. “Would you like to hear my philosophy about bad men who love good women?”
“No!”
“Then help me plant some winter onions. There’s nothing like gardening to soothe the soul.”
Trond said something foul as he stood abruptly. Zeb was laughing as he stomped off to complain to someone else, someone more sympathetic. Maybe the twins. Better yet, maybe he should have a beer, or five.
Twenty-four
Not your run-of-the-mill castle! . . .
After several connecting flights, Nicole finally ended up at Harrisburg International Airport, where she rented a car with a GPS set to Transylvania, Pennsylvania. In one hour, she would be at Trond’s home.
What awaited her there?
At the very least, she hoped for news. Would they know what happened to Trond once he entered Jasper’s version of Hell? Would Jasper have even released Zeb in trade for T
rond? After all, Jasper was a devil. He didn’t have to obey rules of ethics, like promises, or deals.
One after another, little things surprised Nicole as she approached the small town.
First of all, Trond had failed to mention that he lived in Amish country. Rolling hills and neat farmsteads charmed the eye, along with quaint Amish buggies on the highways and side roads. Life certainly moved at a different pace here.
Her first clue that she was entering Land of the Weird—surprise number two—was when she saw the words on the local Catholic church’s outdoor bulletin board: “Vampires Welcome.” Driving through the main street, she saw stores and restaurants and bars, all catering to the touristy allure of vampires, with names like Good Bites, or the Dark Side, or Drac’s Hideout. Even Suckies. Everywhere she looked she saw people wearing capes and fake fangs. A dentist advertised a teeth filing service. Yeech! A banner near the town hall announced a Fall Festival featuring a costume ball, a blood-drinking contest, aka Kool-Aid, a stake-throwing event, and a marathon of vampire movies, everything from Bela Lugosi to Twilight.
The gas station attendant who gave her directions to the castle warned her, “They won’t let you past the gates up there.”
She’d see about that!
As she approached the castle up a winding, narrow dirt road, she was astonished. Trond hadn’t been kidding. A huge, huge, rundown castle rose up against the mountainside. Even from a distance, she could see scaffolding and workmen’s trucks and vans, but from here it appeared as if only a tiny dent had been made in the renovations. Who would have built such a massive edifice in the middle of nowhere?
When she neared an iron gate, a guard stood there, holding up a halting hand. He pointed to the “No Trespassing” sign and motioned for her to turn around and leave.
No way!
She got out of her vehicle and approached. Before she’d met Trond she might have been frightened by a six-foot-five, blond Viking with pale, almost albino-ish skin, faded blue eyes, and real, not fake fangs, but now she was only mildly frightened. “Hi! I’m Nicole Tasso. Here to see the Sigurdssons.”