This was news to Jasper. Not that Lucifer liked the project, but that he wanted it expanded. Jasper was going to have his own chat with the boss.
“I was going to wait until later to mention this, but I need to give up control of the project. I have too much on my hands as it is with the war in my country,” Haroun said.
“In what way does Satan want us to expand?” Jasper asked Heinrich.
Heinrich spread his arms. “Everywhere. Somalia. Cuba. Libya. Scandinavia. Spain. Canada. Germany. Everywhere. Most countries have special forces of some type or other. Wouldn’t it be impressive if we had Lucipires in all these units?”
Zebulan made a snorting sound of disbelief.
Jasper liked Zebulan. He’d been around almost as long as Jasper, but he was getting a little surly of late. Perhaps he needed a reminder that he followed orders like the rest of them. “I nominate Zebulan to be the one to take over the Special Forces Project.”
“What?” Zebulan stood, knocking the young blood offering to her naked ass.
“No, Zebulan, do not object. Hear me out.” He could tell that Heinrich objected to his choice—surprise, surprise!—and was tapping away on his laptop as fast as his scaly fingers could move. That just reinforced Jasper’s decision. “Consider it a challenge, Zebulan. I would assign you extra hordlings, but I think you need to be covert on this operation as much as possible.” He thought for a moment and offered something he rarely did. “I’ll help you, personally, wherever I can. And Haroun can of course advise you on what’s been done so far.”
Finally Zebulan agreed with an angry exhale of exasperation, probably because he could see the smoke of indignation coming out of Heinrich’s nostrils. “I’ll do it, but my way. Start with the SEALs, then move to the other services. One at a time.”
“That will take forever,” Heinrich whined.
Jasper agreed, but he wasn’t going to side with the whiny-assed Nazi. “With a small troop on call, Zebulan should be able to accomplish all our goals more efficiently than if we spread ourselves too thin. Now, if we’ve covered all business on our agenda, I have some treats to show you.”
“Some new torture implement?” Dominique asked excitedly as Beltane rolled a long dolly into the room on which sat two life-size killing jars in which newly dead human souls fought wildly to escape the glass sides. To no avail, of course. The jars were soundproof, but by the wide-open mouths of the victims he assumed they were screaming.
Jasper likened his victims to butterflies; they even flailed their arms like wings when first put into the jars until they finally reached a state of stasis. After that, he pinned them to his display boards with three-foot pins through their no-longer-beating hearts, taking them out on occasion for playthings. Pets, really.
A hordling wheeled in his new torture device. It resembled a two-man or -woman rowing machine with enormous phalluses projecting in either direction from the center.
There was a communal sigh of appreciation at his creativity.
He smiled. “I call it the Impaler.”
As Beltane began to unscrew the lids, screams emerged that could probably be heard all the way to the Arctic Circle. Not that anyone was about to heed those screams. And, truly, screams were music to a Lucipire’s ears.
Seven sets of fangs elongated in lust.
Four
Yeah, Toby, we love this bar . . .
Trond was glad he’d come out tonight. He hadn’t had a chance to talk in private with JAM yet, but the beer here at the Wet and Wild was cold and strong, the company of fellow soldiers was welcoming, and the music, though loud, was pleasantly rowdy. As a Viking, Trond knew rowdy well; it was in his blood.
And, really, every once in a while, a man just had to let loose and howl. Not that he was planning any howling tonight. That came too close to wolf behavior, and to his mind, that meant fangs. The one thing he could not do was expose his fangs, lest he scare the crap out of his comrades, get himself shot on sight, or land himself in some Frankenstein science lab like a bigfoot monster, or an alien. No, he would just stick to watching other men howl. Vicarious pleasure. Rather like near-sex. Nowhere near the real thing, but pleasurable just the same.
Why am I thinking about sex all the time lately? he asked himself.
Lately? he scoffed. Let’s face it, those who can, do. Those who can’t, think about it. A lot.
On the other hand, even when I could, I thought about swiving all the time. Must be sex is in my blood. Like rowdiness.
Many of the customers were singing along—rowdily, of course—with the three-person band—one woman and two men—to a song called “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.”
“I don’t understand the words,” Trond finally admitted.
“Easy, what planet you been livin’ on? The lyrics mean that men can drink beer whenever they want since it’s quitting time in some part of the world,” Cage explained.
“What? You American men are such halfwits! If there is one thing we Viking men know better than any other, it is that beer needs no excuse for drinking. Ah. It probably has something to do with you modern men . . . I mean, American men . . . being too much under the thumb of your women.”
The band had just finished the song, and in the brief pause everyone at the table had been listening to his words of wisdom. In fact, some of their jaws were dropped with amazement. Vikings tended to have that effect betimes.
“You dumb fuck! Are you sayin’ we’re pussy-whipped?” F.U. snarled. The short SEAL with his shaved head resembled a pugnacious bulldog with its lower lip thrust out.
“Cool your jets, man,” Cage advised Trond under his breath.
In the old days, Trond would have knocked out a few of the aggressor’s teeth, just because he annoyed him. Like a bothersome gnat, F.U. was. Being a sort-of angel was a drag, with “sort-of” being the key because his brother Vikar was the only one of the seven brothers who’d earned his wings, and even his were come and go. All these shoulds and should-nots! Trond settled for a mere shrug.
Which of course infuriated the gnat, who snarled some more. “I’m sick of you so-called Vikings infiltrating our SEAL ranks. All the Magnussons. Ragnor and Max. Pretty Boy’s Norse wife, Britta, who was a frickin’ WEALS for a while. Even the commander’s shrewish wife, Madrene. You’re all full of shit, if you ask me.”
Trond started to rise from his seat, but a voice in his head warned, Viking! Remember. Turn the other cheek. He knew that fighting without just cause—and F.U.’s insults were mere bug bites on the slate of life—was not the angel way. So, curbing his anger and his fangs, which tended to come out in times of high emotion, he said as calmly as he could manage, “You are right, F.U. I have not met the other Norse folk you mentioned, but ’tis true, Vikings are full of shit on occasion.”
“Fuck you!” F.U. replied.
Okaaay! That went well. I have no more cheek to offer, unless I drop my pants. I should have just knocked out a tooth, or two. “Thanks, but that’s an invitation I’ll have to decline.”
Others around the table were laughing . . . at his uncharacteristic meekness and F.U.’s snarly disposition.
But then, he couldn’t help himself. He positioned himself so that only F.U. could see his face. With a hiss, he flashed his fangs at the man. It all happened so fast that F.U. just blinked at him, then howled at everyone else. “Did you see that? Did you see that? He’s got bloody fangs? Holy shit! Easy is a vampire!”
“What?” Trond said with brows raised in innocence. Then he winked at everyone at the table, as if to say, That F.U.!
Now F.U. was alternately shaking his head to clear it and frowning at Trond as if he’d just pulled some prank on him, which he had.
Trond turned to his other side toward the baby-faced SEAL known as Geek. Darryl “Geek” Good was about thirty years old, but he had the face of a youthling. Being of superior intelligence, a computer genius whose skills were highly valued by the military, he milked his innocent façade for all its worth; women ap
parently loved “babying” him. Meanwhile, when he was not being a SEAL, he was making vast amounts of money on some of his Internet projects.
“I understand you own an interesting company associated with the website www.penileglove.com,” Trond remarked politely. But what he thought was, Why would any man in his right mind put a glove on his cock? Oh, maybe it is a type of condom. “What exactly do you sell?”
Geek grinned at him. “Sleeves of wax to be warmed in hot water or a microwave. When a man dips his dick in the warm wax and then removes it from the sleeve, the wax hardens like a tight glove. Pulling it off creates an orgasmic sensation that can only be described as magic down yonder, if you get my meaning. I have samples in my car if you’re interested.” He waggled his eyebrows at Trond.
Not for the first time, Trond concluded that modern men were a bit demented, even as he wondered if sex with a bag was a sin. “What is wrong with using a woman’s sheath and her warm ‘wax’ to put a shine on a man’s lance?”
“There is that, but my penile glove beats jacking off. And some guys claim their ladies like to dip Mr. Happy for them.”
Mr. Happy? Hah! His Mr. Happy hadn’t been happy for a long time, and a bit of wax in a bag wasn’t going to put a smiley face down yonder. A twitch of a grin, maybe. A full-blown smile, no. But what he said was, “Uh, I think I’ll pass for now.”
The female band member tapped the microphone for attention, and said, “I know we have a few SEALs here tonight . . .”
Trond’s tablemates sank down in their seats, not wanting to call attention to themselves here at the back of the drinking hall. He’d noticed that wherever they went, the SEALs seemed to isolate themselves from others and tried to appear inconspicuous, not always successfully.
“. . . and I know some folks . . . not me, of course”—the woman rolled her eyes with mock innocence—“think they’re a little bit arrogant . . .” She put a forefinger and thumb about an inch apart to illustrate.
More than a few people snickered at that observation.
SEALs were notoriously arrogant, and some of their conceit did come off as standoffishness, but that isolationism was mainly due to shared experiences, some of them horrific and bloody. They stuck to themselves because, well, how could they speak with others of what they had seen and done?
Like vangels.
“. . . but, man oh man, when those SEALs with balls of steel took Bin Laden down,” the woman continued, “I’ll bet a few of them had this to say, and who can blame them?” The band then blasted into Toby Keith’s “How Do You Like Me Now?”
Laughter and applause resounded around the room.
JAM, who sat directly across from him, was the only one not laughing. In fact, if Trond didn’t know better, he would have thought the Hispanic man was on drugs. He fidgeted. He flexed and unflexed his fingers. His eyes darted hither and yon. Could the Lucie fanging have this type of side effect? He’d never seen it before, but one never knew what Jasper would come up with next.
The music was too loud to carry on a conversation across a table. So, taking his bottle of beer in hand, Trond stood and walked around to the other side, sitting down next to the obviously disturbed man. The things he wanted to say to JAM should not be overheard.
“What’s up, JAM? You’re strung tighter than an archer’s bow,” he said right off.
JAM stiffened at what had to appear as an inappropriate question from a near stranger. “Just pumped to deploy again. Rumor is, there’s something big in the works. An important new SEAL mission. Almost as big as Geronimo.” Geronimo had been the code name for Bin Laden.
“Terrorists?”
JAM nodded and blew out a breath of exasperation. “There are too damn many tangos out there, and they’re multiplying like cockroaches in a candy factory.”
Tangos was the SEAL name for bad guys, or terrorists. Trond understood the cockroach comparison. Lucipires could be crushed in one spot, but they always popped up somewhere else, in greater numbers, too.
“Sometimes I think we should just drop a bomb on those raghead countries and wipe ’em out once and for all.”
Whoa! Raghead was a politically incorrect word to blanket an entire Arab race. Not that SEALs were known for their PC-ness. Nor were Vikings. But raghead was much like the N word for black folks, or wetback for Mexicans, as JAM should well know, being of Hispanic descent. And what was that about bombs?
In truth, Trond had observed that some SEALs, after years under their military belts, got too good at killing. Some even came to enjoy it. A dangerous line divided justifiable killing and murder.
“Do you really mean that about bombing them all?”
“Damn straight I do. I’m friggin’ sick of taking down a few here and a few there. They all need to die.”
“Even if there’s collateral damage? What about all the innocent men, or women and children, who would die, too?” Trond couldn’t believe he was asking that question. He who had let an entire village perish without a second thought. Could it be that he was learning from past mistakes? Finally?
“Hey, some of these women and kids are as evil as the men.”
“Were you always this cynical?”
“What? Don’t you dare try to psychoanalyze me. I’m not F.U. I like the Magnusson family, weird as they are, but you’re crossing the line, buddy, just like they always do. Mind your own stinkin’ business.”
Trond took a long draw on his beer, realizing that he had moved too fast with JAM. “Sorry, man. I was out of line.”
“Why are you looking at me so funny? Why are your eyes getting sort of silvery. Oh, crap! Another weirdo! You really are just like the Magnussons, aren’t you? Another fuckin’ time traveler.”
“What? No. Huh? Time traveler? No, I am not one of those. Ha, ha, ha!” The Magnussons are time travelers? Now that is interesting.
JAM quirked a brow with suspicion.
“I am something else.”
JAM’s second brow joined the first. Doubly dubious now.
With a sigh of surrender, he revealed, “Suffice it to say, I have been sent to help you.” Then immediately bit his tongue at his hasty words.
Instead of being pleased, JAM was indignant. “By whom?”
He couldn’t stop now. “Mike.”
“Who in bloody hell is Mike?”
Not hell. That other place. “Perhaps we could meet privately tomorrow. This is not really the time or place—”
“Who in bloody hell is Mike?” JAM repeated through gritted teeth.
“St. Michael the Archangel.”
JAM was startled for a moment. Then he burst out laughing. “Jesus H. Christ! Can my life get any more screwed up than this?”
“Actually, yes, your life can get more screwed up than this.” If the Lucies pull you into their camp, you will be screwed tighter than any mortal coil. “By the by, please do not blaspheme.”
“Huh? Are you some kind of religious nut? No, that can’t be. I’ve heard you toss the F-bomb around a time or two.”
“F-bombs and other vulgarities are all right. Well, not all right, but not majorly sinful. Taking the Lord’s name in vain is a major no-no.”
“I need another beer, or five,” JAM said, shaking his head with disbelief. He probably thought he was drunk and had misheard him or that Trond was drunk and had misspoken.
Another Navy SEAL approached then, with a woman tucked under his arm, close to his side.
“Here comes Sly,” Cage announced to the table, as if they all didn’t recognize the big, black dude from Harlem. “He’s got Kendra with him. Whatever you do, don’t ask about Donita.”
Military men were like women when it came to gossip. Probably stemmed from so much time together in close quarters. Trond had already learned over the past few days that Sly, who’d once posed for magazine pictures in his tighty-whities, had been involved for years with Donita Leone, one of the female SEALs, but he’d broken up with her suddenly and was now betrothed to another of the female SEALs, Kend
ra Black. Apparently it was an awkward situation because the SEALs and WEALS were all acquainted with each other.
Of course, the first thing out of F.U.’s mouth when Sly and Kendra sat down at their table was “Where’s Donita?”
“Why should I care where the bitch is?” Sly said. “I’ve got a new bitch, don’t I, honey?”
Everyone, except F.U., flinched at Sly’s coarse comment, especially the blushing woman who started to turn away, but Sly forced her face back toward him and kissed her, hard, in a way intended to be publicly demeaning.
“Have you flipped your lid or somethin’?” Cage asked Sly when he raised his head. “You’ve turned into a world-class asshole.”
“Listen, redneck, you got something against black men asserting themselves? You thinking I should be down on your bayou plantation saying, ‘Yes, massa, whatever you say, massa’?”
Cage started to rise, but Geek shoved him back in his seat. “Knock it off, Sly. You know Cage is no bigot.”
“Yeah, well, keep your Ragin’ Cajun nose out of my personal life,” the black man grumbled.
That was when Trond noticed the smell. Lemons. Like waves, the lemon scent was wafting out of Sly’s pores. Peering closer, he saw a Band-Aid on his neck. Did it cover a fang mark?
The implications hit him like a sledgehammer to the forehead. The sin taint! It wasn’t just JAM who had been infected, but Sly as well. He’d heard different SEALs say over the past few days that Sly was behaving strangely ever since he’d come back from some SEAL survival training exercise on San Clemente Island. That must be the reason. Had JAM been on that same mission?
But Trond had no time to ponder all this because just then, Cage exclaimed, “Holy friggin’ crawfish! Wouldya look at that!”
All heads turned toward the entrance where three women were laughing as they walked—nay, strutted—boldly through a spraying machine. Three WEALS, that was, wearing low-riding black jeans that could have been painted on their luscious bodies, red high-heeled boots, and almost-nothing sparkly tops in red, white, and blue that left their arms and shoulders and necks bare, as well as an enticing stretch of skin between their abdomen and navels.