“Not like that! I’ve just had some bad experiences with men in that way.” That sounded lame; so, she tried again. “Overall, they are more trouble than they are worth.”
“Zeb is trouble, and yet you went to such lengths to rescue him? Hmmm.” Michael was being difficult. Surprise, surprise!
“Zeb is not so bad, but sharing a bed with him, yuck!” That slipped out before she had a chance to bite her tongue.
Zeb and Vikar both turned to stare at her.
She refused to acknowledge their stares, and besides, at the same time she’d made that unflattering statement, she recalled her carnal response when giving Zeb blood. No yuck there!
No matter!
“Surely there have been men who treated you well, Regina. Thou art an attractive woman, for a human,” Michael said. “Isn’t she, Vikar?”
That question startled Vikar. After a brief hesitation, he answered, “She is not bad when she is not being snarky.”
“Mayhap thou could tone down thy snarkiness,” Michael advised Regina.
Aaarrgh! This is not going well. If it were anyone but Michael saying that, she would show him just how snarky she could be.
“I rather like her snarkiness,” Zeb inserted.
Huh? She gave the dumb man a disbelieving look.
“See?” Michael tossed his hands in the air in a voilà manner.
Regina really, really, really wanted to tell three people what they could do with themselves and their opinions. Well, not people precisely. A lackwit ex-demon vampire, a lackwit vampire angel, and a lackwit archangel.
Realizing his mistake, Zeb tried another tactic. “It is a moot point, anyhow. I’m already married.”
“Not anymore,” Michael snapped. Realizing the callousness of his response, he added, more softly, “Thy wife and children are in a good place, Zebulan. Even if I allowed you to die right now, thou would not be joining them. Thou would be sent to another place.”
“Hell?” Zeb asked, suddenly ashen-faced.
“No, not Hell. Purgatory. Or perhaps Tranquility.” Michael didn’t explain, and Regina wasn’t sure if Zeb knew that Tranquility was the place dead vangels went, when they passed before their sentence was completed.
Was that another good sign? That Michael might place Zeb in a vangel place? Maybe.
Zeb was still not convinced. “Besides, I was planning to become a priest if I were made a vangel.”
Vikar glanced sideways at Zeb with an incredulous expression.
Regina groaned. She’d told Zeb not to try that ploy with Michael.
In fact, Michael laughed. “So, thou were planning a celibate life?”
“Yes!” Zeb said quickly, thinking he’d won this battle.
Hah! He didn’t know Michael.
“Are you sure thou art not a Viking?” Michael asked in that disdainful tone he usually reserved for Vikings. Then he turned to her. “And thou sayest that relations with a man . . . with Zebulan . . . would be repugnant to you?”
Well, not repugnant with Zeb, exactly. Just not welcome. Still, she gave a blanket “Yes.”
“See?” Michael said, as if everything was going according to plan. “A perfect solution. A celibate marriage. The best kind. Holy matrimony.”
Whaaat?
“Oh, please, can’t you reconsider? This is not a good idea,” Regina pleaded.
“C’mon, are you serious?” Zeb scoffed.
Maybe Zeb was right about Michael not being serious. Maybe this was an archangel joke. A celestial Candid Camera moment.
No such luck. Michael didn’t crack a smile.
Meanwhile, Vikar was bent over laughing. “Perfect, Michael, perfect! A demon-vangel union. I can’t wait to tell my brothers.”
“So, it is decided,” Michael said with satisfaction, glancing first at Zeb and then her. “Consider thyselves betrothed.”
Regina and Zeb were stunned into silence.
Vikar was still chuckling.
“We will have the wedding after this war against Jasper and the Lucipires is settled.”
“Does that mean we will be successful?” Vikar asked hopefully.
“That is not for me to say,” Michael said in his usual enigmatic way. “Show me your battle plans before I go, Vikar. I brought Joshua with me as an advisor. And I have some warrior skills myself that might be helpful.”
Joshua? The Biblical warrior of Jericho fame? And St. Michael, patron saint of all fighting men, as an advisor? Holy clouds! Maybe it wouldn’t be a losing battle of good fighting evil, after all.
“Before that, though, take me to those witch demons thou brought out of Horror,” Michael ordered Regina. “I would settle their fates afore they revert to their demonic selves and wreak havoc.
“I still must decide on your punishments, as well.” Michael looked at both her and Zeb.
What? Marriage isn’t enough of a punishment? she thought, not daring to say the words aloud.
“Some appropriate punishment,” Michael continued. “Hmmm. I will have to think on that.”
They were back to bad signs.
Michael looked at Zeb then and said, “Mazel tov!”
Was he joking? Wishing Zeb “Good luck!” and in Yiddish, yet, seemed rather odd. But then, this whole situation was odd.
As Vikar led the way, Zeb hung back and whispered to Regina, “You planned this, didn’t you? I was to be your prize all along.”
“Get over yourself,” she snapped. “You are no great prize.”
“What a mess! And I don’t even know if I’m a vangel yet.” He turned sideways and said, “Check my back and see if I have shoulder bumps.”
“I am not touching you!”
“Two days ago you had my cock in your hands.”
“Crude moron!”
Suddenly, they were awash in the scent of cinnamon rain, and they heard Michael say ahead of them, without looking back, “I feel a storm coming on.”
And Zeb who probably hadn’t said anything very Yiddish in hundreds of years, muttered, “Oy vey!”
Chapter 12
Devil-may-care, they were not . . .
Zeb thought he’d been prepared for what they’d find in the Close Quarters Combat room in the basement, but he was shocked. As were Michael and Regina and Vikar.
When the door opened, the three Lucipires glanced over, claws raised, ready to fight them, as well as each other. The three Lucipires, in full demonoid form, along with a crazed cat, fur standing on end, had shredded the mattresses which lined the wall, floor, and ceiling of the room where vangels presumably honed their fighting skills. It had been modeled on a Navy SEALs program, CQC, which taught hand-to-hand combat techniques. These three beasts must have been in combat, all right. With each other.
Leave a demon alone for an hour, and this is what happened. If they didn’t have humans or vangels to fight, they fought each other.
The fools were covered with seeping wounds and bruises which would show up better when they transformed into humanoid form. There was mattress batting everywhere. In the air, caught in the scales of their demon skin, piled on the floor, in Thor’s tail. The room reeked of sulfur and cat piss.
“Son of a star!” Vikar exclaimed.
“Can’t you three behave, even when your lives are on the line?” Regina chastised them.
“I’m not surprised,” Zeb said.
Michael pointed two arms at them and yelled, “Satan, begone!”
Immediately, the three demons reverted to humanoid form, looking dazed and then shamefaced at the archangel who held their destinies in his hands, which were no longer pointing at them.
Michael shook his head from side to side and made a tsk-ing sound of disapproval.
Meanwhile, the cat . . . Thor, he believed it was called . . . had its back arched and appeared ready to launch itself at them all.
Michael gritted out, “Do. Not. Dare!”
The cat hissed at him. Then had the nerve to walk over, cough up a lint ball on one of Michael’s athleti
c shoes, then dart out the open door, off to hide, no doubt, or lick his balls.
It was amazing that Thor, who’d been with Regina for hundreds of years, didn’t give her even a passing glance. That was cats for you! Loyal as their options. Like men, some women claimed.
Michael gazed at his shoe with disgust, then turned that disgust on the three Lucipires who were picking clumps of lint off their clothing and out of their hair.
“Come with me,” Michael ordered, and led them to a small anteroom where there were a table and chairs, a coffeemaker in the corner, and a glass-fronted fridge full of Fake-O against the wall.
Zeb had tasted the vangel beverage one time, and it was putrid. He supposed he’d have to develop a taste for it if he ever became a vangel. Small price to pay, of course.
The few vangels who were taking a break there hurried out, without being directed to do so, sensing danger. Who wouldn’t, seeing Michael’s stormy expression.
Michael sat down wearily, still shaking his head from side to side at the three Lucipires who sat down across the table from him, even though Michael hadn’t invited them to do so. Dumb as . . . well, demons. Since their sitting didn’t seem to bother Michael, Zeb and Regina sat down on one side of Michael, Vikar on the other.
Beau and Patience fidgeted in their chairs, nervous, or maybe they were just anxious to be off somewhere. Grimelda couldn’t have cared less, still picking mattress batting off her black gown.
“The three of you still carry the demon taint,” Michael told them. “Even if I had considered making you vangels,” he pretended to shiver at the prospect, “that would preclude thy joining those holy ranks.”
Whoa! That raised two big questions in Zeb’s mind. First, did that mean Zeb no longer carried the taint, since Michael had only said that those three carried the taint? A quick glance told him that Regina and Vikar had the same question.
Second, vangels were “holy”? Who knew! Holy Vikings? Does that mean, if I become a vangel, I will be a holy Hebrew? Ha, ha, ha! I’m not sure I can live up to being holy. Even if I become a celibate, I don’t think I can be perfectly pure. But then, the seven Sig brothers are far from perfect, or even remotely close to pure.
“Ah reckoned our helping Zebulan escape would count fer somethin’,” Beau said to Michael, clearly surprised and disappointed.
“It did, but not enough to remove the taint completely,” Michael told him.
“Does that mean we have to go back to being Lucipires?” Patience cringed.
“I ain’t sucking blood anymore, I don’t care what you say,” proclaimed Grimelda with a chuckle. The old crone was probably a little bit looney, or suffering from dementia, to argue with an archangel.
“Tell me, why did you want to leave Horror?” Michael asked the three of them.
The question seemed to surprise them.
Finally, Grimelda said, “I’m too old to be dragging a tail around. And they won’t let me make my potions, just the same old demon recipes. And everything has blood, blood, blood in it. I get heartburn every time I do a fanging these days.”
Zeb had never heard the old lady string so many words together before. Not that he’d had much contact with her over the years. Usually she was assigned to the kitchens which were in a part of Horror he rarely visited.
“I’m tired of being forced to spread my legs for every visiting haakai demon,” Patience said. “I want to be able to pick my own lovers . . . like I did when I was human . . .” She seemed to realize how inappropriate her statements were for an angel, or a Puritan, and her words trailed off.
“And killed them off afterward,” Zeb finished for her.
“I don’t mind the taste of blood, though,” Patience continued, licking her lips for emphasis. “And fanging is fun.”
“Maybe you would just be happier if you’d been given a promotion,” Michael offered. “From hordling to mung, maybe. In time, even a haakai.”
The stupid woman nodded vigorously, not realizing the trap she’d set for herself.
“And you, Beauregard?”
“Initially, Ah wanted ta escape so that Ah could go back and wring the neck of that voodoo priestess, Lilith. She deserved to be a Lucipire more than Ah did, or so Ah’ve always thought. Ah’m still tempted, but lately Ah keep thinking about the way mah life was, pre-Lilith, pre-witchcraft. That’s what Ah want. Doan get me wrong. Ah was no saint, but Ah wasn’t evil.”
Beau exchanged a glance with Zeb, wondering if he’d said the wrong thing. Hard to say. At least Beau was being honest.
“This is what I have decided regarding you three,” Michael said. “For thy efforts in helping Regina to rescue Zebulan, I will offer you Lucipires one option, and one option only. Go back to thy old lives as humans, not as Lucipires. A second chance to live a good life and make up for thy evil. Chances are you would make the same mistakes. But who knows? Thou may surprise me.”
Why wasn’t I offered that choice? Zeb wondered. Oh, to be able to go back to Sarah and my children, to stay in the vineyard and never join the Roman Army. A do-over. I probably would have died at Masada, like the others, but at least I would have been with my family at the end.
Alas, he had not been offered that choice and probably never would be. He did not even want to think about the option that had been offered to him, remarriage . . . and to a witch, no less. All right, a vangel witch, he conceded. But still . . .
“Back to the old Norselands?” Grimelda scoffed. “It’s hard living there. Cold. Snaring food. Making potions. Did you ever try to gather snails’ tails in the middle of winter? And possum cooked over an open fire tastes worse than blood.”
Michael shrugged, not caring about the old crone’s discomforts.
“And I would go back to Salem where every other woman is accused of witchcraft?” Patience appeared horrified. “I don’t think I could bear being burned at the stake again. I had to screw every man in town then, too, just to have food to eat. They deserved to die. All twelve of them! The bastards!”
There went any hope of Patience being a swimsuit model.
Zeb had figured that Patience had not been a model Puritan, but he hadn’t known the details. Now, he did.
“What if we don’t accept this offer?” Beau asked.
“You would be cast out into the world, visible to any Lucipire with a nose for thy demon lure. You would probably be back in Horror within a day. Mayhap Jasper would give the lot of you a second chance, after unbearable torture. I doubt it.”
“Talk about an offer you can’t refuse!” Beau commented.
“But Salem in the seventeen hundreds? Pfff! I refuse to go back there,” Patience said. “How about modern-day Massachusetts?”
“I’d rather be a Lucipire than live in that hut again,” Grimelda said.
It became obvious that these two had not learned a lesson in Horror. They would complain and resist living their old lives over until they ultimately committed grave sins again. Even Zeb could see that. Michael undoubtedly saw much more.
In a blink of an eye, Patience and Grimelda were gone. Poof! No smoke. No abracadabra. Just gone.
“I hope she took Thor with her,” Regina murmured.
“I doubt it,” Zeb murmured back. “You’re stuck.”
“We’re both stuck, if we get married. Ha, ha, ha!”
“Wouldst thou care to share the joke?” Michael inquired.
Zeb and Regina went mute.
“Whoa!” Beau said, putting his hands up in surrender. He was still reacting to the abrupt disappearance of his comrades in sin. “Ah accept, Ah accept. Ah know which side mah biscuit is buttered on.”
“As you say,” Michael pronounced. “Resume thy old life then, Beauregard Doucet, back in Louisiana. Make sure to remember where thou hast been these past twenty years. As a young Lucipire, mayhap the evil has been too far embedded in you.”
“Ah intend ta try harder,” Beau said. “Ah think Ah’ll move ta Alabama, put myself far away from Lilith so Ah’m not tempted
ta wring her evil neck.”
“Good idea,” Michael agreed. “One other thing, if you do decide to stay in the bayou, go visit a woman named Louise Rivard, best known as Tante Lulu. She is a good friend of St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. She might be able to help you.”
“Ah know her!” Beau said. “Everyone up and down Bayou Black, in fact, throughout Loo-zee-anna, knows Tante Lulu. And Ah certainly qualify as hopeless, guar-an-teed.”
“Go with God, then.”
And Beau was gone, too, leaving just the four of them in the room. Zeb, Regina, Vikar, and Michael.
What now?
They all stood, three of them rather stunned at how quickly Michael had acted. And how dramatic . . . no, miraculous . . . his actions had been.
“Vikar, we will go upstairs now where you can show me the battle plans. I heard there were more bombings in Lebanon this morning and a sulfurous smelling fire burning down an entire block in Las Vegas.” Michael turned to Regina and Zeb then. “I’m sure you two have much to discuss about thy future plans.”
What? No! No plans! “Don’t you want my input?” Zeb asked.
“Later,” Michael said.
“How about me? Haven’t I proven that I have some skills?”
Michael arched his brows.
“We need each vangel brain and body we can get,” Vikar surprised them by saying.
Does that mean Vikar considers me a vangel now? Zeb wondered.
Michael conceded, “Zebulan, you do have information that could aid in the campaigns. And, Regina, disregarding thy sins of stubbornness and lack of obedience, you did get inside Horror when others could not.”
Stiffening with affront, Vikar was about to protest, to repeat that he’d only been following Michael’s orders not to rescue Zeb, but he stopped himself, just in time. Zeb would have to learn such restraint.
Michael studied Regina and Zeb, pondering. “Yes, you two may join in the planning, but later. Whether you join in the fighting will be up to Vikar, your leader.”
Vikar bowed his head in acknowledgement of Michael deferring to him on this point.