Good Vampires Go to Heaven

  “Where is it?” Efram demanded. “Did you make the potion?”

  “I did,” she said and sat down on the lone chair beside a small table that she used both for eating and preparing herbal remedies. That left only her bed if he chose to sit down, which he did not. Probably feared fleas or lice, little knowing he had more of such up at his keep than she did here. In fact, his servants were always coming to her for remedies to rid hair and beards and bedding of the varmints.

  “Well, where is it? Give it to me! I came alone, as you insisted. I have to get back to the castle before my guests arrive,” he said impatiently.

  Guests, as in his uncle and entourage, who considered Efram too young and inexperienced for such a large holding. An uncle who would find out just how far his nephew would go to maintain an iron grip on his inheritance . . . if Regina helped him, that was.

  “Where is my payment?” Regina asked with equal impatience. “Fifty mancuses of gold.” Since one mancus was equal to a month’s wages for a skilled worker, she figured this amount, on top of her savings equal to about two hundred mancuses, should carry her over until her sheepstead started producing income.

  “You’ll get your coin after I see if your potion works.”

  Hah! She’d known Efram would pull something like this. “You’ll get no potion until I have my sack of gold. And don’t be thinking of coming back and stealing back my treasure. I have friends in these woods with swords sharper than any blade of yours.” Which was a lie, of course. She had no friends. “Besides, my cousin’s cousin who works at Winterstorm has orders to poison your own drink if you even try to betray me.”

  “Why, you . . . you . . .” Efram sputtered, and his hairless cheeks blossomed with color. “How dare you insult me so?”

  She shrugged. “’Tis just business, my jarl. Now, do you have the gold or not?”

  Grudgingly, he parted his fur cloak and pulled out a leather sack tied to his belt. He tossed it on the table in front of her. “Do you want to count it?” he snarled.

  “For a certainty,” she replied with exaggerated sweetness. And she did in fact count out the fifty lovely coins.

  While she was counting, his eyes darted about her small house, and his lips curled with distaste. “What is that horrible smell?” he asked, glancing toward the boiling cauldron over the fire.

  It was cabbage soup, which was indeed smelly, but delicious. “Oh, just a porridge of rat tails, lizard hearts, pig snouts, sour milk, and oats,” she told him. “Wouldst care for a taste?”

  He gagged.

  She’d counted the coins a second time and there were fifty. “Here is the potion then,” she said, taking a stoppered pottery vial the size of a fist from a nearby shelf. “Be very careful. One drop would kill a war horse,” let alone a full-grown man. ’Twas a mixture of deadly nightshade and water hemlock. “Because it is sweet, it will mix well, undetected, in any fermented beverage, like ale.”

  He nodded and reached for it, but she held it away from his grasp. “If you intend it for more than one person —” and she knew that he did. Not just his uncle, but everyone in his party. “—then you must be especially careful. This vial in a tun of ale could be accidentally tasted by innocent parties, even women and children filling the horns of ale. Just one drop on the finger dipped on the tongue would be fatal.”

  Efram waved a hand airily and grabbed for the vial.

  And Regina knew that he cared not who died in the process of his evil plot. She also knew that her own life was in danger once this was over because she was the only person who could disclose his plans. Ah well, she would be long gone by then.

  Before nightfall, she had packed all her belongings, including her hoard of coins, onto the back of Edgar, her donkey. She’d bathed in a forest pool, tucked her bush of wild red hair into a thick braid, and donned one of the used lady’s gowns she’d purchased in the market town of Kaupang. She would ride all night until she reached the harbor at Evenstead where she would sell Edgar. From there, she would take one of the merchant ships to the Saxon town of Jorvik.

  She set her hovel afire before she left. Let the village folks think another witch had gone to her satanic grave. She’d tried to leave the cat behind because he would draw attention, but the lackwit creature refused. Instead of rubbing himself up against her and purring with entreaty, Thor had pissed on her new boots and spit up three hair clumps to emphasize his disdain for that idea. Cats were like that betimes.

  She’d traveled half the night when her plans hit a snag. Thor, who had wrapped himself around her neck, his head and tail resting on her bosom, hissed an alert. Mayhap a cat companion was not such a bad idea after all.

  Standing directly in her path, an apparition appeared, a full-body glow of light against the blackness of the dense forest. It looked like an angel Regina had seen one time painted on the walls of a Christian church in Northumbria.

  “Have you no shame, witch?” the angel roared.

  Double, double, toil, and lots of trouble . . .

  Michael was sick to his archangel ears of Vikings.

  He’d never been fond of the vain, arrogant, brutal Vikings. But then, five years ago, God assigned him to put together a band of Viking vampire angels (vangels) to fight Satan’s evil Lucipires (demon vampires). His appreciation hadn’t increased with close proximity to the bothersome creatures. Especially those seven Sigurdsson brothers who’d been guilty of the Seven Deadly Sins in a most heinous way. ’Twas like trying to herd cats.

  And for his sins, Michael had to admit, he was not overfond of cats. His pal, St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, would be disappointed in him. But ever since that Noah and the Ark debacle, Michael just couldn’t seem to abide felines. Truth to tell, two cats had entered the ark and seventy-five emerged when the floods receded. What did that say about cats?

  And Vikings were no better.

  Randy, crude beings, all of them!

  Now, his boss (that would be God) expected him to recruit a witch to the vangel ranks. A witch! A cauldron-boiling, potion-brewing, spell-tossing, broom-riding (well, maybe no brooms), cackling crone! Bad enough he had to deal with male Vikings, but now Norsewomen, as well, and a witch, on top of it all! It was enough to sour a saint’s stomach.

  Michael was in the dense forest of the frigid Norselands, freezing his holy skin under his white robes, more suited to a warm heavenly climate, when he saw his target approaching, astride a heavily laden donkey. Not a cauldron in sight, and she wasn’t as cronely as he’d expected, but that was neither here nor there. On her shoulders was . . . (What else! It was that kind of day!) . . . a large, black, hissing cat.

  Michael barely restrained himself from hissing back, but instead roared at the woman, “Have you no shame, witch? What wickedness thou dost brew!”

  “Huh?” The cat bolted off for cover, the donkey balked, and the witch jerked on the reins and flew head over heels to land on the pine needle–laden ground.

  “Regina Dorasdottir! Many men, women, and children died today at thy hands!”

  “My hands are clean. I didn’t poison anyone,” she proclaimed, standing and dusting off her bottom. At least she wasn’t denying that poison was involved. She knew exactly what he was talking about. The witch!

  “Thou made the bane drink. Thou sold it for coin. It was used carelessly, not that careful murder is any less offensive. Many innocent people suffered painful deaths.”

  Immediately, he flashed a cloud picture in front of her so that she could see all the bodies in the rushes of the Winterstorm great hall, many of them lying in pools of vomit, others with blood emerging from their mouths and noses and even ears. Men, women, children, even the castle dogs. All of them dead.

  Regina stepped back in fear, not at the sight of the dead bodies, apparently, but because she was seeing a picture in the air of an event that had already happened. “How did you do that? Are you a wizard performing some magic sorcery?”

  “No sorcery. That is your business, witch,
not mine. I am St. Michael the Archangel, and God is very angry with you.”

  “God? Which god would that be? Odin, Thor? Baldr?” She was taking careful steps backward as she spoke.

  “There is only one God, lackwit!” He raised a hand, and a bolt of lightning shot from his fingers, hitting the woman in her heart. She clutched her chest and fell to her knees.

  “Am I to be condemned for one . . . um, mistake?” She batted her long eyelashes at him in innocence. For a brief moment, he noticed that she was not unattractive, for a witch, that was. Her neatly braided red hair acted as a frame for a sharply sculpted Nordic face and green eyes, which would turn blue before this day was done, if he had his way.

  But her appearance mattered not a whit, he reminded himself. Women were ever the devious ones, using their feminine wiles to persuade men to their designs. Hah! He was immune. “Mistake? Mistake? Woman, thou hast committed many sins. Thy transgressions are so innumerable I can scarce list them. Dozens of babes killed in the womb, the addictive poppy used to make slobbering slaves of some men, and women, too, death potions for the elderly, murder . . . and, yea, killing men who came courting—”

  “What? Those were potential rapists!”

  “Not all of them,” he contended. “Thou art also guilty of the sin of greed.” He glanced pointedly at the leather sack attached to the donkey’s saddle.

  “Just compensation for services,” she countered.

  He arched his brows at that and showed her a cloud picture of her withholding a medicinal remedy for a starving family’s baby with lung fever.

  “Well, that is the exception,” she lied.

  “Then, too, there was fornication,” Michael told her.

  “One time. One stinking, unsatisfying time,” she argued.

  “Where in the Holy Book does it say that coupling has to be satisfying?” he asked.

  “What about all the good I’ve done? There are many people I’ve helped with healing herbs.”

  “Not for a long time,” he told her, then sighed. “On the celestial scales of good and evil, canst hear the thunk of weight on the one side?”

  She ignored what he said and continued to argue, “And I never practiced any satanic rites, like some witches do.”

  “Satan comes in many forms. Some would say that practicing evil is the same as worshipping Satan.”

  “I still think—”

  “Thou dost not think, that is thy trouble. Thou art a dreadful sinner, Regina Dorasdottir. Thou hast no morals. There is naught thou would reject doing if paid enough. If it were up to me, thou would burn in the fires of Hell.”

  She pulled a long-bladed knife from a belt sheath and glanced briefly at him, assessing the chances of escape. But then, her shoulders slumped as she took note of the full-body halo that enveloped him, and she dropped the weapon. “So, that’s it then. I’m to die for my sins.”

  “Not quite.”

  Her head shot up at that.

  “In his mercy, God is willing to give you a second chance for repentance.”

  She narrowed her green eyes at him. “What would I have to do?”

  “Thou wouldst join the ranks of vangels, fighting in the Lord’s army against evil forces.”

  “Me? An angel?” she scoffed.

  “Not an angel. A vangel. A Viking vampire angel. Put on earth to destroy Lucifer’s demon vampires, wicked creatures who prey on sinful humans, killing them before their fated time of death, giving them no chance to repent.”

  “Huh?”

  “Explanations can come later. Dost thou choose Hell or vangeldom?”

  “That’s some choice! For how long?”

  Michael was growing impatient. “As long as it takes. Centuries. Mayhap even until the Final Judgment Day.”

  “And I will live all that time, growing older and older, more feeble?”

  “Dost deliberately misspeak, witch? Thou wouldst stay the same age.”

  “Oh. Really? Well, yes, then. Of course I agree.” She paused. “But what exactly is a vam-pyre? Does it have anything to do with fire, or is—”

  The time for questions had passed. She’d agreed. That was enough for Michael.

  Raising both arms, he levitated her high in the air so that she twirled about, screaming as her upper jaw broke and restructured itself to accommodate newly formed fangs and her shoulder blades cracked open and grew bumps that might one day become wings. Her green eyes turned the clear blue of all vangels. Now, do you understand what a vampire is? At the same time, for his own pleasure, Michael sent the bristling, hissing familiar with her. Take that, cat!

  “I changed my mind,” Regina screeched.

  Too late! The witch was flying through the air to parts unknown to take on her new role. And Michael was off to see what the Sigurdsson brothers were up to now. An archangel’s work was never done!

  Chapter 2

  Transylvania, Pennsylvania, AD 2016

  Beware of red-haired witches with fangs . . .

  Aha! I’ve got him! He won’t escape me now, the yellow-bellied son of a Norse boar!

  Regina was in a rage.

  And she’d finally trapped the one man who could help her. He wouldn’t escape her this time.

  “I’ve had enough of this glass ceiling!” she yelled up at Vikar Sigurdsson who was standing atop a twelve-foot ladder changing one of thirteen bulbs in the chandelier of the third parlor.

  “Huh?” The Viking pivoted to look down at her, then had to use both hands to steady himself, which caused one of the bulbs to fall and shatter on the parquet floor.

  He muttered something foul under his breath about fucked-up, bothersome witches. It was the kind of thing vangels were not supposed to say. At least he hadn’t used the Lord’s name as an expletive. That was a definite no-no. Still, he better hope Mike hadn’t heard him. Mike was the rude nickname the vangels gave St. Michael. Not in his presence, of course. They weren’t total fools. And anyway, why were male vangels always blaming the witch side of her nature for every little mishap; she was as much a vangel as they were, and that was the point.

  Good thing she’d locked Thor in her bedchamber or the cat would also be blamed if Vikar came tumbling down on his fine Viking arse or his hard Viking head. Folks were always saying lackwitted things about witches, black cats, and stepladders!

  “What glass ceiling?” Vikar sniped, now that he’d steadied himself. “I swear, we’ve replastered every ceiling in this damn castle, all hundred or so of them, and not one of them was glass.” Restoration of the rundown castle was a sore point with Vikar, who had been attempting to make the crumbling ruin livable for the past five years. A never-ending battle, he was always bemoaning. Guilty of the sin of pride, Vikar still found it hard to reconcile that he was forced to live in a dump in Transylvania, of all places, and not Transylvania, Romania, either. This was the town of Transylvania, Pennsylvania, a corny, vampire tourist trap. If Regina didn’t have other things on her mind, she would taunt him about his lowly assignment.

  “You dope!” She probably shouldn’t insult the head of their vangel clan, so to speak, but she was spitting mad. “Glass ceiling is a metaphor for the invisible barriers that keep women from rising to the top.”

  “Met-a-whore? What’s that? No, don’t tell me.” He rolled his eyes and muttered something about there being a reason why he avoided witches, and her in particular, all the time. He probably knew all along what a glass ceiling was, and a metaphor, too. “Holy clouds, woman! Can’t this wait until I am off this death trap?”

  “What difference does it make? You’re dead anyway,” she pointed out, arms folded over the chest of her tunic, tapping her foot impatiently.

  Vikar noticed her foot tapping, and her attire, as well. The idiot preferred that the female vangels wear gowns in the ancient Norsewoman fashion, complete with ankle-length, open-sided apron, to distinguish them from the human females. Hah! She would wear an apron when Vikar started wearing ballet slippers, and she’d told him so, more than once.
Regina much preferred leather braies and belted tunics. She looked good in such an outfit, too.

  “What’s your point, Regina? I let you put a Crock-Pot in your room.”

  “A Crock-Pot is not a cauldron,” she asserted with affront. Vikar . . . in fact, all the Viking men . . . liked to mock her witchly activities. He probably thought she wanted to brew some bat wing and rat tail concoction, and not some healing remedy for bloody tongues. Vangels were always accidentally biting their tongues with their fangs. It was an occupational hazard, you might say.

  “And even though I have rules against indoor pets, I have allowed your cat free rein of the castle.”

  Allowed? She’d like to give him “allowed” smack-dab in his hard arse which was pointed right at her as he climbed down the ladder. “Hah! Try and stop Thor from coming inside.”

  “I did, and it took two sennights for the scratch marks to heal. Anyhow, you are never happy, Regina. Didn’t I give you that small room for drying your herbs and brewing your potions?”

  “In the dungeon!”

  “We do not call it a dungeon anymore. ’Tis the basement.”

  She counted to five in Old Norse to tamp down her temper. “You are not utilizing my talents, master.” She’d added that master title to soften Vikar up, if that was possible. “For years I have been given the menial tasks. Guard the security gate. Act as backup for the front line team of vangels, which, incidentally, in case you haven’t noticed, are all men.”

  “Have you suddenly become a feminist?” he tried to jest as he untied the tool belt around his waist.

  Men and their tool belts. They could be fat as autumn hogs and smell like days-old gammelost, and still they thought the addition of a tool belt turned them into Svein the Sexy, with the usual, “Wouldst like to climb aboard and check out my longboat?”

  Not in this century, or any other! “I have always been a feminist.”

  “Gloria Steinem of the Dark Ages, huh?” he quipped.

  She would yank at her own hair in frustration if it hadn’t taken her an hour to twist the red bush into a neat single braid down her back.