Good Vampires Go to Heaven

  Vikar continued on his roll of humor. “Really? I did not know they had bra burners back in the twelfth century. Or bras, for that matter. Mayhap they burned their chastity belts. Ha, ha, ha!”

  “Very funny!” She was not amused. “I’m beginning to think you are a misogynist.”

  “A who? I do not do massages . . . well, unless they are for my wife in the midst of bedplay, and even then—”

  “Aaarrgh! With all due respect, Vikar, betimes you are an asshole.”

  He grinned, probably thinking he’d successfully changed the subject and would be able to send her on her meek way.

  “Even the American military, and those across the ocean, use women in combat today.”

  “We are not the Army, or Navy, or whatever. We fight for a higher power.”

  “I demand to be given a mission of worth,” she said, jabbing a finger into his chest and backing him up until he hit the wall. It did not matter that he was six-foot-four and she a scarce five-foot-seven. A witch’s finger could be a deadly weapon. In fact, just for a second, she pointed downward, and saw him shiver with dread. Viking men always feared her threats of a curse on their manparts. Some were doubtful of her ability to actually put one in knots or curl it up into a little worm, but they took no chances.

  Vikar put up both hands in surrender, laughing (but only halfway). “What exactly do you want, Regina?”

  “I want an assignment that tests my talents. No more gentle, feminine jobs that keep me out of direct fighting. I have decided on just the mission.”

  “Oh?” he asked hesitantly.

  “I am going to rescue Zebulan.”

  “No!” Vikar exploded and shoved away from her, stomping out into the hall and heading toward the kitchen. “No, no, no, a hundred times no!” he yelled back at her along the way.

  She followed after him, doggedly, as they passed the office, the computer room, a small chapel, both a large and a small dining room. Everywhere vangels were at work, as they always were when not out on a mission, with brooms and mops, at computers, sanding mildewed wainscoting, sharpening swords, painting walls. In another parlor turned family room, Armod, the young Icelandic vangel who fashioned himself a Michael Jackson reincarnated, was teaching the young, human children how to moonwalk to the music of “Thriller.”

  When they got to the massive kitchen, she saw that Lizzie Borden, the cook, was chopping a deboned beef carcass into stew-size pieces with her culinary axe . . . uh, cleaver. (Yes, that Lizzie Borden. Enough said! If Regina had said it once, she’d said it a hundred times: Norsemen had a warped sense of humor, but then, mayhap angels did, too, since St. Michael picked those sinners to turn into vampire angels.)

  At the other end of the fifty-foot center island, Lizzie’s new assistant cook, Andrea . . . a pastry chef, actually . . . was baking something that smelled delicious. Cream-filled crepes, maybe. Or coconut and peppermint iced donuts. Andrea and her husband, Cnut Sigurdsson, were always salivating over those two flavors, for some reason. Andrea had been an accomplished dessert maker before wedding Cnut, the last of the seven Sigurdsson brothers to bite the marriage bullet.

  Andrea nodded Regina’s way and then gave a surreptitious little fist pump at Regina. Andrea was aware of Regina’s plan to “assault” Vikar today with her proposal.

  Lizzie knew about Regina’s plans, too, but Lizzie’s suggestion had been that Regina shouldn’t bother asking for permission, she should just put an axe to Vikar’s neck and tell the Viking to give his approval, or else. Chop, chop.

  Yeah, that would work. In a castle full of vangel soldiers! Regina would get about as far as the gazebo out back.

  Vikar went directly to the commercial-size fridge and took out a carton of Fake-O, which he downed with a grimace in one long gulp. When vangels saved a sinner or killed a Lucipire, their skin turned a nice, healthy tan color. Otherwise, they had to feed on blood, or the fake synthetic blood invented by one of the brothers. Fake-O. That was another gripe she had for Vikar. With the lack of real fighting assignments, Regina was forced to drink more and more of the simulated crap, and it was repulsive to say the least.

  “Back to Zebulan,” she said to Vikar. “I have an idea that—”

  Vikar put up a halting hand. “Zeb has been gone for more than a year. If it were possible to rescue the Lucie, I would have taken an army to do the job long ago.” Lucie was the nickname that vangels gave to Lucipires, or demon vampires, of which Zeb was one. Well, leastways he had been until a few years ago when he’d turned double agent for Michael. He was still a demon, but a good one, if that were possible.

  Cnut walked in then, coming up from the dungeon, rather the basement steps. He wore a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off and jeans, and athletic shoes. His head was half shaved on both sides and braided down the center in that ridiculous Ragnor Lothbrok style from the Vikings show on the History Channel. He was dripping sweat which meant he’d probably been teaching fighting skills to the newer vangels.

  Wiping his forehead with a gym-style towel wrapped around his neck, he leaned over and kissed his wife, then said to Vikar, “Did I hear you mention Zeb? If anyone should go after him, it’s me. After all, he traded himself for my sorry ass.”

  Vikar shook his head. “You know what Mike said. Zeb is dead to us. Gone to a place where he can no longer be helped. And he forbade us specifically from going after him.”

  Cnut nodded reluctantly.

  But Regina had another idea. “Actually, what he said was, ‘You men, all of you, are forbidden from rescuing Zebulan.’ You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Andrea stopped piping whipped cream from a pastry bag into her delicacies. Lizzie stopped chopping the bloody meat. And Cnut turned inch by inch to gape at her.

  It was Vikar who said, “What?”

  “I am not a man.”

  Ding dong, the witch is here . . .

  Regina had a plan for rescuing Zebulan the Hebrew.

  Okay, it wasn’t a plan exactly. More of a wish list for how things would work out. A wish list plan. I know, I know. A witch wish list. Try saying that real fast. Don’t laugh. At least I’m trying.

  And she was going to succeed, or die trying. Again. Since she was already dead, of course. No, no negative thoughts. Focus. I am witch. I am vangel. I am woman. Hear me roar. Or cackle. Or something. Holy clouds, I’m so scared I could pee my skinny britches.

  Through a series of hits and misses, Regina had managed to make several wrong turns on the teletransport highway. So sue me. I haven’t had that much experience with molecular transfer, no thanks to the frickin’ Viking powers-that-be, that chauvinist Vikar. And, you’re right, I don’t have a clue what “molecular transfer” means. Harek Sigurdsson, the smartest of all the vangels, taught me that phrase.

  In any case, she’d accidentally skidded through time and the world into some creepy castles where she encountered even creepier inhabitants. Can anyone say Bran Castle, or Dracula? Now, that is one creepy dude! Or how about Moosham Castle in Austria, better known as Witches Castle, where several thousand young girls met their fate? Why does everyone pick on witches, by the by? And why fire? And then there was the Black Gate, which should have in no way been confused with a demon lair, but I somehow hydroplaned there. Yikes!

  But she had finally located Horror, Jasper’s castle in the frozen tundra, far north of Norway. Check one off her list. And remind myself to bring a fur cloak next time, instead of this silk-lined one, if there is a next time, please not, God! Brrr! And forget skinny jeans! Whoever invented them couldn’t have been a woman. I’m cleaving my crotch here when I’m not freezing my buns off. If I bend over, I can’t breathe, and any breath that comes out is frozen in the air.

  Get over yourself, Regina, she chastised herself. You are where you wanted to be. On an important mission.

  Still, it would have been a lot easier if teletransport had GPS or if she had an iPhone with special apps. “Hey, Siri, where is Horror?” Or she could have googled Jasper’s a
ddress, like that would be listed! “Jasper Lucipire, 101 Frosty Lane, North Pole.” Or the Google search would have responded with an inquiry, “Did you mean Jasper Claus?” As if she was looking for Santa’s evil brother! Not!

  In the best of circumstances, Vikar or Mike could have drawn her a map, but they hadn’t exactly given their blessings to undertake this road trip to Hell, so to speak. In her defense, she’d informed the vangel leader of her intentions regarding Zebulan, and to her mind that amounted to a permission of sorts, even though he’d said no. In fact, his last “No!” to her had been barely a shout. She figured she would have worn him down eventually, but she hadn’t wanted to waste the time. Better to err and ask for forgiveness later than seek permission ahead of time. Or so she justified in her mind. Some saint said that, didn’t he? Maybe St. Augustine. No, he was the one who prayed, “Dear God, let me be pure, but not yet.” Or some such thing. Whatever.

  As for Mike, he probably knew of her transgression by now since she’d been gone for two, almost three days. She declined to think what her punishment might end up being. Surely, if I’m successful, there will be no punishment. Yeah, right. And I have a cloud to sell anyone who believes that! She couldn’t think about the future now.

  Next, she’d had to case the perimeter of the vast building and grounds. More shivering! But check two on her list.

  Infiltrating the castle had been easier than she’d expected. I am vangel, watch me teletransport through two-foot, iron-studded doors! Of course, vangels weren’t supposed to use their teletransporting skills in such a light manner, when other means of entry might be available, and she was new at this advanced level, but she couldn’t help but be delighted that she’d done it so well. Yay, me! Anyhow, check three for that one.

  Now to find Zebulan’s location, which she’d heard via the witch grapevine was inside a cave, presumably connected to or below the castle. Check four. And, yes, there were still witches around today, more than modern folks would believe. They blended in now, though. No more pointy hats or riding brooms, if there ever had been. And only an occasional cackle, which Regina thought was unfortunate. A good cackle could make the biggest man wet his braies with fright.

  She’d been hiding in a broken, ancient elevator shaft all day, waiting for nighttime to come when the castle would presumably settle down, and she could explore. Actually, this far north and at this time of the year, mid-October, it was dark except for a few hours daily. Polar Night, it was called. So, it was more silence than light she was waiting for. Demons presumably slept sometime.

  The walls of the wooden chute refracted sound, creating an echo of footsteps above and below, along with more than a few screams as new recruits were being tortured. Maybe one of them was Zebulan. No. Somehow, she didn’t imagine him screaming, though everyone had a breaking point, as she well knew, having broken more than a few individuals herself in her time.

  She’d never met the Hebrew in person, although she had seen him from a distance the few times he’d visited the castle in Transylvania. A handsome man when in human form. Tall. Lean, but well-muscled. Brown hair and eyes. Slightly aquiline nose. Like some ancient Hebrew warrior in a pair of blue jeans.

  Silence finally overcame the castle. She waited several hours beyond that, past midnight, she guessed, and was about to emerge from her hiding place when a female voice whispered, “I smell witch.”

  Regina jumped back.

  “Mais, oui, Patience, darlin’. Ah cain’t help but notice the odor, too,” a male voice drawled out in a strong Southern accent. There were several exaggerated sniffing sounds, whether from the male or female, Regina couldn’t tell, but then the man resumed talking, “Smells lak the bayou. Ah declare, Patience, it reminds me of home. Toad and eye of newt, with a touch of banewort. Very swampy.”

  “You think everything smells like the bayou, Beauregard,” the woman, Patience, said, drawing out the man’s name so it sounded like Bow-rah-gahd. “Not all toads come from the swamp, you know. We had toads in Salem, too.”

  “Picky, picky! You said you smelled a witch, and you mentioned toads, and Holy Crawfish! Any Cajun with bayou mud in his veins would expect you meant swamp toads.”

  “Cajun, Cajun, Cajun! That’s all you think about, Beau. I was about to mention that I also smell rosemary, thyme, and vervain,” Patience sniped.

  I smell like toad? Swampy? Are you kidding me? Regina unsheathed two of her favorite blades, and arranged her cloak off her shoulders to give her more arm room. She arched her back to get rid of the kinks from standing in one position for so long.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are, cackle, cackle,” another female voice cajoled. Older sounding.

  “’Tis not a game, Grimey,” Beau chided the older woman. “We’re not even certain of its witchliness.”

  “I’ll give you Grimey, you worthless hordling. Scarce twenty years as a Lucipire and he thinks he can take liberties with his betters.” There was a swatting sound, followed by a male “Ouch!”

  So, this dude was a hordling. In other words, a young Lucie. In the social order of demons, there were high haakai, haakai, mungs, hordlings and imps, the foot soldiers of Hell, so to speak.

  “Sorry Ah am, Grimelda,” the man said, the twinkle in his voice belying any sense of apology.

  Okay, this was getting ridiculous. Patience, Grimelda, and Beauregard? Maybe I’m not really in Horror Castle, but Bedlam, instead.

  “Definitely a witch. Sniff, sniff, sniff,” the younger female voice said. “But there’s a different smell, too. Could it be . . . no, that’s impossible. A witch vangel?”

  “Ah’ve never heard of such before,” Beau said skeptically.

  “No worse’n demon Lucipires. Devil witches with fangs, angel witches with fangs. Could say we’re kinfolk,” the old lady laughed . . . uh, cackled.

  Suddenly, three huge creatures literally fell into the shaft next to Regina, crowding her against the wall. They were demons, all right. Demon vampires with fangs and red eyes and scaly skin and claws and tails. But they also had the scent of witches about them. Such odors were only sensed by fellow witches. And, no, it wasn’t the swampy, putrid odor of warty amphibians. More like a combination of wood ash and lavender.

  She would have been frightened, except the three beasts were almost comical as they elbowed each other trying to fit into the tight space.

  “Oh, spit,” the younger female demon said . . . Patience, Regina assumed . . . as she morphed into human form. A twentysomething woman with jet black hair and eerie pale green eyes, wearing a modest muslin gown of seventeen hundreds vintage, with a wide, crisscrossed, white collar, and big-buckled black shoes. Very plain attire. Was she Amish? They had plenty of those living outside the home castle in Transylvania. No, not Amish. Puritan, Regina decided.

  The other two followed suit, taking on humanoid personalities.

  Beauregard turned out to be a lean, thirty-ish guy wearing a New Orleans Saints T-shirt hanging outside his faded jeans. On his feet were scruffy, flat-soled boots. His shoulder-length, dark hair was tied at his nape with a leather thong into a small ponytail. Dark mischievous eyes. Not bad looking.

  Grimelda was eighty if she was a day, with straggly gray hair and rheumy, colorless eyes, wearing a black gunna with a long, open-sided apron in the old Viking style. They all exhibited fangs and reeked of a combination of dragon’s blood, valerian, and sulfur, along with the usual ashy lavender witch scent.

  “Who the hell are all of you?” Regina asked, encompassing all of them.

  “Better question, chère, is who are you?” Beau countered.

  Regina wasn’t about to give up any information that could be used against her. “Just a visitor. Lost. On my way to . . . um, Skalgard.”

  “Hah!” Grimelda said. “More like yer on yer way ta trouble.”

  “We are a secret coven here at Horror,” Patience revealed. “Have you come to rescue us?”

  “Rescue? From what?”

  “Lucipiredom,” Pa
tience said bleakly.

  “You don’t want to be demon vampires?” Regina inquired. Maybe Zebulan wasn’t the only reluctant Lucipire.

  “Does a skunk wanna stink? Does anyone wanna be a demon?” Beau scoffed, as if Regina might be dimwitted.

  That fact was corroborated when Grimelda turned to her companions and remarked, “Must be she is daft? Mayhap she is not our savior, after all.”

  A savior? Me?

  “Well, yes, many people do want to be Lucipires . . . in fact, most who come here . . . after many years of indoctrination,” Patience pointed out.

  “You sound like yer givin’ a lecture,” Beau observed.

  “You sound like a dumb Cajun,” Patience retorted.

  “Some Lucipires really do like their, um, calling,” Patience insisted. “Like Beltane, who’s been a Lucipire for two hundred years.”

  “Beltane is Jasper’s pampered assistant. Lak a lapdog, he is,” Beau explained to Regina with disgust. “Ah’ve tried talkin’ to the boy, as a fellow southerner, even brought him some sweet beignets from N’awleans. As my PawPaw always said, ‘If it looks lak a possum, and smells lak a possum, doan be expectin’ no gator.’ The snot tattled ta Jasper that Ah was up ta something.”

  “Which you were,” Patience pointed out.

  “That’s beside the point.”

  Figuring that introductions were in order, Regina told them, “My name is Regina.”

  And they introduced themselves as Beauregard Doucet, Patience Allister, and Grimelda the Witch.

  “Actually, I am here on a rescue mission,” Regina told them, “but only for one person, and he is not one of you. Sor-r-r-ry.”

  The three Lucies hissed with anger, but then Grimelda cackled and told the others, “You know who she means, don’t you? The Hebrew.”

  “Ah,” Patience and Beau concurred.

  “You’ll never find him,” Grimelda told her, wagging a bony finger in Regina’s face. “Not without our help.”