by Sandra Hill
“That’s not true of the regular demons that Satan sent here, by the way,” Zeb was quick to add. “Kill them any way you want, and they’ll be off to their fiery lairs.”
“How will we know the difference between the Lucies and regular demons?” someone in the back asked.
“Believe me, you’ll know,” Zeb said. “Think red skin, red eyes, forked tongues à la Gene Simmons, razor-sharp claws, long, pointed tails. Some, not all, have hooves and horns.”
“How attractive!” Regina commented.
Zeb shrugged. “In humanoid form, they can be very attractive, even beautiful. In fact, last time I saw Lucifer, he looked a lot like you, sweetheart.”
Zeb couldn’t believe that he’d used that endearment for her, especially in a room full of Vikings. He could tell that she couldn’t believe it either. He was in for it!
“Holy shit!” someone muttered.
“I’d like to see that,” someone else muttered.
“I always thought she had a bit of the devil in her,” still another vangel muttered.
“That’s neither here nor there,” Vikar said, clearly fighting a grin.
Regina elbowed Zeb. “Fool!” she muttered.
Zeb couldn’t help but grin, too. “Sor-ry!” He winked at her, to make up for his slip.
Not even close, her scowl told him.
Vikar turned his attention to Harek then. “That geek Lucie still has a force field around the castle that prevents teletransport in or out of the castle proper. You’re a geek, Harek. Can’t you remove it?”
“I’m not that kind of geek,” Harek said, indignant that Vikar would think he could do such a thing, from this distance. Vikar was pushy that way.
Vikar shrugged.
But then Harek conceded, “Once I’m inside the castle, I’ll find the electronics guru from Hell, or his equipment, and disengage the barrier. That, I guarantee.”
“Good,” Vikar said.
“Just give me time,” Harek griped.
“Time is our enemy,” Vikar quipped.
Harek, and several others, rolled their eyes. Zeb hadn’t been a vangel for long, but even he recognized that when Vikar started with the proverbs, it was never just one.
“Enter, engage, and run the hell home.”
More eye rolling.
“God might give us guns, but we have to supply the ammunition.”
“Puh-leeze,” Regina begged.
“You might want to toss out a few of your witchy curses while you’re at it, Regina,” Vikar added with a grin.
Regina needed to learn that it was a mistake to call attention to herself. It was a lesson he’d learned early on in Lucipire 101. Invisibility wherever possible.
“I’d especially like to see a few Lucies go back to Hell with their cocks tied in a knot and their tails up their arses,” Vikar said, thus proving Zeb’s invisibility theory.
“This is what you’ve done to me,” she hissed at Zeb. “No one takes my curses seriously anymore.”
Oh, that was unfair!
Regina murmured something under her breath about what Vikar could do with his own appendage.
Vikar just grinned and continued, “In any case, we’ll storm the castle at twelve hundred hours on the dot. Once we’ve breached the entries, expect a mad rush of Lucies to come out all at once. Most of the fight will take place outside. I expect a field of slime by this evening. By the way, Zeb, do dead demons leave slime in their wake, too?”
“Nope. Just a lot of stink.”
They all checked their watches. It was already ten hundred hours and they had to get to their assigned assault and defensive positions. “Aside from destroying every single Lucipire we encounter, we’ve got to be on the lookout for the captive vangels who were taken the last few days. Their safety and return to Transylvania or the hospital on Grand Key Island, if they’re injured, is paramount. They’ll have to be led, or litter lifted, or carried over our shoulders till we’re outside the castle perimeter for teletransport.”
Everyone nodded grimly. Many of these were close friends, who were being held as prisoners. And God only knew their condition if Jasper and his minions had begun torture.
“Let us pray,” Vikar said then.
All heads bowed, and they took each other’s hands, raising them.
“May the Lord be at our backs, and may St. Michael guide our sword arms, as we begin this battle of good against evil. Death to all Lucipires!”
“Amen!” everyone replied. “Death to all Lucipires!”
Svein dropped Zeb’s left hand. Zeb squeezed Regina’s right hand before releasing it.
“Remember, Jasper is mine,” Vikar said for about the dozenth time since they’d arrived, and he ended the meeting.
Zeb didn’t argue but he had every intention of being the one to end Jasper’s days as a demon vampire. He had an ace in the hole that would ensure he gained that access. It wasn’t just the satisfaction of being the victor that Zeb craved, but there were a few things he had to say to the king of the Lucipires before he met his final reward. Questions that needed answering.
Just then, he noticed Regina staring at him oddly, especially at his clenched fists. The woman saw too much. He unclenched his fists and smiled at her.
She didn’t smile back. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “We better go find Jogeir.” He and Regina had been assigned to Jogeir’s team once again. Their assignment was to enter the castle through the dungeon corridors, the way Regina and the witches had rescued him not so long ago. Well, Jogeir and Regina didn’t know it yet, but he wouldn’t be with them. Not the whole time, anyway.
He put an arm around her shoulders as they followed the others out of the building and on to their various assigned posts. Everywhere he looked he saw vangels swinging their fur-lined capes back over their shoulders, exposing swords or guns or lances, even twin-bladed battle-axes. And in Regina’s case, knives.
And, oddly, or perhaps thankfully, many of them appeared to have hazy blue fog at their backs. Would this be the day that some vangels earned their wings? Would he still be a vangel at the end of this day?
“Just in case things don’t go well today—” Regina started to say.
He put his fingertips to her lips. “Stop.”
She kissed his fingertips and shoved them aside. “I have to say this. Just in case things don’t go well today, I want you to know that I have . . . that I have . . . come to love you and I probably wouldn’t mind if we are lifemates.”
“Regina, not now.”
He could tell she was disappointed that he didn’t reciprocate her declaration. In truth, he wasn’t sure how he felt. Oh, there was a bond between them. Lust, for sure. And something else. Whatever it was, would it still be there when the fever of war receded?
Suddenly a group of vangels marching off to their respective assault positions separated them, and Zeb knew he had to take this opportunity to launch his own secret plans. “Later,” he yelled to her, but she probably didn’t hear him.
He hoped there would be a later for him . . . for them both.
Sweeping up devils was dirty work . . .
Regina was with Jogeir and fifty vangels at the entrance to the castle dungeons. The same place she’d stood not so long ago when three witches had helped her bring Zeb out of Horror.
Déjà vu?
Yes.
Except there was no hot air balloon.
Except that Zeb wasn’t here.
And she wasn’t surprised. For some reason, she had been suspicious of him all morning. He hadn’t been acting quite right. She realized that he’d never intended to join them in this last foray through the dungeon corridors.
Where was he?
She found it impossible to believe that he’d been deceiving them all along, that he’d been deceiving her personally, that he was still a Lucipire. But what, then?
All questions had to be postponed as they saw their first batch of Lucipires approaching from the
dungeon chambers. What followed was a frenzy of fighting. One beast after another, and some of those beasts in humanoid form. Still others . . . the regular demons, if a demon could be called regular . . . were almost scarier. Yes, they had the red skin and sunken red eyes and flicking reptile tongues and long tails and sharp claws which Zeb had described, and the overpowering sulfur scent of rotten eggs, but many had emaciated, bent bodies and sharp, jagged teeth, not unlike that character Gollum in Lord of the Rings. In fact, they made a scrabbling sound as they rushed over the stone floors, like a herd of rats. Still others were huge with hooves and horns, obviously the more powerful of these evil beasts.
One of the demons had guts hanging from its mouth, like the zombies on The Walking Dead. And it looked like it had deposited a pile of shit, right there in the dank corridor.
If she had the time, she would bend over and vomit, but Regina barely had time to remove her knives before another Lucie or demon was in front of her. Soon she switched to her revolver, especially handy since any mortal wound would do on the non-Lucie demons. She could see all her teammates, Jogeir leading them, facing the same seemingly unending deluge of demons, but popping them off. Bang, bang, bang!
Regina had never seen so many elongated fangs, from both Lucies and vangels. Nor had she seen so much slime and gore. She knew how a berserker felt now. Death, death, death was the only focus her brain could handle. Onward, onward, onward. Keep on fighting. Don’t think. Just kill.
She couldn’t even stop for those vangels who fell along the way, either killed or injured. Those killed would go on to Tranquility, no danger of being tortured by Lucipires into becoming one of them if the victors. The injured would be taken to Grand Key Island after the battle was over. Again, assuming the vangels won, however. If not, all bets were off.
They got as far as the dungeon where Zeb had been tortured for all those months. It smelled of evil . . . that rotten egg, sulfur odor associated with demons and hellfire and all things wicked. The dungeon was empty, which gave the vangels a chance to take a breath and regroup. Regina went back and picked a dozen of her knives out of the slime and brought them back to the gathering of vangels where she began to wipe them off with an old rag. Both the demons and Lucies were already evaporated.
“Where’s Zeb?” Jogeir asked right off. This must be the first time Jogeir had noticed Zeb’s absence, or the first chance he’d had to ask.
For her sins, Regina lied and said, “He’s back a ways, taking care of a few stray Lucies in the side corridors.”
Jogeir nodded, but she could tell he wasn’t convinced. “How many of ours lost?”
“Three dead and three injured,” Regina answered.
“Bring the injured in here and make them comfortable,” Jogeir told one of the male vangels. “We’ll take care of them later. No time now. We need to have the teletransport barrier removed first. Plus, we’ve got to move up to the main floors of this friggin’ castle.”
And then they were off and up the stairs into the next level of the castle. Through a window, she could see a major battle taking place outside. Hundreds and hundreds of the evil enemy spilling out of the castle onto the already slimy lawns where they were met by vangel swords, and axes, and firepower. Even from here she could hear the sounds of battle. Metal clashing. Guns firing. War cries. Screams and grunts.
On the main floor of the castle, Regina and her group joined up with Vikar, who was driving Lucies from the other end of the long, extra wide gallery-style corridors that held those disgusting “killing jars” of Jasper’s, the ones that still held not-yet-turned sinning humans who were killed before their time. As far as Regina could tell in passing, none of them were vangels. In addition, the vangels were fighting Lucies and demons who came out of the various rooms along the way . . . offices, lounges, conference rooms, whatever.
Cnut and Mordr and their teams were handling the Lucies on the second and third floors where the demon vampires slept in specially designed beds to accommodate their tails. The lower-level Lucies had their own TV and game rooms . . . games, as in torturing newly turned humans or activities attuned to the dark side of demons. Such as live dartboards, eyeball pool, thrustmaster exercise machines with female and male orifices in strategic locations, televisions showing nonstop sadomasochistic porno movies, a water dispenser that shot out not H2O but blood, real blood, a vibrating recliner that was not used for relaxation but something else, a fireplace where it wasn’t marshmallows roasting on long sticks but toes and fingers. The depravity went on and on.
It was more than an hour before they got these floors cleared, and Vikar had already ordered some vangels to make up litters and take the injured vangels outside beyond the no-teletransport zone. Harek hadn’t yet broken the force field code. In the meantime, Svein and Trond were scouring any hidden spaces inside where Lucipires might be hiding.
But still, there was no sign of Jasper. There had been powerful haakai and muscle-heavy mungs, and plenty of imps and hordlings. But the big guy was missing.
“Where is he?” a furious Vikar demanded, coming up to Regina.
“What? Who?”
“Zeb, that’s who.”
“Um . . . I don’t know. Isn’t he around?”
“She told me he was in one of the side corridors in the lower level handling some Lucies,” Jogeir said.
Regina blushed. She thought about lying, but knew she was caught. “I haven’t seen him since we left the lodge meeting this morning.”
Vikar wagged a forefinger at Regina in an “I’ll handle you later” manner and turned to his brothers.
“Zeb has Jasper,” Harek concluded.
“What? I didn’t think of that. So, Zeb isn’t a traitor, after all. Whew!” Regina said.
“What? Are you crazy? Do you have reason to think he’s a traitor?” Vikar demanded of her.
“Uh, no,” she conceded, feeling foolish, and guilty, for having doubted Zeb’s integrity.
“He is in such trouble,” Vikar said, angry that Zeb had taken away his prize. “No sooner made a vangel than he transgresses.”
“Yes, but not the wrong kind of trouble,” Regina argued. “And not the worst kind of transgression, surely.”
“You are in trouble, too,” Vikar warned. “Watch yourself, witch, I can throw a few curses, too.”
She smiled, she couldn’t help herself. Zeb wasn’t a traitor.
Oh, the choices we make! . . .
Zeb found his ace-in-the-hole cowering under a table in the third-floor grooming salon, the place where Lucipires went to have their claws clipped, their scales thinned, and overall toiletry services. Including having their tails cleaned. It was amazing what a dragging tail could pick up, and they were too long for the creatures to reach back and clean themselves.
Beltane had been Zeb’s informant for years now. Sort of a double agent to a double agent. Jasper hadn’t a clue. To all outward appearances, the Creole hordling was a devoted servant and the newest member of the High Council, in a rather secretarial role, never having been trained in fighting skills. As evidenced by his hiding under a table during the Battle of the Ages.
“Where is he?” Zeb asked right off.
The boy, in the humanoid form of his nineteen-year-old self when taken from the 1700s Vieux Carré, New Orleans’s French Quarter, crawled out from under the grooming table and pointed upward. “He’s been outside all this time. Fighting like a madman. I saw him lop off two vangel heads. There’s no escaping him when he’s in this berserk mode. Best you go hide, Zeb. He has evil plans for you. I’m afraid what he’ll do to me.”
“Stop the babbling, Beltane. Jasper isn’t going to hurt you anymore.” At least, Zeb hoped he wasn’t. “Now, where is Jasper, exactly?”
Beltane shook his head. “On the roof. Assessing the casualties. Making plans. He sent me to find Gordon, that geek who set up the teletransport shields. I saw the IT guy trapped in the computer room with Harek Sigurdsson, who was carrying a big sword. Pfff. Gordo has fewer fight
ing skills than I do.”
Zeb shook Beltane to stop his rambling account. “Jasper,” he said once again.
Beltane nodded. “Up on the roof, like I said. He has two haakai with him, a mung, and a few imps.”
Zeb was about to go back out into the hallway, then up the stairway to the roof when Beltane asked, “How soon can I leave?”
Glancing back, Zeb saw that the boy had packed a suitcase and it sat tucked under the table. He couldn’t imagine what a Lucipire would want to take with him.
Before he could answer, Beltane added, “Will I become a vangel, like you?”
“What makes you think I’m a vangel?”
“Those blue wingy things on your shoulders.”
Wingy? Zeb tried to look over his own shoulders, and there was in fact a blue mist there. Which made him feel guilty. Here he was, being given the second chance he’d yearned for all these years, and he jeopardized it all with his need to confront Jasper on his own. He also jeopardized something else. Regina. But he couldn’t think about that now. He needed to focus.
“Beltane, I never promised you that you would become a vangel. Nor did I guarantee your safety once you were outside this castle.”
“I know, I know,” Beltane was quick to backtrack. “But you did promise to speak on my behalf to . . . to . . .” He glanced upward.
Did the fool think Zeb had an inside connection with God, or St. Michael? But something else occurred to him then. If Zeb was in fact a vangel now, maybe he could try saving Beltane, although he wasn’t sure a vangel could do a fang-saving of a redeemed demon. Usually it was evil humans on the brink of death-by-Lucipire. If it were that easy, surely Trond or one of the other vangels . . . Regina, his supposed lifemate, for example . . . would have completed the process on him long ago.
It was worth a shot, though.
“Beltane, are you sorry for your sins?”
“I am, I am.”
“Do you promise to go henceforth and sin no more?”
Beltane’s eyes went wide at that. Zeb could tell he wanted to ask him to define sin. But, instead, he wisely answered, “I do.”