by Sandra Hill
On the other hand, that damned negative side of her brain disagreed, reminding her that they needed to wake him soon so he could direct them to his Caribbean island, via teletransport.
Assuming they could teletransport that distance. Five at a time!
After landing the balloon first so their launch was from firm ground.
Piece of cake!
Oh, boy!
Luckily, Zeb’s body was covered with a warm white fur cloak. It was colder up here in the sky than . . . (no, she was not going to say “a witch’s tit”) . . . than a Viking whaler’s butt in the North Sea. It was the Arctic, after all. In fact, Beau had had the foresight to toss in heavy outer apparel for all of them. Regina was wearing a red heavyweight wool cloak, making her look like a big red Popsicle. No matter! It covered her from neck to ankle, with an attached hood. Even so, it was still cold, but not as bad as it could be.
Unluckily, the cloak covering Zeb was precious white ermine, and one of Jasper’s favorites. “How was Ah ta know that?” Beau had asked after being clouted with a broom by Grimelda.
(Yes, Grimelda had managed to snag a few brooms from the closet before leaving. Talk about priorities! No gun, but a floor broom, a hearth broom, and a whisk broom. Their enemies would face death by sweeping!)
Beau had continued talking while Regina’s brain had been wandering with hysterical irrelevance, a sure sign of approaching insanity. Or terror. “Ah’m from the bayou. That fur could be skunk fer all Ah know.”
Help me, Lord, Regina prayed at that point. I had no idea it was so hard being an optimist.
There was an ominous silence in her head. Not that God had ever talked to her personally. Or St. Michael, for that matter. But she could hope, couldn’t she? Nope, Regina was on her own. Like always.
“While Zeb is unconscious, we should probably try to remove that barbed wire,” Regina mused.
Zeb’s one eye shot open at that. He tried to speak, but whatever he’d wanted to say came out as a squeak before he muttered a long string of words. It sounded like he was saying, “Lord spare me from Satan’s Red Riding Hood!”
“Ah doubt anyone has wire cutters heah,” Beau said.
“Good,” Zeb commented.
“I have cuticle scissors in my purse,” Patience offered.
Zeb made a choking sound again.
“You brought a purse?” Regina asked, as if that were important.
“Of course. A woman always carries her purse with her.”
Regina glanced toward Grimelda who held up a tattered cloth bag to show she agreed with Patience.
Beau put up both hands. “Not me.”
“Well, give me the scissors, and I’ll give it a try,” Regina told Patience.
“The worst thing that could happen is Zebulan becomes a eunuch,” Beau offered with a chuckle.
Before Patience had a chance to move, Zeb managed to grasp Regina’s wrist in a viselike grip. “Don’t. You. Dare,” he told Regina. “Later.” On those difficult words, he dropped her hand and fell unconscious once again.
“Well, I guess we can wait,” Regina said, rubbing her wrist.
For a few brief moments, she allowed herself to enjoy the peacefulness of floating with the mild wind currents as dawn began to rise on the horizon. At this time of the year, deep autumn, almost winter, there wouldn’t be much sun. In fact, there would be a short window of opportunity before darkness fell again.
They were about a quarter-mile above the ground, but all they could see below, aside from the icy tundra, were the occasional wolves or caribou. Dark color against all that white. The magnificent polar bears blended in with the desert-like ice. In fact, after peering closely, Regina could see a huge, lumbering mama bear with three of her cubs gamboling toward a pool of water, a sight she would have appreciated if she weren’t so distracted.
There was little or no turbulence, but the silence was deafening.
“I’m going to start to deflate,” Patience said, then murmured under her breath, “if I can figure out how.” She was the one steering the contraption. “You better wake Zebulan, for good this time,” she advised Regina. “Oh, and be prepared. I think these things land on their sides. So, make sure Zebulan is on top, or the weight of our bodies will drive those barbed wires in like porcupine quills. We’ll kill him for sure.”
“He’s already dead,” Beau pointed out.
“So are you,” Grimelda said with a cackle. “We all are.”
“What’s yer point?” Beau grumbled.
“Five dead people in a flyin’ gondola tryin’ not ta get killed . . . again. It’s rather laughsome, methinks.” Grimelda cackled some more. “We should take a picture ta have fer later. Does anyone have one of them eye phones?”
“Ya’ll are weird, Grimey,” Beau commented.
“No more’n you, boy,” Grimelda countered.
“Anyways, porcupines doan have quills on their tooters, they have ’em on their tails,” Beau added.
“How do you know?” Regina had to ask. “Did you ever check?”
“Ah ain’t that dumb.” Beau winked at her.
“Tooters?” Grimelda cackled. “That’s a new one. I met a Viking once what called his Rooster. Just as bad, I suppose. His cock did do a lot of doodling. You know, cock-a-doodle.” More cackling. “Do Cajun manparts make noise, like horns tooting?”
“Only when they’re tooting their own horns,” Beau joked.
Not for the first time, Regina questioned the combined IQ of her comrades in insanity.
“Would all of you be quiet so I can concentrate?” Patience said. “I wonder what this thing is down here.” She pulled a lever and air began to whoosh quickly out of the balloon, causing the basket to lurch and sway from side to side.
“Holy Thor!” Grimelda exclaimed, clutching the side rail with boney, white-knuckled fists.
“I think mah tonsils jist shook hands with mah family jewels,” Beau commented, also clutching the rail with tight fingers.
Regina was kneeling on the floor, trying to keep Zeb from rolling over.
Patience quickly pushed the lever back up. “Oops. Guess I know how to deflate now. Just a little more slowly.”
“Zeb? Zeb, can you hear me? You’ve got to wake up. We’re out of Horror and about to land soon. You need to guide us to your island.”
He groaned and licked his dry, split lips. His one good eye blinked and then opened. He tried to sit up but only managed to raise his head. “What? Where am I? Am I in Hell?”
“We’re in a hot air balloon. Floating away from Horror. Over northernmost Norway at the moment, I would guess.”
“Yep, must be Hell.” He closed his eye, about to fall back asleep.
Regina leaned forward and forced the eye to remain open.
“Ouch! Are you trying to pluck out my eyeball? Satan’s latest torture technique? I was right the first time, wasn’t I? You’re Satan’s sister, not a vangel. Red Riding Hell Hood.”
“We’re not in Hell, numbskull. Not yet. But we will be if you don’t stay awake and help us.” She grabbed his forearm and tried to pull him up.
He swatted her hand away and sat up himself, a testament to self-will or adrenaline energy or some such thing. It didn’t matter why. The man was sitting up and gazing about him. At her kneeling at his side. At Grimelda holding one of her brooms like a baby and crooning some witchy chant. At Beau leering at Patience’s backside as she manned the tiller, at the same time bending over to press the lever which was slowly deflating the balloon.
“Oh, fuck! We’re screwed,” Zeb said.
“We saved your ass, big boy,” Regina commented. “A little gratitude would be appreciated.”
“Thank you,” he said, and appeared to be sincere. “Help me up, Doucet,” he ordered Beau then. “Let’s see what we can salvage from this SNAFU.”
“What’s a Sniff-You?” Grimelda wanted to know.
“Not Sniff-You. SNAFU, as in Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. It’s a military term.”
“Were you in the military?” Beau asked.
Zeb rolled his one eye, which was kind of comical, though it must be painful. “Not for a long, long time.”
“Army? Navy? Mah cousin Leroy was in the Navy.”
“Roman,” Zeb said. “But I’ve been working with some Navy SEALs lately. It’s a long story, and not important. Help me up.”
Regina and Beau both helped him to stand with his back braced against one of the side rails and rope supports. The fur cloak fell off his body, puddling at his feet. “Please tell me that’s not Jasper’s hundred-thousand-dollar Hermès ermine cloak.”
“I told you,” Grimelda told Beau.
“Ermine, shermine! Enough with the fur crap, Grimey,” Beau shot back.
“With everything else we’ve done . . . like escape from Horror with a prized prisoner . . . I doubt that Jasper is going to fixate on a mangy fur,” Regina said with disgust, helping to cover his nude body once again. Otherwise, the jerk wouldn’t have to be worrying about barbed wire. His you-know-what would freeze and drop off. Actually, that might not be a bad idea.
“Hah! You don’t know Jasper.” Zeb was still talking about the fur cloak.
The balloon was getting closer and closer to the ground, probably only a hundred feet up now, and decisions needed to be made. Zeb seemed to realize that, too. Shivering, he wrapped the cloak tight around himself, then surveyed the land they were crossing.
“Aim for that flattened area over there,” he directed Patience.
“How do I aim?” Patience asked.
With a sound of disgust, Zeb took over and they made a relatively smooth landing where the basket did, in fact, tip over on its side, and he was, in fact, on top, facing upward so that his barbed parts weren’t pressed against anyone. When they all alighted, they didn’t think to grab onto the landing ropes and the balloon began to rise out of reach.
Oh, well!
Zeb lowered his cloak so that he could stand in his bare feet on the fur and not the icy ground. The temperature was cold for all of them, who shivered uncontrollably but more so for the nude Zeb. In fact, he was turning a pretty shade of blue.
“Do you still think you’re unable to teletransport?” Regina asked Zeb.
He seemed to be attempting a silent transport, then shook his head. “No go!”
“Let’s all gather around Zeb, team huddle style, and try to teletransport out of here. Zeb, you concentrate on where you want us to go. No, don’t even think of sending us there. You’d be with us, anyhow.”
Thus it was that four witches joined arms, surrounding a high demon Lucipire and after what seemed like an hour, but was only a minute, began to swirl up into the sky. Already, the air felt warmer in the currents of teletransporting. Then the swirling reversed and they were spinning downward.
Zeb gasped out, “The first thing I’m going to do is find me a pair of wire cutters.”
“At this point, I could do it with my teeth,” Regina joked.
But Zeb turned inch by inch to look at her. “Really?”
Honestly! Men and their manparts! Regina made one last suggestion, “Maybe we should pray first, for the success of our mission.”
“We’re demons,” Beau pointed out. “We don’t know how to pray.”
Patience and Grimelda agreed with Beau. But, to Regina’s surprise, Zeb arched his brows at her and said, “Good idea.”
“But how?” Beau persisted.
“The words don’t matter,” Regina said. “Just the intent.”
Thus it was, as the five of them swirled round and round toward the approaching ground, one communal prayer could be heard. “HELP!”
Chapter 5
She was red hot, all right . . .
They landed face first on the shore of a small island whose narrow beach was more rock than sand. Bracing her arms, Regina raised her head and saw, to one side, beautiful turquoise blue waters, and in the other direction, up about a hundred feet, a cliffside, bamboo and banana-leaf-roofed dwelling, accessible only by a set of steep wooden stairs.
If it wasn’t Zeb’s “hidey-hole,” it was a close second. Paradise!
Four of them got clumsily to their feet, spitting out sand and pebbles and feeling their faces and bodies for bruises. One of them did not stand. Zeb was still unconscious, and thank God for that, since his barbed wire penis was beneath him. Besides that, the rough landing had probably opened more of his wounds.
“We have to get Zeb inside and take care of his injuries as soon as possible,” Regina said, taking command.
“Well, duh!” Beau was looking around, not very impressed. He had probably been expecting a more luxurious island, maybe one with a boat he could confiscate and ride off into the sunset.
“Good luck with that,” Patience said to Regina, staring pointedly at the high risers of the twenty-five or so steps. Patience ignored Beau altogether. She did that a lot, Regina noticed, when they weren’t sniping at each other. Probably due to years and years of forced close association.
“We should have brought a gurney with us,” Regina thought out loud. As if they could have fit one in the balloon basket!
“Too bad Zeb dropped that ermine cloak when we took off. We could have used that for a litter,” Beau said, stretching his arms and arching his back to get out the kinks. Oddly, all of them had lost their outer garments in the transport. “Oh, what the hell! Ah’ll carry him.”
The rest of them looked at Beau with skepticism. The steps were steep.
“Ah’m stronger than Ah look.” He flexed his muscles in a manner meant to be comical, but just looked silly.
“You look silly,” Patience remarked.
“She likes me,” Beau told Regina.
They were wasting time. “Beau, get serious! Can’t you teletransport yourself and Zeb up the steps?” Regina asked. “It’s not that great a distance.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, darlin’, our landin’ here on the island was less than smooth. Mah guess would be that the four of us couldn’t move a sand flea now. Jasper must’ve discovered our escape.”
“I still have fangs,” Patience said, running her tongue along her upper teeth. “So, I must still be a demon vampire.”
The other two did the same and concurred.
“Maybe Jasper is jist takin’ some of our Lucipire powers away,” Beau remarked. “Probably we’re still Lucipires, right down to our sinful hearts.”
“You’re right. I don’t feel suddenly pure,” Patience agreed.
“Were you ever pure, darlin’?”
“Were you ever anything other than an asshole?” Patience countered.
“Enough!” Regina shouted.
No one paid any attention.
“I warrant we’ll turn into those scaly beasts any minute,” Grimelda said with a cackle, as if that would be funny. “How am I going to drag my fifty-pound tail up those steps?”
The image was enough to make even a hardened vangel shudder. Regina had no desire to be on a little island with three, maybe four, huge, slimy creatures. She would be Lucie soup by nightfall.
Zeb groaned and rolled to his side, which caused the three demons to go silent. Thankfully.
He was covered with sand and gravelly stones from forehead to bare, nail-less toes. He even had a piece of blue sea glass in the middle of his forehead, which matched his eyes. And wasn’t that odd? Regina mused. She could have sworn Zeb had brown eyes. No, now that she looked closer, his eyes were still brown. It must have been a reflection of the brutal sun.
“Put . . . shield . . . up . . . NOW!” Zeb gritted out, then fell to his back with another groan.
“Shield? What shield?” Regina asked.
“He must mean that Jasper will locate us here if we don’t put up some kind of shield. Oh, no! We can’t have gotten this far only to be captured!” Patience was wringing her hands with dismay.
“Kinetic or magnetic?” Beau asked Zeb.
Huh? How would a Cajun moron know the difference? Sh
e certainly didn’t. Not for the first time, Regina wondered if Beau was something other than he appeared to be.
“Both,” Zeb answered Beau. “Hall closet. Red dial. Force field essential.”
That effort knocked Zeb out again.
Well, holy moly! Zeb has some kind of kryptonite shields, or Star Trek-type barriers, set up to avoid detection. He must be a regular Superman, or Captain Kirk. She was impressed.
Nodding, Beau turned and sprinted up the steps, two at a time. Patience and Grimelda followed after him, more slowly.
That left her alone with Zeb. So much for Beau carrying Zeb up the stairs! Well, she wasn’t a Lucipire; so, Jasper couldn’t have cut off her powers, such as they were. The only one who could do that was God, or St. Michael, and presumably Mike was leaving her to her own devices. For now. More likely, he’d said something like, “To hell with her!”
With a deep sigh, Regina lay down on the sand next to Zeb. Even in his emaciated condition, he would be too heavy for her to lift. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him as best she could, and lifted one leg over his thighs. It was uncomfortable here on this rough beach but she managed to find a relatively smooth position. Tucking her face into his neck, she tried to concentrate on moving the two of them through space without actually standing.
Nothing happened.
Well, it might take time.
“You smell like cinnamon,” Zeb said softly. “Those tiny red candies. Cinnamon hearts. Sweet, but then they zap you with a hot, spicy bite. Yes. Sweet zing.”
She laughed. “Was that a compliment?”
“No.”
“Well, you smell like rain. That probably sounds crazy. Especially after all your months of torture, without ever bathing. You should smell rank, like a rabid skunk. Instead, rain! You’re probably thinking that rain doesn’t actually have a smell.”
Zeb moved his head in mild protest. “Yes, it does. Rain on a vineyard has a definite scent. Rain on a child’s hair does, too. Raindrops in a woman’s cupped hands. Rain after a long dry spell.” He paused and smiled, despite his cracked lips. “Rain is a good thing.”
Regina was surprised that he’d managed to string so many words together in his condition. Perhaps it was a good sign. “Cinnamon rain? Some combination,” she remarked, trying to envelop him more closely without hurting him more.
