by Sandra Hill
“You vangels are a little weird,” Zeb remarked. “Is that it, then? Can we get this show on the road?”
“ASAP.” Cnut pointed to the large canvas bags on the floor. “The holy water pistols and water bladders are in there, for you two and your vangels. Let’s synchronize our watches. Two hours from now, you should all be in place. Let’s say thirteen hundred hours?”
Cnut rolled up one of the maps and tucked it under his cloak. Regina took the other one; she would need it to explain positions to the other vangels.
“Go with God, then,” Cnut said.
All three of them bowed their heads for a moment.
And then Cnut was gone, teletransported to the outside.
Zeb looked at Regina and then at the bare table, then back to her. “I was thinking . . .”
“Are you crazy? In a religious place?”
“You’re the one who started me on this track. You’re the one spreading your cinnamon lure like a pheromone perfume. You’re the one who looks like Wonder Woman in those black jeans and turtleneck.”
She just gaped at him.
“Besides, this isn’t a religious place, like the chapel out there,” he said defensively.
A fog of fresh rain scent swept through the room, and Regina almost swooned with sudden yearning. “Maybe later,” she conceded.
The holy water idea worked remarkably well. Regina worked with Dagmar, and the two of them managed to herd at least a dozen Lucipires through their assigned corridor out toward the exit. It was not to say they didn’t engage in any fighting. Especially in the beginning when the Lucies were in demonoid form, making them clumsy and big targets. Soon they were transforming themselves into humans with deadly swords and firearms.
One particularly stubborn Lucie looked Mexican and spoke with a Spanish accent. Regina didn’t speak Spanish, but Dagmar apparently did, and she loosely translated his words for Regina. “He’s saying: ‘Whores! I will see you in Hell.’”
“Not today, Jose,” Regina said to the dark-skinned man who had one ridiculous gold front tooth. She wielded one of her knives in a direct hit to the tooth, causing it to pop back into his open mouth. Her next blade went into his chest, which was already burning from the squirts of holy water from Dagmar’s gun. He began to dissolve into slime almost immediately.
Stepping over him, she and Dagmar smiled at each other.
Most of the Lucies ran away on seeing them coming, especially when they got sprayed by the long-range water pistols. Or maybe they ran on the sight of these two strange women who were whooping and dancing down the halls like this was a game. It was. A war game.
Once they exited onto a wide lawn, it was a totally different game, though. A to-the-death battle between the vangels and Lucies who were engaged in one-on-one combat as far as Regina could see, to her left, and to her right, even across the highway. Any tourists or passersby still on the scene were scattering like frightened cats. Pretty soon the police or news media would arrive. They would have to end this battle quickly or there would be a whole lot of explaining to do.
Regina noticed that all the vangels, herself included, had blue, misty wings at their backs. Fangs were elongated on the vangels, as well as the Lucies. Vangels had no reason or inclination to fang a Lucie. That was intended for human sinners wanting to repent, not an option for these deadened souls. But if one of the demon vampires bit a vangel, the poison would travel quickly through the body, putting it in stasis. That was the time when a vangel was taken back to Horror for the torture transformation to Lucipiredom. Not happening today, she hoped. These “dead” but not bitten vangels would be healed if treated soon enough, or they would go off to that holding place for vangels . . . Tranquility.
Dagmar rushed to help her sister, and Regina made her way, popping off Lucies with her revolver which had a silencer on it, toward where she saw Zeb and Cnut trying to get closer to Hector. The former Centurion was in full battle gear from the Roman era. A white, knee-length tunic was covered with leather armor, front and back, tied on the sides, with cap sleeves, a bronze chest plate, shin and wrist guards, sandals, and a red-plumed helmet. In one hand, he carried a long sword, already dripping with vangel blood, and in the other, a large metal shield with some family crest on it.
He looked frighteningly strong and cruel, which he was, of course, having been a Lucie all these centuries, and a high-level haakai at that. A number of dead or mortally wounded vangels lay scattered around him, a testament to Hector’s military might. Hopefully, the vangels would be the winners today, and they could take these wounded back to Dr. Sig’s island hospital for medical aid or send them on to Tranquility. The alternative . . . a trip to Horror . . . would be, well, horrifying.
Cnut was equally strong, having been a vangel since AD 850. Yeah, Hector had a good eight hundred years on him, but Cnut had higher powers on his side. Hopefully.
Regina worked her way toward Zeb, fighting Lucies right and left. She’d packed dozens of her knives before coming to Rome, and she had almost a full round in her firearm, which she’d checked before exiting the catacombs. Afterward the vangels would do a cleanup of all these loose weapons and shells. Assuming they were “alive” to do so.
There was no time for thinking then as the sounds of battle took over. Grunts, occasional screams, war cries, expletives, the clash of metal against metal, the pop of weapons with silencers (because of the public setting, all the vangel firearms had noise suppressors on them today), and the occasional Viking shout of “To the death!” or the military “Hoo-yah!”
Soon they’d cleared the way for Cnut and Hector to engage each other with swords. It was a lost battle for Hector by now, with few or no Lucipires left to back him up. Even if the Roman managed to overpower Cnut, there were enough vangels regrouping and surrounding them that he had to know the end was near. And teletransport back to Horror to regroup wasn’t a choice for Hector, either, as evidenced by the holy water burn marks on the exposed skin of his thighs, calves, elbows, and forearms.
He wouldn’t go down easily, though.
“So, Cnut, dost think you can better me just because you have a Pretty Boy Viking hairstyle?” Hector raised his shield to deflect the thrust of Cnut’s long sword.
“Nay, Roman, I will better you with my superior skill.” Cnut made a deft twist of his wrist while lunging which caused the tip of his blade to slice the shoulder strap on Hector’s breast plate. The chest covering was now hanging lopsided.
“Ah!” Zeb said at her side. “I see his strategy now.”
Regina did, too. Just killing a demon was not enough. In order to destroy Hector, totally, so he could never return as a Lucipire, there would have to be a direct piercing of his heart by a blade or bullet that had been treated in the symbolic blood of Christ. The breast plate prevented that from happening.
Hector parried Cnut’s next strike and countered with a strike of his own. He missed but the flat side of his blade whammed Cnut’s thigh, bringing Cnut down on one knee.
Ouch! That was going to leave a bruise. Good thing the blow didn’t pierce the skin. Lucie blades were also specially coated . . . theirs with a deadly mung.
The crowd of vangels gasped with surprise, but Cnut was almost immediately back on his feet, and now he was angry . . . angrier than he had been before. He fought fiercely, at one point managing to flick the breastplate aside and off Hector’s body, totally.
It was thrust, slash, clash, retreat, metal against metal, over and over until Cnut finally grunted out to his vangels, “Clear . . . the . . . area. Wasting . . . time!” In other words, stop gawking at him and clean up all the vangel weapons and, yes, bodies, before the authorities arrived. Sirens could already be heard in the distance.
“You’re wasting time, for a certainty, Dead One,” Hector snarled, misinterpreting Cnut’s words.
Regina was about to leave and secure the catacomb entrances when Cnut deliberately feinted with his sword, pretending to aim right, but actually going left.
> Hector deflected the sword with his shield, spun on his heels in a skillful move, and made a sweeping arc with his own sword, which sliced across Cnut’s chest. To her surprise, and delight, Cnut was wearing body armor underneath . . . thick padding which prevented what would have been a heart-stopping blow.
Surprised, Hector was caught off guard when Cnut immediately countered with a head butt that knocked the Roman back, sending him to the ground. His shield slipped from his fingers, and he struggled to adjust the sword in his other hand. Too late! Cnut knocked the high haakai’s weapon aside with his foot.
But instead of ending Hector’s demon vampire life in one pierce of the sword tip through his evil heart, Cnut slashed off one of the Centurion’s arms.
Hector screamed.
“That is for all the Christians you sent to the lions.”
Then Cnut cut off the other arm.
Hector screamed again.
“And that is for all the innocent Hebrews you slew in your marches through Judea.”
Holding his sword by the hilt with both hands, Cnut slammed it down on Hector’s genitals.
Hector only groaned now.
“And that is for all the women you raped and tortured. Men, too, you evil sod!”
Hector opened his reddened eyes and spat at Cnut. “I will fuck you in Hell, too, one day, Viking. That I promise.”
“I. Don’t. Think. So!” Cnut said, pulling his bloody sword out of Hector’s body, then thrusting it through his heart, pinning him to the ground.
Closing his eyes, Cnut seemed to be saying a prayer. Then said aloud, glancing around the battleground, “It is done!”
Within ten minutes, just as the police and news media were screeching onto the scene, Cnut and the vangels gathered together. They’d cleaned up the perimeter as much as they could. The only things remaining were piles of slime. Lots of piles. Which should have the authorities puzzled for a long time to come. Not to mention an occasional water pistol. How would they explain those?
The injured vangels had already been picked up and taken via teletransport to the Grand Key Island hospital. The dead ones rested in Tranquility by now, bless their souls.
“Let us thank the Lord for our victory today,” Cnut told them all. Then he shouted, “To Horror!”
The vangels immediately began to disappear as they teletransported to the last and undoubtedly biggest mission of their vampire angel lives. It wouldn’t be the final battle of good against evil in this world. There was still Armageddon to come someday. But it would be the biggest to date.
Zeb came up and took Regina’s hand.
“Are you ready?”
He was panting for breath.
She was, too, and not totally from the exertions of war.
“You have no idea,” she said.
Just before Cnut melded into the stratosphere, he passed Regina and Zeb and remarked, “Holy clouds! I miss my wife. I can almost smell Andrea’s cinnamon buns.”
Zeb chuckled. “I’m thinking about buns, too.”
Not to be outdone, Regina said, “Me, I’m in the mood for rain.”
It was a good day.
So far.
Chapter 18
It was like D-Day for vangels . . .
At last, at last! Zeb felt as if he’d been waiting for this day for centuries, perhaps since the day Jasper first made him a Lucipire almost two thousand years ago.
He’d been biding his time these past few days. At the castle in Transylvania, Pennsylvania, in Greece, in Nigeria, in Rome, and now here in the far northern Norselands, he’d done the work he’d been assigned and done it well, if he did say so himself. Now, he was about to reap his reward, and he didn’t mean becoming a vangel. Finally, he was to confront Jasper and put an end to the demon, who had started Zeb on his wicked path and kept his claws deep in Zeb’s soul all these years.
Vikar was the general in this assault on Horror Castle. He and about a dozen of his lieutenants were huddled in a crude hunting lodge going over last-minute plans. Zeb would join them in a moment; he was playing an important role in this final lap of the Lucipire/Vangel race, having more knowledge of the castle layout and who might be found where. But he’d gone over these details numerous times before, both back at the Transylvania castle days ago, and here this morning in the far north of the Norselands.
For now, Zeb stood with Regina, both of them viewing the battalions of vangels as they set up their posts outside of Horror. Because of the cold temperature, the vangels had changed to fur-lined hats and gloves and cloaks, which were outfitted for weapons and ammunition, like their regular capes were. Fire pits had been set up at different places for them to warm themselves when the cold got too much for them as they awaited the beginning of the battle.
But that wasn’t what had Zeb and Regina transfixed. And, frankly, amused. The engine of an aircraft could be heard as it droned overhead in a wide circle around the circumference of the Horror Castle grounds, about one hundred yards from any of the buildings. The fixed wing aircraft was actually an air tanker, piloted by one of their very own vangels, and it was water bombing the grounds with . . . what else? Holy water! It would ensure that the Lucipires inside the periphery would not be able to teletransport out.
The former Russian military plane had already made a previous trip the short distance back to Svalbard, an archipelago near the North Pole, actually the northernmost settlement in the entire world, where it refilled its retrofitted tanks by skimming the Arctic Ocean. At that point, the water was blessed by the same vangel priest who’d handled the water pistols back in Rome. The tanks only held several thousand gallons of liquid.
“From hot air balloons to water bombing,” Regina mused, recalling the last time she’d been here at Horror. It seemed like ages ago. Zeb had to wonder if Patience and Grimelda were inside, and whether he or Regina would be the ones to kill them. Not a job either of them would relish, but they would do it if it meant an end to Lucipiredom.
“I wonder whose idea this was?” Regina mused.
“Probably Cnut’s. A play on his holy water pistols,” Zeb answered.
“You’ve gotta give the vangels credit for having imagination,” Regina commented.
“And a sense of humor,” he added.
“There’s nothing funny about this, though, is there?” she said.
“War is never funny, and this is war.”
She looked at him for a long moment, then said, “Everything will be different after this, won’t it?”
He nodded. No matter the outcome today, vangels would face an uncertain future. No matter the outcome today, he and Regina would face an uncertain future. He knew she wanted assurances from him, but he couldn’t make any. Not yet. Maybe never. Squeezing her hand, he said, “We better head back into the meeting. We’ll talk later.”
When they entered the primitive hunting lodge where reindeer heads and polar bear skins adorned the log walls, he heard Vikar giving the group of leaders some final words. “We have an army of nine hundred vangels here today, counting the hundred more brought in from the two safe headquarters.”
“I’m still afraid that won’t be enough,” Svein said.
“It will have to be, but I think it’ll suffice.” Vikar glanced over to Cnut, their battle strategist, for confirmation.
“There could very well be more than three thousand Lucipires inside,” Cnut pointed out.
“They got to be packed arse to elbows, even in a castle this big,” Vikar added.
Cnut nodded and continued, “So, be prepared to be outnumbered. But remember, it’s not the numbers that matter here. A herd of sheep is no match for a sharp-toothed wolf. David beat Goliath, after all.”
“I’m fresh out of slingshots,” Jogeir called out.
Much nervous laughter followed.
“The numbers might be daunting, but keep in mind that many of them are imps and hordlings, who are practically useless without leaders,” Zeb inserted. “And—”
“And most of
the leaders are gone,” Cnut finished for him.
“Right,” Zeb agreed. “All the members of the high council are gone, except for Jasper. And Beltane, who is no warrior. Residing in Hell at the moment are Yakov, Red Tess, Heinrich, Hector, and Ganbold.”
“And may they never rest,” Vikar said.
“Amen,” the others concurred.
“Also, many of those inside right now are demons sent by Satan, but not demon vampires,” Zeb told them.
“There has to be mayhem inside, then,” Harek concluded, “which is to our advantage.”
“The majority of the fighting will take place outside, hopefully. But many of us will have to go inside as well. And the hardest part will be our entries. Once inside, we should be evenly matched. Quality versus quantity. Tanks versus BB guns. Horses versus puppies. Sheep versus wolves.” Cnut should stop while he was ahead, with all these foolish metaphors.
“I wish we could just detonate the whole shebang.” Trond had become quite the explosives expert since he became a Navy SEAL, but despite his enthusiasm for big noises, even he knew that would not work in this case. “Yes, yes, I know, we have to protect those vangel captives inside.” Fifty-two of them had been taken in the past few days, and everyone was concerned about their condition.
“Afterward, assuming we are successful in this venture, you can blow the castle to dust, Trond,” Vikar said. “Remember, you can’t rely on teletransport to save your asses today. Teletransport has been cut off in the immediate vicinity, for us and for the Lucies. In that respect, at least, there’s an even playing field.”
“Warriors do not play, they fight,” Mordr corrected.
“Whatever!” Vikar replied to his usually dour brother.
“Another reason why we can’t bomb the hell out of Horror . . . actually, two reasons,” Vikar told them. “One, we don’t want to draw attention to our presence here, especially before we get the job done. And, second, we need to pierce each of these Lucies through their slimy hearts. Bombs don’t necessarily do that. Without those chest blows, they’ll just come back again as Lucies in a day or so.”
