Kiss of Pride

by Sandra Hill

  She was weeping with relief.

  He was shh-ing her in assurance.

  By the time she began kissing him all over his beautiful face . . . his forehead, his mouth, his eyelids, his mouth, his cheeks, his mouth, his jaw . . . he was laughing joyfully. In between kisses, they murmured their pent-up emotions.

  “I was so afraid,” she said.

  “I missed you so much,” he said.

  “What a brute you are for not calling me!”

  “If I called you once, I would have called a hundred times.”

  “Armod taught me to moonwalk.”

  “Show me later. Naked.”

  “Don’t ever leave me again.”

  “Alex, sweetling, you know I can’t promise that.”

  “Let’s go have near-sex.”

  He laughed. “This close to the Reckoning? I’m not that brave.”

  She pulled back, and Vikar reluctantly set her on her feet. It was then that she got her first good look at her returning hero.

  He wore a muscle shirt—a sweatshirt with the sleeves and neckline cut off—over running shorts with athletic shoes. In contrast to that modern attire, he had Viking arm rings on both upper arms . . . the same ones his brothers wore, too. Etched wings in a Celtic design on solid silver. Most important, every bit of skin exposed was a golden suntan.

  “You jerk!” She smacked his chest.

  “What? What is amiss?”

  “Don’t you ‘amiss’ me.” She smacked his chest again.

  “Dearling.” He took both of her hands in his and laughed.

  Oooh, that was a big mistake! “Think I’m funny, do you?” She kicked out at him, forgetting she wore no shoes, and her bare foot just brushed his . . . erection? She raised her eyes to his.

  He shrugged. “I told you I missed you. A lot. Why are you suddenly such a fierce kitten?”

  Kitten? Oooh, them was fighting words. “Because I’ve been alternately crying and eating Krispy Kreme donuts every minute you’ve been gone.” She pointed to the tray on the ground. “And, you . . . you’ve been lying on the beach sunning yourself, no doubt ogling all the beach bunnies in bikinis.”

  “Ah,” he said as if suddenly understanding. Sitting down on the chair, he pulled her onto his lap. “The color of a vangel’s skin changes when they save human sinners. Wait until you see Svein and Jogeir. None of my saves wore bikinis, I assure you. As for the female Lucies, well, if you think I am attracted by red eyes and slime, you do not know me well. Unless they are your red eyes and slime.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  She smacked him again on his chest, but only lightly. Not that hitting him harder had done much against his immovable chest. “Everything went well then?”

  He shrugged. “Overall, it was a success, but I had Jasper in my hands and lost him.”

  She sensed the guilt that was swamping him. “Do your brothers and the rest of the vangels consider you a failure for Jasper’s escape?”

  “No, but—”

  “No buts. I suspect you’re being too hard on yourself.”

  “Or mayhap I am not being hard enough.”

  “Let your precious Michael make that judgment. And speaking of him, do you have any idea how many people have already arrived? Two dozen!”

  “Sweetling! Do you have any idea how many will be here by next Sunday when the Reckoning starts? Two hundred and fifty.”

  Her jaw dropped before she burst out laughing. “I think I need to get some more Krispy Kreme donuts.”

  When they were walking back toward the house, his arm over her shoulders, her arm wrapped under his arms and across his waist, she told him, “I have a really good idea. You should put a gazebo back here. With climbing roses. Think of the privacy.”

  Rolling his eyes, he told her, “I have a really good idea of what we could do with a Krispy Kreme donut. In a private place.”

  Sixteen

  Asylum of the dead, for sure . . .

  Transylvania feature, Kelly Page 1

  Draft Ten

  Transylvania, Pennsylvania, is a story for the ages. All ages of people, that is.

  Kids love it here because of the woo-woo atmosphere. A carnival horror house but better. Where else can you walk down the street and be scared over and over by the hiss and fangs of vampires? Or blood dripping off an exposed neck?

  Teenage girls who brought the Cullen family of Twilight to popularity are here in abundance. There’s always the possibility they will find their very own Edward right around the corner. And where the girls are, teenage boys are, too.

  Adults like the campy stores where you can buy anything from cloaks to vampire porn. Restaurants and bars give a new twist to “a night on the town.” You could call it dating with an edge.

  And behind it all is the story of how this depressed community decided . . .

  One day before the Reckoning, and Vikar was living in a madhouse. He’d even taken to eating Krispy Kreme donuts for stress.

  Although it would be for only a few days, the residency of the castle was now up to two hundred and fifty, as he’d predicted, and growing. Aside from The Seven, innumerable jarls, karls, ceorls, and thralls had arrived for tomorrow’s Big Event. So many that some slept outside in tents. Vikar had given up his own bedchamber for Dagmar and ten other blood ceorls, who were kept busy feeding those of the masses who’d been unable to sustain themselves with recent saved humans or Fake-O.

  Excitement was in the air.

  Everywhere Vikar turned, there seemed to be a new disaster. A washing machine overflowing with suds. Music playing too loud. One young ceorl arguing with another over whether to watch NASCAR or baseball on the TV. A dent in the newly painted woodwork during swordplay, which was forbidden indoors after the chapel statue debacle, which Vikar did not want to think about. Someone getting mud on Miss Borden’s newly washed kitchen floor. A new vangel trying to kill a mosquito with a lance.

  Not to mention a lot of drinking going on, and not of blood. No, these were Vikings. Beer was their beverage of choice.

  As he’d predicted, Tofa had arrived with her painting supplies and had already half completed a mural in the entrance hall depicting St. Michael the Archangel ridding the heavens of Lucifer and his fallen angels.

  “Tofa ever was a suck-up,” Mordr had remarked on first seeing her work of art.

  “I don’t know,” Sigurd had replied, “she’s made Michael look a bit like Pee Wee Herman, if you ask me.”

  Then there was Bodil, who was doing as Vikar had predicted, as well. Here only two days with her apprentices, and she had the exterior of the castle looking like a landscaper’s dream. In fact, Bodil and Alex had drawn up plans for a rose garden in the back complete with trellises and, yes, a gazebo. A gazebo, for thunder’s sake! Who ever heard of a Viking in a gazebo?

  The fact that Vikar could smile in the midst of all this chaos was a miracle, some would say. He gave credit to Alex and her effect on him. That was a miracle.

  “Is everything ready for Mike’s arrival?” Trond asked as the two of them patrolled the property, checking over the security fences that had been erected as temporary measures until more permanent barriers could be put in place.

  “As ready as we can be.”

  “Does Mike come alone?”

  “No. Gabe and Rafe are coming with him. The Reckoning of so many of us will take two days as it is, even with three of them working one-on-ones. Last time, in 1912, there were only a hundred of us. Now, two hundred and sixty-seven, with a dozen more recently saved humans being considered to join our ranks.”

  Trond nodded. “I heard one of them is a military hero. Any more details on that one?”

  Vikar shook his head slowly. “Mike is being mysterious about this man who’s still in Afghanistan, not even dead yet.”

  “Holy fjord!”

  “You got that right. Announcing a new vangel before the person is even dead! That’s a new one for us.”

  “Will the three of them stay here tomorrow night
?”

  Vikar shook his head, then grinned. “I can’t imagine how we would entertain those dour angels during the evening hours.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Trond said. “Hymns? Prayer? The 700 Club. A DVD of Charlton Heston as Moses? Biblical Trivial Pursuit? Or that old TV show Touched by an Angel.”

  “Next time I will name you entertainment director.”

  Trond bowed as if he’d paid him a great compliment. “So they’ll be leaving here by nightfall tomorrow, I presume.”

  “Right,” Vikar concurred. “They’ll be off to the Vatican to plague the pope. All that priest pedophilia has God up in arms.”

  “As He should be!” Trond said with disgust.

  “But they’ll be back here during the day until the job is complete.” Vikar reached into the paper sack he carried with him and asked Trond, “Care for a Krispy Kreme donut?”

  Angel flying too close to the ground . . .

  The sound of hundreds of birds flying overhead awakened Alex the next morning. Well, she assumed it was birds since it resembled the sound she recognized from the days back at her Barnegat cottage when the geese would fly south for the winter.

  Except that had been in the fall, and this was only August. And there was no honking.

  Her eyes shot open to the bright sunshine of a new day. Sunshine that was suddenly cut off, as if by a cloud . . . or a large flock of birds.

  The sound of the birds died, and the sun shone again, accompanied by a wonderful, indefinable scent. Like cloves. Or incense. And the air seemed to shimmer, as if it had currents of energy in it. She breathed deeply and felt the oddest sense of . . . serenity.

  The silence was odd, too, now that the bird fluttering had ended. With all the people in the castle, even this early, there should have been the sound of activity.

  But wait. Suddenly there emerged the sound of one single male voice. “Ho-san-nah!” Each syllable was drawn out with musical perfection. And then a full chorus of voices burst out with the most joyous hymn. Many, many voices.

  Goose bumps rose over every inch of her skin at the sheer beauty she was hearing.

  The archangels had arrived.

  Vikar had warned her to stay up here in the tower room, unless she was invited downstairs, but there was no way she was going to miss this. Whatever this was!

  So she dressed quickly in a short-sleeved white shirt tucked into camel-colored, pleated slacks with a brown leather belt. On her feet were white sandals. After quickly brushing her teeth, she pulled her hair back with a claw barrette. No time for makeup.

  She walked slowly down the stairs, though, because she found she was suddenly shaking. Literally shaking, and she felt light-headed, as well. Probably all the sugar she’d been eating lately. Well, of course, she was nervous. Frightened, really. If she found downstairs what Vikar had been telling her was coming . . . rather who was coming . . . her life would be changed forever. Not that it hadn’t been already.

  If there was a St. Michael the Archangel in the parlor, then there had to be a God up above. And that would mean . . . She couldn’t even imagine what that meant. At the least she would be taken back to her childhood and the blind belief in things unseen. Except there would be no blindness after today.

  And what about Linda? Oh please, God, let me find out about my little girl, she found herself praying.

  When she got to the wide staircase leading to the first floor, she saw all the vangels kneeling shoulder to shoulder everywhere, even in the halls and in the open doorway leading outside. She sank down onto a step near the top giving her a narrow view into the parlor where three men sat in high-backed, armed chairs that had been brought there last night from the dining room. Oddly, they now appeared to be like thrones. All the furniture had been pressed against the wall.

  The three men were tall. And beautiful. Not just handsome, or attractive, they were beautiful beyond description from long hair to perfectly sculpted features. Although they wore modern attire, what appeared to be designer suits with crisp white shirts and striped power ties, they had wings coming out of their backs. Massive white wings. With hysterical irrelevance, she wondered if they had special holes cut in the backs of their jackets so the wings could emerge or retract.

  Most important, an incandescent light outlined each of the figures. Not a halo, unless it was a full-body halo.

  Kneeling in a half circle, about six feet away from the archangels—what else could they be but archangels?—were Vikar and five of his brothers. Harek, whose leg was still injured, leaned against a nearby wall with his crutches. There were a small number of female vangels present, about two dozen, compared to the two hundred and fifty or so legion.

  Alex’s heart thumped so hard that it was a while before she was able to pick up the words being spoken by the archangel in the middle. Michael?

  The dark-haired man . . . angel . . . raised a hand in front of him and made the sign of the cross, blessing all those before him. “Vikings, I come to you with a message from on high. We are pleased.”

  A sigh of relief swept over the crowd. Alex saw two young men at the bottom of the stairs, big men with soldier bodies, weeping joyfully.

  Despite the positive note of his message, Michael’s expression remained somber. “Many changes are coming to the VIK and all vangels,” Michael said. “Thou will no longer travel through time to do your work. Instead you will stay in this year and the future to curb the tsunami of sin that washes over the land.”

  Interesting that the archangel would use the word tsumani, Alex thought. She considered it a modern word, but then she supposed angels were timeless.

  “Vikings! Jasper must be stopped!” Michael yelled in a thunderous voice, pounding a fist on the arm of his chair. “Your most recent efforts, though commendable, were a mere dent in the stone walls of his depravity. Thou must rid the world of his evil.” He pounded the chair again.

  Alex could swear the walls shook.

  Everyone in the crowd bowed their heads, as if in shame for failing to do their jobs.

  “Thou have done well,” Michael added in a softer voice, “but thou must do better. This is war we wage. Satan must not win! Jasper must be stopped.”

  Murmurs of assent rippled through the crowd, like a wave.

  “Henceforth, headquarters for the VIK will be here in this castle in this small town. Later, other satellite headquarters will be established around the world. I will increase your ranks ten-fold in this century. By the time I return here in one hundred years, Jasper and his unholy flock will be no more, or, let it be known, there will be no more vangels. That is God’s will.”

  An ultimatum? Alex’s heart wept for Vikar, who would be put under such pressure.

  Silence pervaded the castle as Michael waited for the implications of his pronouncement to sink in. But then she realized that the silence was continuing way too long. When she looked up, she noticed Michael staring straight at her through piercing blue eyes.

  She gasped.

  “There is one here who does not belong,” Michael said.

  All eyes turned toward her as the vangels noticed the direction of Michael’s stare.

  “Who dares to intrude?” Michael’s question was directed at Vikar, who had stood.

  Vikar raised his chin, as if prepared for a blow, and said, “She is . . .”

  Alex felt tears well in her eyes at the agony she saw on Vikar’s face. Oh, how she hated to have put him in this predicament!

  But then Vikar cemented her fate when he said, with no hesitation now, “She is my beloved.”

  Viking, what were you thinking? . . .

  Vikar sat in his office waiting for Mike, and his personal Reckoning meeting. He felt like a prisoner on death row.

  Gabe and Rafe were using the dining room and a side parlor for their one-on-ones with the vangels, starting with the lowest level upward. Blood ceorls were excluded. They were always pure.

  He’d already seen some horrified vangel faces following interviews, mean
ing huge additional penances, but he’d also seen some joyous ones, which meant either an end to their vangel life, or short penances left.

  Mike had conducted a few of his meetings already, but was in the computer room at the moment with Harek discussing ideas for an angel website. To everyone’s surprise, Mike had been receptive to the idea of doing God’s work on the Internet superhighway. “Silly Vikings!” Mike had chastised them when they’d broached the idea so tentatively, “The Lord has always been willing to go after sinners. If He waited for them to make the first step, Heaven would be a lonely place.”

  In the old days, being called a “silly Viking” would have been insult enough to prompt a war, or at the least, a lopped-off head. Turning the other cheek came sore hard for a Norseman.

  Tomorrow morning the three archangels would meet with The Seven to discuss what had happened on Jasper’s Sin Cruise. “This is worse than Sodom and Gomorrah,” Mike had grumbled when given a brief preliminary report. “You must prevent its happening ever again.”

  Easy to say. But how?

  Vikar tried to tidy up his desk as he awaited his hearing. Alex was up in the tower room where Mike had ordered her to go until he “addressed her situation.” Whatever that meant. The worst that could happen, in Vikar’s opinion, would be her exile from the castle. That would be the worst thing that could happen to Vikar, too. He planned to intercede on her behalf.

  Just then, the door opened and Mike walked in, carrying a folder, which Vikar knew held his fate. “Viking,” he said, his only greeting.

  Vikar would have liked to rudely say, “Archangel,” in reply, but he was no dummy. Instead, Vikar nodded his head in acknowledgment and rose from his chair, moving to the front of the desk where two chairs faced each other.

  Mike had removed his suit jacket and tie and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. No wings at the moment. His human form was not much taller than Vikar, but appeared larger. Certainly more intimidating.

  Sitting down opposite Vikar, Mike opened the folder and examined a printout from Harek’s software program. He frowned in a couple of places and nodded in others. “Overall, you have done well, Vikar. Not perfect, of course, but He does not expect you to be.”