by Sandra Hill
“I already checked on the children.”
“Do it again.”
At first, she balked and addressed Cnut, “You mentioned trouble. Is it Roger?”
“Who?” Cnut asked. “Is Roger a Lucie?”
“No, or leastways we do not know yet,” Mordr answered for her.
“Lucy who?” Miranda was confused, with good reason. “Roger’s last name is Jessup.”
“I’ll explain later,” Mordr said to his brothers.
“Oh my gosh! I thought I was mistaken before, but . . .” Her words trailed off as she gaped at his brothers, whose vampire teeth were exposed again, no doubt due to reflexive lust in the proximity of a desirable woman, meaning Miranda, who was herself in an aroused state due to his stirring the embers of her desire. Idiots! His brothers were idiots, and he was the biggest idiot of them all, succumbing to temptation after centuries of self-imposed celibacy. He indicated by tapping his mouth twice what the situation was. Their fangs immediately retracted. Now, they just displayed slightly longer incisors. Naught could be done about the lust that still simmered beneath the surface of his skin.
Miranda blinked at his brothers. “Sorry. For a moment there, I thought I saw . . . never mind. Um, I’ll just go and check on the children. Mordr, why don’t you take your brothers into the den.”
After she hurried off and his brothers were seated on the sofa, Mordr on the recliner, they wasted no time.
“Children, Mordr? You, around children?” Worry resonated in Harek’s voice.
“Five of them,” Mordr said with disgust.
“That is cruel, even for Mike,” Cnut remarked.
“Tell me about it. Half the time I feel as if I am going to heave the contents of my stomach, and the other half I nigh faint.”
“You have never fainted a day in your life,” Harek declared, “not even that time a black bear twice your size trapped you in a cave with its cubs.”
That was a memory Mordr would not soon forget, even though it happened a hundred years ago.
“And a woman, Mordr?” Harek gazed at him with incredulity. “I thought you gave up women centuries ago.”
“I did not give them up precisely. I just lost interest.” By the runes! Since when do I reveal such intimate things about myself?
“Same thing!” Harek asserted. “And equally hard to believe.”
Mordr had no intention of discussing anything further with his brothers about his lack of lust. A lack until now, God help me. “So, what is the trouble?” he asked.
“Lucies. In Vegas,” Cnut said.
“Lots of them,” Harek added.
Mordr let the footrest of the recliner drop, and he sat up straight. “How can that be? I would have noticed.”
“They are in the city itself, in and around the casinos,” Cnut explained.
“But I was there when I first arrived a few days ago.”
Harek shrugged. “They must have just come on the scene.”
A sudden suspicion hit Mordr. “What are you two doing in Vegas? Checking up on me?”
“Now, why would we do that?” Harek asked. “Tsk, tsk! It’s not as if you are going to commit any big sins, or anything. Right?”
Cnut pretended to be counting off on his fingers the Seven Deadly Sins. “Greed? Pride? Sloth? Envy? Wrath? Gluttony? Ah, could it be Fornication?”
“I have not fornicated,” Mordr said.
“Really? The megawatt sexual current betwixt you and Miranda could heat a Siberian village. And that is saying a lot. Last time I checked on the Internet, the temperature there was twenty below zero.” Harek, who was guilty of the sin of greed, was not the usual Viking. Not because other Vikings were not greedy, but because he knew stuff like computers and megawatts.
Harek was a perfect example of the contradictions he and the other vangels dealt with all the time. Ancient Norse words mixed with modern terms and knowledge.
“Back to why you are in Vegas to begin with,” Mordr reminded them.
“Zeb contacted Trond and told him that Jasper has another bright idea,” Cnut explained.
Zeb was a demon vampire who was trying to join the other team, meaning vangels. It had never happened in the history of the world. Once in Hell, always in Hell. But, for some reason, Michael had given Zeb fifty years to prove himself as a double agent. Then he might reconsider his devil status. Who wouldn’t jump at that chance of a do-over?
“The Lucies are going to infiltrate the casinos and brothels of Las Vegas and three other cities around the world, Reno, Monaco, and Macau in China,” Cnut elaborated. “Vikar is holding down the fort back at the castle, while Ivak is in Reno, Trond in Monaco, and Sigurd in Macau. We’re here to help you in Vegas where, according to Zeb, Jasper’s biggest contingent will be operating.”
“Holy shit!” Mordr sighed. “Jasper does come up with some grandiose plans. The Sin Cruise. Navy SEALs. Prisons. You have to give him credit for finding places where sin flourishes.”
His brothers nodded.
“I take it by your skin coloring and scents that you’ve already killed a few Lucies and saved a few sinners.”
“A few,” they both said.
“Where are all your vangels?” Mordr asked.
“Getting jobs throughout the city to infiltrate the ranks of Lucies,” Cnut answered. “Doormen. Bouncers in nightclubs and houses of ill-repute. Dealers at roulette and poker tables. Restaurant cooks and waiters.”
“Are you ready for this?” Harek grinned. “Regina is a showgirl at one of the big casinos. Wearing an almost-nothing costume with pointy high heels and a three-foot headdress. Cnut made the mistake of saying she looked hot, and she threatened to place a curse on his cock that would cause it to be tied into a knot.”
Regina had been a Norse witch back in the 1200s. And not a good witch, either. She was the cauldron-boiling, black cat, broom-riding kind who could cast spells that would make the strongest men cringe. Truth to tell, she was scarier than vampires any day.
“And that’s not all,” Harek said with a laugh. “Armod is in rock ’n’ roll heaven singing and dancing in a Michael Jackson revue at Caesar’s, and Lizzie is the cook at Cougar Ranch.”
“Lizzie? She almost never goes out on missions. Did she bring her axe . . . um, cleaver?”
“For a certainty!” Harek laughed. “And she’s madder than a boar with a bug up its arse. Those harlots best not get in her way. She’s already warned Vikar and Alex. If they dirty her kitchen back at the castle, she will be serving them gammelost with every meal.” Gammelost was the stinky cheese often served to Viking warriors when out on a mission. Some said it was so putrid it turned men berserk.
Mordr almost smiled. What a weird, demented family he had, and, yes, all of them, not just the brothers, were a family. You couldn’t spend all these years together and not feel a bond of sorts. Even Mordr, who disdained any kind of emotional attachment. “I assume that Michael knew all this when he sent me here.”
“Definitely,” his brothers said.
“I wonder, though, what the Lucies have to do with Roger. He is the father of the five children Miranda adopted.” He explained the threat Roger posed to Miranda, as well as the children.
“Could Roger be a Lucie?” Harek mused.
“I do not know. Yet. I sent one of my vangels to Ohio to check him out in person.”
“Ohio is a long way from Nevada, in human terms,” commented Harek, as if Mordr was not aware of that fact.
“Not far enough. The man is about to be released from some halfway house, which is like a bridge betwixt prison and freedom.”
“Too bad we vangels cannot just kill bad people.” This from Cnut. “Instead, we must at least attempt to save them from their own evil inclinations.”
Just then, there was a light knock on the door.
They all stood.
It was Maggie, who glanced up, up, up at them, and blinked behind her little glasses. Not a bit of fear, despite their much larger size. She carried a tray
with three bottles of beer and a small bowl of hard pretzels. “Aunt Mir said you might like some refreshment before dinner. We’re eating in a half hour. And she said to ask if your brothers will be staying for dinner.”
“No,” Mordr said, taking the tray from her and setting it on a low table.
“Yes,” Harek and Cnut said at the same time.
“Good. We’re having pot roast and homemade bread and apple pie for dessert. Mordr made it.” Maggie beamed at Mordr, as if he should be thankful that she had bragged on him.
Two sets of Viking eyes went wide and turned with surprise to Mordr.
He felt like a total halfbrain. Viking warriors did not cook.
“Introduce us, Mordr,” Harek encouraged.
“I forgot that you are not acquainted with Maggie, or the other children.”
“Yes, we would like to meet all the children. Five, did you say?” Cnut was grinning like a drukkinn boar.
“These are my brothers Cnut and Harek,” he told Maggie. To Harek and Cnut, he said, “And this is Margaret, or Maggie, Jessup, the oldest of the children.”
Maggie pushed her glasses up higher on her nose, then walked over big as you please and shook the hands of Cnut and then Harek, both of whom were clearly amused. “Pleased to meet you,” she said to each of them.
Mordr felt a swell of misplaced pride at her bravery and good manners, immediately followed by a rush of blood to his head, causing him to feel faint. He held on to the back of a chair to steady himself. All because of the quickly shuttered question in his mind of whether his Kata would be like this had she lived to ten years and more.
Cnut and Harek gazed at him with concern.
And Maggie, to his shock, told them, “It’s all right. He gets like this once in a while when he’s around us kids. It passes.”
“Like gas?” Cnut murmured under his breath.
Mordr shot him a glance of warning.
Maggie shifted from foot to foot, and Mordr asked her, “Was there something else?”
“We were wondering if you all would like to play croquet with us . . . until dinner.” Maggie’s little face reddened, a perfect match to her hair, which curled wildly down to her shoulders, a trait she shared with her aunt.
“We’ll be out in a few minutes, sweetling,” he said, walking over to pat her on the shoulder and open the door for her, a clear hint that they wanted privacy.
Instead of being insulted, Maggie’s green eyes filled with tears and she said in a hushed whisper, “You called me sweetling.”
“I did?” Mordr was surprised at himself.
“I like it.” Embarrassed, she scurried away.
When he turned back to his brothers, they were both grinning, again. And he knew why. “It was a slip of the tongue.”
They all sat back down, sipping at their cold beers and crunching on the rock-hard pretzels. A person could break a tooth . . . uh, fang.
“I assume you want me to look over the house and property to check for any weakness in security,” Cnut said.
He’d already sent Cnut pictures and details, but an on-site inspection would be even better. “Yes. That is why you are staying for dinner, is it not?”
“Hell, no!” Cnut said. “I would not miss a meal cooked by a Viking berserker.”
“You could not get us out of here with a war horse and a battering ram. Not until we see you interacting with your five children and your life mate. A redhead! You never used to like red-haired wenches.” On hearing Mordr’s growl of displeasure, Harek added, “Potential life mate.”
Mordr stiffened and gritted his teeth, barely controlling the urge to put a fist in both of their smirking faces. “They are not my children, and Miranda is not my life mate.”
“Uh-huh,” the two lackwits agreed, clearly not agreeing at all.
“You know what Mike said after Ivak wed Gabrielle. No more human emotional attachments for us vangels,” Mordr said.
“I think what Mike said was, no more sex with humans,” Cnut corrected.
“No, you are both wrong,” Harek contended. “No more life mates for vangels.”
“Same thing,” Cnut grumbled.
Mordr felt like pulling his hair out, one strand at a time.
After drinking their beers and catching up on vangel news, Mordr led the two of them down the hall and into the kitchen, where Miranda was bent over, taking two loaves of bread out of the oven. The pies were already cooling on wire racks.
“Something smells yummy,” Cnut said.
“Something looks yummy,” Harek said.
Mordr’s jaw dropped. Yummy? Since when did Vikings use such ridiculous words?
In an undertone to Mordr, Harek added, “Great rump!” And he wasn’t talking about the meat.
Miranda had changed from her dress to a pair of short braies that reached mid-thigh and a sleeveless blouse. Just as well. He did not want his brothers speculating about that bow on her dress. As he had, for his sins! He also didn’t want them surveying her body in the skimpy attire with lustsome intentions.
He gave both of his brothers warning looks, but all he said aloud was, “Is there anything more ludicrous than a hulksome Viking male using the word yummy?”
“Did you just call your brothers hunks?” Miranda asked.
“No! I called them hulks. You know, big, clumsy oafs.”
“Like you?” Harek asked with mock innocence.
“Precisely.”
“Uh-oh! I see a problem already,” Cnut said, peering out the window.
“What? What have those kids done now?” Miranda was tugging off a pair of oven mitts, about to storm out the door.
“Not the children,” Cnut said quickly. “The backyard. It is a security risk.”
“Still?” Mordr asked. “I thought wiring up the fence to the home alarm system and motion detectors would be enough.”
Miranda had one hand over her chest and a hand braced on the table, as if she was having trouble breathing. Harek was sitting at the table, tapping away at a small electronic device he must have pulled from an inside pocket of his cloak.
“You are not to fear,” Mordr assured Miranda. “Cnut is an expert in security. If there is a problem, he can fix it.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, brother, but I’m not so sure that moving to another, more secure location wouldn’t be easier and safer, at least temporarily.”
“Out of the question!” Miranda exclaimed. “These children have been moved around too much already. They need stability.”
“She doesn’t like to disrupt the children’s lives,” Mordr explained, which caused Harek to glance up from his work and Cnut to raise his eyebrows. Belatedly, he realized that he sounded like he knew Miranda really well when, in fact, he had been here for only a little over one day. Putting that aside, he went over to the window and stood gazing outward with Cnut. “What is the problem?”
“The fence would suffice for keeping out intruders, but those houses in the neighborhood are too close.” Cnut pointed to a three-story dwelling that was located across the backyard and over several houses, facing another street. “A villain could stand on that roof with a high-powered weapon and do great bodily harm. At the least, using a cheap pair of binoculars, he could watch all the movements around your house.”
“How would Roger get up on the Sullivans’ roof?” Miranda scoffed, although she had to be thinking about Mordr being up on her roof earlier today, facing in another direction.
“It wouldn’t have to be the roof. It could be through one of the upper windows,” Cnut contended. “And it could be any being with evil intent, not just Roger.” Cnut gave Mordr a meaningful glance. He meant Lucies.
“Mordr, do you really think Roger is that much of a threat? I mean, I know he’s angry, and I know he’s been physically violent in the past, and I know he blames me for the loss of his children, but you’re talking about guns and shooting.”
“Must be, or I would not have been sent to protect you,” Mordr repli
ed.
“So what do we do about it?”
Cnut piped in, “As I mentioned, you could stay in a more secure location until it is safe to return home.”
“Like where? A hotel? Some safe house?”
“The castle,” Mordr suggested.
“What castle?” she asked.
“The castle in Transylvania. I already told you about that,” he said, getting increasingly impatient with all her questions.
She exhaled with exasperation. Apparently she was getting impatient, too. “You mentioned some crazy place named Transylvania, but you never mentioned a castle. I would remember that,” she accused Mordr. Then, “You own a castle?”
“I do not own the castle. It is the headquarters for”—he caught himself just in time—“my family.”
“Well, you could say it is Vikar’s castle since he lives there more than any of us.” Cnut was enjoying this whole conversation, while Mordr felt as if he were walking on eggs.
There was no way the castle would work, anyhow. Five energetic children running around in the midst of fifty or so vangels, some of whom were young, a hundred years or so, and unable yet to control their fangs. “It would be impossible.”
“I know,” Cnut said, more serious now. “How about Ivak’s plantation in Louisiana?”
“He’s barely begun to rebuild that old dump . . . uh, estate,” Harek noted. “There is a huge snake problem that must be handled before the actual restoration.”
“Well, then, you will have to assign some of your men to strategic spots around the neighborhood,” Cnut told Mordr.
“He already has men guarding the children’s schools. I can’t afford that much security.” Miranda looked as if she was going to faint.
“Sit,” Mordr ordered. When she did and pressed both hands up to her face, Mordr added, “You can’t afford not to take every precaution. Besides, it will cost you nothing.”
“What?” Her head shot up.
Uh-oh! He was raising too many suspicions.
“Miranda, go outside and check on the children. We will be out soon, and all will be well, that I assure you,” he said.
