Page 22 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

“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? She 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!”