Page 38 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

“He was a petroleum scientist,” Zeb informed her.

“Really? I was thinking redneck alligator wrestler, or something equally low class. Does that make me a bigot?”

“Against alligator wrestlers, rednecks, or just good old southern boys?” he asked.

She made a face at his teasing. “What happened to him?”

“He got involved with some voodoo priestess, Lilith, and she turned him into a witch, or warlock, or whatever you call male witches.”

“I should have known. The way he figured out your diagrams for the shielding right off!”

“Oh, don’t go getting mushy over Beau,” Zeb advised her. “He and his voodoo babe had a running business in dead bodies down on the bayou there for a while, murder for witchly hire. But then Jasper got a whiff of his evil scent and that was the end of that. Of course, Lilith managed to escape detection. The same old story, really, women causing men’s evil. Goes right back to Adam and Eve. If it weren’t for Eve, Adam would still be lazing about the Garden of Eden.”

“You’re delusional,” she concluded.

“Probably,” he agreed . . . amiably, in his opinion.

Which didn’t warrant at all her snide remark, “Dumber than dirt.” She quickly added, “Forget that idea, though. Beau and the others are never going to let us go off without them.”

“Not even if the alternative is Jasper breaking the shield?”

“I don’t think so. They’ll say all or nothing. Five of us, or none of us, can leave.”

Zeb rolled his eyes.

“As for five of us going through the shield, and then going off in all different directions . . . forget that, too. I already discussed it with the coven. Grimelda threatened to put a curse on us that would turn our brains to oatmeal. Patience said she could put something in our food that would keep us on the potty for a week. Beau’s working on some kind of rope device that would bind us all together like beads on a rosary.”

“We could take them by surprise, open the shield and take off, leaving it open behind us,” Zeb pointed out.

“I’m not sure I could pull off a tandem teletransport with you so quickly,” Regina said.

“And that would be uncaring of what happened to those left behind,” Zeb remarked. “Not very vangelic of you?”

“Weren’t you thinking the same thing?”

“Well, yeah, but I’m not a vangel.”

“What are you?”

“No clue,” he said. Then, “So, nix that idea?”

She nodded. “Here’s something else to worry about. Our three friends are showing more and more demonic attributes. They’ve even burst into demonoid form a few times before mentally changing themselves back.”

“And that is a worry . . . because?”

“Because, aside from the chaos it’s causing, they might just kill us, accidentally.”

“What chaos?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, unfortunately, I do.”

“For one thing, Beau is in full lust mode,” she explained. “He’s hit on everyone, except Grimelda so far. I mean, big-time. He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s horny as hell.”

“All guys are like that, sometimes.” Or all the time.

She shook her head. “All guys are not demons, who take what they want when they want, even if that means rape. And, hey, don’t think you’re excluded from his radar. When you’re in one of your unconscious states, he could take you on.”