Page 45 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

The plain-dressed lady with the white apron (a regular apron, not the Norse kind) stepped forward and bowed her head at him. “Greetings, sir,” she said.

“Patience usta be a Puritan, but now she jist wants ta become a Victoria’s Secret model,” Beau told him with a wink.

Patience elbowed Beau. “Fool!”

“We three are known back at Horror as the Crazy Coven,” Beau continued. “We doan mind if y’all call us that, too, jist so you let us stay.”

That is just great. I can see it now. “Michael, I’d like to introduce you to the Crazy Coven.” At a loss for words, he just nodded at the man, but then he told Regina, “Take these new friends of yours to my office and make sure they stay there until I have a chance to make a decision.” Implied in his words was the directive that the door be locked and that she keep them from leaving, or moving about the castle. “And make sure you grab that old crone, too, before Lizzie wields her hatchet at her.” Before she left to do his bidding, he added for Regina’s ears only, “Only you would dare to bring a coven of witches into a vangel lair!”

“Maybe misery loves company,” she sniped at him. “Maybe I’m tired of all the witch jokes around here.” On those words, she stomped off.

“Maybe we’re tired of all the witch curses on our manparts,” he called after her.

He could swear she gave him the finger over her shoulder. But he was probably mistaken. He turned back to the patio.

A dripping wet Trond was helping Zeb walk toward Vikar. Cnut left Andrea’s side and went over to help. Zeb was in bad shape. Battered would be the best description and that didn’t even take into account his gaunt, half-starved body and shaved, bald head. Vikar could only imagine how bad he must have been when Regina had first found him. But the teletransport must have drained Zeb’s energy even more.

The interesting thing was that the three witches Regina had brought here carried the demon scent, heavily. No question they were still Satan’s disciples of one sort or another. If they’d wanted to escape Horror, it wasn’t out of a burgeoning distaste for the Lucipire life.

Unlike Zeb, who carried no scent at all. Not sulfur. Not lemon, which was the odor of dire human sinners. Nothing, except maybe a fresh scent of something like rain. Where that weird thought came from, Vikar had no idea.

Zeb, whose arms were now wrapped around Trond’s and Cnut’s shoulders, holding him up, raised his heavy lids to Vikar. “Lord Vikar, I would beg leave to enter your domain.”

Vikar didn’t know if by “domain” Vikar meant his castle or vangeldom, in general. Either way, it didn’t matter. He was here. For now.

“You may enter,” Vikar said. “Looks as if Jasper has used you for a whipping post.”

“If you only knew!” Trond interjected, and blurted out, “Zeb had barbed wire wrapped around his cock for the past year. And the TV tuned to nonstop movies, probably porn. Leastways, that’s what Regina said, not about the porn but the movies. Like a barbed wire condom, I’m guessing.”

Vikar’s eyes went wide.

“Regina took the barbed wire out and had to give him some stitches,” Cnut added.

Vikar’s eyes went even wider.

They all looked down at Zeb’s groin area.

“Wish I could have seen that,” Vikar said.

Within the hour, while Zeb lay passed out in one of the third-floor bedchambers, word of his barbed wire penis passed among all the vangels. Some even had the nerve to ask Regina if she could draw a picture of how it had looked, but they’d only asked once before having one of her famous curses laid on them. Even so, jokes on the subject abounded.

“What looks like a metal condom and hurts like a metal condom? Must be Zeb’s phallic sculpture.”

“Gives new meaning to the word Tickler.”

“How many cuts can a barbed wire make in one penis? Depends on the size of the penis. Size matters, dontcha know?”

“There are times when a needle dick comes in handy.”

“You could say it was a male chastity device.”

“Mayhap it was a lightning rod for demons flying during a storm.”

When Vikar’s wife, Alex; and Trond’s wife, Nicole; and Mordr’s wife, Miranda; and Harek’s wife, Camille; and Karl’s wife, Faith; all in residence at the castle for the duration, heard the jokes, they said as one, “Men!”

Chapter 10

The best laid plans of mice and men, rather demons and angels . . .