Page 7 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

Allowed? She’d like to give him “allowed” smack-dab in his hard arse which was pointed right at her as he climbed down the ladder. “Hah! Try and stop Thor from coming inside.”

“I did, and it took two sennights for the scratch marks to heal. Anyhow, you are never happy, Regina. Didn’t I give you that small room for drying your herbs and brewing your potions?”

“In the dungeon!”

“We do not call it a dungeon anymore. ’Tis the basement.”

She counted to five in Old Norse to tamp down her temper. “You are not utilizing my talents, master.” She’d added that master title to soften Vikar up, if that was possible. “For years I have been given the menial tasks. Guard the security gate. Act as backup for the front line team of vangels, which, incidentally, in case you haven’t noticed, are all men.”

“Have you suddenly become a feminist?” he tried to jest as he untied the tool belt around his waist.

Men and their tool belts. They could be fat as autumn hogs and smell like days-old gammelost, and still they thought the addition of a tool belt turned them into Svein the Sexy, with the usual, “Wouldst like to climb aboard and check out my longboat?”

Not in this century, or any other! “I have always been a feminist.”

“Gloria Steinem of the Dark Ages, huh?” he quipped.

She would yank at her own hair in frustration if it hadn’t taken her an hour to twist the red bush into a neat single braid down her back.

Vikar continued on his roll of humor. “Really? I did not know they had bra burners back in the twelfth century. Or bras, for that matter. Mayhap they burned their chastity belts. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Very funny!” She was not amused. “I’m beginning to think you are a misogynist.”

“A who? I do not do massages . . . well, unless they are for my wife in the midst of bedplay, and even then—”

“Aaarrgh! With all due respect, Vikar, betimes you are an asshole.”

He grinned, probably thinking he’d successfully changed the subject and would be able to send her on her meek way.

“Even the American military, and those across the ocean, use women in combat today.”

“We are not the Army, or Navy, or whatever. We fight for a higher power.”

“I demand to be given a mission of worth,” she said, jabbing a finger into his chest and backing him up until he hit the wall. It did not matter that he was six-foot-four and she a scarce five-foot-seven. A witch’s finger could be a deadly weapon. In fact, just for a second, she pointed downward, and saw him shiver with dread. Viking men always feared her threats of a curse on their manparts. Some were doubtful of her ability to actually put one in knots or curl it up into a little worm, but they took no chances.

Vikar put up both hands in surrender, laughing (but only halfway). “What exactly do you want, Regina?”

“I want an assignment that tests my talents. No more gentle, feminine jobs that keep me out of direct fighting. I have decided on just the mission.”

“Oh?” he asked hesitantly.

“I am going to rescue Zebulan.”

“No!” Vikar exploded and shoved away from her, stomping out into the hall and heading toward the kitchen. “No, no, no, a hundred times no!” he yelled back at her along the way.

She followed after him, doggedly, as they passed the office, the computer room, a small chapel, both a large and a small dining room. Everywhere vangels were at work, as they always were when not out on a mission, with brooms and mops, at computers, sanding mildewed wainscoting, sharpening swords, painting walls. In another parlor turned family room, Armod, the young Icelandic vangel who fashioned himself a Michael Jackson reincarnated, was teaching the young, human children how to moonwalk to the music of “Thriller.”

When they got to the massive kitchen, she saw that Lizzie Borden, the cook, was chopping a deboned beef carcass into stew-size pieces with her culinary axe . . . uh, cleaver. (Yes, that Lizzie Borden. Enough said! If Regina had said it once, she’d said it a hundred times: Norsemen had a warped sense of humor, but then, mayhap angels did, too, since St. Michael picked those sinners to turn into vampire angels.)

At the other end of the fifty-foot center island, Lizzie’s new assistant cook, Andrea . . . a pastry chef, actually . . . was baking something that smelled delicious. Cream-filled crepes, maybe. Or coconut and peppermint iced donuts. Andrea and her husband, Cnut Sigurdsson, were always salivating over those two flavors, for some reason. Andrea had been an accomplished dessert maker before wedding Cnut, the last of the seven Sigurdsson brothers to bite the marriage bullet.

Andrea nodded Regina’s way and then gave a surreptitious little fist pump at Regina. Andrea was aware of Regina’s plan to “assault” Vikar today with her proposal.

Lizzie knew about Regina’s plans, too, but Lizzie’s suggestion had been that Regina shouldn’t bother asking for permission, she should just put an axe to Vikar’s neck and tell the Viking to give his approval, or else. Chop, chop.

Yeah, that would work. In a castle full of vangel soldiers! Regina would get about as far as the gazebo out back.

Vikar went directly to the commercial-size fridge and took out a carton of Fake-O, which he downed with a grimace in one long gulp. When vangels saved a sinner or killed a Lucipire, their skin turned a nice, healthy tan color. Otherwise, they had to feed on blood, or the fake synthetic blood invented by one of the brothers. Fake-O. That was another gripe she had for Vikar. With the lack of real fighting assignments, Regina was forced to drink more and more of the simulated crap, and it was repulsive to say the least.