Page 52 of Kiss of Wrath

“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.”