Page 67 of Kiss of Wrath

Mordr had said nothing. The jerk!

“You know, sometimes you take the Brother Grim persona a little too far,” she’d remarked.

“Needs must,” he’d replied enigmatically.

Now it was only eight-thirty, dusk outside, but she was cocooned with him in the dim interior of his SUV, thanks to the tinted windows. Into the silence, she remarked, “A Lexus SUV, huh? Your line of work must pay well.”

They could have taken her car, but Mordr had taken one look at it and said, “No, thank you.” She didn’t blame him. She drove a dinged-up Excursion van, a big monster of a car, necessary for carting about five little unruly passengers, two of whom had still been in booster seats when she’d first adopted them. Those booster seats were now replaced with sports equipment and other paraphernalia that children had to cart around.

“This vehicle belongs to my brother Trond. I did not want to drive my own vehicle cross-country.”

“And your vehicle would be?”

“A Hummer.”

She laughed. “That figures.”

He arched a brow at her but reverted back to his usual infuriating silence. Even on a date of sorts, he didn’t exert himself to talk unless absolutely necessary. Had he never heard of polite conversation? Okay, it wasn’t a date, but still . . .

Finally, she asked, “Do you really think you can convince me that there are demon creatures skulking about town?”

“I know I can.”

“Tell me again how this all came about,” she said.

He darted a quick look her way as if to see if she really wanted to know or was only making conversation. It was a mixture of both.

“Many centuries ago, Lucifer created demon vampires called Lucipires under the direction of his comrade Jasper. Not being satisfied with bad folks going to Hell the usual way, after human death, he decided to speed up the process. Why not grab sinful humans, those really, really bad ones, early on, before they have a chance to repent?”

She sighed with the impossibility of accepting such a claim. Still she asked, “How do they do that?”

“The Lucies fang sinners, putting them into a condition of stasis. Then the demon vampires suck the blood out of their bodies. Once depleted, the bodies disappear. Many of the missing people reported throughout the world are actually victims now living in Horror, or one of the other Lucie haunts.”

“Horror, like the horror of spending eternity in the fires of Hell?”

He shook his head. “No. Horror is the name of the main Lucie headquarters, currently located somewhere in the far North near the Arctic regions, which is definitely not hot. There are other Lucie command centers around the world with such names as Anguish, Terror, Torment, and Desolation.”

“Creative names, anyway,” she joked.

He didn’t smile. Surprise, surprise.

“Sometimes, the Lucipires fang an evil human being but are unable to complete the process, whether through the humans fighting them off, interruption, or some unexpected happening. Then, the fanged human carries a lemony scent, which is a tempting lure to any Lucie within a mile. That human can still be redeemed, and it is the job of vangels to reach them first and try to reverse the process. Usually, it is too late, but not always.”

“You said the victims disappear after this fanging and draining business. Where do they go then?”

“Usually to one of the Lucipire haunts, like I said, where they are turned into demon vampires after an intense, excruciating torture training.”

Good Lord! The man does tell a good story. Maybe he’s a writer of fantasy novels. Stephen King in a cloak. “So, there is an afterlife?”

“Yes.”

“But not just Heaven and Hell?”

“Correct.”

Definitely fantasy material. “You realize this is an impossible story to believe.”

He shrugged.