Kiss of Pride (6 page)

It was amazing to Vikar, even after all these years, how good they sounded. Vikings loved to sing, of course, but usually ribald lyrics after consuming vast amounts of beer, but now they were like frickin’ angels.

If they weren’t vampires and if they didn’t already have other jobs, they could probably make it big in the Christian music business. Imagining his motley crew on
The 700 Club
boggled the mind.

It was then that he turned slightly and saw Alex standing in the hallway outside the chapel. A stunned Alex.

He whispered to Trond that they had company.

Trond, the idiot, turned and gave her a little wave.

He told Trond to get the “gang” on its way ASAP, as they’d discussed the night before.

“What? We haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“If you wait for Miss Borden to cook a meal, it’ll be noon before you’re out of here. Stop at McDonald’s.”

Even though vangels partook of normal human food and drink, they needed blood to survive, in particular the blood of the sinners they saved. For example, when Vikar was done cleansing Alex, his body would be greatly rejuvenated, a nice side benefit of a good deed. Fake-O was a poor substitute. Vangels, unlike the traditional view of vampires, did not attack humans for blood.

“Make sure you take a good supply of Fake-O with you, just in case,” he advised Trond.

Father Peter shh-ed at them.

He and Trond shrugged in apology, but then Trond grinned and added in an aside, “I can’t wait to see the look on the clerks’ faces at Mickey D’s when more than fifty vampire angels show up en force, swords in hand.”

“You
could
leave the swords hidden.”

“What would be the fun in that?”

Vikar stood then, and after bowing his head and genuflecting, made his way back to Alex. “You could have come in,” he told her.

“I don’t do religion.”

He arched his brows at her, even as he led her down the corridor toward the kitchen.

“I was born Catholic, and was a churchgoing pick-and-choose Catholic as an adult, but then . . . well, I got clobbered with enlightenment.”

He assumed she referred to the death of her husband and child.

“Are you all Catholic? I noticed a priest in there.”

He shook his head. “We are no precise religion. A bit of this and a bit of that.”

“Like Unitarians?”

“Hardly. We are way more conservative than that.”

“I don’t believe in God.”

He flinched at her words. Apparently, she was farther along than he’d thought. All it would have taken was a bit longer of a demon fanging, and she would have reached her tipping point. He still didn’t know what mortal sin she was contemplating. That was a subject he would address later. For now, he needed to get the vangels out of the house so he could launch his one-week makeover project with an empty castle.

“Your voice is incredible,” she remarked. “All of you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such magnificent hymns. Are you famous singers I’ve never heard of?”

“Hardly.”

“You sounded like angels.”

“Exactly.”

She cast him a scoffing frown. “Not the vampire angels again!”

Now wasn’t the time for this argument. “Why don’t you go up and shower? Then we’ll break fast. And talk.”

“Is there a working bathroom in this place? The one attached to my tower prison has only a trickle of water, and the toilet appears to be circa 1900.”

“It probably is that old,” he said. “Use the bathroom next to my bedroom on the second floor. You can take the servants’ staircase here off the kitchen. It’ll be the first room on the right.”

She hesitated. “What you did to me last night . . .”

“Everything will be all right, I promise.”
I hope.
“Just give me a half hour to get some things taken care of with my brothers in the VIK, and—”

“The VIK? You mentioned that before. What is it?”

“Later.” He steered her up the first step. “There are plenty of towels, soap, hair products, even a robe, I think.” He and Trond had showered earlier using that bathroom. He hoped there was still hot water left. He’d soon find out if he heard a shriek from above.

She went up several steps as he watched, then turned. “If I don’t get some satisfactory answers, I’m out of here,” she warned.

“Absolutely,” he said.
Not until you are purified.

An hour later, he sat on a stool at the counter in the kitchen, a laptop in front of him and a cordless phone at his ear; cell phones didn’t get any reception through all this rock. Thankfully, the old landlines still worked here, although he would eventually upgrade them, and he’d been able to get DSL service. Vangels today depended on the Internet for many of their supplies.

He was on the phone with a Harrisburg contractor he’d found online. J.D. Donovan & Sons had recently lost a big job at Penn State due to decreased public funding, so their schedule had a sudden hole. He was speaking to J.D. Sr. himself.

“Is this a joke? You have a seventy-five-room house you want renovated in seven days?”

“No joke. I don’t need everything done right away, but the specialized stuff has to be completed. Construction of some rooms with new walls”—he was thinking of the dungeon/dormitory—“plumbing, heating, electricity, tile work, some floor finishing and plastering or sheet rock, if there’s enough time.”

“There’s no way that—”

“I will pay three times the going rate. Cash.”

There was a long sigh. Vikar could tell he’d caught the contractor’s interest. “Buddy, you could be talking a half mil or more.”

“That I am.” Vikar took his black American Express card out of his pocket and read the numbers over the phone.

While he was waiting for a response, the contractor no doubt checking out his credit rating, Alex walked into the kitchen. Her hair was still wet and combed off her face and down her back. She wore tight, calf-length white pants and a lime-green T-shirt that proclaimed, “D.C. Marathon.” On her bare feet, he noticed pale peach enameled toenails.

Immediately his cock did a happy dance. Aroused by toes? What next?

“You have an American Express Centurion card?” he heard in the phone still pressed to his ear.

“Yes, I do.”

“How ’bout I come up there in say, two hours, no later than noon, and we can talk?”

“I will be here.” Vikar gave the man the address and directions.

Before the contractor hung up, he added, “Do me a favor, pal? Don’t call anyone else. I might be able to handle it all with subcontracting. Unemployment is high in Pennsylvania at the moment.”

“Agreed! But a seven-day completion schedule is a deal breaker for me. Ten days in a crunch, but that’s it.”

After he ended the call, he turned and saw Alex standing in front of the open cooling box . . . refrigerator. She’d already turned on the coffeemaker and it was bubbling away. He would have done it himself but last time he’d tried, he’d ended up with hot water and nothing else.

“I’m starved,” she said.

“Me too.”

She arched her brows at him. “Where’s Lizzie?” She cocked her head to the side, listening. “And everyone else?”

“They’re all gone, except for you, me, Armod, two warrior karls, and one blood ceorl.”

She opened her mouth to ask more questions about where everyone had gone, why they’d gone, and what were a warrior karl and a blood ceorl, no doubt, but instead asked, “Has anyone eaten yet?”

He shook his head slowly.

“How does a mushroom and cheese omelet sound?”

“Wonderful,” he started to say, but his stomach growled first, giving her a better answer. They both laughed.

“Go see if anyone else wants to share breakfast with us,” she ordered.

He did, and soon he, Alex, Armod, Svein, Jogeir, and Dagmar were seated on stools along the counter, devouring cheese-oozing omelets, toasted and buttered French bread—
turned out Armod knew how to work a toaster oven
—along with cold orange juice, warm Fake-O, and hot coffee. Everyone talked amiably, except for Alex, who was soaking up all the information she could from their conversation, and Dagmar. Blood ceorls were unable to talk.

While Svein and Jogeir went off to their guard stations, and Armod and Dagmar were cleaning up the dishes and countertops, Vikar booted up his laptop and pulled out a legal pad and pen from a box of supplies he’d brought from the office.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked, sipping at her second cup of coffee. He could only handle one. Caffeine affected vampires like a sugar high for kids. His nerves were already jangling.

“I’ve sent everyone . . . almost everyone . . . away for one week. Maybe ten days. I need to have this heap of rocks renovated by then, or at least habitable.”

“You’re joking.”

“That’s what the contractor said on the phone a little while ago. He’ll be here soon to assess the situation.”

“It would take a miracle.”

“Money creates miracles betimes. If you throw enough cash at the right person, it might be doable.”

“So, what’s on your list?” she asked, pulling her stool closer so that she could see his computer screen.

For a moment, he was disconcerted by the scent of her apple-scented shampoo. First peaches, now apples. He was becoming a fruit connoisseur. He stupidly said the first thing that came to mind. “Your hair doesn’t look so red when it’s wet.”

“I do not have red hair,” she said indignantly. “I have strawberry-blonde hair, I’ll have you know.”

He smiled.
Peaches, apples, and strawberries. Can anyone say fruitcake?
“Having red hair is a bad thing?”

“Hah! Try having red—rather, strawberry-blonde hair—as a kid and being teased all the time. ‘Red head, peed the bed!’ Or ‘Red head, never wed!’ ”

“Huh?”

She ignored him and studied his list, reading aloud, “ ‘Reframe dungeon into dormitory with flat-screen TVs and game room. One large bathing room with six shower stalls, six toilet stalls, and sinks.

“ ‘Rewire entire castle, indoors and out, including security lighting. Refit the other eleven bathing rooms with fixtures: toilets, sinks, showers, tubs.

“ ‘Refinish floors, tile bathrooms, painting.’ ”

“How about furnishings?”

He groaned.

“Won’t you at least have to provide beds and mattresses for all those rooms? A dining room table and chairs? Living room furniture? Lamps and ceiling lights? Bed linens and towels?”

He groaned again. “ ’Tis impossible!”

“Hey, you’re the one who believes in miracles.”

“What are you saying?”

“Honey, you have just met Ms. Super Shopper. I can spot a bargain at one hundred paces. With an unlimited budget? Be still my heart! Plus I have great taste.”

He smiled. “You would be willing to help me?”

She nodded. “You should smile more often. You’re handsome when you smile.”

And I am not handsome all the time?
he wondered with consternation, foolish pride rearing its head, then immediately chastised himself,
Look where my appearance has got me thus far.

Her face turned a light shade of pink, a wonderful complement to her red . . . uh, strawberry-blonde . . . hair, which was incidentally now forming unruly waves.

Oh crap! First, fruit gets my sap running. Now colors. What next?
“Why would you help me?”

“Tit for tat.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “Explain yourself, wench.”

“You mentioned something about St. Michael the Archangel and perhaps being able to tell where my daughter is.”

Uh-oh!

With much reluctance, he conceded, “I did.”

“Great!”

Great for whom?
So that’s why she was being so amiable.

Mike is going to kill me. Again!

Five

Have credit card, will travel . . .

Transylvania feature, Kelly      Page 1

Draft Two

With the world spinning out of control, crime rampant, jobs disappearing, and the economy tanking, angels sent to the rescue would be a boon to mankind. But angels don’t really exist. Do they?

The residents of a castle in Transylvania, Pennsylvania, known more for vampires than angels, would beg to differ . . .

“Hey, Ben,” Alex said into the cordless phone she held to her ear in Vikar’s office while he was off giving the contractor a tour and signing contracts. It appeared that money did truly talk. The job would be done in one week, or the guy wouldn’t be paid.

“Alex! Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to call you.”

“Sorry. Here’s the landline telephone number in case my cell isn’t working.” She gave him the number because, even when she’d plugged her phone into a kitchen outlet this morning, she still didn’t get any bars.

“I thought you were staying at some bed-and-breakfast.”

“I was, but when Lord Vikar invited me to stay here at the castle, I decided to go with the flow.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

Probably not.
“What could go wrong?”
More than already has.

“Is there a story there?”

“Oh yes! Definitely.”
The question is what.

“Tell me.”

“First of all, Transylvania itself has got to be the nutcase capital of the world. It could make a fun feature.”

“And? I can tell there’s more.”

She hesitated, not sure how much to tell him. Oh hell! He wouldn’t believe her, anyway. “The castle is a monstrosity which Lord Vikar is going to renovate in one week.”

Ben laughed. “Obviously, he’s never worked on a renovation before.” Ben and his wife, Gloria, had been renovating a Virginia farmhouse for twenty years now, and they still weren’t done.

“But that’s not the real story. You are going to think I’m crazy, Ben, but the folks here at the castle claim to be Viking vampire angels. Vangels.”

“Have you been bitten yet?” He was teasing, of course, and never expected her answer.

“Actually, yes.”

“What?” he roared. “You get yourself out of there right now. Do you want a police escort?”

“No. It wasn’t one of the vangels who bit me,” she said quickly, although that wasn’t quite true. With selective honesty, she explained, “It was a demon vampire, a Lucipire, and it happened back at the B&B which is incidentally called Bed & Blood.” She had to suppress a giggle every time she said that name for the B&B. “It’s run by a couple who sell stinking roses, garlic bulbs the size of baseballs, at a roadside stand, to ward off vampires, and spiffy hand-carved caskets on the Internet.”

“You’re shittin’ me.”

“No shit!”

“You don’t believe this vampire/angel/demon crap, do you?”

“No, of course not.”
Maybe.

“And there’s a story there?”

“Definitely a story. I’m just not sure what it will be yet.”
Should I tell him about the imminent arrival of St. Michael the Archangel? Nah. He’s having a hard enough time with vangels and Lucipires. So am I.

“How long will you be there?”

“I’m not sure. Today we’re going shopping for towels. Me and Lord Vikar.” She grinned at the domestic picture. A vampire trolling the aisles of Bed Bath & Beyond.

Ben knew how much she liked to shop. Or used to. She could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “Go to town, sweetheart. And have a little fun.”

Surprisingly, Alex
was
having fun, she realized after saying good-bye and promising to keep in touch every day. Since Vikar wasn’t back yet . . . she could hear talking through the open doorway, coming from the kitchen area . . . she browsed the office. Once the library, it could be restored to a handsome room with its walnut paneling and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that were mostly empty.

She did see one box-type filing container, the kind that held folders for folks who didn’t want to bother with actual filing cabinets. Taking it down, she had to dust it off with someone’s T-shirt lying on the floor. The box looked old.

And it was. Turned out, these were papers the original owners had used when buying supplies and furniture. A gold mine for a restorer. Her heart started to beat wildly when she found one particular document.

“Vikar!” she squealed, and went running down the hall.

He and the contractor, a fortyish man wearing khakis and a golf shirt with the logo “J.D. Donovan & Sons,” came running toward her.

“What?” Vikar asked with concern, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Are you hurt? Did something fall on you? Oh, clouds! Did Armod accidentally bite you?”

“No, no, no!” She handed him the folder and did a little boogie dance step toward the kitchen.

J.D. stared at her as if she’d flipped her lid. Vikar was more interested in ogling her behind as she danced. They both followed after her.

“I think I found all your furniture,” she announced, flopping the open folder on the counter in a ta-da fashion. “The original owner, before he was forced to go into a hospital for a long stay, had everything removed and taken to an Amish barn in Belleville that he’d rented. He’d planned on having the whole interior painted before he returned, which he never did.”

“After all these years, do you think it would all still be there with no additional rent having been paid?” Vikar asked skeptically. His eyebrows rose as he perused the list: parlor chairs and settees, Tiffany-style lamps, carpets, a dining room table and chairs, a baby grand piano, for heaven’s sake! Beds, armoires, dressers. Even fireplace accessories. Who knew what kind of taste a guy who built this castle would have, but, hey, it would give them a start.

Odd, how she’d referred to
them
and not just
him
, she pondered for a moment.

“Hey, you never know with the Amish,” J.D. remarked. “They’re a very moral people. And their farms stay in the family.”

“It’s worth checking, right?” Alex asked Vikar.

Thus it was that Alex found herself riding in a black Lexus SUV with shaded windows next to a vampire angel with a ponytail, wearing aviator sunglasses and what he swore was his normal attire: black jeans, black Gucci loafers without socks, a black silk T-shirt,
and
a full-length black cloak with a raised collar and epaulettes on the shoulders in the form of silver wings, which hid his WTF sword in a belt sheath and an equally WTF Sig Sauer pistol in a shoulder holster.

She glanced over at Vikar and smiled.

He smiled back at her.

Forget about Beavis and Butthead. She was having the best Great Adventure.

A vampire needs a sense of humor, too . . .

Vikar was treading a high wire with no net. He knew it, sure as sin, and that’s just what he was tempting. Sin.

He was knee-deep in the near occasion of sin and had never been happier. Like a pig wallowing in quicksand, pretending it was mud, that’s how foolish he’d become. The risks he was taking defied explanation. Was it because betimes the anticipation of sin was as delicious as the sin itself? Or was it something more? Not that lure of sex wasn’t enough.

“Why are you grinning?” Alex asked him. She was sitting across the table from him at a booth in the Blood Bath, a tavern just outside Transylvania known for its red beer on tap.
Ugh!
At least he didn’t draw any attention here, as the staff and some of the customers looked more like vampires than he did. Besides, the restaurant was mostly empty, it being past the lunch hour and too early for the dinner crowd.

“I’m pleased with all we accomplished today at the farmer’s,” he replied, which was not really a lie, just not what he’d been thinking, “thanks mostly to your help.”

He couldn’t stop staring at all the bare skin exposed by the short-sleeved, scoop-necked, mint-green sweater she wore over a short white skirt, the green just a shade lighter than her clear emerald eyes. While her face and neck were creamy white, her arms and chest had freckles, lots of them, which made him think she must use some cosmetic product to cover up her face. She shouldn’t bother because, really, her freckles were attractive, to him leastways.

“Thank you, kind sir, for the compliment.” She did a little seated curtsy for emphasis.

For a moment, he forgot what he’d said and had to shake his head to clear it of carnal musings. “I called the contractor when you went to the ladies’ powdering room, and he already has a dozen men tearing out the old plumbing pipes, some of which are lead and might cause someone to die of lead poisoning.” He waggled his eyebrows at her as if to say,
Ha, ha, dead people dying of lead poisoning
.

She didn’t laugh, but then she was still not convinced she’d landed in a den of dead people.

“Will there be running water while they’re working?”

He nodded. “J.D. promised to renovate the bathing room next to my bedchamber last, along with the kitchen and nearby half bathroom, all of which are workable at the moment. Those should suffice for the six of us.”

“Good thinking. I’m glad you went with my suggestion about keeping some of the old fixtures.”

He nodded. In many ways, they were a good match. Certainly it had been her good thinking that led them to the Amish farmer today.
And, yes, I fear other ways in which we match, too, and it has naught to do with furniture, except mayhap tongue and groove. By thunder! My brain is a melting puddle of running sex-sap.
“At least we have some furniture to start with now,” he said, trying his best to sound calm and not so lustsome, “because, truth to tell, I consider shopping as painful an experience as plucking nose hairs.”

“Nice image there!”

He shrugged. He was a Viking, not a girlie man.

“It’s truly amazing that I found that file and then just as amazing to find out that the lump sum the lumber baron gave the farmer all those years ago literally saved the farm.”

To him, it was also amazing that this amazing woman had walked into his life just yesterday and made him feel . . . well, amazing.
I wonder . . . do those amazing freckles cover her amazing bosom as well?
Her breasts were not all that big, but they appeared so because of her slim frame. He knew a lot about women’s breasts. Past history, of course.

“The farmer and his family couldn’t have been more thankful,” she continued, oblivious to his wandering mind, “and they always thought one of the family would come for the contents eventually. Unfortunately, there was no family. It makes you wonder about the man who built the castle, Mr. Waxmonsky. What his dreams were, why such an edifice, did he have a woman in mind who would share it with him, so many questions.”

He smiled at her. “You see stories everywhere, don’t you?”

“I do. Printer’s ink in my blood, as the old saying goes.” She smiled back at him.

A companionable silence followed until he exclaimed, “But fifty years!” Though fifty years should seem like a week to a man like him who had more years on him than Methuselah. “I cannot believe that the farmer’s descendants held everything for fifty years.”

“And he couldn’t believe you were willing to pay him twenty thousand dollars in past rent. Do you always carry that much cash around in the well of your SUV?”

He shrugged. Money meant little to him. Harek, whose sin had been greed, had a flair for finances. In fact, he’d bought Apple stock when folks probably thought it was a seed company. To say they had a hefty bank account, spread across the world to avoid attention, was a vast understatement. “You’re right, Alex. I swear, the farmer practically had a orgasm when I started peeling off those hundreds.”
Oh, clouds! Did I have to say that word? Now I will be having more lustsome thoughts. Forget tongue and groove. I will be thinking about rolling waves and longboats and tight channels. I swear, this woman has put a spell on me. Or else I am falling apart due to overlong celibacy.

“Do Amish have orgasms?”

Oh, this is just wonderful. Now she is saying that word, too. I am doomed.

“Isn’t it against their religion or something?” she inquired with an irrelevance he found fascinating. Conversations with her always meandered in the oddest directions.

“Sweetling, there isn’t a religion in the world, in any age, that can stop a man from spilling his seed with great joy.”
Hopefully inside a willing woman.
“Besides, how do you think they beget all those children?”

“You have a point there.”

Of course I do, and if you are not careful, I might decide to elaborate. Or demonstrate
. “Do you think the stored items are worth that much?” he asked, bringing the subject back to safer territory.

“Absolutely. Oh, some of the carpets and paintings might be damaged beyond repair. Even though the barn was water-tight, and everything was covered, there were temperature changes, and mice. Lots of mice. Did you see how much mice dirt was on that big mirror? Yuck!”

He grinned. “If you think mice dirt is bad, you should have seen how many barrels of guano we had to remove from the castle.”

“Actually, guano makes a good fertilizer. You probably could have sold it to some local farmers.”

“Hah! ’Twas bad enough shoveling the crap out of a window to land in a Dumpster. I cannot imagine the protests if I’d asked my ceorls to put it into neat little bags.”

“You have a great sense of humor,” she remarked after wiping tears of mirth from her eyes.

“Me? You think I am funny?” That was not the way he wanted to appear, especially to a beautiful woman.

“Not funny. Appreciative of the humor in life. Being able to laugh at yourself.”

Well, that wasn’t so bad, he supposed, and whacked himself mentally for caring. Foolish pride, again!

The waitress, a young girl who wore a low-cut blouse that exposed her neck and painted-on fang marks dripping blood, brought their order. Juicy bacon cheeseburgers, French fries, and iced tea for her and a bottle of beer for him.