The Angel Wore Fangs(56)

The Lucipires had almost caught one of the vangels, a lackwit Viking boy who fashioned himself Michael Jackson reincarnated, moonwalking and all. The boy had escaped, but a good bite had been taken out of his leg. He wouldn’t be dancing any time soon. In fact, he might very well perish. I can only pray . . . uh, hope.

Life was good! Or, rather, nonlife was good.

“Tell me again why we’re sitting out here on our arses with a smoky fire, being bitten by flies the size of baseballs,” Zeb complained, swatting at yet another of the buggers who zapped him in the neck.

“Because I always wanted to try wienies on a stick and marshmallow s’mores. You should have stayed in demonoid form, like me. The bugs can’t penetrate scaly skin.”

Zeb was laughing like a loon a short time later when Jasper and the others around the campfire were trying to lick gooey chocolate and marshmallow from their claws. “Next you’ll be wanting to have a sing-along,” Zeb gasped out.

Jasper couldn’t be offended. It was a mess. A bad idea. Besides, he was too happy over today’s results to let a little thing like sticky claws spoil his mood. They’d harvested two dozen evil humans, most of them terrorists guilty of despicable crimes, who were already in butterfly jars back at Horror, halfway to stasis.

Jasper’s troops didn’t take all of the ISIS folks. In fact, they’d deliberately left behind some of the worst. Based on a principle Zeb had told him about from his association with Navy SEALs, called force multiplication, Jasper hoped that those remaining terrorists would continue to convert more people to their dogma, which in turn would multiply the ranks of evil humans. The Lucipires would swoop in periodically to take more of them for their own conversion. Voilà! A win-win situation for everyone. Everyone evil, that was.

Later, when they were back at the lodge and Jasper was in humanoid form, he had his bare feet soaking in a basin of Epsom salts water. The damn cowboy boots had given him blisters. Did John Wayne ever have this problem? “What happened to that Cnut Sigurdsson who was here with some human woman?”

“No one knows for sure. Yet. Not even his brothers,” said Zeb, who was eating one of the leftover hot dogs on a bun with mustard and onions, a can of cold beer beside him on the kitchen table. “He’s probably hiding somewhere, from Michael, for failing in his mission here.”

“Who was the woman?”

“No one important. An innocent human looking for her sister, who also disappeared.”

“Together? I mean, all three of them?”

Zeb shrugged.

“So, tell me your plan,” Jasper encouraged Zeb.

“Well,” Zeb said, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin, “I believe the vangels will return. They weren’t expecting so many of us Lucipires and were so greatly outnumbered, they decided to retreat. I can’t help but think it was a temporary retreat.”

“So we should be prepared for an attack?”

“Yes, but they’ll be hovering over the wounded vangel first, trying to heal his wounds. Good luck with that!” Jasper commented gleefully. Lucipire venom was almost impossible to remove, even if a bite wasn’t deadly. “Should we retreat like they did and come back another time?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary. We have a hundred demon vampires scattered around this ranch. If I hear that they’re bringing bigger numbers, I can call on Tess to pull from her legion in New York. Or I can call in the rest of mine from other assignments.”

Jasper accepted Zeb’s counsel. “Have you established a new headquarters yet?”

“No. I’m using New Orleans for the time being. But I might try Los Angeles later.”

“Good, good. Both sinful cities.” Jasper sighed with pleasure over a day well-spent. “I bet the Sigurdsson bastards are upset over the events here today. I bet they’ll come back themselves for retribution. Holy Hades! I would love to have me a vangel, especially one of the VIK. On second thought, bring in more fighters, just in case.”

Zeb nodded, finished off his hot dog in one big bite, and washed it down with a long swig of the beer. He was about to rise from his chair and leave but Jasper put up a halting hand.

“Beltane,” he said to his assistant, who was fussing about the kitchen, cleaning up dirty dishes left by those there before them, “leave us alone. I would have a private word with Zebulan.”

Zeb’s head shot up at the use of his full name, and he went immediately alert. Jasper was fond of the Hebrew demon, always had been, but Jasper was troubled by news of late.

Jasper stepped out of the water onto a towel and allowed himself to morph into his full demonoid form, which was formidable, even to other Lucipires. More than seven feet tall, sometimes eight, and massive in breadth. His tail extended all the way to the dining room, knocking over a bench.