Cnut was able to dance away at the last moment.
Which infuriated the haakai, who hissed and gnashed his fangy teeth, drool dripping down his scaly chest. He came at Cnut with more deliberation now, thrusting and parrying his sword, playing with Cnut, confident of his superior skills.
But Cnut was more skillful, and a more devious fighter. He lured the haakai to a certain position so that when he lunged this time, the evil creature slipped on the puddles of slime. Cnut immediately stood over him, sword poised over his dead heart. Before Cnut sank in the blade, he said, “Give Satan my regards.”
He was breathing heavily then, realizing belatedly that he hadn’t kept one of the Lucies alive long enough to interrogate. Oh well. Maybe there were others. Of course there were. Lucipires were like cockroaches. Kill one and two others pop up.
At first, he didn’t recognize the sound off to his left. But then he realized it was clapping.
It was Zebulan, of course, sitting on a boulder, clapping his huge clawed hands. Zeb was a high haakai, a member of Jasper’s command council. As such, he was a huge mother of a creature, at least seven feet tall, fangs the size of walrus tusks, a tail that could whiplash an elephant. And he stunk like rotten eggs. If Cnut didn’t already know him, he would be scared. Hell, he was still scared.
“What are you doing here, Zeb?” Cnut asked, sitting down on a fallen log a short distance away. He was cleaning the blood and slime off his sword with clumps of snow as he spoke.
“The better question is: What are you doing here?”
“I have no idea.”
“I had a hell of a time finding you.”
Now that sounded ominous. Why would Zeb be looking for him? “Why are there Lucies here in the ninth century in the middle of nowhere?”
“We go wherever there are dreadful sinners, and you Vikings do it so well. Plus famine brings out the worst in some folks.” Zeb morphed into his humanoid form, wearing blue jeans, athletic shoes, a sheepskin jacket, and his signature Blue Devils ball cap.
“Why aren’t you back at that ranch in Montana in 2016 doing your demon vampire thing?”
“Jasper has another ‘demon vampire thing’ for me to do.” He was staring pointedly at Cnut as he spoke.
Uh-oh. “Spit it out, Zeb. What’s up?”
“People . . . demons . . . are complaining about me. They think I’m slacking off. Jasper has given me orders. Bring back a Sigurdsson, or else.”
Nothing new there. Jasper has been salivating over a VIK coup for centuries. And he almost accomplished it when he captured Vikar a few years back. “Define ‘or else.’”
Zeb looked scared suddenly, an expression Cnut had never seen on his face before. Face it, demons, especially demon vampires, had seen it all when it came to evil, but what Jasper could deliver when angry defied imagination. Zeb shook his head, finally. “You do not want to know. There was a demon vampire one time, two centuries ago, who betrayed Jasper in some manner. Argon was . . . is his name. Argon is still in the torture room at Horror, being brutalized daily. Sometimes he is skinned. Other times, disgusting objects are stuck in every orifice of his sad body. Once he was burned at the stake. He lived in a snake pit for a year. He hung upside down on a cross another year. On and on. And Argon was not as close to Jasper as I am. Ah, well, no need to worry about that.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you, my friend, are a Sigurdsson, and you are lost, temporarily. Your brothers will not come to your aid until it is too late.”
Zeb is thinking about turning me in. To save himself! This is news Michael would like to hear. “But then, my friend,” Cnut replied, “you will never get to be a vangel. I thought that was your greatest wish.”
“It is. It is. I sicken at the thought of what I am forced to do as a Lucipire. But there are no promises from Michael that he will ever add me to his team. In truth, forgiving a demon has never happened before, let alone turning one into a vangel.”
That was true.
Also, Zeb wasn’t even a Viking or of some Norse descent, as all vangels were. The vangels could no longer call themselves Viking vampire angels if Zeb joined them. It would have to be Viking vampire angels, plus a Hebrew. Or would that be a Jew? No matter. It would probably never happen, and Zeb knew it.
At most, Michael had only hinted that he might consider Zeb’s request to become a vangel if he played double agent for fifty years or more. No promises. No guarantees.
Cnut saw Zeb’s dilemma. Give Cnut up, or give himself up. Cnut couldn’t deny he felt fearful himself. He wasn’t sure he could withstand the type of torture Jasper would employ to persuade a vangel to become a Lucipire.