Page 33 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

“Did I not stand in this very room and order you vangels to stand back, not to attempt a rescue of Zebulan?”

“Yes, and I told Regina not to go, but she—”

“You knew about her plan? You knew? And you did not tell me?”

Vikar felt his face heat with color. “She came to me with some lackbrained idea for a woman, a female witch at that, having better luck gaining access to Jasper’s hiding place. I told her that you had expressly ordered us not to intervene.” Vikar still didn’t understand why, but then it was not his place to question God, or His right-hand archangel.

“And?” Michael was pacing angrily while they talked, leaving a trail of flurrying feathers in his wake. “I named you leader of the vangels. Leaders exert authority. What authority did thou exert over your underling?”

“Regina pointed out that you said, ‘You men, all of you, are forbidden from rescuing Zebulan.’ She noted that you did not specifically forbid females.” That sounded lame even to Vikar’s ears, and he noted several of his brothers cringing at his ill-thought-out defense.

Michael stopped his pacing and glared at Vikar. “The nerve! The audacity! When will you Vikings learn about obedience? My words to you are law. And they are not to be picked apart for nuances. They are what they are!” He was shouting by now, and mostly at Vikar.

Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, Vikar wanted to say, but didn’t dare. “I never dreamt Regina would pull such a fool act.”

“She is a Viking, isn’t she?” Michael said, the implication being that anyone of Norse descent was a fool.

To his surprise, Cnut spoke on Vikar’s behalf. “I should have gone to rescue Zeb. After all, the Lucie traded his life for mine. It galls to know that a female attempted what I did not.”

“No,” Trond said, “I should have gone. He was my friend.”

“I’m smarter than all of you combined. I would have had a better chance of finessing an escape,” Harek interjected. “I might have been able to break the code of the shielding at Horror, if that’s where Regina went.”

“What good is it being a berserker if I do not direct my anger toward a good cause? And what better cause than rescuing a would-be vangel?” Mordr bowed his head in shame.

“Well, if we’re playing the blame game, I was the most logical choice for a rescuer, being a physician,” Sigurd declared. “I could have ministered to Zeb’s injuries, which would be massive, on the spot to aid in an escape. I can’t imagine how a single female would have been able to carry Zeb’s body out, assuming he is unable to walk with all the torture he would have sustained by now.”

“Let’s face it. There would have had to be an ingenious plan to get inside Horror Castle or wherever Zeb is . . . was . . . being held. Everyone knows that women cannot resist my charms. I guarantee a female Lucie would have opened the doors to me.” Ivak, guilty of the sin of lust, who often self-proclaimed himself the best-looking of them all, probably believed his own propaganda. “I should have gone.”

“Aaarrgh!” Michael tugged at his own long dark hair in frustration. “Would you listen to the lot of you? Idiots, all! If any of you had gone, it would have been in direct disobedience to my orders.”

Silence followed.

Then Michael announced, “Regina managed to enter Horror, find the dungeon cave where Zebulan had been tortured these many months, and escape with him. The cave was in the bowels of the tundra there, undetectable . . . until now.”

They all reacted at once.

“They escaped?”

“Wow!”

“That’s wonderful!”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Where are they?”

“Are they okay?”

“This calls for a celebration.”

“Regina deserves a promotion, Vikar.”

“Or maybe not. Sorry, Michael.”

“My wife is going to say, ‘I told you so. Women rock!!’”

“Yeah, I’ll never hear the end of it. Nicole is always saying the world would be better off if females ruled.”