Page 86 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

And then Cnut was gone, teletransported to the outside.

Zeb looked at Regina and then at the bare table, then back to her. “I was thinking . . .”

“Are you crazy? In a religious place?”

“You’re the one who started me on this track. You’re the one spreading your cinnamon lure like a pheromone perfume. You’re the one who looks like Wonder Woman in those black jeans and turtleneck.”

She just gaped at him.

“Besides, this isn’t a religious place, like the chapel out there,” he said defensively.

A fog of fresh rain scent swept through the room, and Regina almost swooned with sudden yearning. “Maybe later,” she conceded.

The holy water idea worked remarkably well. Regina worked with Dagmar, and the two of them managed to herd at least a dozen Lucipires through their assigned corridor out toward the exit. It was not to say they didn’t engage in any fighting. Especially in the beginning when the Lucies were in demonoid form, making them clumsy and big targets. Soon they were transforming themselves into humans with deadly swords and firearms.

One particularly stubborn Lucie looked Mexican and spoke with a Spanish accent. Regina didn’t speak Spanish, but Dagmar apparently did, and she loosely translated his words for Regina. “He’s saying: ‘Whores! I will see you in Hell.’”

“Not today, Jose,” Regina said to the dark-skinned man who had one ridiculous gold front tooth. She wielded one of her knives in a direct hit to the tooth, causing it to pop back into his open mouth. Her next blade went into his chest, which was already burning from the squirts of holy water from Dagmar’s gun. He began to dissolve into slime almost immediately.

Stepping over him, she and Dagmar smiled at each other.

Most of the Lucies ran away on seeing them coming, especially when they got sprayed by the long-range water pistols. Or maybe they ran on the sight of these two strange women who were whooping and dancing down the halls like this was a game. It was. A war game.

Once they exited onto a wide lawn, it was a totally different game, though. A to-the-death battle between the vangels and Lucies who were engaged in one-on-one combat as far as Regina could see, to her left, and to her right, even across the highway. Any tourists or passersby still on the scene were scattering like frightened cats. Pretty soon the police or news media would arrive. They would have to end this battle quickly or there would be a whole lot of explaining to do.

Regina noticed that all the vangels, herself included, had blue, misty wings at their backs. Fangs were elongated on the vangels, as well as the Lucies. Vangels had no reason or inclination to fang a Lucie. That was intended for human sinners wanting to repent, not an option for these deadened souls. But if one of the demon vampires bit a vangel, the poison would travel quickly through the body, putting it in stasis. That was the time when a vangel was taken back to Horror for the torture transformation to Lucipiredom. Not happening today, she hoped. These “dead” but not bitten vangels would be healed if treated soon enough, or they would go off to that holding place for vangels . . . Tranquility.

Dagmar rushed to help her sister, and Regina made her way, popping off Lucies with her revolver which had a silencer on it, toward where she saw Zeb and Cnut trying to get closer to Hector. The former Centurion was in full battle gear from the Roman era. A white, knee-length tunic was covered with leather armor, front and back, tied on the sides, with cap sleeves, a bronze chest plate, shin and wrist guards, sandals, and a red-plumed helmet. In one hand, he carried a long sword, already dripping with vangel blood, and in the other, a large metal shield with some family crest on it.

He looked frighteningly strong and cruel, which he was, of course, having been a Lucie all these centuries, and a high-level haakai at that. A number of dead or mortally wounded vangels lay scattered around him, a testament to Hector’s military might. Hopefully, the vangels would be the winners today, and they could take these wounded back to Dr. Sig’s island hospital for medical aid or send them on to Tranquility. The alternative . . . a trip to Horror . . . would be, well, horrifying.

Cnut was equally strong, having been a vangel since AD 850. Yeah, Hector had a good eight hundred years on him, but Cnut had higher powers on his side. Hopefully.

Regina worked her way toward Zeb, fighting Lucies right and left. She’d packed dozens of her knives before coming to Rome, and she had almost a full round in her firearm, which she’d checked before exiting the catacombs. Afterward the vangels would do a cleanup of all these loose weapons and shells. Assuming they were “alive” to do so.

There was no time for thinking then as the sounds of battle took over. Grunts, occasional screams, war cries, expletives, the clash of metal against metal, the pop of weapons with silencers (because of the public setting, all the vangel firearms had noise suppressors on them today), and the occasional Viking shout of “To the death!” or the military “Hoo-yah!”

Soon they’d cleared the way for Cnut and Hector to engage each other with swords. It was a lost battle for Hector by now, with few or no Lucipires left to back him up. Even if the Roman managed to overpower Cnut, there were enough vangels regrouping and surrounding them that he had to know the end was near. And teletransport back to Horror to regroup wasn’t a choice for Hector, either, as evidenced by the holy water burn marks on the exposed skin of his thighs, calves, elbows, and forearms.

He wouldn’t go down easily, though.

“So, Cnut, dost think you can better me just because you have a Pretty Boy Viking hairstyle?” Hector raised his shield to deflect the thrust of Cnut’s long sword.

“Nay, Roman, I will better you with my superior skill.” Cnut made a deft twist of his wrist while lunging which caused the tip of his blade to slice the shoulder strap on Hector’s breast plate. The chest covering was now hanging lopsided.

“Ah!” Zeb said at her side. “I see his strategy now.”

Regina did, too. Just killing a demon was not enough. In order to destroy Hector, totally, so he could never return as a Lucipire, there would have to be a direct piercing of his heart by a blade or bullet that had been treated in the symbolic blood of Christ. The breast plate prevented that from happening.

Hector parried Cnut’s next strike and countered with a strike of his own. He missed but the flat side of his blade whammed Cnut’s thigh, bringing Cnut down on one knee.

Ouch! That was going to leave a bruise. Good thing the blow didn’t pierce the skin. Lucie blades were also specially coated . . . theirs with a deadly mung.

The crowd of vangels gasped with surprise, but Cnut was almost immediately back on his feet, and now he was angry . . . angrier than he had been before. He fought fiercely, at one point managing to flick the breastplate aside and off Hector’s body, totally.

It was thrust, slash, clash, retreat, metal against metal, over and over until Cnut finally grunted out to his vangels, “Clear . . . the . . . area. Wasting . . . time!” In other words, stop gawking at him and clean up all the vangel weapons and, yes, bodies, before the authorities arrived. Sirens could already be heard in the distance.

“You’re wasting time, for a certainty, Dead One,” Hector snarled, misinterpreting Cnut’s words.