Page 9 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

“You think everything smells like the bayou, Beauregard,” the woman, Patience, said, drawing out the man’s name so it sounded like Bow-rah-gahd. “Not all toads come from the swamp, you know. We had toads in Salem, too.”

“Picky, picky! You said you smelled a witch, and you mentioned toads, and Holy Crawfish! Any Cajun with bayou mud in his veins would expect you meant swamp toads.”

“Cajun, Cajun, Cajun! That’s all you think about, Beau. I was about to mention that I also smell rosemary, thyme, and vervain,” Patience sniped.

I smell like toad? Swampy? Are you kidding me? Regina unsheathed two of her favorite blades, and arranged her cloak off her shoulders to give her more arm room. She arched her back to get rid of the kinks from standing in one position for so long.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are, cackle, cackle,” another female voice cajoled. Older sounding.

“’Tis not a game, Grimey,” Beau chided the older woman. “We’re not even certain of its witchliness.”

“I’ll give you Grimey, you worthless hordling. Scarce twenty years as a Lucipire and he thinks he can take liberties with his betters.” There was a swatting sound, followed by a male “Ouch!”

So, this dude was a hordling. In other words, a young Lucie. In the social order of demons, there were high haakai, haakai, mungs, hordlings and imps, the foot soldiers of Hell, so to speak.

“Sorry Ah am, Grimelda,” the man said, the twinkle in his voice belying any sense of apology.

Okay, this was getting ridiculous. Patience, Grimelda, and Beauregard? Maybe I’m not really in Horror Castle, but Bedlam, instead.

“Definitely a witch. Sniff, sniff, sniff,” the younger female voice said. “But there’s a different smell, too. Could it be . . . no, that’s impossible. A witch vangel?”

“Ah’ve never heard of such before,” Beau said skeptically.

“No worse’n demon Lucipires. Devil witches with fangs, angel witches with fangs. Could say we’re kinfolk,” the old lady laughed . . . uh, cackled.

Suddenly, three huge creatures literally fell into the shaft next to Regina, crowding her against the wall. They were demons, all right. Demon vampires with fangs and red eyes and scaly skin and claws and tails. But they also had the scent of witches about them. Such odors were only sensed by fellow witches. And, no, it wasn’t the swampy, putrid odor of warty amphibians. More like a combination of wood ash and lavender.

She would have been frightened, except the three beasts were almost comical as they elbowed each other trying to fit into the tight space.

“Oh, spit,” the younger female demon said . . . Patience, Regina assumed . . . as she morphed into human form. A twentysomething woman with jet black hair and eerie pale green eyes, wearing a modest muslin gown of seventeen hundreds vintage, with a wide, crisscrossed, white collar, and big-buckled black shoes. Very plain attire. Was she Amish? They had plenty of those living outside the home castle in Transylvania. No, not Amish. Puritan, Regina decided.

The other two followed suit, taking on humanoid personalities.

Beauregard turned out to be a lean, thirty-ish guy wearing a New Orleans Saints T-shirt hanging outside his faded jeans. On his feet were scruffy, flat-soled boots. His shoulder-length, dark hair was tied at his nape with a leather thong into a small ponytail. Dark mischievous eyes. Not bad looking.

Grimelda was eighty if she was a day, with straggly gray hair and rheumy, colorless eyes, wearing a black gunna with a long, open-sided apron in the old Viking style. They all exhibited fangs and reeked of a combination of dragon’s blood, valerian, and sulfur, along with the usual ashy lavender witch scent.

“Who the hell are all of you?” Regina asked, encompassing all of them.

“Better question, chère, is who are you?” Beau countered.

Regina wasn’t about to give up any information that could be used against her. “Just a visitor. Lost. On my way to . . . um, Skalgard.”

“Hah!” Grimelda said. “More like yer on yer way ta trouble.”

“We are a secret coven here at Horror,” Patience revealed. “Have you come to rescue us?”

“Rescue? From what?”

“Lucipiredom,” Patience said bleakly.

“You don’t want to be demon vampires?” Regina inquired. Maybe Zebulan wasn’t the only reluctant Lucipire.

“Does a skunk wanna stink? Does anyone wanna be a demon?” Beau scoffed, as if Regina might be dimwitted.

That fact was corroborated when Grimelda turned to her companions and remarked, “Must be she is daft? Mayhap she is not our savior, after all.”

A savior? Me?