Page 97 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

“All of them? Even Jasper?”

She nodded.

“How about Patience and Grimelda?”

“Gone. To Hell, I presume, with all the other Lucies.”

Beau made the sign of the cross and looked up at the statue before them. “Ah been prayin’ fer jist such a miracle.”

“And what about you? I thought you were going to Alabama, or somewhere far away from your temptress.”

“Ah decided ta stay here and face mah demons.” He laughed at his own joke. “Actually, Ah took St. Michael up on his suggestion that I make contact with Tante Lulu here on the bayou. And that has made all the difference. Honestly, she could turn the worst sinner inta a saint. She’s a notorious busybody, but she’s got a heart of gold. Everyone says so. And, of course, she’s got you-know-who on her side.” He tilted his head in the statue’s direction.

“But what are you doing? I mean, do you have a job?”

“Well, not a job exactly. Ah’m goin’ back ta school. Actually, the seminary.” Beau blushed, then told her. “Ah’m gonna become a priest.”

“No way! A witch priest?”

“Yep. Ah got a calling. And Ah’m not a witch anymore.”

“And the voodoo priestess you wanted revenge on?”

He shrugged. “Ah forgave her. Turns out she wasn’t worth all the hatred.”

There was a message in there for Regina, but she decided not to heed it. For now.

“And what about the vangels?” Beau wanted to know. “If there are no more Lucipires, what’s the point of vangels?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “There’s lots of speculation, but the decision is in Mike’s hands now.”

After a long conversation with Beau, and then with Tante Lulu over pitchers of sweet tea and slices of her famous Peachy Praline Cobbler Cake, they all promised to keep in touch.

“Remember,” Tante Lulu said, giving Regina a last hug before they left, “the thunderbolt doan lie.”

Regina was quiet and Gabrielle seemed to respect her need for silence as they drove back to the plantation. Finally, Regina said, “I need to go back to Transylvania.”

She could swear she heard a voice in her head say, “Hallelujah!”

Was it St. Jude, or St. Michael, or her own bloody conscience? It was all the same, she decided.

He wants her, he wants her not, he wants her, he . . .

Zeb’s confinement in the tower room was about to be over. In two more days, Michael would arrive for the Final Reckoning. One way or another, his fate would be decided.

He hadn’t minded his so-called imprisonment that much. It was actually a pleasant room, with windows on three sides and a view for many miles around. The wacky town of Transylvania with its cornball vampire-related shops and restaurants, and then on the other sides, the trim Amish farms and countryside.

Besides, he deserved imprisonment, in his opinion. Jasper’s message to him about Sarah’s last words, blaming him for abandoning his family, were imprinted on his soul, forever. He had sinned gravely, and for his sins, he’d suffered as a Lucipire and now would suffer through eternity with self-recrimination.

His only regret was that he hadn’t been able to talk to Regina, to explain himself. He did care for her. Who was he kidding? He loved her. Not that he could offer her any kind of future together. He had nothing to offer her in that regard. Even if he did, he didn’t deserve a happily ever after.

But what about her? Shouldn’t she be given a choice?

But there were no choices.

Were there?

At the very least, he owed her an explanation.