Kiss of Pride (25 page)

Alone in the elevators, he didn’t bother pressing any buttons and was not surprised when the elevators stopped on a particular patient floor and the doors opened. He turned right and began to walk down a corridor, scanning open doors of patients’ rooms on either side of him. Critically injured patients, by the looks of them. Finally, he stopped at one particular room. The card insert by the hospital door read: “Major Magnus Eric Sigurdsson.”

Vikar’s heart began to thump wildly.

“Are you family?” a passing nurse asked.

“Apparently.”

When Vikar went in and saw the condition of the man lying on the bed, he knew he was not long for this life. Both legs had been amputated. Bandages covered his chest where there was presumably a wound. Bruises and cuts marred all the skin Vikar could see above the light blanket. So many machines and tubes sustained him that it was almost obscene. And, thank God, there was no lemon scent. This was a man headed for a better place. Oh, not Heaven, but Purgatory, he would guess.

A quick glance around the room showed him a uniform hanging in the closet, its drab brown color brightened by myriad bars and stripes and shiny metals. On a dresser in the room was an open case displaying a Purple Heart.

He walked closer to the bed, and the man’s eyes lifted slowly. Blue . . . a very recognizable blue. Hard to tell what color his hair was since it was cut so short. The man had to be more than thirty, possibly thirty-five. He must be an army lifer to have such rank at this age.

“Jesus Christ!” the man murmured.

“I am not Him,” Vikar said, trying for a note of levity in face of the unacceptable expletive.

“Hey, man, do you know that you have wings? Blue wings. Sort of wings.” The man licked his cracked lips. “Holy crap! Now they’re white. And huge.” All those words seemed to have depleted his strength, and he sagged even more into his bed.

The blasted wings! Ever since Michael had graced him with wings, they burst out without warning. Embarrassing, really. Luckily, not everyone could see them. Otherwise, he’d be locked in a zoo somewhere. The Celestial Aviary House.

Vikar picked up a glass with a straw sitting on a bedside table. He wasn’t sure if he should be giving the dying man water, but at this stage, what could it hurt? Putting a hand behind the man’s neck, he lifted him slightly, and put the straw to his mouth.

He drank thirstily, then sank back with a sigh. He appeared more alert now. “Are you an angel?”

“Sort of,” he repeated the man’s words back at him. “In truth, I believe I am your grandfather.” Of sorts.

The man tried to laugh and it came out as a cough. “Not old enough,” he choked out.

“I age well, Magnus,” Vikar said with a shrug.

“Call me Mag.”

Vikar nodded. “I am Vikar Sigurdsson. I have no short name.”

“Huh? My wife . . . my late wife. . . . Cindy . . . died last month . . . drunk driver . . . she did a genealogy. One . . . my ancestors . . . some Viking dude . . . named Vikar . . . Sigurdsson.”

“That would be me.”

“Am I dead?”

“Not yet.” He put a hand on the man’s chest and let him feel his energy. At the look of fear that flashed on the boy’s face, he tried to reassure him, “You are going to a better place, Magnus. Believe me when I tell you that you have naught to worry about.”

The soldier shook his head, then winced at the pain just that movement caused. “I have . . . much . . . to worry . . . about.” He tried to sit up as something seemed to occur to him. His frantic movements set off an alarm, and a nurse ran into the room. “Major Sigurdsson, you must sit down.”

Thankfully, his wings had retracted.

Ignoring the nurse, Magnus told Vikar, panting for breath, “Get . . . folder . . . over there . . . first drawer. And a pen.”

While the nurse fiddled with the tubes and made clucking sounds of reprimand, the soldier signed a number of different papers. Then he ordered the nurse to witness his signatures. Afterward he handed the folder to Vikar and told him to give them to a lawyer whose card was inside.

Huh? Since when did he become some stranger’s messenger boy.
Not a stranger
, he reprimanded himself right away.
A descendant of my blood.

Lying back against his pillow, exhausted by these small efforts, he said in a voice so low Vikar scarcely heard, “I prayed for help. You came. You are the answer to my prayer.”

Vikar would have liked to hoot with laughter at the idea of his being the answer to anyone’s prayer, but all the machines started going crazy, and Vikar was busy with the work of last rites, praying over the boy’s body, helping his journey from this world to the other.

It was only later, after he’d left the hospital, that he glanced inside the folder and saw that the boy had left him a bequest. No, two bequests.

Who says miracles don’t happen? . . .

Three days later, Vikar and his six brothers stood at a gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery where a military funeral fit for a hero was being conducted for one of their own. There was no family present, and only a few military comrades who spoke of his valor in the field.

When the bugle played taps, there was not a dry eye among them. The Seven all wished they’d known this brave boy.

As they walked away from the gravesite, Harek held him back. “So, are you going to accept your bequest?”

“I have no choice but to accept. You know that better than any. Still, I
am
stunned.”

Harek, with his trusty laptop, had checked and found no living relatives of Major Sigurdsson, other than Vikar, assuming Vikar could really be considered blood kin.
Do thousand-year-old ties really count?
Harek had also affirmed Vikar’s legal rights in accepting the bequest.

It was a happenstance Vikar had never expected when he’d left the castle three days ago on a routine mission. In the old days, he would have said the Norse jester god Loki must be playing a twisted joke on him. Today, he suspected another celestial being.

“How will Alex feel about this?”

“She’ll be ecstatic.”
I hope.
“Not the birthday gift I had planned, that is for sure.”
Definitely no bubbles involved in this, unless they are of the blowing kind.

That evening, still reeling with shock, Vikar arrived back at the castle, carrying his bequest. Bequests, actually, as in plural. Blessed gifts from a dying man. For a certainty, he was now convinced that Mike had to have had a hand in this. Why, Vikar couldn’t imagine. Mayhap the gift was for Alex and not him.

Since his arms were full, he used an elbow to press on the doorbell. Not once. Or twice. But seven times.

Almost immediately, the double doors swung open and Alex stood there with a welcoming smile on her face. Which immediately disappeared as her jaw dropped open and her eyes went wide.

Into the stunned silence, he gave her his most winsome smile and winked. “Honey, I’m home.”

She did not smile at his jest, nor did she appear to be melting at his wink, as she was wont to do.

So he tried again, nodding at first one, then the other of the now squirming bundles nestled in the crook of each arm, one of which was drooling gobs of spit onto his neck, the other reeking like a privy in high summer. “Happy birthday!”

“Wha-what?” she stuttered.

Uh-oh. Backtrack here, Vikar. Start from the beginning, you dolt
, he advised himself. “Alex, I would like you to meet Gunnar and Gunnora Sigurdsson.”

She put a hand on each hip and tapped a foot impatiently. Behind her, he could see his band of vangels gathering with curiosity.

“Who do they belong to?”

“You?” he offered hopefully.

Her brow furrowed with confusion.

“Us?” he amended as a concession.

Still no enthusiasm as far as he could see. In fact, she said, “Have you gone crazy?”

“I’ve been there for some time, as you well know,” he joked.

More foot tapping. Apparently, she wasn’t in a joking mood. “Where did you get them?”

“A dying soldier gave them to me.”

“Vikar Sigurdsson! You really are crazy. People can’t just give you babies.”

Looking from one to the other of the ten-month-old mites, one of which was gnawing on Vikar’s earlobe, the other sucking wildly on a tiny thumb embedded in its mouth, he shrugged. “Apparently, they can.”

“The police will be on your doorstep.”

“No. They will not.”
Fortunately. Or is that unfortunately?
“These children are mine.”
Believe it or not. Even I have trouble believing it.
“Do you not think they are sweet?”
Except for the stink.
“These are my grandchildren many,
many
times removed,” he told her.

“Of course they’re sweet,” she exclaimed, waving a hand in front of her face to compose herself.

Which drew the attention of Gun and Nora, as he’d come to call them on the endless trip back to Pennsylvania in a sleeping car on the slowest moving train in creation. He’d urged his brothers to accompany him, but they’d just laughed and said he was on his own.

The little blue eyes of the babies blinked at Alex. Then they broke into toothless grins, recognizing a kindred spirit, he assumed. Or leastways, a motherly spirit, he hoped.

“Aaaahh!” she moaned.

He recognized a moan of surrender when he heard one, and breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Tears began to well in her eyes and overflow.

Mayhap not surrender after all.
“I thought you wanted children.”

“I do,” she said, and opened her arms wide, not to him, but to the children.

He could not care. Not being a fool, he handed her the stinksome one. Also, not being a fool, he put his free arm around Alex’s shoulder and kissed the top of her head. “I love you, sweetling,” he said.

“I love you, too,” she replied, even as the babe in her arms reached out a hand and caught a tiny feather floating down from above.

He and Alex glanced at each other in wonder, then burst out laughing. What else could they do?

Babies are said to be an affirmation that God still has faith in man . . .

Transylvania feature, Kelly      Page 1

Final Draft

A Lesson in Life

When I first arrived in Transylvania, Pennsylvania, I expected it would be a waste of time. A town with a vampire theme? Puh-leeze! How hokey can you get! [See sidebar titled “Transylvania: Not Your Usual Drac Hideout.”]

But I soon recognized that cynicism is a cloak many modern folks wear like armor, myself included. Forget about the depressed community that has managed to survive, and even thrive, in these hard economic times. The more important lesson is one of faith . . . the willingness to believe despite all odds.

If we cannot see, or touch, it must not exist. Doesn’t matter if it’s vampires, or angels, or God. Even demons.

I have learned in this small Pennsylvania town a lesson that can be learned anywhere. If we open ourselves to all possibilities, miracles can happen.

They did for me.

Keep reading for

an excerpt from

KISS OF SURRENDER

The next book in

Sandra Hill’s

Deadly Angels series

Coming in October 2012

from Avon Books

Prologue

In the beginning . . .

I
n the year 850, in the cold darkness of the Norselands, Trond Sigurdsson snuffled and snored and burrowed deeper into his bed furs. He was a man who held a deep appreciation . . . some might say an unnatural appreciation . . . for his creature comforts, and that included rest. Lots of rest.

In truth, he would not mind sleeping the winter away like a graybeard, which he was not at only twenty and nine, but a shiver passed over his body as he noticed that even the hair on his head felt frozen. Despite his druthers, he started to twitch and awaken. Which was a shame because, as jarl of these estates, there was naught he
had
to do.

So why bother rising? This time of year, the gods graced them with only an hour or more of sunlight, and he was not about to go out to the barns or stables and engage in menial labor. For all he knew, or cared, the teats had already frozen into icicles on his milch cows. Who needed milk anyhow?

Of course, there had been those pleas from the villagers yestereve—and the day before, truth to tell—begging him to come rescue them from an impending Saxon assault. Or was it the Huns? How ridiculous! Surely, even Saxons were not so demented as to engage in slaughter on a cold, dark, winter’s day. And Huns were more like to attack the keep itself. Still, he should go check, or send a hird of his soldiers to check. Trond might be lazy in many regards, but he was a far-famed warrior when the mood favored him, and he did have responsibilities as jarl of this region.

With a sigh, he contemplated his choices. He would have to rise, clothe himself, rouse his soldiers who were no doubt suffering the alehead, break his fast on cold fare, have horses readied, and ride through the blistering wind through withers-high snow for a half hour and more. All for foolish, no doubt unfounded fears.

Mayhap later.

Trond stretched out one bare toe to the left, and found naught but cold linens. And to the right. More cold linens. He understood now why he was freezing; ‘twas the lack of body heat. Frida and Signy must have slipped out to their own bed closets off the great hall during the night. No swiving to while away the waking hours, he concluded with a jaw-cracking yawn. Then immediately recoiled at his own stale mead-breath. No wonder his concubines had left his presence. No doubt he had let loose ale farts in his sleep, as well, as was his habit, or so some maids had dared to complain. Should he get up and rinse his mouth with the mint water he favored? And wash the night sweat from his odorsome body? Nay. Best he stay abed and rest.

And so he drifted off to sleep, once again.

When he awakened next, the room was alight with the brightest sunshine. How could that be? At this time of the year? Sitting up, he let the furs fall down his naked body and blinked against the blinding light. Only then did he notice the stranger standing in the corner.

He jumped off the mattress and stood on the far side of the bedstead, broadsword in hand. A tall man stood there, arms folded over his chest in a pose of impatience. He wore a long white gown, tightened at the waist with a rope belt, like a woman’s gunna or a robe worn by Arabs he’d met in his travels. Despite the loose garment, Trond could see that he had a warrior’s body. And he was a beautiful man, Trond observed, though he was not wont to notice such things about other men, being uncommonly handsome himself. In this case, it was hard not to admire the perfect features and long black hair hanging down to his shoulders. Or the strange light shimmering about his form.

“Ah, at last the slugabed rises,” the man observed.

Trond had felled men for such disrespect, but that would require more energy than he was ready to exert. “How did you get in here? Where are my guards? Who are you?” Trond demanded.

“It is not a question of how I got here, Viking, but why.” He said Viking as if it were a foul word. “Do not concern yourself with who I am but what I will be . . . the thorn in your backside. Forevermore.”

“What? You speak in riddles. Are you a god?”

“Hardly,” the man scoffed.

“Did Odin send you? Or Thor?”

“Do not blaspheme, Viking. There is only one God.”

Trond nodded his understanding. Actually, he practiced both the Norse and Christian religions, an expediency many Norsemen followed.

“I am St. Michael the Archangel,” the man informed him.

And I am King David.
“Is that so?” he replied skeptically. “An angel, huh? Where are your wings?”

To Trond’s amazement, a set of massive wings unfurled out of the man’s back, so large that the snowy white tips touched the walls on two opposing sides of his bedchamber, and feathers fluttered to the rush-covered floor. “Convinced, Viking?”

Trond just gaped. Was he in the midst of some
drukkinn
madness? A dream, perchance?

“You have offended God mightily with your sloth,” the angel pronounced. “You and your brothers have committed the Seven Deadly Sins in a most heinous manner.” He shook his head as if with disbelief. “Seven brothers . . . seven different sins . . . what did you do, divvy them up? Or did you draw straws?”

Trond assumed that was some attempt at warped angel humor. He did not laugh. Instead, he glanced at the doorway and asked, “My brothers? They are here?” Last he’d heard, his six brothers were scattered throughout the Norselands on their own estates, hunkered down until springtime when they could go a-Viking once again. When the angel declined to respond, Trond went on, “What’s so wrong with a little sloth, anyhow?”

The angel’s upper lip curled with disgust at his question, but then he pointed a finger into the air betwixt them where a hazy picture appeared. ‘Twas like looking into a cloud or a puff of swirling smoke, and what Trond saw caused him to gasp with dismay.

“Because you were too lazy to get up off your sorry arse, this is what happened today,” the angel told him.

It was the nearby village being beseiged by marauding soldiers. Saxon or Hun, ‘twas hard to tell. They were covered with furs and leather helmets. More important, his people were being slain right and left, heads lopped off, limbs hacked away, blood turning the snowy ground red. Women and children were not being spared, either. It was a massacre. One soldier even impaled a still wriggling infant onto a pike and raised it high above his shoulders.

Gagging, Trond turned aside and upheaved the contents of his stomach into a slop bucket.

“And that is not all,” the angel said. “Look what pain your indifference has caused, over and over in your pitiful life.”

Now the cloud showed Trond as a youthling watching indifferently as other Viking males beat Skarp the Goatman almost to death. Skarp had been a fine archer at one time, but later became the object of ridicule due to a head blow in battle that had rendered him halfwitted.

Then there was a view of himself not much older, fifteen at best, though already a soldier, observing his comrades-in-arms raping a novice nun in a Frankland convent following a short bout of pillaging, short because it had been a poor convent with little of value to pillage. Although he had not engaged in the sexual assault, he’d done naught to intervene, despite the blood that covered the girl’s widespread thighs. Odd how he could recall so vividly the red splotches on her white skin! And the screams. Now that he thought on it, there had been much female screaming. And male laughter.

“Was that the beginning, when you first began to hide behind your shield of apathy? For surely, you followed a path of indolence thereafter. Like a slug you are, slow to move, except for your own wants and needs.”

One image after another flickered through the mist. Him ignoring a fourteen-year-old dairymaid who claimed to be carrying his child. Later, he’d heard that her father had turned her out, and she’d died of some fever or other.

Then there was his mother seeking a boon from him, which had been inconvenient at the time. The expression of hurt on her face showed clearly, as did the coldness in his. Had that favor been so important to his mother? Why had he not bothered to find out? She’d died soon after of a wasting disease whilst he’d been off a-Viking.

Trond felt sickened when he saw himself and all his sins. What was wrong with him? Why didn’t he care? About anything or anyone? It was selfishness, of course, but more than that. To his surprise, he felt tears wet his bearded face.

“I suppose you have come to take me to your Christian hell in payment for my sins,” Trond said with resignation.

“Not exactly,” the angel replied. “God has other plans for you.”

Trond arched his brows in question.

“Satan has put together an evil band of demon vampires to roam the earth harvesting human souls before their destined time. Lucipires, they are called. Our Father has charged me with formation of a different type of band to fight those evil legions. Vikings, to my eternal regret.”

Trond’s brow furrowed with confusion. “
You
are going to lead Viking warriors in battle against some demon vampires?”

“Not exactly.”

Trond didn’t like the sound of that. “What exactly?”

“Viking vampire angels,” St. Michael explained. “Vangels.”

Trond started to laugh. “You are going to turn Vikings into angels? You would have better luck turning rocks into gold.”

The archangel was not amused by his laughter. “Viking
vampire
angels,” he emphasized. “For seven hundred years, you and your brothers will lead the fight against the Lucipires.”

“With your magical powers,” Trond said, waving a hand at the cloud picture and at the shimmery light that surrounded the angel, “why don’t you just annihilate the demon vampires yourself?”

“That is not the way God works.”

Trond mulled over everything that the angel had told him. “Seven hundred years is a long time.”

“It is. Or you can spend eternity in Satan’s fire.”

Death by fire was ne’er a pleasant prospect. He’d seen Olaf the Bitter consumed by fire from a pitch-lit arrow. Yeech! And
eternal
fire? “Not much of a choice there.”

St. Michael shrugged. “Do you agree?”

Trond was no fool. He could tell that the archangel would just as well see him on a quick slide to hell. “I agree.” But then he asked, “What exactly is a vampire?”

The archangel smiled at him, and it was not a nice smile. Before he had a chance to ponder that fact, Trond’s body was thrown onto the rushes where pain wracked every bone and muscle in his flailing body, especially his bleeding mouth and shoulder blades where it felt as if an axe was hacking away at the bones.

“It is done,” the archangel said after what seemed like hours, but was only minutes, and disappeared in a fading light.

Done? What is done
? Trond felt himself rise above the floor, viewing his dead body, which lay on its one side, curled in a fetal position. Fangs stuck out of his mouth, like a wolf, and there were strange bumps on his shoulder blades.

But then in a whoosh of movement Trond was back in his body, and he was flying through the air, out of the keep, into the skies. Where he would land, he had no idea. He was fairly certain Heaven was not his destination. Nor Valhalla.