Page 47 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

“My traitorous cat. He’s developed a love connection with Grimelda.”

“Oh boy!” he said. Then, “They have dungeons here?”

“Onetime dungeons. Never used for that purpose, I’m sure. But now they’ve been renovated into dorms and training rooms.”

“They must be climbing the walls, or planning some mischief.”

“The ‘cell’ they’re in has padded walls for Close Quarters Training.”

“Good. Just in case they revert to demonoid form and try to fight each other,” he guessed. It was a real possibility.

“My thoughts, exactly.”

“Are you sure they won’t teletransport out of here? They helped you bring me here. So, they haven’t lost that ability, like I have.”

She shook her head. “They’d never be able to break through the shielding around this place. The only reason we got in was Vikar ordered an opening so that Cnut and Trond could return.”

“You should still keep an eye on them,” Zeb advised. “They can create trouble inside the perimeter, too.”

“We will. Well, not me precisely. I’m on a kind of in-house parole until Michael makes a decision about my fate.”

Ah, so that’s the reason for her idleness.

“You, too, I suppose. On parole, I mean.”

At least!

“But anyhow, if they were let loose, I suspect Beau would shoot off to Cajun land the minute he got an opening, to enact some Cajun vengeance on that woman he blames for his becoming a Lucipire. And Grimelda is dying . . . ha, ha, ha . . . to test out one of Lizzie’s cauldrons, and as for Patience, she will be . . .”

“Off to model swimsuits,” Zeb finished for her, “or plant herself in the Playboy Mansion, but, no, that doesn’t exist anymore, does it?”

They smiled companionably, knowing they were responsible for the oddball witches. In a way. Until the Lucipires’ future was decided, too.

As Regina talked and sipped at her coffee, he began to realize that she was a very attractive woman, when she wasn’t being sarcastic or downright mean. Odd that he’d never noticed her on his earlier visits to the castle. Did she deliberately try to make herself invisible? Yes, he was sure that was her ploy. Except that her true nature came out in her witchy outbursts of biting observations and constant threats of curses on male parts. Trond had told him one time that Regina had at least fifty different, inventive curses for the male vangels who taunted her, including knotting one man’s penis into a pretzel and not the salty kind.

In any case, her skin had that creamy glow some redheads had, and as he’d observed before, only a few freckles, one of them on her right earlobe, which fascinated him. Another to the left of her mouth. Her fangs were hardly noticeable, except when she smiled, which was rare, and even then, they did not detract from her beauty. He especially liked her lips, which were full and bruised looking.

Enough! No more on Regina’s appearance! He was ravenous and soon consumed every bite on his plate, and was sipping at a second cup of coffee. Cnut’s wife, Andrea, came over and placed a warm, iced cinnamon bun in front of him. Maybe that’s what he’d smelled when he entered the kitchen, and not Regina’s spicy scent. “For good luck,” Andrea said. “We’re all rooting for you.”

They were?

Who did she mean by “all”?

It didn’t matter. He would find out soon enough. Besides, he reminded himself, he had hope.

And then he took his first bite of the sweet bun and almost swooned with pleasure. “Now, this is heaven.”

Regina laughed. “Close to.”

When he’d scarfed down the whole thing and was licking frosting off his fingers . . . to Regina’s fascination, he noted . . . he asked her, “And the brothers . . . the VIK . . . where are they?”

“In the war room . . . the dining room, actually.”

“Why aren’t you there . . . or somewhere working? Oh, I remember. You mentioned parole.” Something occurred to him then. “You’re being punished for your efforts to save me,” he concluded.

She shook her head. “No doubt there will be punishment, but not yet. Not until Michael arrives. In the meantime, I’ve been waiting for you. They’ll send word when I’m to bring you to the meeting.”

He listened to what she said, and what she didn’t say. “They’re still suspicious of me, aren’t they? That’s why they’re meeting now . . . to decide if they can trust me?”