Page 53 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

“Admit thy sin, woman! Thou initiated this action for thy own ends. ’Twas pride and ambition that drove you. You wanted the praise of your fellow vangels. You were raising a flag for womanhood and female superiority.”

All of that was true, and, in fact, many vangels had come up to her in private and given their congratulations.

“It started that way,” she admitted. “But once I’d entered Horror and saw Zeb . . .” She shrugged. There was no way to explain how her motives had changed on seeing his pitiful condition, and being inside a castle that reeked of evil. At some point, her motives had changed to a need to rescue the man, for his own sake, not her own pride.

Michael nodded. “Witnessing evil has that effect betimes.” He was silent for a moment, and seemed to be recalling in his mind some horrendous memory. But then, he shook his head and asked, “And what of the three demon witches you brought here? Just because I allowed one witch to become a vangel,” meaning me, “does not mean I have a fondness for the creatures.” Well, that’s not nice, calling us creatures. And his attitude regarding women stinks, too. Best I not tell him that now, though.

“Do you like witches?” Michael asked Vikar.

Great! Now he was being sarcastic.

“Not a bit,” Vikar replied.

The traitor. Just when she’d been planning to take the blame off him and onto her own shoulders.

“I had no choice but to bring them here,” she said.

“Thou had a choice!” Michael boomed. “There is always a choice.”

“Well, the three Lucipire witches . . . the Crazy Coven . . . helped me rescue Zeb, and it seemed the better of the alternatives. Besides, there are good witches.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk! When will thou learn? Those three down below are demons. Like you, they helped Zebulan escape for their own reasons. And while I might be able to forgive your transgression, being a vangel, what should I do about three demons in the midst of five hundred vangels? Once a demon, always a demon.”

Regina had no answer for Michael, and the most alarming thing in his statement was that demons could not change. What did that portend for Zeb? As Zeb stiffened at her side, she could tell that he had the same thought. And why did Zeb suddenly smell like rain in a tropical forest? Talk about bad timing! She glanced at the others, but no one else seemed to notice.

“We will come back to your fate and that of the three witches later,” Michael said to her. Then he turned to Zeb and said, “Shalom, Zebulan ben Judah.”

Interesting that Michael knew Zeb’s full Hebrew name, when none of the vangels had ever heard it. Well, of course, Michael would know. He was God’s right-hand man.

“Shalom!” Zeb said back at the archangel, who had his future in his celestial hands.

“Thou hast suffered much,” Michael observed.

“I have,” Zeb choked out.

“Why?”

The question surprised Zeb and for a moment he did not answer. Then he realized, as she and Vikar did, that Michael was asking why Zeb hadn’t just surrendered to his tormentors, to end the agony.

“I just could not bear to be a demon anymore. It was too much,” Zeb replied.

“Too much what?”

“Evil. Cruelty. Filth. That’s why I resisted the torture for so long.”

“Vanity, thy name is man. Did our Lord have naught to do with your withstanding so much torture?”

“I’m not sure. I sensed . . . perhaps I imagined . . . that He was there with me at times.”

“He was,” Michael confirmed.

For the first time, Regina began to feel hopeful.

Zeb blinked those incredibly long lashes of his to hide the tears that welled in his eyes.

“Vangels have always been Vikings. Thou art not a Viking,” Michael pointed out to Zeb.

Regina willed him not to mention all that practicing to be a Viking crap.