Page 4 of Kiss of Wrath

Michael’s eyes went wide before he shook his head as if Mordr were a hopeless idiot.

In fact, Michael said, “Idiot! Thou art in the greatest trouble of your life, and you dare to make excuses.”

“What would you have me do? In truth, I am not sorry to have my life end.”

Michael’s face softened for a moment. “Your children are safe and in a happy place.”

For the first time since he’d come across the ravaged bodies of Jomar and Kata, tears filled Mordr’s eyes and streamed down his face, mixing with the blood on his neck. A small sob slipped from his slit threat.

“Weep not for your children, but for yourself. You are a grave sinner, Mordr, as are your six brothers.”

Mordr stiffened, as much as a dead body could. “Are my brothers dead, too?”

“If they are not dead, they soon will be.”

“Why?” Mordr asked.

“You know why, sinner.”

Mordr did not need to think before nodding. “My berserkness. The killing. It started with the assault on Stonegarth, with the murder of my children. I had good cause to—”

“Foolish Viking! Vengeance is the Lord’s, not man’s,” the angel said in a steely voice. Then, “Do not try to excuse your actions. Even if you could be forgiven for killing those who killed your children, and I am not sure it ever could be, there have been so many other lives you’ve taken. Many of them innocent of any crime.”

“I understand why I must be punished, but you mentioned my brothers, as well. Why must you take all of us at one time?”

“Because you are grave sinners, each guilty in a most heinous way of the Seven Deadly Sins,” Michael explained with growing impatience, “as are many of your Norse race. God in His anger has decided to use you seven as examples, and—”

“Lucky us!” Mordr muttered.

Michael cast a black look his way for the interruption.

No sense of humor.

Michael continued, “In truth, there will come a time in the future when the Viking race will no longer be. That is the will of the Lord.”

Mordr’s numb brain tried to comprehend what the angel told him. “How exactly are you—or rather, your God—going to use me and my brothers?”

“Ah. I thought you would never ask.” Michael smiled, and it was not a nice smile. “God has commissioned me to establish a legion of vangels to fight Satan’s Lucipires, demon vampires. And, at the same time, to save those humans fanged by the Lucipires with a sin taint afore they commit some grievous act, a grave sin.” Michael motioned with his head to a sight directly behind the circle of light that surrounded him.

Mordr recalled, when he’d first emerged from his death sleep, the sound of gnashing teeth, like leashed beasts. He saw now what had caused that noise. A band of grotesque beasts were trying—unsuccessfully, so far—to break into the halo barrier. They were huge, animal-like humans, tall as upright black bears, with scaly skin oozing slime. Their eyes were red, and their open mouths showed elongated incisors, like wolves, but longer and sharper.

“Lucipires?” Mordr asked.

“Precisely. You do not want to be in their clutches, believe you me.”

Mordr believed. With typical Viking self-confidence, Mordr knew he could fight off three or four foemen, but these were not men, exactly, and they numbered in the dozens. He thought for a moment, then burst out with a chortle of laughter, which only caused more blood to spurt from his mouth. “You said you would turn me and my brothers into angels. Now there is a task! Turning Vikings into angels.”

“Tsk, tsk. You do not listen carefully. I did not say angels. I said vangels.”

“And they are?”

“Viking vampire angels.”

“Huh?”

“For hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, seven hundred years to begin with, you would serve the Lord as a vangel.”

“Seven hundred years?” Mordr exclaimed. “You mean, I would live for centuries.”