Disgusted, Harek made his way to the sleeping quarters on his largest knarr anchored at the docks. There, instead of celebrating a new, successful business venture, he succumbed to a long bout of sullen mead drinking, which led to alehead madness. Leastways, it had to be madness, for the drukkinn apparition that appeared to him out of the darkness was not of this world.
A misty, white shape emerged. Ghost-like.
“Harek Sigurdsson!” a male voice yelled out of the mist, so loud that Harek jerked into a sitting position on the pallet in the alcove of his enclosed space and almost rolled off to the floor. He blinked and tried to see the hazy blur standing in the open doorway leading to the longship’s deck. The only light came from the full moon outside.
He stood, and at first he was disoriented. Who wouldn’t be with a head the size of a wagon wheel, with what felt like a battle-axe imbedded in his skull?
A man . . . He could swear it was a man he saw standing there, and yet at the same time, there was no one there. Just a swirling fog.
“Who goes there?” he yelled out, thinking it must be one of the crew stationed on board overnight.
Silence.
Now he was starting to be annoyed. “Present yourself, man, or suffer the consequences.”
No one answered. Good thing, because he realized he had no weapon in hand. Should he grab a knife? What kind of weapon did one use with a ghost? Would a blade even suffice?
He shook his head to clear it, to no avail. He was still under the influence of ale. Or something.
He could see clearer now, and it was a tall, dark-haired man wearing a long gown in the Arab style who beckoned him outside. The gown in itself was not so unusual but the broadsword he held easily in one hand was, especially since it was his own pattern-welded blade. Then, there were the huge white wings spread out from his back.
What? Wings? Huh? It couldn’t be possible. He closed his eyes and looked again. Definitely wings.
Was it even a man? Or some kind of bird?
He had heard of shivering men suffering from wild dreams of writhing snakes or even fire-breathing dragons, but usually it was men trying to wean themselves away from years of the addictive brews or opium. Harek rarely drank to excess and never had an interest in the poppy seed.
But Harek had a more important issue at the moment. His bladder was so full he would be pissing from his ears if he didn’t soon relieve himself. Making his way through the now empty doorway, he staggered over to the rail. Undoing the laces on his braies, he released himself and let loose a long stream of urine. When he was done—shaking his cock clean, then tucking it back into his braies—he breathed a sigh of relief, then belched. Which was a mistake. His breath was enough to gag a maggot.
Which cleared his head enough to let him know he still had company. The man-bird stood there, scowling at him with contempt. The wings were folded so that he could scarce tell they were there.
“Who . . . what are you?”
“Michael. The Archangel.”
Harek knew about angels. In his travels, he had encountered many a follower of the Christian religion, and a pathetic religion it was, too. Only one God? Pfff! “I am Norse.”
“I know who you are, Viking.”
He did not say “Viking” in a complimentary manner. And, really, Harek needed to get to his bed and sleep off this alehead madness. Best he get this nightmare over with as soon as possible. “And you are here . . . why?”
“God is not pleased with you, Harek. You are a dreadful sinner, as are your brothers, as are many of your fellow Norsemen. ’Tis time to end it all.”
“End it? Like, death?”
“You say it.”
“All of us?” he scoffed.
“Eventually.”
“We all must pass to the Other World eventually.”
“That is not what I meant. Life as you know it will end shortly for you and your brothers; in fact, it has already for some of you. And the Viking race as a whole will dwindle away gradually over the centuries until there is no country that will claim you.”
Huh? “That requires an explanation. Are you threatening me and my family?” Was this apparition implying that some of his brothers were already dead? Harek tried to recall the last time he had made contact with or heard from any of his family and realized it had been months. Inching backward from the looming figure, he hoped to reach a nearby oar, which he could use as a makeshift weapon. But he felt dizzy and wobbly on his feet. “I need to sit down.”
“What you need, fool, is to pray.”
What a ridiculous conversation! He could not wait to wake up and tell his friends about this strange dream. It would be fodder for the skalds who ever needed new ideas for their sagas. “Pray? For my life?” he scoffed.
“No. For your everlasting soul. Your death is predetermined.”
Enough! This madness had gone on long enough! “Speak plainly,” Harek demanded.
“Thou art a dreadful sinner, Harek. Dreadful! Your greed is eating you alive, and you do not even know it.”
He must have appeared confused. Bloody hell, of course he was confused. “What have I done that is so bad?”
The man-thing—an archangel, he had called himself—shook his head as if Harek were a hopeless case. “Your most recent activity is so despicable. How can you even ask?”
“Oh! The slave trading! That is what this is about.” Harek was disgusted up to his very gullet with all the sanctimonious condemnation of his business dealings. First Toriq. Now some angel with flea-bitten wings trying to lord over him.
“I do not have fleas.”
That was just wonderful. The creature could read minds.
“And I am not a creature.”
Harek inhaled deeply for patience and almost fell over. He reached the rail for support. “In truth, what is so wrong with thralldom? Your own biblical leaders—Abraham, David, Moses—had slaves.” On occasion, Harek’s father had hired monk scholars to tutor his sons, and, being a merchant, Harek had often traveled to Christian lands where the inhabitants considered it their mission in life to convert those “heathen Vikings.” He knew more than most Christians about their book of rules and sagas.
“You dare to compare yourself to such great men!” The angel pointed a forefinger at Harek, and Harek felt a jolt of sharp pain shoot through him.
“I only meant—”
“Silence! For your sins, you will die, taking your mortal form with you. For the grace of God, you are being given a second chance to redeem yourself.”
That caught Harek’s attention, but he was an astute businessman. He knew no great prize came without a price. A second chance was going to cost him, sure as . . . well, sin. “And what must I do to redeem myself?”
“You will become a vangel—a vampire angel—one of the troops being formed to fight Satan’s evil Lucipires, demon vampires.”
Harek had no idea what a vam-pyre was. Sounded like something to do with fire. But angels . . . that, he did understand. “I am a Viking. I hardly think I am the material for saintly angelhood.”
“You will not be that kind of angel.”
“For how long would I be required to fight these . . . um, demons?” He was still not convinced this wasn’t just a bad dream.
“As long as it takes. Seven hundred years at first. Longer, if you fail to follow the rules.”
“Whoa! Seven hundred years?”
“Or longer.”
“And there are rules?” What am I . . . a youthling who needs to be told when he can do this or that? We shall see about that.
“No great prize comes without a price?” Michael told him, repeating his own thoughts back at him. Again. “Do you agree?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“There is always a choice.”
What did he have to lose? Besides, he was an intelligent man. He would find a way to reverse the decision later, if he so chose. Harek nodded, and before he had a chance to change his mind, the archangel pressed the tip of
the broadsword against Harek’s chest, causing him to lean backward, farther and farther, until he fell over the rail into the water.
It should have been no problem. He was a leather-lunged swimmer when need be, but his body was suddenly riddled with excruciating pain. His jaw felt as if it were being cracked, then forced back together with an iron vise. In fact, it felt as if he had long, fang-like incisors now. And his back! His shoulder blades seemed to burst open. The place where wings should go, he presumed, but no; a quick pass of his fingers over those spots revealed that the skin had healed into raised knots. All this happened in the matter of seconds as he sank deeper and deeper into the murky depths. Choking on the briny water. Fighting to swim upward against a force determined to hold him down. His ears began to ring, and a sense of lethargy overcame him. Drowning. He no longer fought his fate.
Even so, Harek had time and brains enough left to realize that he’d forgotten to ask one important question:
What exactly was a vangel?
Chapter 1
Somewhere in Siberia, A.D. 2015
The weather outside was frightful . . .
Harek was bundled up to his eyeballs, wearing three pairs of socks, lined boots, long johns, snow pants, a red and black wool jacket over a turtleneck sweater, thermal gloves, and a hunter’s cap with ear flaps. But still he shivered as he attempted to thaw the ice-frozen lock on the door of his friggin’ car, which probably wouldn’t make it down the friggin’ driveway to the friggin’ one-lane highway that led to the nearest friggin’ store where he could buy twenty-seven different kinds of bait, vodka by the gallon, but only one kind of friggin’ beer.
Not that he had any interest in fishing or numbing his senses with the Russian alcohol, which was clear as water but as destructive as a Saxon’s mace to the head. His brain was still his best asset. Besides, after one thousand, one hundred, and sixty-five years as a vangel, his job was still to kill Lucipires and to save humans on the verge of being taken by the demon vampires. And, yes, his initial “penance” as a vangel had been for seven hundred years, but every time he, or his brothers, committed some little, or big, transgression, like fornication (celibacy came hard for virile Vikings, hard being the key word), or excess drinking (these modern folks did make incredibly good beer), or gambling (his weakness), more years would be piled on. At this rate, they would be vangels until the Final Judgment.
“What in bloody hell are you doing?”
Harek glanced up to see a big black bear standing in his driveway. A talking bear!
He yelped with surprise and held up the whirring object in his hand as a weapon—a blow dryer attached to multiple extension cords leading into the garage electrical outlet. He’d forgotten to put his vehicle in said garage last night after a night of drukkinn gambling. Well, that sounded worse than it had been. A little beer and poker, that had been all. And today, all the car doors were frozen shut, the price of living in this godforsaken land in the middle of godforsaken nowhere where it was dark almost all the godforsaken time! No wonder the Russians drank so much! If only he had an AK–47! He could shoot the beast and have bear stew for a month. Yuck! If only the damn car doors would open, he could hop in and hope the animal would saunter away looking for a meal elsewhere. Yeah, like that’s going to happen!
But then he realized that the bear was laughing. A talking, laughing bear?
“Is that the latest weapon here in Siberia?” the bear chortled. A bear with a voice very like his brother Vikar’s. Harek narrowed his eyes and peered closer, difficult with the dim light coming from the open garage. It was his brother Vikar! Dressed in a black fur cloak that covered him from hooded head down to his boots.
“Very funny! I was trying to unfreeze the locks on my vehicle with a blow dryer, if you must know,” he said, turning off the gun-like object and laying it on the hood of the car.
“You own a blow dryer?”
“Of course. Don’t you?” Viking men were vain about their appearance, especially their hair. He would bet his last poker chip that Vikar used one for his long locks on a regular basis.
Vikar’s shrug was his answer. And then he shivered. “It’s colder than a witch’s tit here. How do you stand it?”
“Not well,” Harek admitted, not about to confess his latest lapse into gambling the night before. He turned and walked through the garage and into the house, where the blasting furnace provided some welcome warmth. A dozen vangel men resided here with him. By the sound of the television at the other end of the house, he could tell that at least some of them were watching yet another rerun of The Walking Dead, that ghoulish show about zombies. Thank God for satellites, which allowed them some limited television reception. Otherwise, they would probably have all turned to vodka by now.
Harek took the last two beers from the fridge in the kitchen and handed one to Vikar. His brother shoved the hood back on his cloak, which indeed seemed to have been made of bearskin, and took a long draw on the bottle.
“What are you doing here, Vikar? I mean, it’s great to have the company, but even I wouldn’t come here if I didn’t have to.”
“I’ve been sent to summon you.”
“By whom?” Dumb question.
“Mike.” That was the rude nickname the vangels had given their heavenly mentor/tormentor.
“Why didn’t you just call me? You didn’t need to come in person.”
“I tried, but I kept getting a ‘no service’ message, even on our secure satellite phone.”
Harek nodded. Reception here was erratic. “Why does Mike want me?”
“I have no clue. Maybe he has a mission for you.”
Harek’s spirits brightened immediately. Maybe he was forgiven. Maybe this would be his chance to leave his dark, freezing, godforsaken abode. “Let me go change. I’ll see if I can schedule a flight.”
“No time. Mike will only be in Transylvania for a few more hours. We have to teletransport.”
Headquarters for the vangels was a creepy castle in the mountains of Transylvania, Pennsylvania. Not Romania. Teletransport was something vangels did only in emergencies.
“How about the vangels I have stationed here with me?”
“Just you, for now.”
Thus it was that Harek found himself standing minutes later under a warm, eighty-degree sun next to the blue water of an in-ground swimming pool beyond the back courtyard of the castle, looking like an absolute fool in his arctic attire. The pool was a new addition to the run-down castle Vikar had been renovating for the past three years—a never-ending job, or so he claimed. Vikar had disappeared, probably to change his clothing. Yes, there he came from the back door wearing naught but a thigh-length, flowered bathing suit, grinning at him.
“Since when do Vikings wear flowers?” Harek grumbled.
“It’s Hawaiian,” Vikar said, as if that made a difference.
A few children—Vikar and Alex’s little ones, the “adopted” Gunnar and Gunnora, along with Sigurd’s stepdaughter, Isobel—were swimming at one end of the pool like little ducks. Vikings were known to take to the water, any water, from a young age. But everyone else was gawking at him. His six brothers, in and out of the water, including Vikar, who dived neatly into the pool splashing everyone within ten feet, and some enjoying cold brews in frosted bottles. Their wives, those who had them, sat about under umbrella tables, sipping from tall glasses sporting skewers of fruit. And several dozen vangels basked in the sun and hot tub. Lizzie Borden, their cook (yes, that Lizzie Borden), scurried back and forth between the kitchen and the patio carrying trays of snacks.
There was also a tub of ice holding bottles of Fake-O, the synthetic blood vangels needed in between the real blood gained from fanging saved humans or by destroying Lucipires. Without it, vangel skin would become lighter and lighter, almost transparent, especially in sunlight. With it, their skin glowed with seeming suntanned health.
“Oh, this is fair! I’m off to Arctic Neverland freezing my arse off while you all enjoy a pool party!
” Harek yanked off his cap, uncaring that his hair probably stood up on end, making him look even more ridiculous, and shrugged out of his jacket.
Behind him he heard a voice say, “Art thou speaking to me, Viking?” The voice did not say “Viking” in an endearing manner.
It was Michael, of course. Not in the white robes typical of an archangel, or of the warrior attire often seen in Michael the Archangel statues, but good ol’ faded Levi’s with a white T-shirt and Nikes, his long, dark hair flowing down to his shoulders. Despite the modern garments, there was no mistaking that this was a celestial being, even without the sunshiny halo that surrounded him. At least he wasn’t wearing swimming trunks. Harek didn’t think he was up for viewing hairy angel legs . . . if they were, in fact, hairy.
Before Harek had a chance to respond, Michael asked, hands on hips, “Do you have my home site ready to load up on the computer highway for me?”
Harek barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Michael tried to be modern by using contemporary language, but he frankly didn’t know a computer mouse from a rodent. He’d been wanting Harek to set up an archangel site for him on the Internet, in keeping with social networking of the times, but he kept changing his mind about what he wanted. First, it was going to be an information place, which Harek had told him was too boring and would get no traffic. Then it was going to be a blog, but Michael could never decide what subjects to discuss first. Then it was going to be an advice column, questions sent in by viewers and answered by himself, but Harek had warned him that he might not like the questions he would be asked. Truth to tell, an angelic presence on the Internet was a good idea, if only Michael could make up his mind exactly what he wanted.
“Um . . .” Harek answered.
“I would have thought with all the extra time thou had there in the colds of Siberia it would be done by now,” Michael remarked. “It is not as if you have rid the Russian lands of all Lucipires. Yakov still flourishes, I understand.”