Vampire in Paradise (22 page)

The inner voice countered,
Forget Sigurd. What happened to “Let go, let God”?

God is apparently busy. I have to help myself.

She waited for thunder to clap outside and the skies to open with outrage at her sacrilegious thought.

Nothing happened.

Her die was cast.

“Seduction to remove a sin taint. Fifty additional years as a vangel!” Michael proclaimed Sigurd’s punishment as he paced around him. Sigurd was still leery of the sharp drop off the mountain where Mike had taken him. Besides, a sharp wind had picked up. His luck, he’d be blown away. He backed up and sat down on a big rock.

But then he thought about what Michael had said.
Is that all?
Sigurd thought.
If I had known I could get so much pleasure for so small a penalty, I would have—

“Five acts of fornication. Five hundred years.”

Oh. I see. He’s going to draw this out, one bad act at a time.

“Disobedience. Twenty-five years.”

Should I ask disobedience to what? No! That will just give him an excuse to pick me apart, one little indiscretion at a time.

“
Little
indiscretion? You exceed yourself, Viking!” Michael roared at him. “Calling on an archangel as if thou were a superior, and not a lowly vangel.”

“Marisa was going to commit a grave sin. I had to help her.”

“By fornication? Save your weak explanations!”

“And this latest time. I called on you today for an urgent matter. To inform you that Jasper is on the island.”

“Pfff! Dost think I do not know of Jasper’s whereabouts? Why do you think you were sent on this mission?”

“Uh.”

“To save a handful of misbegotten miscreants bent on sexual perversions?”

“Uh.”

“Nay, this was your chance to destroy the strongest of all demon vampires.”

“You could have told me that!”

“That is not the way it works, and you know it well and good. Or you should. After one thousand, one hundred, and sixty-four years, one would think you had gained a brain. Did you think I had sent you to this paradise . . . this Garden of Eden . . . to be the new Adam?”

“Of course not.”

“Was the apple so sweet?”

You have no idea.

“Was it worth the ‘worm’?”

What worm? Oh, the sin? Probably.
“How come Vikar and Trond and Ivak get to be with women? Why not me? Why do they always . . .” His words trailed off as he realized his mistake.

“Envy again, Sigurd. Will you never learn? What am I going to do with you?”

Sigurd bowed his head, then raised it with determination. “Give me a second chance to complete my mission on Grand Keys Island.”

Michael paused and studied him closely. “As you ask!” he finally conceded. “Vangeldom is all about second chances, is it not? But there are conditions.”

“Like what?”

“Thou shalt stay away from the woman.”

Uh-oh! When he starts with the
shalt
s, he means business.
“But what if she—”

“Not your concern.”

“And the child?”

“Who appointed you this child’s savior?”

Sigurd felt as if he were trapped in an impossible situation. If he refused Michael’s conditions, he would no doubt be sent in shame back to Transylvania, or somewhere worse. If he agreed to Michael’s conditions, he would be abandoning Marisa to a possibly horrible fate. Leastways, it felt that way to him. And what about the innocent child?

“I will try.” It was the best he could offer.

Michael stood and folded his arms over his chest, glaring at Sigurd.

“So be it then. Your wish is my command.”

“Hah! Humility has ne’er been a Viking trait. Why do you not you say what you really mean?”

“What I’d really like to say is fuck, fuck, fuck!” Sigurd blurted out.

“At least that was honest,” Michael said, to Sigurd’s surprise, but then he added, “Rude expletive to an archangel . . . twenty-five years.”

I
nga and Tiffany were helping Marisa get ready for her big date.

And Marisa was thankful for any help she could get. She was so nervous she could barely comb her hair, let alone hold a mascara wand.

Marisa had already showered and perfumed up. Before she could stop her, Tiffany had spritzed Marisa with enough of her sweet Shalimar to choke a goat—
or a vampire . . . and, yes, there is a vampire I would still like to choke
—even in some places where the sun would never shine. Spraying her pubic hair wasn’t out of line for a woman getting ready for a heavy date, she supposed, but when Tiffany aimed for her butt, as well, Marisa put her foot down. “Enough!”

Now Marisa sat on a straight-back chair in the bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around her sarong-style. A black Sorrentino sheath with a modest cleavage in front, and a shocking cleavage in back hung from a nearby doorjamb. She would need to forgo a bra to wear the dress, which was a wrinkle-free number Inga had brought, along with a pair of silver, open-toed, Louboutin slingbacks. Luckily, she and Inga wore the same size. Her only jewelry would be a pair of silver chandelier earrings.

Inga was sitting cross-legged on the floor painting Marisa’s toenails bloodred, while Tiffany stood behind her, teasing her hair into bouffant bimboness.

“I still don’t think teased hair is the ‘in thing’ today,” Marisa continued to protest.

“It is ta men,” Tiffany insisted.

Marisa looked at Inga to see if she agreed. Inga just shrugged. Tiffany had way more experience than either of them, despite her younger age.

“Besides, we have a sayin’ in the South. The higher the hair, the closer ta God,” Tiffany said with a giggle.

“I don’t think God has anything to do with what I’m about tonight,” Marisa said.

Thankfully, neither Inga nor Tiffany was being judgmental with Marisa. She needed all the support she could get. From the moment Marisa had explained what had happened, not about Sigurd having killed a child but about the operation being imminent, Inga had understood perfectly why Marisa had made the decision to keep her date with Harry. Inga had given her a big hug and whispered against her ear, “Go for it, sweetie!”

Inga repeated her encouragement now, sensing Marisa’s reservations, “You can do this, Mar. Fifteen minutes of ‘ick’ and you’ll have the money for Izzie’s operation.”

“What if he wants more than once?” Marisa asked.

“He undoubtedly will. Fifteen minutes at a time . . . heck, you can probably hold your breath that long.”

Bless Inga for her unflagging optimism. “I wish you could come along, and be my personal cheerleader!”

“Now, that would be perverted. Honey, Harry is sixty, if he’s a day. I’d be surprised if he can still get it up, even once,” Inga declared.

But then Tiffany disagreed with Inga. “Hah! Some sixty-year-old men have got more wick in their candles than younger men, even without the little blue pills. My aunt Maybelline usta say, ‘The older the bone, the harder the marrow.’”

“Marrow?” Marisa choked out.

“Tiff, you are not helping,” Inga chided.

“Sor-ry! It’s just that you two’re such sad sacks, bless yer hearts, lookin’ at this lak a fate worse’n death, when it could be a wonderful opportunity.”

“It’s the only opportunity I have,” Marisa admitted.

“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with gettin’ yerself a sugar daddy. Us wimmen have gotta take care of ourselves.”

“We are women, hear us roar,” Inga said under her breath.

Tiffany ignored Inga’s sarcasm, if she even recognized it as such. “Aunt Maybelline had five different sugar daddies after Uncle Beaufort died. One would go ta his Maker, and she’d find her ’nother one. She died in bed when she was eighty-six, if ya get mah meanin’.”

“Good Lord!” Marisa said.

Inga had just finished with the first coat of polish, and she looked up at Tiffany with interest. “Maybelline, huh? I don’t suppose she was related to the Maybelline cosmetic family?”

“Doan Ah wish! Anyways, it doan matter diddly-squat if Harry’s a bit older and a little soft aroun’ the middle, as long as the equipment still works. Heck, even if it doan work so good,” Tiffany continued as she teased away. “In fact, Ah can give ya some pointers on what ta do ta make his willy more willin’, if ya want.”

“No!” Inga exclaimed.

“Please don’t,” Marisa said at the same time.

“Heah’s one thing Ah know fer certain. Ya gotta make sure ya get somethin’ in writin’ before ya drop yer panties.”

“
What?
I can’t do that. It’s too cold-blooded.” Marisa cringed at the thought of carrying some kind of legal document before she let Harry have his way with her. “I might as well ask for the cold hard cash up front.”

Inga surprised Marisa by saying, “Not a bad idea.”

“Inga!”

“Do you trust Harry?” Inga asked.

“Only as far as I can throw him.” He must weigh two hundred pounds. “Can I have another glass of wine?”

They’d all had a glass of wine when they’d started this makeup procedure. It hadn’t helped to calm Marisa’s nerves so far.

“You better not,” Inga advised. “You’re already going to be wobbly on those stilettos.”

Soon, dressed and ready to go, Marisa got her first look at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door. “Yikes!” she exclaimed.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it,” Tiffany said. “Lordy, Ah do love a good makeover.” She hugged Marisa and went off to take a long bubble bath.

“Help,” Marisa pleaded weakly with Inga, who was bent over with silent laughter.

“Okay. While Tiffany’s in the bathroom, let’s see what we can do.”

They went to the small kitchen, where Inga helped Marisa to comb out and shampoo her hair. Once clean of the two pounds of lacquer, and towel-dried, they arranged her damp hair into a tight chignon low on her neck, pinned tightly in place. Then they went back into their bedroom where the two of them used cotton balls and baby oil to remove some of the eye shadow and rouge. Marisa still had a crimson mouth and eyelashes so heavy they drooped sexily of their own accord, but she looked a little better.

“What do you think?” she asked Inga.

Inga shrugged. “You no longer look like a streetwalker.”

“Are you sure?”

“Now, you’re more like a high-price call girl.”

“Great! Just the image I’m going for.” Marisa and Inga high-fived each other.

Marisa couldn’t help but wonder, though, as she walked toward the hotel cart that waited outside to take her to the dock,
What would Sigurd think of me now?

“All hell is about to break loose, and I mean that exactly how it sounds,” Sigurd told Karl, Jogeir, and Armod, along with Sigurd’s three brothers, Vikar, Cnut, and Harek, who were crowded into Sigurd’s hotel suite for an emergency meeting.

Svein was off guarding Marisa, at Sigurd’s direction. Michael had ordered Sigurd to stay away from the woman, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t delegate his protection. Did it? In any case, she would probably keep her dinner date with Goldman. He assumed they would go to Calloways, the luxury restaurant in the hotel. She couldn’t get into too much trouble there, in his opinion.

In the meantime, several operations appeared imminent that would endanger his vangel mission. So he’d called on his brothers for help. In all they had sixty vangels here ready to work once given the order.

“Harek, what have you discovered?”

Harek was seated at the desk with his usual laptop computer in front of him. “The FBI will be ending their investigation with a number of high-level arrests later tonight. Tax evasion. Money laundering. Sex trafficking. Credit card fraud. A whole slew of charges. Any number of offenses, just to get these criminals behind bars, even when they can’t get them for other crimes.”

“How many targets are involved?”

“At least a dozen. They’re not looking for the lower-level culprits at this time.”

“Is Harry Goldman one of them?” Sigurd couldn’t help but ask.

Harek studied the screen, then nodded. “Money laundering, but there’s also a suspicion of . . . Holy clouds!”

“What?” The fine hairs stood out on Sigurd’s nape with alarm.

“Did you know he owns a string of Mexican brothels?”

I knew it, I knew it! Dirty as bathwater after a Norse battle. But, oh Lord, what has this to do with Marisa? Please, God, let it be that he is just attracted to her personally. Not that that isn’t bad enough. Oh shit! I better warn Svein. After tonight, I am going to set Marisa straight, Michael or no Michael. She needs to know that Harry isn’t just bad, he’s dangerous.

“Are you listening, Sigurd?” Cnut inquired, a knowing grin on his face.

“Of course,” Sigurd answered, then, “What were you saying?”

Vikar tsked his opinion of Sigurd’s wandering mind. Vikar was an expert tsker, a trait he’d picked up from Michael. Irksome, really.

“I was saying that Jasper has big plans for this evening, too. He and his haakai minions have pinpointed the most evil of the folks here at the conference, and they intend to take them out tonight.”

“At the same time as the FBI will be at work,” Armod pointed out. Apparently, he and Doris had become great pals. A match made in lackwit heaven.

“With the federal agents muddying the waters, this might turn into one of Jasper’s usual SNAFUs, as Trond would say. Situation Normal, All Fouled Up.” This from Jogeir, who’d been involved in the Lucipires’ dragon-fuck at Angola Prison last year.

“We can only hope,” Vikar said, “but we have to plan for the worst. What’s the word from Zeb?”

“Last I heard from him, this afternoon, Jasper is still going with a low-key mission here. Slow and easy. No big hit-and-run mass killings,” Sigurd explained. “However, they want to get some of the more evil characters tonight. They don’t want to risk losing them by waiting until the end of the conference when they might somehow be redeemed.”

“When does it end?” Cnut inquired.

“Six more days.”

“Which means that the FBI and the Lucies will be targeting some of the same sinners tonight,” Vikar concluded.

“Along with us vangels,” Cnut pointed out. “We’ll all be butting heads for our own purposes.”

“A SNAFU, for sure,” Sigurd said. “All right, here’s what we have to do. Harek, you cover that yacht that’s arriving tonight, supposedly carrying some very young prostitutes.”

Harek nodded.

“Svein will be covering Goldman. Cnut, you patrol the grounds. Armod, the nightclub. Jogeir, there’s a party in the penthouse that may very well be moved out onto one of the yachts. The movers and shakers, some of the most vile purveyors of smut, will be there. Vikar, you should investigate any other boats of a suspicious nature in the area. And I’ll do surveillance in the hotel rooms and corridors. There’s some kind of conference special event being held in the ballroom. Each of us should have a team of at least six vangels. Any questions?”

When no one spoke up, Sigurd added, “Our goal tonight is to save sinners, where possible. Barring that, we would prefer the evil ones be taken into custody by the FBI, rather than by Jasper. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” they all said.

“Here’s hoping that by morning, we all have deep tans,” Vikar quipped.

They all joined hands then, and Sigurd prayed, “Lord, help us this night to conquer evil forces. Amen.”

As his brothers and fellow vangels scattered to their various positions, Sigurd added another prayer. “And please protect Marisa since I cannot. Don’t let her be alone with the bastard.”

Marisa had managed to make it through wine cocktails (she had three) and a wonderful dinner of oysters Rockefeller, fresh flounder, baby parsleyed potatoes, and cherries jubilee (none of which she tasted for all her nervousness), and was sipping at a coffee liqueur when Harry said, “I want to show you something.”

Marisa nodded. This was it then. She could no longer pretend she was having a friendly dinner with an older gentleman.

He stood and extended a hand to her. “You can bring your drink with you.” He picked up his dirty martini (his fifth of the evening, by her count) in his left hand, and laced the chubby fingers of his right hand with her left. She was taller than him in her four-inch heels. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, some men liked taller women. It empowered them, or something, according to a
Cosmo
article she’d read one time. Something in the vein of, “See. I’m short, but I can still get me an Amazon of a woman.” Caveman Napoleon Complex, or some such thing.

He led her out the doorway of the small salon where they’d dined and toward the sleeping quarters. He’d given her a tour of the sumptuous yacht when she first arrived, boasting that it had cost a cool five million dollars (disgusting, really, when you considered how little she needed for something so important, and he frittered away millions on his toys), but he hadn’t shown her any of the ten staterooms. Yet.

She was being too hard on the man. Really, she was, and she had to stop if she was to get through this night. Harry had been a polite and charming date, thus far, she had to give him credit for that. Other than kissing her cheek initially and touching her bare arm or nape on occasion, she couldn’t criticize him for being overly familiar, let alone jumping her bones, as she’d expected.

In fact, he’d spent most of the time telling her about growing up in a Newark, New Jersey, housing project, and how he’d built his fortune one job at a time from age fifteen when he’d dropped out of school. She suspected a bit of larceny from the get-go, from what he insinuated unapologetically. He’d also told her he had a wife of thirty years, estranged, of course, and two grown children, who were also estranged. She didn’t ask for details, and he didn’t offer them. But, bottom line, she would have to add adultery to prostitution . . . for her sins, as Sigurd would say.

She probably smelled like a bloody lemon by now, despite Sigurd’s removing her sin taint. Harry certainly did. Even over his heavy dousing of Aramis, the scent of lemons was strong on him. It must mean he was a particularly bad sinner, or about to be. Like her. Funny, she’d never noticed that lemon phenomenon until Sigurd pointed it out to her.