Vampire in Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page A

peons hours ago. He is dealing with the sins of you VIK now.” She cackled. She actually cackled, and added, “Someone is about to have his arse chewed up good and well.”
    “Me?” he inquired with mock innocence, and made a rude gesture at the hissing black cat that followed on Regina’s heels.
    The cat tried to piss on his boot but he managed to get away, unscathed. Regina was muttering something behind him, probably a curse. He would have to get a codpiece to protect himself when he left here today. Where did one buy a codpiece, anyhow?
    He tried to enter the parlor unobtrusively, to no avail.
    His six brothers turned as one, eyebrows arched, lips twitching with humor at his expense. They sat in a semicircle before Mike, who was sprawled lazily in a throne-like, wingback chair, jeans-clad legs crossed at the ankles over a pair of athletic shoes. The latest, very expensive Nike ones. He probably thought the swoosh emblem represented an angel wing, but then Mike had a fascination with modern footwear. A large gold cross hung on a thick chain around his neck, nestling on his pure white T-shirt. The only other indication of his saintliness was a rather halo-like glow about his long, black hair. No wings today.
    As Sigurd passed behind his brothers’ chairs, each had a special greeting for him.
    Vikar, the oldest of his brothers, the VIK assigned to man the Transylvania castle headquarters, grinned and said, “Welcome home, Dr. Sig. Did you lose your watch?”
    Ivak, an Angola Prison chaplain, who fashioned himself the most handsome Viking dead or alive, said, “You look like death warmed over, Sig. I hope those bags under your eyes are due to something pleasant.”
    “And he smells like Saxon shit. Can you not invent a new Fake-O that does not reek?” asked Trond, a Viking Navy SEAL, of all things, especially considering how lazy Trond was known to be. And, really, those Navy SEALs worked so hard in senseless exercise that Trond knew better than anyone what reeked. Like himself. Of body odor. Not today, of course, but when he’d jogged five miles in heavy boots and monstrous backpack, whew!
    Mordr just scowled. Wrath had been Mordr’s sin, and his demeanor was ofttimes grim, though he was not so bad since he’d married and taken on five . . . yes, five . . . children.
    Cnut, a security expert just returned from some Pentagon secret training program, winked at him, as if he knew a secret that Sigurd did not.
    Finally, he came to Harek, their technology guru, who was tapping away on a laptop with fingerless gloves. He was huddled in a massive fur cloak. Ever since Harek had returned from Siberia, a penance assignment if there ever was one, he claimed to be unable to get warm again. Mike was not sympathetic.
    No more brothers. Sigurd sank down into the empty chair. The one closest to Mike, unfortunately.
    “Ah! The prodigal vangel deigns to honor us with his presence,” Mike said. Sarcasm was a favorite tool of Mike’s, and it was usually directed at the VIK. None of them was immune.
    “Sorry. There was a—”
    Mike waved a hand, uninterested in his explanation. “Vikar, recap for the tardy one what we have been discussing.”
    Vikar winked at Sigurd. “It appears that Jasper and his demon vampires are growing in number. Well over two thousand, at last count. Whereas the number of vangels is closer to five hundred.” Jasper was the king of the demon vampires, one of the fallen angels who had been kicked out of Heaven along with Lucifer. It was the job of the vangels to kill Lucipires . . . not just kill them but annihilate them through the heart with swords or bullets symbolically treated with the blood of Christ. Just killing them resulted in their coming back again as demon vampires. In addition, vangels attempted to save sinners, especially those who had been fanged by a Lucipire, clearly identified by their lemon scents. A lemony human was on the fast track to becoming a Lucipire . . . a worse fate than