Kiss of Pride Read Free Page A

Sabeam said.
    I was kidding. Can a demon not even tease anymore? I am surrounded by idiots .
    “So, there is no event where you could harvest souls in large numbers?” Sabeam concluded.
    “I did not say that.” Jasper thought for a long moment as he continued to pace. Then he stopped abruptly. “I have the perfect idea. Did Satan not invent the Internet to blacken the souls of mankind?”
    “I thought Al Gore invented the Internet.”
    Jasper rolled his burning eyes. Can anyone spell idiot ? “It matters not who invented what, but how Satan uses human obsessions for his own ends.”
    “Okay,” Sabeam said, though he clearly did not understand. No matter!
    “We will prowl the Internet superhighway ’til we find the perfect venue for mass harvest of sinners all in one place at one time.” Jasper would have licked his lips with anticipation if his frickin’ fangs were not in the way.

One
    There’ s Transylvania, and then there’ s TRANSYLVANIA . . .
    V ikar Sigurdsson hadn’t had sex in a hundred years, and he was not in the greatest of moods. The last time had resulted in two hundred years being added to his penance, and it hadn’t even been good sex.
    Add to that hated celibacy the fact that he was on Seven Mountains in podunk Transylvania, Pennsylvania. He was presumably trying to turn a hundred-and-twenty-year-old crumbling castle, built by an obviously demented lumber baron Joseph Waxmonsky, into a five-star hotel. Hotel Transylvania. Presumably being the key word. And oh, by the way, in his spare time he was expected to fight off Satan’s vampires.
    Then the doorbell rang, loud enough to be heard in every corner of this seventy-five-room monstrosity. That’s all he needed . . . company. That, in addition to the twenty-seven various annoying, troublesome, needy members of his personal troop of vangels. Who ever heard of a needy Viking?
    In the middle of the ringing, he yelled out, “Go away!” as if anyone could hear him about two dozen rooms away from the kitchen, which he had been contemplating for the past half hour. It needed a major cleaning now that new appliances had been delivered and the floor retiled. Where should I start? he wondered, staring with dismay at the mess that surrounded him. Enough dirty dishes and pots and pans to feed a Viking army— who knew twenty-eight people could eat so much? Greasy countertops— no one ever mentioned cutting boards to him afore. Groceries to be ordered— his list was now two feet long, and growing. He sighed. I can kill a dozen Saxons in the blink of an eye. I can guide a longship across the ocean. But command a kitchen? It’s demeaning, that’s what it is. Immediately, he chastised himself. Pride was e’er his downfall.
    Gong! Gong! Gong! Gong! Gong! Gong! Gong!
    The fact that it was seven rings told him loud and clear that it was not one of the cuckoo bird wannabe vampires from the village, or one of the Lucipires, who would hardly knock, but one of the vangels, God’s vampires. Another brand of cuckoo bird, for the love of . . . well, God. Yep, almost immediately his brother Trond materialized before him.
    “Your doorbell is loud enough to wake the dead,” Trond remarked.
    “Good thing we’re dead.”
    They looked at each other, burst out laughing, then drew each other into a bear hug worthy of six-foot-four Vikings.
    “You’re early,” Vikar said when they drew apart. “The Reckoning isn’t for another month.” The Reckoning was the centennial meeting of all the vangels. Hundreds of them would be in attendance, in addition to The Seven, or the VIK, the designation given to him and his six brothers.
    The high mucky-muck at the Reckoning would, of course, be their heavenly mentor, St. Michael the Archangel, whom they rudely referred to as Mike.
    Mike just called them Viking, each and every one of them, and he did not say it like a compliment. Usually, it was something like, “Viking, God is not pleased.”
    Uh, I’m kinda