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.”
Yakov, a former Russian Cossack, was one of the high haakai demon vampires on the council headed by Jasper, king of all the Lucipires. Yakov’s home base was somewhere in Siberia, in a place called Desolation, a site Harek had not yet been able to locate, precisely, although he was close.
“That is unfair! I have destroyed many of Yakov’s minions and saved many of his victims during my exile. I have fought beside my brothers on every mission to which I’ve been called. My kill and save records are nothing to scoff at.”
“Exile, is it now?” Michael homed in on that one, insignificant part of what he’d said.
But Harek recognized immediately that his word had been ill-chosen, and he, whose intelligence was his greatest asset, was at a loss for a better word. What in bloody hell am I doing, arguing with an archangel? He could tell by the silence around him and the disbelieving expressions on his brothers’ faces that they were stunned by his audacity.
“As for your sudden emphasis on fairness,” Michael went on. “If life were fair, you would be roasting on a spit in that Other Place.”
“Sorry,” Harek murmured, and raised his chin, waiting for whatever punishment would be doled his way.
But then Michael smiled.
He is smiling.
At me?
When an angel smiled, a heavenly warmth enveloped the recipient. When an archangel smiled, an indescribable sensation of peace flowed forth. It was like a blessing.
Huh? Harek was confused.
“In truth, we are pleased with your work, Harek. Why else would I have summoned you to head this new mission?” He put a hand on Harek’s shoulder and squeezed. “Come. We have much to discuss.”
Dazed, Harek followed Michael into the castle, through the back doors leading into the massive kitchen (Lizzie’s domain), down a long corridor (sporting murals depicting angels, what else? Angels with cute little fangs!), past a dining room (that could seat fifty in a crunch), a chapel (with hard-as-stone pews and kneelers), an office (where Vikar pissed and moaned about all his work leading the vangels; like herding cats, he claimed), a computer center (Harek’s pride and joy), salons converted into family and television rooms (vangels had a lot of time to pass between missions; there probably wasn’t a G-rated movie they hadn’t seen, and, yes, R-rated ones, too, for their sins), then into the front, formal living room. His brothers and several of the more experienced vangels, like Karl, Svein, and Jogeir, followed after Harek and Michael. Chairs had already been set up in a half circle with a high-backed upholstered chair in its center.
Michael started the meeting in his usual manner, with a prayer. “Lord, bless and protect your warrior vangels as they embark on a new mission.” When they were all seated, Michael addressed Harek. “Are you familiar with Boko Haram in Nigeria?”
The Islamic extremists best known for abducting young girls for sex slaves and forced child brides. Harek nodded. This was his expertise. Intelligence information. Despite his living at the end of beyond, he had spotty Internet access to the latest news. He wished he’d been forewarned and could have gathered more data, but still he could say, “The terrorist cell Boko Haram, or BK, started as a religious insurgency movement fighting to make it ‘haram’ or ‘forbidden’ for Muslims to engage in any political or social activity associated with Western culture, like the education of girls, but it has escalated into a militant insurrection intent on atrocities, sometimes for mere shock value. It has been in operation for more than five years, but the mass kidnappings became one of their prime tactics a year or so ago. Despite worldwide condemnation, especially when they took captive almost three hundred schoolgirls from Chibok in Nigeria, they are getting stronger and bolder. Bombing towns, setting fire to huts and businesses, stealing animals and what little food there is, in essence making thousands of people homeless.”
Michael exchanged looks with some of the others, as if to say, That Harek! A walking encyclopedia, he is.
“What? Is intelligence a sin now, too?”
“Only when it is accompanied by greed. Do not be so sensitive, Harek,” Michael admonished. Then, “Cnut, tell us what you know. And, please, spare us the lecture.”
Cnut was their security expert, head of a company called Wings International Security. Most of the vangels held outside jobs—doctor, Navy SEAL, prison chaplain, whatever—as a front for those times when they were not involved in vampire angel business. Lately, Cnut had taken to a strange hairstyle, strange even for a Norseman, based on that Ragnar Lothbrok character on the History Channel’s popular Vikings series. It was shaved on either side of his head, with intricate braids forming a sort of scalp lock through the center, from forehead to nape and down to his shoulders.
But that was neither here nor there.
“I’ve been in Nigeria for the past few months, primarily around Maiduguri, and the tangos are amping up for an operation that might very well outdo the atrocities of the Chibok school attack.” Tango was a term they’d learned, and adopted, from their brother Trond, a Navy SEAL. It meant terrorist or bad guy. “Jasper is in the area and Lucies are infiltrating their ranks, right and left.”
That was news to most of them. Truly, the Lucies were like cockroaches; annihilate their nests in one area and they pop up in another. It wasn’t surprising, though, that Jasper would target such evil men. Hell, it might even have been Lucies who started the organization to begin with. Evil begets evil, or something like that.
Cnut set up an easel and put a large map of Africa on it that could be seen by all of them. “Everywhere you see an X indicates a place where an attack has taken place in the past two years. You can see how their range of operation is expanding. I’ve been able to pinpoint the location of some of their cells; those are indicated with a checkmark. There’s no main headquarters to target because they keep moving, especially in the dense Sambisa Forest area. But here’s the thing. They’re planning something big in the next few weeks. Really big. Possibly hitting the Global School in Kamertoon, where there are multinational students. It’s located halfway between the capital of Abuja and the Sambisa Forest. Or they could aim for several of the Global Schools for girls, located throughout Africa, all at one time. The Global Schools are particularly repugnant to Boko Haram because they’re privately owned by an American conglomerate.”
“What do you want us to do?” Harek asked.
“I’ll need help,” Cnut said, waving a hand around the room. “Even with the two dozen vangels I have there with me, it’s not enough. Initially, though, I think it should be a three-pronged effort. Harek, if you and your team would come back to Nigeria with me, I can familiarize you with the situation, firsthand. With your trusty laptop, you could probably get better intelligence than I could in half the time.” That was true. Harek knew more about computers than Bill Gates, if he did say so himself. “Then you’ll travel to Coronado, California, where you’ll be our link with Trond and the Navy SEALs.”
Trond, who was a member of those elite special forces, sat up straighter. Apparently, this was the first he’d heard of his involvement.
Harek frowned with confusion. “Why would we involve the SEALs?” Usually, vangels worked alone. There was always the danger of discovery. He could see the headline now, “Vampire Angels Help Navy SEALs Save the Day.” Or vice versa.
“It is not the job of vangels to save innocents,” Michael answered for Cnut. “Let the human heroes rescue those children who have been abducted or are about to be taken. Vangels will destroy the Lucipires and save any evil humans who choose to repent.”
“What makes you think the Navy will welcome any outside involvement?” Trond asked, looking at Cnut and Harek.
“Even the Navy will appreciate the intelligence Harek will bring them, hitherto unknown information about the terrorists,” Michael said. “It will be up to you, Harek, to imply that Wings works for the Nigerian government,”
“A lie? You are encouraging me to lie?” Harek inquired of the archangel, going for a bit of levity.
Michael didn’t even smile; in fact he frowned, and his brothers rolled their eyes at Harek’s mistake.
“Is Harek going to become a Navy SEAL, too?” Trond asked hopefully. “I can’t wait to see him go through Hell Week. He’ll probably puke his guts out the first time he’s put through drownproofing.”
“I do not think that will be necessary,” Michael said, frowning at Trond, too, for his teasing in the midst of a serious discussion. “As I said, Harek can be at the SEAL compound as a representative of a private security company with information on one of their targets . . . Boko Haram,” Michael explained. “In the past, before 9/11, SEALs operated mainly on their own, but with terrorism rising by the day, and not enough time to train a corresponding number of new SEALs, they have had to work with other special forces and agencies.”
“Other countries even send their best soldiers to train with us, to learn the Navy SEAL way,” Trond added. “So outside persons on the compound aren’t unknown.”
Harek nodded, and could feel excitement begin to pump through his veins. It was always an adrenaline rush when a new mission began. Besides, the climate in California was warm. Anything was better than freeze-your-arse Siberia. And maybe, if he completed this mission well, he would no longer be exiled. Maybe he would even be sent somewhere pleasant, like the Caribbean, where he had a hidden retreat, earned with his stock market winnings. Maybe the powers-that-be, i.e., Mike, would realize that his talents were better used far from the frozen north. Maybe he would even be permitted to form his own technology company, for the good of the vangel cause, of course.
He could swear he heard laughter in his head.
His head shot up, and sure enough, Michael was looking directly at him, his eyebrows arched.
On the other hand, maybe not.