Page 10 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

“Well, yes, many people do want to be Lucipires . . . in fact, most who come here . . . after many years of indoctrination,” Patience pointed out.

“You sound like yer givin’ a lecture,” Beau observed.

“You sound like a dumb Cajun,” Patience retorted.

“Some Lucipires really do like their, um, calling,” Patience insisted. “Like Beltane, who’s been a Lucipire for two hundred years.”

“Beltane is Jasper’s pampered assistant. Lak a lapdog, he is,” Beau explained to Regina with disgust. “Ah’ve tried talkin’ to the boy, as a fellow southerner, even brought him some sweet beignets from N’awleans. As my PawPaw always said, ‘If it looks lak a possum, and smells lak a possum, doan be expectin’ no gator.’ The snot tattled ta Jasper that Ah was up ta something.”

“Which you were,” Patience pointed out.

“That’s beside the point.”

Figuring that introductions were in order, Regina told them, “My name is Regina.”

And they introduced themselves as Beauregard Doucet, Patience Allister, and Grimelda the Witch.

“Actually, I am here on a rescue mission,” Regina told them, “but only for one person, and he is not one of you. Sor-r-r-ry.”

The three Lucies hissed with anger, but then Grimelda cackled and told the others, “You know who she means, don’t you? The Hebrew.”

“Ah,” Patience and Beau concurred.

“You’ll never find him,” Grimelda told her, wagging a bony finger in Regina’s face. “Not without our help.”

“And what would you want in return?” She eyed the three idiots through slitted eyes.

“Take us with you,” Beau replied.

“I don’t think so.” Not in a million years. “Where would you go?”

“To your home,” Beau said.

The castle in Pennsylvania? Oh, no, no, no!

“Back to wherever you vangels live,” Patience elaborated, as if Regina hadn’t understood what she meant.

Good Lord! I’ll be in enough trouble as it is, assuming I’m able to get Zebulan out of here, let alone bring three lackwit demon witches with me. But Regina was no fool. She could use their help. “Sure,” she lied.

“We’ll take you ta him, but y’all kin only see him fer a moment. Can’t risk gettin’ caught until we have a plan fer a mass exodus,” Beau said, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

Yeah, but Moses had God on his side when he led the Exodus. I don’t even have St. Michael watching my back.

Soon, she was walking stealthily through a narrow corridor below the ground that led to a huge cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites abounded. The floors and walls reeked of ancient dirt. There was a wooden rack and torture implements sitting on battered cuttingboard-like tables. A massive Lucipire snored loudly in a reclining leather chair. And against one wall was chained a naked man, lying on a low pallet.

She gasped at his condition.

It was Zebulan, in humanoid form, but unlike the man she had seen in the past. His face was bruised black and blue and yellow with swollen lips and eyes. Patches of hair had been torn from his head. Flaps of skin hung here and there on his emaciated body. His fingertips and toes were bloody and without nails. There was a barbed wire wrapped around his penis.

Suddenly his eyes opened and connected with hers.

“Oh shit!” he muttered. “It’s Satan’s sister.”

“Think again, lackwit. I am Regina, the answer to your prayers.”

The Lucipire guard snuffled in his sleep. Regina couldn’t risk waking him, or killing him, and thus alerting others who might come to relieve him, until she was sure of her exit route. She backed up and rushed away, but she would be back, as soon as possible.

As she sought her three witch cohorts, she mused on what she had seen. There was always much talk about man’s inhumanity to man. It was nothing compared to the devil’s inhumanity, she decided.