Page 17 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

The devil was in the details . . .

Zeb had no interest in sex at the moment (hardly ever, for that matter), especially with a barbed wire cock. Not a one-on-one with the admittedly alluring vangel witch who resembled the red-haired, cream-skinned Satan, and certainly not a five-way that included the Crazy Coven, demon vampire witches who were clearly a dozen straws short of a full broom.

In fact, Zeb had every intention of ditching all four witches once he was out of Horror, assuming they got him that far. Alone, he might have a chance to regroup and escape to a safe place. With all that extra baggage, none of them would succeed.

His loner intentions weren’t worth piss on a snowbank, he soon discovered, once they unlocked him and he tried to stand on his feet.

Apparently skin on the soles was essential for that mere task, as he’d suspected. The pain was so excruciating that Zeb’s knees buckled and he almost passed out. Beau caught him just in time.

“I’ll carry him,” Beau said to Regina.

“What? No, no, no! My ribs are broken! No carrying!” Zeb tried to say. “A hospital gurney, that’s what we need. Or a padded robe. Anything to protect my ribs.”

No one paid him any attention.

“Y’all better secure Craven ta that La-Z-Boy, jist in case he wakes before we kin get outta Dodge,” Beau advised Regina.

“Grimelda said the potion would last for three hours. That gives us another hour, at least.”

“My PawPaw always said, ‘Never trust a sleepin’ gator.’”

“Oookay.” Through the haze of his pain, with Beau holding him upright with both hands under his armpits, he saw Regina scurrying around looking for rope. The only thing she could find in short order was duct tape, which Jasper had used in the early days of Zeb’s captivity to manscape his pubic hairs.

Ouch!

“That’ll do. Duct tape is a guy’s best friend. Ah even tied up a gator with duct tape one time,” Beau said.

“Why?” Zeb asked, without thinking.

“ ’Cause Ah could,” Beau answered, as if that made perfect sense. “And mah cousin Rufus dared me to.”

“I suspect more than a little home brew was involved,” Regina said as she attempted to peel off a long strip of the duct tape and it kept getting attached to itself. After bunching up and tossing aside three tries, she finally got a first clear strip.

“Fer sure, darlin’.”

So, Horror’s tortureologist soon found himself duct-taped to the chair with about fifty yards of the gray stuff. Luckily, Craven stayed unconscious from Grimelda’s potion during the whole clumsy process, including a wide swath across his snoring mouth. If anything would wake the mouth breather up, that would be it, but Zeb found himself unable to speak above a groan to point that out, especially when Beau hefted him not so gently up and over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. His cracked ribs cracked some more.

If he’d had anything in his stomach, he would have thrown it up. Instead, he just passed out. Which was a blessing, really.

Next time he awakened, the four crazies were standing at a crossroads of underground corridors arguing. Zeb could barely make out their faces in the dim motion sensor lights, especially from his upside-down position over Beau’s shoulder, craning his head up and around. If he wasn’t already bruised, battered and, well, dead, he would be soon from the pounding pain behind his eyeballs.

“Why aren’t we going out the way we came in?” Regina wanted to know.

“There’s been a change in plan,” Grimelda said with a cackle of glee, presumably because she was the master of this change in plan. “We’ll go down that corridor over there. It comes out about a mile or so outside of Horror.”

What plan? They have a plan? I thought they were going to wing it.

“A mile!” Beau exclaimed, shifting Zeb on his shoulder.

Zeb saw stars at that move, and not the celestial kind.

“I’ll carry him for a while,” Regina offered.

That I’d like to see. Not!

“Not ta worry, darlin’. Ah kin handle it.”

Darlin’? I’m in excruciating pain, and he has time for darlin’s?