Christmas in Transylvania (13 page)
Read Christmas in Transylvania Online
Authors: Sandra Hill
Vikar reached over his shoulders where he discovered raised bumps, like healed scars, over his shoulder blades. His mouth felt odd, too, and was filled with the not unpleasant taste of blood. He ran his tongue under his teeth, which were . . . “Oh no! It cannot be so.” He put fingertips to his teeth, which were uncommonly even and white . . . leastways, they had been in the past. Now two of the incisors on either side of his front teeth seemed to have elongated and grown pointy.
The angel had turned and was about to fly off.
With all these questions hanging in the air?
“Wait! Fangs? You gave me fangs? Like a wolf?”
“No. Not a wolf.” The angel did smile then . . . with glee. “A vampire.”
On those ominous words, the angel disappeared.
And all Vikar could think was,
What is a vampire?
Too soon, he found out.
Club Med for the undead . . .
In a cold, cold, miles-Âlong cave known as Horror, far below the surface of the earth, Jasper paced. It was not Hell, of course, but that place where Lucipires brought their victims before eventually sending them off to Satan's fiery pits, or to become vampire demons in Jasper's personal army.
“It is too much!” he railed at his assistant Sabeam, who raced to keep up with him. Being a mung demon, a species of full demon, unlike former Seraphim angels like Jasper or even prestigious haakai demons, Sabeam had limited status and authority, even with his massive seven-Âfoot height. Then, too, there was the slimy, poisonous mung that covered every surface of its body.
“What shall we do, master?” Sabeam asked, puffing for breath.
The boy, who was only three hundred years old, didn't get enough exercise these days. Maybe Jasper should order him a treadmill.
“Satan demands his due,” Sabeam told Jasper, as if he didn't already know that. “We must send the souls to him as prescribed by demon law.”
Unlike most mungs, Sabeam was not mute. Sometimes Jasper wished he were.
Still, Jasper nodded, knowing that he had no choice but to give up his collection soon. The last time had been two hundred years ago. This latest delivery was long overdue. “Grieves me, it does, to release my âbabies,' only to start all over. It will take us twice . . . no, thrice as long . . . to replenish the supply, what with the vangels hindering our efforts.” Vangels were vampire angels that Michael the Archangel had created specifically to fight Jasper's legions.
He could not think at the moment of Michael, who had once been his friend. If he did, he would fall into the pit of despair that had held him the first hundred years of his exile.
Instead, Jasper gazed fondly around him at the life-Âsize killing jars that held the newly dead human souls who fought wildly against the glass sides, to no avail. Once subdued, they were placed on display slabs with a two-Âfoot pin through the heart holding them down. Like butterflies, they were, especially when they flailed their arms and legs in a wing fashion. Undead human butterflies that fought their confinement, eyes wide with horror at their fate. ÂJasper's own personal human butterfly collection. Playthings, really, that he liked to take out from time to time and torture. Thousands of them.
Most special of all was one of the few vampire angels they'd been able to capture, and that only a lowly ceorl, David, who was stretched out on the rack at the moment whilst imps and hordlings, Jasper's foot soldiers of grotesque appearance characterized by oozing pustules, danced about the body, piercing the skin with white-Âhot spears, wrapping barbed wire around the always erect phallus, jamming odious objects up the anus, stuffing imp offal in the mouth. “Good work, Fiendal,” he said, patting one of the hordlings on the head as he passed. “Do not go too far, though, lest the vangel get accustomed to the pain.”
Fiendal nodded, his excessively long tongue lolling out with dripping drool.
Jasper continued his pacing, trying to think. As he walked, fury turned his face into icy shards that flaked off like scales. His eyes glowed bloodred, his fangs hung down almost to his chin, and his tail dragged behind him on the stone floor. He hated that his once-Ârenowned beauty could be turned into this travesty of ugliness. Oh, he could transform himself into the most beauteous of humans, male or female, when prowling the earth. But this monstrous carcass was his true self now. And he blamed Michael for this most odious fate.
Long ago, before the world was created, he had been one of the chosen archangels until he'd been expelled from Heaven, along with Lucifer and all the rest of his rebellious followers. And it had been Michael, a fellow archangel, who had been the one to kick their unholy butts out of the celestial presence of God. Forevermore.
Now Michael was after him again.
For centuries Jasper had been sending out his special creations, demon vampires, to the earth to bring in more doomed human souls in a faster, more efficient fashion than just waitingâÂ
ho-Âhum
â for bad Âpeople to die. Horror was just a way station on the journey to Hell, but it was Jasper's own special playground, and now Michael threatened to take even that away from him by creating vampire angels to fight him. At the same time, Satan was demanding his due.
“We cannot continue at our present pace, one soul at a time. We must needs speed up the process. Bring in hundreds, no, thousands of doomed souls at one time.”
“Like 9/11?”
“Holy Hades, no! God sent legions of His angels to Manhattan afore we could even arrive. Instead of Satan or I or any of the Lucipires being able to grab them, angels led them right and left to that holy place of which we do not speak. There were so many feathers flying about that day, it was a wonder the news media did not notice.”
“Smoke,” Sabeam remarked.
“Huh?”
“The feathers were hidden by the smoke,” 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.
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SANDRA
HILL
IS
a graduate of Penn State and worked for more than ten years as a features writer and education editor for publications in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Writing about serious issues taught her the merits of seeking the lighter side of even the darkest stories. She is the wife of a stockbroker and the mother of four sons.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from
Vampire in Paradise
copyright © 2014 by Sandra Hill.
Excerpt from
Kiss of Pride
copyright © 2012 by Sandra Hill
CHRISTMAS IN TRANS
YLVANIA
. Copyright © 2014 by Sandra Hill. All rights reserved under International and Pan-ÂAmerican Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-Âbook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-Âengineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperÂCollins e-Âbooks.
EPub Edition
OCTOBER
2014 ISBN: 9780062117557
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062117571
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