Kiss of Pride Read Online Free

Armod, the teenage ceorl from Iceland. He keeps scaring the clerk at Uni-Mart, deliberately. The youthling is fascinated with his new set of fangs and hasn’t got past the lisping stage yet.”
    “A lisping rock star?” Trond laughed. “I heard about him. The kid is only sixteen years old, right?”
    “In years, yes, but considering how many people he killed before being saved, well, he’s an old fellow. And now Armod fashions himself the new Michael Jackson. You ever seen a vampire moonwalk? Not a pretty sight. I had to buy him an iPod because he kept blasting out ‘Thriller’ on that music box he carries everywhere.”
    “Jacksson? Hmm . . . that is a fine Viking name.”
    Vikar rolled his eyes. “Trond! Michael Jackson was a pop music star. He was as far from a Norseman in appearance as a cat from a tiger.”
    Trond’s chest shook with suppressed mirth. Then he punched Vikar in the arm. “I know who Michael Jackson was, lackwit.”
    He shook his head at Trond’s mirth making, oddly touched at this simple expression of closeness betwixt them. It was lonely living for all these years, isolated from the rest of society . . . living but not really living. At least they had each other.
    He coughed to get his emotions under control. Time to change the subject. “And then Hoder is making pets of the rats in the dungeon. Yes, this place has a friggin’ dungeon. I’m thinking about locking myself in there for a decade or two.” He tried to continue frowning, but it was hard when Trond was laughing his arse off.
    “Where were you assigned before this?” Trond asked him.
    “Sodom and Gomorrah.” Vikar grimaced. Enough said! At least Vikar hadn’t been turned into a salt shaker. “I thought you were in Rome playing Spartacus with a bunch of lions.”
    “I was, but Mike said I was killing too many lions. Too conspicuous. Besides, lion blood tastes like curdled piss.”
    “You get all the good assignments, and you get to dress cool,” Vikar teased. Actually, Trond got jobs that required work, lots of demanding exercise that forced him off his lazy arse. “Lion fighting, that’s what I’d like to do,” Vikar said. What is it with my teasing? Have I suddenly developed a sense of humor after all these centuries? Or more likely my brain is melting. Sucking blood does that to a man, I warrant.
    Trond did in fact look like a gladiator in his thigh-length, pleated leather tunic, with a wide leather belt, and cross-gartered sandals, exposing his big feet and bare, hairy legs. He might be lazy, but he was one good-looking lazy man.
    “Wait ’til you hear what my next assignment is. I’m gonna be a SEAL,” Trond revealed.
    “Holy crap! Mike’s gonna turn you into an animal? That’s a first for us VIK. My luck he’ll turn me into a maggot.”
    “Not an animal, lackwit. A Navy SEAL.”
    “That’s just great. If I asked to be in the military, he’d probably plop me into the middle of Genghis Khan’s army with no weapon except for my teeth.”
    Trond smiled.
    Vikar wondered if Trond realized how much hard work was involved in SEAL training. Well, he would find out soon enough.
    “Actually, I’ve got some news for you,” Vikar said. “We’re no longer going to be traveling through time on our assignments. We’re going to stay in this time period. While we’ll still work around the world, the headquarters is going to be here. Our heavenly bosses believe this modern world is as sinful and depraved as Sodom and Gomorrah ever were. So we’ll concentrate all our efforts in the twenty-first century.”
    “My SEAL assignment makes sense then.” Trond tapped his closed lips with a forefinger thoughtfully, then asked, “How do you know all this?”
    “Mike told me. Called me in for a special one-on-one last month.” He sighed deeply. “He’s given me until the Reckoning to have this pile of rocks at least minimally suitable to house all the resident and visiting vangels.”
    Trond snorted his