Adults Only

RBVS - Book One

What the Seven Thunders Said ( Lazarus)

=-=-=-=-=-=Prologue=-=-=-=-=-=

She was cute, I'd give her that. One of Nabakov's little demons, a temptress who looked all of 15 at the most, but she was old as starlight.

"What're you lookin' at?" She asked me, moving down three short steps from the mobile home we were living in at the time.

"Stars." I barely glanced at her, deliberately because if I hadn't made a point of it I'd have looked at her all night long and nothing else. It's happened before.

"I brought you a coke." She set the can down on the old metal table next to the lawn chairs. It had been painted white for a little while, now it was red with rust, black in the moonlight.

"It's the oldest thing in the universe." I talked around the cigarette in my mouth. I had my hands behind my head and I didn't feel much like moving them.

"What?"

"Starlight." I breathed. "It's older than the stars that made it."

"It ain't older than me." She sat down, stretching her long legs out in front of her, digging her bare heels into the hard dirt. She was naked, like she'd just been born.

"I know." I pinched my camel and looked at it, took another puff and tossed it away. "But you ain't in the universe, are you?"

"Not hardly." She laughed, tossing her white hair back from her golden eyes. She had a generous mouth.

"So." I shrugged.

"Now I know why he likes you so much." She observed, taking a sip of her own soda.

"He?" I kept looking up. "Who's he? God?"

"God?" She really did laugh then. "No, not Him. Don't be silly."

"There's a lot of he's out there." I smiled at the Big Dipper.

"Livermore."

"Livermore? Livermore…live er more…" I shrugged.

"Yeah, he says you know the secret."

"I used to, but then I forgot it." I looked over her, just on my way to see my coke, and it hurt for a second, making me wince.

"Maybe that's the secret." She giggled.

"Maybe." I opened my soda with a snick and a fizzle.

"Anyway, he likes you."

"Well, that's always good to know." I nodded, taking a drink. "If he comes for me, I'm still killing him though."

"You can't kill death." She poured coca-cola across her stomach, rubbing it into her flesh experimentally.

"I can." I had to watch her, I didn't have a choice.

"So you say." She was smiling. "I want to take a bath in this stuff."

"Why?"

"Because, it feels nice. Like the fire, especially when it's cold like this."

I rolled my eyes.

"I'm serious." She stared at me. "You have no idea what it's like being here. If you did, you'd let me go."

"I know exactly what it's like being here." I lifted my left arm, gesturing around us. "I live here, remember?"

"I don't."

I shrugged at that. "When did you see Livermore anyway?"

"The other day. He stopped by, you know." She giggled at my little frown. "Don't be jealous, Laz."

"I'm not." I drank some coke, as if to prove my nonchalance.

"Yes you are." She took a little breath, like a sigh through her pert little nose, and looked up. "Still human after all these years."

"Barely."

"You complain too much."

"I don't complain at all." I protested. "You're the one bringing all this up. I'm just watching the sky."

"Same thing. Watching the sky…" She was smiling, I could hear it. "…Complaining. It all comes to the same thing in the end."

"I didn't know you were a philosopher."

"Aren't we all?" She tapped her fingers on the taut skin of her stomach. "Sticky."

"The kid next door was asking about you." I said, but I was lying. I just wanted to change the subject.

"What kid?" That got her attention and I smiled to myself.

"The red head, Shelly, or Shirley." I shrugged. "That 6 year old next door."

"Shania." Uzi corrected me.

"Whatever. She wanted to know why you don't have a belly button." The thought had just come to me and I almost spoiled it by laughing.

"She did not."

"She did, I swear to God." I said seriously, taking the opportunity to blaspheme. "She asked me how come my friend ain't even got no belly button."

"I know you're lying now."

"I said, 'Well…She came from an egg!'" I laughed.

"Heh." Uzi smiled despite herself. The truth was that very few people ever saw her, not her beautiful face, not her perfect form, and certainly not her lack of a belly button.

"Angels come from eggs." I smiled under my breath. "Another mystery solved." We were quiet for a long while, until the sun was just starting to draw the horizon pink.

"Lazarus…"

"Yeah?" I replied in that same soft voice

"Take me to bed. I'm tired."

She reached over, touching my arm and I was suddenly overwhelmed by her grace. Uziel could make me feel whatever she desired, with a glance, or a touch, or just a word. It was hardly fair, but that was another condition of the universe.

=-=-=-=-=-=Chapter One=-=-=-=-=-=

"Jeez, I hate those fuckin' Yankees!" The guy next to me was saying. It was still early back in New York, almost closing time here though.

I was sitting in ‘Bram's, a little place just off the strip. I hadn't been paying a lot of attention, and my Hebrew was rusty, so I'd kept my head down and savored my Heineken. It was my first beer in a long, fucking long time.

"Bet you don't like the Padres much either, eh?" I chuckled at my little joke.

"What?" He was looking at me, but I ignored him.

Just like I was gonna ignore this Hebe.

"Hey baby, buy you a drink?"

"Fuck off." I turned away from him. He was third guy to hit on me in the last half-hour and it was annoying.

"You look familiar." Some woman was sitting down next to me, tall and dark and she didn't look like a dyke, so maybe she meant it. "Do I know you from someplace?"

"Not from around here." I gave her a shake of my head. "Not with that accent."

"America." She nodded. "I can't place yours though, what is that...Greek?"

"Aramaic." I actually smiled as Jeter lined a double into right field and the man next to me groaned.

"Come on." The woman was interested now, like the tourist she was pretending to be. I ignored her.

"You know who I hate?" I asked the bartender. He'd been standing there polishing glasses and listening to every word.

"Who's that?" He asked with a smile, expecting a punch line maybe.

"Jesus." I lifted my glass. "I really hate that nail pounding son of a bitch."

The guy watching the ballgame looked at me again.

"And he can't even hit." I grinned. "Two-twenty lifetime." I was nodding, as if I'd know that. "Tops."

"You uh, might want to slow down, miss." The bartender suggested and that was funny as hell.

"Yeah." I laughed. "What's the rush, right?"

I stood up, throwing some Russian rubles on the bar, maybe some Canuck money too. It looked a little orange. "Which way's the Wailing Wall from here?" I asked the bartender. "I gotta take a leak."

I thought that was pretty humorous too, but no one else did. Jerusalem was the same as it had always been, a dull, mirthless hole in the middle of nowhere. I was only here to collect a debt and then I'd be gone like the wind.

"Lazzzzzz…" It was like an old radiator dying, the way he said it.

"Oh." I caught his reflection in the window of a closed shop. "There you are. I'd just about given up."

"This town isn't safe for you." The Angel of Death told me, and coming from him the words carried a certain amount of weight. Or they would have, under normal, regular conditions. But besides being me, I was a little drunk too.

"You would know." I brushed a strand of long black hair from my eyes.

For some reason, well for a variety of reasons, I always found myself posing for this guy. He was the only one in the entire world who made me feel…horny. Even Uzi didn't make me feel like that; it was a death thing, I thought and I hated him for it. I thrust my hips out a little, tucking my thumbs in the small pockets of my leather hipsters, and rocked my hips, just a little. He liked me too.

"I liked you better as a man, I think." Livermore said, materializing finally and appearing as young man of 22 maybe, nicely dressed, but the beard had to go. It was short and scrappy and made him look like a French philosopher or something.

"I was never a man." I laughed at that and started walking, the angel falling into step beside me.

"That's not what I read."

"You believe the Bible?" I glanced at him. "And how long you been doing this job?"

"Too long…"

"Not long enough." I interrupted, my resentment finally showing. "Not long enough to fuck my girlfriends."

"Who?" He looked at me and then turned away quickly. "Uzi…that bitch. She said she wouldn't say anything."

"She talks in her sleep, man." I shook my head. "Never trust an angel."

"Look, Laz, I'm sorry. I stopped by and she was there…" He held up his hands. "…you know what she's like."

"Yeah." I had to agree with him there. Uziel could seduce Satan himself, and had on at least two occasions that I knew about.

"It didn't mean nothing anyway."

"It meant something to me." I paused, turning to look at my best friend. "It meant something."

"Yeah." Livermore nodded, looking down at his feet. "So…what? You want to fight? Here?" He looked around. "This place has enough troubles and…"

"No, I don't want to fight." I sighed. "What is it with you and fighting all the time anyway?"

"Me?" He looked shocked. "Remember Chicago? The big fire? That wasn't no cow, Laz, that was you! And where was that place…Chernobyl? Like that was a bad steam valve…Come on! You're the one! And you fight dirty."

"I fight to win." I shrugged. Chicago hadn't really been my fault, but Chernobyl… "Anyway, I don't want to fight, but you owe me."

"Okay." He shrugged. "Just ask."

"I want that bastard, the German." I said.

"The German? Why? The guy's half-dead anyway…"

"I want him all the way dead." I was walking again.

"I'm not sure I can…"

"You're the fucking Angel of Death!" I rolled my eyes. "I'm not asking for every new-born in Italy, just one old man. That's all."

"Well…" Livermore made a face. "…It's not that I can't do it, just that, well…It's political, Laz, come on."

"Political?" I really did have to pee. "What's political about it? You said yourself the guy's going soon anyway. Just give him a little push…Tonight."

I undid my pants, pulling them and my thong down so I could squat on the sidewalk.

"But…" The angel watched me.

"I can't go if you stare." I made a face at him.

"Just think about water…Niagara Falls, tumbling and splashing." He grinned at me and he wasn't gonna look away.

"The faucet in my bathroom…" I stuck out my tongue.

"Tourists." Livermore looked over his shoulder and three drunk guys were stumbling towards us.

"Everybody pisses." I shrugged and finally let my bladder go with a sigh, spraying urine on the streets of Jerusalem, much as I'd done 2000 years before. Some things never change.

The guys walked past me slowly, staring and laughing. They were dark, Palestinians breaking the faith, but that was their problem. I just smiled at them while Livermore stood there with his arms folded, smiling at me. They couldn't see him anyway.

"Tonight, Livermore." I stopped pissing finally, it had been a lot, and I pulled up my clothes, bouncing on my heels to get those pants over my hips again.

"If anyone finds out…" Livermore pursed his lips, but he'd do it. He owed me.

"Who's gonna know?" I made an innocent face. "Not from me they won't."

"Come on." Livermore started walking again and we went a while in silence. "This won't end it, you know. There are others involved, it isn't just him."

"I know." I nodded. "You just do the Pope, and I'll take care of the Jesuits." He looked at me questioningly. "Hey, I got a plan, Livermore. I got it all figured out."

"Is that right?" He smiled and just then there was thunder, sharp and short, the echoes setting off car alarms in the distance.

"Fuck." I rolled my eyes. "You'll probably blame that one on me too."

"Heh. Business is good. Where are you staying?" He was putting a hand in the small of my back and I shivered.

=-=-=-=-=-=Chapter Two=-=-=-=-=-=

"Can't stay long, the Boss has everybody running around like a bunch of chickens." Michael had stopped by my hotel room.

"That right?" I stretched, pulling my too small t-shirt up over my tummy and exposing my lily white panties.

"Uh-huh." He licked his lips, staring at my crotch.

"You want some?" I asked the Arch-Angel.

"What?" He swallowed hard.

"Do you want some…" I gestured at the tray on my bed, a hot breakfast that had arrived about 2 minutes before he had. "…breakfast?"

"Oh." He looked momentarily embarrassed, and then fleetingly disappointed.

"Have a seat, you make me nervous." I grinned, pointing at a chair.

He was ancient, like all angels, but in relative terms he was just a kid. Arch-Angels were just about the weakest of the lot and everyone pulled their chains mercilessly. People like me were the worst. Other angels, demons, the odd celestial, they'd have fun…But it took a real human being to understand humor. That was God's greatest gift to us, in my humble opinion, a sense of humor to appreciate all the shit he fucked up.

"So what's the deal?" I asked, stuffing my face with a Belgian Waffle.

"The Pope died last night." Michael put his lips together, nodding and looking around the room so he could sneak looks at my crotch. I sat Indian style, exposing myself as much as I could and I wished I had an excuse to take the silly things off.

"The Pope, huh?" I chewed thoughtfully. "Good for him, lucky bastard."

"Good for…" Michael looked sharply at me and then enlightenment filled his face. "…yeah, right. Sorry, Lazarus."

I shrugged. I'd been dead before and Jesus had pulled a miracle out of his hat and raised me. The Bible got that much right. The stuff they got wrong were all the little things, like the fact that I was a girl for one thing, and the fact that since I'd been dead…and then got raised…I couldn't die again. That was a biggie. It was the reason I'd had PMS for the last two millennia.

"No big thing, Mike…Oops!" I spilled a little strawberry jelly on the crotch of my panties and I rubbed it around with my finger, just making a sugary red mess. It looked like virginal blood, actually, and I was quite pleased with it.

The Arch-Angel froze in his seat and watched breathlessly.

"Shoot." I made clucking sounds and finally just straightened my legs and took my panties off, holding them up so we could inspect them. "They're ruined." I looked at Michael and he was looking at my little pussy. "And I don't have another pair." I sounded like I was going to cry.

"Oh, ummm…." Michael licked his lips.

"Be a dear and ask the girls next door if I can borrow a pair, would you Mikey?" I batted my eyelashes at him.

"Next door?" He glanced over his shoulder uncertainly.

"Yeah, there's a couple Swedish flight attendants or something…I don't know." I shook my head. "They're right next door anyway, just go ask them."

"Ask them." Michael nodded slowly.

"For a pair of panties." I nodded too. "Go on, hurry…I'm all naked here."

"Uh, sure Lazarus, I'll uh…" He stood up, his handsome face turning red.

"A thong if they have one." I added, just to rub it in.

Angels were so stupid sometimes and Michael…I mean the guy had gone toe-to-toe with Lucifer, you know? He had a sword bigger than…well, big enough to rend creation asunder, put it that way. But send the boy out on a simple errand…

I ate my waffle slowly, waiting for him to come back, and rubbed my clit a little.

"They didn't have any thongs." Michael apologized, his face burning up. "But um, they had these…" He held out a pair of leopard print bikini panties, pinching just a little of the nylon material between his finger and thumb.

"You're such a dear." I smiled and sat there, making him come close enough to lay them carefully on my bed. "So brave and strong too."

"Aw." He looked away, smiling and blushing. "It was easy."

=-=-=-=-=-=Chapter Three=-=-=-=-=-=

Gabriel came around later, like three minutes after Michael left. And I wasn't supposed to be suspicious? Heh…Angels were so predictable.

Angel cock is big, as a general rule, and Gab wasn't the sort to break rules. So it was nice for me. It felt an awful lot like rape, the way I took him. I had him on his back, those broad white wings spread wide, and I plucked one of his feathers while I rode his cock hard.

It was sharp, the pointed tip of that quill, sharp like a razor and I carved a big lazy L into his perfect chest. Black blood ran from his skin, but he healed as fast as I cut him and Gabriel didn't feel a thing. I rolled my ass slowly, rocking my hips and reaching back to feel his thick hot prick sliding wetly in and out of me.

I was going to cum, I always did, ever since I'd died I'd been orgasmic and I wondered what the connection was sometimes. Maybe that was just Jesus, having a little fun with me. He could be like that sometimes; a real subtle wit and he liked his little jokes.

"Ohhh yeah…Gab…Fuck me good…" I breathed, pressing my other hand to the black wetness on his skin.

Angel blood is black and it never dries. I licked it from my fingers, sucking them one at a time like long thin cocks while he watched me. His strong soft hands were holding my hips, pushing and pulling me now, cause it was feeling good for him too. He didn't get laid too often, it wasn't like he could pick up a girl off the street. There was only me, that Bitch Lilith maybe, one or two others.

That was why he'd come around, I knew. Not because of the Pope, even God wasn't that paranoid, although he should have been. No, me being back in Jerusalem was like turning on a neon sign that said ‘Fuck Me!' and they all came around, sniffing my ass like dogs in heat. Raphael wouldn't be far behind, and I'd be sucking his cock before lunch, probably.

Angels were a lot like dogs. Except dogs were smarter; more dependable too, in my honest opinion. You could trust a dog to be a dog, but angels…They were whatever God needed them to be. At least the Arch-Angels were. The others, like Uziel, they were free. And guys like Livermore, they were just doing their jobs. But Gabriel and his brothers…

"Roll over…" He was licking his lips. "…I want it the other way…"

I giggled at him and I was still high from my cum and happy I'd had it so quick, because I knew Gab was going to want my ass. He was big on that, the same way Raphael liked getting his dick sucked, Gab had to fuck anus if he wanted to get off. It was his penance for following orders, because no good deed goes unpunished, even in heaven.

"Yeah…" I swallowed thickly, pulling my well stretched cunt off his penis slowly, our juices running out of me, down his shaft briefly.

I got on my hands and knees, blinking at my breakfast tray balanced on the nightstand next to the bed. I reached for it, grabbing the last two packs of unopened strawberry jelly and I tore one open with my teeth, squeezing the plastic cup so I had a gob of it on my fingers.

"What are you doing?" Gab giggled like a Cherub.

"Little lube." I smiled at him over my shoulder as I smeared red jelly over my tight little ass, working it into my sphincter and then I did the same thing with the other one.

Gabriel just watched, stroking his dark sticky cock in his hand, grinning like a dog. He acted all innocent at first, but once you got him hard he was as sick as the next guy.

"Remind you of anyone?" I pushed my middle finger into my ass, wriggling it around.

He frowned at that, but he shouldn't have. He'd been the one who'd knocked up Mary, the Virgin Mary, fucking her tight little ass hard and making a baby without leaving a shred of proof behind. Except for her torn and bloody rectum, red and sticky, like it had been greased up with strawberry jelly. That was why he couldn't cum anywhere but in my ass…He'd raped her hard and God had pretended not to notice.

It had been a good trick, one of the Man's better ones, knocking a girl up through her anus. I almost wished Gab would do it like that for me.

"Come on, baby…" I crooked my dirty middle finger at him. "Give me a little messiah."

"Blasphemous bitch…" Gab chuckled and he got close behind me, pressing his cock to my strawberry covered asshole and giving it a hard little jab. "You should be praying while you're…Ugh!!...On your knees like that."

"Ohhh fuck…sloooow…Jesus!" I groaned because it hurt and I dropped my head, feeling my body tense and I sucked tepid Jerusalem air into my burning lungs.

"He won't help you." Gabriel slammed his cock inside me hard, punishing me with it.

This was the real Gabriel, the one people think of when they imagine him. Beautiful and perfect, all gold and light, and full of vigor. The defender of Heaven, the nemesis of Satan, leading God's army to battle. He was strong and ruthless and purposed at last and I loved him for that. Kicking ass and fucking ass, it was all the same to him, and what he was built for…Everything else just confused the boy.

I was rubbing my clit while he stretched my anus painfully. I didn't do this a lot, in fact I only did it with him, and it had been a long time. Too long and my ass had forgotten just what it felt like to be sodomized by a big angelic penis. But it was like riding a bike, you know, without the seat, so I figured it out quickly enough.

I felt his hands on my breast, his thumbs over my nipples, playing with me, using my tits to drive me back and forth. He was a good fuck and I severely loved it when he came around. I had fistfuls of bed sheet and I was panting like a bitch in heat, pushing my ass back to meet his thrusts so that our bodies made wet damp slapping sounds in the morning light.

The pain was excruciating and I liked that too. It wasn't going to kill me, I thought with an inward giggle and an outward sigh, it wasn't even going to hurt very long. I healed as fast as he did and every little tear he was making in my rectum was repaired an instant later, ready to be torn again with Gabriel's next violent thrust.

And it was violent, that was the beauty of it. There was no tenderness in angels; it's just an illusion, like Santa Claus, invented to sell soap to housewives. Gabriel had done bad things, terrible things. He'd started more wars than greed, lust, and gluttony combined, just because he liked the fighting. He was the god of war, Mars himself in my bed. Ares in my ass. Gabriel in my heart.

And if I had my way, I'd be giving him the biggest war yet…And soon, very soon, I hoped.

=-=-=-=-=-=Chapter Four=-=-=-=-=-=

It was a sex club, of all places, and I should have suspected as much from a degenerate like Nicolai. My waitress was a man, but I was content to call him a her, just for decorum's sake. It was hard to miss her cock though, pierced as it was through the glans and chained to the hard nipples topping her rather too perfect D-cup tits. It stood upright and away from her smooth tummy, swaying side to side as she walked around, showing off for the late evening crowd. Her low hanging balls, pink and clean shaven, swung between her creamy thighs when she moved and they were actually attractive, I thought. She wore black silk stockings and high heel shoes, and not much else but her jewelry and her smile.

"You got some balls, eh?" She laughed, my waitress looking like blonde Marlene Dietrich with an eight inch cock.

"I'm always lookin' for more." I shrugged.

"What can I bring you?"

"Blue Angel." I said. "No ice, just the vodka."

"Right."

"A big glass."

"You want a double?" She smiled, arching her thin brows.

"More like a triple double." I dug in my purse for a cigarette. "A big fuckin' glass."

"Right." Marlene gave me her ass walking away. At least she looked okay, as the sissy had to, I suppose. For being a fag bar, the place was kind of tough.

Germany was like that though, taking everything to the extreme all the time. They couldn't do something halfway, you know? Fuckin' Germans. Militant queers just looking for a fight. Women weren't real popular in this place, I'd figured that much out quickly enough. The club, Die Buchse der Pandora, wasn't lesbian friendly, as they say, but then again, I wasn't exactly a friendly lesbian either.

"I didn't know you were coming in drag." A man's voice chuckled and I looked up at him.

"Shit." I held up my cigarette. "Got a light?"

"Yeah." He sat down, digging in his leather jacket for a Zippo and he flicked it for me.

I sucked hard on my Marlboro, drawing the flame deep so that old tobacco sizzled. He snapped the lighter closed a half second later and I blew the smoke out the side of my mouth, looking at the lipstick stained filter under the dull red lights. These underground clubs were all the same. Mortar walls and sawdust floors, red lights on the ceiling and lightning boxes in the corners. Some band was setting up on the little stage and the place was filling up with punks and Goths and people who got danger out of comic books.

"So how you been, Nicolai?" I leaned back in my chair, balancing on two legs and rocking back and forth.

"I've been better, I've been worse." He held up his hand horizontally, tilting it back and forth. "You know."

"Here's your drink…Excuse me…" Marlene was back and making eyes at Nicolai as she put a napkin down in front of me and then a reasonable glass of vodka on top of that.

"Gut knaben, Fraulein." Nicolai grinned and it was kind of funny, but Marlene didn't get it.

"Hold on." I stopped the waitress, picking up my drink. "Do you mind?"

"Mind what?" She narrowed her eyes as I moved my glass down between her legs.

"Laz, you're so bad." Nicolai laughed.

"Ohhh…" Marlene licked her lips as I caught her balls in my vodka, lifting my glass so they were submerged in the cool alcohol for a moment.

"What?" I pulled my drink back, lifting it to my lips and taking a large drink. "Perfect…Thanks."

I smiled at Marlene and she was actually blushing, which seemed so totally out of place I almost coughed up my vodka.

"Only in Germany." Nicolai nodded.

"You know why they call it Germany?" I breathed, putting my drink down and drawing hard on my cigarette.

"No." Nicolai shrugged.

"Cause Israel was already taken." I said with a wink.

"Heh." Nicolai leaned close on his elbows. "You know, Lazarus, many people don't understand your jokes."

"I told that one to Hitler." I nodded seriously.

"You lie." Nicolai laughed.

"It doesn't matter." I made a face. "I need something of yours."

"Mine?" Nicolai put on his own serious face. "What do I have? You see me here. I'm a peasant."

"The Siddur of Saadia Gaon." I picked up my drink. "I need it."

"Ah." Nicolai nodded and rubbed his square jaw. He was a handsome man, roguish with broad Slavic features and steel grey hair, a full head of it above his coal black eyes. He dressed like a gunman for the Russian mafia these days, but he'd once been a Boyar in the time of Ivan the Fourth, the Terrible one, and Nicolai was very proud that he'd survived those difficult times…Until one reminded the old vampire that he'd only survived because he'd already been dead.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Nicolai asked me after half a minute of silence.

"It was in your house, the one in England." I stared at the man. "I used it to summon that girl you killed, what's her name."

"Virginia." Nicolai frowned.

"Virginia, yeah. You wanted to apologize and I used those scrolls, remember? I need them again."

"I was drunk." Nicolai cleared his throat.

"You were drunk?" I laughed. "I was drunk, you were crying, it doesn't matter. The girl was better off dead."

"No…" Nicolai frowned at me. "I was drunk and, uh…I lost the house."

I blinked at him in surprise and Nicolai shrugged with one of his smiles, and he was good at it. That was his power, his great ability, the vampiric thrall that sapped the will of young men and women. He was the original date rape and could seduce a single person with a glance, or an angry mob with a whispered word. All vampires could do it, but only a few were very good at it, and Nicolai was the very best.

It didn't work on me though and he knew it.

"I'm sorry." He said finally.

"Nicolai, you can't even drink a glass of fuckin' wine. Second of all, nobody loses a fuckin' castle." I stared at him. "They tend to stay where you leave them."

"Look, Lazarus, I was drunk, sucking down this girl, I dunno…She had a blood disorder, a fucking hemophiliac or something and she was taking this shit, I don't now what it was, but I swear, this girl got me higher than a pie, okay?"

"Higher than a kite?"

"Yes, thank you. Higher than a kite and I kept her on a leash, ohhh…This girl. I killed for her, a hundred times…A thousand…"

"Yeah, yeah…"

"…You haven't seen a girl like that! What she can do to a man…"

"Her name wasn't Uziel, was it?" I asked, suddenly suspicious for no real reason at all, except I did know a girl exactly like that.

"Uziel?" Nicolai shook his head. "No, no…This was Saffron, my wildflower. So delicate, you couldn't kiss her too much…"

"Nicolai…"

"…Because she would bruise, you see?" He was smiling at me, flashing his fangs and his eyes had taken a crimson hue, changing as he remembered. "She would weep if the wind blew too rough across her cheeks. And her lips…"

"…What happened to the house?"

"The house? I lost it in a card game." He shrugged. "Easy come, easy go."

"And the library? The books and scrolls?" I was staring at him, my drink long forgotten.

"Still there?" He shrugged. "I do not know. I never went back, you see."

"They're not." I said softly.

"You've been to my house?" Nicolai blinked at me. "You broke into my home?"

"It isn't yours, remember?" I picked up my drink, needing to remember it now because I wanted to forget.

"But you didn't know that!" Nicolai's perverse sense of pride was annoying sometimes.

"Who?" I drained half the vodka, shaking violently at the sensation.

"I am insulted by my oldest friend." He looked up as if beseeching God Almighty for justice. "I am too long for this world, I see that now."

"You're still a kid." I told him. "Who'd you lose the house to?"

"You will make amends." Nicolai told me. "If you kill a dead man, it is still attempted murder."

"What? Just give me the fuckin' name."

"Apologize." Nicolai crossed his arms and tucked his chin into his chest.

"Give me a name or I'll kill you and get it from your bones." I told the vampire and I wasn't exactly joking.

"You wouldn't…" He stared at me. "…Laz, that isn't funny."

"I need the Siddur." I told my friend. "More than I need you."

"Ah…" Nicolai laughed. "…It wasn't my house. I will forgive you this time." He gestured, as if warding off my unspoken apology. "I dislike England anyway, you see. I have allergies and of course my weak constitution…"

"I'll bury you in England in a minute."

"Yes, yes…He was a foreigner, a Magyar, I think."

"Hungarian?"

"Or…Romanian, perhaps." Nicolai shrugged. "His family was very well connected. I tried to turn his sister, she was such a fire!"

"Name?"

"But a pure soul." He clucked his tongue. "She didn't survive and I was inconsolable for days afterward…"

"Nicolai?"

"Petofi, uhhhh…" Nicolai closed his eyes for a moment. "…Janos Petofi, the Elder."

"There's more than one?" I snorted.

"In Hungary?" Nicolai laughed. "There always are, my friend. There always are."

I toyed with my glass, considering the best way to find one Hungarian lose in the world. Nicolai was lifting a finger, drawing Marlene's attention and that wasn't difficult because she could barely take her eyes off of him for more than ten seconds at a time. She'd been circling us like a dying crow and Nicolai was hungry, not so much for blood, but just for attention.

"Sir?" She breathed, her pale features flushed beneath the lights.

"More Lethe for my friend." Nicolai smiled, running a hand up the back of her thigh and she went tip-toe for a second as the vampire fingered her ass slowly. "It is a sin you were not born a man, Lazarus."

"Save it." I shook my head. "I need a mirror. A big mirror…And holy water." I was talking to myself more than anyone else, pushing my chair back so I could rise from the table.

"Where are you going?" Nicolai pouted. "We're just getting started!"

"Magdeburg."

"A God forsaken place! Why? Come with us instead." Nicolai was pushing the waitress down, bending her across the table. "Let me bugger the bitch and we'll be off to Moscow, the three of us!"

"Moscow?" I laughed. "Why?"

"I want to go home." He shrugged. "Come with me."

The vampire was standing up now as well, freeing his swollen penis while Marlene looked at Nicolai over her shoulder, panting with a lust not entirely her own. Sex club or no it wasn't really the sort of thing that was encouraged, at least in the main bar. There were backrooms and by-the-hour hotels on the street outside for quick sex, but no one would even notice, unless Nicolai wanted them to. We'd been sitting there invisible for the better part of an hour, other patrons looking through us without even a passing interest. Only Marlene had really noticed us and then only because Nicolai had wished it. It was one of the little benefits of hanging out with the man.

"I can't." I pulled my coat over my shoulders, watching as Nicolai lined up his cock with Marlene's ass and gave her a hard thrust, impaling her quickly on his thick penis.

"Tight little…Ugh!…Whore…" He slapped her ass hard and the waitress screamed, although with pleasure or pain it was impossible to tell.

"See ya round, Nicolai." I left him there, butt fucking a fag in the middle of Berlin. Some things never change.

=-=-=-=-=-=Chapter Five=-=-=-=-=-=

I'm not in the habit of measuring time, but sometime later I found myself where I most needed to be. That seems as if it should always be true, but it isn't, and if I needed anymore proof that fate, unlike God, had purpose, this was it.

"You can't keep me forever, Laz." Uziel was painting her toenails black, sitting in the passenger seat of my El Dorado, a '57 convertible that I'd bought brand new on Easter Sunday.

I always gave myself a gift for Easter and I remember I'd had to find a Jew to make the sale, because it was 1957 and all good Christians were in church. My goodness, how things change.

"I'm not keeping you." I tried to pull my hair back as the wind whipped it across my face. I'd forgotten what driving a convertible was like and I should have tied my hair back.

"Whatever." Uzi sang softly, her little toes wiggling on the dashboard.

"I'm trying to free you." I said, but angels were suspicious by nature, at least the demonic ones.

"You've been trying for six hundred and, um…" She looked up, frowning, "…forty one days?"

"So?" I glanced at her. "We still have three weeks and once I have the Siddur…"

"Even if it works, they're going to come looking for me." Uziel said, and we'd had this conversation before so I didn't answer right away.

I'd summoned her, well, actually I'd had some college kids do the actual summoning, it was easier that way and I'd wanted to avoid attention. Uziel had killed them immediately, of course, since they weren't exactly bright, but merely greedy. They'd released her from the First Circle, which hadn't been a very strong spell anyway, Uzi probably could have broken it without tricking them the way she had, but it was so much fun seeing her do her thing.

The Second Circle was much stronger and I'd bound her to my service for six hundred and sixty-six days, which was only a disguise, really. Uziel would have stayed with me in any event, but this way everyone could feel good about it. Nobody wanted the Angelic Demon of Blood running around loose for a very long time. Not God, the Devil, or anyone else…Except me. I'd been working on breaking the tenuous chains the bound her to Hell, the metaphysical umbilical that would draw her inexorably back to Sheol, where she would be lost to me for another thousand years.

I was going to loose her, finally and forever, and not even God Himself would be able to take her away from me. All I needed was the Siddur of Saadia ben Joseph al-Fayumi and the one decent spell that old Jewish scholar had penned in his own blood. I knew it would work. It had to. Of everything I'd seen in two thousand years of walking the earth, of all the people I'd known, mortals and immortals alike, Uziel was the only one who had ever brought me comfort. She was my eternal twin and lover, and Fate would not be denied.

Of course, being an Angel and therefore something of a fatalist, Uzi was easily discouraged by my romantic notions.

"They're going to come looking for you too." Uziel smacked her lips. "Are we there yet?"

"Yeah." I answered, turning into the docks of San Pedro, which were large and busy, even at midnight.

"What a crappy place." Uzi leaned forward, blowing on her feet as I drove slowly past cranes and stacks of old rusty containers waiting to be loaded.

"Do you know where you're going?" She asked me a minute later.

"I know." I licked my lips, sliding my big El Dorado between a couple parked semi-trailers, emerging into a large square open area, like an arena in the center of an industrial wasteland.

"Is that them?" Uzi leaned back. "They look like they're in a movie or something."

"Heh." I grinned, because they did. "Just stay in the car. I'll be right back."

"Whatever, Laz." Uzi shrugged, bored with all of this already. She wanted to go dancing.

I stopped about fifty meters away and it was well lit, with a lot of lights high all around us. There were four of them, standing around a black BMW and a white panel van. It had taken some time to set all this up and what I was doing was going to make a lot of people unhappy. Not just the bit about freeing Uziel once and for all, but the rest of it…Well, I wasn't in the habit of worrying too much about other people's feelings and besides, I told myself, maybe I'd get lucky and nobody would ever know.

I was dressed for clubbing, which seemed to surprise the men somewhat, but they didn't know me anyway except as a voice on the telephone. Petofi hadn't been hard to find and once I'd made it clear how much I wanted the Siddur he'd been quick to tell me what he wanted in exchange. I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble and just taken the scrolls, but there was a risk of failure and a very real possibility the man might destroy them, which had been his real bargaining chip; his implied threat of denying me what I most required.

"Who's that in the car?" One of the men asked me when I was close, a dozen feet away.

"My lawyer." I shrugged. "Let me see the book."

"Did you bring it?" Another one asked.

They were mercenaries, these men, none of them were Petofi, just his servants, and that was a little disappointing. I imagined they were all ex-soldiers, or secret agents, or some such nonsense. Professional bodyguards and killers and that seemed a little melodramatic, but humans were like that; obsessed with the theatrical at the expense of the practical. Four men with their pistols and radios and crisp tailored suits. It really was like a movie and so I was playing my role.

"Of course." I nodded. "It's sleeping."

"Sleeping?" The first man stepped closer. "Show me."

"The book?" I tilted my head with a patient smile.

"We have it, don't worry." He replied, and then looked at one of his friends. "Get ready to bring the van around."

"As you say." I sighed, but I wasn't going to push it now, not with the Siddur so close by.

We walked together back to my car and he was a large man, confident and black. He watched me from the corner of his eye, trying to see Uziel as well, but she was a shadow now, barely evident like a flickering darkness that he couldn't focus on. It was mildly disturbing and I could sense the man's confusion, but he was well disciplined and gave no outward sign of it. Uzi would show herself plainly only as the man died, if it came to that, and I rather hoped it wouldn't.

I reached into the pocket of my coat, a luxurious silk redingote, black and light as a whisper over the crimson dress I wore beneath. My keys were on a small chain attached to a pink rabbit's foot and I opened the trunk unceremoniously to reveal the boy inside. He was beautiful and young in his appearance, perhaps sixteen or so, perhaps even younger than that. His long black hair was askew, but hardly concealing his lovely features as he lay there, curled up in a fetal position and utterly naked. It had been difficult getting him, but my choices had been severely limited and I hadn't any real desire to betray a friend, more than I already was anyway.

"It's a boy." The man swallowed hard and I looked at him.

"What did you think you were getting?" I laughed lightly. "He's weak now and he'll sleep for several hours yet before the incantation wears off. Do you understand?"

"Yeah." The man breathed; plainly he hadn't really expected this.

"Whatever you do with him…Look at me…" I waited until the man turned his eyes towards me. "…Do it quickly. If he isn't bound when he wakes up, he's going to kill all of you."

"The doctor, he knows what to do." The man said, but his voice didn't sound so sure and it wasn't my business anyway, except for the fact that this boy was going to be one very pissed off vampire when he woke up.

He'd come looking for me someday, if he survived whatever the Hungarian was planning. That was my problem though and I wasn't too worried about it, really. The boy's mate was a much more immediate concern because Nephthys had real abilities and she was looking for him even as I stood there selling the child. If she found him…When she found him, I corrected myself, there was going to be a lot of blood spilled, and not right away. Nephthys had a thing for suffering.

That was their problem. I just wanted the book.

"Bring the van." The guy spoke softly into his little radio and a second later the van came to life, headlights off as it moved slowly towards us.

"What did you give him?" The man asked me a second later. "The doctor will want to know."

"What?" I narrowed my eyes.

"You said you drugged him, what did you give him?"

"I said the incantation will wear off soon." I smiled. "Drugs don't work on vampires."

"Incantation…" He was really staring at me now, almost smiling. "…That's like a…spell?"

"It is a spell." I nodded, sort of enjoying this.

"Who are you?" He seemed to shrink back slightly, believing my words although he didn't want to.

"Me?" I shrugged. "I'm Peter Pan."

Uziel laughed behind me, spoiling my joke because it made me laugh too and the guy just nodded slowly.

The inside of the van resembled an ambulance more than anything else and they even had a gurney for the boy, strapping his sleeping form down quickly and rolling him inside on the stretcher's folding legs. One of the men started an IV and another filled a syringe with something, presumably some chemical to keep the boy unconscious, but all that effort was wasted. They couldn't find a vein, for one thing, the boy hadn't fed in several days and he had very little blood in his body. He wasn't breathing and they couldn't find a heartbeat either, and for a second I thought they were ready to accuse me of giving them a dead vampire, which was vaguely amusing.

"My book?" I reminded the black man and he nodded.

"This way, it's in the car."

He had thoughts of trying to kill me, but the man had already seen enough to convince him that any reward he might get for returning with both the boy and the book would hardly be worth the risk. I was glad of that, although it might have relieved Uziel's boredom for a few minutes. I was going to make it up to her anyway, a long night of drinking, dancing, and later on, hardcore fucking was in her future and once we'd recovered from that I'd set about breaking her bonds. That would take a week, maybe a little more, involving a lot of spells and no small amount of blood. It would exhaust me I was sure, but at the end of it…My love would be free for the first time in her eternal memory.

"Here…"

The man pushed a button on his key chain, popping the trunk so it opened by itself, and there lay the Siddur, eighteen parchment scrolls nearly 1200 years old. The paper had been flattened into a rectangular book, stitched and bound by hand with lambskin covers and binding. It was wrapped in oilskins and knotted with hairy twine. I opened it slowly, holding my breath until I was sure of what I held in my hands.

"Good." I breathed with a smile, wrapping it back up. "We're finished."

"The, uh…The boy, does he have a name?" The guy asked as I started to turn away.

"Stephan." I nodded. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

"Right. Yeah…You too." The black man didn't smile, but just closed his trunk and watched me as I walked away.

end of Part 06 Read RBVS Part 07

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