The Last Etruscan

by Lyn Brittan

  “Get comfortable.”

  “Comfortable!” three voices screamed.

  “Unbelievable. ‘Get comfortable.’ That’s the best you got?”

  “As much as possible. Cara, stay standing and look around the circle in all directions. Boys, we are going to sit down. Try not to move your eyes, but if it happens, well, hopefully Fanchon Marie will be looking over your head when it does.” Luca counted to three, and she felt a whoosh as the other two men unceremoniously slumped down to the ground.

  “Now Cara, I want you to stay in the middle of the circle. Keep us awake and keep us looking. Change your position every so often. Sean, your ears are the best warning system we have. If you hear something, give her a general direction, and she’ll move in relation to the sound.”

  “What if we slip up? Worst case scenario?”

  “A rather painful calcification and death. If the fairy tales are true anyway. Best not to muck it up.” Gregorio answered.

  “He’s right,” Luca added. “Boys, now is not the time to play hero. If you get tired, let Fanchon Marie know. Allow her to take over your watch for a bit.”

  “Honey, weren’t you the one recently passed out?”

  “Twice,” Sean added.

  She jabbed a finger in Sean’s back, but he did have a point. Luca’s body had never been so abused. She sat behind him, her legs on either side of his body.

  “I mean to lean into you a bit,” he said. “Twenty minutes, no more. Then you take a nap, and you’ll do the same for Gregorio and Sean. We keep our heads together, and the morning will come soon enough.”

  ****

  Three hours later, Luca accepted the stupidity of that statement. The sun played a vicious game of hide without the seek. The constant turning of his head, tennis match style, left his neck in knots, provided more fuel for his already splitting head. The sounds of popping muscles and cracking backs told him the others shared his misery. Not that all three of them had been particularly silent about it. They took turns complaining, but he didn’t try to shut them up. At least he knew they were awake. For a while anyway.

  Fanchon Marie had fallen asleep on Luca’s back while Sean rambled on about stupid magic when Gregorio’s pain drenched scream caused them all to turn in his direction.

  Bad move.

  Several things happened at in rapid succession. Luca heard the screeching of rock on stone and turned in time to stop another creature right in its tracks. Less than an arm’s length away stood a bearded stone angel with fangs longer than any he’d seen pop out of Sean’s mouth on the worst of days. The wolf in question let out a string of curses as he drew in his legs. Whichever creatures he’d been watching must have gotten a bit too close for comfort. Still, screams meant no deadly attacks. The problem comes when the screams stopped.

  “Tell me what is happening, Cara mia.”

  “Need a minute, sweetie.”

  Gregorio’s screeching made her words difficult to decipher, but he got the drift. “You have one minute before I do something desperate.” There was a pop, her scream, Gregorio’s scream, a splash of water, and nervous laughter. “Talk!”

  “I must have fallen asleep, cousin. It…uh…the damned thing bit me. My leg started turning gray, but the water. It worked! Fanchon Marie grabbed the vial from my neck. Hah!” Luca heard the smack of a kiss.

  “I expect my own vial of that stuff as a wedding present.”

  “You word is law, sweet princess.”

  “That’s enough, you two,” Luca interrupted. “Glad you’re not dead, but we still have a couple of hours to go. No more mistakes.”

  And they weren’t any. Each minute lapsed into the next one, during which Fanchon Marie walked in the circle created by their backs in regular, ten minute intervals. There were grunts, but no outward complaints, thank goodness.

  “Shouldn’t be much longer,” he said, looking towards the purpling sky. Minutes later, the purple became an intense red, morphed to orange until finally, yellow gave way to blue. With the suns ascent, the motionless statues huffed as if out of breath and slogged morosely back to their original places, where they then died.

  Of course, that can be tested only one way.

  “Why me?”

  Luca slapped Sean on the back. “Wolf, meet lamb. Lamb, wolf. I swear this opportunity will never present itself again. So go on, then. Do it before we make you do it.”

  The group stood several feet away, backs turned, while the sacrificial wolf stood before the sleeping lamb. “I’m turning around and...still breathing. Now, screw you guys. I’m going back to the house. After the wedding, I hope to never see any of you again.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Next come, the stockings.”

  Fanchon Marie gulped another glass of champagne as her mother and sisters fussed over her. They’d greeted her with smiles and cheers, having no idea what she’d been though the previous night. Per Luca’s instructions, she kept mum on the subject, allowing everyone to focus on the production that was her wedding.

  “And that gahhhhhterrrr,” her eldest sister said, extending the word as she shimmied the ring of fabric up Fanchon Marie’s thigh. Fanchon Marie yawned into her fist. Three short hours ago, she and Luca crawled into bed. She felt herself dozing off, seconds after he’d passed out. Two hours later, her family arrived into town, chests puffed with the blessed union about to come to pass. She almost wished the statues had gotten to her first.

  She threw her head against the wall with a thud as they attacked her with eye shadow brushes and corsets. Each article of clothing had to be pronounced, per tradition, and by the time they got to the “veeeiillllll,”Fanchon Marie plotted sororicide. Thank God for champagne. The only other thing shed had to drink the entire day was the last half of the vial from the old woman. She quickly pushed all thoughts of her aside, already way too close to tears.

  “Easy now, sis. You don’t want to zigzag down the aisle tipsy.” The admonishment warranted another long swig, followed by a less than dainty burp. Hmm...maybe she had taken in too much. In a few minutes, that was proven painfully true.

  She had no warning. One minute she was nervous and delightfully tipsy, the next her stomach alternated between seizing and lurching with the ultimate result being an upchucking bride in a now ruined dress.

  Cue the tears.

  The hive hummed to thunderous levels as women buzzed around the room. Some produced charms from hidden pockets. Others flung hexes in her general direction. In fact, so much residual magic clung to the air in the nanoseconds after Wedding Day Hurl Fest that the room sparkled with florescence purples and blues. It also squealed -- a high pitched fizzy sound that threatened to make her ears bleed. Too many Vodou women working the magic at one time rarely made a good mix.

  “Stand up straight!” another sister shouted. “We’ll magic that dress clean in three minutes.”

  Fanchon Marie had to shout over the agreeing women. “No. NO! This is the most ensorcelled wedding dress of the century. Luca made sure that it’d be so bound tightly that no one could enchant it in any way. For my protection.” That’s when she broke down again. “You do anything and the entire building is liable to blow.”

  “Girls, get that dress off of my daughter now. Move! You, go find another white dress. And you.” Fanchon Marie heard over her head. “Go downstairs to tell them we shall be a little late to the service.”

  “No, Mom,” she said between heaving breaths. “I can’t get married today! I just can’t.” The events of the past week finally caught up with her. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.” Her teeth chattered and she had to force herself to slow down. “Everything about this wedding has been out of my control. You literally threw me to his family the moment I was born. The guests are yours and his. The location is the house I’ll be forced to live in for the rest of my life.” Though she kinda loved it...and the owner...but that wasn’t the point. “I can’t even have a proper cake because we moved the date up due some psycho—”<
br />
  “Got you pregnant,” her eldest sister said.

  “What? Uh, no.”

  Her mother patted her on the back. “It’s all right, sweetie. Luca explained to us why the wedding had to be moved ahead so many months.”

  Fanchon Marie said nothing. She couldn’t. Her jaw had detached itself from the rest of her face. See? There it was, down there, on the floor, destroyed by shock.

  “We figured a little champagne wouldn’t hurt. We just didn’t expect you to go overboard. Anyway, when you say things about how horrible this wedding is going to be, I know that there’s hope. Downstairs is a beautiful man who he cares for you deeply. He loves you. He’s made it clear to me and your father that this is more than a simple binding of families. This is a true binding of hearts.”

  “I-I just–” She didn’t know what else she wanted.

  “I know you want to marry him. I’m a mother, dear, and I can tell these things, so we shall find another dress and—”

  “No. The one thing that was mine out of this entire process is over there.” She pointed. “Wrapped in a ball of lace and puke. I tried on a billion dresses before finding that one, and I’m not getting married without it. If you all are too chicken shit to tell him that, I’ll do it myself! Give me that cell phone.”

  After bridesmaid number eight lobbed it into the air, Fanchon Marie’s mother, apparently a secret wide receiver for the Saints, came out of nowhere for the interception. “I’ll do the calling.” The woman even held out her arm, for the perfect block.

  “Luca, hi there, son, it’s your new mama. Oh, well, fine, just fine, although, we could use your help up here. It seems that Fanchon Marie is suffering from a bout of delirium. If you could please come and talk some sense into the mother of your child, that would be fantastic. Oh, nothing wrong, exactly. She seems to think that she doesn’t have to get married today. And I...hello? Hello? Luca?”

  The door crashed open two minutes later.

  “May I ask everyone to leave while I have a moment with my bride?” The politeness in his words didn’t reach his face. Ares possessed her dark Adonis. Veins in his neck and vermillion faced screamed while he twisted his massive hands into balls of fury.

  So, basically, the room cleared out in one point seven seconds.

  “Fanchon Marie!”

  She ran to him. “Stop yelling. Hold me.”

  Instantaneously, his voice and demeanor changed. “Cara mia?”

  “My dress is ruined. I can’t get married without it. And, and you told my mother that I’m having a baby! How could you make up such a thing? Honey, I know you want to handle this Morlena thing on your own but, couldn’t you tell them the truth? Some weirdo’s acting crazy and--”

  Luca dropped to his knees and planted a kiss in the center of her torso. “I did tell the truth.”

  “This isn’t funny, Luca!”

  “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my live. This is our family now.”

  Fanchon Marie cursed under her breath, thinking about the champagne she’d consumed moments before. “Why didn’t you tell me? I should have been doing things: vitamins, doctors. More importantly, how did you even know?”

  “Callie told me. She’s sensitive to things like that. Later, Sophie confirmed it. Back home, the women flocked to her for such potions and charms.”

  Fanchon Marie put her hands on his chest, leaned away, and stared up at him. “Did you make her put something--”

  “Didn’t need to.” And in his best caveman voice, “Have seed, strong like bull.”

  “Luca, be serious.”

  “Your morning teas have extra herbs to protect you and the child. It has been enough for my people for centuries.” Well, it wouldn’t be enough for. She’d make an appointment after the ceremony. Another thought niggled its way into her brain. “Is this,” she said, holding her belly, “the only reason you—”

  “Finish that and I’ll spank you. Or I would, if we had time to enjoy it.”

  A laugh made its way out of her throat. “Stop it, Luca.”

  “That is why I chose not to tell you right away. I know a bit about how your little strange mind works now, and I saw no need in having you thinking that our child is the only reason I married you.”

  “Oh no, I know that’s not just it,” she said. “It’s also the contracts, the key to city, the—”

  Luca dipped his head to kiss the cave her of neck. “Try, because I want you. Because I will kill anyone else who touches you. My original plan was to marry you, get a child, and then leave you to your own devices. But now? Now, you have no hope of every getting out of my sights. I love you, and I’m loving our family forever.”

  Luca undid the first few buttons of his tuxedo. “I especially love you like this, half-naked in—”

  “I’m half-naked because my dress is ruined!”

  “Fanchon Marie, if this is about a wrinkle or a misplaced hem—”

  “I threw up on it.”

  He said nothing for a long time, but his laughter came so hard that tears formed in the corners of his eyes. Finally. “That’s my little boy in there, looking out for his father.”

  “Excuse me?” The man was so wrong on so many levels.

  “All day I’ve been thinking about doing disgusting things to you, just before our wedding. Now you are here in an amazing white lingerie getup that—”

  “One, I’m dead tired. Two, we don’t have the time to do anything other than—”

  “Mother did the first and last binding spell on the dress. As a result, she is the only one with the ability to change it. That will take some time. Now, get on the bed.”

  “Luca, no.”

  “Keep your shoes and stockings on. A little fantasy of mine.” He gathered the discarded dress in his arms and handed it to the first person on the other side of the door. “Take this to my mother, explain the situation, and bring it back. I need a few minutes more with my bride.”

  He slammed the door right in the faces of the peering, protesting women before focusing all his attention on her. “I’m going to lick you. You’re going to suck me. I’m going to screw you, and then I’m going to marry you. You’re going to keep your mouth shut until you say, ‘I do.’ However, if you feel the need to groan, scream, or say wicked little things before then that’s fine.

  And how lucky was she that he kept his promises? Their little interlude didn’t take long, they did have guests downstairs, but it was enough and just what she needed to calm her.

  ****

  “Do you remember the first time we met?” he asked as he zipped up his pants twenty minutes later.

  She rolled back on the bed and looked heavenward. “It’s hazy, but I think I can piece together a memory of a little, spoiled prince who walked around with his nose in the air.”

  “No, that was the second time.” Luca stopped dress to blow a raspberry on her belly. “The first time we were tiny little things, and you spoke a language that made no sense.”

  “And yet we played all day. Remember? They took us all over the place. First the park then the zoo. You cried because you wanted the animals to be free. They gave you pizza to quiet you down, which you promptly spit out in the middle of the food court.”

  Luca stuck out his tongue at the thought of that long ago moment. “It took weeks to get that taste out of mouth. Yet here we are, nearly two decades later. I still hate American pizza, and you still make no sense. Ow! Let me finish, woman,” Luca said as he massaged newly red bite marks on his arm. “I am trying to say that, I do not mind at all, how nonsensical you can me. OWWW! Stop that! Anyway, my little Alsatian, I could not be happier. The next time you see me will be at the end of the altar.”

  He planted one more solid kiss and made his way out. The women swarmed in for finishing touches, shooting disappointing glares in the direction he’d gone.

  In the rush to make up for lost time, not everything made it back, exactly as it had been before. Fanchon Marie’s bird’s nest veil had
been placed on the right, instead of the left, but she didn’t’ complain. The eye shadow in the crease of her lid took on a more sultry color than originally intended, but she liked that, too, and let it go. And the coin, Luca’s Touching Coin that she’d placed in her earlier bosom, lay in a corner on the floor. Her sisters and cousins had dressed her so quickly, that’s she’d been pinned and zipped before finally noticing its absence. At least the dress returned to her in perfect condition. With one last backward glance to the bedroom and the coin, Fanchon Marie walked down the stairs and out the door to begin her new life.

  ****

  Luca’s heart lurched into this throat when he saw her. The woman walking towards him claimed his soul, and the gris gris she’d given him, warmed in its own magical delight against his chest. When her father placed her cupped hand in Luca’s, a sense of completeness washed over him. He leaned over to place a premature kiss. It earned him a round of applause from the guests. “You, ready?”

  “Nervous, but yeah, I think so. It was a long way down that aisle in these shoes.”

  “Cara mia, where were you a few minutes ago? Have you forgotten already? You went all the way in those shoes.”

  Chuckling officiates, one representing the Roma and another, the house of Vodou, shushed them and opened the ceremony. Both cultures demanded their own rites be followed. After they exchanged vows, Fanchon Marie and Luca pricked their fingers on exchanged bits of unleavened bread.

  Next, the guests followed the grinning couple outside for the coup d’état, the snake dance. The crowd formed a wide circle around the bride and groom. Luca watched Fanchon Marie detach a lower portion of her dress. Shed of the bulky fabric, she grabbed his hand to walk Luca around the inside edge of the circle three times. After this customary greeting of the guests, she led him to a seat in the center of the gathering.

  Drums beat a slow, hypnotizing African rhythm whilst Fanchon Marie’s dance quieted the crowd. Her hips moved slow and steady while her upper torso kept a faster time. Perfectly coiffed hair shook off its small, metallic restraints while she dipped and stretched her body. Luca fought off the urge not to take her right there.