A familiar yelp sliced through the air.
“That’s Kit!” I said.
Roger dashed ahead of me. I stepped cautiously across the slippery polished stone floor. The concourse was fairly empty and I could see long legs and platform heels wind-milling from the floor in front of a Pizza and Pierogi stand. Something big, black, and hairy slid across the floor like a giant spider and came to rest at my feet. I stooped to grab it. I’d know it anywhere. Kit’s favorite wig, his Cher.
Roger dove into the pack of guards who were trying to pin down a tall woman in black Capri pants, a peach-colored tunic top, and short blond-streaked hair. The woman pulled back her fist and threw a haymaker punch that thankfully went wild. That was no lady—that was Kit. If he struck a guard, Kit might spend his golden years in a musty cell dining on stone soup and sipping water with floaties.
I had all I could do not to join the rescue, but I had to protect my baby bump. I stood on the sidelines, screaming. “He’s a famous celebrity in the United States! Let him go!”
Roger tugged an Elmer Fudd-like security dude by the collar and flung him to a standing position. Kit kneed a lanky sentinel. Stunned, the tall guy grabbed his crotch and tumbled over Roger, slamming his guard noggin on the floor.
Guys love a brawl and once started they battle to get the last punch. It had something to do with testosterone or too many video games. These dudes needed a reason to back off or they’d keep up the melee.
“That’s Brad Pitt!” I screamed. They cut me a look that would freeze milk inside a cow and then scrutinized Kit.
“You’re being filmed!” I pointed to a tourist granny with a camera around her neck. Pregnant ladies are allowed a smidge of fibbing.
The guards glanced around in panic. They hesitated long enough for Kit to stand back onto his size thirteen platforms. Roger stepped outside the fracas and huddled with a uniformed policeman. He slipped the officer a fistful of Vulgarian currency. Whatever the price, it was cheap enough to keep a drag queen’s tushie out of prison.
Kit clopped over to me, shame-faced. He took the wig and adjusted it on his head. He looked more like an airborne Witch of Eastwick than Cher.
“Don’t say you told me so,” he tugged his tunic and threw back his shoulders.
“I did tell you so.”
“These are my most comfortable travel clothes. And the wig—”
“Does not match your passport photo. Please change. We still have to get to the resort in one piece.”
“It’s too late for me to change.”
“That’s true.”
Roger held my arm as we exited toward Ground Transport, leaving the guards stomping and snorting in a Fudd-like cool down. I peered over my shoulder but they didn’t follow us.
A stagecoach bearing the sign of a smiling bat, the Van Helsing Resort logo, waited at the curb. Where was my limo? “I want a limo!”
Four inky black horses, harnessed to the coach, pawed the ground, their eyes a deep scarlet in sharp contrast to their humongous white teeth.
“It’s part of the ambience. Destination nineteenth century,” Roger said.
I rubbed my belly. “Not to worry, Little Roger. Mama’s got you.”
Chapter Three
Roger helped me into the coach. Kit sprawled himself on the left side of the carriage. I was about to settle my butt on the old tapestry seat to the right when I eyed a tattered spot in the upholstery. On closer observation, it was a hole. Ick. I am a card-carrying hole-a-phobe.
“Up!” I motioned to Kit.
“A hole? Don’t make me sit on that side. I hate riding backwards,” he whimpered.
So I had a couple of minor hang-ups. Phobias. The biggie was holes in fabrics. Grossed me out. My friends knew better than to question me.
Hands on my hips, I stood my ground. “Which one of us is the pregnant lady with the hole-phobia?”
With a grimace, Kit traded sides. The left side was hole-free. I sat in the middle facing forward. Roger crossed in front of me and took a worn seat at my side but by the window. With a chorus of whinnies and a pounding of hooves, the four black horses cantered out of the parking lot, the carriage swaying side to side and taking us back in time.
The stagecoach clattered along the unpaved road kicking up a dust cloud that seeped into the carriage. Vulgarians looked away as we clattered past. I assumed not everyone was a fan of horses. Our team was a gang of noisy brutes, snorting and growling. Yes, these horses growled, I could hear them above the din of their hooves.
The scenery quickly changed from Prague-ish Old Town to a Hammer Films version of the Carpathian woods. I braced my hands on either side of the seat. The stagecoach hit every pothole in the mountain road as we made our way up to the Van Helsing Resort and Spa. Little Roger was going to be born early if this ride got any rougher.
I braced my feet against the floor, concentrating on my red Ferragamo flats.
Pregnancy was all about distracting yourself from being pregnant… unless you were wearing a particularly cute maternity outfit. Then it was okay to indulge.
Roger pressed his nose against the isinglass window; he appeared lost in a trance.
Kit and I exchanged glances and shrugged.
“Roger, sweetie, are you looking for something?”
Without turning from the window he spoke, “I used to spend my summers here as a child. I’m just dealing with the memories.”
I could read him like a favorite novel. His expression was not one of happy remembrances. I touched his arm. He reached back and placed his right hand on mine but never took his eyes off the scenery.
An eerie chill draped over me like a wet coat. Could it be Roger had taken this coach ride with his family, perhaps with his baby brother? If Vulgaria carried bad memories why did he chose it for our wedding? Nothing like getting off to a sucky start. Leave it to an archaeologist to plan a fun weekend. What was I thinking?
The coach, part of the mood of the Van Helsing, was a buckboard fit for a pioneer. No wonder Victorian women took to their beds in their last trimester. This was hell-on-square-wheels. “Sorry. Sorry.” I repeated a mantra to my belly.
I leaned on Roger’s shoulder and peeked out at the view he found so mesmerizing. A small medieval castle resembling a downsized Hogwarts sat halfway up the mountain. As we drew closer I could make out ragged red and green pennants. I was expecting a Disney castle not a Harry Potter citadel.
We clattered on, the vibrations sending worry waves through me. I should have asked Roger for the travel particulars. Foolish of me to think he’d know what a pregnant lady can and should endure. My wrists ached from holding myself half off the seat as each bump brought me closer to what I imagined birthing pains felt like. My back was aching. Was that a sign of early labor?
I could see a plot of barren land at the base of the fortress between the walls and the dark dense woods that spread over the mountain and threatened to gobble our carriage. No wonder there weren’t any photos of the resort on the Internet, it was downright spooky. Not yet Vulgarian lunchtime and a wolf howled. Children of the night, shut up.
“I thought this was a beach resort?” I poked Roger knocking him out of his trance.
Without taking his eyes off the window, he spoke. “Beach? What gave you that idea? This will be more like hiking through the Bavarian woods. You love hiking.”
“Yeah. Can’t get enough of it, from the goat farms of north Georgia to the Sahara. Have you forgotten I’m pregnant?”
He didn’t even so much as turn around.
Hmm. I wondered if I could file for divorce before marriage.
We took a sharp bend in the road, giving us a different perspective of the forest and an angle on the angry sea below. The sun slipped behind a mountain peak and then crept back to illuminate what could only be Carfax Abbey … the home of the silent monks. The Tim Burton-ish mission sat high atop the tallest peak with a steep drop to the Black Sea.
It looked to be quite a slog between the Van Hels
ing and the abbey. I should have packed cargo pants and hiking boots instead of a sexy maternity bikini.
The horses clip-clopped up the ridge, stones and gravel spinning from their hooves and tumbling into the forests below. Kit shot me the fisheye. Once again I’d sucked him into one of my escapades for better or worse, till death do us part. Actually, Roger was the suckee; Kit and I were the suckers.
Roger could have chosen a simple beach wedding on the Caymans, but no. This had all the markings of a friggin’ adventure. Oops… must remember to watch my mouth. Flipping adventure. Is flippin’ good? I’d better Google it. Must learn mom-talk.
The horses whoa-ed to a stop, throwing the three of us forward and back with a slam. Roger caught me before I touched the hole in the seat. I staggered to my feet. He helped me out of the coach while Kit grabbed our carry-on luggage.
The Van Helsing had a Stephen King warmth about it. The darkened windows were framed in eggplant colored shutters, the windowsills were a putrid shade of mustard, and the stone and stucco exterior appeared to be the color of a two-day-old bruise.
My gasp must have been louder than I thought. Both Roger and Kit turned to me.
“You okay?” Roger said.
Not wanting to disappoint the world’s worst wedding planner, I sighed. “I’m just overcome with the romantic setting.” I caught sight of Kit over Roger’s shoulder. He puckered his face. I turned back toward the carriage.
I hadn’t noticed the coachman before our journey. Since he’d done his best to bring about Little Roger’s early birth, I gave him a careful going over. Maybe we’d done battle before and he was getting even.
The driver’s eyes were sunk into this skull, his skin jaundiced, and his teeth a matching shade of subway-tube yellow. He glared at me and I instinctively clutched my belly. Little Roger was very still. He hadn’t kicked since we landed on Vulgarian soil. Did he know something I didn’t know?
Chapter Four
I leaned on Roger, my legs unsteady from all the bracing I’d done on the trip up the mountain. The dark ground beneath my feet stuck to my shoes with a whap-slap.
“Welcome!”
The cheery greeting came from a tiny lady on the sunny side of thirty. She wore a white pinafore over an ankle-length black dress, barely hiding tiny pink boots. Her brushy brown hair was tied in a tail at the back of her head and swished as she scampered down the stairs to greet us.
She curtsied. “My name is Miss McCurley. Squirl E. McCurley, but you can call me Squirl.” She pushed up her sleeves and grabbed our luggage from the coach. Roger and Kit made a polite wrestle for the bags, but she prevailed. “It’s my job!”
Squirl schlepped the bags, three under each arm, into the hotel lobby.
“Let’s stay on her good side,” Kit said pretending to flex his muscles as we tottered after her.
Roger strode an uneven gate to the registration desk and banged on a little bicycle bell creating an embarrassingly sissy jangle. A skeletal guy with a dead rat toupee on his head popped up as if he’d been hiding on the floor behind the counter.
“The Jolley party, checking in,” Roger said.
The rat-hat clerk studied Roger and Kit; then his bulbous eyes came to rest on my tummy.
“Your suite is ready,” rat-hat’s voice sounded like a bad case of strep throat.
I scrounged in my pocket and handed Roger a pen. I wasn’t about to let him touch the rat’s germy quill.
The register kicked off a cloud of dust and probable mold spoors, as the clerk whose nametag read Jonathan Harker spun the book for Roger’s signature.
“We’ll need a priest or a minister,” Roger said. “Know where we can find one?”
Harker glanced at my belly again. The dude was creeping me out. “The village is on struck. The priests have also struck.”
“Strike. That’s strike. How can priests strike?” I said, more than a little agitated.
“The religious have all left Vulgaria on retreat. This is a bad time to come to our country. I will be leaving for a family holiday in the morning.” His eyes said liar, liar, toupee on fire. “Only Miss McCurley will stay on. She will tend to your needs.”
“Is she a priest?” I asked wondering where our luggage had disappeared.
Harker shook his head. “She is many things; but a priest she is not.”
As if reading my mind, he continued, “Miss McCurley is waiting for you in your suite on the third floor. I suggest you avail yourselves of the dining room soon. It closes at five.”
Just what a pregnant lady wants to hear. Limited access to food. Dang it!
Harker motioned toward a one-person wire lift. It looked like an ornate, oversized birdcage on two cables, ready to plummet.
I mouthed “no way” and headed toward the narrow Gone with the Wind staircase. Roger scooted to my side and took my left arm. I grasped the rail with my right. I felt bloated and in need of a nap.
Breathless at the third landing, I dug my fingers into Roger’s arm and paused. Squirl stood at the end of a long carpeted corridor and beckoned us toward opened dark wood double doors. I hobbled closer to the entrance. The dim sunlight cast an eerie glow on our honeymoon-plus-one suite.
The room was right out of a Merchant-Ivory film, Victorian-a-go-go. A four-poster bed the size of my condo living room sat on a platform eating up most of the space. Faded red velvet drapes began at the bed canopy and drooped to the sides, held back from the bedposts with tatty gold cords. The bedspread matched the drapes. A dust sheen approximating powdered sugar on a red velvet cake blushed in the sunlight.
The vision brought on a coughing fit. Little Roger kicked catching me in the side. Good. He was finally alert and flexing his little muscles. I couldn’t wait to hold the little guy. I hoped he looked just like Roger but had my smarts.
This bacteria festival was not what I had in mind when I let Roger plan our destination wedding. This is the last time I leave the controls up to the cute, but absentminded professor.
The flight in and out of Vulgaria occurred once a week. I wondered if it was too late to catch the outbound plane. We could still make dinner at Joe’s Stone Crabs on Miami Beach.
Kit’s room adjoined ours by a double door that closed from either side. I insisted on keeping him close when Roger made the room arrangements. Being in a foreign country, I felt the need to protect him, not knowing the extent of Vulgarian prejudice to nail techs.
The door between our rooms sat open. I caught a glimpse of Squirl flitting around in my buddy’s room, her ponytail swinging, her cute chubby cheeks harboring a grin. She scuttled the wall and pulled back the bulky drapes, then lifted the pig-squealing window. A breeze wafted in, smelling of the forests and the sea.
Roger stood at the window in our room, his eyes locked on the breathtaking view. The forest was exquisite, lush, dark, and mysterious. Beyond the woods I could just make out the rolling waves of the Black Sea.
“Roger?” I tapped his arm.
No response.
“Sweetie?” I kissed his cheek. Nothing. I should be the focus of his gaze, not the gosh-darned trees.
“Roger?”
He looked at me as if surprised to see me. Could he get any more romantic? I should be used to it by now. His mind was probably off on a treasure hunt in some exotic local.
Time to unpack and chow down. I would kill for extra crispy chicken thighs and a container of gravy. I wondered if Colonel Sanders had set up shop in Loutish.
My suitcase was perched on a folding luggage rack. I snapped the locks, lifted the lid and checked to be sure Roger wasn’t looking. The wedding dress was on the top layer, wrapped in dry cleaner’s plastic. The label was missing but the dress was definitely Betsy Johnson. All feminine, lacy, and a tad bit funky. A woman has only one white-dress wedding day even if it is after the fact.
“Don’t look, it’s my wedding dress.” I said to Roger as I shook it out and carried it into Kit’s room where he was busy unpacking.
I placed my ‘
something old’ dress in Kit’s closet, next to his blue maid-of-honor gown so Roger wouldn’t accidentally see it until our wedding. The way our luck ran, I wasn’t taking any chances.
Squirl was puttering with a stack of fluffy off-white towels. She placed them in Kit’s bathroom and then sidled over to us.
“Miss, I couldn’t help but overhear what Mr. Harker told you. There is a minister, but not here in the village. There’s a priest from the Vatican at the monastery,” Squirl said.
She raised her brows as she mentioned Rome. “The priest arrived in the Vaticopter this morning. Lots of whirlybird noise when they dropped him off. We felt the propeller wind all the way down here.” She grinned a toothy grin.
“He’s investigating the murders,” she said as she patted my stomach.
Why do folks feel compelled to touch a pregnant belly? It’s not a good luck charm; it’s a body part. What would she say if I patted her boobs?
Murders?
Squirl lowered her voice, “Being with child, I’m not sure you should hear these ugly things, but you are bound to discover the truth.” She pulled a tiny silver cross from inside her collar and held it so I could see.
There goes my peaceful destination wedding.
“Who was murdered?” I squeezed her chubby cheeks with my fingers to get her to slow down and focus.
“There’s a cemetery outside the walls of the monastery,” she nodded in the general direction of the abbey. “Some of the Loutish boys were playing among the tombstones when they found …” She hesitated as a wolf howl cut off her words.
Shades of Mel Brooks.
She sighed and picked up the thread, “Monks. Buried monks. Forty bodies!”
Bump! Bump! Who the heck was providing the background music? Queen?
Clearing my throat I took a deep breath and spoke with all the authority I could muster, “Children shouldn’t play in graveyards.” I covered my belly with my hands in hopes of blocking Little Roger’s ears. This wasn’t something a baby-in-the-womb should hear.
Vulgarian Vamp (A Wendy Darlin Comedy Mystery Book 5) Page 2