Ghost Phoenix

by Corrina Lawson

  “Those who tunneled a church into a mountain in the fifteenth century could easily create an extensive tunnel system,” Richard said.

  Marian nodded. “Like your people did at the abbey?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  “You think Rasputin could be hidden in there with his monks?” Marian asked. It seemed a very public place to hide a monastery, even one run by Rasputin.

  “It would explain why Romanoff’s source called from the museum, which is supposed to be right next to the church entrance,” Richard said. “If the monks are devout, they may wish a proper church in which to worship and a proper resting place for their saint. After all, it’s where his body supposedly was hidden.”

  “And if they’re led by Rasputin and not just some crazy heir worshipping his relics?” she said.

  “They may still need a place to worship. Rasputin was not conventional, but he was devout.”

  “That’d be nice if we could just go through the tunnel to the Church and run across them,” Daz said.

  “Just so.” Richard grinned.

  “I hate to break it to you two but it’s not a proper Russian Orthodox Church, not here in Germany. It’s probably a Lutheran Church.”

  “It is consecrated to God. That may be enough for the monks or for Rasputin.”

  “Doesn’t impress me,” muttered Daz.

  “Afraid of tunnels, Daz?” Richard asked.

  “Nah, I already climbed the tunnel, remember? I’m just afraid of churches. My girlfriend dragged me in there as a hint. A big hint.”

  “Which is why she is no longer your girlfriend?” Richard asked.

  “Yep. I pretended to be clueless about what she wanted. I heard she married a fellow army lieutenant a year or so later. Good for her, good for me.”

  That made Marian smile. “According to my research, the Museum Idar-Oberstein is the place to visit here. Given it could be staffed of local guides full of knowledge of the town, including stories not in the history books, I would recommend that as our first stop even if we didn’t know Romanoff’s source called from there. If nothing happens, then we climb to the church.”

  “After we visit the Fenstermacher house,” Richard said.

  She nodded. “Of course.” They’d agreed to check this place before going to confront anyone who might be waiting for them at the museum.

  She drove two miles past meadows and only a few farmhouses. Rocks crunched under the wheels as the road became dirt.

  “Are you sure we’re going to the right address?” Daz asked.

  “Yes, this is the exact address Romanoff gave to Richard,” she said.

  As soon as the word left her mouth, a farmhouse came into view.

  The home was set the middle of a meadow waiting for planting. Spring was just here, so the grasses were still brown and wet.

  “It’s a brick triangle,” Daz said.

  “Accurate enough,” Richard said.

  She parked the car. Daz had been right, it resembled a big red-brick triangle, albeit one with a thick bottom. It was a classic German farmhouse. From the windows, she guessed it was three stories inside and maybe an attic in that peaked roof.

  She got out of the car and shaded her eyes from the sun. It was bright today, even with sunglasses. No cars were parked in the dirt driveway, there was no mailbox and no lights were on inside the home.

  No sign of life.

  “I’ll knock.” Richard strode up to the door and rapped on the wood.

  They waited. He knocked again. Nothing. Daz moved to the side to look in the windows.

  “No furniture,” Daz said.

  She peered inside. Empty and barren of furniture. A simple farmhouse, kitchen on one side of the home, the fireplace in the middle to warm the entire structure, and open rooms that could be a living room and dining room. Wooden stairs led up to the second floor.

  “It’s clean inside,” she said.

  “So it’s not completely abandoned,” Richard said.

  “I’ll slip inside and look around.”

  Richard curled his hand around her wrist. “No. I don’t like the idea of you going inside without us.”

  “So we break in?” Daz asked.

  Richard shook his head. “This information came from Romanoff, who steered us wrong once. Now that I see this place, I’m more wary. It’s far more isolated than expected.”

  “Another trap,” Daz said.

  “There could also be a trap at the museum on top of the mountain,” Marian said. “What’s so different about this one?”

  “There, at least, it’s public and our disappearance or attacks on us will be noted,” Richard said.

  “So we just leave?” Marian said.

  Richard nodded. “We have only preliminary information on this place. We leave this alone until we know what we’re walking into.”

  “I don’t like it,” Daz said. “We leave without checking, any evidence in there could be lost.”

  “We walk in there without a plan and not knowing exactly what to expect and we could be lost,” Richard said. “And I don’t like any of this, but I like being set on in an isolated area even less than being set upon in a public museum.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Daz said.

  Marian stared at the farmhouse, as if it could divulge secrets by just existing.

  “Waiting might be a good thing. Alec said he might come out to Germany, even though I urged him not to,” Daz said. “If he’s with us, we’ll have all the weapons we need.”

  Richard grabbed Daz’s forearm. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “This isn’t your operation. I have no idea how Alec’s presence will affect what I need for my court.”

  Marian stepped between them. “You two really want to argue here?”

  They broke apart and got back in the car, this time with Richard behind the wheel. “You should have told me,” he repeated.

  “I wasn’t sure whether to trust you,” Daz said.

  “You are now?”

  “Reasonably. I told you now, didn’t I? I could have just let Alec show up without warning.”

  “And you wonder why I’m unsure whether to trust you,” Richard said.

  Richard drove up the mountain directly to the Church of the Rock. Conversation seemed out. Richard and Daz were seething. No relaxed surfer dude today, Marian thought. Instead of blathering and saying something stupid, Marian tried to enjoy the scenery and think on what to do next.

  Idar-Oberstein was a beautiful German village out of the distant past, complete with narrow cobblestone streets, dating it to the time before automobiles. Even the three-story homes seemed like skyscrapers as the road shrank to little more than the size of the car. If she were claustrophobic, she’d have felt trapped.

  At her recommendation, they picked a local hotel at the top of the cliff, directly across from the Idar-Oberstein Museum and right next to the entrance to the tunnel that led to the Church. It would provide a base of operations. There was no telling how long they’d be there.

  As they walked inside the hotel lobby, a bell tingled overhead, signaling their arrival. She glanced around. It seemed a typical tourist hotel, even with a corner set aside for pamphlets of all the local attractions. Narrow stairs were to the right, presumably to the rooms on the next floor. The entrance into the hotel’s restaurant and beer garden were to the left.

  No sign of crazed monks.

  The front-desk clerk, an older, balding man, came to immediate attention and helped them.

  “One room, please.” Daz spoke before she could.

  The clerk glanced over, pleading silently. She cleared her throat. “Yes, one room, and please enable the wireless,” she said in German, which she hoped Daz didn’t understand. Let him wonder i
f she’d agreed with him or not. She was feeling that petty. He could have mentioned wanting to share a room in the car. She knew he must have good reason, but leaving her out of the decision made her feel like baggage.

  She checked them in and asked the clerk if the restaurant was open yet. It was, though the beer garden was closed.

  They brought their luggage upstairs to their room.

  “Want to tell me why just one room, Daz?” she asked as they set the suitcases down.

  “Protection. We’re too close to the heart of it to be separated,” he said.

  Richard nodded.

  “You might have mentioned this before jumping in front of me with the clerk.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Daz said.

  She gave them each their pass cards to the room. “Fine, but I get a bed and you two can share.”

  Richard said nothing but took her hand as they descended the steps back to the lobby.

  The restaurant was typically Bavarian, and the tables were sturdy hardwood. Daz picked the seat at the table that put his back against the wall and gave him a full view of the entrance, including the connecting door to the beer garden and hotel.

  Daz was doing his job. She let go the resentment over not being consulted.

  Richard chatted with the waiter in German, asking about the weather and if he grew up here and if he had ever been to the museum and where else would he recommend they visit.

  All basic tourist questions. All seemingly innocent. If this was a trap, Marian decided they’d already been spotted.

  “Is the Church of the Rock still an operating church?” she asked the waiter when Richard finally stopped talking.

  “Of course,” the waiter snapped.

  Odd for his mood to change from solicitous with Richard to snappy with her. Maybe he considered her an American and beneath him while Richard appeared to be German. Richard’s German was as flawless as his French.

  “I am not used to anyone snapping at my companions,” Richard said. “See that you treat us with respect.” He added something harsh-sounding in German. Ah, that was an insult she hadn’t heard before.

  The waiter cleared his throat. He nodded. “Apologies, Fraulein.”

  “No offense taken,” she said.

  “Your bread will be out very soon.” He backed away from the table, eyes always on Richard.

  “Just what did you say to him?” Daz asked.

  “I called him on his rudeness to Marian,” Richard said. “Odd that he changed his friendly tone so fast.”

  “He thought you were a German native and I was a dumb American,” Marian said.

  “Did he now? Interesting. Still, a waiter in a restaurant so close to the museum and church should be more accepting of tourists.”

  “I found that a lot of people who lived near overseas American military bases held grudges against Americans,” Daz said. “And, like I said, this is a popular stop in American military circles. Maybe he’s been burned by cranky Americans.”

  “That’s one explanation,” Richard said.

  The other was that this waiter was connected to Rasputin. Now they had her being paranoid.

  A busboy came out and put bread and butter on the table. They resumed talking after he left.

  “It would be a huge coincidence if we stumbled across one of the monks at lunch,” Marian said. “The hotel and the museum aren’t connected.”

  “We’re here in the off-season, we’re Americans, and the prince and I are hard to miss. Not too many mixed-race dudes in a small German town. If our robed friends are about, they know we’re here or will know soon.”

  Daz looked around, his eyes focused on the two men in the far corner, near the window, chatting. “At this point, it is a good idea to assume everyone is a possible hostile.”

  “That’s a rough way to live,” she said.

  “Live. That’s the operative word.”

  She turned to ask for a second opinion and caught Richard staring off into space.

  “Richard?”

  He blinked. “Yes?”

  “Daz thinks the waiter could be involved with the monks.”

  Richard shrugged. “Likely not but it does no harm to assume so and be cautious.”

  “I’ve eaten in many places in Europe and I’ve had incompetent waiters, indifferent ones, ones who hit on me, and ones who ignored me, but I’ve never had anyone sneer at me before like this,” she said.

  “It’s odd,” Richard said.

  “Good thing we’re not in the islands off Scotland,” Daz said. “They burn up outsiders there.”

  “What?”

  Daz smiled. “It’s a movie. The Wicker Man. A police officer goes to investigate a missing kid on this isolated island and all the natives treat him oddly, so he thinks everyone knows who killed the little kid and is covering up.”

  “Are they?”

  “Nope, it’s something worse than that,” Daz said.

  “What? He finds out they did it and they burn him up?”

  “Close but not quite. I don’t like the vibe here. That’s why I thought of the movie. Maybe the whole town’s in league with Rasputin. I don’t remember this kind of thing from my earlier visit.”

  “You might have been focused on your lady friend,” Richard said.

  “Maybe,” Daz said.

  The waiter came with the check. He gave it to Richard. Marian grabbed it out of his hands, took out her own credit card and gave it back to the waiter. He glared and practically snatched it from her hand.

  “He’s not getting much of a tip,” Daz said.

  “You were right, Daz,” Richard said. “I first took his rudeness for a quirk but have you noticed the other patrons? Their eyes keep sliding away from us. It’s eerie. Your Wicker Man analogy may be apt.”

  “You’ve seen that movie too?” she asked.

  “I’m always curious about how the current Englishmen view the past.”

  “Weird glances won’t hurt us,” Daz said. “But I still wish I had a gun.”

  After they paid, Marian was glad to step out into the afternoon sunlight. The oppressive atmosphere dissipated, though she half expected monks to jump out from an alley and block their way through the cobblestone streets. Old-world architecture never seemed so foreboding before.

  We beat the monks the last time. She must keep reminding herself of that. Besides, she could go phantom. Daz was the only one whose life was really in danger, and he was calm. She could be too. “How about a walk around the block before we go into the museum?”

  “Excellent idea.” Richard offered her his arm and she accepted. “The more we’re seen, the better the odds that we’ll stir something up.”

  “And it will give us a chance to see if all the villagers are as unfriendly as the ones inside the restaurant,” Daz said.

  It might have been the sunlight, it might have been the company, but her spirits lifted. She walked, head held high, with Richard, letting the day’s warmth fill her.

  She almost imagined she was on holiday, having an adventure, though Daz’s careful steps behind them made her aware he was still on watch, so the illusion wasn’t complete. If only she were on vacation with Richard.

  “I should like to take you on a real holiday,” Richard said.

  Maybe he was a mind reader too. “Where?”

  “Perhaps Hawaii and some of the Pacific islands. The surf is beautiful there.”

  “I can’t surf,” she said.

  “I’ll teach you.”

  “Sounds better than this gloomy town,” Daz said.

  “I doubt it was always this gloomy,” she said. “Remember, it used to be the center of the gem trade. The local economy has been hit hard the last couple of decades, like some areas in the states.”

  “You’re saying this is the gem equivalent of Detr
oit?” Daz asked.

  “Something like that.”

  They encountered only a few people on the streets, neither friendly nor unfriendly, but obviously uninterested in the visitors. In no time at all, they were back at the museum entrance.

  The museum loomed before them, three stories of whitewashed stone set just off from the entrance to the Felsenkirche. As museums went, it was strictly small-time, Marian thought, which only meant it was locally run and supported, rather than having wider scope. It was no Smithsonian, but local museums often held knowledge not in facilities with a wide, less focused scope.

  She’d no idea why Romanoff’s source would have been located here. Surely, Rasputin would want to be in Russia.

  A single employee manned the relatively small desk in the front room, which almost seemed a twin to the lobby of the bed and breakfast where they had stayed the night before.

  The receptionist instantly came to attention, stood up and welcomed them in German. The middle-aged woman reminded Marian of many Germans she had encountered through the years. Solid, friendly but not too friendly, and with crisp, careful movements.

  Richard answered the receptionist in German, and then asked for three tickets in English.

  “It would be rude to speak only German in front of my American companions,” he told the receptionist.

  Playing along, Marian turned in a circle to look at the photographs of the gem mines and the Church of the Rock that were hanging on the walls.

  “Just how did they carve that church into the mountain?” Marian said, letting her voice fill with real awe. The Church was truly a work of artistry.

  “It took many years and many skilled craftsmen,” the receptionist replied in halting English. “You must visit it after your visit with us. You must experience it.”

  “Thank you, we will,” Marian said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Do you have any recommendations on what exhibits we should see in the museum?” Richard asked, also in English.

  “The whole museum should be seen.” The receptionist smiled. “We are small, so it should not be a hardship.” She lowered her voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “But there is a room all in darkness to better see the light given off by the crystals. And I am especially fond of the fossil coral display.”