Grumbling like a ticked off teen, Roger made his way to the shower.
“Keep the door open!” I yelled. “And sing so we know you’re okay.”
“I take requests.”
“Do Sinatra. Strangers in the Night.”
Roger belted out half the song, while Kit groaned and pressed a pillow over his head.
My husband-to-be returned to our honeymoon bed dressed in striped pajamas looking like my grandpa. Not that I’ve ever seen my grandpa in or out of pajamas.
Doctor and Mrs. Jolley-to-be gave spooning another try. The mattress owned some ungodly lumps of stuffing that dug into my right hip and elbow creating an entirely new batch of aches. Little Roger gave me a goodnight kick and then settled down for what I hoped was a snooze. His daddy snored lightly.
I was somewhere in the gray zone before REM sleep when my brain kicked in.
“Whoa!” I yelped, half-asleep but wide-awake with brilliance.
Roger sat bolt straight up in bed and looked to the right and left as if under attack.
A snorted snore came from Kit’s chair. So much for our watchman.
My eyes were twice their size as I shared my smartipantsness with Roger.
“Vlad can’t be a vampire! We’ve seen his reflection!”
Chapter Eleven
Morning was announced by a rooster. I thought they were extinct. If not, they should be. It was way too early.
Sometime during the night, the guys had changed shifts. Kit snuffled on the sofa under the windows, the dusty spread heaped on the floor. Roger sat bleary-eyed in the armchair. I guessed Vlad had fled for the evening.
I edged out of the bed shoving what I thought was a blanket to clear my exit. It was a mattress lump. Ick. A shower and shampoo were in order.
“Need you to stand guard while I wash,” I said to Roger.
“Sure thing,” he said, dropping his head with a clunk.
“Wake up lazy bones. We have a date with a priest.”
Roger lifted himself out of the chair and accompanied me to the bathroom. He leaned against the door watching me adjust the handheld shower and drop my nightie. His morning horny mien easily read, “Just a quickie? Kit’s gone to his room.”
“With you never a quickie, always a longie.” I stepped in the shower and pulled the curtain around me. “Stay out!”
And he did.
I took a long hot shower in water that smelled faintly of gasoline. What was that all about? A tainted well? Now I smelled like a Domino’s Pizza delivery person.
My blonde hair, the shortest ever at shoulder-length, was a snap to towel dry. I blotted and squished, and then tossed my locks, managing to bonk my eye with a chunk of hair.
Wrapped in a fluffy white bath towel with the Van Helsing logo positioned on my chest, I exited the bathroom and went through my trousseau. What does a pregnant bride wear to dig up vampire monks?
I dressed in black maternity trousers, a long-sleeved black t-shirt, A Pea in the Pod trousseau jacket, and my Keds. Black wouldn’t show blood. Both the guys were dressed for action when I popped out of the fitting-room sized wardrobe with a ‘ta-da’. They were also in black. We looked like a team of fashion conscious ninjas as we trotted down the Gone with the Wind staircase.
Squirl was singing in the kitchen, her high-pitched voice echoing off the walls. The chorus of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” hit me as an odd choice. But maybe the little maid considered being left in charge of the entire resort a fun gig.
We settled at the prep table near the stove to make it easier on Squirl to serve breakfast. Roger and I sat on the right looking out toward the garden. Kit sat across from us. A scrawny patch of wildflowers scattered between the backdoor and what must have been a gardening shed.
The table was set country style with a crisp white cloth and floral patterned dishes. Our little hostess had set a bowl of greens, a platter of sausage, a basket of biscuits, and a steaming pot of coffee in the center of the table. She skipped around waiting on us as if we were long lost kin. Squirl appeared to be one of those people who is naturally happy all the time. I liked that in an innkeeper.
Kit picked at the vegetable platter, and Roger nibbled on the grains. I fiddled with the oatmeal figuring it to be safest.
I passed on the Bambi sausage. The life expectancy for deer around the Van Helsing resort was probably very short. I longed for some buttery fried eggs.
“Could I have some scrambled eggs?” I asked.
“We’ve no eggs, you see,” she said by way of an apology. “Chickens won’t lay with vampires about.”
I nodded like that was common knowledge.
The grains of Squirl’s harvest breakfast wedged uncomfortably between my teeth. I checked the pocket of my jacket. My waxed floss was locked and loaded. I couldn’t wait to step away from the table and run the thread through my teeth. I bolted the last mouthful of coffee. It was delicious and took my mind off the forest forager’s feast.
Kit and Roger seemed to have an unspoken plan between them. Roger nodded. Kit returned the nod.
Roger leaned over and gave me a peck and whisper. “There may be something we can use for weapons in that shed.”
They excused themselves and slipped out the back door. I hoped they’d find some AK-47s or maybe one of those wicked crossbows Buffy uses.
Squirl was fussing at the sink.
I inched toward her. “You seem very happy here.”
“Life is simple in Loutish. Do you know how many Loutish women had a nervous breakdown in the last century? Two.”
While Squirl was in a sentimental mood, I thought it a good time to arm myself. “Mind if I borrow a kitchen knife?”
“Have at it, missy. Whatever you need. Just take this.” She slipped me a religious cross on a chain and placed her garlic lei over my head and around my neck.
I pocketed the cross. Squirl was arming me for battle with dark forces. I knew it. I knew it. Roger had gotten us in a stew again.
The lei refreshed my essence of clam sauce aroma. I grabbed a carving knife from a woodblock, and a black spatula from the counter. If I couldn’t bring myself to stab at least I could flip.
“Biscuit?” Squirl passed me a basket of dark buns. Ever polite, I put the weapons on the countertop and took a bun.
“Do try it,” she said. “It’s mom’s recipe. Sadly she took one ingredient with her to her grave. I’ve been experimenting to find the missing part ever since. Don’t have it quite right, yet.”
I shot her a weak smile, smeared the biscuit with butter from a serving dish, and bit. Pain shot through my upper jaw with the power of a high voltage shock. My eyes watered and I tasted blood. I had cracked a tooth on the biscuit.
“Damn! I mean darn.” I dropped the knife and picked up a kitchen towel.
Cupping my hand on my jaw, I mumbled. “Is there a dentist in Loutish?”
“What’s wrong, love?” she asked clueless as to the damage her cement biscuit caused.
I took the towel from my lips and let her see the blood.
“Oh lordy! I’ll bet that hurts.” She raised her index finger as if hit with a brilliant idea. “Lucky Westenra is a dentist and podiatrist.”
“Gif me hiz mumber.”
“He took his family on holiday… because of the vampires.”
“One mass slauffer un the whole friggin’ fown meaves on holi-fay?”
With the bloody towel in my right hand and the spatula in my left I waddled out of the kitchen. My reflection in the foyer mirror showed a character from Deliverance, all I needed was banjo music. Our wedding pictures were going to have to be Photoshopped.
I stood in the foyer nursing my jaw and blotting tears. I’m not a crier. What was wrong with me? Hormones or hell-in-a-handbag?
A sound approximating giant cowbells announced my guys were back and armed. I stepped outside to find them grinning like two schoolboys who’d caught a garden snake. Well, one schoolboy and one drag queen. A tangle of spades, hoes, and some rak
e-like things lay at their feet. “Bring on the vampires!” Roger said.
Honk! Honk!
Former resort manager Jonathan Harker, now chief coward, tooted and waved as he cruised by the porch in what must have been the original Range Rover. The engine sounded like a tablespoon stuck in a garbage disposal. He floored it and left the Van Helsing parking lot in a cloud of dust and a hardy hi ho.
Roger caught sight of the gap in my pearly-whites. “What happened to your tooth?”
“Sweee…” I whistled. “Pretend it’s there. Nothing a good orthodontist can’t fix.”
He hugged me. “You look beautiful.”
Had he said anything else I would have broken down in tears.
Armed with a spatula, a rake, a hoe, and a creepy feeling that we were being followed; we headed up the mountain to the monastery.
Chapter Twelve
Halfway up the mountain path, I caught sight of something dark and dippy moving between the trees. Sensing it was behind us, I stopped and turned to face it. At a distance it appeared to be the size of a vulture. Shielding my eyes with the spatula I tried to focus against the morning sunlight.
Roger put his arm around me. “What’s up?”
“There’s something following us.”
“It’s moving like a fly that’s taken a hit of Raid,” Kit said.
The thing accelerated and sped past us at an alarming speed leaving a trace of smoke and the sound of an extended whimper.
“What the hell was that?” Roger said.
I put my hands over my belly. “Please … the baby.”
“What the heck was that?” Roger corrected himself.
“It’s just ahead of us. Look to left side of the monastery.” I said. “What’s it doing? Spinning?” I shielded my mouth with the towel.
“Is it a bird?” Roger said.
“It’s not a plane.”
“Did it just drop out of the sky?” Kit said.
Roger shook his head and adjusted his rake. “Maybe it’s injured. Let’s get up there and help Father Bram. Wendy, you take it easy. No heavy lifting. I don’t want to have to deliver my own son.”
“You can if you wash your hands first.” I spoke out of the side of my mouth so he wouldn’t see the blood. Dang it hurt.
Fifteen minutes later we trudged through the monastery courtyard with no sign of the whizzing vulture.
The priest, his Louts, and postulants, were much as we had left them the night before, standing around waiting for the Vatican Vampire Investigators SWAT team.
The monks were getting ripe. Flies swarmed the corpses and the rest of the team, but hesitated attacking me. There was an upside to smelling like an Italian restaurant.
“I just don’t know where to begin.” Father Bram had purple bags under his brown eyes and his shoulders drooped.
What do you do with forty dead monks? It was a conundrum. If we closed the graves the villagers would dig up the bodies and behead them, but where to keep them on ice until the Mounties arrived?
The Vatican Vampire Investigators were on their way but what if they didn’t arrive today? What if it were delayed days or even weeks? And where the heck was Forks? It sounded familiar. Maybe I’d been there? That might be why I recognized Father Bram.
“Let’s get photos of the bodies and this part of the crime scene.” Roger said.
Bram looked relieved to have someone add some direction to his investigation.
“Do you have a list of the victim’s names?” I asked.
“The Book of Names should be in the chapel near the altar.”
“Kit and I will check out the church.”
We left Bram, Roger, and the rest of the team and headed back through the yard. I swung my spatula sword-like. Kit braced the hoe over his shoulder.
“This is the last time I am anybody’s maid of honor.”
“You’re not enjoying this?” I asked.
“Almost as much as I would enjoy the Marine Corps.”
The church was heavy with silence, but spotless. No sign of blood or guts. The walls were smooth white stucco, the floors a gray-white flagstone. No stained glass and no golden idols. This was a place for solemn meditation, not mass murder.
I tucked the kitchen towel into my jacket pocket next to my pack of waxed dental floss. We edged along the right side aisle. Wordlessly, I pointed to a podium near the altar. My buddy nodded and led the way easing past a simple confessional booth.
Thud!
Kit’s eyes shot to half the size of his face. He aimed his hoe at the confessional.
Holding the spatula in my left hand, I yanked the door open. A wizened little man fell out the booth, a gnome in a cuckoo clock, and tumbled to the aisle. He was covered in dirt and wielding a garden knife. He had Marty Feldman eyes.
He said something in Vulgarian, while looking down at his shoes.
“English?” I nodded making clear my language of choice.
“Don’t shoot!” he said locking eyes with me.
I lowered my spatula.
“My name is Renfield. I’m the caretaker.” His hands shook and his eyes spun in opposing directions. He was wearing a tattered cassock with a battered tool belt slung over what I guessed were his hips. Weighed down with gardening gizmos, a trowel, digging spade, and pruners, the belt dragged on the ground.
We had a witness or the killer.
“Please drop the knife,” I said.
He hesitated, and then slipped the six-inch blade back in a sheath hanging from his belt.
I guided the old guy to a pew and plunked down next to him. “I’m Wendy. This is Kit. Can you tell us what happened here?”
Kit sat one pew ahead and turned to watch us, white knuckling the back of the seat.
“We’re helping Father Bram investigate the murdered monks,” I said.
“There’s a priest here? I must make my confession!” He jumped up.
I inched away, my hands over my belly. He was the killer.
“We’ll take you to the priest. He’s in the cemetery.”
Renfield stepped out of the pew. “Not outside! The comet!”
Kit and I exchanged glances.
“What comet?” Squirl and Roger had both mentioned a comet.
“The Lugosi Comet.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It drained the blood from all the brothers except Edward.” He looked at the altar and blessed himself. “The Comet drinks the blood of innocents three times in a century.”
“So you’re telling me a comet bled the monks?”
“Not Edward,” his rheumy eyes darted back and forth as he spoke. “It passed over the monastery. The good brothers were in sunset prayer. The Lugosi Comet sucked them dry.”
“Why didn’t it take Edward?”
He looked at me like I was a dumb girl. “He was inside cooking dinner. Besides, he is not an innocent. He was a… how you say… a nympho?”
A nymphomaniac monk? Probably not the first one but still a mega-creepy image.
“Edward came to Carfax Abbey last month to do penance for his lusts. Now he is the Comet’s spawn.”
I motioned to Kit with my chin to get the Book of Names from the podium.
Renfield snatched a running roach from the top of the pew and popped it in his mouth.
“You just ate a bug!” I said.
“Did not!”
“I know what I saw. You ate an, ugh, bug.” Does no one admit to his sins anymore?
Kit darted to the altar with the hoe in his hand, grabbed the book, and returned in a flash, tripping over the kneeler and tossing the book on the seat.
I felt wet on my lips and licked. Damn…darn. My tooth was bleeding again. I watched Renfield’s face. No discernable reaction. Was that a sufficient vampire test?
“Trust us. There is no comet outside. But there is a priest if you need to confess.”
Renfield dropped his grubby hands to his sides with a smack and politely stepped aside for me to precede him.
“You go first,”
I said. No way was he walking behind me. Spatula or not.
“Kit, you are officially the keeper of the Book of Names. I don’t want that moldy album near the baby.”
The old caretaker wobbled bowl-legged, dragging his battered workman’s boots. He lingered in the courtyard long enough to touch the statue of Saint Francis and gaze at it with sorrow-filled eyes.
The guys were too busy grave digging to hear us approach. We picked our way among the open holes and slick fallen leaves.
Roger was on his knees leaning into a pit with his hands on a dead monk. He pulled back with a start like a kid caught in the cookie jar. I told him not to touch any dead bodies; but does he ever listen to me?
Bram tilted his head as we approached. Team Lout exchanged a whisper.
Did they recognize Renfield? Was I bringing them a humble caretaker or a mass murderer?
Chapter Thirteen
Renfield dropped to his knees in front of Bram. “Father forgive me!” he said.
The priest shot me a questioning look and then watched the little man clamber to his feet. “How have you sinned, my son?” The term didn’t fit their age difference but what the heck?
“This,” Renfield said moving his hand in a wave over the open graves.
“You took all these lives?” Bram said.
“No! We staked them and left the graves open.”
“They were bloodless when you found them?” Bram asked.
“White as a ghost they were. Except for Brother Edward.”
Kit passed the Book of Names to Father Bram who passed it to John.
“Look up Edward’s name,” Bram said.
Roger edged toward me. He placed his hand under my arm for support. Kit stood next to me. I could tell by his body language he was ready to jump between Renfield and me.
“Why did you leave the graves open? Wouldn’t the sunlight fry the bodies?” I asked.
Renfield waved his hand at the shady trees. “No sunlight can come through this canopy. The open graves were our way of signaling for help. We thought the Vatican would send help if they knew what had happened. We have no way to contact them except the local gossip.”
Claws of Doom Page 25