Bride of the Vampire

by Gayla Twist

The giant frowned a little and said, “It should not be. Let me take a look.” Turning to Gloria, he said, “Please stand out of the vay, sveetheart.” Then he grabbed the coffin and hauled it half way out of the car. I guess being super-sized had a few advantages. One of them being mortal super-strength.

  Viggo tried to open the box, giving the lid a good shake. Then he pulled a set of skeleton keys out of his pocket and fit one in the coffin’s lock. “It’s open,” he said, locking and unlocking the coffin a few times. After that he shook the lid some more. “It was fine this afternoon when I got everything ready to go.” He tried strong arming it open, but the coffin was so well made that it could resist even his super-human strength.

  “This is no good,” Jessie said to himself after checking his pocket watch. “We don’t have time to go back to the castle for a replacement or we’ll miss our flight.”

  “What are we going to do?” I looked from one face to the other. It sounded like the Bishops were getting super impatient and some lord now had his boxers in a twist. I couldn’t imagine how they would react if we called up to say we’d missed our flight due to a malfunctioning coffin latch.

  “They can share,” Gloria said, her voice decisive. When Viggo looked at her, she shrugged and said, “They are love birds; they will not mind the small space.” And then I saw a smirk of amusement flicker across her lips. I wondered, for a moment, if Gloria had a hand in why the white coffin was suddenly out of commission. And if she did, should I scold her or thank her?

  Jessie ruffled his hair with his fingers. “I guess it’s our only choice or we’ll miss our flight.” He turned to me. “Would you mind, darling?” he asked, gesturing toward his own, open coffin.

  Climbing into any coffin wasn’t exactly appealing, but as far as they go, Jessie’s was also beautiful. The exterior was a dark ebony, polished to a high shine and the interior was silk in a dark cream.

  “Maybe you should get in first,” Gloria suggested to Jessie, “and she could climb in on top of you.”

  I shot a sharp look in Gloria’s direction, but she betrayed no further expression of amusement.

  Jessie nodded. “That will probably be the most comfortable. He climbed into the casket and reclined. For a moment, I felt my heart shudder in my chest. It wasn’t easy seeing the man I loved lying in a coffin. It was too much like attending his wake. “I’m ready when you are,” he said, giving me a smile.

  “Great,” I said in a shaky voice, inching my way around the side of the coffin to slide in next to him.

  But the moment I was in Jessie’s arms, I felt much better. Maybe this was why Gloria broke the lock on my coffin. Maybe she realized how much I was dreading the flight, locked in a casket. I suddenly felt extremely grateful toward her.

  As soon as I’d snuggled in, resting my head on Jessie’s chest, he called to Viggo. “We’re ready now. You can lock us in.” And then he pulled the lid shut.

  I immediately felt the coffin being shifted and then heard the key turn in the lock. “How do we get out of here in an emergency?” I asked, feeling a renewed surge of panic rising in my chest.

  “It’s simple,” Jessie said, in his most reassuring voice. “There’s an emergency release right here,” he pointed to two brass buttons protruding through the silk. “Do you see them? You just press them both at the same time and the lid will pop open. Got it?”

  “Yes,” I said, instantly relieved. I did see them. In fact, even though the coffin was pitch black, I could see perfectly. “Yes, I see them.”

  Suddenly the coffin began to tilt rather dramatically to one side and then the other. “What’s going on?” I asked, clinging to Jessie’s chest.

  “There’s no cause for alarm,” he told me. “Viggo’s just building the crate around us.”

  “What?” I asked, then I immediately remembered the last time, when I had been the one ferrying Jessie to Budapest. I didn’t get a coffin out of baggage claim, but a large pine box. “But why didn’t we just have the coffins in the boxes before we got started?” It seemed like the easier thing to do.

  Jessie kissed my forehead. “I thought this might be easier on you, but you’re handling everything so well, I guess it wouldn’t have mattered either way.”

  Was I handling everything well? I was glad that I was at least giving that impression. And I was especially grateful that, if I had to be locked in a box for an extended period of time, it was with Jessie. The coffin was quite snug with the two of us in there, but it wasn’t too horrible, given the circumstances.

  After a few moments of our shifting around, things settled down and we heard some hammering. “He’s nailing the crate shut,” Jessie said, although that much was obvious.

  “Okay, so if we have to make an emergency exit out of the coffin, how do we get out of the crate?” I had to ask.

  Jessie frowned. “With great difficulty. It’s wood, you know.”

  “I know,” I assured him. “Is there a way out?”

  “Not easily,” Jessie had to admit. “Underneath our bedding is a pry bar and some other tools. “If we need to, we can break out, but I doubt it will come to anything like that.”

  “That’s good,” is what I said, but on the inside I was thinking, “I hope not.”

  After being shifted around a bit more, we felt a steady movement beneath us and Jessie said, “I guess we’re underway. Viggo is to slap on the lid twice, once we’re checked in and about to be loaded onto the plane.”

  “Doesn’t anyone ever find it suspicious?” I asked. “All these coffins that keep flying back and forth to Budapest?”

  Jessie thought it over. “Not that I’ve heard of,” he said. “And a lot of the undead choose to just fly on their own.”

  “How is that possible with the whole Atlantic to cross?” I wanted to know.

  “There is a designated route with safe houses and even a few ships that patrol certain parts of the ocean. It’s a reasonably safe thing to do, as long as you keep your eye on the weather. We’ll have to try it sometime.”

  “You mean once I’m not so lousy a flyer?”

  He gave me a little squeeze. “Not everyone is instantly good at everything. A lot of times it simply takes practice.”

  I did my best not to roll my eyes. After all, I knew he was right. But it would have been nice to be a natural for some aspect of being a vampire.

  After a few minutes of silence I asked, “So, if we’re talking in here, will any mortals be able to hear us?”

  “It’s unlikely,” he said. “But these coffins were made to be light-proof, not sound-proof, so we’d better not risk it. Once we’re at the airport, let’s just speak in whispers or not at all until we’re sure we’re safe in the cargo hold and that the plane is on its way.”

  “How should we pass the time?” I asked, an enticing thought immediately occurring to me.

  “We could meditate,” Jessie suggested.

  “I have a better idea,” I said, sliding up a little higher on his body to kiss his lips.

  Chapter 11

  “Jessie,” I said, giving him a shake. I received no response. “Jessie, I know you’re not asleep; now cut it out.”

  “Aurora, I’m asleep,” he said. “Deeply, deeply asleep.” The plane was vibrating beneath us and had been for several hours.

  “No you’re not,” I said, giving him a small shove. “I can’t believe my own fiancé would rather feign sleep than be with me.”

  “You know that’s not it,” he said, still not opening his eyes. “I’m centering all of my energy so that I can focus on resisting you.”

  At first Jessie had responded to my kisses. But then, when things started really heating up, he suddenly withdrew into himself. I ignored it for a while, assuming my persistence and his hormones would eventually win out, but then he closed his eyes and started breathing in the steady way of a sleeper. That was a dead giveaway because vampires don’t actually have to breathe.

  We both lay motionless and silent for a while. I thought
flying in coach was a bore. This was mind numbing. “I’m so glad the lock was stuck on the other coffin,” I said. “I don’t think I’d be very happy all by myself.”

  “Well, then I’m glad, too,” he said, giving me a little squeeze. “It’s very naughty of you to try to seduce me, but I’m happy you’re not feeling stressed because you’re alone.”

  “Naughty?” I said with a snortle. “I don’t think I’ve been called naughty since back when I believed in Santa Claus.”

  Jessie let out a small chuckle. “I find it hard to believe you’d be anything but nice as a child.”

  “Just wait until we have one of our own,” I said, teasing him. “Then you’ll see. Even the best behaved kid can still…” and then my words caught in my throat. We would never have children. We couldn’t even adopt them. I had to get the idea of having babies with Jessie out of my head.

  There was several seconds of awkward silence and then Jessie said, “Would you mind shifting slightly to your right? I’d like to check the time.” After I complied, he slid out the pocket watch Colette had given him and popped it open. “Good. Halfway there,” he said, as if this wasn’t disappointing news.

  The awkward silence continued to hang in the air. I was grateful that I was sharing a coffin with Jessie and I didn’t want the rest of the trip to be miserable, so I said, “Let’s play I-spy.”

  “What?” Jessie said with a laugh. “I-spy in a casket?”

  “Yes. I’ll start.” I said, looking deeply into his eyes. “I spy with my little eye something gray.”

  “Gray? Hmmm…” Jessie said, pretending to think it over. “Clouds?”

  “You got it,” I said, sliding up his body to get another kiss. “First try.”

  “Aurora,” Jessie said, a note of warning in his voice. “Don’t try to get me started again.”

  “Fine,” I said with a huff, slumping back onto his chest. “You’re such a party pooper.”

  “Behave,” Jessie scolded, but I knew he was teasing. “This isn’t exactly easy for me, you know.”

  “It isn’t?” I asked, looking up.

  “Of course not,” he said, cupping my face and kissing me quite tenderly. “I’m determined to be a gentleman. But just so you know, on our wedding night, I am going to devour you.”

  “Oh.” I gasped, a delicious shiver running up my spine.

  My hormones were still running wild - our bodies were pressed together in a confined space, after all - but I forced myself to behave for the rest of the flight. I had to respect Jessie’s wishes because I knew he would always respect mine.

  An eternity later, we felt the wheels of the plane finally touched down on the tarmac in Budapest. “It shouldn’t be long now,” Jessie said, giving me a squeeze.

  “Good,” I said. Lying on Jessie’s chest was wonderful, but I desperately wanted to get up and stretch.

  Eventually we heard people moving about the hold. “We should speak in whispers now,” Jessie said in a voice that was barely audible, even to my newly heightened ears. “We should only consider ourselves safe once the lid is unlocked.”

  I nodded. If our experience was going to be anything like the last time, then the coffin would end up in Special Claims Department and someone would have to retrieve us. I wondered who Viggo would send. It was an added complication that Gloria couldn’t be there to ferry us through the process, but if she did come with us, I would probably spend the whole time worrying about her baby and not focusing on dealing with the Bishops.

  It took about twenty minutes before we started to move. The baggage handlers were not at all gentle with the coffin and we were shifted around quite a bit. At one point I figured we had been loaded onto some kind of cart; I thought I could feel us being rolled somewhere. Jessie and I both maintained complete silence. I seriously didn’t want anyone to wonder why there were whispers emanating from a coffin. That could definitely lead to some weird questions. Or, at the very least, some bad dreams for a hapless baggage handler.

  We heard doors opening and closing. There were several conversations that happened around us, but seeing that they were all in Hungarian, I couldn’t understand any of them. Eventually we came to a stop. If I listened carefully, I could hear more muffled conversations. Some of them were actually in English, so I assumed it was people approaching the Special Claims Department counter to retrieve their awkwardly sized luggage.

  I could tell from the way Jessie cocked his head that he was also listening. He must have eventually heard what he was expecting to hear because he gave me a nudge and a nod. It was shortly after that when we started moving again. There was more jostling and I assumed we were being loaded into some type of conveyance, probably another hearse.

  The vehicle started moving and I closed my eyes, reminding myself that we would be out of the box very soon. But after forty minutes, I began to wonder where the heck we were going. I leaned very close to Jessie and whispered softly in his ear, “How much longer?”

  Jessie responded by lifting his shoulder in a very small shrug. And then he gave me a reassuring squeeze. That’s when I truly started to get worried. We were locked in a box in a car, and we had no idea who it was who had claimed us or where we were going. If they were friends, then why didn’t they identify themselves, or at least reassure that everything was fine?

  The plane had set down in Budapest in the morning, so I knew it was still daylight outside. There was no way we could leave the coffin. We had to stay where we were and hope for the best.

  Jessie said in a faint whisper, “I need you to crouch down.”

  Bending my legs, I tried to make myself as small as possible at the foot of the coffin. Jessie rolled to one side and pried up the silk bed we’d been lying on. Sticking his arm in the area underneath and feeling around, he retrieved a claw hammer and a pry bar.

  After he closed the hiding place, I slithered back up to him. Jessie pressed the hammer into my hands, he gave me a steady look. “They’re probably mortals,” he said, more with his eyes than with his voice. It was daylight, after all. If things went wrong, then we would have to fight. If we weren’t burnt to a crisp immediately, of course. If they opened the coffin outside, we didn’t stand much of a chance.

  I tried to think of what possibly was going on in the car. Did someone else accidentally pick up our coffin by mistake? Or was it grave robbers who saved themselves the trouble of digging up a fresh grave? Then I considered another, more chilling possibility. The last time we were in Budapest, the Hungarian mafia tried to kill me. They’d been hired by some mysterious patron who wanted me dead as revenge for the death of Viktor Adami.

  Eventually the box we were in was set down on the ground with a clunk. We could hear people talking all around us. It sounded like a rather large crowd. Jessie and I exchanged perplexed looks. What was going on?

  Then there was the sound of the exterior box being pried open; we could hear the nails being ripped from the wood. When that noise stopped, there was a bit more chatter and then the crowd grew silent. “You can come out now,” a male voice told us. “It’s still daytime, but we are in the dungeon, so there’s not a spot of sun. It’s all perfectly safe. You have my word.”

  Jessie and I exchanged another look. His eyes were questioning and I gave him a firm nod. I was terrified, but I was doing my best to hide it. The voice didn’t sound menacing and it had a note of amused sincerity to it. I figured we had to face whatever was out there at some point, so we might as well get it over with.

  The lock let out a bright “ping” as Jessie pushed the emergency release buttons. He gave me a quick squeeze and a peck on the forehead before throwing back the lid. We both sprang to our feet, clutching our makeshift weapons, and ready to face whatever came at us.

  We were in a dungeon — the voice had not lied — the walls and ceiling were composed of gray stone. There were metal bar creating cells at the far end of the room, but the room itself was crammed full of people. Most the people were dressed in wild and colorfu
l costumes, like they were members of Louis the Fourteenth’s court, but in Technicolor. A small yet menacing portion of the crowd were soldiers dressed in matching, all-black uniforms. They wore heavy, black leather gloves, which I knew were so they could handle silver netting or whatever other silver weapons they had to contain the undead. The crowd was completely silent; all staring at us with baited breath.

  Before us stood a man who must have been turned in his early thirties. He was dressed in an outfit that fell somewhere between a leather clad biker and the ringmaster in a Victorian three-ring circus. He was tall, lean and muscular with wavy brown hair and a remarkably handsome face. His ruffled shirt hung open, revealing a well-defined chest that was surprisingly tan for a member of the undead. He had a whip in one hand and a top hat in the other, as if we’d just interrupted him in the middle of his lion-taming act. There was something about the expression on his face that made me feel very uncomfortable; like he was a cat and I was a canary.

  “Welcome to my humble abode,” he said, breaking the silence while executing a careless bow in our direction. “I am Lord Vagnar,” he told us, taking a step forward. “Jessie Vanderlind, I know you by reputation, of course. It’s very nice to meet you.” He extended his hand and, after a brief moment of hesitation, Jessie shook it.

  Then the man turned his attention to me. “You must be Colette. Or is it Aurora? I’ve heard you referred to both ways many times.”

  “Aurora,” I told him. “I prefer Aurora.”

  “Well, my dear, I’ve heard much of your beauty and I must say that it was only slightly exaggerated.” Lord Vagnar mugged for the crowd and they all laughed as if they’d been drinking too much wine and he’d said something incredibly witty.

  Turning back to me, he continued with, “Please, come out and join us.” He raised a hand to assist me. “You must be longing to stretch your wings. I always find traveling by coffin so uncivilized.”

  I hesitated for a moment, glancing in Jessie’s direction, and then reached for Vagnar’s hand, allowing him to help me over the crate.