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 g
uys 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.”
“But you staked them?” I asked, recalling enough of my vampire lore to know staking was supposed to be used on real vampires to trap them in their coffins.
“If they didn’t drink any vampire blood and transform, why stake them? And who’s we?”
The gnome ignored my questions.
“Where’s Brother Edward?” Renfield scanned the graves, his eyeballs bouncing, his mouth as taught as a wire cutting across his face.
“He’s in the tent.” I bobbed my head toward the tent.
The body-table was bare.
“He’s gone!” Bram said.
“And he’s bloody,” Roger said with a shiver.
“He did have blood on his lips, but his body was only down a pint. That’s why I culled him from the others,” Bram said, a mystified expression on his face.
Renfield grabbed at his belt freeing his gardening knife. “Edward must be staked! He is very dangerous!”
John held the Book of Names open for Bram to see. “Here’s Edward’s name and his birthdate.”
Bram read aloud from the page. “Edward Bella. According to this he’s twenty-five.”
“Did you take his body?” Roger spun the little guy causing Renfield’s knees to buckle. He fell to the ground sobbing, which led to a hacking cough. His face took on the appearance of a wet walnut.
“We did not take him and we did not stake him. He is the Comet’s dribble.”
Renfield cast a frantic glance about the graveyard. “We were about to stake him when his eyes opened. He moved so quickly, he was gone like that!” He tried to snap his fingers but his hands shook. The snap failed.
“The Comet dribbles?” I said.
“Every thirty years the Lugosi Comet passes over Loutish. It dribbles enough of its own blood to give birth to one new vampire. Edward is the dribble from this passing.”
Ick! Drool was not exactly the same thing as being bitten by sexy Frank Langella. Why didn’t Edward stay in the kitchen? Now we’d have to behead him and wad his neck with garlic. This would be worse than stuffing a Thanksgiving turkey. Gross.
“You said Edward was a nymphomaniac? So he’s not an innocent?” I asked.
“That depends on your interpretation of innocent. Edward came to the monastery to cleanse his desires. Accidents happen. A deviant may be dribbled by mistake.”
“How do you know so much about the Lugosi Comet?”
Renfield shook his head, reluctant to speak.
Bram put his hand on the little man’s shoulder. “You must tell us.”
“I am a life-long student and follower of Lee Christopher who first discovered the Lugosi Comet.”
Bump! Bump! Who was playing that music? I looked around but saw no orchestra.
Sitting in a puddle on the ground, Renfield gazed at the tombstones. “The spirals were useless. The poor brothers had no defense.”
My right eyebrow shot up. “What do the spirals have to do with this carnage?”
“The monks believed the spirals would repel the Comet.”
Roger caught my super-superior-highly-raised-right-eyebrow. Flower holders indeed. I was right, sort of.
“You keep saying we. Who are we?”
Renfield slammed his hand over his mouth. “I didn’t mean we.”
Bram stood to his full priestly height and looked down at the caretaker. “You must tell us now. Who helped you stake the brothers? You could not have done this alone.”
Renfield bowed his head. “Mina. The housekeeper.” He looked up; his eyes twin pools of panic. “Please don’t hurt her!”
Roger helped Renfield to his feet. “Why would we hurt her?”
“Mina because… well…”
“Just the two of you did this?” I looked out over forty open graves some with stakes visible even at a distance.
Roger leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Mina must be one powerful dame to have done this.”
“No shit. I mean no poop.”
Bram wore a drugged expression. Was he in a Transylvania trance? I couldn’t see any bites on his neck.
“We must question this Mina. Where is she?” I asked.
“I can question her,” Roger said.
“I can do it better. I’m the gentle one.”
Renfield looked like he was about to bolt.
“Grab him!” I said to Kit and Roger.
They lifted the caretaker off his feet just as he propelled into a roadrunner skit. His legs kept running even after the guys had him in midair.
“Now where is this Mina?” I said trying to sound tougher than I felt.
Renfield looked toward the monastery and then at Father Bram who seemed to be visiting la-la land. “She lives in the cellar under the sleeping rooms.”
Cellar. Great. Rats and mold.
“John and Paul, I’m deputizing you,” I said raising my spatula. “You’re the boss of them.” I pointed to the Louts who appeared to be in a grumbly mood.
Kit lifted his hoe in support of my deputization, and dropped his end of Renfield. The little man dangled from Roger’s arm.
Father Bram remained silent even as I commandeered his postulants.
Our odd party of vampire hunters marched into the courtyard following the bowl-legged caretaker to the monks’ cells.
“What’s in the cellar besides Mina?” I asked worried about getting my face wet with broken pipes or encountering holes in fabric.
“It’s a wine cellar. At one time the monks made wine to support the abbey. This was a common practice with friars since medieval times. Sadly the vines died in the last passing of the Lugosi Comet,” Renfield said. “Wine hasn’t been made here for over thirty years.”
Once again, we trod the uneven ground, the rotten leaves making for slippery footing. I held onto Roger and counted on Kit walking in back to catch me if I tumbled.
The cellar door opened into a rustic alley between the graveyard and the monastery. Perfect for Boris Karloff exits.
We picked our way down grit-slippery stone stairs. I followed Roger keeping my hands on his shoulders for balance. Kit stepped slowly behind me, the hoe in his left hand and his right at my side to catch me if I slipped.
The cellar reminded me of the la
st scene in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The room went on forever with wine cask after cask as far as I could see into the darkness. There appeared to be enough wine to satisfy a dozen soccer-team moms for a year.
“Where is she?” I asked.
Renfield moved his hand in a hushing motion. “I’ll call her,” his voice was phlegmy. He cleared his throat.
I stood behind Roger for the sake of my belly. The tip of the spatula handle braced on his right shoulder. Kit edged his body close to my backside. I was expecting the Minotaur based on the hell the woman reeked in the graveyard.
“Mina! Oh Mina!” Renfield called in a singsong voice. “Come outenze!” Definitely a cuckoo clock dude.
I felt a chilly presence and the sound of hiccups, followed by a scratching sound like a trapped rat sneaking behind us. Roger, Kit, and I jumped, clinging to each other.
Bram turned slowly as if he knew who was coming.
Someone stepped out of the shadows.
“Mina!”
Chapter Fourteen
A four-foot tall porcelain doll with soft dark eyes, tiny fangs, and a cute black bob, materialized between two of the large wine casks. I made a note to get the name of her hairdresser.
The little vamp’s skin had never seen the Caribbean sun or the Indian Ocean; her complexion was flawless except for a sprinkle of freckles on the bridge of her nose. She wore a strapless dress with a velvet top and lace skirt. I joined Roger and Kit in a sigh, she was that pretty.
Mina shrieked at Bram and ran toward him. Her arms outstretched, her fingers clutching.
Roger launched himself at the little woman. With one hand she sent my fiancé flying into the first row of wine casks. He slammed hard and dropped to the ground, two casks rolled over him, a third landed on his chest.
A barrel tussle ensued. Roger won. He scrambled to stand, leaned his butt against a pile of casks, and went for another roll-off. The score was even, barrels one, Roger one.
Looking like a wax figure from a religious theme park, Bram managed to bite his pale lip. Don’t bleed.
I licked my chops checking for tooth blood.
Vulgarian Vamp (A Wendy Darlin Comedy Mystery Book 5) Page 6
