The Louts’ cheers were muffled by their potatoes, pancakes, and casserole-filled mouths.
Cushion continued, his skinny body stomping on the cabbage box, his fist pumping the air. “But first the monks must be held accountable. How many more of our elderly citizens must be found drained of their blood before we admit there are vampires in our midst? I call for a reveal of the identities of these so-called monks. Each one must prove his humanity.”
The mayor made eye contact with each and every Lout before he continued. “I have been told the abbey possesses a book. It is a register of names and dates of birth. Should there be a monk of extraordinary age listed in that book, he will be examined by our inquisition. If found to be weighing more than a duck and older than the average Lout, he will be beheaded, stuffed with garlic, and burned.”
The crowd cheered spitting potato salad in the air.
This wasn’t exactly the wedding of my dreams.
Cushion looked back at the table of food. “Now hand me some of those potato pancakes. Is there any Spam?”
The mayor stepped down from his soapbox to munch on a fried pancake.
The crowd grew silent as I approached the pavilion in my bridal finery.
Squirl led by performing a spring dance straight from a school play, skipping and sprinkling petals in our path. It was a shame she wasn’t able to pick up her bridesmaid’s dress from the inn, but what with Edward lurking it seemed wise to keep her close. She’d taken off her apron, pinned daisies to her black frock and scattered tiny flowers in her hair. She encircled her ponytail with a band of baby’s breath.
Kit followed in his filmy blue gown, his Downton Abbey hat at a rakish angle. He carried a fistful of small purple wildflowers. His Carol Channing wig added just enough of a feminine touch to confuse the Louts. He looked like the mother of the bride, but I would never tell him that.
Roger left my side long enough to dash to the pavilion and greet me like a proper groom wearing a ridiculous ascot.
The villagers appeared impressed as I made my way up the pebbled path. There were the usual gasps and ooo’s. “What a beautiful bride.”
The hausfrau spoke in a stage whisper to her neighbor. “I’m going to give them a toaster.”
“Are they registered at Gradski’s hardware store?” the neighbor asked.
I turned my head away not wanting to hear the response. I wanted to return to Miami on the next plane out.
Squirl’s wedding cake sat on a separate table that bent under the weight of her biscuit baking techniques.
Bram appeared more nervous than Roger. He fiddled with an official looking page I assumed was the Vulgarian wedding license. He lay the paper down and then picked it up again as if unsure what to do with it. He stuffed it inside his jacket and the pulled it out. I could just make out the “V” in black and red ink at the top of the page. If this was about passports and ID, I had mine. I was pretty sure Roger had his.
Separating myself from the wash of back noise and the jittery cleric, I focused only on Roger. I came to his side as the sun began to set. We stood in front of his long lost brother and began to join our lives as one.
I looked lovingly into his dark eyes and could see our future. I knew Little Roger would be the spitting image of his daddy. Oh the adventures the three of us would have.
The sound of a yip and the wheeze of a toy jet drew my gaze from my groom. Vlad swooped from the sky buzzing the crowd. The idiot mattress salesman was doggedly screwing up his own plans. His faux-vampireness would add to the mayor’s campaign to burn down the monastery. Those torches the Louts were carrying weren’t for lighting candles on the wedding cake. It would be easy for mob rule to take over.
Vlad flipped boot-side up struggling with what looked like a scuba tank strapped to his back. Head down, the faux-vampire flew over the food tables with a sputter, his Kodak Brownie camera around his neck. He buzzed the villagers shrieking, “I’m a vampire! Be afraid!”
In what must have been an ill-planned attempt to appear villainous, he lifted Squirl’s lovely wedding cake clearly not expecting it to weigh as much as it did. The weight of the cake caused him to sputter as he shot upward. He dropped from the sky. His jetpack died just as he swung out over the cliff bearing the three-layer cake.
“Help me!” he said plunging from sight like Wile E Coyote clutching an anvil.
Roger stared at the space that had been Vlad. “Was that vampire wearing a scuba tank?”
“That’s no vampire, that was an Oyster Pedic mattress salesman with dreams of grandeur,” I said.
I stepped off the pavilion my feet wobbling in the red bow shoes. Roger and I held hands and followed Bram to the edge of the cliff. We peered down at the raging Black Sea.
Waves crashed onto the rocks far below. I couldn’t make out any movement aside from the water. No one could have survived that fall. The setting sun reflected off a tiny spot of luminous white. The wedding cake remained intact, a Day-Glo blot on the shore. I hoped that was a good omen for our wedding, because it sure hadn’t worked for Vlad.
Roger pointed to a figure moving on an outcropping about fifty-feet below us.
I squinted against the setting sun. It was Vlad looking like a sorry old crow.
“Can we help him?” I asked feeling sorry for the putz.
“He’s going to have to wait until the Vaticopter arrives. We have no way of reaching him,” Bram said.
“He’s not really a vampire you know.”
Bram nodded. “The jetpack gave him away. Let’s get you two married before there are any more interruptions.” Bram’s hands were shaking. I wondered if we might be his first wedding.
Kit, Squirl, and most of the village followed us to the brink of Vlad’s disaster.
Cushion was at our side. “Fake, huh? Where are the monks? Shouldn’t they be in attendance? Are you hiding them?”
I wanted to bite his head off. “They are cloistered and not permitted to socialize.” Besides they were zombies.
“So what was with the parade earlier?”
“Here have a pancake.” I grabbed one from a Lout and stuffed it into Cushion’s mouth.
“Can we get on with this, please?” If I still possessed a sense of humor at this point our wedding would make The Best of Saturday Night Live.
Chapter Twenty-Six
We reassembled on the pavilion. Mayor Cushion was hanging close. Now what could he possibly object to?
“Wendy, I am so sorry to do this,” Bram said, “but according to the laws of Vulgaria the bride must promise to be subservient to the wishes of her husband at all times.”
I thought I’d heard him wrong. “What did you just say?”
Bram’s face turned the color of a ripe tomato and his breathing switched to near anaphylactic shock level. “I’ve only just met you and yet I know how you’re going to take this.”
He shuffled the papers as if the letters might rub off and the words vanish.
“In order to be legally married in Vulgaria, the wife has to agree to be subservient to her husband.”
“That is preposterous. What is this, the Dark Ages? Get me back to Miami…now!”
Roger looked stunned. He knew if I backed out now he might never get me to the altar again.
“Is there any way around this archaic red tape? I can’t ask Wendy to…” He shot his hand in the air. “It ain’t going to happen.”
“I would have warned you had I known, Bram said.”
Cushion was pushing his lemon yellow face in my space. “Tell her about the toilet seat.”
My jaws clenched like a pit bull sending the biscuit tooth flying, it ricocheted off Cushion’s cheek. I looked at Bram wondering if I fallen down some perverted rabbit hole.
“It’s here in small print.” Bram waved the “V” document at me as he quoted from it. “The wife must always return the toilet seat to the up position.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“It’s a tradition that goes bac
k to our founding fathers,” Cushion said.
“Your friggin’ founding fathers didn’t have toilet seats. They didn’t have toilets!” I smacked the mayor with my bouquet and spun on my red bow heels. “I am so out of here, even if I have to walk back to Miami.”
Bram turned to the mayor with fire smoldering in his eyes. “We are on church grounds where our rules prevail. I declare this particular Vulgarian tradition null and void.” He flipped the “V” document in the air where it caught a breeze and drifted out over the Black Sea disappearing in a dark cloud.
Standing a head taller than the mayor, Bram chest bumped him back two steps. “Sit down, Mayor Cushion.”
I caught sight of Mina in a willow tree soundlessly clapping her hands.
“The wedding will proceed,” Bram said.
Roger and I resumed our loving gaze. I felt Little Roger kick two joyous thumps.
Bram ran through a traditional American exchange of vows which did not include obeying or any other form of forced servitude.
“If there is anyone here who objects to this marriage speak now.”
“I do!” A craggy voice came from the bushes.
It was Croc, still partially dressed like Michael Jackson with a touch of Loutish cop. He stumbled to within three feet of me. I couldn’t bear the sight of him.
“Our divorce isn’t final. I am still married to this woman.”
“The hell you are, you delusional maroon. We were legally divorced and then you died at sea. That’s two strikes.”
“You are still in possession of marital assets.”
The urge to sock him was overwhelming but I was dressed like a lady.
“I’ve got this,” Roger said, yanking Croc by his lapels. He flipped him over his shoulder and onto the ground behind him in a neat jujitsu move.
Croc caught his breath and scrambled to his feet. He came at Roger. I think I saw a touch of jealousy in my ex’s eyes. Either that or he’d been off his meds for way too long. His pupils filled his entire eye sockets.
Roger hauled off and delivered a haymaker. I’d never seen him actually land one before. The sound was a satisfying crunch that took place somewhere in the neighborhood of Croc’s jaw. Maybe that would knock some sense into him.
There was no treasure. The icons Roger and I rescued from Charlie Hook belonged to the British Museum. If those two Louts working for Croc were expecting a share they were in for a big let down. Their boss was delusional.
It was an odd sight as the groom, the maid-of-honor, and the priest carried my very ex-husband off into the woods. They returned, brushing their hands and adjusting their clothes. They took up their positions on the pavilion and we resumed the ceremony.
Bram strayed from the standard vows and looked fondly at Roger and me. “A real marriage takes place in the heart. Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds a true friend in his wife.”
Roger and I held each other’s gaze. I was his friend and I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life.
His dark chocolate eyes brimmed with love. “I do!” he said.
My turn. “I do!”
I’d no sooner said those magic words than three masked Louts appeared. I could tell they were Louts by their lederhosen and cowboy boots. The two bigger galoots grabbed my arms and lifted me carefully from the pavilion. These guys weren’t Croc’s henchmen, they were gentlemen thugs.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” Bram said rather quickly.
“What the fudge do you think you are doing?” I snarled at the Louts.
Squirl jumped after me giggling and chirping. “This is the best part. You’re being kidnapped!” she said.
“Whose side are you on?” I growled at her. “Traitor!”
“Oh don’t be mad. It’s an old Vulgarian custom. It’s lucky for the bride to be kidnapped from the wedding.”
“It’s lucky for you they are holding my hands or I would be wringing your neck.”
Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Mina hanging upside down from a willow branch grinning like a happy bat. She was in on it, too.
“I have been kidnapped in every adventure. This time I refuse to go. I’m now a married woman and I want to go home!”
I looked at Bram for confirmation. “We are married now, right?”
He nodded but looked befuddled. He was a priest-out-of-water.
Squirl was dancing in front of me like a demented rodent on betel nuts. “That’s why they are kidnapping you. They will ask for a ransom from your wedding godmother on behalf of your husband.”
Smelly thugs were carrying me off and I was having a ridiculous conversation with a hyper innkeeper. I felt the baby kick as if he wanted out immediately.
“Roger! Save me!”
Two goons had their mitts on my man holding him in place. He struggled, stomping their arches and elbowing them but they held him fast.
Freeing his hands he placed them on either side of his mouth to megaphone his voice. “I’ll have you back in no time. Hang on! I’m coming!”
Roger head-butted one of the Louts but fell to the ground from the impact. I could have told him his head was no match for Lout potato-filled noggins.
The kidnappers smelled of oily beards and fried pancakes. They wore Tyrolean hats over limp shoulder length hair and clearly hadn’t showered in a month.
“Watch the wedding gown, buster!” He was stepping on my hem with his dirty cowboy boots.
I kicked as much as a pregnant lady in a long dress can. They were on to me and dodged my blows.
“You must be kidnapped! It’s a tradition!” Mayor Cushion called. “I cannot certify the marriage without the kidnapping.”
“Fudge you, Cushion! I’ll have you recalled. Your chads are about to hang you. Kidnapping is my middle name and you are going down. You can take your Vulgar tradition and stuff it up your …”
The Lout kidnappers plunked me in a backwards-sitting rocking chair strapped to the flatbed of a pickup truck.
Cushion ran a skeletal hand through his few wisps of hair. “You must go with them until your godmother ransoms you,” he said.
I snarled like a mad dog and reached out for Kit. “Help me!”
Three Louts had him pinned to the ground. He had gigantic runs in his panty hose and his feet were shoeless. He fought like a deranged dame from Downton Abbey but to no avail.
I heard Roger cursing and looked to the left. He was now tied to a tree with the hausfrau stroking his face. Poor Roger. Poor me.
Mina had her hands over her mouth trying to balance in the tree while giggling.
“Listen you fools! I don’t have a wedding godmother!” I tore from their meaty hands but they instantly had me again. I decided it was best to play along because of the baby.
Squirl skipped forward. “I’m your wedding godmother. I have the ransom.”
“This is not funny. Do I have to go with them? Give them the ransom now.”
“For it to be lucky they must carry you off. Not to worry. They are only taking you to the Van Helsing.”
Oh goodie. The pickled monks, Renfield, and I can hang out until the ransom is delivered.
Squirl blew me a kiss. “I’ll bring the ransom right now.”
Curiosity kicked in. “How much am I worth?”
“One roasted chicken.”
I sat backwards in the back of an old pickup truck in a decked out rocking chair with a seat belt. I felt like Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies. White and gold streamers blew in the wind, and tin cans clattered from the rear bumper as we made our way down the hill to the Van Helsing. Kidnapped and held for the exorbitant amount of one roasted chicken. Yes, I was very glad the New York Times wasn’t covering our wedding.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The kidnapper Louts carried me in the rocking chair to the front porch of the Van Helsing. Carefully they placed the rocker on the porch and undid the seatbelt. I looked around the front yard. Had it only been a few days since we
arrived at this lunatic asylum?
The Louts lowered their butts onto the front steps and waited for the roasted chicken handoff. They said something in Vulgarian and laughed. The joke was on me.
I rocked back and forth trying to forget how badly I had to pee. I put my mind to solving the unsolved quandaries as a distraction.
Where were the monks? Had Renfield taken them to safety or were they in even more danger from the former abbot? I couldn’t imagine him harming them, but then what did I know about Renfield other than he was Mina’s father?
Time to put on my Pythonesque brain. Why was Edward the vampire monk hiding in the confessional booth? If Renfield hid in the same confessional booth then he must weigh the same as a duck. If he weighs the same as a duck and he’s Mina’s father then Renfield must be a vampire.
If Mina didn’t drink blood but someone was regularly sipping from the elderly of Loutish, it must be a vampire duck or Renfield. If it’s the old abbot then he has hidden the monks from the Vatican Vampire Investigators using the tunnels. And the confessional booth may be a portal to the tunnels.
The smell of roasted chicken cut through the air. I strained to look up the dark road to the abbey and the festivities. Festivities? Hah!
Roger, Kit, Bram, and Squirl, along with the roasted chicken, arrived at the same time. My hyper bridesmaid handed the chicken to the Lout kidnappers. They received it and turned me over to my husband. Wow! Roger Jolley was now my husband and maybe even my soul mate. I ran down the steps and into his arms.
Even as I hugged him the ground beneath our feet rumbled. And a thundering Whap! Whap! Whap! forced us to our knees. Roger sheltered me with his arms.
Spotlights lit the sky slicing beams between the thick trees. Back in Miami that would mean the cops were chasing criminals. In Loutish it meant the Vaticopter had finally arrived. Reinforcements were here.
Claws of Doom Page 32
