Immortal Sins

As Kari thought about the coffin, it brought Tricia's friend Mel to mind. Maybe she could arrange to borrow Mel's hearse. It would be much easier than trying to rent one. That way, she wouldn't have to come up with a good story explaining why the body was being picked up at her house instead of at a funeral home or the morgue, and why it had to be picked up after dark.

While waiting for her passport photos, Kari learned all she could about Romania. According to a map, Romania was bordered by Hungary, Yugoslavia, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, and the Black Sea. One site showed photos of a number of impressive buildings that were located in towns with romantic and exotic names like Brasov and Oradea and Arad.

Transylvania was also located in Romania. Vlad Tepes, who was also known as Vlad the Impaler and Vlad Dracula, was perhaps Romania's most famous, or infamous, hero. It was well known that Vlad had been the inspiration for Bram Stoker's famous story. Only Rourke's destination wasn't Transylvania, but Bucharest.

One of the places that caught Kari's imagination was Bran Castle, which was located on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia. The castle, located atop a two-hundred-foot-tall rock, overlooked the village of Bran. In ancient times, the fortress had been used to protect Brasov from the Turks and later served as a customs house. The rooms and towers were built around an inner courtyard.

She grinned as she read that some of the rooms were connected by underground passageways.

"No surprise there," she muttered. Every respectable castle had the requisite underground tunnels and secret passages.

Judging from the pictures on the Web, the fifty-seven-room castle was quite spectacular. She thought it interesting that Bran Castle was often touted as Castle Dracula even though it had no real connection to Vlad Tepes save for some speculation that he had attacked and captured the place sometime in 1460.

Reading on, she learned that the castle had a fascinating history. It had originally been built by the Knights of the Teutonic Order as a stronghold in 1212. Between 1395 and 1427, the castle had belonged to Mircea the Wise, who was Vlad Dracula's grandfather. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, it had been taken over by the Saxons. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it had been the home of Queen Victoria's granddaughter Queen Marie. Marie's daughter Princess Ileana of Romania inherited the castle.

In 1950, Bran Castle had been appropriated by the country's Communist regime. After the Romanian Revolution in 1989, the castle became a tourist attraction that was especially popular during Halloween.

The castle, now a museum of medieval arts, is furnished with artifacts from Queen Marie's time, including traditional furniture and wall hangings that she had collected to showcase Romanian crafts and skills. A small park, located at the bottom of the hill, displayed examples of peasant cottages and barns that had been moved there from different parts of the country. Not surprisingly, a small market was located near the castle gates where tourists could buy a wide variety of souvenirs depicting pictures of the real Vlad Dracula, as well as images of the fictional Dracula made famous by Bram Stoker.

In 2006, Bran Castle had been returned to the rightful heir, Dominic von Habsburg, who had put it up for sale a year later.

Vlad Dracula's real castle was the Poienari Fortress located in the Arges Valley. To reach it, one had to climb fifteen hundred steps and cross a bridge. According to legend, his wife had jumped out of one of the fortress windows in order to avoid being captured by the Turks. It was said that Vlad had escaped over the mountains by riding a horse wearing shoes that left cloven hoofprints instead of the hoofprints made by a horse.

Kari couldn't help grinning when she read that, nor could she help wondering where he had found horse shoes that left cloven hoofprints.

Vlad had been a cruel master. It was said that he enjoyed watching people die while he dined, and that his favorite form of execution was by impalement. He had also had people skinned and boiled alive. Thieves and liars had been impaled. As might be expected, there hadn't been a lot of crime in Walachia during Vlad's reign. To prove how law-abiding his citizens were, he once placed a gold cup near a fountain in the town square. Anyone who wished to could use the cup to draw water from the fountain, but no one was to remove it. Fearing impalement, no one ever removed it. Despite his cruelty, his subjects had respected him for being a strong leader and for defending their country against the Turks.

Another site showed the birthplace of Vlad Tepes in Sighisoara. The building was now a restaurant. Rising above the town of Sighisoara was The Citadel, built by the Saxons in the twelfth century. It had been preserved as a museum. Another Web page displayed photos of several beautiful cathedrals, including the Black Church in Brasov. Like most of the other churches and cathedrals in the area, it had been built hundreds of years ago.

Kari next went in search of information on Bucharest. She was surprised to learn that the city had been inhabited since 500 B.C. and that, according to Romanian legend, Bucharest had been founded by a shepherd boy named Bucur. Besides being a shepherd, Bucur had played the flute and made wine, all of which endeared him to the local merchants, who had named the town after him. Even more surprising was the fact that Bucharest had once been known as "Little Paris."

The city, besides being the largest in the country, was also the capital, with a population of over two million. It boasted thirty-seven museums, twenty-two theaters, opera houses and concert halls, eighteen art galleries, as well as a number of libraries and bookstores.

While looking up hotels, Kari found a vacancy at a bed-and-breakfast in the city of Miklosvar. She was thinking she might like to stay there until she read an accompanying blog, which said, in part, that visitors to the city had to endure a three- or four-hour trip over a road made up of potholes and gravel that was guaranteed to loosen your back teeth. It went on to say that if you wanted to see a part of the country that had changed but little over the last century, Miklosvar was the place to go. Quaint farmhouses lined roads made of dirt and cobblestone, men and women still cut their hay with scythes, and cars had not yet replaced the horse and cart.

Although Dracula hadn't lived in Miklosvar, the city was inhabited by bats and a charming count who hoped to turn the area surrounding Miklosvar into an environmental retreat and preserve the region's architectural heritage. The count and his family, descendants of the feudal overlords whose roots dated back to 1252, maintained four restored farmhouses that now served as guesthouses.

Continuing her search for a place to stay, Kari found a place that rented apartments for a short term and decided an apartment might be a wiser option than staying in a hotel. She figured there would be fewer people coming and going. With that thought in mind, she booked a first-floor apartment with two bedrooms. Next, she booked her flight. Since she had never flown before, and was pretty sure she never would again, she decided to go all out and fly first class.

When all her reservations had been made, she switched off the computer, picked up the phone, and called Tricia's friend Mel.

"Hey, Kari," he said. "What can I do for you?"

"I was wondering if I could borrow your hearse for a week or so."

"Is it Halloween already?"

Kari laughed. "No, silly."

"Well, sure, when do you want to pick it up?"

"Next Monday afternoon, around one-thirty or so?"

"No problem. Do you want the coffin, too?"

"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, pleased to have solved two problems with one phone call.

"Allrighty, then. I'll be at work Monday, but I'll leave the hearse in the driveway. The keys will be under the mat on the back porch."

"Thanks, Mel. I'll leave the keys to my car there so you can move it or drive it."

"Right. So, what's up? Are you having a scary party or something?"

"Or something," Kari said, grinning inwardly. "And I'd appreciate it if you'd keep this to yourself."

"Will do, cupcake," Mel said. "Just keep it legal and drop the hearse off when you're done with it."

"I will. And thanks again."

Kari grew increasingly nervous as the day of departure grew closer. She had never been on an airplane before. Just thinking about it made her extremely nervous, almost as nervous as the thought of traveling with a vampire.

It gave her the creeps, thinking about Rourke lying as still as death inside a casket during the flight, dead but not dead. As near as she could figure, the flight would take something like fifteen hours. Fifteen hours. He wouldn't be asleep the whole time, but then, she supposed it wouldn't bother him to be awake inside the coffin any more than it would bother her to have to stay in bed for an extended length of time.

Her life had certainly gotten complicated, she mused. Sometimes she wished she had never bought that painting, never heard of Vilnius and his evil curse!

Needing to connect to something ordinary and uncomplicated, she went into the living room, curled up on the sofa, and called Tricia.

"Kari, hi. I was just going to call you!"

"Oh? What's up?"

"Nothing, I was just bored, and wondering how you and Mr. Tall, Blond, and Handsome were getting along."

"Just fine," Kari said lightly. "In fact, I'm going away with him for a few days."

Tricia laughed softly. "A little one-on-one time?"

"Tricia!"

"Well, why else would you be going away if it wasn't to get to know him better?"

Kari sighed in exasperation. "It's just a little vacation."

"Uh-huh. So, where are you going?"

"Romania."

"Romania!" Trish exclaimed. "Are you kidding me? I mean, Romania! Really, Kari, that doesn't sound like a very romantic place to me. Why not go to Rome? Or Paris?"

"Rourke's from Romania. Remember?"

"I know, but still..."

"I've been reading up on the place and it sounds fascinating. Lots of beautiful architecture and old churches, that kind of thing."

"Isn't Transylvania there?" Tricia asked, her voice betraying her lack of enthusiasm. "Isn't that where Dracula lived, or died, or whatever?"