I gritted my teeth, my fingernails digging into my palms even through the two layers of gloves I’d replaced. I toyed with the idea of turning her into a toad or bug, but spells had been my mother’s forte, not mine. The only power I ever wielded came from the Vikingahärta. With much reluctance, I pushed away the thought that I could get it from Imogen’s trailer, then turn both the she-devil and Ben into what they deserved.
I turned back toward the door. With every step, the pain in my heart morphed into anger, a fury so hot I thought I would spontaneously combust by the time I flung open the door.
“Nrrf?” a voice said from the bed, then yelped as sunlight streamed in around me. “What the hell are you doing, Naomi?”
The man who rolled over onto his back and sat up, his short hair mussed, his eyes confused and sleepy, brought me to a halt.
“I just came to tell you that I was here, and I never want to see you again. Not that I had planned on doing that, because I thought Günter was saying Imogen was in this trailer, not you, but as long as we’re both here, it’s as good a time as any to get a few things off my chest. So I will. I never want to see you again, you two-timing, cheating rat bastard.”
His eyes widened as they focused on me. “Fran?”
I stared at him for a moment, pain and anger roiling around inside me. “I’m so glad to know I was right about freeing us both. I’m delighted to see that it took you absolutely no time to find a replacement for me. I’m nigh on ecstatic that I meant so little to you that you couldn’t wait to screw the first girl you could find!” I ripped off the ring I still wore on my middle finger and threw it at his head. “I’m so happy I could bloody well burst into a Broadway show tune!”
“Francesca—”
“I told her, but she wouldn’t listen to me,” Naomi said from the doorway, her smile gloating and so evil I wanted to smite her as she’d never been smited. She strolled past me, then sat on the edge of the bed next to Ben, putting a proprietorial hand on his chest. “Now do you see, little American? He is mine, not yours. Aren’t you, lover? Why don’t you tell her? She clearly needs to hear the words.”
I saw red as she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his mouth. Ben’s eyes were the color of honey oak, and filled with an expression I couldn’t read.
“Yes, lover, why don’t you tell me?” My voice came out croaked and hoarse.
His lips tightened. “I’m sorry. I was going to tell you what was happening. I just . . . I didn’t expect you to come to Europe yet.”
Naomi nibbled on his ear, cooing softly into it. I stared at him for a few seconds, not believing what I was seeing, not understanding the words he spoke. I had left him, I had told him I didn’t want to be his Beloved, and yet somehow, I had remained true to his memory. I hadn’t dated, hadn’t been interested in other men, I hadn’t even seen other men. I had left him, and he had done just what I had wanted him to do—he had gotten on with his life.
While I remained in limbo, bound to a man who now didn’t want me.
Anguish overrode my anger and I choked on the bile of my own hypocrisy. I spun around and ran blindly from the room, the mocking laughter of Naomi following after me.
I dashed past Kurt, who was emerging from a car with two lattes in his hands. I ignored his surprised greeting as I ran straight to a familiar navy blue trailer decorated with gold stars and moons. Just as I was fumbling in my pocket for the key I’d brought with me, the door opened and Eirik started out.
“Ah, virgin goddess. We were just leaving off our things before we go to the ninja store. Finnvid was concerned someone would pillage our laptops. We will—What is the matter?”
“Nothing,” I said, pushing past him into the trailer, tears spilling down my cheeks.
“You are crying,” he said, frowning as he followed me. Isleif emerged from the tiny bathroom, pausing next to Finnvid as I yanked open a cupboard and snatched up a couple of tissues.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s just something personal,” I said, trying to stop the tears, but it was as useless as trying to quell the pain that wrapped around my heart.
The three men exchanged looks. “It is the Dark One, is it not?” Eirik asked, putting his hand on my arm to gently steer me toward one of two curved club chairs that sat at a tiny table.
“Yes. But it doesn’t matter, as I said. That’s all over now.”
“All over? You are his Beloved,” Finnvid said, looking confused. “You cannot cease to be that.”
“No? You might tell Ben that, because he’s gone and found himself a new girlfriend. Probably a new Beloved, for all I know.” The last couple of words were a bit shaky, but I managed to speak them without wailing, which I thought was pretty good, considering everything.
All three men shook their heads. “Dark Ones have one Beloved. He cannot change them. Everyone knows that,” Isleif said, sitting down opposite me.
“Please, don’t start on that again. I am not a victim of fate; I make my own way. And besides, it’s clearly not true because Ben at this very moment is shacked up with a French—” I bit back the word I wanted to say. “He’s shacked up with a woman who told me he was hers now. And he agreed.”
“Then he will die,” Eirik said simply, reaching for his hip. He swore when he remembered he’d had to leave his sword back in Oregon.
“Aye. He will,” Finnvid said, looking around the trailer. He picked up a small red object. “What is this?”
“Fire extinguisher,” I said, sniffling into the tissue, making a heroic effort to get hold of myself.
“Would it kill an immortal?”
“No.”
“Ah. What is this? It looks like a stone grinder.” He pulled an old-fashioned egg beater from the drawer below the tiny microwave.
“That’s an egg beater. It wouldn’t be effective on stones at all.”
Finnvid’s lips quirked. “It would on a man’s stones, I’m willing to bet.” He spun the handle around vigorously a couple of times.
Isleif crossed his legs. “You cannot kill a Dark One by grinding his stones.”
“No, but we can make sure he doesn’t rut with anyone but the virgin goddess,” Finnvid answered.
“True.”
“Look, I appreciate this, but no one is going to kill Ben, or grind his stones. I’m a big girl now, remember?” I gave a loud, wet sniff. “He’s moved on, and I’ve taken steps to do the same, so now I’ll just get down to it. Besides, there are more important things I should be doing. I have to find my mom. I have to beat the living daylights out of Loki.” I have to figure out how I’m supposed to go on living with the thought of Ben with another woman.
Never once during the last year had I pictured Ben actually hooking up with another woman. I bowed my head, sick at heart over my idiocy. I had given him his freedom; I couldn’t now berate him for taking it.
“What about this?” Finnvid pulled a piece of frozen meat from the minuscule freezer section of the refrigerator.
“That’s the wrong kind of stake for a vampire,” I told him.
“Not if we hone a sharp edge to it,” Eirik said thoughtfully, taking the slab of meat from Finnvid. He ran his finger around one edge of the package. “If we got it sharp enough, could we cut off his head?”
Isleif rose to consult with them. “No. But it could be used to pierce his heart.”
I debated the folly of trying to point out the unlikelihood of them using a piece of frozen steak to murder Ben, but decided that both my wounded ego and my sanity deserved a little break. “Knock yourselves out,” I told them. “Once I have a few minutes to pull myself together, I’m going to go find Peter and see if he knows anything about my mother. Why don’t you guys go into town, like we planned. We can rendezvous later tonight.”
“Yes,” Eirik said, giving his buddies a look filled with portent. “We will do as you suggest, virgin goddess Fran.”
“Don’t kill anyone in the meantime,” I warned them as Finnvid and Isleif filed past me, the latt
er pausing to give me a fatherly pat on the shoulder.
“Your daughter Anna,” I couldn’t help but ask. “The one who you told me about when you guys were giving me dating advice—did she ever get married?”
Isleif looked surprised at the question. “Yes, three times.”
“Did she ever . . . Did her husband ever . . .” I couldn’t put into words what I wanted to ask. It just hurt too much.
His smile was filled with pride. “Aye, the first, Bruni. She caught him one morning rutting with a sheep. She was so furious, she struck him down with a hoe. You take her actions to heart, virgin goddess. She did not suffer a fool, and neither should you.”
I gawked at him. “Your daughter killed her husband because he had sex with a sheep?”
“No, not because of that,” Isleif snorted. “Bruni used her best gown when he made the sheep a dress.”
“I remember that dress,” Finnvid said thoughtfully. “She looked very nice in it.”
“Anna?” I asked.
“No, the sheep.”
“Which dress?” Eirik asked, his brow wrinkled. “The red or the gold?”
“Oh, the red. The gold was all wrong for the sheep. Made her look too bulky.”
“Aye, the red was best,” Eirik agreed. “She had a pleasant face, that sheep.”
“I like bulk on a woman,” Isleif commented. “But I agree the gold dress did not flatter the sheep. Now blue, that would have been nice.”
I shook my head, amazed that we were having this discussion. But then, I frequently felt like that when I talked with the Vikings. “I know things were different then, but I just can’t believe that your son-in-law had sex with a sheep.”
“It was a ewe,” Isleif said, just as if that made it all right. “It wasn’t a ram.”
“Does that make any difference?” I asked.
“It would to the ram,” Eirik said sagely.
The others nodded.
“I never thought I’d have to say this, but bestiality has officially been added to the list of things we don’t discuss, okay?”
“If you wish,” Eirik said and shrugged. “Although Isleif has many amusing tales about—”
“I don’t want to hear them!” I said loudly.
To my annoyance, he patted me on the shoulder as if I was upset about nothing. “You rest for a bit, virgin goddess. When you need us, we will be here.”
“Well, I can try, but I suspect there are going to be a few mental images I’ll have a hard time getting rid of,” I muttered as the Vikings left.
The silence that followed their departure was almost overpowering. I looked around the trailer, desperate for something to do, noting absently that Mom had a new coffeemaker, and a laptop. Davide, her fat black and white cat, wasn’t there, but I didn’t expect him to be if she had gone away for the weekend. Likely one of the Faire people had taken over cat-watching duty while she was gone. I made a mental note to find out who, and retrieve him.
“He might hate me, but at least he’ll be some company for my bleak, unbearable life,” I said, my voice echoing slightly in the trailer. It was the sound of it that brought me to my knees in a ball of abject misery, the horrible reality of the situation piercing me to my very soul. For the first time in a year, I admitted that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. The fact that Ben and everyone else expected me to just accept what fate had thrown at us still rankled, but it had been my choice, and no other’s, to end the relationship.
And now that I realized just what I’d lost, it was too late.
I cried out the tale of my broken heart to no one, and when I was done, I lay hiccupping on the floor, wondering what I was going to do with the shattered remains of my life.
“Go on without him,” I said in a voice that was as empty as my heart.
Chapter 6
It took me a bit to gather myself and get cleaned up so no one would know I had indulged in a major fit of crying, but an hour after we arrived at the Faire, I walked slowly down the steps of the trailer inhabited by Peter Sauber and his son, Soren, the latter of whom was attending the University of Marburg. “It’s just not like her to do this,” I reiterated to Peter as he accompanied me. “It has to mean that Loki has her. Especially after the attempt to kidnap me back home. Loki clearly went after Mom when he couldn’t get me.”
Peter rubbed his face, leaving me with a momentary guilty twinge about having woken him up. Peter was the main act magician, in addition to being co-owner of the Faire with his sister, Absinthe. Most of his act was big, flashy illusions, like turning his horse Bruno into a member of the audience, but every now and again he indulged himself in an act of real magic, the kind that left you with goose bumps. “It is possible, although why would he do that?”
“Revenge against me, I suppose.”
Peter made a tch noise in the back of his throat. “If he wanted that, he would have done so years ago.”
I frowned, thinking about that. I had to agree that Loki had had many opportunities to strike at me, as he had promised. Why would he take Mom now and not earlier? “I’m not sure what to say, Peter. If Loki didn’t take her, then where is she?”
He shrugged. “That I do not know. She was seeing that Frenchman, so perhaps she went away with him instead of going to Heidelberg.”
“What Frenchman?”
“The one she met in Brussels. He sells some sort of farm equipment. Did she not tell you about him?”
“Not a peep.” Once, back when I assumed my future was secure with Ben, I had hoped that she’d find someone with whom she could share her life. Now the thought just made me feel ostracized, as if everyone had paired up but me. “Do you know his name?”
Peter gave me the little information he knew about the man, which I wrote down in a little notebook. “I guess I could talk to the police about this guy, just in case he, and not Loki, has abducted her.”
“Will that not be very extreme?” he asked, worry filling his eyes. “What if she has gone away for a romantic weekend?”
“A romantic weekend is one thing, but five days without telling anyone?” I shook my head. “Not at all like my mom.”
“Perhaps she left some note or sign of where she’s gone?” he suggested.
I stared at him for a second. “You know, that’s not a bad thought. Let’s both of us go have a look around her trailer.”
“Both of us?” He looked sleepy, but came along when I tugged him toward the trailer. “I don’t know what I can do to help.”
“You dated Mom for a bit, didn’t you?”
He looked a bit abashed. “Just for a few months. We . . . it wasn’t meant to be.”
“That’s okay, Peter,” I said, laughing at his expression. “I don’t mind that you guys were dating. I’m sad it didn’t work out, but you don’t have to be uncomfortable with me on that account. Now, where to start?”
We had entered the trailer and stood looking around it. “Bedroom?” Peter suggested.
“Good idea.” We both toddled back to it, making a quick search of the dresser pressed against one wall. There was just clothing in it, no big note saying where she’d gone, or even a love note from an admirer. More reassuringly, there were no signs of a struggle, so if Loki did take her, she hadn’t fought him.
I sat on the bed and thought for a few minutes. Peter went out into the living area and poked around in the drawers and cupboards out there, but I knew they wouldn’t have anything important. I mulled over where I would leave any references to a weekend trip, and after another few minutes’ thought, reached under the bed and pulled out a small metal box with a combination lock.
“What is that?” Peter asked as he returned to the bedroom. “I found nothing out there. Not even a note-pad.”
“I’m not surprised. This is mom’s lockbox. She keeps things in it like her passport. I can’t imagine why she’d put anything in here about her weekend trip, but it can’t hurt to look.” I spun the dial to register my birth date, my mother’s standard passwo
rd, and sorted through the contents. As I suspected, it contained a few legal documents, a picture of the two of us together when I was about eight, her passport and various stamped visas, a credit card, three necklaces in silk bags, and a couple of stiff pieces of yellow paper.
“Well, that was no help,” I said as I replaced everything, absently unfolding the paper.
“What are those?” Peter asked.
“Nothing. Just birth certificates. Mom’s. Mine.” I tossed the first two aside and glanced at the other one. “This must be a copy of mine that she got when she thought she lost the original. Well, this has been a lesson in frustration. . . .” I stopped and looked back at the last paper. Something about it had registered on my brain as being not quite right.
“This isn’t my birth certificate.” I frowned at it as I read the name of the child. “Petra Valentine de Marco. Who on earth is that?”
“A friend of your mother’s?” Peter asked, looking in the tiny wardrobe that held Mom’s dresses.
“Why would she have someone else’s birth . . . green grass and salamanders!” I raised my gaze to Peter. “My mom’s name is on this.”
“It is?” He sat next to me and looked as I handed it to him.
“Right there. Where it says mother’s name.” I pointed. “That’s her name. Miranda Benson.”
“Is it your birth certificate? With a different name? Sometimes parents change the names of their babies. Perhaps this was your original name and they changed it.”
“Alphonse de Marco. That’s not my father’s name.” Chills ran down my arms as I realized what it was I was seeing. The birth date of the baby was almost ten years earlier than mine. “Goddess above! My mom had a baby before me. I have a sister.”
Peter looked suitably shocked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard her mention another daughter.”
I studied the birth certificate. “She was only sixteen when she had this baby. And it doesn’t say they were married. Stars and stripes forever. I’m just . . . I don’t know what I am. Flabbergasted, I guess. I never had the slightest idea I wasn’t her only child. Why didn’t she tell me?”
In the Company of Vampires do-9 Page 6