What was that?
I’ll tell you later.
You’ll tell me now, Ben answered in an inflexible tone that would have rankled if I wasn’t trying to keep control of a pissed-off Norse god.
It’s just like I said—he tried to kidnap me, but got my roomie instead.
Loki continued to look speculatively at me, his gaze sharp and calculating. “I swore to take from you that which you most valued, and I did so. You suffered much—that I know—and it pleased me. If you have continued to suffer, it is not by my doing, although that, too, pleases me. It is interesting, however, that the Vikingahärta did not protect you as you believed it must. Perhaps it has tired of you and is willing to return to me. You will give it to me now.”
“Whoa, hold on there,” I said as Loki took a step forward. Ben did likewise until the two men were just a foot apart, glaring at each other. He already took something from me? What does he mean? What did he take?
I don’t know for certain, but I am beginning to suspect. “Do not approach my Beloved without her permission.”
Loki gave him a jaded look. “Do you think you can stop me, Dark One?”
“I think I can make a damned good attempt, yes,” Ben said calmly, although there was an underlying note of steel in his voice that made Loki hesitate.
“What did you take from me?” I asked, letting go of Tesla to stand next to Ben, my fingers brushing his until he took my hand. “How did you make me suffer?”
He gave me a look that mocked my questions. “I am Loki the Trickster, brother of Odin, and member of the Aesir. I do not need to explain anything to a mere human.”
“Well, I think you’re going to have to explain to this human, because I don’t know what it is you took from me. I don’t recall losing anything I valued except my backpack, and I haven’t so much suffered because of that as I have been annoyed.”
“It is not material things that he stole from you,” Ben said slowly, his eyes a lightish oak color as they considered Loki.
“Then what?” I asked, puzzled.
Have you been happy since you left the GothFaire, Beloved?
I was about to answer that he knew full well I hadn’t been, when it struck me what he was implying.
“You took love from me.” Enlightenment flooded my poor excuse for a brain. “You took the love of my mother and Ben from me by driving me from them, didn’t you? You made me miserable for five whole years!”
Loki smiled a smug smile that I wanted to smack off his face. “I told you that I would have my revenge. Watching you suffer for the last few years has been worth all it has cost me to keep a glamour on you for an entire year.”
“It was a glamour that made everyone drive me crazy?” I asked, stunned by the depths of his machinations. “Is that why everyone—Ben and Imogen and even my mother—was insisting I do what they wanted?” Is that possible? Casting a glamour on someone for a year, I mean.
For a god of Loki’s power? Absolutely.
So it wasn’t you being bossy, and Imogen being pushy, and my mom being my mom? It was the glamour that made us all miserable?
It seems so. Although I doubt if your mother would have changed her mind about me until you were older.
Still . . . I took a deep breath and lifted my chin. “Where is my mother, Loki Laufeyiarson?”
“That you would have to ask Frigga, for I do not know your mother’s fate,” he said with a return of his haughtiness. “Give me the Vikingahärta, and I will let you live in peace.”
I don’t know what to believe. He doesn’t seem to be lying, does he?
No, but he is the trickster.
I sighed. I’m going to have to touch him, aren’t I?
It would probably be the easiest way to determine whether or not he is lying, Ben agreed, his fingers tightening around mine when my stomach clenched at the thought of opening myself up to Loki. I am here, Francesca. I will not allow any harm to come to you.
I know. But I feel obligated to tell you that I love you nonetheless. Would you mind—
You should know by now that you are my earth and stars, Beloved.
It is always nice to hear it, I said as I pulled off my gloves. No sun in there?
The sun and I do not get along, he said with a wry little smile.
“You want the Vikingahärta? You got it.” I held it out, and when he reached for it, I shoved it into his hand, allowing my fingertips to brush his palm. For the space between seconds, I was in the world of Loki. It was a scary place, and left me with the feeling that my hair was standing on end, but one thing was made absolutely clear to me—he wasn’t lying about my mother. He truly did not know where she was.
“Ah, it is as I thought,” Loki said with a fat smile as he beheld the Vikingahärta lying on his hand. “It has returned to me of its own will. I knew the day—” He stopped, frowning. The Vikingahärta didn’t burst into a bright light as it had the last time he touched it, but I felt a slight vibration inside me that seemed to come from it. To our collective amazement, the triangles that made up the valknut shifted for a second time, causing Loki to yelp as he dropped it.
He glared at it for a few seconds before transferring the glare to me. “Perhaps I am not finished with you as I thought to have been.”
Instantly four big, bulky men blocked my view of him.
“Ben! Eirik! Move!” I protested as they and Finnvid and Isleif put themselves between Loki and me.
He is threatening you. I will not stand for that. “You heard her—move,” Ben told the Vikings, scowling at them. “I will protect Francesca.”
“She is our goddess,” Eirik told him with a matching scowl.
“She’s my Beloved. That trumps your goddess.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake . . .” I shoved aside Eirik, glared at Isleif until he stepped back, and shot Ben a look that he chose to ignore. The field in front of him was empty of all but the Vikingahärta lying on the grass. “Great. Now Loki’s gone, and I didn’t get to ask him who would want to seduce my mother, not to mention banish him like Freya wanted, not that I think I could.”
“I doubt if he would have told you the truth, assuming he knew it,” Ben answered as I picked up the Vikingahärta, touching the three triangles with the tip of a finger. They felt just the same to me, and yet different somehow, as if the power it possessed had shifted when its physical form did.
“He didn’t know where Mom was—that I know,” I said, lifting my gaze to his. “Ben, what are we going to do? If he isn’t behind my mother running off, who is? And how are we going to find her?
“I think we’re going to have to consult a source that has been hidden to you,” he answered, the words portentous.
“What source?” The image of a black-haired man came to mind. “Alphonse de Marco, you mean? I thought we decided that he couldn’t have anything to do with Mom?”
“Not him,” Ben said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.
I looked into his mind, my eyes widening as I saw what it was thinking. “Petra?”
His arm was warm around me as he steered me out of the pasture, toward Mikaela’s house, the Vikings falling into step behind us. “I think it’s time we locate your half sister.”
Chapter 20
“You know, for a man who used to ride around in carriages, and probably wondered at the amazing technology of gunpowder and steam engines, you are awfully Internet-savvy,” I remarked an hour later as we sat at Mikaela’s kitchen table, hunkered over Ramon’s laptop. “It didn’t take you very long at all to find her. But what’s Mom’s other daughter doing in Paris? Her birth certificate says she was born in California just like me.”
“Evidently she’s living on rue de la Grande Pest.”
“Street of the big plague?” I asked, my French being rather limited.
“Yes.” His eyebrows rose. “Odd.”
“What is?”
“That’s where G and T is located.”
“What’s G and T?”
“Goety
and Theurgy,” Ramon answered as he took a seat with little Fran. He’d arrived home about twenty minutes before, surprised but pleased to see Ben and me . . . and a little less enthusiastic to find the three Vikings raiding his kitchen.
“Black and white magic? Is it some sort of school or something?”
“Nightclub,” Ben said, tapping on the keyboard. “A very popular one. Everyone who’s anyone goes there. I’m surprised Imogen didn’t take you there when you were traveling with the Faire.”
“Are you kidding? My mother barely let me go to museums on my own. She never let me go out with Imogen at night. She thought Imogen would try to hook me up with guys.” I gave Ben a twisted smile. “As if.”
“She is going by the name Petra Valentine, not de Marco,” Ben remarked as he continued to poke around in an online database of personal information. “That’s what took me so long to find her. Evidently she’s living with some relatives by the name of Valentine. They have a business, Valentine and Company, located on rue de la Grande Pest, but I can’t ascertain just what sort of a business it is.”
“If her father is an Ilargi, maybe she’s one, too,” Mikaela suggested, watching with dismay as the Vikings stuffed a variety of bowls into a small microwave.
“I’ll pay for whatever it is they eat,” I told her in an undertone.
“Don’t be ridiculous—you pay us very generously for Tesla’s board. It’s just that I will have nothing to give you for dinner if they eat everything.”
“The position of Ilargi isn’t a hereditary one,” her husband told her, peering over Ben’s shoulder as best he could with little Fran demanding he read her a story from the book she held.
“Maybe she’s normal, like me,” I said.
Everyone looked at me, including the Vikings.
“Perhaps normal wasn’t the best term,” I said somewhat lamely.
“She has a Wiccan mother and an Ilargi father,” Ben said in a dry tone. “I suspect she is anything but mundane.”
Mundane, I remembered from my time with the Faire, was the Otherworld term for normal mortal beings. It was a word I once cherished, wishing with my whole being that I could be perfectly ordinary, just like everyone else. My gaze slid to Ben, caressing the hard planes of his face, softened now as he focused on the laptop, the sweet curve of his lower lip curling a little as Ramon made a joke about mundane folk. I was filled with a profound sense of rightness, a warm glow of love that made me wonder how I could ever believe life would exist without Ben.
His gaze flashed to mine, a question in it.
Just thinking about what I’d like to do to Loki for making me miss all those years with you.
He returned his attention to the laptop. I suspect, Francesca, that although the glamour had much to do with our unhappiness, you would not have been so quick to Join yourself to me regardless.
Possibly. I am awfully stubborn, and I really do hate being told I have no choice in my own life decisions, but still, it was very cruel of Loki to do that.
He believed himself justified. I am just relieved that you no longer have his threat hanging over you. “Ah. And here is an e-mail address for her, and I think . . . yes, a cell phone number.” He looked up. “Shall we call her?”
“Do I want to know how you got her private information like that?” I asked.
“No.” He closed the screen, which looked like it belonged to a mobile phone service, and handed me a piece of paper with a phone number. “I assume you wish to do the honors?”
“Yes.” I stared at the paper for a second or two, feeling my palms go damp.
If you would prefer me to do it—
No, I should be the one to call her. She is my half sister. It’s just that . . . Well, it’s all still a bit weird, partly because my mother kept the fact from me that I have an older sister, and also because Mom’s who-knows-where, and what if this Petra is responsible for her disappearing?
You won’t know unless you talk to her.
The Vikings, in the process of eating Mikaela and Ramon out of every morsel of food they possessed, gathered around to watch.
Ben offered me his cell phone. I took it and punched in the number, hesitating a second before I hit the TALK button.
After a couple of rings, a somewhat breathless voice answered. “Bonjour.”
“Um . . . bonjour. Do you speak English?”
“Like a native,” the woman answered with laughter in her voice. She had a slightly English accent—not truly English, but a little hint of it that made it sound like she watched way too much BBC America. “Who’s this?”
“My name is Fran Ghetti. You are Petra Valentine de Marco, aren’t you?”
The woman hesitated. “I’m Petra Valentine, yes. But not de Marco.”
Odd. Is she trying to distance herself from Alphonse?
Possibly.
“Hello, Petra. This is going to sound extremely strange, and I apologize in advance for saying it to you this way, but is your mother’s name Miranda Benson?”
“Who did you say you were?” Petra’s voice turned as flinty as a quarry.
“Francesca Ghetti. And I’m sorry. I know I’d freak out if someone called and asked me questions about my mother, but I assure you it’s really important that I do so. Is your mother Miranda Benson?”
“My birth mother, yes, but she died when I was born.”
I felt like a sledgehammer walloped me in my chest. “She died?” I repeated, staring at Ben with wide eyes.
Mikaela, who had been trying to find something left in the kitchen to fix for dinner, raised her brows. The Vikings, not finding anything of interest in a phone call, moved off to the living room, where they were squabbling over which TV channel to watch.
“Yes. Now, would you mind telling me why it’s of vital importance that you know about my birth mother?”
I took a deep breath. “Because she’s my mother, too, and she’s very much alive. Or at least she was the last time she was seen. She’s . . . uh . . . kind of missing. I was hoping you’d know something about what happened to her.”
The silence from the other side was heavy with surprise. “I think . . . I think you better start this from the very beginning,” Petra said slowly.
And so I did. With Ben leaning his head against mine to hear Petra’s side of the conversation, which admittedly consisted of mostly exclamations of surprise and disbelief, I gave her a brief synopsis of my mother’s life, her work with the GothFaire, how I found she had disappeared, and my subsequent discovery of Petra’s birth certificate.
“This is absolutely mind-boggling,” she said when I was finished. “I’ve never heard of an Alphonse de Marco. My father’s name was Albert Valentine. At least . . . that’s what my family told me. Then again, they told me my birth mother was dead.”
“And you don’t know anything about the whereabouts of my mother? Er . . . our mother?”
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”
I glanced at Ben. She sounds like she’s telling the truth.
I agree. There is genuine shock in her voice. She could be faking it, but I suspect not.
“Well, then, I guess this phone call was unnecessary. Except . . . this is all a bit strange to me, too, but it’s nice to talk to you. I had no idea until a few days ago that I had an older sister.”
“You said you were in Germany—where, exactly?”
I gave her the name of the town. “I’m staying at the GothFaire with my . . . er . . . boyfriend.”
Ben sighed into my mind. You’re going to have to marry me.
I am?
Yes. The term “boyfriend” is starting to irritate me. Husband, while not nearly as binding as Dark One, at least sounds a bit more formal.
I laughed. Look, I just finally wrapped my mind around the whole Joining thing. Let’s not rush anything else.
Petra was silent for a few seconds, then said, “Lucy is going to kill me, but there’s no help for that. I’m going to go out to help you find Miranda.”
/> “You are?” I realized how rude that sounded and hurried to smooth over the faux pas. “We’d love to have your help, of course, not to mention have the chance to meet you, but . . . oh, man, this is my day for sounding like a lunatic. Petra, what exactly are you?”
“What am I?” she repeated.
“Yes. Our mother is a witch. She’s very well respected in Wiccan circles. I wondered if you inherited any of her skills.”
She gave a short little bark of laughter. “No, I have my own set of skills. My family—my adopted family, I should say—are necromancers. I’m a fourth-class necromancer, which in case you aren’t familiar with the classifications of necromancy, means I am able to raise deceased animals as liches.”
I sighed with relief. “I’m so glad you’re not normal.”
She laughed in a way that made me think I would like her, promised we would have a long conversation when she got here, and hung up.
I made a couple of quick calls after that, then finally turned to Ben. “Now what? We’ve exhausted every avenue—Loki is innocent of involvement with Mom, Petra doesn’t know anything about her, and Peter says she’s still not back.”
“We will return to the GothFaire,” he answered, glancing at a text message that burbled at him when I handed him back his phone. “Imogen says the watch wish to see us, and . . .” He frowned.
“What is it?” I asked.
“David sent me a message saying he was following a trail, but didn’t say what or whose. Damn.”
“What do we do about Loki?” I asked, suddenly feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. “I’m supposed to banish him, and I have no idea how to do that, or even if the Vikingahärta will let me. It seems to be a bit wonky right now.”
You are tired, Beloved. You need food and rest.
What I need is lots of steamy vampire lovin’, I corrected him.
That, too.
“It seems to me that Loki is the least of your worries right now,” Mikaela said, holding a package of ramen soup and a soggy potato covered with scraggly eyes. “My biggest concern is what I’m going to feed you. This is all your plague of locusts left.”
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