In the Company of Vampires do-9

by Katie MacAlister

  “One that has been invaded by the mental image of you two oiling up those buxom ladies,” I said with a little glare at the two of them. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to indulge in soul-searching insight with people yammering away about breasts?”

  Isleif looked righteous. “I did not yammer, virgin goddess.”

  “Oooh, oil.” Finnvid’s eyes went a bit glazed.

  “Stop that. We have things to do,” I said, frowning at his twitching fingers.

  “But oiled breasts . . .”

  “No breasts for you!” I ordered, feeling a bit like the Breast Nazi. “Can we move past that subject?”

  “Aye, we can. Our apologies, virgin goddess.” Eirik narrowed his eyes on me. “Are you finished having your moment?”

  “Yes, thank you. It’s over. Come on, let’s see who’s—What in the name of all that is bright and glittery is that?”

  We all turned to face the road. I had been aware of the faint sound of singing, assuming someone at the Faire had the radio on. But the volume was growing, and at last I realized that the noise was coming from the road, where a group of about ten young men clad in ragged cloth pants, bits of wool wrapped around their feet with leather thongs, and torn tunics jogged past us, singing as they went.

  “This is Tuesday, yes?” Finnvid said, pulling out a pamphlet. He looked at his watch. “Ah. The schedule says they are the Brustwarze High School Athletic Pilgrim’s Chorus.”

  We watched the track team as they sang their way past us. I applauded politely. A couple of them managed a bow in midjog before they continued off into the distance.

  “What was I saying?” I asked Isleif once they were far enough away that we could speak without shouting.

  “Something about seeing someone?” he asked.

  “Ah! Yes, we will see who’s awake at this time of the morning.” And then I would find out where Ben was, so I could brace myself for what I knew would be a somewhat emotional meeting.

  We marched across the large open field until we were up to the ticket booth, sitting on the fringe of the Faire.

  “It looks just the same as it did before,” Isleif commented, eyeing the long U shape that was created by a big tent at one end and two rows of vendors and Faire performers.

  I stopped for a moment, the sense of déjà vu so great it was almost as if the last five years had never happened. “It certainly does,” I mused. “There’s the aura photography booth. There’s Desdemona’s personal time travel tent. That’s where Tallulah talks to the dead. And there’s my mother’s booth.”

  I walked over to the small canvas and wood tent that served as booths for the Faire folk, familiar with every inch of the structure. They were easily set up and taken down, each with brightly painted designs. Mom as the resident Wiccan offered to counsel people who wanted to get in touch with the goddess and god, provided products like do-it-yourself love potion kits, and benign spells and potions that she felt made the world a better place. The flap to the tent was laced down now, concealing the long table that was no doubt set up behind it with rows of tiny bottles of happiness, understanding, generosity, luck, and even forgiveness.

  A little pain contracted around my heart at the thought of the years I had spent helping her dry the herbs and flowers that had gone into her potions and spell kits. Once I would have given anything to have a normal mother, but now I just wanted her back, with all of her irritating, irrational ways.

  “We’ll find her,” Eirik said, obviously reading the distress on my face as I touched the bright red and orange tent. The other Vikings murmured their agreement. “We will force Loki to give her back.”

  “I know we will, and thanks, guys. I really do appreciate your help with this. Well, I suppose I should find Imogen and see if there is any news of Mom.” Now that there was nothing but a short distance between Ben and me, my palms were suddenly sweaty. I had to stand firm. I had made my choices, and I would stick to them, no matter how annoying my breasts were in their demand to be placed in Ben’s hands. And mouth.

  I moaned slightly at the thought of his mouth on my flesh.

  “Virgin goddess?” Eirik asked. “Is all well?”

  “Yes.” My voice came out hoarse. I cleared it. If Ben was staying with Imogen, then the sooner I got a meeting with him out of the way, the better it would be for everyone. “Perfectly fine. This way.”

  We moved off past a group of people standing in front of the aura photography booth. It wasn’t yet noon, and the Faire wasn’t due to open for another two hours, but I remembered from my time working the palm reading booth that there were always a few early folk who liked to stroll around and eyeball the various offerings.

  A big blond man with a very square jaw strode by, calling something in German to the clutch of people. They answered and moved off, evidently having seen the wisdom of waiting until the Faire opened. The blond man started to turn around, then paused, casting a glance back toward me. His step faltered. “Fran? Is that you?”

  I smiled and ruffled my now short hair. “Hi, Kurt. Er . . . Karl. No, Kurt?”

  “Kurt is right,” he said and laughed, and before I could say anything else, he embraced me in a bear hug that just about squeezed the breath out of my lungs. “You are back now? You are done with your schooling?”

  “I’m done with college, yes, but I’m not here to stay. My mother hasn’t returned, has she?”

  His eyebrows rose. “I haven’t seen her in a few days. Is something wrong?”

  “Possibly.”

  His eyes slid past me to the Vikings. They bugged out a bit (his eyes, not the Vikings). “Those are . . . those are . . .”

  “Those are the Vikings that I inadvertently raised almost five years ago in Sweden, yes.” I smiled at his look of shock. “You have to forgive their choice of clothing. They were in Valhalla until a couple of days ago, and they went a little nuts at the outlet mall.”

  Eirik brushed his hand down his navy blue muscle tee and adjusted his white-framed sunglasses. I squinted a little as the sunlight glared off the brilliant yellow of his tight clam diggers, white belt, and matching white shoes. “You do not like our new clothes, virgin goddess? I noticed you did not comment about them at the airport, where others were clearly envious of them.”

  I bit my lip for a moment. “Your clothes are just fine.”

  “A woman on the plane told me she had never seen anything like them before,” Isleif said with obvious pride, grabbing either side of his neon blue-and-white-striped plus four pants and pulling them out to maximum fluffiness. He wore a scarlet angora sweater that he had decided was too hot, so he pulled off the sleeves and cut a strip from the bottom, leaving him with his arms and belly button exposed.

  Kurt gurgled a little. We both turned to look at Finnvid. He wore what I had assumed was a swimmer’s full-length body suit, the tight spandex clinging to his body like a second skin, leaving little, if anything, to the imagination. Luckily, he had also donned a black and white polka-dot knee-length knit coat, and a black fedora that he wore tipped at a rakish angle.

  I sighed and smiled at Kurt. “The Vikings have been sent to help me with a little situation. They won’t cause any problems with the customers. Right, gentlemen?”

  “We have sworn to not slay anyone you do not authorize us to slay,” Eirik said with a frown. “Although I dislike you binding us to such an oath, virgin goddess. It makes us feel helpless.”

  “You guys are anything but helpless, and you know it. Is Imogen up yet, do you know?”

  Kurt blinked. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her this morning. Did he say virgin goddess?”

  “No, he didn’t,” I said loudly, narrowing my eyes at each and every one of the Vikings. They grinned at me, the rats. “She knows I was coming, so I’ll just go say hi and get my Vikingahärta from her.” And get the meeting with Ben out of the way.

  Inner Fran could not help but wonder if he missed me.

  I hurried toward the gold and white trailer decor
ated with scarlet hands and runes that was Imogen’s home when she was traveling with the GothFaire, ignoring both Inner Fran and my suddenly rapidly beating heart.

  Kurt called something after us, but I was suddenly frantic to see Ben. Imogen! Not Ben, but Imogen! I didn’t want to see Ben at all. In fact, I’d pay good money to have someone haul him away so I wouldn’t accidentally run into him.

  Inner Fran told me it was the purest folly to lie to oneself. I gritted my teeth and told her to go do something rude to herself. As we walked to Imogen’s trailer, I stopped and turned to the Vikings. “Uh . . . guys, would you give me a few minutes alone with Be . . . er . . . Imogen?”

  Eirik looked suspicious. “If you command it, virgin goddess. What should we do while we are waiting for you?”

  “It would be really helpful if you could scout around the area and see if there are any signs Loki was here.”

  His suspicion turned darker. “We are not scouts! Vikings do not scout! We are above such things!”

  “Well . . . what do you do?” I asked.

  “We pillage,” he answered quickly. “We plunder.”

  “We kill,” added Finnvid. “A lot.”

  “Don’t forget drinking. We drink a lot, as well.”

  The other two nodded.

  “It’s too early to drink, I don’t want anyone killed, there will be no pillaging, and since I know one or the other of you is bound to add this to your list, no oiling of breasts, either. At least not out in public. What you do in private is thankfully your own business.” I filled my expression with as much pathos as I could pack into it. “But if you don’t want to look around for signs of Loki, and where he might have gone, I’ll have to find someone else to do it.”

  Eirik’s nostrils flared. “We were assigned by the goddess Freya to aid you! You will have no others. If you desire us to scout . . .” He shuddered. “Then we will lower ourselves to scouting.”

  “Think of it as being Viking ninjas.” I leaned in and lowered my voice to a conspiratorial level. “Stealthy and covert.”

  “Stealthy,” Finnvid said thoughtfully.

  “Covert?” Eirik glanced at the others. “Have we ever been covert?”

  Isleif shook his head. “No, but I watched a movie about ninjas. They were most deadly and feared by all. Just like us. We will be ninjas, virgin goddess. Viking ninjas.”

  “The best kind,” Eirik agreed.

  “Sounds good. You go be stealthy, covert Viking ninjas”—really, I deserve an award for being able to say that without so much as one titter or a twitch of my lips—“and I’ll meet you guys back here in a couple of hours, okay? You remember which trailer is my mom’s?”

  They nodded.

  “We must go shopping again,” Isleif commented as they headed off. “The ninjas in the movie had special armor. We will need the same.”

  “Aye.” Eirik’s voice drifted back to me. “We will find the local ninja store, and use the weasel gold to buy everything they have. . . .”

  “Heaven help the local shops,” I murmured before eyeing Imogen’s trailer and taking a deep breath.

  I was ready. I knew this day would have to come sometime. I lifted my chin and reminded myself that my mother needed me to be strong, and by the goddess, strong is what I would be.

  Chapter 5

  No sound answered my tap on Imogen’s door. I waited a moment before opening it just a smidgen, enough to poke my head in to see if Imogen was up. The long living area was devoid of anyone. Perhaps she and her Günter were out getting morning coffee and breakfast.

  “Best thing is to just wait for her,” I said, ignoring the fact that my stomach did a few excited backflips as I entered the trailer. “Ben is not here, stomach, and Imogen has a boyfriend. Stop being so excited. Ben won’t be up and about until it’s dark.”

  Unless, of course, Imogen’s boyfriend wasn’t staying with her. Which meant . . . I glanced down the narrow passage to the door that marked Imogen’s bedroom. It was quiet, very quiet, the sound of quiet that comes when no one else is around. Perhaps I should just double-check to make sure no one was in Imogen’s bedroom. Just a quick peek to ease my mind and calm my unduly excited stomach.

  Would Ben be happy to see me? Would he think I’d changed in the last few years? I touched a hand to my short auburn hair. When he last saw me, it had been in a pageboy, and black as night. Would he like the new color and style?

  “Stop it. It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” I told myself before I put my hand on the door. “You are here to find your mother and nothing else. Certainly not to see the pushiest vampire ever made. Get to it, Fran.”

  I opened the door the bare minimum amount needed to slide through, so no sunlight could sneak in and harm any vampires who might be sleeping therein.

  The room was dark and warm. A muffled grunt came from the bed.

  “Ben?” My heart beat wildly, and my stomach did flip-flops. It was him! He was right there in front of me. I should leave. I should run away as fast as I could. I should put him from my mind and heart.

  I groped my way along the bed to sit on one end of it, pulling off both sets of gloves before reaching out to find him. My hand touched bare flesh.

  A light clicked on at the exact moment that I realized the man wasn’t Ben. I snatched back my hand as two surprised hazel eyes met mine. “Was ist es?”

  “Er . . . hi. You’re not Ben.”

  The man pulled the blanket up over his naked chest. “Who?”

  “Ben. Benedikt. Are you Günter, by any chance?” I asked, hastily getting off the bed and backing toward the door, my face redder than a baboon’s butt.

  “Ja. You are Imogen friend?”

  “Yes, I’m Fran. I’m sorry to disturb you. I thought you would be out with Imogen. And then I thought you were Ben, but clearly you’re not. Where is she?”

  “He?”

  “No, she, not he. You know, the word ‘she.’ ‘She’ is female; ‘he’ is male.”

  He blinked at me. “In trailer,” he said, waving a hand toward the window. “Tattoo trailer.”

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks. Sorry again about waking you up. Nice meeting you.” I slipped out of the room, closing the door behind me, leaning against it for a moment while I covered my burning cheeks with my hands. “Just when I think you can’t be a bigger idiot, you top yourself. Nice job, Fran.”

  I all but ran down the line of trailers until I reached one with familiar artwork. I never had much to do with Gavon, who did tattoos and custom piercings at the Faire, mostly because he struck me as somewhat creepy, but I had a faint memory of Imogen being friends with him.

  I knocked on the door, mentally writing an apology to Imogen for barging in on her boyfriend, when the door opened. A woman stood in the doorway. I stared at her bare legs, stared at her thigh-length silk robe, stared at a pretty face topped with a cloud of soft, curly hair. This was not Imogen.

  “Yes?”

  I gawked at her for a minute. I’d always thought Gavon was gay . . . Maybe I’d been wrong, and this was his girlfriend? “Is Imogen here?”

  “Imogen? No. Her brother is.” She continued to stand there, looking me over with narrowed blue eyes. I suddenly felt every inch my six-foot, built-like-a-line-backer self, not to mention the wrinkled T-shirt and pair of jeans I wore.

  “Ben’s . . . here?” I groaned to myself. Somehow in the conversation with Günter, we’d crossed our lines regarding pronouns. “Right here?”

  “Yes. You wish to see him?”

  No. I absolutely did not want to see him. I had not gone through the hell of the last year for nothing. I had made a decision, and I was going to stand by it.

  “Yes, please,” I heard someone say, and realized with horror that it was me.

  I knew I should have turned around and left. I had to find Imogen, and then make a plan to locate my mother. But despite the desperate need to know she was okay, my feet refused to leave. After all, my brain pointed out, I would be much less distracted once a
meeting with Ben was done.

  “He was sleeping when I left him,” the woman said in a voice with a faint French accent. “Why do you want to see him?”

  My heart shattered. Just like that, it was whole one moment, then in a billion pieces the next. Poof! Dust. Not that it had any right to shatter, but you try reasoning to a heart. It’s impossible. “You’re not Gavon’s girlfriend, are you?”

  “Gavon? No. I took over his business. I am Naomi, the tattoo artist. I am Benedikt’s girlfriend. And you are . . . ?”

  “Fran Ghetti.” Pain seared my soul with such intensity I had to clutch the side of the trailer to keep from keeling over at her feet. Stupid, stupid Fran! You broke up with him; you can’t be shocked now because he got over you.

  “Ah, the former girlfriend.” Her look scalded me up and down with enough heat to peel off at least three layers of skin.

  I gave her a long look that by rights should have left her hair smoking. “If he’s sleeping, I won’t disturb him.”

  “Benedikt is mine, now. Did he not tell you? Poor little American. Did you believe that he still wants you? Desires you? He does not even think about you. He thinks only of me.”

  Her voice turned suddenly syrupy and sickeningly sweet. It was just what I needed, because her words pulled me out of what threatened to be a massive well of self-pity, and into the land made up of me turning her into a wart-encrusted cockroach. “There’s nothing little about me, chicky. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Ben.”

  She made an annoyed sound, but stood aside. I climbed the steps and edged past her, hardly able to catch my breath, so fast was my heart beating. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe the proof that was before me. Ben had moved on. He had really moved on. While I’d been spending miserable nights telling myself that I’d gotten just what I wanted, Ben, the bastard, had just blithely gone on with his life.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Naomi. She smiled a slow “Ben is my lover because he’s so over you” smile. “He’s in my bed. He was so exhausted after our night together, he went right to sleep.”