In the Company of Vampires (11 page)

“Virgin goddess!”

I looked up to see Finnvid standing next to an outdoor café table. He waved and yelled again, “Virgin goddess! Isleif is getting our ale, and Eirik is using the privy, but he will return soon, unless his guts are bound up again. If that is the case, then he may need to purge his arse. You will have ale with us?”

Several pairs of heads swiveled from Finnvid to me. I tried to smile. I think it came out pretty bad because the people averted their gazes quickly.

“I swear,” I muttered under my breath as I made my way over to the Vikings. “One of these days, I’m going to beg Freya to take them back. . . . Hello, Finnvid. I’m pretty sure people would be grateful if you didn’t yell details about constipation while you’re at a café.”

He looked curious as I pulled out one of the white metal chairs that sat around a table littered with shopping bags. “Why? Do your guts not get bound up occasionally?”

“Item number—what are we up to now, fifteen thousand?—on the ‘things we don’t discuss’ list is constipation, unless there is a pressing medical reason to do so. What in the name of the goddess’s ten little toes have you been buying?”

“Many things.” He patted a couple of the bags with satisfaction. “Ninja things.”

“Yeah? Like what?” I tried to peek in one of the white plastic carrier bags, but he slapped my hands away.

“Eirik said we are not to talk to you about it. But we did bring you an offering.” He rustled around in the bags, muttering to himself as Isleif returned with three gigantic beer steins filled to the brim with frothy ale.

“Why aren’t you supposed to talk to me about what you bought?” I asked, suspicion making me suddenly very wary.

“Virgin goddess!” Isleif shoved aside some of the bags in order to set down the steins. “Eirik is emptying his bowels. You would like ale? I will get one for you.”

“No, thank you. I think I’d be comatose if I drank that much,” I answered, eyeing the massive steins. I swear they were just pitchers shaped like traditional beer steins. “I wouldn’t mind some food, but before that, I’d like to know just what it is you bought that Eirik doesn’t want you to talk about.”

Isleif said something that sounded very rude and punched Finnvid in the arm as the latter was taking a swig of beer. “Do you have no brains? You do not tell the virgin goddess that we are not to talk about the weapons! You know how she is about them!”

“What weapons?” I reached for a bag, but both Finnvid and Isleif pulled them back out of my reach. “Something other than the knives we agreed you could buy here, even though you’re not going to be able to take them back to the U.S.?”

“You agreed—we did not. We told you that no Viking would be caught dead without a sword and ax! It is like being naked.” Isleif plumped down in a chair with a disgruntled look.

“Worse,” Finnvid said. “If you are naked with a sword and ax, you can still kill. I have done so many times.”

“In many ways, I prefer to fight naked, like the berserkers. The blood does not stain your armor that way,” Isleif said and nodded.

“Aye, that is true. I can’t tell you the number of times I’d return home after a successful pillage, and my wife would complain about having to clean the caked blood and brains from my tunic.”

The people nearest us rose suddenly, tossed a few coins on the table, and hurried off. I sighed to myself and wondered which was worse—Ben’s betrayal, or time spent with the Vikings.

“Virgin goddess!” Eirik’s voice was naturally deep, but I hadn’t realized until he bellowed it across the outdoor café area just how carrying it was. “You have found us!”

I ignored the curious looks of the people who hadn’t heard the other two Vikings earlier. “Yes, I have.”

“There is Eirik,” Finnvid said happily. “Are your bowels running again?”

“Aye, they are. I had to use three handfuls of leaves they moved with such vigor.”

The people on the other side of Finnvid scurried off with bowed heads and expressions of horror.

“I’ve had those sessions in the privy,” Isleif said, obviously settling back to indulge in a few scatological anecdotes.

Before he could do so, I raised a hand. “Stop. The moving of bowels is also on the list of things we don’t talk about.”

He stared at me for a moment in utter bewilderment, and was clearly going to ask why, when Finnvid said, “My fourth wife forbid me to talk about shite. Perhaps the virgin goddess is like her.”

I closed my eyes. To my left, I heard the noise of chairs scraping and people leaving hurriedly. I prayed the café owner was not watching.

“I knew a woman like that, as well,” Eirik said, sitting next to me. “She liked me to write her name in the snow, though.”

“What weapons did you buy?” I said, giving great deliberation to the words.

Eirik shot a glare at Finnvid.

“Why do you look such at me?” Finnvid answered the look, pulling his bags a little closer. “It could have been Isleif who told her about the Walther P38s.”

“Walthers?” I searched my memory. I wasn’t too hip on weapons, but those sounded familiar. “Aren’t those guns? You bought guns?”

“We needed them. We saw Nori.”

“You saw Nori. We did not,” Isleif said, pouring about half the ale down his throat. He belched so loud I swear my hair fluttered.

The people behind him left. Quickly.

“You think I would mistake Nori? I am not so foolish.” Eirik turned from the Vikings to reassure me. “It was Nori.”

“Who’s Nori? And why do you need a gun just because he’s here? I thought we agreed knives would be perfectly fine.”

“You agreed,” Eirik said. “You forbade us to pillage swords or axes, so we got crossbows instead.”

“You got crossbows
and
Walther P38s?” I took a deep breath in order to better lecture them, but before I could, Isleif interrupted.

“The Walthers
are
crossbows,” he said kindly, as if explaining something to an idiot.

“They are?”

“Aye.” All three Vikings nodded, and smacked their lips loudly as they downed their beer. “The man at the ninja shop told us they were very effective in stopping attackers. We will find a bowyer later to get the bolts for them.”

“You need not worry, virgin goddess,” Eirik added, patting my hand. “We will protect you from Loki’s son.”

“Nori?” I asked, relief swamping me when I realized they didn’t understand about the ammunition needed by modern guns.

“Aye. He is tricky like his father. I saw him leaving the train station a few hours ago. If Nori is here, he is up to no good.”

I frowned at the table as I mulled over a new thought. Could it be Loki’s son who swept my mother off her feet to some love nest, goddess only knew where? Or was it a coincidence that Nori was in town? I explained to the Vikings what Absinthe had seen in her vision.

“I don’t know what to think. It’s all so confusing.” I rubbed my forehead. “Maybe we should talk to Nori, just to be on the safe side.”

“We will search for him tonight,” Eirik said, putting on his white-framed sunglasses even though it was dark enough that streetlamps were starting to flicker on. “You will go back to the Faire?”

“Yes, I have to go back to the Faire.” I would not think about Ben. I would not allow the misery that was now my life to spread to others. “If you get tired and want somewhere to sleep, you can use the chairs and my bed in my mom’s trailer. I’ll sleep in her bed.”

They agreed to this plan, and since my appetite had gone at the memories I would not allow, I stood up to leave.

“You forgot to give her the offering,” Isleif said, pointing to a bag at Finnvid’s feet.

“Aye, give the virgin goddess the offering we have brought for her,” Eirik said.

Finnvid dug through the bags until he held in his hands a shiny gold metal helm, crowned on either side with curved plastic horns. I stared at it for a moment before turning my gaze on the three delighted faces that beamed at me. “You got me a horned helmet?”

“Is it not splendid? ” Finnvid asked, admiring it. “The man at the shop said that it is a Viking helm, although we have never seen one like it before, so it must be a ninja Viking helm. We thought you would like it, since you are our virgin goddess.”

With reverence, he placed the helm on my head. I bit my lower lip, not wanting to hurt their feelings when they were so very pleased with their present. I started to take it off, saying, “I will treasure it always.”

“You are removing it?” Isleif asked, his expression a little hurt.

“Well . . . it’s so very pretty, and shiny, and . . . horny. I wouldn’t want someone to steal it from me if I were to wear it out on the street. Maybe you could give me the bag and I could carry it back to the Faire in that.”

“Ah,” Eirik said, nodding. “That is smart thinking. It is a most attractive ninja Viking helm. Many people will want it.”

I didn’t point out that just about everyone was wearing them. “Exactly. So I’ll just tuck it away safe and sound in this bag, and that way no one will know I have it.”

“Until you get to the Faire,” Eirik prompted me. “Then you will wear it. It will be safe at the Faire.”

“Er . . . yes. I will be safe wearing it there.” I heaved a mental sigh, but pointed out to myself that as easily distracted as they were, I probably wouldn’t have to wear it more than once or twice before they forgot about it.

They escorted me to a cab, promising to pass along word about Nori should they find him again. I returned to the Faire with a heart filled with anguish, an empty stomach, and a historically inaccurate horned Viking helm.

Somehow, that just seemed to sum up my life.

“The little kindness is five euros, the bigger one is ten, and the do-it-yourself love charm kit is twenty-five.”

“Oh, love charm is good, yes? We will take it,” one of the two young women who stood before me said in a charming German accent.

I handed over the box and took her money. “Forgive my ignorance, but who are you dressed as?”

The woman smoothed a hand down her floor-length black dress and matching belted waist cincher, pulling down from the top of her head a silver metal mask. “I am a death eater!”

“So you are. Er . . . isn’t that from Harry Potter? Not a Wagnerian opera?”

“Yes,” she said, pushing the mask up before waving to her friend. “Sabeine is Hermione.”

“And a very good Hermione you are,” I told her, handing over the change and admiring her Hogwarts robes. “Enjoy your love charms.”

The two women left, excitedly discussing whether to visit the wizard’s sanctum first or the aura photography booth. I eyed the table in front of me, mentally adding up the stock on it and the boxes of extras I’d found earlier. I had assumed that the items would last several days, but Peter hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that the town’s opera competition was sending the Faire lots of customers—center aisle was a solid mass of bodies, and I had done a roaring trade in just the hour we’d been open. I’d kept so busy I hadn’t had time to do more than twitch whenever a man of Ben’s general build and color walked past.

“Fran!” A petite woman with long, curly blond hair and brilliant blue eyes darted around a small clutch of people and ran toward me. “It is you! I am so pleased to see you, but there is something I must tell you about Benedikt before you see him—”

“Too late.” I smiled when she froze just as she was about to hug me, the delicate lines of her face unmoving. “Hello, Imogen. It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has,” she said absently, her gaze searching my face. “You have seen Benedikt?”

“Yes.” I set down the bottles of kindness, idly checking the lid on the tester my mother kept to show people how the potion worked. “I’ve seen him. And Naomi. Ben seemed surprised to see me. You didn’t tell him that I was coming?”

“No, I thought the surprise of seeing you might do him some good. Sort of a shock therapy, you know. Oh, Fran.” Remorse filled her eyes as she hugged me, waves of sympathy rolling off her. “I am so sorry. Benedikt is . . . I do not know what has happened to him. I have tried to talk to him about his decision. I have tried, you must believe me. But he will not listen to me. He will not speak with me. He avoids me, he will not even let me feed him anymore. It is as if he is bewitched by that . . . that . . .” She spat out a word I didn’t recognize, but assumed it wasn’t something I’d ever be saying. “But it is very hard to bespell a Dark One, and Naomi does not have that sort of power, so it cannot be that. My dearest Fran, I do not know what to say to you. I have let you down. I fear Benedikt is lost to us.”

She hugged me again, and I patted her back, smiling a little at the fact that she was the one who needed comforting. “It’s okay, Imogen. You don’t have to cry. If Ben is lost to us, it’s my fault, not yours.”

“That, I do not believe,” she said, pulling a lace handkerchief from her sleeve. Imogen was the only person I knew who liked nothing more than to spend a night clubbing, but who still used handkerchiefs. She’d told me once that she had seen a lot of things come and go over the more than three hundred years she had lived, but handkerchiefs were a constant in her life. “You are his Beloved! How he can spurn you this way is beyond my understanding. There has never been a Dark One who has done so. No, I tell a lie. There was one, a Frenchman, but that is an entirely different situation. He has a woman he took as his Beloved in the other’s place.”