In the Company of Vampires

because I know for a fact you’ve been stirring up all sorts of trouble, like trying to kidnap me, but getting my roommate, Geoff, instead.”

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