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 latter 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.”