Evening commuters rushed past me in varying costumes, everything from briefcase-toting knights in chain mail to begowned and bewigged women (and some men) adorned with breastplates, backpacks, and cloth shopping bags filled with the makings for dinner.
I’d never felt so alone in my life. For one moment, for one tiny little moment, I unguarded my mind and reached out to see if Ben was there, but before I could find him, I withdrew. What if he was with Naomi at that moment? What if he was feeding from her, or worse? Dark Ones and their Beloveds shared a unique mental bond that sometimes allowed more than just the sharing of thoughts—and I knew for a fact that had I let him, I would feel both Ben’s emotions at that moment and the sensations of whatever he was doing.
“I won’t let this destroy me,” I swore to myself as I turned into the flow of traffic and let it carry me along to the center square in town, where I had earlier seen several cafés. My stomach growled loudly at the thought.
Hungry?
“Sorry. I haven’t eaten all day—” I stopped as soon as I realized that the voice that spoke wasn’t from the man walking nearest me. No. I will not do this.
Francesca, don’t shut—
I closed my mind against him, against the agony of hearing his velvety voice in my brain after so many years. I stood with my arms wrapped around myself for a few minutes, struggling to keep from crying, fighting to keep control. Just as I did so, a voice pierced my awareness.
“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.”