She smiled, and the faint air of mystery that always wrapped around her changed slightly. I had heard once that she was some sort of Romany royalty, and I could well believe it. The fact that she spent her nights contacting dead relatives of Faire patrons, and had a boyfriend who was a ghost, just added to the whole package. “How is Tesla?”
“Doing well, according to Mikaela. He had a little hoof problem, but they got that cleared up quickly. I hope to go see him soon. I’ve missed him.”
“As I’m sure he has you. Do not forget him in your quest for justice,” she said, making me blink in surprise.
“Uh . . .” She closed the door to her trailer, leaving me with a question on my tongue. “I just really hate it when people do that to me.” I sighed, and headed across the Faire encampment to the trailer that housed Peter. Just as I got there, he and Imogen strolled from the direction of the cars.
“Are you certain?” Imogen asked him as I stopped in front of them, casting me a quick smile before turning back to Peter.
“I did not see him, but Karl did, and yes, I asked him. He’s certain.”
“Something wrong?” I asked, noting the frown on Imogen’s face. She normally didn’t frown, feeling it encouraged wrinkles to run amok.
“Karl says a lich has been seen around the Faire,” Imogen said, still frowning as she looked over my shoulder. “Around my trailer.”
“A what now?”
“Lich. I have no idea what interest one would have in me. Moravians pose no danger to liches, and I have not met a necromancer of late.”
“Have you met with any Ilargi?” Peter asked. “Or vespilloes? Both of those work with liches.”
“No, not at all. I would know an Ilargi.” Imogen looked aghast at the idea.
“Well, I will have the security doubled up, just in case,” Peter said, and hurried off to consult with Kurt and Karl, in charge of keeping everyone at the Faire safe.
“What’s an Ilargi? And for that matter, a vespillo?”
“They both have dealings with liches.”
“Do they, indeed. I hate to sound ignorant, but what’s a lich, other than something that sounds like it should be in my dad’s old Dungeons and Dragons book?”
“Come. I feel the need for some tea.” I followed her back to her trailer, sitting at the tiny table as she bustled around the kitchen area, plugging in the electric teakettle and pulling out a plate of pastries that she set before me. “Let me just check if Günter is back.”
She returned from the bedroom just as I was licking the last of the raspberry jam off my fingers. “That’s odd.”
“What is?”
She stood in a pose of indecision for a moment before slowly sitting down across from me. “He still isn’t back. I was sure he would be back today. He said nothing about going away for a length of time.”
“Your boyfriend is gone, too?”
“So it would seem,” she said slowly, then shook off her abstraction and claimed a piece of baklava. “A lich is a servant of a necromancer, or Ilargi.”
I sighed and collected the crumbs off my shirt to lay on the plate. “And what’s a necromancer?”
“Someone who raises liches.”
I started laughing. “I feel like I’m in the middle of an Abbot and Costello movie.”
She looked startled by my laughter, pinning me back with a long look that left me with the uncomfortable feeling she was seeing straight down to my soul. “You are not distraught.”
“On the contrary, I’m worried about where my mother has got to, and who her Lothario is.”
“Yes, that is true, but you are not in pain as you were yesterday. Then your aura was a dark, muddy gray. Now it is . . .” She considered me again. “Now it is indigo. What has happened to bring insight to you, Fran?”
I made a little pyramid of the crumbs, kept my gaze on them for a few seconds, then gave her a quick rundown of my talk with her brother.
A slow smile spread across her face as I finished. “You must love him very much to forgive his actions with the evil one.”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know exactly what I feel, other than I’m willing to give us another chance.”
“This is good. You will not give up on him. You will destroy that she-devil Naomi.”
“Maybe not outright destroy, although I have to admit the temptation is pretty strong.” I laughed again. “And no, I’m not giving up on Ben. Not unless we find out that things . . . Well, we’ll let that go for now. For some bizarre reason that he feels he can’t explain, he’s pretending to be in love with Naomi. I don’t like it. I don’t like him keeping things from me. And I really don’t like her. But he asked me to trust him, and I’m trying to do that.”
“Ah, my dear friend, I cannot tell you how happy that has made me,” she said, tears shining in her eyes as she leaned across the table to hug me. “Benedikt has suffered so much these last few years waiting for you. I am happy to know that it was not in vain.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, wondering if it was any use trying to explain to her my emotions concerning Ben, eventually deciding that where he was concerned, she really only heard what she wanted to hear. I hurried on at the distraught look on her face. “No, don’t apologize. I’m just teasing you. I’m well aware that Ben suffered a lot more than I could have imagined he would. I’m sorry for it, but there’s nothing I can do to change the past. I need to focus on the present. Which brings me to the inevitable: Can I have the Vikingahärta? I don’t want to use it, but I don’t see any other way to find my mother.”
She nodded and got to her feet, heading toward the bedroom. “I expected you would want it. I had Peter take it out of the safe for you yesterday. I’ll fetch it.”
“How long have you and Günter been together?” I called after her, successfully resisting the temptation of an orange ginger scone. “He seemed nice, the little bit I talked to him.”
Imogen appeared in the open doorway to her bedroom, her eyes wide. “Fran.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s gone.”
“What is?” A horrible thought struck me, sending goose bumps down my arm as I leaped to my feet. “Not the Vikingahärta?”
“Yes. I put it on the nightstand, but it is not there.”
I hurried after her as she returned to the room. “Maybe it fell under the bed?”
We searched there, in the closet, the dresser, and finally tore the sheets and blankets off the bed, just on the chance the small scarlet velvet case had gotten caught in a blanket. There was nothing, not so much as a scrap of velvet.
“Bullfrogs!” I swore as I sank onto the edge of the bed, my stomach an icy leaden weight at the thought of the lost Vikingahärta. “Holy cow, Imogen. What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know where it could be,” she answered, shaking a pillow in hopes of feeling the small hard box. “It was right here, I swear that to you, Fran. I put it right there, right next to the lamp.”
“Was it there this morning?” I asked, swallowing back a sudden rise of bile. If I didn’t have the Vikingahärta, how was I going to force Loki to tell me if he seduced my mother, let alone banish him?
“I don’t know,” she repeated, clearly miserable. “Günter didn’t come back yesterday, and I . . . Well, I’m afraid I was in town most of the night, looking for him in the clubs.”
The thread of pain in her voice penetrated my own sense of desolation. I gave her hand a little squeeze. “You can’t possibly believe he left you for another woman? Imogen, you’re gorgeous and funny and sweet, and a man would have to be stark raving mad to want someone else over you.”
“Perhaps,” she said mournfully, tears filling her eyes. “But the fact remains that he has left me without a single word.”
Something tickled the back of my brain. I sat very still for a moment and tried to let my thoughts dwell on nothing, as my mother taught me to do whenever I sought to concentrate on something. For once, it worked, and as the tickle blossomed into a full idea, I stared in growing horror at Imogen.
“What is it?” she asked, dabbing at her nose with a handkerchief. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
“What if he didn’t leave you as you think? What if he’s missing?”
Her honey blond brows pulled together. “I don’t understand the difference.”
“A whole lot of things have gone missing of late,” I said, a little chill running up my back. I ticked the items off on my fingers. “First, I lost my backpack with my keys and cell phone. That could have been stolen by someone passing by the house, but what if someone else took it?”
“Who?”
“Then my mother went missing,” I continued. “Then the Vikingahärta, and now Günter.”
“It seems very coincidental to me,” Imogen said doubtfully.
“Yes, I agree, it seems that way, but what if we’re meant to think that? Remember Loki’s oath of revenge, Imogen.”
She pursed her lips. “He would take from you that which meant the most to you.”
“Which I thought at first was my mother, but . . .” I stopped, not wanting to put into words what I was thinking.
“But that’s not what you love the most,” she said softly.
“I don’t know if it is or not. I love my mom. But . . .”
“But there is Ben, and your feelings for him must supersede all others.” She patted my wrist. “I understand. But does that mean that Loki is behind everything? And if he is, why would he whisk away your mother on a romantic whim when it is Benedikt who means the world to you?”
“I don’t know.” I slumped onto my side, curling into a fetal ball of depression. “And I’m not likely to find out without the Vikingahärta. Oh, goddess of the endless night. Imogen, what am I going to do?”
