Katie MacAlister: In the Company of Vampires

Eirik brushed his hand down his navy blue muscle tee and adjusted his white-framed sunglasses. I squinted a little as the sunlight glared off the brilliant yellow of his tight clam diggers, white belt, and matching white shoes. “You do not like our new clothes, virgin goddess? I noticed you did not comment about them at the airport, where others were clearly envious of them.”

I bit my lip for a moment. “Your clothes are just fine.”

“A woman on the plane told me she had never seen anything like them before,” Isleif said with obvious pride, grabbing either side of his neon blue-and-white-striped plus four pants and pulling them out to maximum fluffiness. He wore a scarlet angora sweater that he had decided was too hot, so he pulled off the sleeves and cut a strip from the bottom, leaving him with his arms and belly button exposed.

Kurt gurgled a little. We both turned to look at Finnvid. He wore what I had assumed was a swimmer’s full-length body suit, the tight spandex clinging to his body like a second skin, leaving little, if anything, to the imagination. Luckily, he had also donned a black and white polka-dot knee-length knit coat, and a black fedora that he wore tipped at a rakish angle.

I sighed and smiled at Kurt. “The Vikings have been sent to help me with a little situation. They won’t cause any problems with the customers. Right, gentlemen?”

“We have sworn to not slay anyone you do not authorize us to slay,” Eirik said with a frown. “Although I dislike you binding us to such an oath, virgin goddess. It makes us feel helpless.”

“You guys are anything but helpless, and you know it. Is Imogen up yet, do you know?”

Kurt blinked. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her this morning. Did he say virgin goddess?”

“No, he didn’t,” I said loudly, narrowing my eyes at each and every one of the Vikings. They grinned at me, the rats. “She knows I was coming, so I’ll just go say hi and get my Vikingahärta from her.” And get the meeting with Ben out of the way.

Inner Fran could not help but wonder if he missed me.

I hurried toward the gold and white trailer decorated with scarlet hands and runes that was Imogen’s home when she was traveling with the GothFaire, ignoring both Inner Fran and my suddenly rapidly beating heart.

Kurt called something after us, but I was suddenly frantic to see Ben. Imogen! Not Ben, but Imogen! I didn’t want to see Ben at all. In fact, I’d pay good money to have someone haul him away so I wouldn’t accidentally run into him.

Inner Fran told me it was the purest folly to lie to oneself. I gritted my teeth and told her to go do something rude to herself. As we walked to Imogen’s trailer, I stopped and turned to the Vikings. “Uh . . . guys, would you give me a few minutes alone with Be . . . er . . . Imogen?”

Eirik looked suspicious. “If you command it, virgin goddess. What should we do while we are waiting for you?”

“It would be really helpful if you could scout around the area and see if there are any signs Loki was here.”

His suspicion turned darker. “We are not scouts! Vikings do not scout! We are above such things!”

“Well . . . what do you do?” I asked.

“We pillage,” he answered quickly. “We plunder.”

“We kill,” added Finnvid. “A lot.”

“Don’t forget drinking. We drink a lot, as well.”

The other two nodded.

“It’s too early to drink, I don’t want anyone killed, there will be no pillaging, and since I know one or the other of you is bound to add this to your list, no oiling of breasts, either. At least not out in public. What you do in private is thankfully your own business.” I filled my expression with as much pathos as I could pack into it. “But if you don’t want to look around for signs of Loki, and where he might have gone, I’ll have to find someone else to do it.”

Eirik’s nostrils flared. “We were assigned by the goddess Freya to aid you! You will have no others. If you desire us to scout . . .” He shuddered. “Then we will lower ourselves to scouting.”

“Think of it as being Viking ninjas.” I leaned in and lowered my voice to a conspiratorial level. “Stealthy and covert.”

“Stealthy,” Finnvid said thoughtfully.

“Covert?” Eirik glanced at the others. “Have we ever been covert?”

Isleif shook his head. “No, but I watched a movie about ninjas. They were most deadly and feared by all. Just like us. We will be ninjas, virgin goddess. Viking ninjas.”

“The best kind,” Eirik agreed.

“Sounds good. You go be stealthy, covert Viking ninjas”—really, I deserve an award for being able to say that without so much as one titter or a twitch of my lips—“and I’ll meet you guys back here in a couple of hours, okay? You remember which trailer is my mom’s?”

They nodded.

“We must go shopping again,” Isleif commented as they headed off. “The ninjas in the movie had special armor. We will need the same.”

“Aye.” Eirik’s voice drifted back to me. “We will find the local ninja store, and use the weasel gold to buy everything they have. . . .”

“Heaven help the local shops,” I murmured before eyeing Imogen’s trailer and taking a deep breath.

I was ready. I knew this day would have to come sometime. I lifted my chin and reminded myself that my mother needed me to be strong, and by the goddess, strong is what I would be.

No sound answered my tap on Imogen’s door. I waited a moment before opening it just a smidgen, enough to poke my head in to see if Imogen was up. The long living area was devoid of anyone. Perhaps she and her Günter were out getting morning coffee and breakfast.

“Best thing is to just wait for her,” I said, ignoring the fact that my stomach did a few excited backflips as I entered the trailer. “Ben is not here, stomach, and Imogen has a boyfriend. Stop being so excited. Ben won’t be up and about until it’s dark.”

Unless, of course, Imogen’s boyfriend wasn’t staying with her. Which meant . . . I glanced down the narrow passage to the door that marked Imogen’s bedroom. It was quiet, very quiet, the sound of quiet that comes when no one else is around. Perhaps I should just double-check to make sure no one was in Imogen’s bedroom. Just a quick peek to ease my mind and calm my unduly excited stomach.

Would Ben be happy to see me? Would he think I’d changed in the last few years? I touched a hand to my short auburn hair. When he last saw me, it had been in a pageboy, and black as night. Would he like the new color and style?

“Stop it. It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” I told myself before I put my hand on the door. “You are here to find your mother and nothing else. Certainly not to see the pushiest vampire ever made. Get to it, Fran.”

I opened the door the bare minimum amount needed to slide through, so no sunlight could sneak in and harm any vampires who might be sleeping therein.

The room was dark and warm. A muffled grunt came from the bed.

“Ben?” My heart beat wildly, and my stomach did flip-flops. It was him! He was right there in front of me. I should leave. I should run away as fast as I could. I should put him from my mind and heart.

I groped my way along the bed to sit on one end of it, pulling off both sets of gloves before reaching out to find him. My hand touched bare flesh.

A light clicked on at the exact moment that I realized the man wasn’t Ben. I snatched back my hand as two surprised hazel eyes met mine. “Was ist es?”

“Er . . . hi. You’re not Ben.”

The man pulled the blanket up over his naked chest. “Who?”

“Ben. Benedikt. Are you Günter, by any chance?” I asked, hastily getting off the bed and backing toward the door, my face redder than a baboon’s butt.