Circus of The Darned (13 page)

"You are a Beloved? You do not look like a Beloved."

"We're not to that point yet," I said with a kind of cheesy smile. "We haven't even gone on a real date yet, although we're going to do that tomorrow."

She looked interested. "Ah, a first date! I am the goddess of love and romance—you seek my advice, naturally."

"Well—"

"Let me see, a first date…" She tapped a finger to her chin while she thought. "Ah, yes! You must seek many lovers."

"Uh…" I snapped my mouth shut as soon as I realized it was hanging open. "I must?"

"Yes.As many as you can find. For how else will you know that this Dark One is truly meant to be your soul-mate? I made the mistake of marrying young, and without sampling as many men

as I could. Luckily,Od left and I was able to see what I was missing, but I would not have you

make that same mistake. 'Try before you buy' is one of your mortal sayings, is it not? You must try as many men as you can before you settle for just one."

She looked pleased with herself as I stood in stunned silence, not knowing what I was supposed

to say to that. Evidently nothing was expected because she started toward Mikaela, but stopped, looking back at me. "Why do I feel power from you?Nordic power?"

I chewed my lip for a moment before figuring out what was probably bothering her. I pulled the

chain around my neck up, displaying the valknut. "Maybe it's from this?"

She hissed and took a couple of steps back."
Vikingahärta
!"

"Yeah.Is it bad or something? I raised a group of Viking ghosts with it, which is kind of

annoying, but it didn't do anything evil or anything like that."

"It is not bad in itself." She tossed her head and her hair, long, wavy, and black, swung backward to lie in perfection along her silver cocktail dress. The dress itself was studded with crystals (or diamonds—I couldn't tell, although I wouldn't have been surprised to find out they were real diamonds), as were her ankle-strap silver stilettos. "It's the source rather than the pendant itself I would prefer to avoid."

"Fran inadvertently used the
Vikingahärta
to raise a dozen warriors," Mikaela said carefully.

"We desire them to be sent toValhalla , but are unable to do so. We hoped you would help us."

"Bah," Freya said, using Mikaela's mirrored scrying bowl to check her reflection.

"Er… if you don't mind, what is the source of the necklace?" I had to ask the question, although I was a bit worried she'd start breaking things again.

Evidently she'd worked through the worst of her anger, though. She stopped primping in the

bowl and tossed it at Mikaela. "That is Loki's valknut. The power comes from him. And because you used it rather than a pendant made in my image, I cannot help you with your warriors."

"But you're the queen of the Valkyries, right?" I asked.

She brushed a speck of something off her dress. "Yes. I am returning to my party now, and if even one of those delicious mortal men who were swooning over me has left, I shall make plain

my anger."

"But—but I really do need help with the Vikings," I said, stepping forward to block her as she started to walk past Mikaela. Her eyes widened like she couldn't believe I was obstructing her

(she wasn't the only one—my stomach was doing flip-flops at the thought of pissing her off any

more). "I understand you can't do anything about the raising of them since it was with this Loki guy's necklace, but you are the queen of the Valkyries, so it seems to me you could help me get them intoValhalla ."

"I don't do that sort of thing now," she said, waving a hand at me. A big puff of air suddenly swept up and pushed me aside. "The mortal world offers so much more than the immortal one—

television, movies, Hollywood, fashion houses—I spend little time inValhalla any more. No one

there has been on
CSI: Miami
!"

"But—"

"Remember, seek as many lovers as you can find! You will be much happier for that. And

you—do not summon me again, priestess," she warned Mikaela, and without another word, she

was gone in a sunburst of light.

"Oh great.Now what am I going to do?" I asked, plopping down onto a tree stump. "I don't even know this Loki person. Now I have to hit him up for help, too?"

"Loki?" Eirik and a couple of the Vikings emerged from the woods. Eirik was wearing a sleeveless black mesh muscle shirt, and pair of tight leather pants. Gils had on a red T-shirt with the word SEX made up by lizards shaped like letters, and Ljot evidently wanted to go swimming,

because he wore a pair of speedos, flipflops, swimming goggles… and nothing else. "You are summoning Loki? It is Freya you want. She is the queen of the Valkyries."

I gestured toward Mikaela and Ramon, who were on their knees collecting the debris from

Freya's hissy fit. "She was just here. She told us she doesn't go toValhalla anymore because there are no
CSI
guys there, and that we'd have to ask Loki for help."

"
CSI
?"Ljot asked, adjusting his swim goggles.

"TV show."

"Why did the goddess Freya tell you to summon Loki?" Eirik asked, slapping at a mosquito. I don't know why, but the thought of a ghost with a mosquito bite had me giggling to myself.

"Because this is evidently his.Or was his.Or has his power or something," I answered, standing up to show him the valknut. "So I'll have to try to get him to help, whoever he is."

"You do not know Loki, god of mischief?" Gils asked,disbelief plastered all over his face.

"Nope.I'm not really hip to all the gods. Who is he? And why didn't Freya like him?"

"That would be because of Asgard.Sit, and I will tell you the story of Loki and Freya," Eirik said, making himself comfortable on a fallen log next to me. Ljot and Gils sat on the grass,

putting on comfortable "about to hear a story" faces. Mikaela rolled her eyes as she dumped all the debris into a cloth bag, but she and Ramon sat cuddled on her casting blanket to listen.

"Who's Asgard?" I asked, taking my seat again on the tree stump.

"Asgard is a place, not a person. It is where the gods live. Loki was at first a god of much mischief, always pulling jokes on the others, using his powers of transformation to get himself out of trouble. One day, when the gods were constructing Asgard, they found they needed more

money to build the wall around it. Loki had the idea of hiring a giant to do the work, and thought up a plan to have the giant work without paying him. He offered the giant the goddess Freya if

the wall was completed on time. At first the gods were skeptical, but Loki assured him that he

would make sure that the giant did not complete the task on time, so that the gods would not

have to pay him for his work."

"What a creep," I said before realizing I was talking about a god. "Er… nice creep, of course."

"No, he was not nice," Ljot said grimly, shaking his head.

"The giant had a stallion to help him build the wall. Three days before it was to be finished, the giant was almost done, and the goddess Freya was beside herself with anger at Loki. With the

gods behind her, Loki had no choice but to transformhimself into a mare, and entice the giant's stallion away. The giant missed the deadline, and was furious. He tried to take Freya anyway, but Thor stopped him. Freya never forgave Loki for using her in such a way."

"Ouch. It was nasty of him to set that up, knowing the giant was going to do all the work and not get paid. I don't blame Freya for being ticked at him." I was about to add that he'd get sued up the ying-yang if he tried something like that now, but remembered in time that we were talking

about stuff that happened probably thousands of years ago. Now you see why my brain had such

a hard time coping with the fact that all these Norse gods were real people.So much for

mythology. "Well, I don't look forward to having to ask him for help, but if there's no other way to get you guys to Valhalla, I'll just have to gird my loins and tighten my belt and grit my teeth, and all that stuff."

I stood up and stretched. Even though it wasn't yet midnight, I was tired.

"We will help you," Eirik said, standing and carefully brushing off the seat of his pants. "Since you will need Loki's goodwill, tonight we will offer a sacrifice in his name to make sure that he views your request for help with favor."

"That would be a nice change," I said, stifling another yawn. "But what sort of sacrifice are you talking about? More mead like Tibolt used?"

"Traditionally we sacrifice a slave," Ljot said, peering through the goggles as if he expected a slave to pop out of the woods and volunteer.

"But you have decreed we not kill anyone," Eirik said quickly when I turned around to yell at him. "So we will, instead, offer a smaller sacrifice."

"Like what?" I asked, suspicious. "You guys aren't going to kill another rabbit like you did earlier?"

"The rabbit was on the stringy side," Gils said, picking his teeth.

"No, no rabbit. The sacrifice has to be something worthwhile," Eirik said, shooing me toward the trailers. Mikaela and Ramon had already gone off to get ready for their next show.

"What, exactly?"I asked. "You can stop trying to shove me, too. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what you guys are going to sacrifice."

Eirik sighed and looked up at the stars for a couple of seconds, like he was
so
put upon. "I hope the next goddess who binds us to her is much more reasonable. You need notworry, goddess

Fran. We will sacrifice no mortals—only many Big Macs will be offered in the name of Loki."

"And McNuggets," Gils added."With dipping sauces."

"Yes, McNuggets as well," Eirik said with an "are you happy now?" look on his face.

I smiled. "OK. That sounds fine. Knock yourselves out. I'm a bit tired so I think I'm going to find Ben to say good night,then go to bed early."

"Good night, goddess," they called to me as I headed for the Faire.

"Get the rest of the men together," I heard Eirik say to his men as I left. "Tonight, we pillage McDonald's!"

"I really do not want to know," I said to myself, hurrying so I wouldn't hearthem making plans for taking the McNuggets hostage. "It's just better if I don't know."

"What is?"

A man's voice emerged from the dark time-travel booth. Most of the booths, including Desdemona's, had closed during the magic shows.

At least I thought it had closed. "Ben?"

"Oh, Fran!"A light clicked on to show Ben and Desdemona standing much closer than I would have liked. Screw jealousy, Ben was mine! How dare she stand around in a dark booth withhim.

And how dare he allow her to do it! "I was just showing Benedikt my moonstone. If the moon is in the right quadrant, it casts a light in the darkness. Would you like to see it, too?"

What's wrong
? Ben asked, his eyes watching me carefully.

Oh, like you don't know.

"No, thank you," I said politely. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed. Enjoy your moonstone watching, or whatever it is you're doing."

I spun around on my heels, my hands fisted,my jaw tight. And worse of all, my eyes were

watering. I was so mad, I didn't know whether I wanted to hit Ben or cry.

Are you going to be jealous every time I'm next to another female?

This is not jealousy
. I ran up the steps to my trailer. Thankfully, Mom was still out doing things.
This is righteous indignation, Mister
You're
-the-Only-Woman-for-Me-I'd-Die-Without-You. You know what I say to that? Bullfrogs
!

Fran
, Ben said, sighing into my head.
You
are
the only one for me. I
would
die without you. And I
wasn't doing anything with Desdemona despite her manuevering
.

Davide squatted on top of the counter and flattened his ears as I paced up and down the narrow

aisle.

Oh, I am so not going to believe… wait. You knew she was deliberately luring you into her dark
booth?

Ben laughed.
Of course.I'm not an idiot, sweetheart. I know when a woman desires me. But that
doesn't
mew I
feel the same way toward her
.

I thought about that for a minute. Davide's ears straightened up as I stopped to think.
You knew
and yet you went anyway
?

I didn't know until I was there.

Oh. There's such a thing as being too passive, though. Did you just stand there while she put her
lips all over you? You could have left, you know. You could have said, "No thanks, not interested,
and by the way, keep your hands off me or Fran will have a hissy." You could have told her to

leave you alone.

You really are silly when you're in the throes of jealousy. I can't decide if it is flattering or
annoying.

Annoying? Annoying! Oh! I'll give you annoying, buster!

Davide hunkered down as I stormed past him and yanked open the door to the trailer. I intended

to run back out to find Ben so I could punch him in the belly, as he deserved. Instead I stopped as he came up the steps.

"If I were to raise hell every time you spent a few minutes alone with Soren, whatwould you do?" he asked walking toward me. I took a couple of backward steps past Davide, who was

watching us with interest. "If I screamed and yelled and forbade you to spend time with any man, anywhere—your ghosts, Peter, Karl, and Kurt, anyone—would you mind?"

"Soren is a child. He doesn't have the hots for me."

"Like hell he doesn't. His crush on you is evident to everyone." Ben kept walking toward me, his face unexpressive, but his eyes wereglowing a rich browny-gold.

"Kurt and Karl are having a fling with Absinthe," I said, backing up another couple of steps.

"Doesn't matter.They could still be attracted toyou, and you likewise."

"Peter is old enough to be my dad."

I bumped up against the door that led to the tiny bedroom at the end of the trailer.