“Change-of-subject time,” I said, relaxing when I realized my butt didn’t hurt at all.
As if I would let you go out with a sore ass.
“I’m at a loss as to what we should do to find my mother. You didn’t answer me before, Ben, because we were . . . er . . . distracted, but the watch said something about there being other resources—do you know what those are?”
“Yes. A professional diviner like Absinthe’s mentor would probably help, but diviners are dangerous, and I would not wish for you to consult one.”
“I consulted Absinthe,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but she is just an apprentice.”
“Still, I’m having a hard time seeing diviners as people to fear.”
He made a little half shrug. “Nonetheless, you should be wary. They demand too much in payment. There is another resource closer to you, however, and one that will think kindly about helping you.”
“Who’s that?”
“Tallulah. Or rather, her mate, Sir Edward.”
“Hmm.” I thought about that. Tallulah was a renowned medium, although mostly people consulted her in order to talk to their deceased relatives. Despite the constant, nagging worry that seemed to grow daily, I refused to consider the idea that my mother might be in that class. “My mother isn’t dead, though.”
Ben noted my stubbornly raised chin, but simply said, “Sir Edward’s abilities, and those of Tallulah, are not limited to conversation with the dead. We will consult them as soon as possible.”
“You go with the Dark One, goddess,” Eirik said, waving a hand containing the remote to my mother’s tiny portable TV. “We do not care for mediums.”
“You don’t? Why?”
“Archaeologists are always using them to contact us in Valhalla. They wish to know the location of our villages, and where we buried our dead. It is most annoying.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that, so after warning them to stay out of trouble, we went to see Tallulah and her ghostly boyfriend. She had only one person with her, so it only took ten minutes before we were shown into the small booth containing a table, her scrying bowl, a crystal ball, and three chairs.
“Fran!” She looked up in surprise as we took the chairs opposite hers. Ben placed some euros in the small stand to the side, where payment was made. “What are you doing here?”
“We wish to talk to you and Sir Edward.”
“You can do that any time,” she said, frowning toward the stand. “I do not require payment for that.”
“This is a professional consultation. We want you and Sir Edward to find my mom.”
Her eyebrows rose, her dark eyes speculative, first on me, then on Ben. “I am not a diviner. I do not have the power to locate your mother, Fran. If I had, I would have offered to do so when you told me she was missing.”
“Sir Edward—”
“He is limited in what he can see from the Akasha,” she said, shaking her head.
“But the two of you together . . .” Ben let the sentence trail off, his gaze just as speculative as hers had been. “You helped Fran once before, when her horse was stolen.”
“We did,” she admitted slowly, her gaze now on the table before her. Her fingers twitched as if she wished to touch the scrying bowl or the baseball-sized glass orb that sat in a mound of midnight blue velvet. “This is more difficult, however. Someone has gone to much trouble to hide Miranda’s whereabouts. If that person should discover that we sought to uncover his actions, it could be dangerous not just to me but to Sir Edward and Fran and you, as well. Are you willing to risk your Beloved’s safety for that?”
“Yes,” Ben said without hesitation, and I was comforted by the fact that despite his past differences with my mother, he would do everything possible to locate her. It didn’t escape me that he was also determined to move heaven and hell to keep me safe, but that was fine by me. I had the same plan with regards to his safety.
“Very well,” Tallulah said, rising from her chair. “Remain here. What you ask will take both Sir Edward and myself a little time to prepare.”
I didn’t have time to do more than envision three different types of grim deaths for Ben, my mother, and myself before she returned. I smiled my thanks when Tallulah returned, carrying, much to my surprise, Davide, my mother’s fat black-and-white cat. She plopped him in my lap before retaking her chair, hesitating between the glass ball and the scrying bowl, but eventually settling on the highly polished black metal bowl.
Davide looked at me with profound disdain.
“You smell like tuna fish, cat,” I told him. His whiskers twitched, and he dug his claws into my arm when I asked Tallulah, “Is he giving you trouble? If he is, I’ll put him in Mom’s trailer. Stop it, cat, or I’ll see to it you don’t have any claws.”