In the Company of Vampires(8)

“Freya wants my help? The goddess Freya?” I asked, remembering a very pissed-off, very beautiful woman.

“Yes. Frigga—that’s Odin’s wife—she asked Freya to take care of Loki, and since he keeps trying to sell her to the dwarves, she finally had enough and sent us to help you banish him to the Akashic Plain.”

My mouth was hanging wide open in prime fly-catching position. I blinked at Eirik a couple of times, wondering if I’d suddenly gone insane. I reached out and touched his chest. He, like the other Vikings, wore a combination of fur, leather, and wool clothing. Each man had a sword strapped to his back, and a dagger and ax on his hips.

Eirik’s eyes lit with interest as my hand touched his chest. “You wish to rut at last, goddess?”

“No!” I snatched my hand back from him, remembering well his desire to do things that I had only ever considered doing with Ben. “No, I do not wish to . . . er . . . rut with you.”

“Ah, that would be because you rut with the Dark One. He is here?” The three men looked around.

“No, Ben’s in Europe.”

“Europe?” Isleif pursed his lips and lowered his large body gingerly onto Geoff’s overstuffed beanbag chair. “You have had a quarrel with your man? We will give you advice.”

“No, no, that’s not at all necessary,” I said quickly, all too familiar with their sort of relationship advice.

“Advice,” Finnvid agreed, nodding. He shoved Isleif upright when the latter tipped over backward, having evidently not realized there was no back to the beanbag chair. “We are excellent in advice. I, myself, have had five wives. Eirik has had two, and Isleif has been married to the same woman for over a thousand years.”

Isleif smiled smugly.

“We are experts on women,” Eirik said, taking my hand. “You will tell us about this quarrel, and we will tell you what you have done wrong.”

“Honestly, guys, it’s all good. Ben and I . . . er . . . we aren’t really a couple anymore. He stayed in Europe when I came home to go to college. Now I work for a Web development company.” I fought back a little bit of panic at the thought of the three Vikings, well-meaning as they were, giving me endless advice regarding Ben.

“You aren’t a couple of what?” Finnvid asked.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Tell me about this thing with Freya. Why does she want Loki banned? And how on earth does she expect me to do anything about it?”

“You are the goddess Fran, bearer of the Vikingahärta,” Eirik said, releasing my hand when I tugged firmly. “Freya knows you have the power to defeat Loki, since you have done so in the past.”

“I didn’t defeat him, per se,” I said, mentally going over the events almost five years in the past. “We kind of hit a deadlock. And as for the Vikingahärta . . . I don’t have it.”

The three Vikings goggled at me. Eirik dropped his piece of chicken. “You don’t?” he asked, absently wiping his fingers on his wool tunic.

“No. It’s in Europe. I left it with Imogen.”

“Imogen,” Finnvid drawled, a wicked smile coming to his face. “How I have missed her.”

“Uh-huh.” I gave him a look that told him I wasn’t buying it. His smile grew broader. “She’s keeping it safe for me. I didn’t feel it was right to bring it with me when I went to college, and I haven’t seen Imogen since I left Europe.”

“Then you must retrieve it from her,” Eirik said, picking up the chicken and blowing on it. He must have seen my face because he added, “Five-second rule.”

I gawked at him. “You know about the five-second rule?”

He shrugged. “Odin has many televisions. Sometimes he lets us watch MythBusters. There was a show about the five-second rule.”

I held up my hands, having too many difficulties trying to picture a bunch of Viking ghosts sitting around watching TV. “Let’s get back to Loki, shall we? Freya sent you to me to help get rid of him?”

“Aye. She was impressed with how bravely we fought against him before,” Isleif said. He suddenly brightened as he turned to the other two men. “We can pillage a McDonald’s again!”

“McDonald’s!” Finnvid and Eirik exclaimed in unison, their faces filled with delight.

“Oh, for the love of the birds in the trees . . . you guys know the rules! No pillaging!”

Finnvid patted me on the shoulder. “You need not get yourself roused with anger, goddess Fran. Freya gave Eirik much gold to spend while we aid you.”

Eirik pulled out a credit card. “We have weasel gold.”