I smiled weakly, relieved despite my attempt to put on a brave face. “Thanks, Tallulah. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

She was silent for a moment, looking at my arm with a faint frown. At last she nodded and looked up at me. “It is my proclivity to warn you against the sort of beings that could have such an effect on you, but Sir Edward tells me that in this, I am wrong. The being who inadvertently did this to you needs you, Fran.”

I groaned. “Oh, great, that’s just what I want to hear—someone else wants me to fight dragons for them.”

“Not dragons, no. Liches. Or rather, Ilargis.”

“Well, whoever he is, he’s going to have to get in line. I have to find out exactly what’s going on with my mother, and take care of Loki, first.”

Tallulah gave me an odd look, but said nothing behind the reassurance that my hand and arm would be fine in a day or two, and that a sling wouldn’t be amiss if I desired.

I didn’t. Nor did I wish for the fuss that Imogen made over me, crafting a stylish sling out of a designer silk scarf, but she meant well, and I was warmed by her concern. By the time she had tied on the sling and gently tucked my weak arm into it, Ben had unburdened himself of several warnings about taxing myself when he wasn’t around.

You’re dangerously close to the line, I told him when he left to get some sleep in Naomi’s bed.

I know. He sighed. It’s difficult, Francesca. I wish to protect you, but I know that will only serve to drive you away.

I mused on that as I returned to my mother’s trailer, changing into a pair of sage-colored linen walking shorts and sleeveless tunic that Inner Fran hoped Ben would find attractive. A memory returned to me, that of me angrily telling Imogen I was leaving Ben because all he wanted to do was to run my life, and that he was arrogant, stubborn, and inflexible.

“He is a Dark One,” she had snapped back, her eyes flashing with ire. “Would you want him to change? Would you want him to become something he isn’t?”

I didn’t really want him to change. It wasn’t Ben himself that was at the root of my quandary—he was quite obviously trying to adjust himself to my needs, and that, more than anything, touched me. But was he doing that because he had to, driven by the same forces that matched us up, or was his motivation something more promising?

To be honest, I’m a bit surprised you’re not insisting on coming with me, I told Ben.

I thought about it, he answered, a sort of hesitant amazement tingeing the words. But you are more capable now, not so heedless. The incident with Imogen’s nightstand aside, I do not believe you will put yourself in danger.

You’ve come a long way, baby, I laughed into his head.

As have you. Once again I had the sense of surprise from him, as if he was adjusting his mental image of me.

Did that include warmer feelings? Something beyond the physical attraction? I shook my head, unwilling to spend the day trying to figure out something that would surely be made clear in time.

“Right,” I told the Vikings a little later, when I had assembled them in the trailer to organize the day’s plan of attack. “First of all, you have to change your clothes, all of you. Isleif, if you turn around one more time, I will send you back to Valhalla. Sit down. Oh dear goddess . . . cross your legs or something! Thank you. I know you guys are enjoying wearing modern clothes, and heaven knows, I’m no couture snob, but there are levels of decency that I think are being ignored, and that’s got to change. So you’re all going to change your clothes before we go into Breast Warts.”

“I told you she wouldn’t like the rod sack,” Finnvid said to Isleif. “I told him, goddess!”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Indeed. And why, if you don’t mind me asking, are you wearing a kilt?”

Finnvid looked down at his wool kilt, above which he wore a fishnet sleeveless shirt. “Imogen said women like men in a short skirt. She said they run after them and ogle them and try to see their rod.”

“There are times when I truly feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone,” I said to myself. “You’re a Viking, Finnvid.”

“Aye, I am.”

“Scotsmen wear kilts. Vikings don’t.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

I nodded.

“All right.” Before I could do so much as blink, the kilt dropped to his feet with a fwoop.

“For pity’s sake . . .” I turned around so I wasn’t staring at his nakedness. “Put something on! Something decent! And you—” I pointed to Eirik, who was lounging against the wall, looking somewhat bored. “Put on a pair of pants. Yes, over the silk shorts.”

I waited until all three men were dressed in their previously worn bizarre (but decent) ensembles. “I think we all agree that I can’t go any further in locating my mother without the Vikingahärta.”

The three of them nodded.

“What I propose doing today is to talk to the lich Ulfur to find out what he’s done with it, and encourage him to return it to me.”

“Encourage him?” Eirik asked with a puzzled look.

“That was my polite way of saying force him.”

Pure joy lit up the faces of all three Vikings. Eagerly, Eirik stepped forward. “You’ll let us kill this lich?”

“No. Not kill. Just scare the crap out of him. If he refuses to give it back . . .” I hesitated a moment. I wasn’t a big fan of using violence, but I’d found in the past that some members of the Otherworld simply wouldn’t respond to anything but a show of strength. “If he refuses, you can rough him up a little. Not enough to permanently harm him, but enough so he sees we’re not pushovers.”

The Vikings whooped at that, and were very busy for the next twenty minutes, gathering up not only their bullet-less Walther P38s, but anything else they could find that they felt would be useful in persuading the lich to do as I wanted.

By the time I rid them of most of their arsenal, including the fire extinguisher, a length of rope Finnvid had stolen from Peter’s supplies, and what turned out to be Naomi’s tattooing gun, I was ready to crawl back into bed and just let the world pass me by. But thoughts of my mother were enough to send me out, packed in a taxi Eirik had called, with three Vikings, a wonky arm, and a whole lot of determination.

Chapter 14

“Where will we find the lich?” Eirik asked as the taxi headed into town. He was in the process of honing the edge of a sword he’d acquired from Nils, the sword swallower.

“I hope you paid him for that,” I told Eirik with a dark look as he stroked the whetstone lovingly down the blade, periodically pausing to test the sharpness on his thumb. The other two Vikings were similarly engaged: Finnvid with a pair of short swords and Isleif with a huge ax that I vaguely remembered Karl using to “decapitate” his brother in one of their showy magic acts.

“Aye. I knew you would not let us keep our weapons if we did not pay for them with weasel gold.”

“Good. As for the lich, I know where he is. Or kind of know where he is. One of the images he imprinted into the table was that of a big old house overlooking the town. Kind of like a castle, but not quite as elaborate. I figured something that prominent shouldn’t be hard to find. Finnvid, could you ask the driver if he knows of a house like that?”

He held a brief conversation with the driver (who was dressed like a sea nymph, including seashell bra and long green hair). “The taxi wench says she’d need more information to say for sure which house it is.”

I spent the trip into town trying to dig from my memory anything that would help pinpoint the house in question. I didn’t have much to go on, and it took some time (and an ever-increasing meter total) before the taxi driver finally hit pay dirt.

“I’d ask her to wait for us, but this has already been the most expensive taxi ride of my life,” I told Eirik as the driver zapped my MasterCard.

He pulled out the sword, which he wore strapped to his back. “I will take care of the taxi wench for you. You save your weasel gold.”

“No, you will not. You know the rules—no hurting anyone unless I give explicit orders to the contrary.”

“Like the lich,” he said with an anticipatory smile, the avid glint in his eyes making me a bit wary. As the taxi zoomed off, all four of us turned to look at the house. It was of gray stone, with a red tile roof that flared upward into a variety of small turrets and spires. The entrance of the house was flanked on one side by a tall square tower attached to the house, with diagonally slanted white-framed windows. The upper floors had narrow arched windows. The side of the house that faced the courtyard, comprised of a circular paved drive around a small fountain, looked very familiar. Or rather, the stone projections like miniature buttresses sprouting off the side of the wall looked familiar. I looked up at them, noting the runes that had been carved with rough cuts into the stone. “For some reason, those give me a bad case of the willies,” I told the others as a little shiver rippled down my arms and back.

The Vikings glanced at the runed arches, but said nothing, just waited with obvious anticipation for me to give them the okay to storm the castle.

I gave them all a quelling glance and raised the huge cast iron knocker in the shape of a man hanging upside down by his feet, his hands tied behind his back. I was extremely grateful for the double layer of my gloves as I banged the knocker against the metal backing. The noise seemed as loud as a gunshot, making me jump and my heart race with unreasonable nervousness.

One of the heavy wood double doors creaked open with suitably atmospheric noise. I half expected to see someone in a full Dracula outfit answering the door, or at least a hunchbacked minion in a lab coat, but the man who stood at the door with a polite expression of query on his face was anything but standard monster movie fodder. He was a little taller than me, had sandy brown hair, freckles, and absolutely black eyes.

“Ja?” he asked.

It was the black eyes that gave him away. “You’re the lich, aren’t you? You’re . . . Ulfur?”