Chapter 8
Marina and I are tailing Sienna Caldwell through Haga, where the cobblestone streets twist with one goal in mind—losing tourists.
The streets are winning, for the record. Two more turns and I’ll need a trail of cinnamon bun crumbs to find my way back, and knowing this crowd, the crumbs would be gone before I finished dropping them.
Everything is so darn cute here. Sweden is a treasure, and Haga is one of its crown jewels. If a village and a bakery had a baby and raised it on flower boxes, this is what you’d get.
A shimmer of silver stars lights up on my left.
Magnus Darkwater materializes beside me in full ghostly Viking glory—bare chest, fur cloak, and boots that make no sound whatsoever on the cobblestones. He’s grinning at the two of us as if he just stumbled onto an unguarded dessert buffet and fully intends to sample every last thing on it. Twice.
“Ladies,” he purrs. “I heard there was a pursuit afoot and came as fast as I could. Which is very fast. I’m known throughout Valhalla for my stamina. Feel free to spread that around.”
Wonderful. My spectral sidekick has arrived, and finally, I might add.
I’ve been trying to pin this man down since breakfast. Ghosts keep terrible office hours, and this one doesn’t keep any at all.
That said, his timing is impeccable in the worst possible way.
I have a feeling Magnus has a habit of making things worse before he makes them better.
But boy, I’d love for him to prove me wrong.
A girl can dream. Usually about pastry, but today I’m diversifying.
I grab Marina’s arm and loop it through mine.
“What—?” she starts.
“Just go with it,” I mutter. “You’ll understand in a second.”
During our last cruise, I briefed Marina on the fact that if she’s touching me, she can hear the ghosts as well as I can. Think of it as a game of telephone. A very, very long-distance call, and somebody skipped out on the bill about a thousand years ago.
Magnus belts out a roar.
So unnecessary.
Marina gasps. “Is someone... am I hearing...?”
“Magnus Darkwater, at your service.” His voice rumbles up from wherever ghosts keep their voices. “The lovely Marina. Trixie has told me absolutely nothing about you, which means I get to form my own opinions. They’re already forming, and they’re delightfully delicious.”
“She can only hear you, not see you,” I explain quietly. “Physical contact with me extends the supernatural connection.”
“Pity,” Magnus says. “I’m quite attractive. Ask Trixie. She pretends not to notice, and she’s terrible at it.”
“I’ll survive,” Marina manages, though she sounds slightly strangled. I can’t blame her. The first time Magnus spoke to me, I nearly pitched myself over a railing.
“She’s the one infatuated with the captain, yes?” Magnus asks me. “Excellent choice. Very commanding. I approve of her taste in men. Almost as much as I approve of my taste in women.”
Marina’s face floods with color. “I’m not... that’s not...”
“Oh, you absolutely are,” I say. “But we can discuss your denial later. We’re following a suspect.”
It’s safe to say Magnus has been eavesdropping on my conversations. The man has been dead for centuries, and his hobby is listening at my keyhole.
Fine. Let’s see how far a skill like that gets us with the homicide we’re dealing with. If he insists on being nosy, the least he can do is be nosy in a useful direction.
The side street Sienna took is quieter than the main tourist drag.
There are fewer people, the scent of heavenly coffee drifts down from an apartment window above us, and the cobblestones are so aggressively uneven I’m convinced they were laid by a committee with a grudge against ankles.
A committee that has never once apologized. Or been audited.
Sienna has stopped about twenty feet ahead near a small pocket garden with benches and charming flower boxes stuffed with red geraniums, purple pansies, and cheerful orange marigolds, and she’s checking her phone.
She fits right in with the flora as her frizzy auburn hair stages its own breakout in the wind.
She’s bundled in a burgundy velvet jacket that extends to her knees, and with those round glasses, she looks every bit the retired English teacher she is.
The woman probably corrects the grammar in ransom notes.
“Approach with caution,” Magnus advises. “Women are far more dangerous than men. They plan better.”
“That’s actually true,” I mutter.
Marina nods. “I’ve planned a few things that would curl his ghostly toes.”
I gasp without meaning to, because I happen to have more questions than answers when it comes to my new friend.
For all I know, Marina is a serial killer.
And with a comment like that, she just might be.
I’d keep her anyway. Good friends are hard to find, and this one comes with her own air of mystery and a firm grip.
Frankly, the grip alone earns her a spot.
A woman my age doesn’t turn down reliable arm support on streets like these.
We close the distance, and I paste on what I hope is a sympathetic expression.
“Sienna! Fancy seeing you here,” I say with a little laugh.
Ransom’s text floats through my head, uninvited.
Behave. When I demanded a definition, the man landed on stay with the group.
The group is currently three streets away, elbow-deep in cinnamon buns.
So technically I’m not misbehaving. I’m simply behaving in a different location.
I plan to point out that distinction at trial.
I’ll be representing myself. I have exhibits.
Sienna looks up from her phone, and her shoulders drop as the polite smile she’s wearing sags at the corners. “Oh. Trixie, Marina. Hello.”
“We’re so sorry for your loss,” Marina says gently, and the sympathy in her voice is the real thing. “How are you handling things?”
Sienna tucks her phone into her battered messenger bag with a shaky sigh. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. It’s just so surreal. One moment Astrid was making a toast, and the next...” She trails off, her eyes going distant behind her glasses.
“It must be incredibly difficult,” I offer, trying to sound comforting instead of investigative.
There’s a fine line between the two, and I’ve been tap-dancing on it since the day I found my first body.
At this point, I could teach the class. Comforting Interrogation 101.
Bring a casserole and a suspect list. Extra credit if you find the body yourself.
“Ah, this one,” Magnus observes from somewhere behind me. “Soft voice, sensible shoes, buttons done all the way to the chin. In my experience, those are always the ones with the most interesting diaries.”
I resist the urge to elbow him, mostly because my elbow would sail clean through all that spectral muscle and I’d be left assaulting the breeze in a charming Swedish garden. The neighborhood has suffered enough today. Besides, I’m saving my elbows for someone who can feel them.
“It has been difficult.” Sienna adjusts her glasses. “But talking about something positive helps. Would you like to hear how I got involved with the Velvet Vikings? It might sound silly, but it’s one of my happiest memories.”
“We’d love to,” Marina says, and she means it, which is why she’s better at this than I am. My sincerity tends to arrive with an ulterior motive and a to-go box.
Sienna’s whole face lifts. “I was browsing a bookstore about twelve years ago. I had just retired from teaching, and I was feeling a bit lost. The house had gone so quiet, and my days didn’t have a shape to them anymore.
So there I was, wandering the aisles with nowhere to be, and I picked up this Viking romance novel on a whim.
Plundered by the Berserker. It had this absolutely ridiculous cover with a very shirtless man, and it was completely over the top.
” She actually smiles. “And I devoured it in one sitting.”
“As one does,” I say. “I’ve definitely done the same with books that had questionable covers. Bonus points if the man on the front appears to have misplaced his shirt in a storm. Double bonus if he’s clearly given up the search. Triple if the search party disbanded years ago and nobody mourns.”
“Exactly!” Her posture loosens. “So I started looking for more of the same, and I found this online community, and eventually Astrid’s local chapter back in the States.
She was just starting the Velvet Vikings then.
She wanted to create a space for women who loved the lore, the history, the romance of it all.
I walked into that first meeting not knowing a soul, and I walked out with a calendar full of plans.
Do you know what that means to a woman whose phone had stopped ringing? ”
“I do, actually,” I say with a wince. “I remember what it felt like when my old life fell apart and a cruise ship full of strangers stitched me back together.”
And I mean that from the bottom of my well-fed heart. Whatever else Sienna Caldwell turns out to be, she was a lonely woman once, and somebody handed her a calendar full of plans. That counts for something in my book. Several books, actually. Most of them featuring shirtless cover models.
“What drew you to the Viking stuff specifically?” Marina asks. “Besides the abs?”
Sienna laughs, and it sounds genuine. “The lore, actually. Valhalla, the mythology, all of it. Vikings believed warriors who died bravely went to a glorious golden hall where they’d feast and fight forever.
The hall belonged to Odin himself, the king of their gods, and the mead flowed and the shield maidens welcomed the worthy home.
There’s something romantic about that. It’s the idea that the brave get rewarded, that honor matters, that death isn’t an ending so much as a door.
That there’s something beyond just... ordinary life. ”