Chapter Eight

Donata was about to turn out her light when Magnus slipped into the room, clad again in a pair of sleep shorts and nothing else. She was going to have to get him to wear more clothes. Maybe.

“What, you’re not even bothering to knock now?” she said lightly. Even in the dim glow of the bedside lamp, she could make out new bruises and cuts that had been added since she’d seen him last. When she’d first started serious martial arts training, she’d gotten plenty banged up, but nothing like this. She wanted to kiss each sore spot and make it better. Not a good idea, Donata. She kept her gaze on his face instead.

“I figured I shouldn’t have to knock anymore, what with the engagement and all,” he said with a weary grin. “Besides, I come bearing gifts.”

Donata sighed. She was too tired to summon up the energy it took to play these games—or resist his not inconsiderable charms. “I was just going to go to sleep. Can it wait until morning?”

“You always were bad at accepting presents, ’Nata,” Magnus said. He held out a small satin pouch. “This is actually from my mother, so you have to be nice about it.”

“I’m always nice to your mother,” Donata protested. “Even though the woman is apparently a lot less sane than she first appeared to be.”

Magnus chuckled. “I know. She always seems like the one normal person in the family. Then you get to know her better, and you realize that she’s cunning, devious, and twisted.” It was clear from the way he said it that he thought those were all positive attributes. “Never underestimate Astrid Torvald’s ability to make things work out the way she thinks they should.”

“That might be so, but you do realize that this fake engagement is just a means to an end. It’s not real. Although it wasn’t a terrible idea,” Donata admitted a little grudgingly. “If it works, that is. I don’t know that we can convince anyone that we’re really getting married.”

Magnus dangled the little bag. “Oh, I don’t know. This might help.”

Donata took it with some trepidation and tipped the contents out into one hand. The ring glittered in her palm, a sturdy but beautiful square-cut diamond set atop a simple gold band with Norse runes etched around its circumference. Her pulse stuttered for a moment. If she had been asked to picture her idea of the perfect engagement ring, this might have been it. If she had been able to picture anything at all.

“I can’t take this,” she said, holding it out as if it were an rattlesnake that might bite her at any moment. “It’s too valuable. What if I lost it? We’ll just tell people we didn’t bother with a ring, or find something cheaper. Maybe something nice out of a gumball machine.”

“There are no gumball machines in this town, ’Nata. There’s a general store that sells candy by the pound, weighed on an old-fashioned scale and put into paper bags. In case you haven’t noticed, the Ulfhednar have barely moved into the last century let alone this one.”

She’d actually figured that out once she realized that there was no cell signal anywhere in the area, no television, and no computers. Astrid had told her that if she wanted to make a call or check her e-mails, Donata would have to drive over to the next town. Yeesh.

“Besides, if we want to solve this mystery, we have to do something to persuade people it is safe to talk to you. My mother’s idea may be a little unusual, but it could actually work. But only if we act the part. This ring should help—it was my mother’s, although she couldn’t wear it anymore after she had us kids and gained a few pounds. If you are seen wearing my mother’s ring, everyone will have to believe the engagement is real.”

He picked up her left hand and slid the shining stone onto her finger, kissing her hand briefly before giving it back. “See, it’s a perfect fit. I think we should take that as a sign, don’t you?”

Sure. A sign that we are all crazy. Donata didn’t know how to explain the funny feeling in the pit of her stomach or the sudden rapid beating of her heart. It was just too much. She wasn’t in a good place to play at a pretend relationship. Not after the last two. For a moment, it was all she could do not to jump up, throw her things into a suitcase, and run for the door.

“You know it’s not real, though, right?” she said. “It’s just until I can solve your ghost problem.”

“Sure, I know that,” Magnus said. His smile seemed almost wistful, but she put that down to the dim light and his exhaustion. “Just a means to an end.”

“Okay, I guess,” she said, trying not to stare at the rock on her finger. Her hand felt odd.

Magnus grinned at her. “You know, most of the women I give engagement rings to are much more enthusiastic than this.”

“Uh-huh,” Donata said. “Was that before or after they met the rest of your family?”

He roared with laughter and she tried to shush him, but his humor was as infectious as always and she couldn’t help but join him. More quietly, of course. What the hell. The whole situation was absurd. She needed to stop taking it so seriously and just go along for the ride. What was the harm in a little pretending, as long as they were both clear that was all it was?

“I have a great idea,” he said, a dangerous gleam in his eyes that she remembered from earlier days.

“You do?”

Magnus swept her into his arms and rolled on top of her. “You bet,” he said. “I think we need to practice being convincing as an engaged couple. And I know just the place to start.”

Doomed. She was doomed.

Magnus took her out to breakfast the next morning at the town diner, Bearly Edible. Clearly the owner had an odd sense of humor. But the woman seemed nice enough when she came over to their table to say hello. She was tall, gray-haired, and so skinny it made you wonder about the quality of the food, but Donata’s waffles turned out to be light and fluffy, and her bacon was thick, smoky, and delicious. For some reason she was ravenous. Must be all the fresh Maine air. Nothing to do with last night’s exercise. Which she swore wasn’t going to happen again.

Magnus, of course, ate with his usual enthusiasm, and she thought he looked a little less frazzled today than he had the day before. He perked up even more when a short, stocky man with close-cropped brown hair and startling green eyes walked toward the table.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” Magnus muttered to Donata. “There is nothing more dependable than the small-town rumor mill for passing information along at the speed of light.”

“Huh?”

Magnus stood up and greeted the newcomer with a manly hug and some mutual back thumping. “Morning, Jonah,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you today. I thought you’d be enjoying a morning home with Mary and the kids.”

“Oh, I just came by for a cup of coffee,” Jonah said. “Plus, I heard a rumor that your lady friend wanted to talk to me. Is it true you are engaged?”

Magnus winked at Donata. “Small-town rumor mill,” he said. “Why don’t you join us, Jonah? This is Donata, and yes, you heard right on both accounts. Donata, this is Jonah. He’s one of the men doing the Ulf training with me this year.”

Jonah pulled a chair out and the elderly proprietress brought his coffee with such alacrity it was clear she’d been watching. And no doubt listening, as were most of the folks at the tables around them, for all that they seemed to be giving their full attention to their food. Rumor mills indeed.

“I’m a couple of years late going for the Ulf testing,” Jonah explained. “I got married and then my wife had twins, so she asked me to hold off a bit. But here I am. This is going to be our year, eh, Magnus?” He slapped Magnus on the back again. “Congratulations, by the way. I can’t believe someone finally snagged this guy. Seems like half the women in town were after him before he went off to the big city. What did you do? Put a spell on him?”

Donata choked on her coffee.

Magnus just grinned. “Nah, it was her charming personality and sweet temperament.”

She kicked him under the table, scowling. “That and he knows I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it.”

“That’s right,” Jonah said. “You really are a cop, aren’t you? Magnus and a cop. A Witch-cop, even. Go figure.” He gazed at Magnus with those green eyes. “Gotta say, buddy, I’m kind of surprised you picked now to bring her to visit, what with the Ulf trials and all. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to wait until after it is all over?”

Magnus shrugged. “I’ll admit the timing isn’t optimal, but when this ghost thing started happening, I figured Donata was the perfect person to help get to the bottom of it. So we moved up our plans a bit. She understands about my not being around much.”

“You think you can actually find out why we’re seeing the spirits of our dead?” Jonah said to Donata. “I won’t kid you, most people around here would rather see Magnus with an Ulfhednar woman—no offense—but if you can stop my father from haunting me, I’ll be first in line to buy you a wedding gift. The man wasn’t much fun when he was alive, but dead he is even worse. Especially now.”

“Can you tell me about the manifestations?” Donata asked. “And maybe describe where they happened?”

“I’ll do better than that,” he said. “I can take you there as soon as you’re finished with breakfast.”

“It’s not up a mountain, is it?” said Donata.

Jonah laughed. “Not even close. The three times I saw my dad all took place in the building we use to train in. It’s about two blocks from here.”

Walking those two blocks was an interesting experience. Unlike on her previous excursions into town, which had gotten her a lot of short, unhelpful conversations accompanied by a distinct chill, the few people they met along the way seemed to have warmed up by about thirty degrees. No one came over and gave her a big hug or anything, but the stares were slightly less suspicious and the greetings reasonably friendly. Donata had spent a lot of time working in the midst of Human cops who didn’t feel comfortable around her, so she was used to being on the outside of the group, but she had to admit it was a lot more pleasant not to be on the receiving end of all that animosity.

She still couldn’t believe anyone thought she was a spy for the Council, but she had to grudgingly admit that Astrid’s wacky idea maybe hadn’t been that wacky after all.

The training building turned out to be a long, rectangular open space with a few windows set high up where they wouldn’t get broken and rough wooden walls from which hung weapons including swords and staffs and a few things she didn’t recognize. The smooth wood floors had mats down in some places and sawdust in others but were mostly bare. In one corner there were a bunch of free weights, and the room had the not-unpleasant odor of wood, sweat, and exertion.

“We work out in here sometimes,” Jonah said, ushering her inside. “Mostly it is used for sparring, though.”

“I’d guessed as much,” Donata said with a grin. “Lots of space to throw each other around without breaking anything.”

“Donata and I used to spar quite often,” Magnus said. “She might not be an Ulfhednar, but she’s kicked my ass a time or two anyway.”

“Sometimes it pays to be fast and sneaky instead of just a pile of muscles,” she said, laughing. “And you make such a satisfying thump when you go down.”

Jonah stared from one to the other. “The two of you sparred together?” She’d clearly gone up a notch or two in his estimation. From what Magnus had said, it probably had nothing to do with her being a woman, since Ulfhednar women kicked butt with the best of them, and everything to do with her being a mere Witch. Ha.

“Actually, our sparring was part of what motivated me to finally come home and finish the training,” Magnus said, a touch grimly. “The last time things went badly wrong and I lost control of my inner berserker. I could have really hurt her. I decided I needed to complete the Ulf training so it never happened again.”

Donata put one arm around him and gave him a quick hug. She remembered that incident as if it were yesterday. She’d thought for a few minutes that he might actually kill her, which she knew would have destroyed him. They’d been lucky she’d figured out in time how to stop him.

“It wasn’t his fault,” she explained to Jonah. “We’d always sparred by ourselves before, and that time we not only had a couple of people watching, but one of them was another alpha male and a rival. Plus we’d been fighting and on the run from some pretty nasty folks, so we should have realized how close to the surface his Ulf nature would be.”

Jonah nodded. “Sounds like a recipe for disaster, all right. But at least it got him home where he belongs, so that’s something.”

Yeah. It was part of why she had to keep her distance from now on, both emotionally and physically. When this was all over, she would be going back to the city, and Magnus . . . Magnus was back home, where he’d always wanted to be. Talk about a recipe for disaster.

Shrugging off a sudden wave of sadness, Donata said, “So where were you when your father appeared to you the first time?”

Jonah pointed at an area with sawdust. “I was over there.” They all walked over together. “It was really early, about five a.m.; the twins were teething and got me up at the crack of dawn, so I figured I might as well come get in some practice before everyone else got here. I’ve been struggling with some of the sword moves and wanted to go through them without an audience.”

He stopped about six feet away from the wall. “I was standing right about here, and when I swung around, there he was, under the window. I could see the texture of the wall right through him. Freaked me the hell out, I don’t mind telling you. Practically dropped the damn sword on my foot.”

“Huh,” Donata said. “Did he say or do anything? Could you make out his expression?”

“He looked annoyed, like he always did when he was alive.” Jonah shrugged. “He never thought I was good enough. Told me so every damned day of my life until he got killed doing black ops over in the Middle East for some rent-a-soldier company. That was about ten years ago, though; I sure as hell didn’t expect him to show up and critique my footwork now.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “How could you tell that’s what he was doing?”

“Well, I couldn’t, really. He stood there and pointed at me. I just figured he was criticizing my moves, since that’s what he would have done if he was alive. He stared at me for about five minutes, then disappeared. To be honest, I thought maybe I was starting to crack under the strain of training and hardly any sleep, but then it happened another couple of times, and I found out I wasn’t the only one.” He shuddered. “It’s creepy. I’d rather go into battle outnumbered three to one than have that dead old man staring at me again.”

Donata walked around the area, examining the wall and the floor, and even moving some of the sawdust with her booted foot.

“Huh,” she said finally, and bent down to take a closer look.

“Did you find something?” Magnus asked, crouching next to her.

She pointed at some faint lines etched into a wooden board. “When I was on top of the cliff where Freddy had his visitation, I saw something that could have been markings, but I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t just some natural scratches in the stone. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t an original part of the wood, though. See?”

“Are those runes?” Magnus asked. “Or some kind of magical symbols?”

“That would be my guess, although they’re so faint I can’t tell for sure. I’m going to come back with a piece of paper and a pencil and see if I can get a rubbing from it. Might help me to see it better.” Or not. It was pretty faint.

“Magic?” Jonah said, giving her a narrow-eyed look. “You mean a Witch did this?”

Donata sighed. “There are lots of people who use magical symbols besides Witches. And if they are runes, they’re much more likely to have been written by an Ulfhednar, maybe one who has studied as a shaman or a priest.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “Sorry. This whole thing just has me spooked.”

“I suspect that’s the point,” Donata said thoughtfully. “The question is, why?”