“Over my dead body,” Benedikt growled, focused now on the threatening man. He swung a large two-handed sword that Nikola instantly coveted.

“Hell’s teeth, you just cut off that guy’s arm!” Io gasped. “You just…it’s…it’s right there on the ground. An arm. On the ground. Not attached or anything. Are you OK?”

The man she was addressing looked from his arm to Io. “He’s had me arm off!”

“I know, I can see it. It’s right there in front of you.”

“Oy,” the man said a third time before nudging the arm with the toe of his shoe.

“The master says we has to bring you in alive,” the middle scythe man snarled, spittle flying from his mouth, his lips pulled back in a sneer that Nikola felt he’d tolerated long enough.

“Imogen, stand next to Io. You, too, woman,” he told the auburn-haired woman who frowned at him. “I will take care of these swine.”

“Sow,” came a soft voice from behind him.

Now is not the time to be witty, he told Io. “Benedikt, can you disable the smaller man? I will take care of this nasty piece of business.”

“Your father?” the woman asked, her voice filled with surprise. “I thought you said your dad was a jerk who was in South America hitting on all sorts of scantily clad women?”

“It’s me arm,” the one-handed scyther said, picking up the object in question. He tried to push it back onto his shoulder, but the arm just fell to the ground again. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

“If you had a decent bone in your body, you’d die,” Nikola told him, his sword flashing in the air when the middle scythe man, his eyes widening when he got a good look at who was attacking him, snarled an obscenity that would have made a sinner blush.

“Yes, it’s my father,” Benedikt said, giving him an odd look before rushing at the third man, who had leaped forward toward the women.

“Hi, Fran. That South America stuff was just something Imogen told Ben, probably to keep him from being devastated that his dad was killed by his brothers. Nikola’s brothers, not Ben’s brothers. I don’t think Ben has any brothers.” Nikola, you don’t have any other children, do you?

Now is not the time, woman! Nikola panted, alternately parrying and thrusting to disable, disarm, or smite down the man who clearly had nefarious designs against his son and daughter. It might have escaped your attention, busy as you are discussing arms and such with the potential murderer who is even now attempting to tie his severed arm onto his body using his belt—which I cannot help notice does not possess a fine embossing of castles, as my present does—but I am conducting some business that requires my full attention, and thus I will be able to engage in trivial conversation with you later, after I have dispatched these rogues.

Oh, sure, when you blather, it’s just fine, but when I do, I’m distracting you? Men! Io winced in sympathy when the edge of the scythe slashed against his upper arm. Are you OK? That looks deep.

Not enough to hinder me. Just stay back.

“Imogen said what?” Fran asked, shaking her head before she hefted a large mallet that had been used to pound in a stake, and took a swing at the nearest man.

“Io, why are you here with my father?” Imogen asked her, then spun around and shouted, “Finnvid! What are you and Eirik doing back there? Why are you playing with the aura photo booth? Come and help us kill the liches!”

It didn’t take Nikola long to disable and destroy the middle lich—scythes being a notoriously awkward weapon to wield in close combat—after which he turned his attention to the third ruffian, but Benedikt had just knocked that man’s scythe away, and was about to skewer the man with his broadsword when the woman stopped him.

“No, Ben, don’t!”

“They killed four innocent mortals!” Ben snarled, raising the sword.

The woman grabbed his arm. “I know, but killing them isn’t the answer. Besides, if we let them live—”

Nikola twirled his sword, and neatly beheaded the lich.

“—we can find out what they know about David. Oh.” The woman turned angry eyes to him. “Well, thank you very much, Ben’s dad! That guy might have given us just the clue we needed to find David!”

“I’ll not tell you anything,” the lich’s head spat out, his fierce expression made somewhat less effective by the fact that there was no body attached. “Not if you tortured me!”

“What the—hell’s toenails!” Io clutched his arm and stared at the animated head. “That guy’s head is still talking!”

“How very curious,” Nikola said, studying the head for a moment before handing Io the sword and pulling out his notebook. “Evidently liches can’t be destroyed by a simple decapitation.”

“You’re going to pay for this, mate,” the armless lich yelled, shaking his arm at Nikola. “It’ll cost me a packet to get this reattached, and I’m not going to pay for it meself!”

Nikola eyed the man, then reached for the sword.

“No,” Io said, turning away. “One decapitation is enough for me today, even if the head…wow, he really does know a lot of curse words, doesn’t he?”

“He’s quite the potty mouth,” Benedikt’s woman agreed.

“I feel woozy,” the one-armed lich said, and staggered to the side, collapsing next to a tent. “Someone fetch a healer!”

The head continued to hurl abuse, alternating with some choice threats that Nikola took down carefully.

Benedikt’s woman sighed. “Imogen, maybe we could use your scarf to gag him.”

“I’m so glad I chose this one to wear, and not one of the good silk ones,” Imogen said, handing over a blue and purple strip of fabric. She turned to him and gazed with wide, blue eyes that reminded him of her mother. “Papa, what are you doing here?”

“Io brought me,” he said simply, still making notes as Benedikt helped his woman tie a gag around the lich’s mouth. It tried to bite them, but eventually they got the scarf bound around the head a few times.

“Oh!” Io stopped reading over his shoulder and went to Imogen, putting an arm around her. “I’m so sorry! We meant to do this much differently. We wanted to break it to you gently that your father was still alive, and not killed by your uncles as you’ve believed all these years, but then those men attacked—exactly what is a lich? And why did they have scythes, of all things? And then there you were, and of course, there was no time to explain everything. I hope we haven’t given you some sort of a trauma by having Nikola come back from the dead like that, but…um…well, here he is!”

Benedikt turned to face them, his face stony. “And I wish to hell he’d go back to wherever it is he crawled from.”

July 16

“I hope you realize just how incredibly lucky you are that at this moment I don’t have a blunt object at hand,” I told Ben, moving to stand in front of Nikola. I’m not normally an aggressive person, but I couldn’t believe what a bastard Ben was being to his father. Of all the nerve, telling him he wanted him gone!

“Are you threatening him?” Fran asked, an expression of utter incredulity chasing amusement across her face.

“Yes, yes, I am,” I said, lifting my chin and just daring either Ben or her to laugh at me. “Your father was excited and happy to see you again, and for you to say such hurtful and cruel things to him after what he’s been through—well, you seriously have a smack upside the head coming, that’s all I’ll say!”

Nikola sighed and put away his notebook. “Io, do not upset yourself. You told me that Benedikt was not told the truth about my death. He is obviously reacting to whatever falsehood Imogen saw fit to tell him.”

“I didn’t tell him a falsehood of any sort,” Imogen said slowly, her expression suddenly wary.

“Of course you did. You told Ben that his dad was alive and kicking in Rio or somewhere, obviously because you wanted to save him the horror of knowing Nikola was killed by your uncles. I don’t blame you, although I would have thought, at seventeen, Ben could have handled the news, but you clearly felt otherwise—”

“No, Io, I didn’t,” Imogen interrupted, moving over to stand next to Ben. “I didn’t lie to Benedikt…. I lied to you. When I said my father died that night more than three hundred years ago, I was speaking more figuratively than literally.”

I gawked at her. What the hell?

I don’t know. Nikola tucked away his notebook and frowned at Imogen. Obviously, something has occurred about which we know nothing.

“Dammit, I knew if I brought you back with me, something horrible would happen to the future.”

“What are you talking about—there you are.” Imogen turned to face the two men whom Nikola had disabled earlier. Both men looked like they wanted to pick a fight with him.

They’re welcome to try, Nikola said with some amusement.

“What were you doing back there?” Imogen asked one of them, the one who was clutching the ax and glaring at Nikola. “You were supposed to help us. As it is, my father took care of the liches.”

“Your father?” the man asked, his frown fading. “The one who ogles women in Brazil?”

“Well, it’s better than lizards taking over,” I told Nikola. “Although really, it’s not very nice to know everyone thinks you’re a smutmonger.”

“Smut—” Nikola pulled his notebook out and made another note.

“Yes, that’s him. And this is Io. She’s the cousin of a friend of mine. And…erm…somehow knows my father.”

A little blush crept up my chest. I coughed. “We…uh…”

“Io is my lover,” Nikola said, sliding an arm around me. “She does a great many things to me that bring me much pleasure, and which I have not enjoyed since your mother died. I will not discuss them further, however, because you are yet an innocent maiden, and it is not suitable that you should know such things. However, I wish to put your mind to rest, since I know you are worried that I am lonely. Io has agreed to spend her life with me. We are in pursuit of a method by which we can make her Moravian without losing her soul. She does not wish to be soulless. I have told her it isn’t that bad, but she is adamant, and I must honor her wishes in this regard.”