Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1) (4 page)

I'd slept all day, so naturally I was wide awake once night set in.

My back ached from lying down for so long, so I got up and turned on my computer. Since I'd gotten sick, social media was my lifeline to the rest of the world. I checked in with my friends, and saw that I'd missed Tiffany's birthday party. She hadn't even invited me. I wouldn't have been able to go anyway, but it still hurt.

I logged onto voice chat, and spotted Tiffany's screen name. I donned my headset and called her.

She picked up a minute later, probably after scrambling for her own headset. "Hey Libby! How're you feeling?"

I made a face. "Sick. Gross. Dead. Late happy birthday, by the way."

"I'm so sorry I didn't invite you! I knew you couldn't come anyway, but I felt horrible as I mailed them."

Her contrition was genuine. Tiffany was one of those heart-on-the-sleeve types, and I couldn't stay mad.

"It's okay, Tiff. I slept all day, anyway. What'd you do for your party?"

"I passed out different potted herbs without labels, and everybody had to identify them by smell. Then we watched a documentary about deep sea life."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "I'll bet it was a huge hit."

"It was really fun, actually. I invited my friends from chemistry and chess club."

"Was there pizza?"

"No, we did cheese fondue."

"I can totally see all you brainiacs sitting around a fondue pot with your plants and your documentary. Nobody played any videogames?"

"Nope, but I'm logged in. Want to run a map?"

We joined a server and blew up pixels. That was the great thing about Tiffany. She was smart, but she knew how to have fun, too. Our avatars were My Little Ponies, and we laughed every time somebody cussed us out.

We were debating what map to play next, when something scraped the wall outside my window.

My heart lurched, and I froze for a long second. "Tiff," I whispered, "I think somebody's outside."

"What? But it's past midnight!"

"I know. I need to get off for a minute."

I pulled off my headset, flicked off my monitor, and sat in complete darkness. My fingers found the cold, reassuring shape of my knife on my desk. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Out here in the country, thieves thought they could get away with anything. Including breaking in through the second-story windows.

But what if it wasn't a thief? Cats made a lot of noise on the roof sometimes. It'd be awfully dumb to wake up my parents, only to find a couple of tomcats duking it out. I'd have to check, first.

I didn't have a gun, but before I'd gotten sick, I'd been building a substantial Airsoft collection. I felt my way to the closet and pulled out my rifle. Too bad the BBs were plastic. Metal ones might punch holes in flesh. I'd aim for the eyes--headshots are headshots. And if it was an animal, I'd scare it off.

If the gun didn't work, I had my knife. And lots and lots of screaming--but hopefully I wouldn't have to resort to that.

Another scrape, and the tree outside rustled. My room's on the second floor, with a dormer window. I stared out, waiting for glowing cat eyes, or something bigger.

Still, when a figure loomed against the night outside, my heart skipped, and I stifled a scream. It's terrifying to realize the safety of your home is about to be violated, and your strongest weapon shoots plastic beads.

The man crouched outside my window as if looking in. No flashlight. I faced him, rifle aimed at the window, and tried to keep my breathing steady.

Try it, buddy. And kiss your eyeballs goodbye.

Then the man did the last thing I expected. He tapped softly on the glass and called, "Libby?"

Robert? No, it wasn't his voice. I hesitated and squinted, trying to make out his face.

He fumbled around and ignited a blue glow stick, which he cupped in one hand to hide the glow. But it illuminated his face.

Oh crap, it was Mal. On our roof. Outside my window.

Had he come to kill me? I stepped backward and blundered into my desk chair. I stood there on one foot, heart pounding so hard that my breathing began to rasp. His hands were bare--no claw gloves--so he hadn't come to tear me up. How did he know I had the puzzle box?

I should have returned it this afternoon. He'd come looking for it, and it was my own dumb fault.

"Go away!" I screamed in a whisper.

"Libby, I shall not harm you," he said through the glass. "Do you possess a cedar box with silver scrollwork?"

Oh, sure he wouldn't harm me. Like how he didn't harm Robert during their 'disagreement'. Man oh man, I should have returned it in daylight ...

My heart tried to pound itself out of my rib cage. My lungs were starting to close. "If I give it to you, will you go away?"

"Yes."

I snatched the box off my dresser and set the rifle against the wall, where I could reach it. Then I eased the window open enough to slide the box through.

Mal popped the screen out, took the box, then replaced the screen. "Thank you. Might I ask how you came by this?"

His soft, conversational tone eased some of my panic. I focused on slow, steady breaths, and my throat ached for my inhaler.

"Robert gave it to me," I whispered. Then I winced. Dumb me, automatically honest. "Were you going to break into my room for it?"

"I did not know that it was your room." He cradled the box against his chest, as if it were made of solid gold. The blue light showed the look on his face--eyebrows furrowed, lips pressed together. "This is not a good place for this conversation. Would you please come out to the beehives tomorrow? I will explain then."

"Maybe. Goodbye." I shut the window and grabbed my gun, shivers running down my shoulders and back.

He climbed across the roof and out of sight. There was a final scrape, and he was gone.

My heart rate began to subside.

He'd come for his box, all right. But how did he know where it was? He hadn't known it was my room, or so he said. Maybe the box had a GPS locator in it. Why was it so important? I'd bet it was his whole bank account, liquidated while he was on the road. What if I'd opened it and found wads of cash, and assumed it was from Robert?

I'd have either thought it was drug money, or counterfeit, knowing Robert.

Maybe it was Mal's amputated heart, since he was a vampire. But in the darkness and silence, that thought was too creepy to entertain.

I hurried downstairs as quick as my lungs would allow, and used my inhaler a few times. Once my lungs more or less worked, I crept back to my computer and put my headset back on. Tiffany was whispering, "Libby, where are you? Should I call the cops? I swear if you don't get back on--"

"It's okay, I'm back."

"Libby! What happened?"

I checked my automatic honesty this time. A beekeeper had climbed on our roof at midnight to ask for his puzzle box? It was beyond bizarre. But I had to tell Tiffany something.

"False alarm. I think it was a possum."

"On your roof? Oh gross!"

The lie made me twitch a little. "Yeah, so, want one more game?"

We played until two AM. Then I went to bed and slept until ten.

I crawled out of bed, blinking in the bleary gray light that filtered through the fog. Keeping such weird hours made me feel heavy-eyed and hung-over. Had Mal really come to my window last night? It seemed like a fever dream. But the puzzle box was gone.

I worried about it while I forced down a tiny breakfast, then took a shower. It took a while to blow dry my long hair. If I didn't, it would stay wet all day, especially one spot in the back. It gave me time to ponder the night's events.

Mal had come to my room last night. Then he wanted to talk to me about it today. If he'd planned to hurt me, he could have done it last night. Vampires were stronger at night, right?

Morbid curiosity warred with my fear. I could drive out and make sure some other beekeepers were around. I did want to know why he wanted that puzzle box so badly--he wouldn't attack me with other people there.

I'd take Suki, too. Muggers thought twice if you had a dog with you, and a border collie was a decent size.

I braided my hair, put on my coat and boots, claimed the golf cart, and drove into the orchards with Suki riding shotgun. Today, the lockblade in my pocket was a reassuring weight.

The fog had turned bright and hazy as the sun burned it off. The almond trees showed buds like red spikes, and here and there a few white petals showed, harbingers of the clouds of flowers to come.

The beekeepers worked among the hives, sliding frames around, and blasting gouts of white from their smokers. They were probably getting ready to move them around the orchard.

Mal's hives were a little distance away from the rest. The bright colors of the paint made them stand out, and he only had fifteen hives. He was sliding frames around, too, and glanced at me as I drove up.

I kept my distance. Last year I'd learned the hard way that beekeepers were importing Africanized honeybees to replace the dying European breeds. They were what the media called killer bees. They'd chased me all the way to the house, and I'd been stung thirty-six times. It made me respect the bees, all right.

Mal walked toward me in his white beekeeping suit, and pulled off his hat with its protective screen. "Hello, Elizabeth."

"Libby." I didn't move from the golf cart. Suki picked up my nervousness, and made a sound that was half-growl, half-whine.

He waved an arm toward the hives. "Allow me to introduce you."

"To the bees?"

"To the bees."

I slowly disembarked, and Suki followed, staying close beside me. Dogs hate bee stings, too.

Mal's eyes crinkled in an almost-smile. Today they were a golden topaz color. "I apologize for last night. I was simply trying to locate my box."

"What's in it? Your life savings?"

"In a manner of speaking." He turned away to dismiss the subject, and gestured to the nearest hive, marked with a 23. "This is Queen Victoria. Victoria and subjects, this is Libby. Libby, say hello."

Feeling silly, I said, "Hello, bees."

Each hive was named after a British queen. Mal introduced me to all of them. The bees whirred around us, but nothing stung me.

"Your bees are really tame."

"I'm not a commercial beekeeper."

"What are you doing here, then?"

"We needed the money." He said
we
as if the bees were his family. "And your father's farm is a sustainable farm, not a monoculture."

He pointed to a strip of overgrown brush in the center of the orchard. It was planted with every color of lantana, and weird coastal flowers like statice that bloomed in the winter. Chattering sparrows flew in and out.

"My bees need forage while the orchard awakens. In the meantime, I feed them good honey, not corn syrup." He lifted the lid off a hive, and slid out a frame a few inches. It swarmed with a brown mass of bees, all crawling and buzzing the way bees do. The frame had the beginnings of wax honeycomb in the premade holes.

This guy was crazy about his bugs. I tried to mesh beekeeper Mal with claw-glove Mal, and creeper on the roof Mal. "Um, so, about last night..."

"Yes." He slid the frame back into the hive and replaced the lid, then straightened and gazed at me. "You said Robert gave you the box?"

Of course, he wasn't going to explain tracking the box to my room.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot. "Yeah, and he sent a note that said I should try to open it."

Mal stood dead still, and his face blanked. For a moment I thought he was going to punch me. Then his eyebrows scrunched in an expression of pain. The skin around his mouth shaded toward green. "I see you tried."

"I didn't get very far," I said in my defense. "Only until I found the paper with your name and address."

For a moment I forgot my vampire theory. The guy looked like he was about to puke. I stepped back a prudent distance. Worse than that, though, was the knowledge that I should have given it back to him immediately. It was inlaid with silver, after all--clue number one that it was valuable.

He laid a hand on Queen Elizabeth's hive, as if steadying himself, and drew a deep breath. The greenish tinge in his face faded back into normal waxy skin tone. "Yes. Well. No harm was done."

"Harm?" I exclaimed. "What's in the box, a bomb?"

He shook his head, and his eyes shaded to hazel. "My most precious possession. If I had lost it, I would die."

Figuratively, or literally? I opened my mouth to ask, then shut it again. Maybe I didn't really want to know.

He squinted at me, as if trying to see me clearly. "Are you and Robert ...?"

"We're dating," I said frostily, "but I'm breaking up with him as soon as I get my strength back."

He nodded, as if he approved. Then he walked to a hive standing by itself and opened the lid. I blinked. It was a trunk. But I could have sworn it was a hive a second ago.