Wicked Charms (17 page)

They’d stolen a center console similar to the boat Devereaux had used. Josh was hunched on a bench seat, dabbing at a bloody nose. Glo was glaring at him from mid-ship. No explanation needed. That one was easy to figure out. No sign of Hatchet.

Diesel hauled himself out of the water. Wulf powered up the boat and steered around the island to the beach party.

“I thought we’d be heading for home,” I said to Diesel.

“We have a helicopter picking us up. Apparently there’s a flat patch of land that can be used as a helipad, and it’s not far from the beach party. This isn’t the off-the-charts island we expected.”

Wulf anchored in shallow water, and we all slogged ashore. Hatchet was waiting at the water’s edge, and he was naked, with the exception of his sword, which was in its scabbard and hung around his waist. He looked like a blob of marshmallow with stick legs and droopy doodles.

Wulf had his usual poker face, Diesel burst out laughing, and I thought I was going to have to pour bleach in my eyes to erase the sight.

“Welcome, sire,” Hatchet said to Wulf. “The bird has not yet arrived.”

“At least he has his sword sheathed,” Glo said.

“I thought it best not to call attention to myself by being clothed,” Hatchet said to Wulf. “If you are displeased you can whip me. I’ll make a switch from a tree branch. I live to serve you.”

“Lucky you,” Diesel said to Wulf.

“This is my cross to bear,” Wulf said.

“Sadly my garb hath disappeared,” Hatchet said. “These wrinkled old folk have a mischievous side.”

A helicopter buzzed the beach and disappeared behind a rock-strewn hill topped with a clump of trees. The beach party looked like it was winding down. The band was packing up, and the tiki hut was no longer serving drinks. Some of the partiers were sprawled on the beach, soaking up the last of the sun, and the rest were standing in small groups talking. They were still naked, and none of them were getting any younger. I saw a lot of gray hair, no hair, and skin cancer. The ravages of gravity on the human body over the years was sobering.

Several people waved to Hatchet when we crossed the beach to get to the helipad.

“Hey, Hatchet,” one of the men yelled. “How’s it hanging?”

“Yoo-hoo, Hatchet honey,” a little white-haired lady called out. “Come over here and show us your sword.”

“They be a wild and rowdy crowd,” Hatchet said.

We reached the helicopter, and Hatchet got in first, giving us a view of the Grand Canyon when he bent over to take a seat.

“I’m not sitting next to him,” I said to Diesel.

“Me, either,” Glo said.

“Me, either,” Josh said.

Wulf reached in and yanked Hatchet out of the helicopter. The pilot wiped the seat down with hand sanitizer and sprayed the cabin with air freshener.

When we lifted off, Hatchet was on the ground, waving to us and shouting farewell.

“Will he be okay?” I asked Wulf. “He has no clothes and no money.”

“He’s quite resourceful,” Wulf said. “He’ll be fine.”

—

It was dark when Diesel and I got home. We let ourselves in and went to the kitchen. Cat was on the counter, gnawing on a chicken potpie. Carl was eating peanut butter out of the jar with his finger. Cabinet doors were open and cereal boxes were on the floor.

“Looks like Carl made dinner,” I said.

Carl looked over and smiled.

Diesel put the skull in the microwave for safekeeping. “First thing tomorrow we’ll visit Nergal.”

“I’m not sure we’ll learn anything of value,” I said. “This guy’s been dead for hundreds of years, and the real task we have now is finding Martin Ammon and relieving him of the stone.”

“You never know,” Diesel said. “It could be interesting. You said you had to pry the stone out of his hand.”

A chill ran down my spine at the memory. “It was creepy. I broke off two of his fingers!”

My clothes were still damp and caked with sea salt. My shoes squished when I walked. And I was starving. I made a cheese sandwich, told Diesel he was on his own, and took my sandwich upstairs with me. I locked myself in my bathroom and peeled my clothes off while I ate the sandwich. I stepped under a scalding hot shower, closed my eyes, and thought I was in heaven. I opened my eyes when Diesel stepped into the shower with me.

“Hey!” I said. “This is
my
shower.”

“Not anymore,” Diesel said. “Now it’s
our
shower.”

Diesel poured some of my shower gel into his hands and worked up a lather.

“This smells nice,” Diesel said.

“It used to smell like lemon, but now it smells like cookies baking. How do you do that?”

“I don’t do it. It just happens.”

He ran his soapy hands over my shoulders and down my arms.

“Stop that,” I said. “No fooling around!”

“I’m not fooling,” Diesel said. “I’m deadly serious.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I dragged myself out of bed at five
A.M.
My day had barely started and already I was late. I dressed in the dark so I wouldn’t wake Diesel. Cat followed me down the stairs to the kitchen. I gave him fresh water and filled his bowl with kitty crunchies. I grabbed an apple and headed out. The street was quiet, but lights were blinking on in some of the houses. A car pulled into the parking lot for the shipyard at the bottom of my hill.

Clara was already at work when I got to the bakery. The big dough mixer was humming, and flour hung in the air like fairy dust.

“How’d it go yesterday?” Clara asked.

“First off, Josh and Devereaux broke into my house and stole the map and the coin,” I said. “We all raced to Penobscot Bay to see who could get there first and get the finder, which turned out to be the cursed Blue Diamond of Babur. We got the diamond but Devereaux blew our boat up with a rocket. Then Devereaux kidnapped me, and we went looking for the treasure. In the meantime, Rutherford kidnapped Glo, tracked us down, and followed us into the cave. Devereaux fell to his death, we found the treasure, which included the SALIGIA Stone, and Rutherford left Glo and me to die in the brig of a pirate ship. Diesel rescued us and here I am.”

“So same old, same old,” Clara said.

I buttoned myself into my white chef coat. “Pretty much.”

“It’s disappointing that Josh was working with Devereaux to steal the treasure,” Clara said. “I guess you never know about people.”

“It turned out that Devereaux was a really bad guy in disguise. Or maybe he changed when he took possession of the coin. At any rate, he was definitely insane at the time of death. I think Josh was just stupid. In the end Josh tried to help rescue Glo and me.”

“Was Glo impressed with that?”

“She punched him in the nose the first chance she got. When we dropped them off here last night she still wasn’t talking to him.”

“Good for her,” Clara said.

Glo arrived a little before nine. She parked Broom in a kitchen corner and set her Magic 8 Ball and tote bag on a workbench.

“I’ve been asking the Magic 8 Ball questions all morning,” Glo said, “but it always has the same message. I think it might be waterlogged.”

“What’s the message?” Clara asked.

“ ‘Outlook not so good,’ ” Glo said.

Lucky thing I don’t believe in the Magic 8 Ball or I might be depressed.

“Are you still seeing Josh?” Clara asked Glo.

Glo shook the 8 Ball and the message floated to the surface. “Outlook not so good.”

—

Diesel sauntered in at eleven o’clock. He helped himself to a blueberry muffin and perched on a stool by my workstation.

“What’s new?” Diesel asked.

“I need to finish glazing these cinnamon rolls, and then I’m done for the day.”

Diesel grinned. “Do you want me to help?”

“No!”

“You’ll never guess what I found this morning,” Diesel said. “You left your wet clothes on the floor in the bathroom, and when I kicked them aside the Blue Diamond fell out of your jeans pocket.”

“Omigosh. I stuffed it into my pocket and forgot about it.”

“I’m sure Rutherford had a dark moment when he realized he’d left it behind. It’s invaluable.”

“I don’t think Rutherford knew about the diamond,” I said.

“Can you glaze those things faster? We have a lot of ground to cover today,” Diesel said.

“Do you have a game plan?”

“I want to talk to Nergal. I have the skull with me.”

“And after that?”

“No plan.”

“So that doesn’t seem to be a lot of ground.”

“I’m working on it.”

I finished my tray, cleaned my area, and asked Clara if she had anything else for me to do.

“Nope,” she said. “It’s a slow Monday. You might as well take off.”

We stepped out of the bakery, and I looked around. “Where’s your car?” I asked Diesel.

“It’s the little black one,” he said.

“That’s a Porsche 911 Turbo. What happened to the last car?”

“It got swapped out. I parked it in front of your house last night, and this morning it was gone, and the Porsche was parked there.”

“How do you know it’s yours?”

“My cars always have similar license plates. ‘DD0000.’ Or some variation.”

We drove the short distance to the hospital and found Nergal in his office.

“We brought you something,” Diesel told him.

“I hope it’s cupcakes.”

“Sorry, no cupcakes,” I said.

“It’s something dead, isn’t it?” Nergal said. “What is it with you people? You’re like the death squad.”

This from the man who decided to be a coroner.

Diesel pulled the skull out of his battered brown leather backpack and put it on Nergal’s desk.

“I didn’t have room to bring the rest of him home with me,” Diesel said, “but this is probably all you need. We think he’s Palgrave Bellows.”

Nergal leaned forward and took a closer look at the skull. “The real Palgrave Bellows? That’s pretty cool.”

I nodded in agreement. “We found him in a cave.”

Nergal put his hand on the skull, and his eyes got wide. “Whoa! This guy is nutty.”

“What’s he saying to you?”

“He’s saying that it all makes sense. That it’s all fallen into place. That he knew the power was within him. That he was destined to become the demon Mammon. And now he’s going to eliminate all disbelievers and rule the world. That he’s sure the crushing pain in his chest is Mammon being reborn in his body.” Nergal removed his hand from the skull. “Personally, my money’s on massive heart attack over the Mammon reborn theory.”

“You get anything else from him?” Diesel asked.

“Nope. That’s it. Can I keep the skull?”

“Sure,” Diesel said. “Maybe someday I’ll bring you the rest of him.”

Neither of us said anything until we were out of the building and back in the Porsche.

“Bellows was holding the stone when he died,” I said to Diesel. “It sounds to me like the stone makes you go nutty with the whole greed and Mammon thing. Devereaux had a similar reaction when he got the entire coin in his pocket.”

“Where’s the coin now?” Diesel asked me.

“So far as I know it’s still with Devereaux. He had the coin on him when he fell. I suppose Rutherford or one of his men could have picked it up on their way out of the cave, but no one mentioned it when they were gathering up the treasure pieces, and I have a feeling it was forgotten.”

“And the diary?”

“Ammon has the diary locked away somewhere. Probably in Marblehead.”

“I see a road trip in my future.”

“We’re going back to the island?”

“Me. Not you. I can do this faster on my own. I want to get there before Ammon or Rutherford or whoever is running the show decides to send his minions back for the rest of the treasure.”

“I don’t think Rutherford runs anything. I think he’s in damage-control mode, hanging on by his fingernails. I can tell you how to get to the tunnel. It might be easier than using the water entrance. Devereaux and I crept down a dangerous staircase carved out of the rock face. Rutherford and his men rappelled down. It was quicker and safer. Devereaux is at the bottom of the staircase. Another narrow tunnel connects the staircase to the cave and underground lake.”

An hour later, Cat, Carl, and I watched Diesel drive off.

“Just the three of us today,” I said to Cat and Carl. “What should we do? Clean the house?”

Cat pretended not to hear, and Carl climbed onto the couch and turned the television on.

I was halfway through vacuuming the living room rug when there was a lot of commotion on my front stoop and someone kicked my door down. It wasn’t difficult to do, because the door was showing a couple hundred years of dry rot, and the lock was equally ancient.

Rutherford crept in around the mangled door. “Hello,” he called. “Anybody home?”

“Yes, I’m home! What the heck do you think you’re doing breaking my door down? That’s a historic door. You’ll be in big trouble with the Historical Commission.”

“I knocked but no one answered.”

“I was vacuuming. I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes, yes, I can see that. I’ll have Mr. Ammon square it with the historical commission. Mr. Ammon is a big contributor.”

“I guess that would be okay,” I said, inching my way toward the kitchen, where I had a big carving knife.

“I must say I’m relieved to see you somehow escaped from the cave. That was a mistake on my part. I should have been more clear with my directions to Mr. Carter. I meant for him to safely see you to the top of the canyon. When we realized the error we returned, but you were already gone. Very clever of you to take matters into your own hands. As you know, Mr. Ammon has plans for you. He just loves your cupcakes. And you’ll play a very large role in our future.”

“So you came to apologize?”

“Yes, yes, of course. But there is one other issue. It’s the coin. We don’t seem to have the coin.”

“Devereaux had the coin.”

“Mr. Carter assures me that the coin wasn’t on Devereaux. Of course, Mr. Carter is no longer with us. He’s been…um, reassigned. But we feel confident that the coin was removed.”

“Not by me,” I said. “I don’t have the coin.”

“I totally believe you. Totally. But I’m sure you realize how important this coin is to our lord Mammon. We must have all essential elements to complete the awakening ceremony. And the coin seems to be one of those elements.”