Wicked Charms

  Glo had her Magic 8 Ball out. “ ‘Signs point to maybe,’ ” she said.

  “Maybe what?” I asked her. “Maybe only a mountain goat could climb up on those rocks?”

  “Mr. Carter will help you,” Rutherford said, cheerfully. “He’s quite the athlete. Mr. Carter was a marine.”

  I clenched my teeth and followed Carter as he picked his way over the rubble. Glo followed me, and everyone else followed Glo. The chunk of solid granite and loose rock was twenty to thirty feet high, and progress was slow. When we finally reached the top of the mound we looked down on the remains of a tall ship that had been beached in a small alcove. It was tipped on its side, the masts were broken off and resting on the shore, and much of the timber was rotted. It was like discovering the bones of a giant prehistoric beast.

  We inched our way down to the shore, slipping and sliding on loose rock, and crawling over the larger boulders. I approached the ship, and the diamond continued to hum and blink. Still no sign of Diesel or Wulf, and I was feeling some anxiety. I felt certain that they were safe. I’d been told many times that they were hard to kill. My anxiety came from the fact that we were close to the stone, and I had no way to stop Rutherford from taking it. I could refuse to cooperate any further, but Glo was here now, and I suspected Rutherford might use her to make me stay on target. I suspected behind all the annoying, smiling good cheer, Rutherford was an insecure toad who would do anything to gain favor with his boss. If he had to slit my throat I was sure he would wipe his sweaty hands on his pants, plaster a smile on his face, and do it.

  Rutherford sent two of the armed men up the underside of the ship, over the keel, and into the bowels of the wreck. We lost sight of them, but we listened to the wood creaking under their weight as they progressed through the ship. We heard a board snap, and there was silence. Rutherford looked at his watch. I looked at my watch, too, but I’d scratched the crystal on the slide down and it was difficult to read. After a couple beats we heard faint scuffing sounds. The men were back at work.

  “What does your Magic 8 Ball say now?” I asked Glo.

  “ ‘Tinkle tinkle little star I wonder where the bathrooms are,’ ” Glo said.

  One of the men on the ship popped into sight.

  “We found the treasure,” he called down to us. “It’s scattered around the captain’s quarters.”

  “Up and over,” Rutherford cheerfully said to me.

  I stared at the keel looming above my head.

  “Not gonna happen,” I said. “There has to be another way to get on.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. We can find another way,” Rutherford said. “I would have difficulty with that route as well.”

  We walked around the ship to where a gunwale was resting on the mix of sand and stone. A lot of this part of the ship was rotted, but I managed to climb around the rot on the slanted deck. I dropped through the hatch and into the salon, with the help of the man who was already in place. Everyone else followed. The interior was all sideways and cattywampus. The stairs were on the wall and the hallway led downward to an intricately engraved door. I made my way to the door and stepped into the captain’s cabin. The ornate furnishings were tumbled over, but the elegant carving and gold inlays were intact. Light filtered into the room from the large bay window that filled the stern wall. We all looked up at the name carved above the window. GANJI-I-SAWA.

  “This is the Gunsway,” Rutherford said. “At one time there must have been a way to sail into here. We’ve circled the island several times in the past and never found an entrance.”

  “In the movies they blow up the entrance after they sail in so no one can find it,” Glo said.

  Rutherford looked like he wanted to hit her on the head with his flashlight. “That must be it,” he said.

  I crossed the tilted room to a huge overturned table and peered over the edge. The area behind the table was littered with gold and silver coins, jewelry, raw jewels, miniature icons, elaborate little bottles with stoppers, and carved gold platters. They had obviously spilled out of a heavy oak chest that had been smashed open. A skeleton was sprawled next to the chest. Bits of cloth clung to the yellowed bones, a filthy white wig lay next to the skull, and the man’s boots were still attached to his feet.

  “Most likely this is Palgrave Bellows,” Rutherford said. “Those boots would have been very fancy back in the day.”

  My attention wasn’t on his boots. My attention was drawn to the egg-sized rock in the man’s hand.

  “Pry the stone out of his fingers,” Rutherford said to me. “Tell me if this is the holy stone of Mammon.”

  I attempted to take the stone away from the corpse, and accidentally snapped off two of his fingers. I gagged and broke out in a sweat.

  “Oh my,” Rutherford said, squeezing out a nugget of nervous laughter. “Ha-ha! That was something. They snapped right away. Ha-ha!” He shifted foot to foot. “Well, go ahead and pick it up. We have a schedule to keep. Let’s see if this is the right stone.”

  I could feel the sweat trickle down my breastbone. The finger bones were still curled around the stone.

  “Let’s see,” Rutherford said. “How can I make this easier for you? Oh, I know, we could distract you by shooting your friend. Nothing fatal, of course. Ha-ha.”

  “Don’t worry, Lizzy,” Glo said. “Broom would never allow it.”

  Broom was still stuck in Glo’s tote bag. I wasn’t sure I could count on Broom to save the day, so I sucked in some air and picked the stone up. It glowed green and hummed in my hand.

  “I can tell from the expression on your face that this is the holy stone,” Rutherford said. “This is the stone that will awaken Mammon!”

  “And that would be Martin Ammon, right?” I asked. “Why isn’t he with you?”

  “Mr. Ammon is a busy, very, very important man. He can’t be everywhere at once.”

  “I bet he’s in a kennel,” Glo said. “I swear it was an honest mistake. The page just sort of turned itself.”

  “A kennel?” Rutherford clasped his hands together. “Ha-ha, ha-ha! That’s a good one.”

  “So he doesn’t still think he’s a dog?” Glo asked.

  “A dog? Goodness, no. No, no. He’s just fine. An occasional lapse, perhaps, but nothing serious. Nothing to worry about.”

  Rutherford took the stone from me and put it in a thick leather pouch he’d obviously brought for the occasion. He attached the pouch to his wrist and tested it to make sure it was secure.

  “We need to pack as much of the treasure as we can carry out of here,” Rutherford said to his crew. “We can come back some other time for whatever is left behind. Right now I need to rush this stone to Mr. Ammon. I’m going to take the first helicopter out. By the time it returns I trust you’ll have staged the most important items at the rim. Mr. Carter will be in charge of securing the ladies.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mr. Carter was balanced on the slanted floor of the ship, standing just in front of a trapdoor. He reached down and flipped the door open, and a dank odor of wood rot and seawater filled the room.

  “How convenient,” Carter said, shining his flashlight into the dark hold. “Chains for two.” He looked over at me. “Ladies first.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll pass.”

  “I haven’t got time to play,” Carter said, motioning to the two remaining men with his gun. “Take them down and chain them.”

  “I’m not really into the whole chained thing,” Glo said. “I’d actually rather be a hostage.”

  “I was told to secure you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “He might not have meant that literally,” I said to Carter. “He might have meant you should keep us safe.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m going to keep you safely secured so we can do our job.”

  One of the men dropped into the hold and another shoved Glo forward toward the trapdoor. Glo whacked the man with Broom
. The man grabbed Broom away from Glo, and threw Glo and Broom into the hold. The second man followed Glo through the trapdoor. I heard splashing and shrieking and then a horrible quiet. After a couple beats the second man climbed out of the hold. He was soaking wet.

  “You’re next,” Carter said to me. “You can voluntarily join your friend, or you can do it the hard way.”

  I lowered myself through the trapdoor and dropped into waist-high water. The second man splashed in after me. In the dim light I saw Glo chained by her wrists to the rough plank wall. There were several more sets of wrist chains. One of the sets of chains had a partial skeleton attached. The water in the hold was black, and the footing was treacherous. A man had me by my arm, guiding me to a set of chains, keeping me upright. The cuffs were snapped around my wrists and a second man tugged on the chains to make sure they were strong. The men sloshed away without a word, hoisted themselves out of the water, and disappeared through the trapdoor. The door slammed shut, and Glo and I were alone in the hold. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. A small amount of light filtered through cracks in the captain’s quarters’ floorboards, and further down, in the bowels of the ship, I could see a gash in the side of the boat. Water and light flowed through the gash.

  “I really hate this,” Glo said. “The water is ruining my vintage skirt. It’s not like these skirts grow on trees. And I don’t know what happened to Broom. He’s probably terrified. They just threw him down here.”

  As if on cue, Broom floated past us, without so much as a backward glance, and disappeared through the hole in the hold.

  “He’s probably going for help,” Glo said.

  “No doubt. I’m sure we’ll be rescued any minute now.”

  A rat swam by, climbed onto a timber about three feet from me, and scurried away. I heard myself whimper, and I pulled against my chains.

  “I’m starting to feel a little hysterical,” Glo said. “I think I peed myself when the rat swam by.”

  “That could be good,” I said. “It could drive him away. Can you wiggle your chains?”

  “No. Can you?”

  “No.”

  I looked down at the water. It was rising. It was now at chest level. The tide was coming in. The underground lake was a tidal pool, and somewhere on the island it became part of the sea.

  “Either I’m getting shorter or the water is getting taller,” Glo said. “It’s almost up to my chin. And I’m c-c-cold.”

  “Maybe we should sing a song to keep our spirits up,” I said.

  “Row, row, row your boat…” Glo sang out.

  I couldn’t see my watch, but it seemed to me we sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” for about ten minutes. My teeth were chattering and my nose was running from fear and cold. My hands were numb in the rusted iron cuffs. I knew eventually Diesel and Wulf would find us, but I worried they wouldn’t get to us in time.

  “I’m getting tired,” Glo said. “I’m standing on my tiptoes, and the water is almost up to my mouth. I don’t want to die. I have stuff to do. I need to get my nails done. I need to punch Josh in the face. I haven’t tried all the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavors yet.”

  I had a lot of unfinished business, too, but I didn’t want to think about it. It was too sad, too terrible, to go through the list.

  “They’re coming to get me,” Glo said. “I’m done for. I hear the angels. They’re walking around on the deck.”

  “I don’t think you can hear angels walking,” I said. “They have wings. They flutter.”

  “Well, I hear something up there.”

  We went still and listened.

  Creak. Crrrrack.

  Diesel fell through the rotted deck, splashed into the water, and resurfaced in front of me.

  “C-c-crap on a cracker!” Glo said.

  Diesel grabbed the iron bands on my wrists and the cuffs unlocked. He did the same for Glo. I swam to the trapdoor. Diesel shoved it open and boosted Glo through. A beat later I was on the dry slanted floor of the captain’s quarters, and Diesel was next to me. I had a disorienting feeling that I was still chained, that the rusted cuffs were still in place. I looked down and saw that it was Diesel’s hand I felt firmly wrapped around my wrist.

  “I don’t scare easily,” Diesel said, “but these last couple hours were a ten when we couldn’t find you.”

  I blinked away tears and took a deep breath. It was all okay. Glo hadn’t drowned. The rats hadn’t gotten to us. Diesel had been worried about me. And now I was safe beside him.

  “I knew you would find me,” I said.

  “Honey, it wasn’t easy. We had to swim to shore, towing Hatchet because he can’t swim. Then we had to steal a boat so we could locate Devereaux’s boat. Fortunately Josh found us just as we were shoving off, and he took us to the cove where Devereaux’s boat was beached. After that it was the blind leading the blind since none of us was born with the tracking gene. We saw the helicopter land, and started to climb toward the helicopter, but it took off before we reached it. I stepped out onto a rock ledge, looked down at the water, and saw something floating. My first fear was that it was a body, but it turned out to be Broom.”

  “I told you he went for help!” Glo said.

  “Long story short, since we weren’t having any luck bushwhacking on the island, we decided to go with the hunch that there was a cave with water access, and that the cave was the logical place to hide treasure. We took the boat to the area where Broom was floating, saw that there was a strong current under a rock overhang, and here I am.”

  “The diamond led us to a tunnel that started at a high part of the island,” I said to Diesel. “Rutherford spotted us from the air and followed us in. Devereaux fell to his death attempting to shoot Rutherford, and then Rutherford and his gang forced me to take them to the treasure. They got the SALIGIA Stone and left us to die.”

  “Was Martin Ammon with them?”

  “No. Rutherford said he was too busy to be part of this treasure hunt, but I think he’s still having an occasional lapse into Bow Wow Land.”

  “How’d Glo get here?”

  “Rutherford brought her. He thought she’d be useful casting spells and whatever.”

  “How’d that work out?”

  “There was a r-r-rat in the water,” Glo said.

  Diesel stood and pulled me to my feet. We got Glo standing up, and Diesel spotted the skeleton.

  “Best guess is it’s Palgrave Bellows,” I said. “I had to pry the SALIGIA Stone out of his hand.”

  Diesel hooked his finger into the empty eye socket and lifted the skull off the floor. “We’ll take this with us, so Nergal can talk to it.”

  Glo found her tote bag and hung it on her shoulder, and Diesel put the skull in it.

  “Is Broom okay?” Glo asked. “Were you able to rescue him?”

  “He’s in the boat with Wulf and Josh.”

  We clambered down from the ship and stood on the rocks. The sand was covered by the high tide.

  “The fastest way out is by water,” Diesel said. “I’m going to tow you out one at a time. There’s about a two-foot clearance between the water and the ledge, so watch your head.”

  He took Glo out first and returned for me. I closed my eyes when we passed under the ledge and opened them when a wave crashed over us. Ordinarily I’m a strong swimmer, but I was cold and exhausted, and happy to have Diesel ferry me to the boat that was bobbing beyond the surf.

  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 fr
om 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.