Wicked Charms

  —

  The driveway wasn’t well marked from the road. There was a rusted mailbox with the house number on it, and a single-lane gravel road leading into the woods. We followed the road for a half mile as it gradually wound its way uphill. When we broke out of the woods into rolling pastureland we could see the house looming in front of us. It looked like a downscale, builder-grade version of an old Scottish castle with dark, water-stained stone walls and minimal landscaping. Halfway to the House of Doom there was a guardhouse, complete with a man wearing black fatigues and carrying an assault rifle.

  “Lizzy Tucker to see Martin Ammon,” I said to the guard.

  The guard looked in at Diesel and then at me. “You were supposed to come alone.”

  “I’m almost alone,” I said. “He’s going to wait in the car.”

  The guard made a phone call and waved us through.

  A second guy with an assault rifle met us when we approached the house. He directed us to a parking place and silently watched while I left the car and Diesel settled in to wait for my return.

  The interior of the house was even gloomier than the outside. It was all gray stone, heavy columns, dark red overstuffed furniture, and dark wood trims. The front door opened into a massive foyer with an ornate staircase. I had the diamond in a leather pouch in my sweatshirt pocket. I put my hand to it and felt it hum. The stone was here somewhere.

  Rutherford came to greet me. “Again, so sorry about that misunderstanding in the cave,” he said. “We certainly didn’t want to leave Mr. Ammon’s favorite cupcake baker behind.” Large smile.

  I looked around the room. “Where is Mr. Ammon?”

  “He’s out and about somewhere on the grounds. This is the time of day when he likes to get a little exercise. It’s important to Mr. Ammon that he stay fit.”

  “I bet Mammon likes that, too.”

  “Ha, yes. We all want a fit Mammon. Speaking of which, did you bring the coin?”

  “Yes. Do you have Gramps?”

  He nodded. “Yes. And he’s been a delight.”

  “I’d like to see him.”

  “Of course.”

  There were several men in suits standing at parade rest around the room. Rutherford motioned to one of them, and a moment later Gramps was led in.

  “This hotel is a disgrace,” Gramps said to Rutherford. “I don’t have a bathtub in my room and my eggs were cold this morning.”

  “Oh dear,” Rutherford said. “Apologies. I’ll speak to the household staff about it.” He turned back to me. “Do you have the coin?”

  I handed the coin over, and Hatchet stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing khakis, a white dress shirt, and a red tie with the Ammon logo.

  I gave him a little wave. “Heard from Wulf lately?”

  “Not lately,” Hatchet said. “My new lord doth forbid other contact. I now live to serve Mammon.”

  Hatchet made a whirly sign alongside his head to indicate crazy. I smiled and Hatchet nervously shifted from foot to foot. We both knew there would be hell to pay when Wulf found him. And we both knew Rutherford was no match for Wulf.

  Hatchet came forward and touched the coin. “It doth vibrate,” Hatchet said. “It is truly enchanted.”

  Rutherford told his man to release Gramps into my custody, and Hatchet stepped back into the shadows.

  “So glad you were successful in finding the coin,” Rutherford said to me. “Of course we’ll be seeing you again, very soon I expect. Mr. Ammon has mentioned that he would like to invite you to participate in the final ceremony. It will be quite the occasion. Very festive.”

  Lucky me. I led Gramps out of the house to my car, where Diesel was waiting behind the wheel. I buckled Gramps into the backseat and jumped in beside Diesel, and he took off.

  “That didn’t take long,” Diesel said.

  “Rutherford got what he wanted. I got what I wanted. End of story.”

  “Not exactly,” Diesel said. “I don’t have what I want.”

  “The stone.”

  “Yes. We’re going to hand Gramps over to Clara, and then we’re going back for the stone.”

  “The diamond was humming, so I’m pretty sure the stone is there, but that place is a fortress guarded by a bunch of armed men in suits. It’s not going to be easy to get in and get the stone out. Plus, I’m guessing the stone is with Ammon. I didn’t see him, but Rutherford said he was on the grounds.”

  “Maybe he’s walking the dog,” Gramps said. “What kind of hotel lets a dog howl all night long? I couldn’t get a wink of sleep.”

  I looked over at Diesel and caught him smiling. “It’s not funny,” I said. “The poor man still thinks he’s a dog!”

  “It could be worse,” Diesel said. “He could think he’s Mammon.”

  I texted Clara that we had Gramps. I told her we were going to bring him back to his house, but we wanted everyone to remain underground for a while longer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Look at this,” Gramps said. “Everyone’s here in my rumpus room. Is it my birthday?”

  “I don’t know how much longer I can stay down here,” Glo said. “Broom is getting twitchy.”

  “Where’s my cake?” Gramps asked. “And the ice cream? I want vanilla.”

  Josh gave him a muffin and sang “Happy Birthday” to him.

  “That’s lame,” Gramps said, “but I appreciate the effort.”

  “We need to go back to get the stone,” I said. “Hopefully this will all be over soon.”

  “Rumpus room living is getting old,” Clara said. “And I don’t see Gramps sleeping on the floor tonight.”

  “If we don’t resolve this by the end of the day, we’ll find a better place to stash you,” Diesel said.

  Minutes later we were in Diesel’s Porsche, on our way back to New Hampshire.

  “Exactly how are you going to pull this off?” I asked Diesel.

  “No clue.”

  I was thinking I should have taken some of Gramps’s medicine. My blood pressure was probably in the red zone. I know Diesel’s a big, strong sort of smart guy with special abilities, but I didn’t know what abilities we were going to need. For instance, I know it would be hard to kill Diesel but not impossible. I know he can open locks and give me an orgasm. I know with some assistance he can pop in and out of places like Captain Kirk on Star Trek. Beyond that, it’s uncharted territory.

  “I can’t help but notice we’re all alone without military assistance,” I said to Diesel. “The men in suits had assault rifles.”

  “Yeah, but I have my charming personality.”

  Oh boy.

  The sun was low in the sky when we got to Ammon’s driveway. Diesel drove out of the dark woods and into the sunlit field and stopped. The guardhouse was empty, and in the distance, where the monstrous mansion once stood, was a huge pile of smoking rubble.

  “Looks like Wulf’s been here,” Diesel said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Once when he was a kid he got so mad he self-combusted, and we had to throw water on him.”

  We moved closer and approached a small group of dazed women and men in gray and white uniforms.

  “What happened?” Diesel asked.

  “It exploded,” one of the men said. “This vampire-looking guy showed up and asked for Hatchet. We said he wasn’t here, that he helicoptered out with Rutherford and Ammon. I guess that was the wrong answer because the vampire guy got real still, and I swear there was some smoke curling out of his head, and the whole house started to shake. And he told us we had three minutes to get everyone out of the house.”

  “Did he have fangs?” I asked.

  “No,” the guy said. “But he was real white, and had long black hair, and he was dressed all in black.”

  “Did everyone get out of the house in time?” Diesel asked.

  “Yes. I think so. The security people left when Rutherford and Ammon left. What you see here is the household staff, but I guess we’re all out of a job
since there’s no house.”

  “Do you know where Ammon is now?”

  “No. They just took off. They didn’t say.”

  We made a U-turn and Diesel sped down the driveway. We were on paved road when the first of the police cars and fire trucks passed us, heading for Ammon’s property.

  “Wulf isn’t making my job any easier,” Diesel said. “It’s bad enough we’re underground….I don’t want to drive Ammon underground.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Wulf. I mean, it’s hard to believe he could pitch a fit and blow up a house. I’m going with gas leak. I thought I smelled gas when I was in the house.”

  “Were you standing by Hatchet?”

  —

  There was mutiny in the rumpus room when we returned, so we sent everyone home. It seemed like Rutherford and Ammon had what they wanted anyway, and the danger level was insignificant. Broom whacked Josh one last time, but it was halfhearted, and Glo thought Broom might not be all that mad anymore. If it was me, I wouldn’t be so forgiving. But then Glo dated guys with snakes tattooed on their foreheads, and I wouldn’t do that, either.

  Cat was waiting at the door when Diesel and I stepped into the house. I picked him up and held him close, and carried him into the kitchen.

  “I’m glad you weren’t in any danger,” I said. “I was worried about you.”

  Cat probably thought this was stupid. He was self-sufficient. It was unclear how many lives he’d already had, but clearly this wasn’t his first. Still, I wanted him to know I cared. Cat and I had become family.

  “Eeep,” Carl said.

  I looked down at him. “Yep,” I said. “You, too.”

  “How about me?” Diesel asked.

  “What about you?”

  “Am I included in this happy family?”

  “Sure. What the heck.”

  He grabbed me and kissed me. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Something from the freezer.”

  “Is there dessert?”

  “I can arrange it.”

  My phone rang, and I saw that it was Glo.

  “Help,” she said. “Oh crap. Low battery.”

  And the phone went dead.

  “Glo’s in trouble,” I said to Diesel.

  “Where is she?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “This doesn’t look good for the dessert, does it?” Diesel said.

  “We should go over to her apartment and see if she’s okay.”

  Diesel took a box of cereal out of the cupboard and handed it to Carl.

  “Knock yourself out,” Diesel said. “Bananas Foster when we get back.”

  Carl grabbed the box and gave Diesel the finger.

  I snagged a sweatshirt out of the coat closet and hung my tote bag on my shoulder. It had started to rain and the temperature was dropping.

  “Search and rescue of senior citizens isn’t in my job description,” Diesel said.

  “You only do what’s in your job description?”

  He opened the door to the Porsche for me. “Apparently not.”

  Diesel drove through Marblehead and crossed into Salem. He was a block from Glo’s apartment when she darted into the road in front of the car. Diesel hit the brakes, and I was thrown against my shoulder harness.

  “You gotta love the ceramic brakes,” Diesel said. “I have a distant relative in New Jersey who drives a black Porsche Turbo, and I’m beginning to see why. I’m liking this car.”

  Glo yanked my door open. “Let me in. They’re after me!”

  I jumped out, and Glo climbed into the miniseat in the back, taking Broom and her bag with her. I got back in, and Diesel cruised down the block, past Glo’s apartment. She lives in a large house that had been built for a single family in the ’50s and converted into four apartments in the ’70s. There was some paint peeling off the window frames, and the yard was minimally maintained, but it was in a relatively safe part of town, and it was in Glo’s budget.

  A black Cadillac Escalade was parked in front of the house. Headlights were on and windshield wipers were working. Windows were tinted. No way to know who was inside. Diesel made a U-turn and pulled to the curb a block away, so we could watch the Escalade.

  “It was Rutherford,” Glo said. “I saw him through my peephole, and I wouldn’t let him in, so he broke down my door. Honestly, that is so rude.”

  “What did he want?” I asked.

  “He said he feared somehow Mr. Ammon had been put under an evil spell, and he wanted me to lift it. I tried to explain that it wasn’t so simple, but he wasn’t listening. He kept saying how Mammon was angry. And time was short. That Mammon had awakened but wasn’t able to achieve his full potential in his present form.”

  “His present form being that he thinks he’s a poodle?” Diesel asked.

  “More like a rabid honey badger,” Glo said. “Rutherford had a big bite mark on his hand. When he saw me looking at the bite mark he said that Mammon had a hunger that needed feeding. And then he mumbled something about human sacrifice.”

  “Human sacrifice isn’t good,” I said. “That never ends well.”

  “How did you get away?” Diesel asked.

  “Rutherford was explaining his predicament to me, and all of a sudden Martin Ammon burst into my apartment. He was totally nutso. Wild eyed and drooly. His shirt was all wrinkled and not tucked in and full of food stains, and his hair was a mess. There were two security men who came in with him, but they looked like they were afraid to get too close. Ammon was making growly sounds, and between the growly sounds he was saying ‘Mammon wants. Mammon wants.’ It was really creepy.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “I’d just made myself a ham and cheese sandwich. It was sitting on my kitchen counter, and Ammon ate it. He sniffed the air, spied the sandwich, and dove for it. In two seconds there was nothing left of the sandwich. No crumbs. Nothing. He looked over at Rutherford and growled and snapped at him. And then he turned and ran out of my apartment.”

  “And?”

  “Everyone ran after him. I could hear them trying to catch him in the hall, and I didn’t waste any time getting out. I grabbed Broom and my tote bag and went out the window. I called Lizzy, but my phone went dead.”

  The front door to Glo’s apartment building crashed open and Ammon ran out, chased by three men in suits. Rutherford ran behind them, doing his best to keep up. They ran down the street, cut into a yard, and disappeared in the misting rain.

  “I’ve seen some weird stuff since I’ve had this job,” Diesel said, “but this is right up there at the top of the list.”

  “On the bright side, we know Ammon is in Salem,” I said. “And I think we can be pretty sure he has the stone on him.”

  Diesel pulled into traffic and headed for Marblehead. “It’s even better. We have something Rutherford desperately wants. We have Glo.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  By the time we got home the wind and rain had picked up and streetlights were on. Everyone huddled in my kitchen while I made grilled cheese sandwiches and opened a bottle of wine.

  “This would be fun if only I wasn’t terrified that I was going to be attacked by a grinning lunatic and a deranged dog,” Glo said.

  I gave Carl the first sandwich. He smiled a hideous monkey smile at me, took his food into the living room, and turned the television on.

  “We need a plan,” I said, buttering the frying pan and sliding another sandwich into it.

  Diesel sipped his wine. “I have a plan.”

  I looked over at him.

  “We have Glo, and Rutherford needs her to remove the spell,” Diesel said. “So we lure him out with Glo.”

  “And what do we do when they come after Glo?” I asked. “Do we drop a big net over them and wrestle the stone away from Ammon?”

  “The net could be a problem,” Diesel said. “I don’t know where to get a big net. I was thinking Taser.”

  “I’ve seen videos of people getting tased,” I said. “It’s a
wful.”

  “I like it,” Glo said, taking the second grilled cheese. “I wouldn’t mind seeing Rutherford tased, but I think you should use a tranquilizer dart on Ammon. We don’t want animal rights people coming after us.”

  “I need to create a situation where the stone capture is controlled,” Diesel said. “I don’t want Ammon’s henchmen in the mix. And I need to make sure that Rutherford and Ammon are neutralized.”

  “And you have a plan for all this?” I asked him.

  “I want to have the spell undone at the lighthouse. The condition will be that only Glo, Lizzy, Rutherford, and Ammon will be present. Rutherford can watch the lighthouse beforehand and have his men stand down at a distance. I can access the lighthouse through the tunnel system, and I’ll take Rutherford and Ammon down while they’re distracted by Glo performing her spell removal.”

  I gave Diesel his sandwich. “That’s a pretty good plan. Tell me about the neutralizing.”

  “That hasn’t totally come together for me yet.”

  “It doesn’t involve death, does it?”

  “Not by my hand.”

  Carl came into the kitchen, handed me his empty plate, and looked up at me.

  “He was promised bananas Foster,” Diesel said.

  I looked over at my fruit bowl. “Your monkey ate all my bananas.”

  “You ate all the bananas,” Diesel said to Carl.

  Carl gave him the finger.

  “Someone needs to go to the store,” I said to Diesel.

  He glanced at the window. “It’s raining.”

  “How bad do you want bananas Foster?”

  “Can you make cookies?”

  “Not unless you go to the store. I’m out of everything. I’ll give you a list.”

  “I’d go,” Glo said, “but I’m afraid I’ll get snatched.”

  “Yeah, and I’d go, but I’m not motivated,” I said.

  Diesel drained his wine glass. “I’m motivated. Give me the list.”

  Ten minutes later we watched him jog to the sexy black car and disappear inside.

  “Freaking awesome,” Glo said.

  “The car?”

  “That, too.”

  We returned to the kitchen, I topped off Glo’s wine, and washed the frying pan. I gave the pan to Glo to dry, and the back door crashed open and two men in suits rushed in. Glo and I jumped and yelped. Carl hid in a corner and put his hands over his eyes. Cat sat hunched and slitty-eyed, his tail twitching.