Wicked Charms

  “What’s down there?” Diesel asked Clara.

  “Not much,” Clara said. “Mostly mechanical stuff. Technically it’s a storeroom, but it’s not very convenient. It connects to the Underground, so I keep the door locked.”

  Diesel made his way down the rickety stairs and yanked the chain that turned the single overhead bulb on. We all followed Diesel and watched while Clara pushed an empty shelf unit aside on the far wall.

  “It’s a hidden entrance,” Clara said.

  “It’s a black, yawning corridor of doom,” Glo said.

  Clara grabbed a flashlight off the shelf and switched it on, splashing light around a cavernous hallway. It was lined in ocher-colored bricks with iron arches every few yards. Carl dashed in front of us. He smiled and gave us the finger when the light hit him.

  Diesel took the flashlight from Clara and walked into the tunnel. “Do you know where this leads?”

  “Yes. I haven’t been down here in years, but I used to play in the tunnels when I was a little girl. I was able to go from my parents’ house to the bakery without going aboveground. The tunnel also goes to Gramps’s house. And to the speakeasy.”

  Diesel moved further into the corridor. “Is the speakeasy still in use?”

  “Only by Gramps. There’s a direct access from his broom closet. He calls it his rumpus room. Gramps’s house was originally owned by Peg Leg, and for a short time Peg Leg ran the speakeasy.”

  Glo returned to the bakery, and Clara, Diesel, and I followed the tunnel until we came to an iron door.

  “This is it,” Clara said. “We can’t get in because it’s locked from the other side.”

  “No problem,” Diesel said, placing his hand on the door handle.

  The lock clicked and Diesel pushed the door open.

  “How do you do that?” Clara asked.

  “I’m told it has something to do with my magnetic field,” Diesel said.

  It wasn’t a large room in terms of a public space. It was about the size of the store part of the bakery. Clara flipped the light switch, and we looked around Gramps’s rumpus room. It was a classic man cave, and I suspect as a younger man Gramps had used it for poker games and heavy drinking. The bar was polished oak. The wood floor was scuffed. The green felt on the poker table was faded and stained. Two overstuffed chairs sat in the middle of the room where, I imagined, high-top tables once held illegal drinks.

  Diesel looked around and smiled.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “I like it. I might rent it out next time I’m in town.”

  “You could invite Nergal,” I said. “Have a mixer.”

  Diesel wrapped an arm around me. “I have a job for you.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “I’d blindfold you, but I don’t have a blindfold on me, so we’ll save that for later, if you know what I mean.”

  “Everyone knows what you mean.”

  The smile widened. “I want you to move around the room with your eyes closed. Just feel around and see if anything speaks to you. Usually you have to hold something in your hand to feel the vibration, but you felt the coin fragment behind the brick at the lighthouse, so let’s see if you pick up any vibrations here.”

  Diesel guided me around the room. I felt the soft felt of the poker table. I felt the brick in the walls. And I felt a very faint hum as I ran my hand along the oak bar.

  “Here,” I said.

  I opened my eyes and traced along with my fingertip until I isolated the spot.

  “This wood has a lot of grain and it has a dark stain on it, but it looks to me like it’s been plugged where you’re feeling the vibration,” Diesel said.

  He drilled into the bar with a corkscrew, popped the plug out, and then used the corkscrew to pry two pieces of coin out of the hole. He dropped the pieces into my hand, and I felt them hum.

  “They’re empowered,” I said.

  Diesel took the five coin pieces out of his pocket and placed them on the bar top. I added the two new pieces, and they were a perfect fit. All the markings lined up.

  “If I had Wulf’s piece of the coin, Charles III would have a whole head,” Diesel said.

  He pocketed the seven pieces of empowered coin. We retraced our steps back to the bakery, pushed the shelf across the tunnel entrance, and climbed the stairs.

  Diesel used his thumb to swipe a flour smudge off my cheek. “I have some errands to run, and then I’ll meet you at the house.”

  “I might be home late,” I said. “I need to put together a menu for Ammon’s party. And I should get a head start on the baking.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Glo locked the shop door at four o’clock, hung the CLOSED sign in the window, and joined Clara and me in the back.

  “I’ve been doing research on demons,” Glo said, watching me roll out piecrust for the tarts. “I have a couple excellent anti-demon spells. We don’t want to be caught short without protection.”

  “I pretty much don’t believe in demons,” I said.

  “I believe in everything,” Glo said. “I’m a free-range believer. I even found some tests we can do on Ammon to prove his demonicness.”

  “I can’t see Ammon submitting to demon testing.”

  “Exactly, so I found a spell that will make him cooperative. It’s foolproof. I’m going to stop in at the Exotica Shoppe after work and get the ingredients.” Glo looked at the piecrust. “How many tarts do you have to make?”

  “Four hundred.”

  “Yowza. That’s a lot of tarts.”

  “I’ll make four different fillings. Plus I’ll have four large cookie trays, four large trays of miniature cupcakes, and a bananas Foster station.”

  “I can’t wait,” Glo said. “I love parties. I promised Broom he could come. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Sure. He can help sweep up afterward.”

  Glo left, and Clara packed up and left a half hour later. I stayed until five. I stored my tart shells, shoved my party menu into my tote bag, cut the lights, and locked up. I had my hand on the door handle of my car when I heard rustling behind me. I turned and saw Hatchet rushing at me. His eyes were crazy wide, his hair stuck out every which way, and his damp tights looked mostly dry but droopy. He had his sword in his hand.

  “Bitch wench!” he yelled at me. “How dare thee dunk Hatchet? Thee art a cowardly sow to attack Hatchet from behind. Prepare to have Hatchet smite thee!”

  Crap! I wrenched the door open, jumped into the car, slammed the door shut, and punched the lock button. Hatchet brought the blade of the sword down hard on the roof of the car and recoiled from the impact. I cranked the engine and roared away with Hatchet running after me. I lost him after a block and a half. My heartbeat returned to normal after three blocks. Lucky for Hatchet, he didn’t actually get to smite me, because Wulf wouldn’t have been happy. And ugly things can happen when Wulf isn’t happy.

  I walked into my house twenty minutes later. Diesel and Carl were already there. Cat was keeping his eye on them.

  “What’s new?” Diesel asked.

  “Had an incident with Hatchet. He tried to smite me, but I was too fast for him. What’s new with you?”

  “I have to pull the plug on someone on the West Coast, but I want to do a show-and-tell for you first.”

  “Pull the plug? Is that like whacking someone?”

  “No. ‘Whacking’ would imply death. This is more like cutting off someone’s electricity because they didn’t pay their bill.”

  I thought this was a conversation I didn’t want to pursue. Sometimes you don’t want to know too much.

  We all went into the kitchen.

  “Can you cook at all?” I asked Diesel.

  “I can scramble an egg, make a sandwich, and open a beer bottle. I leave the fancy stuff to other people.”

  I was obviously one of those people who made the fancy stuff, so I pulled a couple chicken breasts and a bunch of root vegetables out of the fridge.

  “How serious was the Ha
tchet incident?” Diesel asked.

  “Hard to say. Serious enough to get my heart rate up. As it was, he put a big scratch in my car. Not that it matters.”

  “Do you know what caused him to attack you?”

  “I sort of knocked him off the launch and into the bay earlier today, and I think it ruined his hairdo.”

  Diesel grinned. “Nice.”

  I washed the vegetables and set them on the counter to chop. “So we’re one coin fragment and a map away from finding the stone. All that stands between us is a demon and Wulf. Our troubles are over.”

  “The map will be easy, but I might have to trade you off to Wulf in exchange for his piece of the coin.”

  “What?”

  Diesel was close behind me. He leaned in and kissed me just below my ear.

  “I was kidding,” Diesel said. “I wouldn’t give you to Wulf. You’re worth more than one piece. He’d have to throw in Hatchet to sweeten the deal.”

  I elbowed him in the chest. “Jerk.”

  “Yeah, but I’m hot,” Diesel said.

  “When will you be back from your plug pulling?”

  “Hard to say. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll be back in time to steal the map on Saturday.”

  I took my chef’s knife out of the drawer and diced the heck out of a carrot.

  “You’ve got some serious aggression going there,” Diesel said. “If you need to relax, I can offer something better than carrot mutilation.”

  I looked at him with one raised eyebrow.

  Diesel was hands in his pockets, back on his heels. “Just sayin’.”

  Whack. I halved an onion.

  “Maybe later,” Diesel said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  At four o’clock sharp on Saturday, Glo hung the CLOSED sign on the bakery door and we all assembled in the kitchen. We needed to load the van and arrive at Cupiditas for setup by six o’clock at the latest. The party was from seven to nine. I’d been told it was a fundraiser for the preservation of the Eastern spadefoot toad. I suspected most of the people attending didn’t give a flying fig about the toad. They’d forked over five thousand for a ticket to a Martin Ammon party and to get a look at his house.

  Josh and Glo were going to help me serve. They were dressed in standard caterer attire. Black slacks, white shirt, and red tie for Josh. Black skirt, white shirt, and red tie for Glo. I was wearing my one and only little black dress. So far Diesel was a no-show.

  We had the van packed and ready to roll a little after five o’clock, and Diesel strolled in. He was wearing a black suit, black dress shirt, and black tie. Wulf dresses like that and looks like a Hollywood vampire. Diesel looked more like a bodyguard for Madonna.

  “Who are you?” I asked him.

  “I’m your van driver. Once the party gets under way I’ll be a guest who will wander unnoticed around Ammon’s house and borrow his map.”

  “Good luck with that one,” I said.

  I couldn’t imagine Diesel ever going unnoticed. He was big and scruffy in a rugged movie star handsome kind of way, and he walked in a cloud of testosterone. You would have to be dead not to notice Diesel.

  Twenty minutes later, Diesel drove the van through Ammon’s gated entrance and parked in front of a garage bay. Rutherford and two household staff were waiting to help us unload. By seven o’clock we were set to serve. Guests were directed to the large formal living room and from there onto a terrace that looked out over the ocean. I had my desserts displayed on several tables on the terrace. My bananas Foster station was indoors, in front of a bay window. Josh and Glo were circulating with sterling silver trays filled with cookies and homemade chocolates. Diesel was lurking in a corner.

  At seven-thirty Ammon called everyone into the living room and drew their attention to me.

  “I would like to introduce Lizzy Tucker,” Ammon said. “Ammon Industries will be bringing out an entirely new line of products inspired by Lizzy Tucker and her magical kitchen skills. Every recipe in her brand-new cookbook, Kitchen Magic, will eventually be available under the Ammon brand.”

  Everyone applauded, and I had to grip the serving trolley to steady myself. Wulf’s warning that Ammon now owned me was echoing in my brain.

  “Miss Tucker will now be performing culinary magic, serving bananas Foster,” Ammon said. “Enjoy.”

  He gave me his dazzling white smile, turned on his heel, and marched off to mingle.

  Glo was beside me. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You went white just now. Was it because you were standing next to a demon?”

  “He’s not a demon.”

  “We don’t know that for sure. His skin is a strange color.”

  “It’s spray tan!”

  People were clustering around me, lining up for bananas Foster.

  “You’d better get cooking,” Glo said. “These people don’t look like they have a lot of patience. And I hope you brought a lot of bananas because everyone in the room is in line.”

  “I could use an assistant. Stay here and help me serve.”

  I had a single burner on the serving trolley, and there were two hundred people waiting for their bananas. I lit the burner, grabbed a sauté pan, melted unsalted butter, and mixed in brown sugar and spices. I added sliced bananas and reached for the rum. No rum.

  “Where’s the rum?” I asked Glo. “It’s not on the trolley.”

  “I’ve got it,” Glo said. “I’m ready to assist.”

  “Okay, sprinkle a little rum on the bananas, and I’ll light the butane torch.”

  I flicked the torch on, and Glo dumped half a bottle of rum on the bananas.

  “Too much!” I said.

  She jerked the bottle away and rum went everywhere. The bananas burst into flame, and the blue flames leaped from the pan, ran down the legs of the trolley and across the Oriental carpet, and ignited the heavy brocade drapes behind me.

  It was instant mayhem. The fire alarm was blaring. People were screaming, shoving, running out of the room onto the terrace. A lot of black smoke was coming off the drapes. Little runners of fire were racing across the wall. I’d like to think I’d be good in an emergency, but truth is I stood frozen, rooted to the spot, watching Rutherford and half a dozen employees rush in with fire extinguishers.

  “I think the party is over,” Glo said. “I just got a text from Josh saying that Diesel has the motor running.”

  I looked around the room. The fire was mostly out, and it hadn’t spread beyond the back wall. I didn’t see Ammon.

  “I guess we could leave,” I said. “The bananas Foster station is closed.”

  We put our heads down and quickly walked into the hall, through the empty kitchen, and into the garage where Josh was waiting, making hurry-up motions. We crossed to the van, Josh and Glo climbed into the back, and I took the seat next to Diesel.

  “Why the rush?” I asked Diesel. “Did you get the map?”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately, when you set the house on fire, Ammon rushed up to his study to save the map and caught me leaving with it. There was a brief discussion over who was going to retain ownership, and Josh smacked him with a serving tray.”

  “I saw him leave the room, and I followed him,” Josh said. “Good thing I did.”

  “Omigosh. Was he hurt?” I asked.

  “He be a bit stunned,” Josh said, reverting to pirate talk.

  “More like he be a bit knocked out,” Diesel said, putting the van in gear, “but he was coming around when we left.”

  Police cars and fire trucks were screaming in the distance.

  “We need to get out of here before we’re blocked in,” Diesel said.

  It wasn’t a very long driveway, but there was valet parking and cars were lined up on either side. Diesel carefully drove toward the gate, and halfway there a man burst out from between two cars and jumped in front of us. It was Martin Ammon. He was crazy mad, waving his arms and shouting.

  “Help! Police! Rutherford!”

  “This is a real pain in the
ass,” Diesel said.

  Diesel inched the van up to Ammon, but Ammon wouldn’t budge. He banged on the hood and kept shouting.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked Diesel.

  “Run him over,” Diesel said.

  “You can’t do that! You’ll kill him.”

  “And?”

  “You don’t have permission to kill.”

  “Extenuating circumstance,” Diesel said.

  Ammon gave the hood one last thump and moved to the driver’s side door, trying to pull it open.

  “You’re not leaving with my map,” he yelled.

  “My Magic 8 Ball is telling me that in five minutes this place is going to be swarming with police,” Glo said.

  “I’ll have you arrested, and you’ll rot in jail,” Ammon said. “The police are on their way. I can hear their sirens.”

  Diesel rolled the van forward. Ammon staggered back, pulled out his cellphone, and dialed.

  “This isn’t good,” I said. “He’s calling 911.”

  “We’ll have to take him with us,” Diesel said. “Get him!”

  Glo, Josh, and I jumped out of the van and ran at Ammon. He took off down the driveway, and Josh tackled him at the gate. Diesel pulled the van up, we wrestled Ammon into the back, and Josh and Glo sat on him while I climbed into the front. There was a lot of grunting and swearing and scuffing going on in the back of the van while Diesel motored off the property and headed for the causeway. There was a loud “Unh!” And thunk. And then there was quiet.

  “What just happened?” I asked, trying to see beyond the racks for dishes and holding trays.

  “The Magic 8 Ball jumped out of my hand and beaned Ammon,” Glo said. “Ammon seems to be sleeping.”

  “Omigod, we knocked Martin Ammon out cold, twice, and now we’ve kidnapped him!” I said. “We’re all going to prison. My mother will have to be sedated.”

  “I have Ripple’s with me,” Glo said. “I can put a forgetful spell on Ammon, so he won’t remember anything.”

  There was a moment of silence. No one had a lot of confidence in Glo’s spell-casting abilities.

  “Here it is on page thirty-seven,” Glo said. “And I have almost all the ingredients with me.”