Wicked Appetite

I was watching Glo from the corner of my eye. She was feverishly thumbing through her book, her teeth sunk into her lower lip in concentration.

  “Eureka,” Glo said. “Here it is. Ibis by honor. Tongue tie not. Freely speaketh. Truth told, I command magpie Shirley More.” Glo snapped her fingers twice and clapped her hands once. She pointed at Shirley, closed her eyes, and chanted, “Shirley. Shirley. Shirley.”

  Diesel had eyebrows slightly raised. “Have you ever cast this spell?”

  “No,” Glo said. “But I’m pretty sure I did it right.”

  “Glamma bamma,” Shirley said.

  We all turned to her.

  “I wiggum big dick do flammy stick,” she said. “Eep! Lick stick rubba dubba.” Her eyes got wide, and she clapped her hands over her mouth. She shook her head. That wasn’t what she meant to say. “Gooky ball. Big gooky ball!”

  Shirley was talking gibberish. My first thought was stroke. My second thought was psycho mushrooms. My third thought was so outlandish I didn’t even want to articulate it. My third thought was that Glo had done it.

  “Holy cow,” Glo said. “What happened? She wasn’t supposed to talk gibberish. It was supposed to be a truth spell.”

  “Are you sure you read the spell right?” Diesel asked Glo.

  “I read it straight from the book. I was supposed to have powdered yak brain, but I couldn’t see where that would make a difference. I mean, we were in a crunch situation here, and I didn’t have any yak brain.”

  Shirley glared at Glo. “You fart foreskin!”

  “Criminy,” Glo said. “That’s harsh.”

  “Okay,” I said to Glo, “assuming Shirley isn’t yanking our chain, and you actually cast some sort of spell . . . how about removing it.”

  Glo had her nose buried in her book. “There doesn’t seem to be an anti-spell here.”

  I looked over at Diesel.

  “I’ve got nothing,” Diesel said. “I don’t do spells.”

  Shirley looked panicky. “Scooby booby,” she said.

  “Maybe it’ll wear off,” Glo said. “Some of these spells are temporary. The book isn’t always specific about length of time.”

  “Hear that?” I said to Shirley. “Good news. The spell might wear off.”

  Shirley flipped me the finger.

  “More good news,” Diesel said. “She knows sign language.”

  Shirley pulled her middle finger back and extended her index finger.

  “One minute?” Glo guessed.

  Shirley nodded. She whirled around and went into the bedroom.

  “Maybe she’s going to come out with the secret inheritance,” Glo said.

  I cut my eyes to Diesel. “This isn’t going well, is it?”

  Diesel blew out a sigh.

  A moment later, Shirley marched out of her bedroom with the tent dress billowing around her. She raised her arm and pointed a gun at us.

  “Eat poop and clock,” Shirley said.

  I spun around and ran for the door, shoving Glo in front of me. Bang, bang, bang. A bullet embedded itself in the wall and a chunk of plaster fell to the floor. We flew flat out, down the stairs, through the small lobby, and across the street with Diesel behind us. We jumped into the SUV, and Diesel wheeled away.

  It had all happened so fast. My heart was pounding, and I was scramble-brained. This was the first time I’d ever had a gun aimed at me. And as if it wasn’t awful enough, I’d been shot at by one of my cupcake customers.

  Diesel didn’t seem to be overly bothered. He’d been the prime target, bringing up the rear, but he was looking calm behind the wheel.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. She’s not much of a marksman. And even if she’d tagged me, I’m not easy to kill.”

  Okay, I guess that explained his composure. He wasn’t easy to kill. Unlike me. I was a wimpy human held together by skin and dumb luck.

  We got halfway down the block, and Glo leaned forward. “Now what?” Glo wanted to know. “Is it still happy hour?”

  I stared at Glo. “Happy hour? Are you serious? How could you think about happy hour? We were just shot at. We could have been killed. And we left a woman talking nonsense. And happy hour ended hours ago.”

  “I guess that was my bad,” Glo said, “but honestly, I didn’t think yak brain would make a difference.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was way long past happy hour when we left the Golden Dungeon Pub. As a town, Salem is a mixed bag. There are new hotels and office buildings side-by-side with two-hundred-year-old houses, museums reflecting the town’s nautical and heretic history, and shops catering to the weird and the curious.

  The Golden Dungeon Pub was four steps down from the sidewalk in a converted basement that had nothing golden but was reminiscent of a dungeon, in a cozy sort of way. Dark wood booths, dark wood floors, dim light, a ghoulish waiter, sixteen taps, and theme-based food.

  I’d had a couple Davey Jones crab cake sliders, a lot of bar nuts, and two sips of beer. I’d limited myself to two sips, because it seemed like it wasn’t a good idea to have more than two mouthfuls of alcohol sloshing around in my brain when I was sitting next to a man who smelled like fresh-baked Christmas cookies, looked good enough to eat and bad enough to ruin my life. And it was very possible he wasn’t entirely normal.

  Glo hadn’t felt the need for caution, so we dropped her off at her house, and Diesel motored out of Salem and into Marblehead. He parked in front of my house and walked me to my front door.

  “Knowing what’s going on in your head isn’t doing much for my ego,” Diesel said. “Most women want me to come in and get friendly. You’re panicked you won’t be able to keep me out.”

  “I have to go to work early tomorrow.”

  “That’s it?”

  “And, you’re scary.”

  Diesel pushed my door open and nudged me in. “You’ll get used to it.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it!”

  Diesel went still for a moment. “Wulf’s been here,” he said.

  “Here? You mean in my house? How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  I looked around. “Is he still here?”

  Diesel slouched into the couch and reached for the television remote. “No. Just you, me, and Cat.”

  Cat 7143 was at the edge of the room, watching us. He was back on his haunches with his half-tail curled around himself, seeming not overly upset that Wulf had come and gone.

  “I kind of like having a cat,” I said, more to myself than to Diesel.

  “He suits the house,” Diesel said. “Is this your furniture or was it part of your inheritance?”

  “The furniture’s mostly mine. I had a few pieces in New York, and I picked some things up at garage sales when I first got here. The big rag rug in the dining room was Clara’s. She didn’t want it anymore. The curtains were left with the house.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” Diesel said. “If you get me another piece of lasagna, I’ll let you choose which side of the bed you want.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have a television in your bedroom, right?”

  “Wrong. Not that it matters to you. You won’t be spending time there.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes but wasn’t successful.

  “You’ve got to stop with the eye-rolling,” he said. “You’re going to strain something.”

  “It’s you! You’re . . .”

  “Charming?”

  Yes. And terrifying.

  “I know you think you have to protect me,” I said to Diesel, “but you can’t stay here.”

  “Sure I can,” Diesel said.

  “What about a motel? Your car? A park bench?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  My eyes inadvertently took in the couch.

  “Honey, do I look like I’d fit on this couch?” Diesel asked.

  “Do I look like I care?”

  “Maybe a little
. Mostly, you look like you’d kick me out and not look back.”

  A light flashed into my living room window, and there was the sound of people talking on the sidewalk in front of my house. The light swept up to my second floor, held for a moment, and blinked off. More talking.

  I went to the door and looked out. It was a ghost tour. Most of the ghost tours were conducted in Salem, but twice a week, a guide walked around Marblehead with tourists in tow, pointing out houses that were supposedly haunted.

  The guide was in his late fifties, dressed in period clothes, carrying a lantern and a flashlight. Six women and two men were clustered around him.

  “Are you the owner of this house?” the guide asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “Congratulations,” he said. “Your house has been added to our route. We had an amazing sighting earlier in the evening.”

  Diesel came up behind me. “What kind of a sighting?”

  “It was an evil apparition,” the guide said. “He appeared in the upstairs window. He was ghostly white and dressed in black, and when he saw me watching him, he vanished in a swirl of ectoplasmic vapor.”

  “Wulf,” Diesel said.

  “That was a visitor from out of town,” I told the guide. “He always dresses in black. And he . . . smokes.”

  “I could feel the disturbance in the air,” the guide said.

  I looked back at Diesel. “Can Wulf disturb the air?”

  Diesel did a palms-up. “Hard to say what Wulf can do.”

  I retreated into my house with Diesel, closed the door, and threw the bolt. “I’m resigning. I’m turning in my special ability that we’re not even sure I possess.”

  Diesel stretched and scratched his stomach. “I’m hungry,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have any of those cupcakes laying around.”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “You can’t resign,” Diesel said, ambling off to the kitchen. “It would be irresponsible. Wulf could do really bad things with the Stones.”

  “Not my problem.”

  Diesel pulled the tray of lasagna out of the refrigerator. “Unfortunately, it is your problem. Wulf knows you have the ability to recognize a Stone. You won’t be safe until all the Stones are turned over to the BUM.”

  “All the Stones? I have to find all the Stones?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “What about my life?”

  “We’ll work around it.” He tugged at my ponytail. “It’ll be fun. You can make the cupcakes, and I’ll eat the cupcakes. Play your cards right, and I might even be able to get you a date.”

  “I don’t want you to get me a date. I can get my own dates.”

  Diesel got a fork from the silverware drawer. “When was the last time you went out on a date?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Hah!” Diesel said, forking a noodle off the lasagna.

  I took the lasagna from Diesel and sliced off a piece. I spooned some red sauce onto a plate, placed the lasagna on top of the red sauce, and nuked it. When it was done, I added fresh grated cheese and a sprig of fresh basil, and handed it to him.

  “I could get used to this,” Diesel said, digging in.

  Oh jeez.

  That got a smile from Diesel. “It was meant as a compliment, not a marriage proposal.”

  “How do I know you’re not worse than Wulf?”

  “Listen to your instincts.”

  I raised an eyebrow. My instincts weren’t comfy with any of this.

  “Okay,” Diesel said. “Then listen to the cat’s instincts. He likes me.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “He hasn’t bitten me or peed on my shoe.” Diesel finished his lasagna, rinsed his plate, put it in the dishwasher, and headed for the living room. “We should be able to catch the end of the Red Sox game.”

  “Pass. I’m going to bed. I have to be at the bakery at five A.M.”

  Diesel remoted the television on. “Too bad. The Sox are playing the Yankees.”

  I was making an effort to be a Red Sox fan, but I hadn’t yet achieved total rapture. So far, baseball for me was all about the hot dogs and peanuts at the ballpark.

  “I don’t suppose I could convince you to leave?” I said to Diesel.

  “I don’t suppose you could.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I woke up in a panic. The room was black as pitch, and I was having difficulty breathing. My eyes adjusted to the minimal light, and I realized a cat was sleeping on my chest . . . my cat.

  I rolled Cat to one side, and I bumped into Diesel. He was tucked in next to me, warming the bed, his breathing even, his expression softened by sleep. My first reaction should have been more panic, but the truth is, Diesel felt comfortable next to me. Go figure that. This big, handsome, probably insane, wiseass guy was in bed with me, and not only wasn’t I screaming in terror, I was actually hugely attracted to him. Not a healthy situation.

  I looked at my bedside clock. It was 4:10, and my alarm was set for 4:15.

  “Hey!” I said to Diesel.

  “Mmmm.”

  “You have a lot of nerve, sneaking into my bed like that.”

  He half opened his eyes. “I didn’t sneak. I asked if you were awake, you didn’t answer, so I took my clothes off and got into bed.”

  “You took your clothes off?”

  “You didn’t notice?”

  “No! Jeez Louise, I don’t even know you.”

  “If you look under the covers, you’ll know me better.”

  “I don’t want to know you better!”

  “That’s a big fib,” Diesel said. The alarm buzzed, Diesel reached across me, and shut it off. “Do you get up this early every morning?”

  “Five days out of seven.”

  “Bummer.”

  I scooted Cat away and crawled out of bed. When the weather turned colder, I’d sleep in flannel jammies. For now, I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

  “Cute,” Diesel said, taking in my outfit, “but they’re not exactly sex goddess clothes.”

  “I could be a sex goddess if I wanted.”

  “Good to know,” Diesel said. And he rolled onto his stomach and went back to sleep.

  I showered, blasted my hair with the hair dryer, and put it up in a ponytail. I got dressed in jeans and a fresh T-shirt, laced up my sneakers, and went downstairs, with Cat trailing behind me.

  “He’s a big pain,” I said to Cat.

  Cat looked like he might not share my opinion, and I suspected Cat had been bought off right from the beginning by that piece of pizza.

  I poured some kitty crunchies into Cat’s bowl and gave him fresh water. I started coffee brewing, sliced a day-old bagel, and dropped it into the toaster.

  This was my favorite time of the day. The sky was growing brighter by the minute with the promise of sunrise, and soon I’d be making cupcakes. Boats were clanking in the harbor below me. Seabirds were waking.

  I slathered cream cheese onto my toasted bagel, poured coffee into my favorite mug, zipped myself into a heavy sweatshirt, and ate my breakfast on my back porch. Everything was good . . . if you didn’t count Diesel and Wulf.

  I parked in the small lot to the rear of the bakery and entered through the back door. The kitchen was glowing with all the lights on, and the air was heavy with the scent of yeast dough rising in the oven.

  Clara was already at work when I walked in.

  I buttoned myself into my white chef coat, rolled the sleeves to my elbows, and wrapped an apron around my waist.

  “How was your night?” Clara asked. “Glo was determined to protect you from evildoers.”

  “Glo arrived with a pizza, a guard cat, and her book of spells. Diesel showed up, we ate the pizza, I kept the cat, and I’d rather not talk about the spells.”

  “She didn’t turn anyone into a mushroom, did she?”

  “No.”

  “Then how bad can it be?”

  Pretty bad, I thought, but with any luck Shirley wo
ke up all fine and dandy this morning, wondering if she’d hallucinated the whole hideous episode.

  Two hours later, there was no sign of Glo. Clara turned the CLOSED sign to OPEN and unlocked the front door.

  “I’ll work the counter,” Clara said. “You can finish frosting the cupcakes.”

  “Did you try calling Glo?”

  “Yes. No answer.”

  “She left her car at my house last night. I offered to pick her up when I came to work, but she said it was too early, and she’d catch a ride with her landlord.”

  “It’s a real pain when she comes in late,” Clara said, “but at least it’s usually entertaining.”

  Glo bustled into the bakery a little before nine o’clock and dropped her tote on the back counter.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I missed my ride with Stanley, so I thought no biggie, I’ll just conjure up a spell and pop myself over to the bakery.”

  Clara and I stopped working and looked over at Glo.

  “And?” Clara said.

  Glo was wearing a black leather bomber jacket, a black, stretchy T-shirt, skinny black jeans, black Converse sneakers, and a long red scarf. She unwrapped her scarf and tossed it onto her tote.

  “The spell seemed easy enough,” Glo said. “It wasn’t like I needed testicles of snarf or something. I mean, it was a simple spell. And I’m sure I repeated it perfectly. I don’t know what went wrong.”

  “Something went wrong?” Clara asked, looking like she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “I was supposed to fly, but I couldn’t get up in the air and moving. I think at one point I might have gotten off the ground a little, but that was it. Honestly, it was so annoying. I finally had to come to work on my bicycle.”

  Clara and I did simultaneous eye rolls.

  “Maybe you weren’t using the right broom,” Clara said.

  Glo’s eyes went big and round. “I wasn’t using a broom at all. Do you think that could be it? The book didn’t say anything about a broom.”

  Clara pulled on a disposable glove and rearranged a bread display. “Everyone knows a witch needs a broom to fly.”

  “Yes, but I might not be a witch. Do you think that would make a difference? Diesel said I was a Questionable. And he said Lizzy is an Unmentionable.”