Janet Evanovich - Wicked Business

We left from a basement door. It was late afternoon and there was a definite chill in the air. We had emerged from the dorm behind the Sphinx.

“I will take my leave of thee now,” Hatchet said. “I must search for my master.”

“You can take your leave as soon as you give me the stone,” Diesel said.

Hatchet feigned surprise. “Stone? What stone?”

“The Luxuria Stone,” Diesel said. “You would never have given it to Anarchy. She had no way of knowing if it was enchanted.”

“I never thought of that,” Hatchet said. “I swear, I don’t have the stone.”

Diesel grabbed Hatchet, turned him upside down, shook him, and the stone dropped onto the ground. It was a plain little brown rock, very similar to the first stone Diesel and I found.

“Make sure it’s enchanted,” Diesel said to me.

“I’d rather not touch it,” I said. “I’m not sure where he was storing it.”

“Give me a break,” Diesel said. “You’ve probably spent the last half hour walking on rat turds. Just pick the damn thing up.”

“It was in my tunic,” Hatchet said. “It wouldn’t easily fit elsewhere.”

I picked the stone up, and it hummed and vibrated in my hand and gave off heat. It wasn’t just enchanted. It was very enchanted. I’d only felt stored energy this strong in one other instance, and that was when I’d held the other SALIGIA Stone.

“It’s a SALIGIA Stone,” I said to Diesel. “I can’t tell if it’s Luxuria.”

Diesel set Hatchet on his feet. “Good luck finding Wulf. We’ll be in the Gap if you need us.”

“That was nice of you to offer help,” I said to Diesel.

“Not entirely. Anarchy has the tablet that always accompanies a stone. If she can translate the tablet, it’ll give her the name of another SALIGIA guardian. And we’ll be two steps behind in a race for that stone. I know nothing about Anarchy, except she might be Deirdre Early. Unfortunately, Early’s house burned down, so I have no clue where to find her. Wulf, on the other hand, seems to be connected to her in some way.”

We crossed Wheelock, walked past the Hopkins Center, The Hanover Inn, and turned onto Main Street. The Gap was on the left.

A couple heads turned when we walked in.

“Looks like you’ve been hiking the Appalachian Trail,” one of the salesgirls said.

“Yeah, we slipped and fell in the river. We’re shopping for dry clothes.”

“Happens all the time,” the girl said.

I gathered together everything I needed, including a purse, and carted it all to the dressing room. I caught my reflection in the mirror on the way and my legs went rubbery. I looked worse than I’d imagined. New clothes would be a drop in the bucket. My face was filthy and my hair was freakshow.

Fifteen minutes later, Diesel and I walked out in nice dry clothes, our old clothes stuffed into plastic Gap bags.

Diesel was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a dark green cotton crew neck sweater with the sleeves pushed up.

“I like this look on you,” I said. “Casual and rugged but civilized.”

“I like your look, too,” he said. “Pretty. And I can see the outline of your nipples.”

We stopped in midstride on the sidewalk.

“Did I just say that out loud?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to tell you what was left unsaid, but ripping your clothes off is part of it.”

“It’s the Lust Stone,” I said. “Where’s the stone?”

“It’s in my jeans pocket.”

“That’s probably not a good location. Maybe you should put it in my new purse.”

He took the stone out of his pocket and handed it over. “It might not be the stone. I’ve been thinking these thoughts ever since I met you.”

I was glad he was attracted to me, but I was trying not to be overly flattered. I suspected Diesel wanted to rip the clothes off lots of women.

“What are we doing next?” I asked him.

“I thought we’d drop the bags off at the car, beyond that I don’t know. I feel like there are too many loose ends. I don’t like Anarchy wandering around above or below ground with the tablet.”

“And Wulf?”

“I think it’s odd he walked away from Hatchet when he knew Hatchet most likely had the stone.”

“Maybe he’s hurt. Maybe he got stung by a bee, or chased down the street by a bear, or crushed by a garbage truck.”

Diesel smiled.

“Or maybe he had a run-in with Anarchy and came out the loser,” I said.

“Wulf is a lot like me physically. It’s not impossible, but it’s very hard to do real damage to us. It’s hard to imagine he’d come out the loser to Anarchy.”

“She has the advantage of being crazy.”

“I’m not convinced Wulf is entirely sane.”

We dropped the bags in the car and walked back to the Sphinx. Hatchet was there, circling the building like a kid looking for his lost cat.

“No sign of Wulf?” Diesel asked him.

“I didst look everywhere. I fear the worst. His car hath not been moved.”

“Maybe I can track him,” Diesel said, walking away from the back of the building.

“I’m staying here,” I told him. “Pick me up when you’re done.”

I sat on the steps to the Sphinx and watched the students. I’d never had the college experience. I’d gone to culinary school after high school, and I don’t regret my choice. I love being a pastry chef. Still, I wondered what it would be like to be part of a college community.

The Sphinx steps weren’t all that comfortable, and the students weren’t terribly interesting. I stood and stretched and paced. I walked up the hill a little, looking for Diesel and Hatchet. No sign of either. I returned to the Sphinx, and when I passed by the back door I noticed that the tip of the sword was missing and the door was ever so slightly ajar.

I tentatively approached the door and opened it enough to see a crack of subdued light. I listened for movement inside. No sounds drifted out to me. I opened the door wider and peeked in.

“Hello?” I said. “Anybody home?”

I entered the building and recoiled at the sight of the body in the middle of what appeared to be a large kitchen. My initial reaction was confusion and horror. It was Wulf, and he was hog-tied. His body was bent backward at an extreme angle. His hands and feet were shackled and chained together. There was a rope wrapped around his neck and attached to the chains. He was blindfolded and there was duct tape across his mouth. And it looked to me like he was wired to a bomb that was also chained to a massive table.

I rushed to Wulf and ripped the blindfold and duct tape off him.

“Don’t touch me,” he said. “If I move, the bomb will go off.”

“It has a digital clock attached,” I told him. “It looks like it’s set for a timed explosion.”

“How much time do I have?”

“Almost five minutes.”

“Leave. Get out of the building.”

“What happens if I pull the wires off you?”

“If you do it in the right sequence you might defuse the bomb or at least free me from it. If you do it wrong the bomb will go off.”

“What’s the right sequence?”

“Only Anarchy knows that. And she’s so insane, she might not even know the sequence. You need to leave now .”

I looked at the digital display ticking away seconds, and I felt my scalp prickle. “The wires are color-coded. Does that mean anything to you?”

“No.”

Damn! I looked at the open door, and I looked back at Wulf. I blinked back tears. “This really sucks,” I said to him.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You need to leave and get as far from the building as possible.”

“Can’t do it,” I told him.