Janet Evanovich - Wicked Appetite

“So how do we find Mark?”

Diesel shrugged. “Don’t know. When I first got involved in this, I thought Wulf had a road map to the Stones. Now I’m thinking he only had one small piece of the puzzle. Somehow, Wulf got a line on Uncle Phil and went sniffing after the rest of the More clan. I caught him following Shirley, so I concentrated on her. I thought we were trailing behind Wulf, but after we got the ladybug and the information about the two other inheritances, I’m guessing it was the other way around. Wulf probably snatched Lenny because we were in Lenny’s basement.”

“And then Lenny spilled the beans about Mark?”

Diesel shrugged. “Or maybe Mark was just the next name on Wulf’s list. For that matter, Mark might not be with Wulf at all. Maybe Mark just took off.”

Twenty minutes later, we were idling in front of Lenny’s house. The black Ferrari was parked at the curb, and Wulf stood on the sidewalk, watching Hatchet kick through house debris.

“They’re still here,” I said to Diesel.

“Not exactly,” Diesel said. “The Ferrari’s been moved. It’s not in the same spot. Wulf went somewhere and came back.”

“I bet if we sit and wait, he’ll lead us to Mark.”

“It’s not that easy. Wulf is a master at slipping away.”

“But we could try.”

Diesel pulled to the curb and parked behind an Econoline van. “We could try.”

The sun dropped to the tops of the buildings, the clouds glowed scarlet, and the sky darkened while we waited. When twilight deepened to nightfall, Wulf whistled to Hatchet. Hatchet stopped his search and made his way through the charred rubble, stirring up clouds of soot with every step. There was a brief exchange between Hatchet and Wulf that involved some kneeling on Hatchet’s part, and Hatchet got into the Ferrari.

Wulf turned, walked directly to us, and bent a little to talk to Diesel through the driver’s side window.

“You don’t need to waste your time following me,” he said. “I won’t lead you to him until I’m done with him.”

The corners of Diesel’s mouth twitched into a small, humorless smile, and he looked ahead to Hatchet sitting in the Ferrari. “You’re going to have to get your car detailed,” he said to Wulf.

Wulf flicked his eyes to his car and back to Diesel. “That’s so not funny,” Wulf said. He looked over at me, our eyes held for a moment, and he moved from the SUV to his Ferrari. There was a flash of light, smoke swirled in the glare of Diesel’s headlights, and the Ferrari was gone.

“I hate when he does that,” Diesel said.

There were still no Spook Patrollers standing vigil at my house when we rolled in, but Glo was hunkered down on the front stoop.

“What’s up?” I said to her. “I thought you had a date.”

“It turns out he’s allergic to mushrooms. I met him at the restaurant and everything was going great until he accidentally ate a chunk of portabello in his salad and did projectile vomiting. And then after that, he got all swollen and blotchy and couldn’t breathe, so I took him to the walk-in clinic to get a shot, and then he wanted to go home.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yeah. Go figure. Anyway, I was in Marblehead, so I thought I’d stop in. I thought Diesel might be able to help me with my levitation spell.”

“Spells aren’t my gig,” Diesel said.

“Yes, but you’ve got special powers.”

Diesel opened the front door. “I don’t have special powers. I have enhanced abilities.”

Cat was sitting in the middle of the living room when we walked in. Carl did the scary smile and gave Cat a finger wave, Cat hissed at him, and Carl shrunk back and farted.

“Chill,” Diesel said to Carl.

“I’m hungry,” Glo said. “I didn’t get a chance to eat, what with the vomiting and swelling and stuff. Maybe we could order out for something.”

“I haven’t got a lot in the house,” I said, “but I could make you a grilled cheese sandwich.”

Glo’s eyes got big. “Grilled cheese would be awesome.”

“I could use a grilled cheese,” Diesel said.

“Eep!” Carl said. “Eep, eep.”

“Three grilled cheeses coming up,” I said.

I assembled the bread and butter and cheese, and Glo thumbed through Ripple’s.

“I found a different spell from the uppity one,” Glo said. “I have it marked here. The description says it’s helpful for moving difficult objects.”

“Have you read it out loud yet?” I asked her.

“No. I thought I’d wait and do it here where Diesel can do damage control. Sometimes my spells don’t turn out exactly perfect.”

I put my big fry pan on the cooktop. “What object are you going to move?”

“I thought I’d try something small. Like a glass.”

“No glass!”

“Bread? Cheese?” Glo asked.

“No. I’m using the bread and the cheese. I don’t want enchanted food.”

Glo looked around. “How about the toaster?”

“Sure. Do the toaster.”

“Light as air, listen well, rise to the command on words spriggam, barflower, my will be done.” Glo pointed her finger at the toaster. “Spriggam, barflower, my will be done. I command thee to rise.”

We all watched the toaster for a beat and BANG! The toaster burst into flames. Diesel pulled the plug and dumped it into the sink.

“I think it rose a little before it caught fire,” Glo said.

“It jumped when it exploded,” Diesel told her.

Glo threw her arms up in exasperation. “I don’t get it. I know I read it correctly.”

“You didn’t need powdered octopus suckers or anything, did you?” I asked her.

“No. It’s all right here in black and white.” Glo read the spell out loud again, following along with her finger. “Spriggam, barflower, my will be done.”

A shout went up from the street.

“Oh no,” Glo said. “Now what?”

We ran to the door and looked out at Mel Mensher. He was standing on my sidewalk, watching three other members of the Spook Patrol chase after the Spook Patrol van.

“It just took off,” Mensher said. “We parked it, and we all got out and started checking our equipment, and next thing, the van’s going down the street all by itself.”

The van jumped the curb at the curve in the road, bumped over Mrs. Dugan’s front yard, and crashed into her oak tree. The three Spook Patrol guys pulled up and stood hands on hips, looking at the van.

“Honest to gosh, it was an accident,” Glo said.

I pushed Glo back into the house and closed and locked the door. “The driver obviously forgot to put his parking brake on,” I said. “That’s our story, and we’re sticking with it.”

Diesel was frying grilled cheese when we got back to the kitchen. “And?” he asked.

“The Spook Patrol van took off down the street all by its lonesome,” I told him.

“Nice,” Diesel said.

He flipped a sandwich onto a plate, handed it to Glo, and put a second sandwich into the fry pan.

“You can cook,” I said to him.

“No,” Diesel said. “I can’t cook. I can make a sandwich if no one else is going to make it for me.”

“I bet I could find a cooking spell,” Glo said.

Diesel and I answered in unison. “No!”

Diesel gave the second grilled cheese to Carl, and I took over the fry pan.

“It really ticks me off that Wulf is going to get Mark’s charm,” I said to Diesel. “We should have been more aggressive with Mark. We let him slip through our fingers.”

“Roughing up Normals is frowned upon by the BUM,” Diesel said. “Especially if the Normals haven’t done anything wrong.”

“What about Wulf? Wulf kidnaps people and does who-the-heck-knows-what to them.”

“Wulf doesn’t work for the BUM. He has his own set of rules.”