Wicked Appetite

CHAPTER FOUR

We were riding in a shiny new black Porsche Cayenne. A brown leather backpack that looked like it had gotten kicked halfway across the country was on the seat beside Glo. A couple empty water bottles rolled around on the floor. Diesel stopped for a light, and I debated leaping from the car and running as fast as my feet could carry me. Unfortunately, that would leave Glo with the crazy man.

“I don’t want to agitate you or anything,” I said to Diesel, “but I’m having a hard time with the whole Unmentionable gift thing. It sort of dropped out of nowhere on me.”

“Yeah, well until you’re comfortable with it, maybe you should think of it like a movie. Pretend you’re Julia Roberts and I’m…”

“Brad Pitt,” I said.

“I always thought I was more Hugh Jackman.”

“He played Wolverine, right? No way. You’re definitely Brad Pitt.”

“Okay, screw it, I’m Brad Pitt. Can you go with that?”

“Maybe.” I cut my eyes to Diesel. “So you’re taking me somewhere to help you search for something. This search isn’t illegal, is it?”

“Not by my standards.”

“Oh great. What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means the ends justifies the means.”

We were within walking distance of the bakery, but unlike the area around the bakery, this part of Salem was mostly newer brick buildings built for commercial use. The street was wide. The sidewalk was unadorned by trees. It was a patch of Salem that felt almost normal, untouched by ads for Frankenstein’s Laboratory, the 40 Whacks Museum, The Witches Cottage, The Nightmare Factory.

Salem was founded in the early 1600s and at one time was the sixth-largest city in the country and a thriving seaport. The Salem witch trials took place in 1692, and when Salem lost its prominence as a shipping and manufacturing center centuries later, it remained famous for one of the more bizarre episodes in American history. American ingenuity and the New England spirit of use-what-you-have-on-hand have turned Salem’s infamous history into a thriving tourist business. The resulting prosperity has also brought traffic, hordes of sidewalk-clogging pedestrians, and the largest collection of weirdos living in a small-town environment east of the Mississippi.

The light went green, Diesel motored down one block and parked across the street from a three-story brick apartment building. We left Glo in the car, and Diesel and I entered the building. We took the elevator to the second floor, and I followed Diesel down the hall to apartment 2C. Hard to tell why I was going along with this. Probably, it was in the vicinity of morbid curiosity, like stopping to see a train wreck.

Diesel put his hand to the doorknob and the door opened.

“How?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” Diesel said, pushing into the apartment, closing the door behind us. “It’s just one of those things I can do.”

I was about to ask what else he could do besides open locks and pull power plugs on Unmentionables, but the apartment had me speechless. It was wall-to-wall food. Cases of peanut butter, SpaghettiOs, Froot Loops, Twinkies, Kraft Mac and Cheese, water-packed tuna, Cheez Doodles, Snickers bars, and cans of mixed nuts lined the walls. Bags of M &M’s, Reese’s Pieces, Peppermint Patties, butterscotch hard candies, malted milk balls, and Hershey’s Miniatures were piled on the coffee table. Plus, every available inch on the kitchen counter was filled with giant jars of mayo, pickles, ketchup, olives, marinara sauce, chocolate sauce, marshmallow goop, hot peppers, and cheese sauce. It was like someone had hijacked Costco. And neatly stacked in the center of the dining room table, like the crown jewels of the food horde, were six Dazzle’s bakery boxes.

I opened one of the boxes. “These cupcakes belong to Shirley More. She comes into the bakery every day precisely at ten o’clock and gets thirty-six cupcakes. Half are carrot cake with cream cheese icing and the other half are chocolate with pink butter cream icing and party sprinkles.”

“Yeah. Shirley’s a Glutton, and this is her apartment,” Diesel said.

“Okay, so she’s a little on the heavy side, but I don’t know if I’d say she’s a glutton.”

“I wasn’t referring to her eating habits. I was referring to her heritage. Shirley’s family has most likely guarded the Gluttony Stone for centuries. The way it’s been told to me is that there are seven deadly sins known collectively as SALIGIA. Envy, Pride, Greed, Gluttony, Lusty, Grumpy, and Sneezy.”

“I think some of those were dwarfs,” I said to Diesel.

“Maybe, but I’m in the ballpark. SALIGIA represents the first initials for the Latin names for the sins. Superbia, Avaratia, Luxuria, Invidia, Gula, Ira, Acedia. Anyway, the legend goes that there are seven SALIGIA Stones, each one holding the power of a different sin. If you combine the Stones in a single vessel, it’s possible to unleash their power and create hell on earth.”

Good grief. Just when I’m starting to roll with the Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt fairy tale, he throws hell on earth at me.

“Hell on earth would be a bummer,” I said to him.

“Yeah. Supposedly, for a thousand years the SALIGIA Stones were guarded by an arcane sect. Then something happened, there was dissention among the elders, and Grumpy took charge and distributed the SALIGIA to the far corners of the earth. Over the years, some were lost and some were bequeathed, and eventually no one knew who held the Stones. Now a rumor’s surfaced that the Stones have all found their way to Salem. Personally, I think it sounds like a low-budget movie script, and I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass, but Wulf is on the hunt for the Stones. And Wulf is my problem. So as it turns out, it’s now your problem, too, since you’re my ticket to the Stones.”

My eyebrows were up around my hairline. “Are you serious?”

Diesel shrugged. “I follow orders. And my orders are to stop Wulf from acquiring the Stones. Probably, no one cares if he collects the dwarfs.”

“What happens if you only get some of the Stones but not all of the Stones?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you just create hell in Connecticut.”

He handed me a bunch of forks from the silverware drawer. “Does this do anything for you?”

“Forks?”

“It’s been a long time. The Stones could have changed shape.”

“Yes, but this is a fork.” I turned it over and read the name on the back. “It’s Oneida. I know this brand. They’re made in New York, and this looks new. Wouldn’t we be looking for something old?”

“Old can be hidden inside something new.”

“And I’m supposed to know it when I see it?”

“That’s what they tell me. Actually, you have to hold it.”

“And then what happens?”

“Don’t know,” Diesel said.

“What do you know?”

“Peach Pie, I know stuff that would knock your socks off. I could make you sing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’ ”

I looked at the intelligent brown eyes under fierce eyebrows and the sensuous mouth made slightly sinister in a two-day beard, and I suspected he was telling the truth.

“I heard that thought,” Diesel said.

“You are such a jerk!”

He tugged at my ponytail. “Yeah, but I’m fun.”

He took the forks, put them back into the drawer, and handed me knives and spoons.

I hefted the knives and spoons and passed them back to Diesel. “Why do you think Shirley More is a Glutton?”

“Wulf’s been following her around.” He gave me a teapot to hold. “And all the signs are here. Word on the street is, the keeper can take on some of the sin.”

Diesel opened one of the cupcake boxes and looked inside. “These cupcakes are a work of art.”

“Thank you. I make all the cupcakes for Dazzle’s. They’re my specialty.”

He took a chocolate cupcake out of the box and ate half.

“That’s stealing,” I told him.

“I’ve seen Shirley. This is an act of charity. Shirley needs to cut back on the cupcakes.” He finished off the remaining half, licked his lips, and sent me his killer smile. “That was the best cupcake of my life,” he said. “I’m in love.”

“I’m guessing it doesn’t take much to make you fall in love.”

“It takes a lot. You underestimate your cupcakes.”

Forty minutes later, I’d handled everything in sight and lots of things that were hidden away. Nothing tingled, buzzed, burned, or sent me subliminal messages.

“Two possibilities,” Diesel said. “Either the thing isn’t here, or else you’re a dud.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask for this job. You were the one who decided I had magical powers.”

“Not my call,” Diesel said. “The BUM picked you out of the gene pool.”

“BUM?”

“Board of Unmentionable Marshalls. And you don’t have magical powers. That would be Siegfried and Roy. You have an enhanced ability to detect a certain kind of energy. At least, that’s the theory. You and some weird guy in Florida.”

“That’s it? Only the two of us?”

“Apparently. And the jury is still out on you.”

“Maybe you should be dragging the weird guy around.”

“The critical word in that sentence is weird. I passed him off to an associate.”

“What about Wulf? He must be able to find this thing.”

“Wulf is like me. He can find people. He needs help to find an empowered object. And there are only two ways he can get that help… from the keeper or from you. And he can’t have you. You’re mine.”

“Excuse me?”

Diesel grinned. “Lucky you.”

“What about the guy in Florida?”

“He’s on ice.”

I thought about pinching myself to make sure I was awake, but it was such a cliché I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And what if I was awake? How awful was that? It meant Diesel was real.

“I’m having a nightmare, right?”

“Wrong. I’m real,” Diesel said. “And it wouldn’t kill you to think a good thought about me.”

“Are you thinking good thoughts about me?”

His eyes dilated black and the corners of his mouth softened into the hint of a smile. “Would you like to know my thoughts?”

“No!”

My attention went to a framed photo on an end table. It was a picture of a woman resembling Shirley, a second woman, and two men. They didn’t look like couples. For that matter, they didn’t even look like they were friends. The picture had been taken outdoors, and from the flowers in the background, I was guessing it was summer. The two men and two women were smiling, but their smiles looked forced.

“Do you suppose this is Shirley?” I asked Diesel.

“If it’s Shirley, she was younger and a lot thinner.” He put his hand to my back and moved me toward the door. “We need to get out of here. Shirley is a creature of habit, and she’s due home any minute.”

Enough said. I was out of the apartment like I’d been shot from a cannon. I got ten feet down the hall before Diesel grabbed me from behind and yanked me to a halt.

“Don’t run,” Diesel said, his hand still holding fast to my T-shirt. “It attracts attention.”

I immediately went still. The last thing I wanted to do was attract attention. I looked around. “Do you think anyone saw us leave her apartment?”

“Sweetie, it’s just you and me in the hall.”

“Yes, but all these doors have peepholes. Maybe someone’s looking out a peephole.”

“You need to chill.”

“You’re telling me to chill? I just broke into a woman’s apartment! I never do that sort of thing. I was a law-abiding citizen before I met you. That was illegal entry, gross violation of privacy, and not a nice thing to do. Do you know what happens to people who do breaking and entering and searching and snooping? They go to prison.”

“Not always,” Diesel said.

“Not always? That’s all the comfort you can give me? What kind of an alien are you anyway?”

Diesel steered me into the elevator. “I’m not an alien. I’m a human with Unmentionable abilities… like you.”

“I am not an Unmentionable.”

Diesel punched the first-floor button. “How do you explain your cupcakes?”

“I’m an excellent baker. I’ve always made great cupcakes.”

“Honey, those are Unmentionable cupcakes.”

“That’s ridiculous. My parents never said anything to me about being Unmentionable. It’s not on my birth certificate.”

“Maybe your parents didn’t know. Sometimes the gene is passed from one generation to the next. Sometimes the gene just suddenly appears with no apparent history.” The elevator doors opened to the ground floor and Diesel pushed me out into the small lobby. “Some Unmentionables can throw lightning, some can levitate a dump truck,” Diesel said. “You can make cupcakes. You were born with the Unmentionable cupcake gene.”

I slid a squinty-eyed sidewise look at him. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t all true.”