CHAPTER THREE
It was pouring rain by the time we got back to my house. We kicked our shoes off in the mudroom and padded sock-footed into the kitchen. Diesel took a couple cookies from the cookie jar.
“You could have defended my honor back there when Hatchet called me your slut,” I said to Diesel.
“I was enjoying the moment. I’ve always wanted a slut of my own.”
Carl wandered into the kitchen. He’d been sleeping on the couch in the living room, and he had bed-head monkey fur all over. He scratched his stomach and eyeballed Diesel’s cookie. “Eee?”
I gave Carl a cookie and turned my attention to the anthology and the folders Diesel had placed on the counter. The first folder was labeled General History of the SALIGIA. The second folder contained a thesis called The Myth of the Luxuria Stone by someone named Carl Stork. Plus a shorter professional paper, also by Stork. Both works by Stork were written in 1943. The third folder held a collection of stapled pages, scraps of paper, and articles cut from journals and newspapers.
“Most of the stuff in this folder is relatively recent,” I said to Diesel. “Some handwritten notes. A newspaper piece about a museum exhibit that opened last week. An article reprint about Salem witches.” I pulled the witch article out and started reading. “Holy cow. This article is about Miriam Lovey being suspected of witchcraft. It says she disappeared before she could be brought to trial. She was fifteen years old at the time.”
“Any mention of sexy sonnets?”
“No. But she was accused of inspiring inappropriate desires in men.”
Diesel took the article from me and read it for himself. “The whole witch trial thing makes my nuts crawl.”
“Boy, I’m really glad you shared that with me.”
“Don’t you have an equivalent body part that’s shriveling even as we speak?”
“No. But I’m getting nauseous.”
My doorbell bonged, and someone started pounding. BAM, BAM, BAM! I opened the door and Hatchet charged in, sword drawn.
“Hand it over,” he said, “or I will smite thee down.”
“You’ve gotta lose the Renaissance thing,” Diesel said to Hatchet. “You sound like an idiot.”
“You mock me now, but there will come a time when you will bow to my sire, and to me as well.”
Diesel didn’t look worried about bowing to Wulf and Hatchet. “There’s a reason for this visit, right?”
“You have what is rightly ours. We have the book, and the key is part of the book.”
“What key?” Diesel asked.
“You know very well. The Lovey key.”
“Nope,” Diesel said. “Don’t have it.”
“You lie. You were in Gilbert Reedy’s apartment ahead of me, and you took the key.”
“How do you know?” Diesel asked him. “Maybe the police took the key. Maybe the key doesn’t exist. Maybe Reedy swallowed the key, and they’ll find it during the autopsy.”
“I know because I have powers,” Hatchet said. “I sense these things. I smell them. I see visions. And besides, I looked in the kitchen window just now, and I saw the key lying on the counter.”
“Finders keepers,” Diesel said.
Hatchet’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets and his face got blotchy. “It will be ours!” he yelled. “My master commands it. You will give me the key or all will die!”
He raised the sword, took a step toward me, and Cat flew through the air and latched onto Hatchet’s face.
“YOW!” Hatchet shrieked, dropping his sword, batting at Cat.
Diesel grabbed a handful of Hatchet’s tunic and lifted him off the floor. “I’ll take it from here,” Diesel said to Cat.