Wicked Charms (Lizzy and Diesel 3)

“Absolutely, we’ll get you a new door. My apologies. It’s just that the men get carried away, and before you know it…no door. Ha-ha.”

“It turns out it’s not that easy to undo a spell,” Glo said to Rutherford. “Especially when you don’t know all the details of the original. Not that I’m sure he has a spell cast on him. I’m just saying.”

“I’m sure you can figure it out,” Rutherford said.

“I’ll help her,” I said to Rutherford. “I know something about these things, but we’ll need a little time to do some research and shopping. Most spells require specialty aids, like hummingbird wings and troll snot.”

“Yes, and not just any old troll snot, either,” Glo said. “Romanian troll snot is best. I tried to use French troll snot once and it didn’t work at all.”

“Understood,” Rutherford said. “We wouldn’t want to use inferior troll snot. Mr. Ammon always insists on the best.”

“Four o’clock tomorrow at the lighthouse,” I said.

“Ah-hah, the lighthouse. I was hoping for a more private location. Perhaps at Mr. Ammon’s house in Marblehead.”

“Nope,” Glo said. “It has to be the lighthouse.”

Rutherford looked like he was making a maximum effort to keep it together. “Right, the lighthouse. Perfect.”

He gingerly stepped around the broken door and moments later I heard his car drive away.

“Great,” I said, “now I have two broken doors.”

Rain was blowing in, so I propped a kitchen stool against the door to hold it closed. Carl left his corner, scuttled across the room, and hopped up onto the stool. Glo mopped the blood off the floor.

“Maybe you should thumb through Ripple’s and see if you can find a general all-purpose undoing spell,” I said to Glo. “Just in case things don’t go as planned, it might be good if we could get the dog thing out of Martin Ammon’s head.”

Glo took the Magic 8 Ball and Ripple’s Book of Spells out of her tote bag and placed them on the counter. She had the 8 Ball in a plastic baggie because it was oozing liquid. “Outlook not so good” floated to the surface.

“The 8 Ball’s seen better days,” I said.

Glo bit into her lower lip. “It’s so sad. I tried sealing it with nail polish, but it’s still leaking.”

Diesel rapped on the back door, and I moved Carl and the stool to let him in.

“What happened here?” he asked, setting the grocery bags on the counter.

“Rutherford happened,” I told him. “He came with two of his men. They were after Glo, but one of the men walked into a frying pan Glo happened to be holding.”

“Nice,” Diesel said. “And they went away?”

“Temporarily. We set up a meeting at the lighthouse for tomorrow at four o’clock. In the meantime I thought it would be good for Glo to find a way to get rid of the dog spell. Just in case.”

“Can’t hurt,” Diesel said.

I put the groceries away and started the bananas Foster.

“Here’s one,” Glo said, reading from Ripple’s. “?‘Good to reverse all spells unless those spells are deemed irreversible.’?”

“How do you know if a spell is irreversible?”

“I think they’re the ones with a skull and crossbones next to them,” Glo said. “I try to avoid them.”

I splashed some rum into the saucepan with the bananas and lit it all on fire. Cat arched his back and hissed, and Carl clapped his hands.

“I don’t have all the ingredients for this spell,” Glo said. “I need spider legs and dried primate gonad.”

We all glanced over at Carl.