Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight (Stephanie Plum #28)(37)

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I was jolted out of sleep by a clap of what sounded like thunder. I looked at the bedside clock. Four a.m. Diesel was beside me, propped up on one elbow.

“Clever,” Diesel said. “I know you’re here. What’s up?”

A soft light went on at the foot of the bed and I recognized Diesel’s cousin, Wulf. His full name is Gerewulf Grimoire and he lives up to the name in a diabolically handsome sort of way. I pulled the covers over my head and inched closer to Diesel.

Diesel looked under the covers at me. “It’s just Wulf,” he said. “I believe you met a couple years ago.”

I peeked out and gave Wulf a little finger wave. “Hi.”

Wulf smiled. He was the same size as Diesel, but he appeared slimmer, less Thor Ragnarok, more Dr. Strange. He was dressed in black. Custom-tailored suit. Black dress shirt, open at the neck. And he was wearing a cape. Black on the outside. Blue satin on the inside. He had black hair pulled into a low ponytail.

“Hello, cousin,” Wulf said.

Doesn’t anyone in this family ever use a doorbell, I thought. Do they have no sense of time or what’s inappropriate?

“You’ve made your entrance,” Diesel said. “Now what?”

“Now I wait. Auntie sends her best wishes.”

I looked at Diesel. “Auntie?”

“Don’t ask,” Diesel said.

There was another flash of light and some green smoke and when the smoke cleared Wulf was gone.

“Where’d he go?” I asked.

“Who knows, who cares,” Diesel said.

“What’s with the green smoke?”

“He’s always been the theatrical member of the family. He read Magic for Dummies and Harry Potter and decided he was a wizard.”

“Can he help us?”

“Hard to say. Wulf does what he wants.”

“Obviously ‘Auntie’ thought he might be useful.”

“Wulf is the magician. He makes things disappear. I’m sure he was brought in for the endgame.”

“Whenever and whatever that is?”

“Yeah, whenever and whatever that is.”

Diesel adjusted his pillow, wrapped his arm around me, and went back to sleep.

I was wide awake. I was living in a Marvel comic book.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN


The sun was shining behind my bedroom curtain. Diesel was asleep next to me. His hair was more tousled than normal, and he had a beard that went a couple days beyond five o’clock shadow. He was adorable and desirable and more trouble than I needed. I slipped out of bed, grabbed some clothes, and locked myself in the bathroom. I stepped into the shower and I was half afraid there would be a crack of thunder, some green smoke, and Wulf would appear. I knew even less about Wulf than I did about Diesel. I knew nothing about Auntie.

I was out of the house a little before eight o’clock. Diesel was still asleep, and Rex was also asleep in his soup can den after a long night of running on his wheel. I’d given Rex fresh water and filled his food bowl before I left. Diesel was on his own.

The parking lot to my building had somewhat returned to normal. The fire trucks and cop cars were gone. Tenants were parked in their usual spots. The motor home was in a far corner of the lot. It was cordoned off with yellow police tape and there were puddles of sooty water surrounding it. Not much was left. Some twisted metal structure and the rest was a big lump of smoky-smelling charred mystery remains. It was sad and depressing. If it was still here when I returned tonight, I was going to have to watch double episodes of Feed Phil or Queer Eye in Japan to cheer myself up. Lucky me that I had Phil and the Fab Five in my life. Six men who were a slap in the face to gloom and doom.

I skipped the bonds office and went straight to my parents’ house. I was having a hard time shaking the trauma of the train experience. It wasn’t so bad that I wanted to hide under my bed. It was more like a general feeling of foreboding. It was a what next? piece of baggage that I couldn’t get rid of. What would Oswald do next? Who would he target? Hopefully, it wouldn’t be me. Hopefully, I was just a victim of a convenient opportunity.

So, what’s the deal with the foreboding? PTSD? Maybe a little, but mostly I thought it was acknowledgment of too many rescues. I’d reached the conclusion awhile ago that I must have a guardian angel. I know this is a crazy idea because I never go to church and I’m not even sure how I feel about God. You would think that one thing would go with the other, right? Problem is, there’s no other way to explain the fact that I’m still alive. I’ve survived a bunch of life-threatening experiences, and I’m pretty sure someone besides Ranger is looking out for me. I don’t say this out loud because people look at you funny if you credit an angel. And not to take anything away from Diesel, but the timing of his rescue smacks of heavenly intervention. This would make one more mark on the chalkboard of angelic interference. How many marks does a screwup like me get? At some point the angel is going to get fed up with me and move on to a better Catholic. What if it’s now? What if the train thing was the last straw?

This was all going through my mind as I parked in my parents’ driveway and went into the house. Once in the house the foreboding was pushed aside by the smell of bacon and pancakes.

“Pull up a chair,” Grandma said to me. “Melvin wanted pancakes this morning.”