“
You’d still be the same person,” Diesel said. “Being Normal or Unmentionable doesn’t change who you are.”
“It isn’t that. I don’t care that I might not be an Unmentionable anymore. I never wanted to be one in the first place. It’s the way I might have lost it. There’s another possibility besides Wulf.” I squinched my eyes closed. “It’s so awful I can’t even say it out loud.”
“Hatchet?” Diesel asked.
I nodded my head yes.
Carl tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to look at him, and he burped in my face.
“Yuk,” I said to Carl. “That was gross.”
“Eep.”
“He’s drooling,” I said to Diesel. “Have you ever known him to drool?”
“Gorp,” Carl said. And he threw up burgers and fries and chocolate shake all over the backseat.
Diesel grimaced and rolled his window down. “I totally screwed up my karma. I don’t know what I did, but it must have been bad, because now I have this monkey.”
“You made him carsick. It’s your driving in this car. You rocket around corners, and zoom off from stop lights, and then you stop short.”
“Yeah. It’s fun.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Diesel turned a corner and parked at the curb in front of Melody’s house. He got out of the car and called Gwen.
“I need a new car,” he said. “Immediately. And whoever picks this one up needs a hazmat suit.”
One of the kids was already looking at us from the front door. “Help!” the kid yelled.
“What’s with these kids?” I said to Diesel. “It’s like they’ve watched too many Home Alone movies. And I don’t know Kevin from Melvin.”
“I can go you one better. I don’t know Kevin from Mary Susan.”
There was another car parked in front of the house. It was a P.O.S. junker, patched with Bondo. It had no recognizable color, a broken side mirror, and it was missing part of the right front fender.
“It looks like Melody has company,” I said to Diesel.
Diesel glanced into the car. “It’s Hatchet.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m a superior Unmentionable. I know these things. And there’s a shield with Sir Hatchelot written on it in the backseat.”
“Mom,” the door kid yelled. “It’s that man again.”
The kid was yanked back, the door slammed shut, and I could hear the bolt thrown.
Diesel put his hand to the lock, slipped the bolt, and opened the door. Melody was on the couch, holding the baby tight to her chest with one hand, cradling the toddler with the other. Two older kids stood beside her. Hatchet was in the middle of the room, dressed in his medieval regalia of green tights, white tunic, and cheesy chain-link armor. He was holding a sword that appeared identical to the one in my kitchen.
“Halt, rude and lowly beast,” Hatchet said to Diesel. “How dare thee enter without my permission. I have laid claim to this household for my liege lord, Gerwulf Grimoire. Leave before I smite thee with my sword.”
I took one look at Hatchet, and my blood pressure shot into the stroke zone. He’d broken into my house, slashed my arm, kidnapped me, drugged me, and maybe done worse. I heard a very scary sound, like a killer growl from some feral animal, and I realized it was coming from me.
Diesel’s hand curled into the back of my shirt, and he dragged me up tight against him. “Let me take care of this,” he said.