It was much earlier than my normal quitting time the next day but I was cleaning off my desk in preparation for a long meeting with the back of my eyelids when, with a ‘poof’, a piece of paper appeared on my desk. I yelled, “What the hell?” and Sally came rushing into my office.
The paper had the look and feel of parchment, complete with the deckle edge. I gingerly picked it up and read the calligraphic handwriting aloud:
Miss McCollum,
Your employer, Evander Angelich, is our guest. While he would prefer to be conducting his business in the comfort of his office, we are enjoying his company. If you would like him to be returned to work, perhaps even in one piece, bring $500,000 in unmarked, untraceable $100 bills with you when you check into the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia tomorrow afternoon.
Needless to say, contacting the authorities, mundane or paranormal, will result in his death, the closure of his company and the loss of your cushy job. Please write your reply on this parchment. It will return to us when you sign your name.
This had to be some sort of joke. Who would kidnap Ev? And how does one go about subduing an ogre, anyways? They’re larger than most other species that walk on two legs and magical spells bounce off them.
“You think it’s real?” Sally asked.
“Can’t be,” I replied. “It’s nearly impossible to capture an ogre if he or she isn’t willing. This must be one of his friends playing a joke.” So, I wrote:
You must be kidding. Who’d want a smelly ogre? Besides, I don’t have that kind of money.
Amy McCollum
They weren’t lying. The parchment disappeared from underneath my pen with the last “M”. I picked up my purse and lunch dishes to drop off downstairs, and followed Sally out to the reception area, on my way out the door to that appointment. A second ‘poof’ and another piece of parchment appeared on Sally’s desk. Ev’s signet ring landed next to it with a clatter.
We can assure you we are not kidding. Has he answered his phone today? You are welcome to call around to try to find him but we do suggest you use your corporate check-writing authority to get our money and make your travel arrangements while doing so. Tomorrow afternoon, the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta. Don’t be late.
Sally and I looked at each other with wide eyes. It wasn’t a joke. Ev’s bracelet-sized ring was proof positive.
I grabbed the phone off Sally’s desk and dialed Gregory’s number with shaking hands. He sounded upset when he answered the phone with, “Ev, where the hell have you been?”
“Gregory, it’s Amy. We have a problem. Please come to the office now.”
“Amy! I thought it was Ev finally contacting me. Is there a problem?”
“I’ll explain it when you get here. Just come, OK?” My voice was trembling.
“I’m en route. I should arrive in about twenty minutes.”
I wasn’t the only anxious one. Sally’s voice shook as she asked, “How are you going to get that money?”
“There’s enough in the corporate and Ev’s personal accounts to cover it, I think. If not, I can make up the difference from my personal savings. How to convert it to cash without drawing any attention? I haven’t the slightest idea. But I’m going to wait for Gregory to get here before doing anything. I just don’t know how to handle this.”
Sally made another pot of coffee while I paced. The thought of sleep was long gone. Television shows about kidnappings don’t even come close to portraying the terror I was feeling. On TV, the parents (or whoever) always contacted the police and everything turned out okay in the end.
However, I was obviously dealing with magical beings who could keep tabs on me and would know if I called anyone in a position of authority. The second note had appeared on Sally’s desk, not mine. I didn’t have the first one to prove anything to the authorities, anyways. I continued pacing. Sally sat at her desk, wringing her hands.
Two cups of coffee later, Gregory strode into the office. “I’m here. What’s the problem?”
I pointed to the piece of parchment still lying where it had appeared on Sally’s desk. “This is what I got when I didn’t believe the first one.”
He scanned it, taking note of the ring next to it. “Where’s the first one?”
“It went ‘poof’ when I signed my reply.”
Gregory’s eyes went blank for a moment. “Shit. Someone knows their business. They’ve masked my tracking spell and there’s no magical signature on this note. What did the first one say?”
I related the first one to him as best I could. “What are we going to do?”
He seemed so calm. He thought for a moment. “Call Martin and have him get the money together. Kidnappings in the paranormal world aren’t that unusual and I would wager this won’t be the first one he’s had to deal with. I will use the telephone in Ev’s office to make our travel arrangements. Sally, can you work full time until we get Ev back? It goes without saying that Ev and Amy are just out of the office and you will be taking messages.”
“Sure thing. Will it be okay if I tell Jack what’s going on? We don’t normally keep secrets and he’ll want to know why I’ll be working so much.”
“I don’t see why not, as long as he doesn’t tell anyone else. Let’s keep it in the family.” Gregory went into Ev’s office and one of the telephone line lights blinked on.
I teetered back into my office on unsteady legs, picked up the phone and called our investment manager. Thankfully, he was still in the office rather than out golfing. He harrumphed when I explained the situation.
“Ev? Who would want a smelly ogre? It’s not a problem, Amy. I’ll have the cash for you by noon tomorrow. Stop by my office on your way to the airport.”
So it was a fairly normal occurrence. It still didn’t make me feel any better. I met Gregory back in the reception area.
“Come with me to Ev’s house,” he said. “I want to go through his things to see if we can determine who would want to do this.”
“Okay.” I looked at Sally. “Call me if something comes up you can’t handle or delay. Otherwise, I’m leaving this whole shebang in your hands until we get Ev back.”
She nodded. “No worries. I promise the building will still be standing when you get back.”
Gregory and I climbed into a Humvee rather than Ev’s limo.
“A Hummer?” I asked.
“It drives somewhat like the limo and even when we have a foot of snow, I can still get around. I haven’t driven it this week and cars like to be driven.”
That made sense. Minneapolis gets a lot of snow and knowing Ev, unplowed streets wouldn’t deter him if he wanted to go somewhere. We rumbled west to the fancy suburb Ev called home, Gregory maneuvering the huge machine through traffic as easily as if he were driving a VW Bug.
Arriving at Ev’s house, Gregory let us in the back door. “You do his office. Go through his desk drawers, the wastepaper basket and if you can log onto his computer, read his recent emails. I’m going upstairs to his bedroom.”
“What am I looking for?” I asked.
“Anything out of the ordinary. You know him and his temper so normal arguments aren’t going to worry us. We’re looking for things that aren’t usual, or appear threatening. Call me if you find something.”
I turned, not toward Ev’s home office but toward the kitchen. “First, I need more coffee. You want some?”
He started heading the same direction. “Please. Anything he has that’s caffeinated will be fine.”
Ev had one of those new cup-at-a-time coffeemakers with a box of almost every kind of coffee available so it was easy to brew a hazelnut coffee for me and a French Roast for Gregory. We took our mugs and parted company at the stairs.
What I found in Ev’s office made me cringe. Oh, the top of the desk looked normal enough. The usual accoutrements, a photo of him and Marianna near a lake and his laptop. But in the lower drawer were photos of Ev and ladies not Marianna in various stages of undress. I so did not need to
have my ogre boss’ undressed body or his perversions burned into my brain!
Logging onto his laptop was just as bad. (That was easy. His password for everything was “1Evander!” What an ego.) Reading through his emails for the last couple of months was a lesson in writing erotica. He would be so dead if Marianna read any of these…not a single one was from her and let me tell you, female ogres’ tempers are just as bad as their male counterparts.
I’d just finished gagging through the emails from January when Gregory came bounding in, a triumphant look on his face. “Did you know Ev’s father is still alive?” he asked.
“No. He’s never spoken a word about either of his parents so I just assumed they were dead. Even his grandfather never said anything.”
“The man who was here a couple of months ago? That’s his maternal grandfather. I knew his mother and father went their separate ways when Ev was a child but that’s not surprising. The tempers, you know. His mother died about twenty years ago but he’s never said anything about his father except for mentioning the breakup.
“However, I found this letter buried under a collection of ladies’ underwear in one of his drawers. It’s from his father. Here, read it.” He handed me a piece of airmail paper.
In childish handwriting, someone named Aeneas addressed Ev as “son”, said he had read about Ev’s successful company, was proud of him and could Ev see his way to lending him about five thousand dollars to see him through a rough patch? It was dated the previous September and postmarked in Athens – Greece, not Georgia.
My jaw dropped. “Wow. What cheek. Don’t see your kid for over a hundred years and then out of the blue, ask him for money? I wonder if Ev replied. There was no check made out to anyone by this name but given how much spending cash he takes out of the bank on a regular basis, he could’ve sent a money order or something.”
“I doubt it,” Gregory said. “Ev is generous but only to those who give him something in return, like loyalty, friendship, or a business favor. We may have our first lead on his kidnapper. Did you find anything?”
“Just a bunch of porn,” I grimaced.
Gregory grinned. “That’s our boy. Come on. Let’s get some dinner and I will take you home. We have some difficult days ahead of us.”
We stopped at an Applebee’s for dinner and if not for the roar of the oversized tires on the road, I would have fallen asleep on the drive home. It had been a very long day.
“I will pick you up at the office at eleven tomorrow. Try to get some sleep,” Gregory said as he walked me to the door.
It was only nine o’clock but I wasn’t going to quibble with the clock and a perceived bedtime. I fed Fudge, changed into my jammies and crawled into bed. As always, he joined me, kneading my hair into an appropriate nest before proceeding with his post-dinner bath. I was so tired, falling asleep wasn’t a problem.
Chapter 4
I only thought I was tired enough to sleep like the dead but I woke up in a cold sweat about three in the morning with Fudge staring at me.
The dream was terrifying. I saw Ev in what looked like a cave. He was surrounded by rough-hewn stone walls that seeped. I could hear the “plink, plink” of water dripping somewhere close by and the air was dank. I shivered from the chill. The only light came from a lantern a few feet away from where Ev sat in a chair.
That wasn’t the worst of it. Ev looked like he’d been severely beaten. His eyes were nearly swollen shut; his lips were split with his green blood drying on them. The rest of his face was a mass of dark green on a puce background. He was bruised beyond belief. I could hear him snuffling with each breath he took and an occasional moan escaped as he shifted where he sat.
Ev wasn’t just sitting in the chair, he was tied to it. His hands were behind his back, suggesting those were tied, too. The ropes securing his chest to the chair and the ones around his ankles glowed a sickly green. Each time he shifted, the glow intensified then died back.
“Ev!” I screamed, and then woke myself up. As I usually do when I have a bad dream, I sat up and turned on the light. That dispels any residual feelings from a nightmare. This time, however, nothing faded from my memory. I could still see, hear and smell every detail as if I were still dreaming.
Fudge crawled in my lap, reached up and caressed my face with his paw. He’d never done that before and to my sleepy eyes, he appeared to have a look of concern on his face.
“It’s just a bad dream caused by the kidnapping. Let’s go back to sleep,” I told him. I turned the light out and snuggled back down. Fudge returned to his usual place in my hair and I fell back to a restless sleep.
When the alarm went off, I could tell it was going to be “same shit different day.” I was as groggy from lack of sleep as I had been two mornings previous, only this time I hadn’t been making love until two in the morning. I fervently wished for something stronger than caffeine but had to settle for coffee. While blearily stuffing some clothes and toiletries into an overnight case, I was reliving my dream and scaring myself. I’d never had a dream stay with me that long.
I stopped into the deli for my usual morning latte and while Cassandra set the machine to hissing and gurgling, I told her of Ev’s kidnapping, Gregory and Martin’s seemingly calm response to it all, and related my dream. It was just as vivid as it had been in the dark of the early morning. She stopped in the middle of steaming the milk and stared at me.
“You had a true dream.”
“A what?”
“It’s what I call a vision you have while you’re asleep. What you saw is real.”
“Huh? How do you know it’s real? You’re scaring me.”
She sighed. “I don’t mean to scare you but the details of true dreams stay with you, rather than fading like regular dreams. Ev is being held wherever you saw and is in just as bad shape as you saw.”
I started shaking. “Why now? I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before.”
“You’ve been exhibiting signs of witchiness for the last few months. I warned you, remember? Although you don’t need to be a witch to have visions, I think it’s all part and parcel of your magic waking up. Sometimes it takes a really stressful situation to manifest a gift. Your experience with that matchmaking demon and now Ev’s trouble is probably what tipped you over the edge.”
She grinned. “We will talk when all this is over. But stay calm. Gregory is right: kidnappings in the paranormal community happen all the time, probably because we have a longer lifespan to amass savings. Go get your boss. Tell Gregory about your dream. He may be able to use some of the details.”
Just then, Sally walked in the door. “Morning, you two! You look awfully serious for this early in the morning. What’s up besides the kidnapping?”
Cassandra answered her. “I think Amy’s a witch. I’ll let her tell you the details. What’s your morning poison?”
As Cassandra poured a cup of plain ol’ coffee for Sally, other customers started trickling in. That was our cue to start work. We tromped upstairs, turned on the lights and coffeepot, and started to work, trying to pretend it was a normal day.
After checking voice mail, Sally brought me a fresh cup of coffee. “What’s this with you being a witch?”
I sighed and told her about the dream and what Cassandra had said.
“I’m jealous. I’ve always wanted to be able to do magic,” she pouted. “I’m about as plain-vanilla human as you get. So, did you find anything at Ev’s and what’s the timetable for today?”
“There are a few decisions I’m going to have to make. They won’t wait for Ev’s return tomorrow or the next day so I have some phone calls to make. Gregory is picking me up here at eleven, we’ll stop by Martin’s to get the cash and then head for Atlanta. Beyond that, I have no idea. Thankfully, it’s not quite the end of the month so there shouldn’t be a lot of paperwork piling up. If you could pull the contracts that are up for renewal in June and compile the notes on those while I’m gone, that will help.”
&n
bsp; Sally went back to her desk and I picked up the phone. As much as I hated making these sorts of decisions in Ev’s absence, we had clients waiting for bodyguards that weren’t on payroll, yet. I decided on three wizards Ev had interviewed and called to make job offers. When Gregory strolled in shortly before eleven, I had just laid the contracts on Sally’s desk for her to type up.
“Are you ready?” Gregory asked me.
“As ready as I’m ever going to be. We need to stop by Martin’s on the way to the airport.”
“I know. I spoke with him a few minutes ago. He has the money ready.”
Gregory had been with Ev for over ten years. It stood to reason he’d know almost as much about the business as I did but it still took me by surprise that he knew who the investment manager was. I told him as much.
“It’s all in the family,” he grinned. “Martin takes care of my investments, as well. Come. We have a plane to catch.”
I told Sally to call my cell if anything came up and she told me she expected updates when I could give them to her. Gregory grabbed my bag and as we passed the stairwell door to the deli, I heard a quiet, “Good luck.” Cassandra had poked her head out the door.
I climbed into the front of the limo with Gregory. Today, I didn’t feel like being all alone in the back seat. I’d just fastened my seatbelt when a thought hit me.
“Oh shit. Fudge,” I cried, reaching into my purse for my cell phone. “How could I forget my cat?”
A quick call to let the upstairs neighbor, Elinda, know I was going to be out of town on business for an unknown number of days and I felt much better. She and Marge would ensure Fudge was fed and his litter box kept scrupulously clean.
“You’ve never been under this kind of stress before, have you?” Gregory asked.
“Hell, no. I thought that damned matchmaking demon was bad but wondering if my boss is alive is tearing me apart.”
“He’s alive. No one pays for a body,” came the practical answer.
Upheaval! Page 3
