But Desiree was close to him. Very close and very beautiful. “You protected me, Walter. You saved me.” She slid her arms around his waist and gave him a hug. “You’re my hero.”

It was not the magic of the loincloth that made his heart start pounding again. “You-you don’t mind?” he asked in surprise.

“I’ll show you how much I mind in just a minute.” She stepped away and looked down at the unconscious Carmichael. “But first, help me take out the garbage. We’ll put him in the hall and call the police.” Walter and Desiree rolled the man like a skid row drunk into the apartment hallway.

Desiree closed the door, locked it, and turned to face him. Suddenly he felt as if he were the prey and she the hungry lioness.

He gulped. “I’m really a nice guy most of the time. But I can be bad, if I need to be.”

“Walter, I like that you’re a nice guy. It’s the first thing I noticed about you, even from a distance. You may not have known I was watching, but I’ve seen you hold doors for other people, help them carry things when their arms were full, lend them lunch money, listen to what they say. Most of the time, that’s exactly what women want. It’s what I want. But women are… complex creatures. So once in a while we also like a bit of a wild man. You seem like the best of both worlds to me.”

“You may never be safe,” he pointed out. “What if Mr. Carmichael comes back? I don’t think he’ll leave you alone.”

With a lovely smile, she led him to the couch and sat him down. “In that case, maybe you’ll just have to stay here to protect me.”

There was a stirring in the loincloth, and he felt very self-conscious. “Maybe I should get dressed in real clothes.”

“No, Walter. You stay just the way you are.” Desiree leaned over to kiss him.

SEAMLESS by Michael Stackpole

“Oh, Connor! This is nothing like the way I left ‘it.”

The genuine surprise on Daniella Granger’s face matched the tone of her voice. Slender, but not short enough to be considered petite, Dani wore her dark hair to her shoulders and had light gray eyes that probably should have been called dove gray-soft and a bit timid.

“When you moved out from your boyfriend’s place, you weren’t so neat.”

She slowly shook her head. “No. The break-up came just after my grandfather’s death. I was a mess, and that’s what I left the locker in.”

I took another quick glance into the storage unit, looking for anything truly weird. Nothing except, maybe the way things were organized. All the stuff, from boxes crammed with papers to an old TV and some ragged suitcases, had been very neatly stacked against three walls, leaving a bare concrete slab directly below the single, unshaded light bulb.

Right there, in the spotlight, sat a small wooden box, roughly a foot and a half long, a foot in the other two dimensions. It looked old, had a rusty latch on it, and most of the black and gold paint had been worn away. The gold once had been decoration, but I couldn’t make out what the designs were meant to be.

I entered the locker and dropped to a knee beside the box. “You ever see this before?”

“No.” Dani rested her hands on my shoulders and peeked around me. “No, wait, yes. I think so.”

“Which is it?”

“I saw it once in my grandfather’s attic. He told me never to touch it and never to tell anyone I’d seen it. He moved it somewhere, so I’d not seen it since.”

“You’re sure this is the same box?”

She squeezed my shoulders. “I think so, but how could it get here? I mean, his estate was tiny, and my aunt said there was nothing for me. I never got anything, and I’d not have put it in storage if I did. I loved my grandfather.”

I stood and took her hands in mine, squeezing them gently. “It’s okay. It’s no big deal. It’s weird, like the rest of the stuff, but not a crisis.”

She glanced down, but squeezed my hands back. “I know I’m acting silly, but ever since he died I’ve been rudderless. I thought I was holding it to together, but…”

“Not a problem. We’ll figure this out.” I picked up the box. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for all of this.”

“And if there isn’t?”

I smiled. “Then my boss will find something else that will work.”

Daniella didn’t say much as we headed back to Casa Chaos, where my employer lives and, nominally speaking, works. Merlin Bloodstone bills himself as an occultist, but the IRS doesn’t have a code for that, so I’m not sure it’s a real occupation. Practically speaking, he provides spiritual advice for a bunch of very rich clients who could save themselves a lot of money if they’d just buy a gross of fortune cookies and read one every day.

That’s unfair, but I didn’t feel like being fair. I’d tried to brief him on Dani’s situation, but he wanted none of it. Nor did he come down to meet her when she’d come to the house earlier. He remained hidden in his sanctum and sent me a note instructing me to do whatever I thought best.

That was inhospitable and rude-par for the course when he was in a mood. In his defense he’d note that we were under no obligation to help her. I disagreed, but then I’d heard her voice on the phone and had checked her out on Myspace. On a scale of one to Salma Hayek, Dani hit 7.5, and got a bonus point for being a damsel in distress.

We got back to Paradise Valley easily, parked and went straight to the office. Dani trailed in my wake, and the office won a big gasp from her. I rate guests on their reaction, and she scored solidly.

The office is impressive and extends up through the second floor. The west wall is made up of tall windows that provide a stunning view of Camelback Mountain ’s north face. Opposite it and all along the north wall are built-in bookshelves, with a catwalk about ten feet up to allow access to the top half of the shelves. A spiral, wrought-iron staircase in the southeast corner is the quick way to get up there, and there’s a door for access from the second floor as well. The south wall is where Bloodstone hangs all the photographs of himself taken with lots of different clients, as well as plaques and awards, some of which are inscribed in languages I don’t think even exist anymore. The doorway through which we entered splits that wall in half.

I carried the box in and plunked it down on Bloodstone’s desk. The desk is this massive thing-only slightly smaller than the new US Embassy in Iraq. Save for a lamp, a blotter, a phone, a penholder and sometimes a book, he keeps it completely empty. I centered the box neatly and considered turning the lock away from where he would stand, but that would just be petty.

The middle of the room has a tan leather couch facing the desk but canted at some angle that has to do with the dictates of feng shui. Three rust-colored leather chairs-those big wing-back things that ought to be in a Victorian Gentlemans’ club-face the couch. They have side tables between them, and a coffee table fronts the couch. I waved Dani to the couch, then retreated to my desk back by the wet bar.

I was going to ask her what kind of tea she wanted, but my boss decided to make his entrance, cutting me off. Bloodstone-more properly Doctor Merlin Bloodstone-is small enough to be considered petite-save for his head, his ego and this intensity he radiates. He wears his black hair slicked back, emphasizing his widow’s peak. Compared to his body, his head is huge, and his violet eyes are large as well. Some folks built that way appear innocent, but Bloodstone looks on the verge of changing into some kind of monster.

He paused in the doorway and nodded to me. “Ti Kwan Yin for the both of us, Connor. You may have what you want.”

Without giving me another glance, he turned and crossed to where Daniella was rising from the couch. Bloodstone had chosen to wear a gray suit with a blue shirt and a blue-green tie, the like of which I’d never seen him wear before. This worried me. His moods determine how he chooses to dress. We were off into the land of the lost, and I didn’t like that.