Grave Robber for Hire Read Online Free PDF Page B

to find the painting I needed that material so I’d arranged to collect it tomorrow at eleven.
    Besides, touching his writing was better than his grave. Until I’d warded myself, or whatever witchy stuff it took to stop black goop leaching up my pores, I wasn’t going near Clyde’s grave. Perhaps not even when witch latexed. I glanced at my fingernails, shuddered and phoned my manicurist.
    In a blink of white light, Viggo popped in, and I nearly fell off my chair. Fully corporeal again he’d arrived refurbished. For the first time since he flashed into my life and nearly caused a ten year old child to suffer a cardiac arrest, he’d changed clothes. Vig probably died in his early thirties, but had always looked a bit older and weather beaten.
    Today his skin gleamed as if buffed, his hair shone, making his appearance fresher, younger. His blue and red striped shirt was gone. In its place he wore a crisp white cotton or linen shirt open to the waist, a wide leather belt cinched it at his hips. Pale leather leggings accented strong legs, and tan mid-calf length boots finished his new retro pirate look.
    Vig winked at me and smoothed his hand down his chest, pride in his new garments lending a childlike wonder to his face. “Like?”
    At about five ten tall, Viggo bulged with more muscles than I’d ever realized. Alive, he must have been a blacksmith or plowed fields or wielded a sword, or all three.
    “Good look. Suits you.” A lot. “Why the changes?”
    He showed me the palms of his hands and held them above his head. “Ajer.”
    Helpful . It was times like this I wished I’d been able to learn his language, but it seemed to be a mix of languages, and he changed words for objects like I change panties. Luckily he understood me, and he could even read.
    “I have no idea what that means.”
    Vig thrust his hands into his hair. His lack of English frustrates him as much as me.
    “So, you’re all right. Don’t have any lingering problems from yesterday?”
    He looked thoughtful, “No. All good.”
    He picked up a broken mobile phone I’d given him a few days ago, retrieved his tool kit from my desk and started to pull the phone apart.
    “You going to share how you fixed me yesterday? Tell me what that black crap is?”
    He sighed, put down the phone and garbled a spiel of ancient which was flowered with the word bad. As usual I understood very little, but I got it was bad.
    Great Aunty Glynnis, who’d raised me, said Vig couldn’t learn much English because guardian angels rarely change from the person they were at death. Frozen in time, a guardian came to guide and help, not metamorphosize.
    Today’s new clothes and the ongoing appearance of new words meant some changes could occur, just slowly. To make life easier for both of us, we needed to work out how to trigger a major learning curve.
    “You know, Viggo, Clyde Owen Jones scares me.”
    He assessed my expression and nodded, “Should, Hayyel, should.”
    I fingered Tyreal’s card as I walked out onto my veranda and enjoyed the flowers of my gardens, a caroling magpie, and the swallows twittering. Nature quiets my inner melting pot. A swallow swooped past, flew in a high arc then dived onto my shoulder. Animals, wild or not seek me out as if they know I love them all. I stroked her shiny blue-black head then she flew off, air dancing, to catch lunch.
    Back inside, I put on the radio and watched Vig pull the back off the phone. “I got another new case emailed to me this morning. I’m getting busy.”
    The global financial crisis has been fab for business. Hard-times make people curious about family legends of great-great-Gramps’s lost riches. Mostly, Gramps pissed his dough away on booze, gambling, and whores. However, once in a while, Gramps hid his treasure for safekeeping, or for the giggles. Time passed, death stepped forward to shake hands, and Gramps’ hiding spot lay forgotten.
    Vig looked up, a green wire hanging from his finger. “Good,