That was as blunt as it could get. “Okay.”
“Did Jacob deserve an end like this?” She glanced down at his body. “Many might argue that he did, but I would disagree. He was useful to me and now he is not. His death is an inconvenience, to say the least. Whoever did this is a very selfish, greedy vampire. They gave absolutely no consideration to how difficult it may be to find another publisher as eager for my writing.”
I didn’t believe she was taking this nearly as well as she seemed to be. Even Veronique wasn’t this cold. If I had to guess, this was a survival tactic she’d built up over the years. Care too much about anyone and you’d only get hurt.
“That sounds . . . tough,” I said.
She nodded. “It’s not easy to be a mistress of words, you know.”
“I can imagine.” I scanned the room. “So who did this?”
“Clearly, the suspicion falls on Anna Dark. She threatened him publicly.” Veronique’s heels clicked as she moved off the carpet onto the hardwood floor and walked the length of the room, deep in thought. “He has been bitten, but a broken neck is what caused his death.”
She was good at this. “So if he was in here and you were outside the only exit, where is the murderer?”
Veronique’s gaze lowered to the bed where the bed skirt draped all the way to the floor.
I nodded and stepped slowly and cautiously toward the potential hiding spot, then grabbed hold of the bed skirt to reveal . . .
Nobody.
Relief washed over me. I hadn’t been ready for a confrontation right now with some murderous vampire.
I’d dismissed the possibility of the murderer being Veronique immediately. She was right—Jacob had been an asset to her and her burgeoning book career. If a vampire could be considered “normal,” then Veronique fit that bill. She didn’t need to drink. She didn’t have that uncontrollable thirst to deal with that Thierry did.
There was no reason for her to kill him. But somebody had.
And, no, I’d given no thought whatsoever to that somebody being Thierry and his black-eyed hunger needing to be directed somewhere.
This was Anna Dark’s doing.
But if she had been in here, how had she escaped? It wasn’t out the window. It wasn’t out the door.
I started exploring the room more carefully. Veronique watched me as I moved slowly around the area.
The armoire. I felt something coming off it. It wasn’t precisely the same as the tingles from the amulet earlier, but it was close.
“That is a huge piece of furniture.” I pointed at it. “Like a lion-and-witch-level wardrobe.”
“You are quite right.”
I grabbed the handle and yanked it open, half expecting Anna to burst out at me like a ninja through the musty-smelling clothing inside.
When she didn’t, I inspected it closer. “I wonder why it’s on wheels.”
Veronique regarded me curiously. “Likely so it’s easier to move.”
“Good point.” I pressed my hands against the cool, polished wood and pushed it to the side to reveal an opening in the wall hidden behind the wardrobe.
A secret passageway! All the coolest mansions had them.
Veronique eyed it with interest. “Where does it lead?”
“My guess would be to the next room, but we should check it out. And then we’re definitely finding Sebastien.” I glanced over her shoulder at the floor and cringed. “Sorry, Jacob. You’re a priority, too. Promise.”
Veronique nodded. “Lead the way.”
There was that tingling sensation again. What was it? “Maybe the amulet’s in here. I feel something.”
“The magic?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe.”
Veronique took hold of my elbow as it got even darker—even for our vampire sight, it was still pitch-black for twenty feet. Then I saw a room through a small opening ahead. The opening was big enough to step through sideways.
I’d expected a similar room to the one we’d just left, but this one was . . . different. Very different.
“Where are we?” I asked, stunned by what I saw before me.
Veronique swept her gaze over the area. “It seems we have a bit of a problem.”
I turned back to the passageway, only to find that it had disappeared, leaving a solid wall behind.
Let me emphasize that: The passageway had disappeared.
“I think I understand now what happened during the server’s possession,” Veronique said. “The moment when she mentioned containing the magic somehow and my book disappeared in a flash of light. Do you remember?”
I stared at her, my heart pounding hard. “I remember. What about it?”
Veronique swept another pained glance around the room, which looked a great deal like a well-populated European tavern from hundreds of years ago. “I believe this may be chapter ten.”
Chapter 10
I believed in time travel. I believed in ghosts and possessions. I believed in vampires, werewolves, witches, and demons. But books magically coming to life?
“Are you sure this is a chapter from your book?” I asked, my throat tight.
She nodded. “Quite positive.”
The tavern had stone walls. Wooden frames and pillars. Long wooden tables and chairs where a few dozen patrons, an even mix of male and female, were seated with tankards of ale before them. A bar stood at one end, with unlabeled glass bottles on shelves behind it. Flickering light from a multitude of candles on the tables and from an ancient-looking chandelier, a wooden disk set with many lit candles and hung on a heavy black chain from the ceiling. The scent of roasted chicken and boiled potatoes infused the musty air.
“We were warned that some of the amulet’s magic would be contained. This must be how she decided to contain it,” Veronique said quietly. “Perhaps she was deeply inspired by my prose. I will choose to take this as a supreme compliment.” She hooked her arm through mine. “In any case, now we must hide.”
I tore my gaze away from a group of large, hairy, drunken men. “I’m sorry? No, no hiding. We need to find a way back!”
“If this is indeed taken from my book, bad things are afoot.”
“Afoot?”
She yanked me along with her as she began moving through the tavern.
“Veronique!” one of those large, hairy men called out. “Good to see you this evening!”
“Yes, you too,” she replied with a tight smile.
We passed closer to his table and his bushy brows drew together as he eyed her tight black dress with its high slit. “Your clothing is rather unexpected. Then again, you were always one to try new things.”
“My friend and I are only passing through. Pay no attention to us.” She announced this to everyone and no one in particular.
“Are you sure this is from your book?” I asked, still wanting to fight the idea that this could be true. “Maybe we’ve literally gone back in time.”
For some reason, that seemed much less crazy to me on a scale of one to crazy.
“I’m sure.”
“How do you know?”
“Because this is the French tavern I wrote about, yet I hear no one speaking French.”
“Oh.” That actually made a weird kind of sense. The book was written in English. Therefore everyone here speaks English.
Mon dieu.
I almost went over on my ankle as she took a corner quickly. I’d decided to accept this as real and try to find a solution. If we’d found ourselves in a patch of contained magic, we needed to get back to the mansion as soon as possible.
“What’s the rush?” I asked.
She gave me another tight smile. “This tavern is about to be attacked by a group of vampire hunters who are searching for me in particular.”
My stomach lurched. “What?”
<
br /> “I’m afraid so. That is, if I’m correct about this being a magical representation of chapter ten . . . and I’m so very rarely wrong it’s not even worth mentioning.” We’d reached the end of the narrow hallway, which hadn’t led to an exit, if that was what she’d been looking for. To our right was a door, which she shoved open, pulling me into a small room the size of a closet. If it wasn’t for the lit lantern on the wall, we’d be in pitch-black darkness. She closed the door and pressed her back against it. “I’m sure we’ll be fine here.”
“You’re sure, are you? Veronique, we can’t stay here!”
“Humor me, darling, for just a few minutes, would you?”
I tried to remain calm and think this through. “Do you think the others are here, too?”
Her face grew thoughtful in the shadows of the room. “Perhaps whomever used the passageway to escape what they’d done to Jacob has journeyed here as well.”
A muffled scream pierced the air, making my blood run cold.
Veronique nodded, and a smile lit her face. “And, as expected, I was right. The hunters have arrived right on schedule.”
And we were now sequestered in a tiny room with no escape. Even if this were fiction, it didn’t fill me with confidence. “We have to do something.”
She gave me a patient look. “And what would you suggest we do?”
“Something? Anything other than waiting in a place that doesn’t even actually exist? I mean, it’s not like we’re really in danger, right? This place isn’t real and any hunters here aren’t real, either. Let’s go out there and find a way back.”
She pinched my arm. Hard.
“Ouch!” I yelped. “Why did you do that?”
“To prove to you that this might have originated in fiction, but it is every bit as real as if we were back in the mansion. I believe we can be hurt here and we can be killed. This was one of the more exciting and potentially bloody chapters of my book.”
I stared at her. “Exciting and potentially bloody.”
“Oh, yes.”
“You sound proud of that.”
“I am.” Her pleased expression faded. “However, had I known I would relive this scene, I might have made some additional edits.”
Okay. This was an unexpected development, and not one that made this already difficult evening even a tiny bit better. But Veronique had obviously lived through whatever dangers were around the corner, so I had to take comfort in that. We would both survive this chapter.
“We can handle this,” I mumbled.
“Of course we can.” She patted my arm. “This is excellent bonding time we’re having. We’re becoming even closer friends than we already were, don’t you think?”
She never failed to find the bright side, did she? “Oh, yes. Best friends forever.”
“You say that as if you don’t truly mean it.” Her brows drew together. “I’ve sensed some animosity from you since earlier when I gave you the book. I’m not blind, Sarah. I understand your misgivings.”
“Veronique, let’s not talk about this now, okay?”
“You should know I did not go into great detail about my relationship with Thierry. You have nothing to fear.”
I gave her a squeamish look. “It’s an erotic memoir. It says so right on the cover.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “My book is much more of a romance, but certainly not one focused on your new husband.”
Even with that assurance, I still didn’t want to read it. “Forget it, Veronique. Let’s focus on here and now. We have to get back to the mansion and find Sebastien.”
“The hunters are here looking for me. They mean to use me to extort the location of a very powerful master vampire who is their true target this evening.”
I eyed the door behind her. “Who? Thierry?”
“No, darling, not Thierry. He had no part to play in this particular chapter.” She was quiet for so long I almost had to prompt her to keep talking. “It was the love of my life. My sire, Marcellus.”
I’d heard the name before. Of course I had. Thierry might have been a long-term relationship, peppered with frequent decades apart, but for Veronique, Marcellus was The One. And he was a legend among vampires.
So the hunters were here looking for information leading to Marcellus. And we were hiding in a tiny room at the back of the tavern.
“So what do we—” I began.
There was a knock at the door and I clutched Veronique’s arm.
“Veronique, I know you’re in there. Please open this door!”
She sighed. “Alas, we’ve been discovered.”
“Veronique!” I managed, but she’d already opened the door.
Three men stood in the hallway. The one in the middle was tall and handsome, with dark hair, blue eyes, and broad shoulders. The other two were equally good-looking. Like, Hollywood actor, airbrushed-perfection good-looking.
He flashed a smile. “Such a pleasure to see you again, Veronique.”
She raised her chin. “I can’t claim the same, Stefan.”
“You are as beautiful as the last time I saw you. Stunning, really.”
My heart pounded hard and fast, but I glanced at her skeptically.
She cringed, then looked at me. “Well . . . it is a fictional memoir, darling. I may have taken some liberties with characters and dialogue.”
Well, that explained it. “Obviously.”
“And your friend, whoever she is,” Stefan said. “She is also quite beautiful, but not as beautiful as you. No one is your equal, Veronique. You are more angel than vampiress.”
“Well, thank you, Stefan,” she said, clearing her throat. Then to me, “Perhaps I did exaggerate his character just a little.”
No comment.
“This does not mean that I will not slay you tonight if I must, and your friend, too.” There was deep regret in Stefan’s voice. “But to take such beauty from the world would be a desperate shame. Alas, one is not given many choices in a life like ours. Is one?”
His comrades shook their heads solemnly. “One is not,” they replied in manly unison.
Oh boy.
On the bright side, the hunters I’d dealt with in the past were much less cordial than these ones. Maybe I could talk our way past them so we could find the nearest passageway back to the mansion from Hell.
“Listen, guys,” I said. “I’m sure we can work something out here.”
Stefan frowned deeply at me. “Your speech is unusual.”
“Sarah is not from around here,” Veronique explained.
To put it mildly.
“And your clothing . . .” He swept his gaze down the front of my tight red dress and high heels, then did the same with Veronique’s black dress. “Are you out in public in your undergarments?”
Seriously, this was one of the friendliest and chattiest hunters I’d ever come across.
“No, they’re not my . . . undergarments,” I replied.
“I . . . rather like them, whatever they are.”
“Great.” I forced a smile. “Can we move this along a little? I need to get back to finding a way to de-spell my husband and find and fix a leaky amulet before dawn.”
Veronique straightened her shoulders and looked Stefan right in the eye. “What do you want from me?”
“You know very well what I want from you,” the hunter said lustily.
She gave me a squeamish look. “Yes, well, that was chapter nine. Things happen.”
I renewed my promise to myself never to read her book. Like, never. “I don’t want to know. I really don’t want to know.”
“You’re both coming with us,” the hunter said. His friend grabbed my arm and I kneed him between his legs without a moment’s hesitation. He staggered back from me, whimpering in pain.
“Why would you do that
?” he gasped.
“Uh, because you were attacking me.”
He stared at me incredulously. “I was politely guiding you out of your hiding space, that is all. Attacking? I am a gentleman!”
These romanticized hunters were the last thing I needed to deal with right now.
But this wasn’t a dream. I wouldn’t wake up from this, stretch my arms, and go make coffee. Thanks to at least some of the amulet’s magic being contained in Veronique’s book, this was potentially as real as real life.
If these fictional hunters did pull out their fictional wooden stakes and use them, I would not be fictionally dead. I’d be really dead.
That was a sobering thought that made me choose to play along and see this chapter through to its end. I took solace in the fact that Veronique had survived to write more chapters beyond this.
I allowed the gentleman hunter to take my arm and politely guide me out of the room, followed by Veronique and her . . . whatever he was to her.
Marcellus was her true love, Thierry was her husband, and Stefan the hunter was—a casual dalliance?
She didn’t seem to discriminate very much when it came to boyfriends.
As they led us along the hallway back to the main tavern, I tried to get the image of Veronique’s most recent boyfriend out of my head. Jacob Nelson, trapped in a room with a vampire only a short time after he came to the unfortunate realization that vampires were real.
So who killed him?
I hadn’t. Veronique hadn’t, either.
Melanie was out, since she was a werewolf, not a vamp.
Anna and Frederic—either could have easily done it, in my opinion. Suspicion did point first to Anna, since she’d made no secret of wanting to bite him.
Thierry—well, we’ll get back to him later, shall we?
Atticus? I wouldn’t put it past him, although it seemed much too common a crime for the head elder of the vampire council. Bad press to randomly kill humans, especially high-profile ones like a billionaire publisher.
Sebastien had been stuck in a tomb for three centuries. That had to work up quite a thirst, so . . . maybe he was guilty.
Tasha—she was probably very well fed with the best blood that money could buy. Besides, she’d had her talk with Jacob about her own memoir. That was incentive for him to keep breathing, in my opinion.
From Fear to Eternity Page 11