The farther he moved away from me the more the green faded from his eyes. The magic that had begun coursing up and down my arms also dissipated.
Maybe that had been my window of opportunity to fix this, to return the magic—namely Jack himself—back to the amulet.
Even as I watched him, his tattoos faded even more until a few of them disappeared completely.
Jack looked down at his arms. “The magic is leaving me. Good. I don’t want it anymore.”
He disappeared down the ladder.
I exchanged a worried look with Melanie. “We can’t let him get away,” I said.
“I know.”
We left the attic as quickly as we could and raced down the hallway after Jack, turning corners that twisted through the mazelike third floor.
But Jack was nowhere to be seen.
“What now?” I asked, clutching the amulet tightly in my hand.
Melanie didn’t answer me. I turned to see if she’d caught up to me, but she wasn’t there.
“Melanie?” I called, running back along the route I’d taken.
I’d lost Jack and I’d lost Melanie.
Damn. I had no time for another impromptu game of hide-and-seek with a memory-challenged djinn and a werewolf that smelled like vanilla.
I stared down at the amulet in my palm. “At least I found you.”
The amulet, thankfully, didn’t reply.
Without wasting any more time, I headed down to the second floor to the room Atticus was in. This might go badly, but I had to try.
He might be a jerk and a womanizer, but . . . added up, it didn’t necessarily equal villain.
At this point, I needed all the help I could get.
As I navigated the twists and turns of the second floor trying to retrace my steps, a shadow loomed up ahead. I flattened myself against the wall and glanced around the corner to see that the shadow belonged to Tasha.
She entered Atticus’s room.
There was a sharp wooden stake in her hand.
There was no time to second-guess myself. I blew out a breath and approached the door.
“Hey, Tasha,” I said as calmly as I could.
She spun around, now holding the stake behind her back and out of view. I’d slipped the amulet into my pocket, thanking the designer’s brilliance of adding pockets to this dress.
“Sarah.” She smiled at me. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Have you found anything?”
“Not yet. You?”
“This place is like a labyrinth. I have no idea where to search next and it’s nearly dawn.”
She shrugged. “I honestly don’t think anything bad’s going to happen at dawn.”
“No? I’m glad you said that. I’ve been thinking the same thing. I mean, ominous collective voice of a dead coven emanating from a werewolf cocktail waitress. Not too scary, you know?”
“Agreed.”
We both went silent as I grappled for something else to say.
“By the way,” Atticus growled from inside the chest, “this is a gentle reminder that as soon as I get out of here I’m going to destroy you.”
Even though he sounded furious, I was happy to hear his voice. “He’s still conscious. I thought he might slip into a coma.”
“That takes a while,” Tasha said.
Yes, I was quite sure she knew firsthand how long something like that might take.
“I’m not slipping into a coma, you bitches! Now let me out of here.”
“That’s not going to happen, Atticus,” Tasha said. “And there’s no reason to be rude to us. But you could never help that, could you? You’ve always been rude, from the very beginning. It’s impossible to teach an old dog like you new tricks.”
Atticus slammed his fist against the lid of the chest. “You’ve always had it in for me, haven’t you, Tasha? I told you that you could work for me. I thought that would finally appease you. What more do you want from me?”
“I want a great deal more than a glorified office assistant position. I want to rule over the council.”
“Rule over it?” I echoed. This was unexpected. “You’re saying you want Atticus’s job.”
“Of course I do. Why aim low when you can aim high—the highest. Ever heard of the law of attraction, Sarah? If you believe you can, you will.”
I fought to keep any accusatory expression off my face. “I believed I’d win the lottery. It never happened.”
“Bottom line—Atticus is in my way,” she said bluntly, finally revealing her wooden stake.
My heart jumped into my throat. “I agree he’s a problem, but I don’t think this is the best way to deal with him.”
She ran her thumb over the sharp tip of the stake. “Nobody has to know about this, Sarah. He won’t leave a body behind. A mop and a bucket will get rid of any evidence.”
“Is this how you normally handle problems?”
Her gaze flicked to mine. “Sure. Nice and easy. He’s a brute, he’s abusive, and he has way too much power, which he refuses to share.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Atticus growled. “The other elders . . . the path to my position with the Ring, anyone who would take it next if something happened to me. You’re the one who killed them.”
Tasha raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think I’m capable of something so bold, Atticus?”
I forced a smile, although it felt twitchy after that revelation. “Men. They can’t understand how motivated a woman can be if she wants something badly enough.”
“They really can’t. But that makes it so much easier to manipulate them.” She tapped the chest with the tip of the stake and stared down at Atticus through the small openings in the lid. “You’re wrong about one thing, Atticus. I’m not ready to take over—not yet. I have someone else perfect in mind to temporarily head the council. Someone I can control. Someone who will take orders without giving me any problems. But first I need to get rid of you.”
She glanced over toward the shelf where she’d left the key. “Where is it?”
I carefully kept my face blank. “What?”
“The key.”
“It was over there. Why? Is it gone?”
Tasha gave me a smile that didn’t reach her cold eyes. “I thought we might be friends, you and I.”
“Tasha, that would have been really amazing. I wasn’t lying when I said I thought you were a fantastic actress. Fantastic, yes. But Oscar-winning?” I gave her a mock grimace. “Debatable.”
Her smile soured at the edges. “Where’s the key, Sarah?”
“I can’t let you stake Atticus.”
“The world would be a better place without him in it. Don’t you understand that?”
“Let me think about that.” I paused. “No, I don’t understand. But I do understand that you think you have the right to decide who gets to live or die, based on your own agenda. And I wholeheartedly disagree.”
Her lips were now a thin line. “That’s too bad.”
“Did you kill Jacob?” I already knew she did, but I wanted confirmation. “Your shade of lip gloss was on his throat. And I know your fangs were fully filed down earlier this evening but now they’re back.”
A vampire could file her fangs down all she wanted, but as soon as she gave in to the need to bite someone, to drink blood from the original source, they immediately re-formed in all their pointy glory.
Those fangs were proof that she’d fed tonight.
She slid her tongue over the tips of her small but sharp fangs. “I thought if Jacob was willing to publish a piece of trash like Veronique’s memoir, he’d be willing to publish something well written. My memoir. But he refused. That made me very angry.”
My brows went up. “Where do you find the time, Tasha? An actress, a murderer, an aspiring council leader . . . an
d a writer, too.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I can do it all.”
“You’re a famous actress—why wouldn’t other publishers be scrambling to sign you on?”
“They’re not willing to pay me nearly as much as I deserve for it. I asked Jacob to consider it, since I know he has the money. But he refused because it would compete with Veronique’s book.”
“So you killed him.”
She shrugged her bare shoulder adorned with the black rose tattoo. “I was going to just have a quick sip, but then he made me mad. Humans. More trouble than they’re worth.”
My stomach churned. I noticed how silent Atticus had gone, but I knew he was listening very carefully to this increasingly disturbing conversation. “What about Frederic? Anna didn’t kill him, did she? It was you.”
Her smile returned, more amused this time. “You found him, did you? All tucked away in a little piece of contained magic. I’m almost sorry to spoil your naive, starry-eyed view of me. You must think I’m horrible.”
Yes, I’d say I was officially off the Tasha Evans fangirl list. “Not sure that’s the word I’d pick. But the thesaurus is another must-read bestseller, isn’t it?”
“One day you’ll understand, little fledgling. We’re immortal. We don’t have to treat this world as humans do with their you-only-live-once attitudes. We can have many lives, many loves, many adventures. And we make our own rules. You said you wanted to be an actress. Well, guess what? You can be. You can be anything if you’re willing to do what it takes to achieve it. And if others get in our way, may the strong survive. And I’m very strong.”
“So that’s a yes to Frederic?”
She shrugged. “Old lover. He annoyed me tonight, that’s all.”
That was way too simple an explanation. I didn’t buy it. “That’s it? He annoyed you and you killed him?”
“His wife wasn’t too happy about it. She tracked me down, confronted me, wanted me to pay. But she was also a fledgling, sired only twenty years ago. No chance against someone like me.”
“Consider me warned.”
She stepped closer to me and I fought to stand my ground. “Now you’re going to give me the key and help me get rid of Atticus.”
After all this, she actually thought I might help her? “Sorry, can’t do that. Who’s the naive one now?”
Without waiting another moment, I turned and bolted from the room so I could regroup elsewhere and figure out how to deal with this actress from Hell.
I slammed face-first into Thierry’s chest.
I looked up at him with deep relief. “Thank God you’re here. It’s Tasha—she’s the murderer. Atticus is locked in the prison, but he’s innocent. She’s responsible for killing the council elders. And I’m sure she’s also the one who cut off the djinn’s head trying to steal his magic. You can help me stop her!”
I sent a wary glance over my shoulder at Tasha, who now leaned against Atticus’s chest without a flicker of worry in her eyes.
“That might be a problem,” Thierry said.
I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Why is that a problem?”
“The blood spell from earlier.”
“What about it?”
“Tasha cast it herself.”
“Wait. What?” I stared at him with confusion. “But she’s a vampire. Vampires can’t do magic, can they?”
“I’m special,” Tasha said proudly. “And you don’t want to know what I’ve had to do to get that way. Bad things, Sarah. Very bad things.”
“Thierry”—I stared up at his face—“you broke that spell earlier. You have control over your thirst.”
His face was tense and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Oh, little fledgling.” Tasha strolled closer to us, her hair a shiny red curtain over her shoulder. “Did you really think it was that easy? The insatiable thirst was only a small part of the spell I cast on that blood. It was a test to prove it had properly taken hold of him. The rest was a spell of obedience. Thierry’s mine now. He’ll do whatever I tell him to.” The smile on her face stretched from ear to ear. “Grab her, Thierry.”
Heart racing, I tried to slip past him, but he got hold of me and hoisted me over his shoulder.
We’d been so cocky to believe it had been that easy to break the spell.
Nothing important was ever that easy.
Chapter 23
I felt the tingle of the amulet’s magic in my pocket as Thierry began moving down the hall. Did he feel it, too? And if he did, would he say something to Tasha?
I held my breath as I waited for him to speak, but he stayed silent. Maybe under this spell he couldn’t sense its magic.
“Damn it, Thierry! You have to fight this.”
He squeezed me tighter against his shoulder. “I would advise you to be quiet now. You don’t want this to get any worse.”
“Worse than this?”
“Things can always be worse.”
Something horrible occurred to me. “What did she make you do to Veronique and Marcellus?”
“They won’t be a problem.”
Tasha trailed after us and I lifted my head enough to glare at her.
“Sorry, Sarah.” There was already smug victory in her eyes, contradicting the apology. “I was willing to cut you a little slack since you’re a fan, but you’re a do-gooder with a bleeding heart. Atticus doesn’t deserve your mercy. I’ll get to him later when this is over. There can’t be any loose ends after tonight.”
“At dawn, if we don’t find that amulet and return the djinn to it . . .” I hesitated, expecting Thierry to say something about the amulet currently pressed against his chest. “This mansion is going to be destroyed and we’re all going to die. Remember?”
Her self-satisfied smile held. “I don’t think so, little fledgling. I have other plans when dawn breaks. Big ones.”
After Thierry descended the stairs and entered the parlor, he threw me unceremoniously down on the sofa—luckily the one opposite the one with the remains of Thomas on it. I sprang to my feet immediately.
“You would be wise to stay down,” Thierry growled.
His expression was unreadable, impassive, but his eyes were very serious. He didn’t want me to argue with him.
But that had never stopped me before.
“Just that easy, huh?” I tried in vain to come up with a fantastic plan to solve this mounting problem, but any such plans were currently hiding from me. “Vampire-witch here whispers a few magic words over a shot glass of blood and, boom, you’re suddenly her loyal minion?”
“Seems that way.”
“That’s pretty pathetic.”
“Your opinion is duly noted.”
I scanned the room and spotted a few familiar faces. Veronique, Marcellus, and Melanie were all in here. Conscious, but bound and gagged.
And, thankfully, not dead.
“You did this to them,” I said to Thierry with accusation.
He glanced with disinterest at the three of them. “It’s what Tasha wanted.”
I took a very small measure of optimism from the fact he hadn’t whipped out the silver-infused ropes and handkerchief to do the same to me yet. “What about Marcellus and your theory about him?”
Thierry stood coolly before me, his arms at his sides. He didn’t bother to meet my eyes as he answered. “My theory was incorrect. Tasha told me what really happened to the djinn.”
Tasha adjusted Veronique’s gag so it fit more snugly over her mouth. She seemed to be taking great pleasure in this as she patted Veronique’s head. “Don’t you have anything to say, Veronique? That’s a first.”
If looks could kill, Veronique would already have the actress six feet under.
“What did you do to the djinn?” I asked Tasha.
She gave me an amused glance. “W
hy would I tell you?”
“Because I think you want to. Did you trap him somewhere?”
Of course I already knew what she’d done and that Jack wasn’t trapped, but I wanted her to tell me. I wanted her to keep talking because I was very afraid of what would happen after she stopped wanting to explain her master plan.
And what would happen at dawn.
So very close now.
Wherever Jack was now hiding, I sincerely hoped he’d stay there.
“The djinn is gone.” Tasha traced the tip of her wooden stake over Veronique’s bare arm. “That’s all you need to know about that.”
“The amulet’s gone, too.”
“The amulet is far less important than you think it is. Frankly, I don’t care if it’s ever found.”
Again, I waited for Thierry to reveal what was safely nestled in my pocket. But he remained silent, standing between me and Tasha, his arms now crossed over his chest, looking like an obedient soldier in an expensive black suit.
He’d fought the thirst. Could he fight this obedience spell as well, or was that too much to hope for?
Tasha needed help. She couldn’t do any of this on her own. And I didn’t think Thierry was her first minion.
“Thomas was the one helping you before, wasn’t he?” I asked.
She sighed. “He was very helpful . . . at least, until the end when I know he tried to tell you something. The spell holding him was wearing off. It was my mistake for not renewing it earlier this evening. Live and learn.”
Of course. No wonder Thomas had tried to reveal to me—albeit cryptically—where he’d hidden the amulet. He was following Tasha’s orders under duress. “The blood spell, the same one you put on Thierry . . . that’s what made Thomas your willing servant.”
She pulled her stake away from Veronique and rose to her feet. “I prefer the term ‘slave boy,’ but all right. ‘Servant’ is good, too.”
The realization that someone I’d looked up to and admired since I was a kid could be so horribly evil and self-serving made me sick with disappointment. I’d tried to come up with so many excuses all evening as to why she couldn’t be the one responsible for any of the crimes. Turned out she was responsible for all of them.
From Fear to Eternity: An Immortality Bites Mystery Page 23