“Eight months together and you finally got the memo on that. Good.” While I was there, I might as well start searching for the amulet. I began shifting books to the side and looking for hiding places. “So why did you want to come in here again?”
“Because I saw this earlier.” He pulled a thick leather-bound book off a shelf and set it on a long oak table in the center of the room.
I drew closer. There was a title on the cover in gold leaf, but it was in a language I didn’t understand or recognize. “What is it?”
“A book on the subject of djinn.” He opened it. The pages were old and yellow. The dusty scent of decaying paper wafted under my nose.
A book about djinn. Yes, that would be remarkably helpful right about now.
“What language is that?” I asked, scanning the pages that were filled with tiny writing.
“Andalusian.”
I looked at him in surprise. “You read Andalusian?”
“I have a mild grasp of it. Hopefully it’ll be enough to find the answers I seek. I need to know if djinn are immortal or if they’re vulnerable when they take form in the mortal world.”
I would think it would be better to find out how to stuff whatever magic had escaped back into the amulet when we found it, but then something occurred to me that made my heart beat faster.
“You think the djinn escaped from it, don’t you?” I asked. “And you think it’s going to cause problems if no one’s controlling it.”
Thierry glanced up from the page he’d started to read, his index finger swiftly skimming along the foreign words. “If I’m right, I think it’s already causing problems. That . . . echo of the original coven of witches . . . They said the magic had to be returned to the amulet. The magic is the djinn. If the djinn has escaped, we must find a way to contain it again.”
The thought that a genie might be prowling the halls of this mansion as we spoke made a shiver run down my spine. “If that’s true, I’m guessing it won’t want to go back to its prison just because we asked nicely. Not after it has a taste of freedom after, what, fourteen hundred years of being stuck in a tiny amulet?”
“Which is why I’m trying to find another solution.”
“You want to know if it’s immortal. Why? So you can slay it?”
“We don’t know what we’re up against tonight. Information is power and the more I can gain, the better off we’ll be.”
He sounded very certain, very confident in this, but that tension was still in his expression, the sheen of perspiration still on his brow. It worried me.
“Answer me honestly, Thierry. How are you feeling right now?”
His knuckles whitened on the edge of the table. “I’ve been better.”
I watched him as he scanned the book, line by line. “Can I do anything to help?”
His jaw tightened, but he said nothing. His attention remained fixed on the page.
“Tell me the truth,” I said after a moment, carefully. “Is it really bad?”
“I don’t think you want a completely truthful answer, Sarah.”
Frustration gripped me out of nowhere at his evasive answers. “Actually, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. We’re married now. We’re together through thick or thin, sickness or health, richer or poorer, et cetera. Don’t you think I can handle the truth in all its ugliness?”
His gray eyes flicked to mine. They were troubled, pained. “I don’t think you can handle it nearly as well as you believe you can. I hold back certain truths because I want to protect you.”
I shook my head. “You don’t need to protect me.”
Without warning, he slammed the book shut. “Don’t I? It’s all I’ve tried to do since you first came into my life.”
“Thierry . . .” I took a step back from him, but he closed the distance between us, slid his hand around to my back, and pulled me closer. His gaze slid down the line of my throat.
When he spoke again, his voice was very low, very serious. “You push me for the truth, but there are some truths a twenty-eight-year-old can’t possibly accept the same way as someone who has lived as long as I can. The things I’ve seen and experienced. The things I’ve done. Despite the many challenges you’ve faced, you have no true comparison for it.”
“I understand, Thierry. I do.”
His eyes met mine, pinning me in place. “You don’t understand. You can’t understand. Because, if you did, Sarah, you never would have followed me into this room.”
I was about to speak—to talk him down from the ledge, so to speak—but he pressed his index finger lightly against my lips to silence me.
“Sebastien’s blood spell has triggered something very dark inside of me, something that grows with each moment that passes. My control is threatened like never before.” He stroked my hair back from my throat, his touch light but firm. “My greatest fear is that this curse of mine will take me over completely. Sebastien knew that—he’s exploiting that fear. And I’m afraid he may succeed.”
“He won’t,” I said as calmly as I could. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him see reason. He’s trying to get revenge against the wrong person. I want to help you.”
Thierry squeezed his eyes shut, his face tense. When he opened his eyes again, they’d turned pitch-black. “If you really want to help me, then leave here, Sarah. Please.”
He let go of me, and I stumbled back a few steps. “I’ll talk to Sebastien.”
He nodded and turned from me. “Go.”
Even I wasn’t crazy enough to stick around for a second longer. He was in a bad place—I hadn’t even realized how bad until now. All I could do by lingering was make it even worse.
I turned and left the library as quickly as I could, my heart racing.
Okay, Sebastien, I thought grimly, but the bright glow of determination now fueled me. When you mess with Thierry, you’re messing with me. This game of hide-and-seek has officially begun.
Chapter 9
As I left the library, I mentally recapped the evening so far.
Atticus had been accused of murdering two elders on his way to becoming boss of the Ring, with Thierry potentially next in his power-hungry crosshairs.
Sebastien, sired by Thierry who-knows-how-long ago, recently broke out of his three-centuries-long imprisonment/coma in a tomb who-knows-where, and wholeheartedly blamed Thierry for this.
As such, he’d taken the first step of his revenge by slipping Thierry some blood that had a “lose control and start biting people” spell on it.
A djinn might be loose in the mansion we were currently trapped in till dawn, and if we didn’t stuff it back into its currently missing amulet, we were toast.
Oh, and I’d also had a conversation with a severed head who’d asked for my help to solve his murder.
Couldn’t forget that. Not again, anyway.
I’d known it was a mistake to come here tonight. Chalk one up to the gut instinct of the brunette fledgling in the red dress.
I still felt like Sebastien was the element in the mix I had a chance to control. If I could find him and explain the situation, he might believe me enough to break Thierry’s spell. Thierry worked much better under pressure when he wasn’t fighting his thirst.
As far as what might happen at dawn if we couldn’t fix this situation and find both the djinn and the amulet, I couldn’t waste time thinking about that. Not yet, anyway.
As I searched for Sebastien, I also searched for the amulet. The first room I checked was the parlor. I turned over the edge of the rug, I checked the shelves. I even felt along the wallpaper in case there were any mysterious bumps. Nothing. And not even the slightest magical tingle to tell me I was close.
When I left the parlor, I decided to head up to the second floor. I’d seen Anna and Frederic, and Atticus, too, who’d started their search on the main floor. Only Veronique had g
one upstairs, but that was to chase after Jacob.
In the foyer, I found Melanie sitting on the stairs, her head in her hands. Given that she’d been possessed less than half an hour ago, I approached her cautiously.
She looked up at me through glossy eyes. “I’ve been told I was a conduit for a message from the otherworld.”
Put that way, it sounded so professional. “Has that ever happened to you before?”
“Never.” She shuddered.
“Is that why you’re upset?”
“No, that would be due to the news that we’re hours away from certain death.” She looked up at me beseechingly. “I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t know about the blood. Honest. If I had, I wouldn’t have put it in your husband’s cranberry juice.”
She did seem earnest enough. Part of me wanted to believe her. “A werewolf with morals.”
“I am. Always have been. That’s probably why I’m on my own at the moment.”
I looked up at the second level. A little remorseful chitchat was delightful, but right now I had a million other things to do. Still, I didn’t want to abandon anyone who seemed upset if I could do anything to help.
“A lone wolf,” I said.
“That’s me.”
I nearly smiled at that. “I knew another werewolf once—the only other one I’ve known personally, actually. He was on his own, too. You two might make a good couple if I knew where he was.”
“I’m more into vampires at the moment. Werewolves don’t interest me. Way too alpha.” She grimaced. “Then again, it’s not like it matters. The guy I like’s involved with somebody else.”
I remembered how she’d looked up at the butler after he’d caught her in his arms. “Is it Thomas?”
Her brows shot up with surprise. “Good guess.”
“He’s very good-looking.”
“He is.” A smile now played at her lips, chasing her sadness away. “Too bad he’s taken, even though he won’t tell me much about her. Some old, rich woman.”
“Sorry. Money talks, even to vampires. Sometimes at very high volume.”
After reminding Melanie that we were all to meet in the foyer at three o’clock to regroup, I wished her luck on her search and headed up the stairs on my own.
I’d known the mansion was huge from the moment the taxi drove up the long, winding driveway, but seeing more than the main floor, which was gigantic all on its own, was incredible. This was the kind of house some reclusive billionaire might own, the kind of house that would make even Architectural Digest start to sweat. Really, with the number of rooms I saw lining the second-floor hallway—and there was another floor above this—it qualified more as a hotel than a private home.
To summarize, this place was freaking huge.
How were we going to search all of it by dawn?
Same way, as the saying goes, you eat an elephant. One bite at a time.
One room at a time.
I pushed open a door to my left to discover it was a sitting room that mirrored the parlor downstairs. Cream walls, a large Oriental rug, sofas that fit in some specific historical era rather than simply the La-Z-Boy one. I did a quick check, running my hands along shelves and peeking behind the crimson-colored curtains. I tried opening, then breaking the window, to find that it was every bit as impenetrable as the one in the foyer. Ditto to the phone on an end table being the same as the one downstairs. No dial tone, only silence.
After inspecting the sofa and upholstered chairs, I walked around with my eyes closed, my hands stretched out, trying to feel that magical tingle I’d felt before.
Nothing.
Not wanting to waste too much time in any one room, I slipped out, closed the door, and was about to go into the next room when I heard a familiar voice coming from down the hall and around a corner. It was Veronique.
“Please, darling. Just open the door and we’ll talk. No one means you any harm here, I assure you.”
I let go of the door handle and moved toward her instead. She stood in front of a closed door with her right hand pressed up against it. She gave me a tense smile as I approached.
“Jacob is very upset,” she said. “He’s locked the door and won’t let me in.”
“A locked room is good. Maybe he can steer clear of Anna’s appetite in there.” I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms over my chest. “Veronique, I need your help.”
She glanced at me with surprise. “My help? Whatever for?”
“Sebastien.”
She nodded. “He is acting foolishly.”
“The spell . . . it’s worse than I thought. Thierry is in a bad place right now, and I don’t just mean this mansion from Hell. He’s worried the spell will make him lose control.”
Veronique pressed her lips together, her forehead furrowing. “Thierry is a realist. If he’s worried, then there is most definitely cause for true alarm.”
The confirmation made me feel queasy. “Can’t we think a little more positively?”
“Not when it comes to Thierry’s thirst.” She tempered her words with a smile that felt slightly condescending. “You haven’t seen what I have over the years, my dear. He is dangerous when in the grip of his hunger. This may not end as well as we’d like it to.”
I bristled at the suggestion that a happy ending was not guaranteed. “He can handle a stupid spell.”
“We will agree to disagree on that.”
Agree to disagree? How about I was right and she was wrong? But I didn’t think she meant any real offense. She simply didn’t believe in Thierry nearly as much as I did, and she was a woman who didn’t mince words.
“Fine,” I said as calmly as I could, although I felt just the opposite. “The others can keep looking for the amulet. Jacob can stay safe and sound in his nest. But you have to help me find Sebastien and talk him into breaking the spell.”
I expected an argument, but instead I got a firm nod of agreement.
She knocked lightly on the door. “Jacob, darling, will you be all right in there for a little while? I’m off on a quest with Sarah, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
There was no reply.
A grandfather clock farther down the hallway gave a loud ticking sound from its pendulum, and I counted off ten of them before I spoke again.
“Are you sure he’s in there?”
She considered this. “I saw him enter this room. And a few minutes before you arrived, he did let out a rather high-pitched shriek as I requested entry. He kept calling me ‘monster’ over and over, which I tried very hard not to take personally.”
I cringed. “‘Monster,’ huh?”
“I have grown increasingly frustrated with him since earlier at the cocktail party. Can you believe, I heard him talking to Tasha about publishing her memoir?”
Frankly, I could believe it. And I would totally read that memoir—no offense to Veronique.
Although this probably wasn’t the right time to admit that out loud.
So why wasn’t Jacob saying anything now that there were not one but two monsters standing outside his door? Had he been scared silent?
I knocked louder. “Jacob? Are you in there?”
Veronique pulled a compact from her purse and checked her makeup, running her finger along her right cheekbone. “Maybe he escaped through the window.”
“That would be a neat trick considering that all the windows in this place are locked up tight like Fort Knox.” I pounded on the door. I didn’t really like Jacob, but I wanted to make sure he was okay. “Hey, Jacob, just say something so we know you’re still breathing and we’ll leave you alone. A casual grunt would be fabulous.”
Veronique snapped her compact shut and regarded me with confusion. “Do you think he’s unwell? Perhaps the shock of the evening has given him a heart attack. After all, he is of a certain mortal a
ge.”
Nine hungry vampires equaled one freaked-out human. It was simple math, really. “Stranger things have happened. I think we shouldn’t go anywhere else until we know he’s okay.”
“Stand aside, my dear.”
When I did as she asked, she took hold of the door handle. One modest shove and I heard the lock splinter.
It was a good reminder that this woman was about a million times stronger than she looked.
“You could have done that earlier,” I told her.
Veronique brushed off her hands after checking that her French manicure was unblemished. “I was being polite and giving him privacy, not that he likely appreciated it, given his cruel words.”
“Probably a good idea,” I agreed.
She pushed the door open to glance into the room. Her face fell. “Oh, dear.”
“What?” I moved past her to enter the room completely. It was a bedroom, with a canopied bed, a large armoire against the wall, and floor-to-ceiling windows covered in luxurious brocade drapery. Much like in the previous room I’d checked, an Oriental rug adorned the floor.
Jacob lay on top of the rug, staring up at the ceiling.
“His throat,” Veronique whispered.
I’d already seen the bite marks.
She moved toward him, crouching down next to him to check the other side of his throat for a pulse. She didn’t have to tell me he was gone. Along with seeing ghosts, I could also sense death. I’d describe it like a weird cold spot, an absence of life. And I sensed big-time absence here.
Then again, the glossy eyes staring at the ceiling were also an excellent giveaway of this sort of thing without the need for any psychic ability at all.
“I’m sorry,” I managed as she rose to her feet after closing Jacob’s eyes. “I know you cared about him.”
She gave me an incredulous look. “I think that would be stretching matters, my dear.”
“You were dating him.”
“Romance is for the young. I am much too mature and I’ve seen too many things to ever have my head filled with silly fantasies like that. Writing it is another matter altogether. Fiction is fiction, real life is real life.”