From Fear to Eternity: An Immortality Bites Mystery (20 page)

I
swear, I nearly dropped the head in my frantic rush to pull away from the hand.

“A little help?” I managed.

Sebastien reached in and batted at the hand until I got loose.

Melanie ran around in circles, then stopped and shifted back to human form in five seconds flat.

Sebastien’s eyes bugged at the unexpectedly naked woman. He pulled off his suit jacket off and tossed it in her direction.

I had mostly recovered from getting grabbed, and I peered down into the deep freezer again.

“You found me!” the head exclaimed happily. “Hooray!”

“I guess I couldn’t smell a frozen body,” Melanie said, cringing. “Sorry about that.”

“You never checked this freezer?” I asked.

“No. All the food and drinks for the party were kept over there.” She nodded toward the opposite side of the huge kitchen. “And Thomas told me not to touch anything else.”

I looked down at the body that reached up helplessly toward me. “Did Thomas do this to you?”

“Are you asking me?” the head asked. “Because, in
case you forgot, I’m having some memory issues at the moment. I wish I knew.”

That made two of us.

Sebastien drew closer again, his attention going between the head and the body, his expression stunned. “A djinn who wishes for things. Ironic?”

The head frowned. “Why do you keep calling me a djinn?”

I eyed the kitchen suspiciously. We couldn’t stay there. Someone might be watching us. “Sebastien, can you and Melanie get the body out of there?”

“You should really put some clothes on,” he suggested sternly to her.

“I will in a minute.” Melanie looked down at her borrowed jacket that covered everything it had to. “Is it that difficult to look at me?”

Sebastien cleared his throat. “Trust me, difficult is not the problem I’m having.”

Despite any references to past loves, it was obvious to me that he was attracted to the pretty blond werewolf. If this was another time and place, I might try to act as matchmaker. “Headless body now, naked body later. Okay?”

With no further protests, Melanie and Sebastien heaved the body out of the freezer and placed it on the floor.

It gestured frantically at its empty neck . . . well, as frantically as a mostly frozen body could.

I had a flashback to the performance of
Sleepy Hollow
that my drama group put on back in high school. “I think it’s trying to tell us something. Any thoughts, head?”

“This is a guess,” the head replied, “but maybe put me into place?”

Why was I asking somebody who didn’t have any memories? “And you think you’ll snap back on like a Lego?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Melanie said with a shrug. “Tonight, anyway.”

“Good point.” Carefully holding the head between my hands, I placed it atop the neck.

“Wait,” Sebastien said. “How do we know this isn’t a bad idea? Can we trust a severed head?”

“A bad idea is better than no idea,” Melanie said pointedly.

He eyed her. “Are you sure about that?”

The body’s hands came up and held the head in place, swiveling it until I heard . . .

Yes, that was definitely a click.

So, pretty much
exactly
like a Lego.

A red line still circled his throat, clearly showing where the injury had been. I took a shaky step backward, waiting for him to show some sign that Sebastien was right about it being the wrong move to help him.

“That kind of stings.” He winced, then his eyes widened. “Somebody cut off my head!”

“I’d say that’s a safe assessment.” I watched him warily, but saw nothing suspicious yet. “Can you stand up?”

“I . . . I’m not sure. I’ll try.”

Sebastien gave him a hand and he slowly and shakily got to his feet.

Finally, I took a good look at him—all of him. He was tall and he wore loose, emerald green pants. He
was shirtless, but his arms and chest were covered in tattoos, black winding symbols and patterns. Some were faded to gray, some were dark black.

“Somebody cut off my head!” he said again, gingerly holding that head between his hands. “Who would do that to me?”

Good question.
I scanned the kitchen again nervously, but less worried he was an immediate threat to the three of us. “Can you walk around without that thing falling off?”

“I think so.” Slowly, he removed his hands and tested his head, craning it to the right, then the left. He turned grateful eyes to me. “Thank you, Sarah. You did exactly as I asked of you.”

A warm feeling took hold of me, chasing my misgivings away. “Sorry it took me so long.”

“At least it’s before dawn. Which means . . .” He frowned. “I’m not sure what it means, but it feels important.”

I patted his arm, worried that he might be in one piece, but his mind was still messed up. “You’re still a little broken, aren’t you, Jack?”

“Is my name Jack?”

“If I’m right and you’re the missing djinn, that means you’re from the Jacquerra Amulet.” I shrugged. “I figure it’s as good a name as any.”

“Jack.” He nodded. “I like it. Maybe it is my name. But I have absolutely no idea who I am or how I got here.”

“We’re running out of time,” Melanie said, her voice tense. “We have the djinn, but now we need to find the amulet.”

I took Jack’s hand in mine. “Maybe you can help us now.”

“I can try.”

Was it fair to get an amnesiac djinn to help us find his personal prison we had to put him back into?

Trapped. For centuries.

Seemed to be the theme of the evening.

“If you didn’t hide it”—I looked at Sebastien—“it must have been Thomas.”

He nodded. “It’s possible.”

So what Thomas said
had
to have been a clue.

“Seven oh five. Attack.” I said these words over and over as we left the kitchen, my brain aching. Was it the ramblings of someone already half-dead? Or was it a clue that would help us from someone who knew more than he’d let on? “Attack. A tick . . .”

“Attic,” Sebastien said.

I stopped walking and turned to stare at him. “What did you say?”

“Attic? Is that what you’re saying?”

Seven oh five . . . attic.

Could it be? Or was it another false lead?

Only one way to know for sure.

I gave Sebastien a big smile. “That’s where we’re going. The attic.”

First we quickly stopped at the basement entrance and retrieved Melanie’s clothes so she could get dressed in more than a man’s suit jacket. Once she changed, we went up to the third floor and found a trapdoor on the ceiling that Sebastien yanked down to reveal a rickety set of stairs.

“Where’s everybody else?” Melanie asked.

“Not sure,” I said. “This is a big mansion. They could be anywhere.”

Or they could have mistakenly strolled into
another magically created world and be fighting flowery-speaking vampire slayers this very moment.

Or they could be dead at the bottom of the pool just like Anna Dark.

A cold chill sped down my spine.

No way. If Thierry had found Veronique and Marcellus, I had total faith that the three of them would help one another stay alive.

The murderer was somewhere in the mansion. And she was trapped, just like we were.

If I was right about who to blame, she was very dangerous. Very deceptive. And currently feeling more desperate by the minute as we edged closer to dawn.

We took the stairs as quickly as we could and found ourselves in a large attic with a low ceiling. Sebastien found a few bare lightbulbs hanging from that ceiling and he clicked them on one by one to light the area, casting spooky shadows all around.

“So what now?” Sebastien asked.

Good question. I’d hoped a spotlight would immediately shine on exactly what we were looking for, but I knew nothing was that simple. Never had been, never would be.

I looked at Jack. “Any ideas?”

He gave me a blank stare. “About what?”

I sighed. He wasn’t going to be very much help. “About where to find your amulet.”

“I have an amulet?”

Like I said, nothing was simple.

“What do you remember?” Melanie asked.

Jack absently stroked the red line around his throat. “I remember being really cold. I remember being in the dark. I was trapped.”

“In the freezer or in the amulet?” Sebastien asked. “You are a genie.”

“I thought you said I was a djinn.”

“Same thing.”

Jack didn’t remember anything helpful right now; that much was crystal clear. Continuing to prod him would only result in more confusion. “What I don’t understand is why Thomas was trying to help if he was the one to hide it. And why did he die? Did somebody really stake him?”

“He looked very ill,” Melanie said. “Maybe somebody poisoned him.”

“Maybe. And maybe he was working with somebody. And if it wasn’t you, Sebastien . . .”

“It wasn’t,” he said, his expression tense. “He came with the mansion. He’s the butler here normally and he seemed like a big help to me tonight, but I don’t know what his game was.”

Sebastien might be scummy when it came to putting the revenge spell on Thierry, but I’d decided that he wasn’t a bad guy when it came to the amulet.

I scanned the cluttered area where it looked like old furniture from decades ago had gone to die.

“Seven oh five attic,” I said again. “We have the attic part down. But what’s with the numbers?”

“Could it be a labeling system?” Melanie suggested. “Maybe the seven hundred and fifth box of junk?”

I hoped not, since we didn’t have the time to look through that many boxes. Still, it was worth a few minutes of looking. My magic intuition hadn’t kicked in. I hadn’t felt even a modest tingle yet.

I grabbed a nearby box. “Let’s start searching. And
Jack, if you remember anything, anything at all, please speak up.”

“I remember that I’m eternally grateful for your assistance this evening, Sarah.” His voice hitched. “I was lost and now I’m found.”

Earlier, I’d assumed the djinn would be some sort of fire-and-brimstone demonlike creature, furious about being imprisoned in the amulet and ready to destroy anyone who wanted to put him back in it.

But he wasn’t a horrible demon. He seemed more like a lost puppy dog who didn’t possess any magic at all.

Which was seriously too bad. A little magic would help right about now.

“During the auction, you said the three wishes legend is true, right?” I asked Sebastien.

“Yes. You allegedly get three specific spoken wishes before the djinn can begin to resist the compulsion to take your orders.”

Three wishes. I’d already made two specific wishes, not that they’d come true. I wondered how many djinn masters had wasted their precious few wishes, not realizing that was all they were guaranteed.

I drew closer to Jack, who was standing there, his arms at his sides, his shoulders hunched. “Are you all right?”

“I can’t go back,” he whispered, shaking his head. “Please don’t make me.”

“Go back where?”

His gaze flicked to mine. “The cold, dark place.”

I knew he didn’t mean the freezer.

I wanted to promise that he didn’t have to go back into the amulet, but since fixing it would likely
require him going back into it, I couldn’t say the words.

“All magic that has escaped must be returned to the safety of the amulet by dawn.”

Melanie and Sebastien were busily going through boxes trying to find the amulet.

“Any luck?” I asked after a few minutes.

“No, none.” Melanie gave me a bleak look. “Maybe coming up to the attic was a mistake. There are those locked rooms on the third floor. Maybe it’s in there.”

“Thierry said he’d check those. Keep looking. I don’t feel anything yet, but something tells me there’s something here that can help us.”

That something might just be blind hope, but so be it.

Still, I hoped very hard that Thierry was having a great deal more luck than we currently were.

Boxes of junk. Old framed movie posters. Oil paintings. Furniture. A few broken grandfather clocks in the far corner. Piles of books.

I sneezed.

And dust. Lots of dust.

I shuffled through a stack of the old movie posters that were from the 1920s. They featured silent films all starring the same actress—Betty Levins, a cute but rather plain-looking girl-next-door type of brunette who grinned like she had a secret behind those big expressive eyes. I’d never heard of her before.

I moved a large oil painting of a sunset aside to reveal a portrait beneath.

“Well, hello again, Betty.” It was a beautifully done portrait of Betty, but she wasn’t smiling in this one; she looked quite serene. And she didn’t look anything like a cute flapper. Maybe she was dressed as
one of her many movie roles, since by the costume she wore, it looked a hundred years earlier.

Jack had taken a seat on the floor, drawing his legs up to hug them against his chest. His face had grown paler. He didn’t look well at all.

I was getting really worried about him. How quickly could someone, even a supernatural, snap back from a decapitation?

“Who’s that?” Melanie came up beside me and nodded at the poster.

“Betty Levins. A silent-film actress from the twenties I’ve never heard of before.”

“She looks a little bit like Tasha, don’t you think?” Melanie said, pointing at the portrait. “Around the eyes. Maybe they’re related.”

Then Melanie wandered off, not realizing that she’d just said something rather profound. And disturbing. And potentially puzzle clicking.

I stared at the portrait, then compared it to the movie posters. I was sure it was supposed to be the same woman.

“Sebastien,” I said, indicating with a crook of my finger that I wanted him to come over.

“Yes, Sarah?” He glanced at the poster I had my hand against and his jaw tightened.

I studied him with narrowed eyes. “Tasha told me she hadn’t acted before twenty years ago, not seriously, anyway. But she had. Tasha Evans is Betty Levins.”

He didn’t reply.

“You already knew, didn’t you?” I asked. “You already knew because this is her house. And these images are her before, I don’t know, some plastic surgery to make her look different. More beautiful.”