Hotel Hex (10 page)

His face screwed up, looking uglier than usual. “I’ll be a king. Have all the maidens I want. Can you give me that?”

“No way I’d want to. Think about it, Puck. She won’t give you a thing. You’ll end up like the others and she’ll take your power too.”

He shook his head. “My magick won’t work for her. She’s only doing what she needs to survive. Sure, there’s collateral damage, but really, an opera singer who’s starting the downhill slide in her career, a celebutante who fakes her psychic powers, that haunted travel writer who wouldn’t know what to do if he met a real ghost. And you and the vampire, well, sure, the two of you are way stronger than all three of the others combined, and I’ll hate to see you drained. But that’s the way it happens.” He raised his hands, palms up. “New changes coming, babe. I believe in being on the side of the winner.”

“Puck,” she leaned forward to whisper, “once I destroy her I will make sure you never leave the inkwell. And I’ll find you the perfect home. One where no female crosses the threshold.” She straightened up and walked away.

“Now that’s just mean!” he called after her. “Good thing it won’t be happening.”

Jazz wasn’t surprised to find Amira in the hallway. She was still garbed in her gold gown. The sorceress’s ruby glossed lips stretched in a smile.

“What a shame we couldn’t be friends, Griet. I do believe if you were at at full power you would be a formidable opponent,” she said in her low sultry voice as she glided forward. “And I am certain you can understand that I cannot allow that to happen.”

“Oh yes, BFFs are so not in our future,” Jazz snarked. “Tell me something, Amira. How come my magick worked when we first arrived and now it doesn’t?”

Amira’s smile widened. “I saw no need to activate my spells until after all of you were settled in. No use wasting my perfectly good power when I didn’t have to.” She looked up as thunder rumbled overhead. “I understand your temper can be tied to thunder. This time it was me.”

“It’s not polite to brag.” Jazz pulled out her Miss Manners voice.

“I never brag.” Amira’s ebony eyes flared with orange fire.

The witch was now ready to throw etiquette out the window and sock the sorceress a good one even if it ruined her recent manicure. “You’ve done the unforgivable, Amira. You involved mundanes in a magickal battle. Get with the times, sweetheart. The rules have changed since you were last let loose. Now we at least pretend to be sane.” 

The ancient sorceress uttered a throaty laugh. “Laws have never bothered me. Mundanes are already aware of us. Many of them even know exactly what we can do.” She lifted a hand, examining her scarlet colored nails. They sparked with magick.

“And we protect them,” Jazz insisted, refusing to move any closer.

“Vampires treat the mundanes as cattle,” Amira pointed out. “Do you call that protection? They are creatures that require a mundane’s life force.”

“Honorable vampires live on animal blood or any of the synthetic bloods out there. You don’t just take a mundane’s life force and leave nothing more than a shell. Is it that important for you to be woman on top?”

“Yes,” Amira hissed, her dark eyes blazing. “Don’t you realize nothing can stop me? I am protected here. But once I have your power I will be free to go anywhere I wish.”

Jazz tipped her head to one side. “It wasn’t Laird Manfred’s blood soaked into the stones, it was yours, wasn’t it? What did they do to you back then? Torture you? Cut you over and over to make you bleed? Wall you up after that?” She smiled when she saw the flicker in the sorceress’s eyes. “Wow, talk about major flashbacks. You really should have immigrated to Australia. Lots of open land in the Outback. Some pretty nasty clans out there, too, who would probably welcome you with open wands.”

Amira’s face tightened. “Child, you have no idea what you are dealing with. I thought of saving Nick for last, but I might keep you a bit longer. Teach you manners.”

Jazz widened her stance, ready for anything that might be thrown at her. Except Amira only glared at her and spun around, her gown flowing around her ankles as she walked away. Her form sizzled in and out and she suddenly winked out of sight.

Jazz blinked. “I sure didn’t expect that.”

“She ain’t up to full power yet,” Zorak spoke up. He was back to lounging in a velvet-upholstered chair in the lobby. “Don’t worry, she can’t hear or see you when she’s gone like that.”

Jazz turned on him. “You couldn’t tell us that sooner?” she almost shrieked.

His smile revealed grayish-green teeth, one gently falling into his lap. “You didn’t ask.”

Chapter 10

Instead of screaming at the zombie, Jazz muttered a few non-magickal curses under her breath and walked down the hallway where Amira disappeared.

“Damn having no senses,” she said to herself as she stopped in front of the closed parlor doors. She pulled in a deep, bracing breath and opened them.

The same dry scent of must filled the air. Sylvie’s body was still upright in the chair, her head slightly tipped to the side.

Jazz wished she could block her sense of smell as she moved around the room.

“Hm, so she brought you tea, too?” she murmured, noting the half-filled teacup on a nearby table. She picked up the linen napkin lying next to it and wrapped it around the handle, picking it up and cautiously sniffing the contents. She wrinkled her nose at the acrid stench with the faint underlying scent of gardenia. “It probably smelled a lot better when she gave it to you.” She carefully set the cup down, making sure the napkin was still enveloping the china. She glanced around. “Okay, Jazz, be a witchy Jessica Fletcher but with cuter clothes and shoes.”

“What do you think you’ll find?” Zorak asked from the doorway.

“Clues.” She looked at his hands encased in white cotton. Easy to assume they were to prevent any skin flakes falling on the guests. As if that mattered any longer. “Do you have any more of those cotton gloves?”

“Got them out in the lobby.” Zorak shuffled away. When he returned he held out a plastic bag. Jazz reached in and pulled out a pair of gloves, slipping them on.

“Isn’t your vampire a detective? Why isn’t he down here?” Zorak remained on her heels.

“This time it’s a girl thing.” She inspected the mantel carved with leering faces that looked as if they came straight from Hades. She kept her fingers to herself. She wasn’t certain if they might bite. “How long do you think Amira will be out of commission?”

“Hard to say. She sucks up more power with each person.”

Jazz shook her head. “She couldn’t have gotten too much from Sylvie. The twit didn’t have any real power.”

“She plans on getting her real boosts from you and the vampire,” he replied. “Then she’ll be back all the way and there won’t be any stopping her.”

Jazz rolled her eyes. “Oh puleeze. Another one out to end the world? Been there, done that, have the scorched broom. There’s been more than enough of those wanting to end the world, thank you very much. And they’re always stopped. That’s the way it works. Evil tries to move to the top of the heap and good stops them.”

“Amira’s been around since healthy young slaves were prime transportation,” the zombie pointed out.

Jazz stopped and turned. “She talked to you about her plans?”

“Bragged a lot about her life as the most dominant sorceress in the world,” he drawled. “How no one’s magick could ever stand up to hers. Seems that’s how she always stayed the way she is. Except back then no one cared what she did to slaves. When she was driven out of Babylon, she moved to Egypt. Guess she picked up new tricks wherever she went. That woman is a real talker. Especially when it’s about herself.”

“Although she probably didn’t talk about what can weaken her,” Jazz mused, now eager to leave the room with its macabre corpse.

“Nope.”

“And the house. Anything about how she and the house are connected?” She kept a casual tone to keep him talking. “Is there anything else other than her blood infused in the stones?”

“Just that she’s mighty upset her blood doesn’t have the punch like it used to,” he replied, as he followed Jazz to the library. “Keeping the house and grounds like they are is takin’ more outta her. She will probably go after Mr. Derwood next in hopes he’ll keep her goin’ until she’s ready for you.”

Jazz thought of the travel writer who was already looking bad. “Then I better figure this out fast.”

Zorak watched her roam the library with the same care she gave the parlor.

“You won’t find anything down here,” he told her. “Or even in the kitchen.”

Jazz mentally gagged at the mention of the room. “Please tell me I don’t have to go into the cellar.” The idea of walking into a dank dark place probably filled with spiders had her mentally itching.

“All you’d find down there is the furnace and a bunch of old furniture. Everythin’s up in the attic. That Amira likes it up there. No idea why. It hasn’t been cleaned up there in years.”

“
Attic
?” Her interest perked up. “Nick and I headed up that way our first night. We only saw a nursery and children’s’ bedrooms.”

He shook his head. “She does some kinda mojo to make it look like that. There’s some special door up there she goes through.” Zorak idly wiggled his finger in his ear. The lobe drifted away.

“You need to show me that door,” Jazz said, starting to reach for his arm then pulled back. Zombie forensic evidence was something she didn’t care to collect.

Zorak reared back. “And how will you protect me when you don’t have magick? She’s been working hard to acquire all she needs to be at full power.”

“That’s something else I intend to make sure doesn’t happen,” she said grimly, gesturing for him to accompany her.

She tuned out Zorak’s grumbling as they returned to her suite. Jazz twisted the skull-shaped doorknob and pushed, but the door refused to move.

“Damn it all to Hades!” she shrieked, stepping back and turning sideways. She lashed out with her foot, connecting with the door. “Owowowow!” She hopped on her uninjured leg. “That door’s like concrete!”

“Probably magick wanting to keep you out. Let me.” Zorak pushed past her and opened the door with ease.

Jazz limped into the room.

“Nick’s asleep in the bedroom,” Derwood said in a low voice from his spot on the sofa. “He said he was tired.”

“Tired? Nick’s never tired unless it’s a real sunny day. Even then he’s fine as long as he stays indoors. Although the last couple days…” she headed for the room.

Jazz had seen Nick in his daytime sleep before, so she wasn’t surprised to see him lying on the bed like a statue. Or a member of the undead community.

Except something felt very wrong to her.

“He’s not asleep,” Fluff told her, bouncing up and down within their protective circle. “He groaned and just flopped back.”

She moved to the side of the bed and sat down by Nick’s hip. “It’s still dark outside, so Nick shouldn’t be that tired.” Worry made her voice wobble as she stared at her beloved’s face.

Faint lines fanned out from his eyes and deeper ones scored his face between his nose and mouth. There was also a faint ashen look to his skin. She touched the back of his hand then picked it up. She expected his flesh to be cool, but not the ice cold she felt now. “No, Nick,” she whispered. “She was going to take you last.” She kissed his unresponsive palm then placed it against her cheek. “She did this to punish me. Because I taunted her downstairs.” She released a soft sigh. “Okay, babe, I’m on my own. Do I know what I’m going to do? Hades no, but I promise I’ll bring her down before she gets all of you. And I will bring you back because you belong to me.” She leaned over and kissed his lips, ready to cry at the, well, dead feel of them.

“We’ll protect him, Jazz,” Puff vowed, wiggling his ears back and forth.

“Yeah, we won’t let anything happen to him,” Fluff added. “Go get her.”

Jazz picked up the quilt from the end of the bed and carefully tucked it around Nick. She knew it wouldn’t warm him, but it made her feel better.

Derwood was prone on the sofa, his legs dangling over the end. Zorak perched on a nearby chair, staring intently at the man.

“She decided to take him now, didn’t she?” he rumbled. “To punish you.”

“Not for much longer.” She glared at the carpet that shifted from forest green to dark blue. She glanced at Derwood. “How do you feel?”

“Tired.” He smiled wearily. He held up hands that were now trembling violently. Dark liver spots and prominent veins blossomed across the skin in an alarming display. He had aged a good ten years in barely that many minutes.

“Amira is ‘resting’,” she told him. “I guess she has to recharge her batteries before she goes after her next victim. If that’s the case there might be a way for me to take care of her, but I need to do it fast. Even then I may not succeed. You need to realize if that happens she’ll speed up the process to kill us and it could be brutal.”

Derwood recoiled at her words. He breathed deeply in and out as he touched his slightly wilted bowtie. “Is there anything I can do?”

Jazz was touched by his offer. “I guess this isn’t what you expected.” She held her moonstone pendant in her hand, feeling the protective power of the stone.

“I have had a few close calls in Eastern Europe, but this does top the list,” he admitted, erupting in a wheezy cough.

Jazz stood up and looked toward the bedroom where Nick lay motionless and Fluff and Puff, in their protective circle, hovered by him.

“Thank you for your offer, Derwood, but this is between Amira and me,” she said.

“Do you think you can best her?” he asked hopefully.

“I don’t know.” There were times she had to be honest even if it hurt. She wiped her damp palms down her jeans. She popped back into the bedroom again to rummage through her bag of supplies and returned holding a smooth stone. “It holds a powerful protection.” She placed it in his hand.

He looked puzzled by her offering. “But I thought magick didn’t work here.”

“I think earth and stone magick will. It needs to be something clean and pure. I’m hoping with the house constructed from stone, that this will counteract the negative effects she’s been using. Or at least slow things down.”