The Accidental Genie (11 page)

Jeannie paused in thought, then tugged on her lip. “Oh, my God, I do remember he said something. Well, screamed something, but it didn’t make any sense. It all happened so fast . . .”

Mat stirred on her leg. “Yep. It was that damn curse. So I guess he musta cursed you to an eternity in the bottle. Just like me. Which makes us perfect for each other, doll.”

She tapped Mat’s midsection and clucked her tongue. “Except, if I’m following this curse thing properly, I belong to Sloan because he opened the bottle, but he got lucky because I didn’t know the words to this curse that would’ve trapped him in the bottle.”

“Of all the damn luck,” Mat muttered.

Jeannie’s head spun. “So any thoughts on how I get out of the bottle? Or rather, how I get out of being a genie?”

“There’s only one way.” Mat’s tone held finality to it.

Oh, God. Please don’t let it be the kind of way that required a major organ. “What’s the way again, Mat?” She held her breath and winced.

“Well, you’re a genie now, too. It’s like I said before, all ya gotta do is curse someone else to the bottle, but there’s no changin’ the fact that somebody else’s gotta go in if you want out for good.”

Anxiety rose in the pit of her stomach, making her hands shake. “That’s ridiculous. How could I possibly find someone who’s willing to wear MC Hammer pants and a push-up bra so uncomfortable it cuts off your blood supply? Add in the fact that if someone lets you out of that vile, smelly contraption, you’re literally indebted to them for life, not to mention a life of servitude. It isn’t exactly prime real estate. Who makes these stupid rules up anyway?”

Mat sighed his agreement. “The djinn play hardball, that’s no lie.”

“And what about Marty?” Jeannie yelped, jumping up from the floor, too worried to sit still anymore. “How do we get her back without screwing it up?”

Mat shimmied upward until he was eye level with Jeannie. “Who the hell’s Marty? Is there another guy I gotta plug while he ain’t lookin’?”

Jeannie shook her finger at him in fierce admonishment. “There will be absolutely no plugging, Mat. If you’re mine, then you have to listen to my orders. No plugging, and that means no one. And Marty isn’t a man. Marty’s a woman, and somehow, one of these wishes I’m in possession of went haywire and she was wished off the face of the planet.”

Mat quivered ever so slightly, his torn threads rippling. “You mean the wet blanket here”—he pointed his fringe in Sloan’s direction—“wished a dame gone?”

Nina stomped across the floor and eyeballed the rug. Her face was tight with tension when she jammed it in Mat’s vicinity. “Listen up, throw rug. It wasn’t Sloan who made the wish. It was fucking me, all right? And I didn’t even say that shit out loud. I thought it. So why don’t you tell us how we can fix this shit before I gotta get a broom and beat it the hell outta you?”

Mat zipped around Jeannie’s back and cowered, his breathing harsh and raspy. “Jesus, she’s a scary broad,” he whispered against Jeannie’s ear. “She made the wish?”

Jeannie nodded, clenching her eyes shut. “She did. In her head, no less.”

Mat pressed tighter to her. “Somethin’ ain’t right. You ain’t supposed ta grant wishes to just anybody. Only the guy that got ya outta the bottle can make a wish, and he’s only got three shots.”

So she was what? Special genie? Her sigh was frustrated and tired. “Well, that’s how it happened, and Sloan’s already used two wishes, and the third was used without even realizing we were doing it. It seems I’m even able to grant wishes telepathically. Now we’re afraid if we don’t word another wish with the utmost of care, we’ll blow it.”

“Good thinkin’. If I heard Burt blow his horn once about how he used ta fool a buncha greedy pushovers with that con before he was cursed to that infernal bottle, I heard it a million times.”

Terrific. So Burt was an expert at all things involving bottles and deception. Her stomach clenched into a new knot. “Any thoughts on how to get Marty back without making things worse?”

“I got nuthin’, doll.”

Sloan pressed his fingers to his temple. “Swell.”

Wanda rose now, too, tightening her bathrobe around her slim waist. “I propose this—we wait, and while we wait, you all go get a good night’s sleep. We don’t have a lot of choice in the matter at this point anyway. Nina’s going to pass out if she doesn’t get her vampire sleep soon, and Jeannie’s had probably the longest day in the history of her days. You can’t go to bed without Sloan because, well . . . Anyway, while you all do that, I’ll fish around online and see if I can’t come up with something on this Nekaar. In the meantime, pray I hear from Darnell. Maybe there’s something obscure I’ve missed, somewhere I haven’t looked—maybe the man whose party you catered had something to do with this. I don’t know. So off with all of you.” She waved a hand in the direction of Jeannie’s bedrooms, distracted and worried.

Nina crossed her arms over her chest in a show of defiance. “No sleep till we find Marty.”

Sloan chuckled and draped an arm around Nina’s shoulder. “
You?
Lose vampire sleep over
Marty
? Since when are you so selfless?”

Nina flicked his arm so hard it split the leather of his jacket. “I’m a giver like that. Just because she drives me out of my fucking gourd doesn’t mean she’s not my best friend. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you, ass sniffer? Because the only friends you have are the kind you have to dial one–nine hundred to talk to. Now get the fuck off me and go to bed.”

Jeannie sensed Sloan clearly hadn’t realized just how loyal Nina was to Marty by the concerned expression on his face. He squeezed Nina’s arm with genuine reassurance. “I promise we’ll find her, Nina, if it’s the last thing I do.”

“I can’t let you both stay up alone. I was a good researcher in high school. Please let me help,” Jeannie begged.

Nina shook her head. “Three’s a crowd, kiddo. You’re gonna need some sleep so we can deal with this shit with clear heads. Not to mention, you got
him
attached to your ass. Go to bed and rest up.”

“But vampire sleep . . . Didn’t I read that was part of mandatory vampire care?” Jeannie protested.

“I’ll be fine. Over time, you build up a tolerance to some things. Fighting off vampire sleep’s one of them. Though I goddamn well wish it was a tolerance for Ring Dings.”

“You promise to wake me up if you need help, or better yet, if you find something we can do to get Marty back?”

Wanda patted her on the hand and gave her another one of her comforting smiles. “You bet. And I wouldn’t worry, Jeannie. Marty can never stay away from a good crisis for long. Not even a crazy wish can keep her nose out of it.”

Wanda’s attempt at lightening the atmosphere of the room brought only silence. The fear flitting across Nina’s face made Jeannie allow Sloan to usher her to her bedroom with only a nod and a quiet “thank you” to the women.

Mat slithered along behind them, the underside of him scraping along her floors in jerky rasps.

Boris and Benito didn’t even stir when they entered her room. Her hand reached out to stroke each of their heads before she made her way to the small walk-in closet and searched for some blankets and a pillow. The lump in her throat for the damage she’d erroneously created was thick and hard to swallow around. Biting back tears, she dug around for a clean pillowcase, her fingers tight.

She popped her head around the closet door to find Mat and Sloan together. Sloan sat on the edge of her bed with Mat at his feet.

Jeannie hitched her jaw toward the bed. “Seeing as we’re sort of stuck with each other, you take the bed, Sloan. I’ll sleep on the floor. All I ask is a little warning if you have to go farther than this room. I don’t want to end up concussed because you’ve got some hot date with your cell phone and Mistress Lavonia.”

Mat rippled, his roughed-up threads shivering. “Wait, doll. Are you two stuck together? Like he can’t go anywhere without you and vice versa?”

Jeannie let her hands fall to her sides in defeat. “I can’t get more than a couple of hundred feet from him without being dragged along like a dog on a leash.”

“Aw, hell.”

Sloan peered down at Mat. “Aw, hell, what?”

Mat shifted in what looked distinctly like a shrug to Jeannie. “I can’t remember. I just know it ain’t no good. I mean, it’s real, real bad. Lemme think on it for a little, and I’ll let ya know.”

Sloan leaned forward, placing his elbows on his thighs as he narrowed his gaze at Mat. “So what is it exactly that you’re adding to this equation? I don’t see why you can’t just sleep in the bottle . . .”

Jeannie rushed to intervene. She felt an odd allegiance to Mat—a bond. One she couldn’t explain or quite put into words. Placing a hand on Sloan’s shoulder, a hand that trembled when she allowed herself a brief moment to luxuriate in his hard muscles, she gave him a nudge. “Not helping.”

“And he is? He smells like a goat and he has a memory like a sieve.”

Jeannie captured Sloan’s eyes with hers. “Enough. He’s my smelly goat for now, and while he’s mine, we’ll be kind to him. Nothing makes a situation worse than discord.” And that was something she’d learned the hard way. Don’t poke the caged animals. Stay calm. “So, please,
please
no fighting. Deal?” The desperation in her tone obviously caught Sloan’s attention. He leaned back onto the bed and held up his hands in a gesture of submission.

Mat’s fringe curled around her toes. “Hate to say it, but he’s right, doll. I ain’t much help.”

She knelt down and gave him an affectionate pat. “Are you kidding? You were a huge help. Without you, we wouldn’t have a name to go on. Now I don’t know about magic carpets, but genies need sleep, and I think werewolves do, too. So let’s try and do what Wanda said and get some rest. Maybe you’ll remember what Sloan and I being stuck together means, or Marty will just reappear and we’ll only have one problem instead of two.”

Mat took her advice and snuggled down into the floor, blowing out a gurgling sigh of contentment. Within seconds, he was snoring.

Sloan patted the space beside him on the bed and she obliged by sitting next to him, leaving at least five inches between them. “A talking carpet. Some kind of crazy, huh?”

“A werewolf and his out-of-control genie. Some kind of crazy, huh?” Jeannie poked him with a teasing finger and a good-natured chuckle.

“You look exhausted, Jeannie. Go on and get into bed. I’m going to do some poking of my own for a little while longer. Just so I can decompress.”

“You sure? The floor can get pretty cold.”

“Ah, but I have Mat to keep me warm.”

“The hell you say,” Mat grumbled, rolling away from Sloan’s feet before settling under her bedroom window.

Sloan tilted his head toward the top of her wrought iron bed. “Bed.”

Jeannie slid up and away from him, regretting the loss of his warm presence almost as much as she feared the very warmth it brought.

Sloan rose and helped her move the few colorful pillows Boris and Benito hadn’t torn to shreds. He held the covers up with a smile, indicating she should climb under.

As insignificant as she was sure the act was to Sloan, it made her stomach flutter and her limbs flood with warmth.

When he pulled the covers up over her and tucked them under her chin like she was a child, a small sigh almost escaped her lips. One she had to bite back in order to stifle.

He turned without saying a word, moving toward the lone chair she had in the room, flipping the light off as he went.

“You can leave the light on, if you want. It won’t bother me,” she croaked, her throat dry and tight from Sloan’s kind gesture.

“Werewolf eyes. I can see in the dark,” he reminded her, the screen from his phone illuminating the handsome lines of his face.

Right. Werewolf. “Sloan?”

“Uh-huh?” His response was distracted as his fingers moved over the face of his cell.

Boris and Benito dragged their sleep-heavy bodies up to the head of the bed and curled into either side of her, bringing with them the comfort of the familiar. “I’m sorry you got involved in this. I had no idea you’d end up stuck with me just because you opened the bottle, or I never would have asked you to rescue me. I mean, who knew this genie thing would really be just like the shows on TV?”

He looked up then and directly at her, his blue eyes piercing hers. “I can think of worse things to be stuck with, Jeannie.”

“Surely you don’t mean a clingy blonde?” she teased, her eyes heavy, her heart warm.

“Definitely not on my list of favorites.”

She adjusted the pillow under her head, folding her hands behind it. “Promise me something?”

“Does it involve picking out china?” He followed his words with a chuckle that made her smile secretly and her toes tingle.

“China’s work. I’m a paper plate kind of girl.”

“Just how I like ’em.”

“I’m being serious, Sloan.”

“As am I.”

“Just promise me this—even if it’s only an empty promise at best. I need to hear the words out loud, sort of like throwing out some positive energy into the universe.”

“Are you one of those health-food fanatics who likes wheat germ and dandelions? Because you picked the wrong guy to end up stuck to. I’m an uncooked beef, starchy carbohydrates, Little Debbie’s snack cake kind of guy.”

Gak. She hated fake snack cake. “No. I like a steak just as much as the next werewolf. But I do believe in reinforcing the positive. So work with me, okay?”

“Deal.”

“Just tell me everything’s going to be okay. Tell me that we’ll get Marty back, and she’ll be as good as new.”

“I can promise you whoever has Marty won’t want her for long. They’ll probably beg us to take her back.”

“Sloan. Please?”

There was a slight pause and then Sloan said, “I promise you, Jeannie, whatever it takes, Marty will come back no worse off than when she left, if it’s the last thing I do.” His tone held a hard edge of determination. The right amount to convince her he meant it.

A tear fought to slip from her eyes and down her cheek, making her hunker farther under the comforter, using the fabric to wipe it away. “Thank you,” she whispered into the dark.