Undead and Unpopular (24 page)

"Maybe it's a sales call," I said. "They have the worst timing."

Sinclair stepped into the elevator, fished around blank-faced in Alonzo's pants for a minute, then pulled out a small ringing cell phone.

He flipped it open and said, "Dr. Trudeau?"

Ooooh, snap! Except
—

He held it out. "It's for you."

"Did you tell her that now isn't a good time? I mean, just because the phone is ringing doesn't mean—"

"Elizabeth."

"Okay, but I'm just saying. I mean, obviously this is an important call, but in general, if it's
really
important, they'll call back." I took the cell phone from Sinclair, who looked like he'd be happy to make me eat it. "Hello?"

"Hello, gorgeous," Liam drawled. "You having fun in the elevator?"

"Uh, is this the part where you taunt me and leave me clues?"

"Not hardly. I did it. Sophie wanted to, so I'm afraid I had to send her on a bit of a wild-goose chase so I could take care of things for her—"

I looked around at the others. "When you use euphemisms like 'take care of it' and stuff, are we, I just wanted to make sure, are we talking about the same thing?"

"I cut the smug bastard's head off," Liam said. "After I stuck my .38 in his forehead and pulled the trigger."

"Oh. Well, it's good that you got that out of your system." I didn't say his name out loud, though why I was trying to protect the maniac was beyond me. "So, uh, what now?"

"Now nothing, blondie. I just wanted to call you and let you know in case your barrel was swinging over to Sophie. Now listen close, 'cause there might be a test later: I did it. Sophie had nothin' to do with it. She didn't ask me to do it and she didn't know I was gonna go out and take care of it tonight. I told her you called and were looking for her—"

"That seems like a popular strategy today."

"—and she scooted right over to your place. Then I called Alonzo—"

"How'd you get the number?"

"He
gave
it to Sophie. Called
her
cell—she's listed up in Embarrass, since she's gotta be accessible—and left her the number in case she wanted to 'work things out.' Boy, if I didn't want to kill him before, I sure woulda after that."

"I, uh, gave him your number. He was supposed to call her and set up a meeting and apologize."

"Too late now," Liam said, totally unmoved.

I turned and walked a little ways away from the group. "Then you came over here and did it?"

"Yep. Then I came back to our room, told Sophie, and we lit on out of here. But I didn't want you guys wondering. It was me."

"Your friend must have nipped right out of her gourd," I said in a low voice, but who was I kidding? They were vampires. They could probably hear both ends of the conversation.

"Yep, she was pretty pissed at me. Still is. But we'll work it out."

"How does this affect your—your earlier plans?"

"Dunno." I could almost hear him shrug over the phone. "Don't much care right now. She'll turn me when she gets around to it. Right now, we gotta get in the wind."

"Maybe you don't have to—"

"You ever seen a vampire have a nightmare, Bets?" His voice was lower, too, either because he didn't want Sophie to hear or in response to mine. "It's awful. It's about the worst thing you ever saw. You have nightmares, Bets?"

"No," I said truthfully. "I don't dream anymore. I didn't think any vampires dreamed."

"Lucky," he said, and hung up.

I closed the phone and turned back to the group. "Okay! Where were we? Right, we were leaving."

"Dr. Trudeau's lover." Carolina, looking very relieved, glanced around at the others. "Of course! We should have guessed much sooner."

"What, you're happy?"

"No, just… reassured. Vengeance for a loved one is—"

"An understandable motive," Tina interrupted. "Like being interested in taking over his properties."

"Right," Carolina said, completely missing the sarcasm.

"We're going," I said.

"Wow!" Jessica said. "That is—wow! Liam! Sneaking over and icing the vampire—who'd have thought?" She answered her own question. "In retrospect, everyone. And it's
so
slick."

"Slick?"

"Well, Bets, what are you going to do?" I opened my mouth, but Jessica rushed ahead. "Punish him? You can't do anything to him—he's human. If he was a vampire, you could do something, but he's not in your, what do you call it, jurisdiction. Turn him over to the cops? For what, killing a dead guy? Assuming you could find the body—which I bet, thanks to Sinclair's little gray men, I bet you can't—you sure don't want a forensic guy poking around in it."

"You're giving me a headache," I muttered.

"Sophie didn't do it, so you guys can't be pissed at her or punish her or anything. And someone
did
kill Alonzo, avenging Sophie. The Europeans won't expect you to do anything—they gave you a big hint when they were all uncaring about what to do with his body. In fact…" She shot Sinclair a sly look. "Am I right? Did you tell her?"

"I haven't had the chance, and besides, you're obviously dying to."

"I hate when you go all Sherlocky on me," I grumbled.

"They're gone! Aren't they gone?" she asked Sinclair. "I bet they beat feet out of here this very night."

"They are gone," Sinclair confirmed.

"What? Already? It's only—" I looked at my watch. It was eight-thirty the next night. Once we'd left the hotel, the evening had been a bust. Sinclair made feeble mention of tracing Sophie's cell through Alonzo's cell, but I waved that away (could it even be done? I didn't know from cell phone technology). Let it go. They were long gone from here, anyway, and Liam probably wouldn't have been dumb enough to hang on to whatever phone he'd used to taunt me from Alonzo's pants. "How do you know?"

"I have been keeping an eye on them, of course," Sinclair replied, looking surprised at my abysmally stupid question. "They departed as soon as the sun set."

"They just took off? Without a word to anybody?"

"Of course." Sinclair was looking like the cat that had eaten fifty canaries.

"But it was such a big deal when they came. And now they're just—what? Sneaking out of town? Aren't they afraid that'll make us mad?"

"They know it won't."

"It won't?"

"Look at it from their point of view, Majesty," said Tina. "They are not remotely sure of your power base. They wait almost a year before coming to pay tribute. While they are here, you show evidence of fasting, prayer, powerful allies—vampire and human—live through an attack by a vampire killer—"

"Delk wasn't trying to kill me," I protested. "He was just having a really shitty day."

"—publish your life story, maintain a cop and a doctor as blood-sheep—"

"The hell!"

"—kill a zombie sent here for obviously sinister reasons—"

I'd told them about Zombiefest in the car on the way to Alonzo's hotel. They had both been flabbergasted. Both denied ever seeing a zombie in their long, long lives. "We don't know if it was sent, or just wandered in."

"And, when presented with a moral dilemma, you arranged for the death of a contemporary."

"But I didn't!"

"From their point of view," she reminded me.

"Well, how dumb are they?" I
muttered
.

"Frankly," Sinclair said, smiling, "I am surprised they did not skulk out of town quite a bit earlier."

"So—you're happy? You're happy that those guys think I'm a royal murdering jerk."

"You should be very happy they think that—if you can bear it, Miss Congeniality."

I stuck a finger in his face. "I told you about that privately. It's private. Private information!
Not
for sharing with the class!"

"You should never have told Jessica, then," Tina piped up, "because she told everyone that story."

"What?" Jessica cried when I looked at her. "You were in the Burnsville paper, for God's sake. It's not like it was a Pentagon secret."

I turned to Sinclair. "So do we ask Sophie and Liam to leave? Banish them?"

"They banished themselves," Sinclair said quietly. "They did not return to their home in Embarrass; no one has seen them in days. Too bad; I have questions."

"Questions like what?"

"Like how a farmer of modest means could have killed one of the oldest, most powerful vampires
on
the planet."

"A classic assassination," Tina pointed out. "He just walked up to him and—well. Alonzo was distracted, apparently. Perhaps Liam got close to him with a lie—I'll be your driver tonight, orders from the Queen, she's the one who had me call. Something. Anything."

"And he isn't a farmer," I said. "He lives in a small town, on a farm, but he doesn't work the land. He's retired from the Air Force, Sophie told me." I nearly groaned as I remembered
what
she had told me. "Where he used to teach small arms."

"Small arms?"

"Handguns," Tina clarified. "Hmm. In hindsight, someone should have been watching those two."

"I guess I thought Sophie would just wait around for—"
What? For me to make a move? For justice
? "Indefinitely," I finished. "I should have known none of this would sit well with Liam. And he wouldn't think killing Sophie's killer—I mean, I don't get the idea that it's going to be weighing heavy on his mind, you know?"

"Did killing Nostro weigh heavily on yours?" Sinclair asked.

I shook my head; if he was looking for answers, he had the wrong girl. "I'm so fucking thirsty right now," I admitted, "it's hard to get worked up about anything."

Jessica edged away.

"I don't think you have to worry," Tina teased. "You smell so bland and tasteless right now."

"Hey, that's right!" She brightened. "Vampire repellant."

"You've always been repellant," I told her gently.