MaryJane Davidson - Undead and Unpopular

“I trust you will let me in on it?” he asked lightly, but he was giving me an odd look. “If it is not too much—”

He cut himself off. We both looked as Tina came hustling out of kitchen and almost ran through the hall, actually sliding to a stop in her stocking feet in front of the steps.

“Majesties!”

“Whoa, who died?” It was a joke, but then I remembered the company I was in, the events of the past, uh,year , and my life. “Oh, God. Whodid die?”

“No one. I heard you wanted me and came as fast as I could. And Alonzo called to say he would be here in an hour.”

“Not soon enough,” I replied. “Let's go.”

“Wait, we're meeting him?”

“Yeah. Right now. Get your coats. Come on.”

“What's happening?” Tina asked.

“I was not aware you were meeting with him today,” said Sinclair.

Me neither. Well, if Alonzo was open to a meeting, that was fine with me. “Listen, he killed Sophie and there has to be a consequence. Not a Nostro consequence, but still. So, he has to pay. Literally pay. And I was thinking, he's probably built quite a little holding for himself over the years. Right?”

“Right,” Tina replied, and Sinclair nodded.

“Okay. So: he gives all his property and money to Sophie. And has to start over.”

Sinclair blinked.

“Oh, Majesty,” Tina began dolefully. “That is—we're talking millions. Possibly billions. And he would have nothing?”

“He'd have more than Sophie did. A cousin, friends to help him. A way to get back on his feet. Or maybe he never will. That's not my problem. He has to pay for what he did. And that's how it is.”

Sinclair was looking at me like he'd never seen me before. Tina's eyes were practically bulging in surprise.

“I will support you, Elizabeth, if you feel this strongly about it.”

And Tina said, “Your will is our will, Majesty.”

And that was that.

We pulled up to the hotel, Sinclair (reluctantly) handed his Mercedes keys to the valet, and walked into the hotel. It was one of those hotels that look like a nice big brownstone on the outside, a place where families lived. It cost, Tina had told me, twelve hundred dollars. A night. I assumed the beds were made of gold and the staff tucked you in every night with hot cocoa and kisses.

“A zombie,” Tina murmured. She looked like she was having trouble processing everything that was happening at once. I hoped she enjoyed being a member of the “I'm freaking out” club. “I had no idea they even existed.”

“We will take care of that—”

“Too late,” I said.

“—after we take care of this. Perhaps I should tell him,” Sinclair was saying as we trooped to the elevator. “Be the heavy, as it were.”

“I'm not afraid to tell Alonzo that we're punishing him,” I retorted. Shit, after the Unfortunate Attic Incident, I wasn't afraid of anything.

“Small bites, Majesty,” Tina murmured.

The elevator came—ding! The doors slid open. Before I could let Tina in on my new “not afraid of nothin' ” mind-​set, Sinclair muttered the rare epithet.

Tina looked. I looked. We all looked. And after the night I'd had, I really wasn't all that surprised.

“He's pretty dead,” I observed.

Alonzo was in two pieces in the elevator. There was also a bloodless hole in the middle of his forehead. Sadly, he wasn't the first dead vampire I'd seen. I was mostly numb—no idea how I felt about Alonzo being dead, how he got that way, or what to do next. Not even taking the elevator up to the fifteenth floor(WITH THE DEAD VAMPIRE INSIDE) moved me. Well, moved me much.

Did I feel bad about a killer getting killed?

“Thorough job,” Tina said, squatting beside Alonzo's head.

“Yep,” I confirmed. So the killer had shot him to, I dunno, distract him, and then cut off his head while Alonzo was still trying to grow back his brain. Obviously, someone had known what he (or she) was dealing with. There was very little blood, which I'd expect, but the other five European vampires were scared shitless, which I didn't expect.

At least it was very late—not much staff to deal with. And we'd jumped in the elevator and taken it up before anyone in the lobby had seen.

Carolina and the others were sort of milling about in the hallway, if shifting back and forth and occasionally murmuring to each other could be called milling. I guess that was milling. What was milling? They weren't back there polishing grain, after all. They sure were taking the news like cool customers.

Wrenching my brain back to current events, I forced myself to look at Alonzo's body. The elevator door had been propped open, so unfortunately it was easy to take in.

The body was dressed up, he had his shoes and socks on. His head was about two feet away. One eye was wide with surprise; the other one was rolled up, looking at the ceiling. Well, he wasn't really looking at the ceiling. It just looked like he was looking at the ceiling. In fact, it looked like one big dead vampire in the elevator.

Alonzo had been killed in the private elevator, which was solely for the use of the guests on the suite floor. Tina had checked; the vampires were the only ones staying in the hotel suites.

Had they heard anything? If they had, they hadn't volunteered anything yet.

Anyway, the elevator had been brought back up to the fifteenth floor, where we all were, but there wasn't any police tape or anything because the vamps wanted to keep this one in-​house. I had no idea how they could keep something like this from the cops (it wasn't a vampire hotel, after all) but I kept my mouth shut. Police involvement could only cause complications. Especially if Alonzo was correctly identified: hmm, a hundred-​year-​old dead guy who doesn't look a day over twenty-​five! Now there's a stumper! Say, all you others, would you mind coming in for questioning? For about five-​to-​ten with time off for good behavior?

“What happened?” I asked.

There was a long silence while the Europeans looked at each other, and I was beginning to repeat my question, louder, when Carolina said, “Well, ah, Majesty, Alonzo called you and he left. And then he died.”

Sothat's why they were so twitchy. Funny; I'd imagine ancient vampires didn't much care about imminent death, but I'd found the older they were, the more they thought they were entitled to live. It was amazing, when you sat down and thought about it.

“You guys, relax. I didn't do it. None of us did it.” I looked at Sinclair and Tina, who I just remembered had mysteriously disappeared earlier tonight before Alonzo's death.

“None of us did it,” Sinclair echoed. Right! Besides, he and Tina were always mysteriously disappearing. If Tina hadn't been gay, I would have had to keep a much closer eye on—

“The monarchy had nothing to do with this,” Tina reiterated. I was glad she seemed to know all about it. “We assumed he had been killed in a dispute with one of you.”

“Why would one of us kill Alonzo?” Carolina asked. “Why would I kill him?”

“To get in our good graces?” Sinclair suggested.

“Family doesn't always get along,” Tina added.

“And for the same reasons humans kill,” I said. “For money? To get property? For love? Hate? Jealousy? Revenge?”

Carolina was shaking her head; they were all shaking their heads. “No, no. Alonzo was—any differences we had were worked out decades ago. You were the only cause—that is to say, we had different opinions on what to do.”

“Because of the situation with Dr. Trudeau,” Sinclair said.

“That was her name? The brunette from your parlor?”