MaryJane Davidson - Undead and Unpopular

I looked away and counted to five before talking again. “What happened?” I asked, wondering if vampires had a CSI-​type team they could send out for to, I dunno, vacuum for fingerprints or whatever.

“We had risen, of course, and were preparing to go out and get something to eat. David—” Carolina, the group's unofficial spokesvampire, nodded to a tall, quiet (but then, they were all quiet) gray-​haired vampire who looked like a used car salesman in a good suit. “David was having someone come up; the rest of us were going out in a while. Alonzo was going to wait to dine, though, he wanted to leave right away. He was excited. He said you wanted him to come over. He—he was excited,” she said again. “He was looking forward to seeing you again.”

I turned to Tina. “For the record, not that I think you'd be so obvious and sloppy, but did you call Alonzo, pretending to be me, to lure him out away from his buddies, ambush him in the elevator on his way down, shoot him in the head, then cut his head off?”

“No, Majesty. I had to go to Best Buy and get a new DVD player for the game room.”

“I can verify her story. I went with her.” Sinclair sniffed down at Tina. “You are a gem in all things but one: you will insist on buying American.”

“Can we focus, please? So after a while, Alonzo went skipping out the door, all happy to come to my house, and then a while later we came up with—blech—his headless body.”

“Yes, there he was,” used car salesman said. David! His name was David.

“And none of us did it,” I clarified, “and none of you guys did it.”

“If one of us had a grudge,” Carolina pointed out, “we would hardly wait all this time, until we were here under your watchful eye, and kill him in a strange country in a strange hotel room. This draws your attention to us at a time when we have little interest in being noticed.”

“Good point,” I admitted. That “no attention” thing made sense, too. Getting noticed was a great way to get singled out and, well, just check the elevator for why it was bad to get noticed.

“We will take care of this,” Sinclair told them. “We have a small team coming to tend the body. Do you wish to take him back to France?”

“Why?” Carolina asked. “He is dead. What difference does it make where his body is?”

Nice epigraph:You're dead now, and who cares? Not even your cousin .

“If you did not kill him,” she continued, “then his properties are on the table, so to speak. Speaking for myself, I am most anxious to return and look into disbursement issues.”

The three of us looked at each other. These guys didn't know that I had planned to give all Alonzo's stuff to Sophie. But now that he was dead, there was no reason to avenge the good doctor.

“You're not sad he's dead because you want his stuff?”

“His being dead solves a rather large problem for you, too, Majesty.”

Larger than you think, honey . I pushed the thought of Sophie—an obvious suspect—aside for now. “Yeah, but—come on, the guy's dead. A friend of yours—family member—for decades? Perhaps a century? Don't you owe him something? Don't we all? I barely knew him and I sort of liked him, when I wasn't thinking about—” Shooting him, I'd started to say, but probably that wasn't the best way to go. “Look, there's got to be something. I mean, I'm glad you guys aren't in a killing psycho rage because of this, but the poor guy got iced in a hotel elevator, for God's sake.”

“What is it you want us to do?” Carolina asked. Her expression made it clear she could not think of a single idea that appealed to her.

It took me a moment, but then I realized what this group needed. What Alonzo needed. WhatI needed. “Okay, let's—okay, everybody bow your heads. Bow your heads! Okay. Uh, dear God, please—”

“You're praying? We can't pray,” David said.

“Not to mention, I don't think Alonzo is with… Him,” Tina added.

“Shut up, you guys. I'm sure you won't burst into flames if I do all the talking. I see heads are up. They should be bowed. Bowwwww.” All the heads dropped like they were on a string, except for one. Sinclair's. He was looking at me and struggling valiantly not to laugh. I glared at him, but he wouldn't bow his head. Typical. I'd let the Big Man handle him another day.

I bowed mine and looked at my clasped fingers. “Heavenly Father, you may have noticed our friend, Alonzo, has run into a spot of misfortune. We're not sure where he is, but regardless, please bless him and look after him, forever and ever, and please let him be happy where he is and not scared or lonely. And, um, thanks again for all the help you've been giving me on the whole fasting-​for-​my-​birthday thing. Amen.”

“Okay,” Tina said. “Now that the… the royal prayer is out of the way, perhaps we can get back to the business at hand.”

“Which is what? We talked to these guys, other guys are coming to take Alonzo's body—we're not cops, we're not forensic scientists, and we're not journalists. We're—”

A phone began to ring. I glared around at them. “You guys! Shut that off. Hotel room phone, cell phone, whatever it is, kill it, just don't get me started on phones. Will you—”

After a few seconds of looking around, everyone looked straight down. The phone continued to ring.

It was coming from Alonzo's body.

“The dead man's pants are ringing,” Tina said, somewhat needlessly.

“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'sreally 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?”

“Hegave it to Sophie. Calledher 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.”