George Martin: Down These Strange Streets

Joaquin’s heavy eyebrows flew up in surprise. He looked at his predecessor.

“I walked through the kitchen,” Cedric said. He was leaning against the wall. “I was right on the heels of Taffy and her werewolf, but Glenda went out before me, not after. I wanted to talk to her.”

“Why?” Joaquin said. He looked up at Cedric, whose blue-patterned waistcoat was rumpled up above his belly. Even Cedric’s boots were scuffed, while Joaquin’s loafers shone like mirrors. The contrast could not have been more unkind: Cedric the old catfish, Joaquin the sleek barracuda.

To the side of the room, Glenda moaned as she struggled to her knees to get to her feet. Very quietly, another vampire stepped over to let her drink from him. Dahlia noticed that he was looking as neutral as possible, as if his arm just happened to be in the right place in front of Glenda’s mouth for her to have a healing draft. He even kept his eyes on the floor so Dahlia couldn’t meet them. Dahlia smiled inside. It was good to be feared.

“Why?” Cedric said. “Because I wanted to go outside, and I hoped she would walk with me, for old times’ sake. Because, in case you hadn’t thought of it, this is a very awkward evening for me, and I needed friendship.”

The demons looked amused, the Weres embarrassed, and the vampires all looked elsewhere. An open admission of weakness was not the vampire way. Only Dahlia looked thoughtful.

Joaquin said, “Taffy, what happened out in the garden?”

Taffy bowed her head to her sheriff. “Of course I’ll answer, if my sheriff asks it,” she said graciously, reinforcing Dahlia’s point. “We talked to Bernie, my husband’s enforcer, about his lack of courtesy to one of the demons.” She nodded her head toward Diantha. “Bernie was . . . uncouth enough . . . to make fun of her speech patterns. Don felt the need to teach Bernie a lesson about diplomacy. As you can see, Don made his point.”

Now that danger had passed, Bernie had resumed his hunched-over position. He was clearly uncomfortable. He bobbed his head in acknowledgment, straightened, and winced. “My leader did correct me,” he said.

“While we were in the garden,” Taffy continued, “We remembered it was the site of our wedding, and we celebrated in an appropriate way.” She smiled brilliantly at Joaquin, pleased that she’d phrased it so diplomatically. Taffy had never been subtle.

Don grinned at her and slung his arm around her shoulders. “We had a great celebration back in the bushes,” he said. “Even if it was colder than a witch’s tit.”

The only witch present opened her mouth to protest, but Dahlia whipped her head around to look at the woman in a significant way. The witch’s mouth snapped shut.

“But none of this offers any proof that the human didn’t die at your hands,” Joaquin said in the most reasonable of voices.

“We haven’t got a speck of blood on us, Sheriff,” Taffy said, holding out her arms to invite inspection. “When Don gave Bernie his etiquette lesson, he didn’t break the skin. My husband knows that the smell of blood is tough on vampire sensibilities.”

“Would the killer be blood-spattered?” Joaquin asked Dahlia. “You saw the wound.”

“I’ll defer to Katamori,” Dahlia said. “It’s well-known that Taffy and I are friends.”

“A vampire moving at top speed, a vampire who had performed this kill many times, might be able to avoid the blood,” Katamori said. “Anyone else would have had to change clothes.” He walked over to the couple and examined them with minute care. “I see and scent no blood on Taffy and Don.”

Dahlia’s shoulders might have relaxed a fraction.

Gerhard said quickly, “I’ll smell like blood because I took some from a donor this evening.” It was Dahlia’s turn to work, and she looked Gerhard over from stern to stern. She straightened to tell Joaquin, “He does have a trace of blood scent, and one pinpoint of blood on his collar, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

Cedric said, “You may examine me, Katamori,” though no one had suggested this. Katamori glanced at Joaquin, got no signal either way, and moved over to Cedric. He’d give Cedric a thorough examination, Dahlia knew. Katamori had never been fond of Cedric.

“I can’t find any on Cedric’s clothes,” Katamori said. “Though he does smell slightly of blood.”

Cedric shrugged. “I partook of the donors,” he said.

There was a pounding on the mansion’s front door.

Dahlia looked at the clock on the wall, just as a precaution. It was now eleven fifteen. Arthur Allthorp had been dead around an hour. The front doorkeeper for the evening, a young vampire named Melvin, came into the reception room so quickly that he skidded on the parquet floor. “The police are here, Sheriff,” he said to Joaquin. “They say they’ve had a report of a body on the premises.”

“How long can you delay them?” Joaquin snapped.

“Ten minutes,” said Melvin.

“We’ll need it,” Joaquin said. “Go.”

Melvin began walking slowly through the archway on his way back to the front door. He was looking at his watch.

“Katamori and I will dispose of the body,” Dahlia said, and she and Katamori took off at top speed. As they passed Rachel, still on guard at the swinging door, Dahlia said, “Cleanup crew, right now!” Rachel moved so fast you could hardly see her go, and Dahlia could hear her call a few names in the reception room.

It wasn’t the first time a body had had to be disposed of quickly in the mansion.

While Katamori unlocked the mudroom door, Dahlia pulled an ancient tablecloth from the linen closet. Together, the two vampires wrapped the body in the yellowing linen to prevent drippage. Dahlia took the feet and Katamori lifted the shoulders. They were carrying the body out while the cleaning crew swarmed through the swinging door. Conveniently, all the cleanup material was kept in the kitchen, and as Katamori and Dahlia took their burden through the mudroom and out the final door, she glimpsed the vampires on duty opening cabinets to pull out the bleach and turning the faucets in the sinks while others fetched the mops.

The dead man had been tall and heavy. Since Katamori and Dahlia were not too far apart in height they could bear the weight equally, and they were both immensely strong, so Arthur Allthorp’s weight wasn’t an issue. His bulk was. They carried the body through the landscaped garden to the huge, formal fountain, which splashed in the middle of a knee-deep pool. The statue in the middle of the fountain was a woman in flowing drapery. She was holding a tilted jug, out of which the running water splashed into the pool. At the side of the fountain farthest from the house, they laid down the body. Dahlia leaped up on the broad edge of the pool and craned over precariously to fish a key from the statue’s drapery. It wasn’t in the fold that usually held it, and she had a moment’s severe jolt until she felt the metal edge in the next fold down. All the vamps in the house knew the key’s location, and once or twice it had been misplaced. With a huge feeling of relief, Dahlia hopped down, a little wet from the experience.

She squatted to insert the key in the keyhole of a large panel in the base of the fountain. This panel looked as though it had been designed to give access to the plumbing and the fountain mechanism, but the vampires had designed it for another use. Though this body was somewhat bigger than most of the previous bodies that had been hidden there, and though the hole was partially obstructed, they had to make it work. Dahlia actually crawled into the space to pull on the body, while Katamori remained outside to stuff the legs in. Then Dahlia had to crawl out over the body, getting even more rumpled and a bit stained in the process.