All Together Dead

said,” Mr. Cataliades murmured in my ear, and I barely suppressed a yelp of astonishment. I’d always thought that what people said about big men moving lightly was total bullshit. Big people move bigly. But Mr. Cataliades walked as lightly as a butterfly, and I had no idea he was nearby until he spoke to me.
    “In the queen’s wedding contract?” I managed to say.
    “Yes,” he said. “And Peter’s attorney went over it very thoroughly indeed. The same applied in the event of Sophie-Anne’s death, too.”
    “I guess there were a lot of clauses hanging on that?”
    “Oh, just a few. The death had to be witnessed.”
    “Oh, gosh. That’s me.”
    “Yes, indeed it is. The queen wants you in her sight and under her thumb for a very good reason.”
    “And other conditions?”
    “There could be no second-in-command alive to take the state over. In other words, a great catastrophe had to occur.”
    “And now it has.”
    “Yes, it seems that it has.” Mr. Cataliades appeared quite pleased about that.
    My mind was tumbling around like one of those wire bins they draw bingo numbers from at the fair.
    “My name is Henrik Feith,” the small vamp said. “And there are only five vampires left in Arkansas. I am the only one here in Rhodes, and I am only alive because I went down to complain about the towels in the bathroom.”
    I had to slap a hand over my own mouth to keep from laughing, which would have been, shall we say, inappropriate. Andre’s gaze remained fixed on the man kneeling before us, but somehow his hand wandered over and gave me a pinch. After that it was easy to not laugh. In fact, it was hard not to shriek.
    “What was wrong with the towels?” Baruch said, completely sidetracked by this slur on his hotel.
    “Jennifer alone used up three,” Henrik began explaining, but this fascinating byway was cut short when Sophie-Anne said, “Enough. Henrik, you come with us to my suite. Mr. Baruch, we look forward to receiving updates from you on this situation. Mr. Donati, are you intending to call the Rhodes police?”
    It was polite of her to address Donati as though he actually had a say in what was done. Donati said, “No, ma’am, this seems like a vampire matter to me. There’s no body to examine now, there’s no film since there’s no security camera in the suite, and if you’ll look up…” We all did, of course, to the corner of the hallway. “You’ll notice that someone has very accurately thrown a piece of gum over the lens of the security camera. Or perhaps, if it was a vampire, he jumped up and planted the gum on the lens. Of course I’m going to review the tapes, but as fast as vampires can jump, it may well be impossible to determine who the individual is. At the moment, there aren’t any vampires on the homicide squad in the Rhodes police force, so I’m not sure there’s anyone we can call. Most human cops won’t investigate vampire crime, unless they have a vampire partner to get their backs.”
    “I can’t think of anything more we can do here,” Sophie-Anne said, exactly as if she could not care less. “If you don’t need us any longer, we’ll go to the opening ceremony.” She had looked at her watch a few times during this conversation. “Master Henrik, if you are up to it, come with us. If you’re not up to it, which of course we would understand, Sigebert will take you up to my suite and you may remain there.”
    “I would like to go somewhere quiet,” Henrik Feith said. He looked like a beaten puppy.
    Sophie-Anne nodded to Sigebert, who didn’t look happy about getting his marching orders. But he had to obey her, of course, so off he went with the little vampire who was one-fifth of all that was left of the Arkansas undead.
    I had so much to think about that my brain went into a stall. Just when I believed nothing more could happen, the elevator dinged and the doors swept open to allow Bill to leap out. He didn’t arrive as dramatically as Henrik, but he made a definite entrance. He stopped dead and assessed the situation. Seeing we were all standing there calmly, he gathered his composure around him and said, “I hear there has been trouble?” He addressed this to the air in between us, so anyone could answer him.
    I was tired of trying to think of him as Nameless. Hell, it was Bill. I might hate every molecule in his body, but he was undeniably there. I wondered if the Weres really managed to keep the abjured off their radar, and how they dealt