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Alonzo was in two pieces in the elevator There was also a bloodless hole in the middle of his forehead Sadly, he wasn&039;t the first dead vampire I&039;d seen I wasdead, 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 etting killed?

"Thorough job," Tina said, squatting beside Alonzo&039;s head

"Yep," I confirmed So the killer had shot him to, I dunno, distract hi to grow back his brain Obviously, so with There was very little blood, which I&039;d expect, but the other five European vampires were scared shitless, which I didn&039;t expect

At least it was very late-not much staff to deal with And we&039;d jumped in the elevator and taken it up before anyone in the lobby had seen

Carolina and the others were sort ofback and forth and occasionally uess that was ? They weren&039;t back there polishing grain, after all They sure were taking the news like cool custo my brain back to current events, I forced myself to look at Alonzo&039;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 ith surprise; the other one was rolled up, looking at the ceiling Well, he wasn&039;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 va in the hotel suites

Had they heard anything? If they had, they hadn&039;t volunteered anything yet

Anyway, the elevator had been brought back up to the fifteenth floor, where we all were, but there wasn&039;t any police tape or anything because the vamps wanted to keep this one in-house I had no idea how they could keep so like this from the cops (it wasn&039;t a vampire hotel, after all) but I kept my mouth shut Police involvement could only cause complications Especially if Alonzo was correctly identified: huy who doesn&039;t look a day over twenty-five! Now there&039;s a stu in for questioning? For about five-to-ten with tiood 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"

So that&039;s why they were so twitchy Funny; I&039;d iine ancient vampires didn&039;t much care about imminent death, but I&039;d found the older they were, the , when you sat down and thought about it

"You guys, relax I didn&039;t do it None of us did it" I looked at Sinclair and Tina, who I just reht before Alonzo&039;s death

"None of us did it," Sinclair echoed Right! Besides, he and Tina were always ay, I would have had to keep ato 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 hiested

"Fa," Tina added

"And for the saet 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 orked 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?"

I looked away and counted to five before talking again "What happened?" I asked, wondering if vampires had a CSI-type teaerprints or whatever

"We had risen, of course, and were preparing to go out and get soroup&039;s unofficial spokesvampire, nodded to a tall, quiet (but then, they were all quiet) gray-haired vaood suit "David was having so 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 hiain "He was looking forward to seeing you again"