donation. He loved it.”
“A fangbanger,” Katamori said. Fangbangers, extreme vampire groupies, were notorious for ignoring limits.
Gerhard gave an abrupt nod.
Neither Dahlia nor Katamori remarked on the fact that Gerhard had initially lied to them. They knew, as did Gerhard, that he would pay for that.
“He was my weakness,” Gerhard said violently. “I am glad he is dead.”
This sudden burst of passion startled Dahlia and disgusted Katamori, who let Gerhard read that in his face. Gerhard whirled around to leave the kitchen, but Dahlia said, “What time did you leave with the humans? Was anyone in here with the man Arthur when you took the others away?”
Gerhard thought for a second. “I bade them get into the vans at ten o’clock, since that was the time appointed by the agency that sent them. There was no one in here. But I could hear people coming down the hall as I waited for the other donors to exit. I’m sure one of them was Taffy.”
Dahlia would have said something unpleasant if she’d been by herself. As it was, she was aware of Katamori’s quick sideways glance. Everyone in the nest knew that Dahlia and Taffy were friends, despite Taffy’s unfortunate marriage. Dahlia’s own brief marriage to a werewolf had been forgiven, since it had lasted such a short time. But Taffy showed every sign of continuing her relationship with Don, and even of being happy in it, to the bafflement of the other vampires of Rhodes. “We’ll have to find Taffy and Don and ask them some questions,” she said. “Gerhard, would you request this of Joaquin?”
Gerhard gave a jerky nod and barged out the door, shoving it with such force that it was left to swing to and fro in an annoying way.
Dahlia turned her attention back to the spray of blood on the fixtures and the blood pooled on the floor, still wet. “In my experience,” she said to Katamori, “it takes over an hour for blood to begin to dry. Given its tacky quality and the low temperature of this room, I believe the body has lain here for at least thirty minutes, give or take.”
Katamori nodded. They were both experts on blood. They looked up at the clock on the kitchen wall. It read ten forty-five.
“If Gerhard did leave with the humans at ten o’clock . . . say it took him five minutes to encourage them to put their dishes by the sink, and to get them out the door . . . then this Arthur was left by himself at ten oh five or ten ten. I talked to Cedric, and then I danced with Melponeus.” Dahlia was trying to figure out when the scream had brought the party to a halt.
“We heard Diantha at ten thirty,” Katamori said. With some surprise, Dahlia saw that he was wearing a watch, an unusual accessory for a vampire.
“And we were in here within a minute and a half of that. We’ve been investigating for perhaps twenty minutes. So someone entered the kitchen between ten minutes after ten and twenty-five minutes after ten, by the narrowest reckoning.”
“And this Arthur died of his throat being ripped out,” Katamori said.
“Yes. Though he may have been choked before that. Without the excised material it’s hard to say.”
“It’s over here.” Katamori pointed to a grisly little mound of skin and bone half-hidden under a chair.
Dahlia squatted to peer at the discarded handful. “This is so mangled, I still can’t say whether he was choked. This tissue was tossed aside, not consumed.”
Katamori made a moue of distaste.
Dahlia said, “I was thinking of the trace of werewolf, and all that that implies.” Werewolves would eat human flesh, at least when they were in their wolf forms.
“Do you think we’ve seen everything there is to see, smelled everything there is to smell?” Katamori asked, tactfully bypassing the werewolf issue.
“Let’s go through the human’s pockets,” Dahlia suggested, and Katamori squatted on the other side of the body. Dahlia had quick, light fingers, and she was thorough. Folded and stuck in a pocket on her side of the corpse, she found a sheet from the donor bureau containing a rendezvous point and a scheduled donation time for tonight. Just as Gerhard had said, the donors were to be picked up at eight, then returned to the pickup point at ten.
Dahlia wondered if Gerhard had told Arthur to make sure he was included on the donor list. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that Gerhard’s favorite banger had been included in the donor party. In the last four years it had become a regular practice for the hosts of parties to which vampires had been invited to hire donors from a registered donor bureau, so they could be sure that all the human snacks on offer had been examined for blood- borne diseases and psychoses. There was a disease vampires could catch from humans (Sino-AIDS), and donors had been checked for hidden agendas ever since a donor in Memphis brought a gun and opened fire on the assembled partygoers.
Dahlia opened Arthur Allthorp’s wallet to get his donation card, which was perforated with seven holes. The card was punched every time the agency sent him out. After Dahlia had turned over the body to go through the other pants pocket, Katamori patted down Arthur’s legs. To their surprise, he found a knife in an ankle sheath.
After a glance of silent agreement, the two stood, having gotten all the information from the body. They looked all around the vast kitchen for any clue they might have missed. The blackness continued to stare in through the big windows. The blood continued to cling wetly to the stainless steel surfaces. Arthur Allthorp, fangbanger, continued to be dead.
After Katamori deadbolted the outside door, he and Dahlia left the kitchen. Rachel had resumed her post in the hall, and Dahlia asked her to keep guard over the swinging door. “Let no one into the kitchen until we’re sure we don’t need it anymore,” she said. “No one will be able to enter from the outside.”
Rachel nodded, her expression intense. She was still proving herself as a vampire, and Dahlia felt sure Rachel would stand her ground against anyone who wanted to see the body.
Back in the reception room, Joaquin had resumed his seat in the thronelike chair reserved for the sheriff. His ascension party had taken a definite downturn in tone. The festive atmosphere had degenerated to uneasy apprehension. The partygoers were milling around anxiously. The demons and part-demons had established a tight knot in one corner with Diantha in its center, and the fae (an oread, a rare nix, and an elf) clustered close to them.
Bernie Feldman, Don’s enforcer, was watching the French doors with unmistakable worry. Bernie was standing oddly, as if nursing a hurt in his stomach. Dahlia followed his eyes. Approaching, obviously disheveled, were Taffy and Don. Taffy had her shoes in her free hand. The other hand was holding Don’s, and the two were looking at each other with what Dahlia could only describe as goo-goo eyes.
“Disgusting,” she muttered, and Katamori glanced at the happy pair. “They went through the kitchen,” he said. “We’re going to have to question them.”
“Better report to Joaquin first.”
The two vampires went to stand in front of their new leader. Dahlia bowed her head to a carefully calibrated angle. Katamori’s head was perhaps a centimeter lower than hers. Joaquin accepted their gesture and waited for them to report. He looked better in the chair than Cedric had. Joaquin was slim and tall, with thin dark hair and large brown eyes. The new sheriff hadn’t been a vampire as long as Dahlia (only two of the Rhodes vampires had been), but jobs didn’t always go to the oldest.
Glenda was draped over the back of the sheriff’s seat as if being Joaquin’s new fuck buddy gave her some special status. Dahlia eyed the vampire with no expression. Her dislike of Glenda went from vague to specific.
“What have you discovered?” Joaquin asked, giving the two investigators all his attention.
Dahlia was pleased with the mark of respect. “The human was named Arthur Allthorp. He was a pet of Gerhard’s.” Dahlia had already spotted the blond vampire, who was trying to look stoic but only managing gloomy. “Gerhard allowed Arthur Allthorp to remain in the kitchen while Gerhard took the other donors back to their rendezvous point. I see that he has told you that.” Gerhard was flanked by Troy and Hazel, the vamps Joaquin had named as his punishers.
“Furthermore,” Katamori said, “I found a knife strapped to the human’s ankle.”
Another nail in Gerhard’s coffin, perhaps literally.
“He died very quickly when his throat was torn out,” Dahlia said. “We know he died in a fifteen-minute window, give or take a minute or two, between ten ten and ten twenty-five.”
