“We must make time,” Mircea said sharply. “I need something, Kit. I cannot stand before the Senate and defend him successfully with what we have.”

Marlowe shook his head violently enough to send the curls dancing. “The only evidence she can give will hurt our case, not help it. She took the only thing he had to trade for Christine. And the current ban on duels meant there was no other way to save his servant’s life but to kill the man who held her captive.”

“Louis-Cesare does not stab people in the back,” I pointed out.

“Which is why it would have been an intelligent method to use,” Marlowe snapped. His tone said that he’d have vastly preferred to blame me for this, and how dared I have been with other people when it had happened?

“I had an appointment—” Louis-Cesare began.

“An appointment to give him the price he’d demanded for Christine’s return—a price you could no longer meet,” Marlowe said.

“I used the front door and was ushered in by one of his servants! Even had I lost all conception of honor and decided to murder the man in cold blood, I should hardly have chosen to do so under those circumstances.”

“If you were thinking clearly, perhaps not. But you admit yourself that you were enraged.” Marlowe was good at playing devil’s advocate, but even I knew he wouldn’t be the only one saying these things soon. This was bad.

“Tell me again what happened,” Mircea said. Between the screams and the accusations and the gun pointing, we hadn’t had time to discuss the evening’s events in detail at vamp central.

“After speaking with Dorina, I came up to confront Elyas about his duplicity,” Louis-Cesare said tersely. “I was ushered into the waiting area.” He nodded at the small room with the comfy chairs. “I waited. But after a time I became impatient and—”

“How long a time?”

“A minute, perhaps two. I was in no mood to indulge Elyas’s power games. In the end, I went through without an escort and found him as you see.”

“Then explain why he died while you were standing over him, holding the knife used to sever his arteries!” Marlowe demanded.

“I cannot. I smelled the blood when I opened the door, but I did not know that it was his. I only discovered what had been done when I bent over the body. The knife was on the floor, and I picked it up to get it out of the way of the spreading stain. As I stood up again, he died. I felt it when it rippled through the house, and a moment later, his family was there, along with half or more of his guests.”

“Yes! Dozens of witnesses and a story a child wouldn’t believe.” Marlowe threw up his hands. “If you are going to lie to the Senate, at least make it plausible.”

“I am not lying.” It was the king-to-peasant tone again, and it didn’t look like Marlowe liked it any better than I had.

“The wooden knife was in the heart, Louis-Cesare,” Marlowe said, pointing at the gory thing that now resided on the desk. It wasn’t the usual plain-Jane stake, but a hand-carved specimen with a long, slender blade and a distinctive finial. I even thought I caught a glimpse of some metal—steel or silver—at the tip.

Elyas had been stabbed with the Cadillac of stakes.

Nothing but the best for a senator.

“As soon as the wood penetrated the muscle, he died.” Marlowe continued. “There is no delayed reaction; you know this!”

“There are two ways into the study, as you can plainly see,” Louis-Cesare said icily. “Someone must have entered from the hall, killed him, and left while I was waiting. The study is soundproofed—I would have heard nothing!”

“And this mysterious murderer did this in what?” Marlowe demanded incredulously. “The thirty-second window of opportunity he’d have had?”

“It is possible,” Mircea commented. “Elyas was playing host for most of the evening. He doubtless retired to the study to meet with Louis-Cesare only shortly before he was killed. It may well have been the first chance a murderer would have had to get him alone.”

“It was also the first chance Louis-Cesare had.”

“The master retired to the study not ten minutes before his death,” the old vamp put in, although no one had asked him. He was dressed like a butler, and he looked vaguely like one, too, with bushy salt-and-pepper hair, muttonchop sideburns and a mustache that said he was overcompensating for something. He was likely the senior vamp in Elyas’s household.

I moved around the desk while Marlowe and Louis-Cesare glared at each other. “What is it?” Mircea asked, as I leaned over the body.

“Don’t touch that!” Marlowe ordered, seeing what I was doing.

“I hadn’t planned on it.” The wooden knife in Elyas’s heart hadn’t been disturbed, and the telltale sign was still on the bottom of the blade, on the portion that had stayed outside the flesh—a small ring of pale, almost translucent gray.

“Dorina?” Mircea glanced from the hilt to my face, eyes suddenly sharp. He knew I was about to hand him something. And damn it, he was right.

I stood back up. “Elyas could have been killed at any time during that ten minutes,” I told them.

“He could not!” Marlowe barked. “We know when he died. The reaction was felt by everyone in the apartment—including you.”

I sighed. This was going to cost me a fortune. “There’s a way to delay the reaction.”

His eyes immediately narrowed on my face. “How?”

“You asked me a question yesterday, about how I get out of clubs and homes after killing a master, without his servants immediately zeroing in on me.”

“And?” His eyes had gone a bright, glittering black.

“I behead the master first, because—I don’t care who you are—that’s going to be a shock to the system.”

“Damn straight,” Ray commented.

Marlowe never even glanced at him. “And then?”

He was like a goddamned dog with a bone, I thought resentfully. “Then I tie his hands behind his back and jam the stake into his heart—a special one I previously coated in a thin layer of wax.”

His eyes widened.

“I don’t see why that would make a difference in the time of death,” Muttonchops said.

“The body’s heat melts the wax,” I said, spelling it out for him. “But not right away. I have anywhere from thirty seconds to a couple of minutes to get away before any of the actual wood touches the heart.”

“And you can control the amount of time by the thickness of the wax,” Marlowe said, blinking. “It’s so bloody simple. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Maybe you don’t kill as many vamps as I do,” I said sourly. “The point is, anyone could have offed Elyas. Set him up like I described. Then hurry out into the hall, and either leave the apartment entirely or—”

“Or rejoin the other guests as if nothing had happened.”

“And remain to see the body being found to make certain that nothing went amiss,” Mircea added. He looked at Muttonchops. “I would appreciate a list of all your guests tonight. Invited and otherwise.”

The vamp did affronted dignity well. “You cannot believe one of them to be responsible! I assure you, everyone here was of the finest—”

“Of course,” Mircea murmured soothingly. “I would expect no less of an illustrious house. However, it is the usual protocol, and I will be asked for it.”

The vamp nodded stiffly but made no move to leave. He concentrated for a moment, probably trying to summon a flunky, but they all appeared to be out of order. He gave a disgusted sound and walked to the door to bark an order to a human servant instead.

Mircea thanked him and turned back to the body, still looking grim. “That’s how it was done,” I told him. “I promise you.”

“I do not doubt your word, Dorina,” he said, with emphasis.

“You don’t think the Senate will believe me?”

“Well, I don’t believe you,” Muttonchops said. “It’s preposterous. I’ve never heard of such a thing. A first-level master would merely break the bonds and remove the knife.”

“Not with his head just cut off and a stake through his heart,” I said drily.

He gave me a purely venomous look. “I could do it. And I’m second-level.”

“Want to try?”

“Dorina.” Mircea gave me the look that said, “You’re not helping.”

“Believe me, I’ve done this enough to know,” I told him. “It works. Maybe if the vamp in question had more time, he could figure a way out of it. But he has only seconds. They may struggle a bit, sure, but they are mostly paralyzed, and the majority don’t even realize the danger. They think I missed the heart and left them for dead, and that one of their servants will find them shortly. And they’re gone before they realize their mistake.”

Muttonchops turned to Mircea. “Even if you accept this creature’s evidence, the fact remains that no one else had reason to kill the master!”

“Like hell,” Ray said. I thumped him hard, and he shut up. But Mircea shot me a look.

“You can point out to the Senate that Louis-Cesare had the rest of the week,” I told him. “If he planned to kill Elyas, he’d have done it later, after he had exhausted all other possibilities. There’d be no reason to do it tonight, especially in so public a way.”

“It’s the best we’re going to get,” Marlowe said, looking at Mircea. “Will it be enough?”

Mircea closed his eyes. He didn’t look optimistic. “The Senate is meeting in an hour in an emergency session. We will soon know.”

A couple of large vamps approached with a stretcher, but Marlowe waved them off. “The Senate may ask to see the body in situ.”

“But dawn approaches,” Muttonchops said, sounding scandalized.