Undead and Unpopular

"The dead man's pants are ringing," Tina said, somewhat needlessly.

"Maybe it's a sales call," I said. "They have the worst timing."

Sinclair stepped into the elevator, fished around blank-faced in Alonzo's pants for a minute, then pulled out a small ringing cell phone.

He flipped it open and said, "Dr. Trudeau?"

Ooooh, snap! Except-

He held it out. "It's for you."

"Did you tell her that now isn't a good time? I mean, just because the phone is ringing doesn't mean-"

"Elizabeth."

"Okay, but I'm just saying. I mean, obviously this is an important call, but in general, if it's really important, they'll call back." I took the cell phone from Sinclair, who looked like he'd be happy to make me eat it. "Hello?"

"Hello, gorgeous," Liam drawled. "You having fun in the elevator?"

"Uh, is this the part where you taunt me and leave me clues?"

"Not hardly. I did it. Sophie wanted to, so I'm afraid I had to send her on a bit of a wild-goose chase so I could take care of things for her-"

I looked around at the others. "When you use euphemisms like 'take care of it' and stuff, are we, I just wanted to make sure, are we talking about the same thing?"

"I cut the smug bastard's head off," Liam said. "After I stuck my .38 in his forehead and pulled the trigger."

"Oh. Well, it's good that you got that out of your system." I didn't say his name out loud, though why I was trying to protect the maniac was beyond me. "So, uh, what now?"

"Now nothing, blondie. I just wanted to call you and let you know in case your barrel was swinging over to Sophie. Now listen close, 'cause there might be a test later: I did it. Sophie had nothin' to do with it. She didn't ask me to do it and she didn't know I was gonna go out and take care of it tonight. I told her you called and were looking for her-"

"That seems like a popular strategy today."

"-and she scooted right over to your place. Then I called Alonzo-"

"How'd you get the number?"

"He gave it to Sophie. Called her cell-she's listed up in Embarrass, since she's gotta be accessible-and left her the number in case she wanted to 'work things out.' Boy, if I didn't want to kill him before, I sure woulda after that."

"I, uh, gave him your number. He was supposed to call her and set up a meeting and apologize."

"Too late now," Liam said, totally unmoved.

I turned and walked a little ways away from the group. "Then you came over here and did it?"

"Yep. Then I came back to our room, told Sophie, and we lit on out of here. But I didn't want you guys wondering. It was me."

"Your friend must have nipped right out of her gourd," I said in a low voice, but who was I kidding? They were vampires. They could probably hear both ends of the conversation.

"Yep, she was pretty pissed at me. Still is. But we'll work it out."

"How does this affect your-your earlier plans?"

"Dunno." I could almost hear him shrug over the phone. "Don't much care right now. She'll turn me when she gets around to it. Right now, we gotta get in the wind."

"Maybe you don't have to-"

"You ever seen a vampire have a nightmare, Bets?" His voice was lower, too, either because he didn't want Sophie to hear or in response to mine. "It's awful. It's about the worst thing you ever saw. You have nightmares, Bets?"

"No," I said truthfully. "I don't dream anymore. I didn't think any vampires dreamed."

"Lucky," he said, and hung up.

I closed the phone and turned back to the group. "Okay! Where were we? Right, we were leaving."

"Dr. Trudeau's lover." Carolina, looking very relieved, glanced around at the others. "Of course! We should have guessed much sooner."

"What, you're happy?"

"No, just... reassured. Vengeance for a loved one is-"

"An understandable motive," Tina interrupted. "Like being interested in taking over his properties."

"Right," Carolina said, completely missing the sarcasm.

"We're going," I said.