Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(70)

“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?”