I made it through the door on the other side, but had no idea where the hell I was going. And there hadn’t been too many clues in the projected image as to which room in the football-field-sized house might contain the dead man. All I could recall about his surroundings was the edge of a fireplace and a bit of rug, which could have come from anywhere.
But the half dozen scurrying servants I encountered in a narrow hallway were headed toward the left wing. They didn’t look panicked—good servants never looked panicked—but they weren’t wasting any time, either. Neither did I, dogging their heels the whole way into a largish sitting room at the end of the corridor.
It was a symphony in yellow: from the silk drapes to the brocaded upholstery to the shade of the dead man’s skin. Bingo. I slipped inside the door, barely getting a glance from most of the few dozen people present. But one curly head jerked up abruptly.
“How the hell did you get in here?” Marlowe demanded. He had the harassed look of a vampire up during the day who’d been up all night, too. He was also still wearing the same suit from the previous evening, which had started out rumpled and was now approaching embarrassing.
“Through the front door.” For once, I wasn’t trying to be flippant. I just didn’t have the energy left to explain.
Marlowe, of course, scowled. “Mircea needs to take his own advice, and practice some discretion. Bringing you here is not wise!”
“What happened to Lutkin?” I asked, forgetting to mention that Mircea hadn’t brought me anywhere.
“What does it look like?” He motioned for the servants who had blocked my path to step aside. He was probably hoping for some tasty tidbits like last time, only I was fresh out. Since my ass would be out the door a second after he realized that, I didn’t waste any time examining the dead man.
I’d certainly seen more gruesome deaths. There was no blood to contrast nicely with the bright yellow decor. In fact, the body was bone dry, with not only the blood but every other fluid sucked out of it. Even his eyes had shriveled up and were lolling on his cheekbones, barely held in place by the desiccated cords.
It still looked strangely like he was staring at me. I quickly searched for something else to look at, and found it in the fingertip bruises ringing his neck. Shit.
“No fey made those, no matter how powerful,” Marlowe said as I bent for a closer look. And damn it, he was right. Those were the telltale signs of a vampire pulling blood through the skin and not caring whether he left a mark.
“It looks like a revenant got to him,” I said. They were never satiated, and sometimes got carried away. But why go to all the trouble to break in here with an ocean of prey just outside?
“One of those mindless animals would never have gotten past the guards, or the man’s shields,” Marlowe said, echoing my thoughts.
“But at least this clears Louis-Cesare,” I pointed out.
“And how did you determine that?”
I frowned. “You said it yourself—no revenant did this. So Lutkin was obviously killed for the rune. He must have murdered Elyas for it, and now someone returned the favor and took it.”
Marlowe’s scowl didn’t budge. “If he had the rune, why didn’t he use it? He’s a powerful mage from a prominent family. Unlike Elyas, we cannot suppose he did not know how!”
“Maybe he didn’t get a chance,” I said slowly. “Look at him.”
Lutkin’s hands looked more like claws now, the knobby bones and ligaments standing out starkly against the shrunken skin. But that didn’t affect their position. One was dangling off the side of the chair, a glass of wine still wedged between the lifeless fingers. The other was curled harmlessly in his lap. Even more telling, his feet were still crossed at the ankles; he hadn’t even had time to stand up.
“That doesn’t help our case,” Marlowe said irritably. “The only creature who could drain someone this quickly is a first-or possibly a strong second-level master. Like Louis-Cesare.”
“And like half the people in the house right now! The collective energy almost knocked me down when I came in the door. Are all the challengers staying here?”
“About a third, give or take. The rest are scattered around the city.”
“And most if not all of them are on the premises, right?”
That was a good bet, considering that it was broad daylight out. A first-level master could withstand that easily enough, but the power drain would be immense. And no one was going to risk that kind of loss right before facing combat—not when the stakes were this high.
Marlowe stared at the corpse, looking angry and frustrated. “On the premises, but with no motive! They weren’t at the auction and had no way to know that the mage might be important.”
“Who else could have gotten in here?”