“Beatrice?” I asked.
“My wife is visiting some acquaintances in Seattle,” Dashiell said, and I felt something small and tight release in my chest. One less friend to worry about. At the same time, though, it showed how serious Dashiell was taking Olivia—it’s very expensive and complicated for a vampire to travel without a null along. With all the different things that can go wrong or cause delays, they can’t exactly fly commercial.
“Thank you for coming,” Dashiell continued, courteously implying that any of us had an actual choice when he summoned us. “Recent affairs have now escalated to a point where I thought it important for us to meet. To summarize, based on information gathered by Kirsten and our young police officer, Detective Cruz”—he paused and looked toward Jesse, who did kind of an awkward duck-head-and-wave maneuver—“we now suspect that Olivia has killed, or conspired to kill, at least two witches and two humans in the city in the last week. When I rose this evening I was also informed that she is likely working with a witch.” Now Kirsten nodded, still staring stonily at the table in front of her. “Have you figured out whom?” Dashiell asked her.
“No, I haven’t,” she growled, and Dashiell’s eyebrows rose. “As I told Scarlett and the detective, I know all of the witches that used Olivia’s services, one way or another, but none of them have the…audacity for this kind of thing.” She folded her arms defiantly.
“Well, Olivia can be quite persuasive,” Will said mildly. “Vampire or not, if she really set her mind to controlling someone, she’d find a way.” His face flushed the moment he’d finished, and I didn’t need my null superpowers to feel everyone at the table suddenly not looking at me. I tried not to squirm.
“It’s not about audacity, or controllability,” Kirsten said. “Most of my witches were extremely nervous around Olivia when she was alive.” Probably because she was psychotic. “At the time, I thought it was almost helpful, because if they didn’t want to have to call her in, they wouldn’t risk dangerous spells.” She reached up to run a hand over her blonde ponytail, smoothing back nonexistent stray hairs. “But if Olivia approached any of them now, as a vampire, they’d turn and run the other way.”
“Could that have been what happened to these two witches?” Will wondered aloud. “Maybe she just approached them, and they started to run, so she killed them?”
Kirsten shook his head. “Erin was killed before sunset, and Denise was somewhere she’d never be on her own.”
“Someone had to know Olivia,” Eli said quietly, causing heads to turn with surprise. He’d been so silent until then that everyone but me seemed to have forgotten his presence. “One of them wanted something enough to work with her to get it.”
Kirsten’s jaw set, but Dashiell waved a hand dismissively. “Trying to figure out what all of Kirsten’s witches might want that badly isn’t going to get us anywhere; let’s table this line of discussion for the moment.”
Jesse jumped in, sounding businesslike. “What about this other vampire she ran off with? Albert? Do we know anything about his relationship with her?”
“I might be able to help with that,” Dashiell said. He picked up the telephone that was sitting on a table next to the big armchair. I hadn’t even noticed it. “Laurence, please come in here for a moment.”
The rest of us exchanged glances. My radar or whatever felt awfully crowded, with a vampire, a witch, and two werewolves, all quite powerful, more or less within my radius. But I still felt it when Laurence crossed the invisible line and became human too. “Yes, sir?”
“You were close to Albert, correct?”
Laurence glanced at the rest of us in turn, looking a little worried. “Yes, sir.”
“Were you aware that he was spending time with Olivia Powell?” Even with his humanity, Dashiell’s tone was calm, quiet, and absolutely terrifying. Laurence swallowed.
“Yes, sir.”
Dashiell leaned back as far as he could without actually bending his spine, gesturing for the other man to go on.
“I don’t know how it started, though,” Laurence began, already sounding defensive. “I was living in Santa Barbara, and I came down a couple of times to visit Albert and some other friends. Get a drink, talk about old times. During one of those visits Albert was…just different.” He trailed off.
“Different how?” Jesse prompted. He was in his element now, eyes focused on Laurence like they were the only two in the room.
“He was…lighter, I suppose would be a good word. I asked him about it over…” He glanced at Jesse and me, “uh, drinks, and he said he had a girl. He talked about her like she was a goddess, even mentioned trying to turn her someday.” Laurence glanced at Dashiell nervously. “I know we’re not supposed to try to turn new vampires without your permission, sir, but I assumed that he would ask for it.”
“Did he?” Will asked Dashiell, frowning.
Dashiell bristled. “No, of course not. Even if it was unlikely to work, there is no way that I would have allowed Olivia to become one of us. Albert was going against my explicit orders.” His voice darkened enough for Laurence to visibly flinch. “What else?” he demanded.
Laurence’s brow furrowed as he concentrated. “He said…she saw great potential in him.”
“What do you mean, potential?” I asked warily.