Page 38 of Your Final Resting Place

Victor’s eyes got all silvery and big.

We’d just killed the vampire queen.

Again.

CHAPTER 12

Murder was one thing. Getting away with it was something else entirely.

Daisy lay slumped over the counter, in the middle of the packed hotel bar, and it was around then I realized we hadn’t planned for what came next—disposal.

Zee continued to belt out “Rebel Yell” and hold captive every single person in the audience, except me . . . and Victor.

“Erm, Victor?” I said through gritted teeth.

Victor blinked at the dead Daisy, his face stuck in rigor.

“Victor?” I dropped off the stool, stepped around Daisy’s hunched figure, and laid a hand on Victor’s arm.

He startled. “Adam! My apologies, I . . . I’m surprised and somewhat alarmed that we have succeeded.”

I was too. I hadn’t expected Tom’s drink to be so potent, although I should have. He was nothing if not efficient. “What do we do now?” I whispered. Nobody was looking over, but we only had a few minutes before one of Daisy’s entourage noticed she was face down on the bar.

“Right. Yes.” He cleared his throat. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know. I’m asking you.”

“Of course.” He cleared his throat again but his gaze kept skittering back to Daisy. “Uh . . .”

Zee’s song ended to rapturous applause. Once his show was over we’d be getting scrutinized, which wouldn’t be a great time to be sitting next to a dead vampire queen.

Victor stared at Daisy. “I’ll uh . . . I’ll move her.” His eyebrows pinched.

“Victor?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve got this,” I told him. “We just need to move a body in a room full of people without anyone seeing, that’s all.” And he was the only one who could do that, as he moved crazy fast, but it needed to happen now.

Zee poofed to my left, raining glittery purple sparks that told everyone in the room to LOOK HERE!

He slung an arm around me. “Did you see me fuckin’ slay ‘Rebel Yell?’”

“Oh yes, it was great.” I showed him a wooden grin, then nodded toward the body. “But we have the thing we have to do. You remember the thing we talked about?”

A blank look stalled him.

I blinked deliberately, and side-eyed Daisy again.

“Oh fuck, right. Why’s Fancy Fangs not doing the thing after Tom did the thing? Wasn’t that the plan?”

Tom watched on, still smirking and in no way helping with our current predicament. At my glance, he winked.

The crowd bustled. The jukebox burbled. And the vampire queen was very dead in the middle of it all.

Zee ducked to get a closer look at Victor’s pale face. “Hello, Your Lordship?”

“Yes, of course, I just . . .” He stammered. “Goodness, it’s rather warm, isn’t it?”