We bundled murlough's body into a large black plastic bag. We'd drop him off later in the tunnels of blood he'd loved so much. As fitting a burial place as any for him.
We stuck the goat in a bag, too, but made a couple of air holes in it. We'd expected Murlough to kill the goat, which I'd stolen earlier from the children's section of the city zoo. Mr. Crepsley wanted to take it back to the Cirque Du Freak - it would make a nice snack for Evra's snake or the Little People - but I persuaded him to set it free.
Next we cleaned up the mess. Murlough had shed a lot of blood, all of which had to be mopped up. We didn't want the Hemlocks to find it and start asking questions. We worked quickly, but it took a couple of hours.
With the cleaning finished, we climbed up to the attic and brought down the sleeping bodies of Jessie, Donna, and Debbie and laid them in their respective beds.
The entire night had been planned. The wine I brought for dinner? I drugged it when I was in the kitchen. I added one of Mr. Crepsley's potions to the wine, a tasteless little concoction that knocked everybody out within ten minutes. They'd be asleep for several more hours yet, and wake with sore heads, but otherwise no ill effects.
I smiled as I wondered what they'd think when they woke in bed, fully dressed, with no memories of the previous night. It would be a mystery, one they'd never solve.
It hadn't been a perfect plan. Lots of things could have gone wrong. For starters, there was no guarantee that Murlough would find me when I had my ?fight? with Mr. Crepsley and stormed off on my own, and no guarantee that he wouldn't kill me instantly if he did.
He could have gagged me when he caught me, in which case I would have been unable to convince him that he ought to let me live. Or he might have disregarded my warning about the Vampire Generals - what I said was true, but the trouble was, Murlough was crazy. There was no telling how a crazy vampaneze would act. He might have laughed at the threat of the Generals and sliced me up anyway.
Convincing him to swap Evra for Debbie was always going to be the trickiest part. For it to work, I'd had to deliver a perfect performance. If I'd come straight out and made the offer, Murlough might have been suspicious and not walked into the trap. If he'd been in full control of his senses, I don't think he would have fallen for it, regardless of my performance, so on that score his insanity worked in our favor.
And, of course, there was the killing of him to account for. Murlough could have beaten Mr. Crepsley. If he had, all six of us would have died: Mr. Crepsley, me and Evra, Debbie, Donna, and Jesse.
It had been a dangerous gamble - and unfair to the Hemlocks, who knew nothing of their role in the deadly game - but sometimes you have to take chances. Was it wise to risk five lives for the sake of one? Probably not. But it was human. If I'd learned one thing from my encounter with the crazy vampaneze, it was that even the undead could be human. We had to be - without a touch of humanity, we'd be like Murlough, nothing more than bloodthirsty monsters of the night.
I tucked Debbie in under the fresh covers. There was a tiny scar near her left ankle, where Mr. Crepsley had drawn blood earlier. He'd needed the blood to smear on the goat, in order to mislead Murlough's sense of smell.
I looked up at the vampire. "You did well tonight," I said quietly. "Thanks."