I shook my head. “I didn’t tell them where we were going.”

“Keeler has three children,” Lena said tightly. “Check the rest of the house.”

We found the bedrooms near the back of the house. All three kids lay blanketed in their individual rooms by the same enchantment as their mother. I rejoined the others in the hallway. “I can wake them up, but they’re safe for now. Deb, you said you smelled blood?”

“Upstairs.”

An unconscious man sprawled at the top of the stairway, a gun in his hand. Blood from a cut cheek and split lip had stained the tan carpet. His dark suit and muscular build made me think bodyguard or private security. Was it normal for a senator to have armed security in his house, or had he been afraid someone would try to hurt him?

I stepped carefully over his wheezing form and looked about. A second bodyguard slumped against the wall opposite a large, opulently furnished bathroom. Smudge was alert but calm. Whoever had done this was already gone.

“In here.” The coldness in Lena’s words told me what she’d found. “Watch your step.”

In the faint light coming through the windows, the blood on the desk and floor shone like black mercury. Lena switched on the overhead light, using her sleeve to avoid leaving fingerprints.

Senator Alexander Keeler’s lifeless body lay against the wall behind his desk. His throat had been torn open.

I was no forensic detective, but it looked like Keeler had put up a fight. He clutched a broken desk lamp in one hand, like he’d tried to use it as a club. His knuckles were bloody. His left hand curled like a claw, as if he’d broken it. Perhaps by punching someone or something inhumanly solid.

I spun toward Deb. “Did you tell anyone from Vanguard about Keeler?”

Deb stared at the body, her head shaking in slow denial. “When exactly did I have the chance to do that without you and Lena breathing down my neck?”

“On the metro. The police officer. You could have told her to deliver a message—”

“Deb wasn’t part of this.” Lena knelt beside the body. “Look closer. He was dead before we set foot on the metro.”

Keeler’s hand and forearm were a dark raspberry color where the blood had pooled. I wrapped the bottom of my shirt around my thumb and pressed the back of his hand. The color didn’t change. It had been a while since I read up on livor mortis, but I was pretty sure that meant he’d died between six and twelve hours ago. I checked the wall clock. That put the time of death no later than eight p.m.