I made a quick decision. I'd gotten about as far as I thought I could with Valerie. Her memory wasn't clear anyway. That security camera footage was what I really needed.

"I'm going back to the club now. I'll get that recording. Stay out of there. Go to Nebraska. One of us will call you."

I got out Domine's card and had Valerie write her cell phone and landline numbers on the back. I gave her my cell number and said goodbye to Leo, who granted me permission to leave.

At the door, she stopped me, one light hand resting on my arm.

"You're welcome to sleep on the sofa, after you've finished at the club. I have lots of breakfast stuff."

I didn't think the offer was really for the sofa.

"I'm good, thanks. Promise me you'll go?"

"Okay. And thanks."

I drove back to the club. I knew what I was expected to do. I knew what my orders would be.

The colonel had to have Valerie under observation. After all, the same thing had happened to her as happened to me. She might turn. I thought of her painting bright, funny pictures of penguins while locked in the laboratory at the base.

It made me ill.

Chapter 9.

If Domine was surprised to hear from me so soon, she didn't say. I called ahead and despite having scrubbed off my vampire face, I was let straight in and taken to her office. We were left alone.

"There's a security recording of Valerie being bitten, Domine. It would be very useful to me."

She nodded and retrieved a DVD from a drawer. "I thought you might want it. Would you like to view it now?"

"Please."

She opened a slim laptop on her desk and slid the disk into the drive. When the video came up, she clicked on the timeline and the screen showed Valerie and Marcel standing as I'd first seen them, on the stairs outside the inner club.

The three vampires walked up the stairs and Marcel tried to stop them, saying they weren't members and he was under instruction to refuse entry. Valerie shrank back against the wall.

In a second, Marcel was shoved to one side by two of them, but I kept watching Valerie. Raul, the tall vampire, had her pressed against the wall. She was terrified and it looked to me as if that triggered a response from Raul. Her frantic blows against his body were ignored and died away as he fastened on her neck. Her face was tilted up and showed she was still aware and still frightened out of her skin, but her hands hung down limply.

"What the f.u.c.k are you doing?" shouted Rodrigo.

Whatever it was that set Raul off seemed to communicate itself to the third one, Antonio. He joined Raul.

Rodrigo had Marcel by a grip around his throat. He swore again and turned back to Marcel as his struggles were weakening. He glared at his face and then just simply let him go. Marcel slid down the wall. He didn't seem unconscious. He looked completely bewildered.

In the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds of security video, the implications of the power of vampires sank in. Not just strong and fast, but capable of attacking a person's mind as well. No wonder they managed to stay hidden.

On screen, Rodrigo tore the other two off Valerie. He seemed exceptionally strong. Raul fought back and Rodrigo sent him slamming against the wall with a push.

They were shouting at each other, their voices distorted in the pickup. I didn't recognize the language.

It lasted only a minute. Rodrigo drove them out, leaving Valerie and Marcel sitting looking blankly at each other.

Domine clicked on the player and the screen blanked.

In the silence, I retrieved a sc.r.a.p of paper from my clutch bag. It was a bit torn off the club's check ticket for my cloak. Just enough. I wrote my cell number and name on it.

"Please give that to Marcel, and tell him to call me if he's worried."

She inclined her head.

I licked my lips. "And as a favor, would you erase the copies of that footage?"

"A favor for whom?" She watched me calmly as I struggled with what I could say that might convince her.

"For Valerie. I can't tell you why."

"Anything else?"

"Is there any way that she can be tracked from here-employee records, phone numbers?"

"Of course. You wish me to erase everything?"

"Just the contact information. And what about friends of hers?"

"You are very thorough in your requirements, Amber. I don't believe any of her friends would give her away."

"I wasn't thinking of a voluntary disclosure," I said.

"I see." She put the DVD in a case and handed it to me. "Then as far as I know, the only record of her address will be in my head. That, unfortunately, I cannot erase."

"Can I recommend precautions?" I said. "Some professional bodyguards to supplement the bouncers."

"These bodyguards, they will keep the three men away?"

"I think so." Even if they were going half crazy, they'd have to understand that forcing their way in here would bring the police after them. They couldn't wipe everyone's mind.

"Then surely I do not need to erase records?" asked Domine.

"I would advise-"

"It seems," she said slowly, interrupting me, "I have many people to watch out for, on behalf of Valerie. This is not just about those men returning, is it?"

"No," I said. "But they're the most dangerous. The only protection you have is they want to operate in secret. They can't risk attracting too much notice. That alone should keep them from making trouble here, but not from pursuing Valerie if they realize that she is a security breach that they have to stop."

Domine didn't say anything immediately, but ushered me away from the desk to an easy chair in a breakout area she had set up. I sat down stiffly.

"And the others who may come asking?" She opened a cabinet as I struggled against my conscience. "Well?" She turned and handed me a gla.s.s of wine. She turned the main lights off and sat opposite me, across a gla.s.s coffee table. The only light source was a low lamp shining onto the tabletop, leaving our faces in partial darkness.

"I can't say. I know I'm asking a lot here. If representatives of a government or federal inst.i.tution..." I paused, unwilling to go on. I couldn't stand the thought of Valerie disappearing into the Obs laboratory through no fault of her own, but I was on the point of disobeying an army order.

Domine held up a hand. "Enough," she said. "You demand a great deal from me, on trust."

"Yes." There seemed no other answer.

"And, in return, do you trust me?" She reached forward to pick up her wine. I'd thought she might be forty earlier in the night. Maybe it was the lighting, maybe she was tired, but she looked older now. Her eyes glittered in the gloom.

I tried to concentrate, sift through the night's jumble of emotions and images in my head. "Yes," I said again, and I meant it.

"Vraiment," she murmured, getting up to fetch something from a drawer in her desk.

She placed it on the table between us with a metallic click. It was one of the spiked collars her wait staff wore. My mouth went dry.

She sat back in the shadows, her fingers meditatively tracing the contours of the collar, sliding carefully over the barbs.

"Do you know, the angoisse was designed to teach young ladies the benefits of sitting straight and keeping the head upright?"

"Seems extreme," I managed to say.

"For that, it is, without doubt. Yet it outlasted the society and the thinking that designed it. And still, it has the capacity to teach." Her voice had become low, hypnotic. "I use it only as a gift. It may surprise you, Amber, but many come to me, thinking they wish to learn. Very few become torquate and wear the angoisse."

"I'm not interested."

"Quite. One is enough."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you wear one already." She stirred. "You are wrapped in barbs so you cannot move. You can barely breathe without the pressure of them threatening to pierce your skin. Who has done this to you, Amber?"

The sounds of the club drifted in through all the soundproofing around her office. Much louder, my heart thudded in my ears. "I don't know what you mean," I said.

"I have been many years in my trade. A person who pa.s.ses by might say I trade in pain. A person who lingers might say I trade in desire. I do neither. I simply enable people to look within themselves. And in return, I am granted some sight there."

Her description of my life now, wrapped around with threats from the prions in my blood, threats from the army, the pain of not being able to confide, it all seemed so accurate and yet how could she know any of this? How could she claim to see as much as she did? I had to believe in vampires. But what else was out there? Or rather, right here?

"Come," she said, picking up the angoisse and standing. "Trust me. I will show you, just briefly."

"Why?"

"You have helped one of mine. You have gifted me knowledge. This is my gift in return to you."

She walked behind me. My breath stuck in my throat. I held up a hand to stop her.

"It is a matter of trust, Amber."

I owed her for her trust. What was she going to do? Put something uncomfortable on my neck for a few seconds. How bad could it be? What would it feel like? My hand dropped.

I shivered as the metal scratched my neck. There was a click as she fastened it at the back and then her hands rested on my shoulders.

It was lighter than I'd thought. Barbs seemed to touch me everywhere, but nothing pierced me. I stayed very still, very upright, my chin up, and tried to breathe smoothly. I felt an obscure sense of pride. I could wear this if I had to. Seconds stretched. I flexed my neck slightly. I felt the barbs press into the skin. I raised my chin. Different barbs dug into different parts of my throat. How right she was. This was exactly how it felt.

With a twist, she undid the clasp and removed the collar.

"Familiar?" she said, returning to her seat and leaving the angoisse on the table.

My fingers pa.s.sed over my neck, feeling the phantom pressure of the barbs and the old memories of fangs biting. I shivered again.

"The deepest lesson, that few really wish to learn," she said, "is that when that special desire comes, that overwhelming desire that will not be denied, the angoisse will not stop you doing what you truly wish. Whatever the cost."

We drained our wine and walked to the door.

"Whatever G.o.ds look down on you, Amber," she murmured, as if in prayer, "may they guide your steps, and your hand."

Chapter 10.

Back at my apartment, the whole day seemed to recede into a dream.

The colonel had organized a data library on the internet. I accessed it from my laptop and started to upload the security footage from the club. The connection was lousy and I distracted myself by trying to write a report of what had happened. I was bone tired and my mind was fuzzy. In the end I kept it to a link to the footage and one word-call.

Lying back on my bed, waiting for the upload to complete, I reached out and picked up Tara's plaque from the bedside table.

Tara was my twin sister. She'd been stillborn. No one understood why I kept her plaque with me, or why I'd had it made, back when I was still at school.

People who lost loved ones sometimes had a photograph. I'd seen ones with birth and death dates on them. Tara had none of these. She'd never really been born, or died. There were no dates. There was no photograph. Others had tried to make out that she didn't exist because of that. Maybe I was the only person who still thought of her.

I held her plaque. It was so glossy that I could see myself in the reflection. I didn't need a photograph. This is what she would look like now.

"Tough day?" she said.

"You could say. Found the vampires though."

"Tell me about it."

It seemed easier to tell her than it had been to write a report. Of course, there were things I'd wanted to downplay in the report that I could just say to my twin.