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“And how does it tally with the security guy’s statement?”

He checked the times back and forth. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes is an awfully long time to stare at something he isn’t even sure he saw.”

“You think he lied?”

I shook my head. “No, I think he told what he thinks is the truth.”

“I’m lost. What are you getting at?” Zerbrowski asked.

I smiled at him, but not like I was happy. “One of the vamps has to be a master, we figured that, but they also have to be able to cloud men’s minds enough to pull something like this off.”

“I thought all vamps could cloud men’s minds.”

I shook my head. “They can mesmerize one person with their gaze, and if they bite them, then they can blank their memory. If they’re powerful enough, they can mesmerize with the eyes and blank most of the memory. But the vic will usually have this vague memory of eyes, or sometimes an animal with blazing eyes, or car headlights that were very bright. The mind tries to make mundane sense of what’s happened.”

“Okay, so one of the vamps zapped him with its gaze.”

“No, Zerbrowksi, I’m betting it wasn’t eyes. I’m betting it was from a distance with no direct gaze. I’ll talk to him, see what he remembers, but if he’s bite-free and doesn’t have some weird memory, then it was done from a nice safe distance, with no direct contact.”

“So what?” he asked, and he sounded irritated and tired.

I didn’t take it personally. “It means that one of the vamps is old, Zerbrowski. Old, and a master vampire. We’re talking fairly major talent here. It’s a limited list.”

“Names?”

I shook my head. “Let’s talk to the security guy and get him to strip down for us.”

He looked at me over the rims of his glasses, before he pushed them back up his nose. “Did you just say what I think you just said?”

“We’ve got to check him for vamp bites. If he’s clean, then we’re looking for a major player, vampirically speaking. If he’s got a bite, then not so major. Trust me, it’ll make a difference in who we talk to.”

“Is this Jean-Claude’s people?” Zerbrowski asked.

“No,” I said.

“How can you be sure?” he asked.

How could I be sure? I was tired enough that I let that be a question in my head, let me wonder what Jean-Claude would say. Would he guarantee that this couldn’t have been his people? The thought was enough, he was suddenly in my head. Shit.

He was seeing what I was seeing, not good at a murder investigation when the vic had been done in by vamps. I started to shield, to kick him out, but I suddenly knew the answer to my question. “My blood oath will hold them from this, because it is against my express orders to bring us to the negative attention of the human police.”

I thought, Liv broke your oath once, and he heard me. “I was not le sourdre de sang then. My oath is not so lightly shaken off now, ma petite.”

I’d been quiet too long. Zerbrowski said, “You okay?”

“Just thinking,” I said. I’d known about blood oaths, but I hadn’t actually understood how important they were, or what they were supposed to mean. “Because all of Jean-Claude’s people have to take a blood oath. It binds them mystically to the Master of the City. He’s forbidden his vampires to do shit like this.”

“You’re saying the blood oath makes this impossible?”

“Not impossible, but harder. It depends on how strong the master is that they make the oath to.”

“How strong is Jean-Claude?”

I thought about a way to explain it and finally settled for, “Strong enough that I’d bet good money this wasn’t his people.”

“But you wouldn’t guarantee it.”

“Guarantees are for major appliances, not for murder.”

He grinned. “That’s cute, I may just have to use that one sometime.”

“Knock yourself out.”

The grin faded round the edges. “I still don’t really understand this whole blood oath thing. Maybe I’m just too tired for metaphysics, explain it to me again later.”

“Let me simplify it.”

“That’d be nice,” he said.

“I just learned tonight from the vamps I questioned that Malcolm has abolished the blood oath for the church. It’s too barbaric.”

Jean-Claude was still in my head and heard what I said. I