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“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 got a rush of fear from him, fear bordering on panic.

“Okay, and that means what exactly?” Zerbrowski asked.

I had to take a deep breath to talk around Jean-Claude’s fear. His voice in my head said, “Are you certain of this, ma petite?”

I let my out loud voice for Zerbrowski answer Jean-Claude’s question, too. “It means, Zerbrowski, that you have hundreds of vampires in this area that have nothing to keep them from doing shit like this, except their own consciences, and a morals clause they all sign.”

Jean-Claude was cursing in my head in French, and though I caught a word here and there, most of it was too fast for me.

Zerbrowski smiled, and the smile broadened until it was a grin. “You’re saying that the church trusts its members to be good little citzens, and your boyfriend isn’t that trusting.”

“I’ll look at the new masters that have come to town at Jean-Claude’s invitation, but my money is on the Church of Eternal