She looked awful. Her red hair was tangled into a dry net; her lips were dry and pale and crusted, and her eyes were glowing a pained, painful red. She looked alien and strange and pitiful, all at once, and she, too, was wearing the padded jacket and chains, and they locked her down next to Oliver. She didn’t seem to see Claire, or if she did, to comprehend any of what was going on. And she looked dangerous.

But the sight of her seemed to somehow make Myrnin a little better. He stopped shaking quite so much, and sat up straight again. So maybe there was something still inside there, after all.

Claire hoped so. The alternative was way too awful to consider.

It was a long, silent ride. Dr Davis was up front with Dr Anderson, and Claire’s only company, besides the out-of-it vampires, were the three armed guards crowded inside. None of them were talkative. She wasn’t even sure they blinked. She had plenty of time to observe them, in the dim interior lights – there were no windows back here, which was probably lucky for the vamps. Three men of about the same age, thirties to forties; the oldest had some grey in his hair, but not much. All fit. All wearing what seemed like similar dark suits. Claire was no expert, but they didn’t look expensive – more like … uniforms.

And they were all wearing a pin on their lapels. A rising sun pin.

This looked less and less like the government, and more and more like something private that Dr Anderson had gotten herself in deep with. Private, but well funded. The Daylight Foundation. The people Jesse had been so worried about.

Somehow, that was even less comforting than the idea the government knew about the vampires.

‘So,’ Claire said to the man sitting next to her. ‘Are you, ah, from Boston?’

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at her. He did look at his watch, though, and adjusted the grip on his gun. He seemed calm enough, but she wasn’t going to get anything out of him. Or any of them. Shane might have; he liked to be provocative and confrontational, but it was a tactic that Claire knew she wasn’t good at.

So after a few more lame attempts at conversation failed, she waited.

It seemed to take forever, but they finally bumped off the smooth main road onto something that seemed a lot rougher, and then finally pulled to a stop crunching on gravel. The daylight that streamed in when the door slid open made the vampires flinch and squeeze their eyes shut, but they were all old enough to bear a little sun without injury. Still, Claire ached for them as their skin began to steam in the merciless glare. Oliver’s broke out into little tongues of flame before they unlocked him, and they hustled him out quickly.