When she turned around, empty bag in hand, Jesse was standing in the incinerator room watching her. The sudden appearance of the woman made Claire’s hackles rise on the back of her neck, and at the same time she felt an uncomfortable flush on her skin. Something about Jesse invited contradictory impulses, seemed like. She looked just as calm and composed as she had the night before, though she wasn’t wearing leather just now; she’d changed into a loose black shirt, jeans, and heavy boots that Eve would have swooned over, considering all the buckles. Her red hair was twisted back in a loose, sloppy bun and fixed with a pair of chopsticks.

‘Hey,’ Jesse said. ‘Irene sent me to find out if you were done. Looks like you are.’

Claire rattled the bag. ‘Looks like.’

Jesse was sizing her up in an odd sort of way, she thought, and as the two of them walked back toward the lab through the clean white hall, Claire finally said, ‘Do I have a big ink stain on my face, or …?’

‘No,’ Jesse said, and smiled slowly. ‘I was just thinking that there’s more to you than meets the eye, that’s all. You inspire a certain reckless passion in others, did you know that?’

‘I do? In who?’

Jesse didn’t answer that. She badged through into Anderson’s lab, and Claire had to wait to follow; by the time she was inside, Jesse was at the table with the professor, and the device – VLAD – was laid out on a lab table on top of a foam cushion. ‘Doesn’t look like much,’ Jesse said. ‘You’re sure, Irene?’

‘No, of course I’m not sure, or I wouldn’t have asked you here,’ Anderson said, a touch impatiently. ‘And I don’t like doing it, either; I don’t really know what the outcome’s going to be. But we need to have a baseline, and like it or not, you’re the only game I have in town.’

‘Only game in …’ Claire repeated, and felt the truth hit home with a vengeance. She fixed her gaze solidly on Jesse. ‘You’re a vampire?’

‘The kid’s sharp,’ Jesse said. ‘Yes, sweetie, I’m a card-carrying member of the undead. Remember how I didn’t come into your house, but Pete did, to get the box? I thought that would tip you off, being a Morganville kid and all, but you didn’t seem to suspect anything.’

‘I would have, if we’d been back home, but I didn’t expect to find … one of you here.’

‘Mistakes like that get you killed,’ Jesse said. ‘There aren’t a lot of us out in the wild, sure, but there are still a few, and most of them aren’t as nice as I am.’ She flashed Claire a grin that wouldn’t have been out of place on Eve’s face. ‘Relax. I don’t bite.’