“No,” I said. “I didn’t do it to them and I did my best to stop it. But I feel guilty that I don’t feel guilty, if that helps.”

“Not all my patients start off dead,” said Dr. Walid. “Not in my medical practice anyway. Sometimes, no matter what you do, the outcomes can be less than optimal. It’s not whether you feel responsible, it’s whether you don’t shy away when she needs you.”

“The thought of her face scares me to death,” I said, before I could stop myself.

“Not as much as it scares her,” he said and patted my arm. “Not as much as the thought that you might reject her scares her. Make sure you are there when she needs you—that’s your responsibility in this—your part of the job, if you like.”

We were way over our daily quota of emo so I changed the subject.

“Do you know about the nest of vampires in Purley?” I asked.

“That was a nasty business.”

“Nightingale called what I felt there the tactus disvitae, antilife,” I said. “He implied that the vampires sucked ‘life’ from their environment.”

“As I understand it,” he said.

“Have you ever had a chance to section the brain of one of their victims?”

“Usually they’re in an advanced state of desiccation when we get them,” said Dr. Walid. “But one or two of them have been fresh enough to get some useful results. I think I know where you’re going with this.”

“Did the brain sections show signs of hyperthaumic degradation?”

“It’s hyperthaumaturgical degradation,” said Dr. Walid. “And yes, they showed terminal levels of HTD, damage to at least ninety percent of the brain.”

“Is it possible that ‘life’ energy and magic are essentially the same thing?” I asked.

“That wouldn’t contradict anything I’ve observed,” he said.

I told him about the experiments I’d run with pocket calculators and about how the damage done to their microprocessors had resembled the damage done to the human brain by HTD.

“That would mean that magic was affecting biological and nonbiological constructions,” said Dr. Walid. “Which means it might be possible to develop some form of nonsubjective instrumentality.” Clearly Dr. Walid was just as frustrated as I was with the Toby the Dog method of magic detection. “We have to replicate your experiments. This has to be documented.”

“We can do that later,” I said. “But what I need to know now is about the effect this might have on life extension.”

Dr. Walid gave me a sharp look. “You’re talking about Thomas,” he said.

“I’m talking about the vampires,” I said. “I checked in Wolfe and he lists at least three cases where it was confirmed that the vampires were at least two hundred years old.”