“It’d be friendlier,” Paul said, “if you shared something with us that we didn’t already have.”

“With pleasure, Mr. Ward,” he said. Then his mouth snapped closed, as if he had caught himself in a moment of indiscretion.

Paul saw that the man’s carefully relaxed appearance was concealing a state of extraordinary emotional tension. Paul’s experience as a wartime interrogator told him that this man was about to address something that he considered extremely terrible.

“Go ahead, Colonel,” Charlie said, no doubt reading the same signs.

“We have had one of these creatures under observation in a house in —”

“Let us tell you that,” Becky said. “Thirteenth Arrondissement. Rue des Gobelins.”

“Very good. Do you know which house? Or exactly what has happened there?” The colonel was sweating now.

“Tell us,” Paul said. He decided that the colonel was a man who habitually exploded in the face of his own staff, but in this situation had to contain the energy.

“We have had une sauvage trapped in a house in the Rue des Gobelins for over a year. It hasn’t eaten for twelve months, but it still lives.”

“So why not go in? If you got the thing trapped, kill it.”

“We were hoping that it would attract some response from its peers—curiosity, compassion, something that would draw them to it. But it did not, and now—well, it’s too late.”

Something had gone terribly wrong, which explained the ominous lowering of the colonel’s voice.

“What’s the trouble, Colonel?”

“The house is at this moment burning to the ground. In it, there are two vampires that we know of.” He stopped again. He rubbed his cheek, as if hunting for stubble. “There are six of my own people.”

“God save them,” Paul said. He knew, now, why the map of the Thirteenth Arrondissement was so up-to-date, and also why the sewer system had been altered. They had cut off access from the vampire’s lair. Exactly the approach Paul would have taken.

“But I do have some good news for you. This ‘Mrs. Tallman’ of yours was in the house.”

“That’s goddamn good news, Colonel!” Maybe she hadn’t had time to spread her warning. Maybe now she would never have time. “Do you know how long she’s been there?”

“She appeared yesterday afternoon at about six. That we know.”

“Yesterday afternoon?”

He nodded. “The taxi brought her from a hotel.”

“It’s possible that she didn’t reach any of the others.”

“It is. But they are aware that something is wrong, the Paris vampires.”

Paul had assumed that there would be resistance if they realized they were under attack.

“Only very recently,” the colonel continued, “have we been able to deal with them. Only since we understood the difficulties involved in—the difficulties with the blood —”

“How do you kill ’em?”