“What if they weren’t injecting something, but removing samples?” I look at Dr. Wills speculatively. “Are the injection sites consistent with blood donation?”

“Well yes, now that you mention it, but why—”

“Office cleaners. Blood samples. The two with bite marks. And now this.” I close my eyes briefly, recalling Mo’s dismissal: Don’t be silly, Bob, everybody knows vampires don’t exist. I open my eyes. Andy and Dr. Wills are both looking at me expectantly. “I want to know exactly which offices they were all cleaning. Then I’m going to pay a visit.”

• • •

WE DON’T HAVE TO LOOK FAR; MRS. SIAD’S BODY WAS FOUND AT her place of work. But Andy still feels the need to angst at me.

“I see what you’re saying, Bob, but don’t you think we should take this a step at a time?”

I lean against the corridor wall. “Andy. Andy. What do all these deaths have in common?”

“Well, they’re all K syndrome, or something like it? And they mostly have these needle marks? And you think someone’s been taking blood samples and then they’ve been dying . . . ? Which somehow means you have to go rob a bank.” He grins widely. “Simples!”

“You’d make a lousy meerkat. No, Andy. If you noticed the time of death, Mrs. Siad was found at two in the morning. And I happened to note a pronounced nocturnal association with the others in the spreadsheet, as well. And they’ve all lost blood.”

“But there’s no mechanism for—”

“Andy, I am thinking of the law of sympathy. As in, if you’ve got body tissues or fluids from someone, you’ve got an occult link back to their body. And I am thinking that it is just past noon, which means—if I’m right—now is the safest time to go break down the doors. But if we wait, it won’t be. And at the rate this is increasing, we’re going to have more dead bodies on our hands because if I take it to the oversight committee and they kick it upstairs we won’t get an answer before tomorrow morning at the earliest, now.”

“Hang on.” He raises his hands. “Sympathetic links? Via the blood samples? So what you’re saying is, someone is taking blood samples, and the donors are subsequently having their brains chowed down on by what, something related to the feeders?”