“Too right. She was on the permanent sabbatical list. Trouble is, they showed her the door by way of an entrance interview with an investment bank. She’s been management track ever since and ended up as second in command on this team. So they turned her. And she knew about us, so she phoned it in and, as an ex-HR body, she knew exactly how to induct her little bat-buddies into the Laundry. Did it in the nick of time, too, just before I turned up with an OCCULUS truck and half of Special Branch in tow.”

“Oh good god.” Mo doesn’t believe in any gods other than the ones I believe in, but the expostulation comes instinctively.

“I know it’s not a bunch of bloody-handed lunatics from the Middle East, love, but I have had my hands ever so slightly full this past week . . .”

“Vampires.” She takes another sip of whisky. Her shoulders are shaking with suppressed laughter or anger or something. “Blood-sucking fiends.” More shaking. I can’t tell whether it’s mirth or hysteria, which worries me. “Poor Bob!”

“Maaaaow?”

I ignore the cat. “It’s not funny,” I say stiffly. “They drink blood. Not much, but the donors die of something like Krantzberg syndrome.”

“A-HAHAhaha—” It’s like a sneeze, and it passes just as fast. “What?”

“I said, their victims die. I’m guessing there’s a sympathetic connection. Whatever gives them their vampiric superpowers is like the K syndrome parasite, but instead of chewing down on their own gray matter, it uses them as a vector—to take blood meals that allow them to sample many more victims.”

“Oh. Oh shit.” She drains the glass. “What are you going to do about it?”

“What can I do?” The tea’s brewed; I pour myself a mug. “Right now we don’t even know if they have to drink blood to survive, or if it’s optional. Right now we’re still gathering data. Right now I suspect we’ve had a fang fucker in the organization all along, telling us they don’t exist. The intensity of collective denial has been, shall we say, anomalous.” Spooky, tired of being ignored, starts gently bumping her head against my ankle. “But if you could keep your eyes open, I’d be very grateful. Coordinate with Gerry and Angleton and Andy. I’ve got a bad feeling about this . . .”

• • •