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cautious pace. Then Carl would retreat to his lab while Danielle arranged for any supplies he required, ran through her martial arts drills, and studied for the post-graduate course in advanced vampire slaying.
    To her surprise, Carl volunteered to cook dinner every night, although it was catch-as-catch-can for breakfast and lunch. She'd expected his meals to taste like a laboratory accident, but he managed to deliver a treat every time. Of course, after half a lifetime of institutional food, anything would taste good to Danielle.
    A week into their routine, he suggested that they go out for dinner.
    Danielle remembered the way Carl had been rejected when they'd last entered a restaurant and tried to dissuade him.
    "In the zone,” he explained. “We live here, remember. We might as well explore it."
    "It's a zone. What's to see?"
    Carl shrugged. “Every culture has certain needs and develops methods of meeting them. At least that's the way it works for ordinary humans. I'm betting it works the same way for the magically infected."
    "I thought you were a biologist, not an anthropologist."
    "A scientist is a scientist. We can't help our curiosity."
    "All right. So where do you want to go?"
    He named a restaurant she'd never heard of on a street that didn't show on the map her photographic memory supplied.
    "Sounds like fun,” she said. “Uh, how did you happen to know about it?"
    She intended it to sound conversational. From the hard look Carl shot her way, she knew she'd failed.
    "As in, I thought you were a late onset who's never lived here before, and now you know things about the zone?"
    "I didn't say that. I was just—” well, she couldn't tell him he was spot-on right. “—curious,” she concluded.
    "I've kept my eyes open on our runs,” he told her. “And I did research on the Internet. Despite the restrictions, there seems to be plenty of zone-related information out there. It even looks like there's a crossover crowd at this place. You might not be the only normal there."
    She wasn't surprised to hear about normals slumming. Zone drugs, exotic sex with impaired persons, and a sort of no-rules attitude guaranteed that the dregs of normal society would seek pleasure in the zone. It wasn't legal, but it wasn't anything the Warders cared too much about. As long as no normals got hurt, anyway. On the other hand, impaired information on the Internet was a problem. Cyber-warders were supposed to keep magic-related information off the web, protecting normal children from zone exposure.
    "I hope you reported those Internet sites to the cybers,” she said stiffly.
    "We've got reservations in an hour,” he told her, ignoring her comment. “It's casual."
    Casual? Danielle closed the door to her room and looked in her closet.
    Four herder uniforms and the Hunter informal dress uniform hung neatly from hangers, each still in its dry-cleaning bag.
    In her chest of drawers, she had an assortment of T-shirts, workout clothes, a couple of Karate Gi, along with a three pair of jeans and underwear.
    So what did one wear to a casual restaurant in the middle of the Dallas zone?
    Not a uniform. Residents of the zone hated warders almost as much as they feared them. Which was fine with most warders, as long as the fear came first.
    Somehow, though, jeans and a T-shirt seemed too informal.
    There was no help for it. It was time go shopping.
    She clicked onto the net and found the store where they ordered their food. It wasn't Neiman Marcus or Foley's, but they did have a small selection of clothing—and they'd deliver anywhere in the zone, something that the prestige stores in North Dallas would never even consider.
    Highly aware of the minutes ticking away, Danielle input her size and color choice, then ordered the only halfway cute dress that showed up, along with a totally impractical-looking pair of shoes and, in a brief moment of complete unreality, a pair of stockings.
    A pretty brownie dropped off the package twenty