"A man walked into a bar in the loop with a submachine gun with silver ammo."
For a minute I thought Dolph meant the Lunatic Cafe, Raina's old restaurant, but it wasn't an openly lycanthrope hangout. I tried to think what was up there that was openly shifter. "The Leather Den?" I made it a question.
"Yeah," he said.
The Leather Den was the only bar in the country, to my knowledge, that was a hangout for sadomasochistic gay men who happened to be shapeshifters. It was a triple threat to any hatemonger. "Geez, Dolph, if it wasn't happening with everything else, I'd say it could be almost any right-wing fruitcake. Did you get the machine gunner alive?"
"Nope," Dolph said. "The survivors ate him."
"Bet they didn't," I said.
"They used teeth to kill him, Anita. That's eating him in my book."
I'd seen shapeshifters eat people, not just attack them, but since most of those were illegal kills, i.e. murders, I let Dolph win the fight. He was still wrong, but hard to show him my proof without getting people in trouble.
"Whatever you say, Dolph."
He was quiet for long enough that I had to say, "You still there?"
"Why do I think you're holding back on me, Anita?"
"Would I do that?"
"In a heartbeat," he said.
His asking about the date had triggered some vague memory. "There is something about today's date."
"What is it?" he asked.
"I don't know -- something. Do you need me to come in?"
"Since almost all this shit is preternatural-related, every uniform and his K9 is asking for us. So yeah, we need everybody in the field today. They've been hitting the monster isolation wards of most of the major hospitals."
"Jesus, Stephen," I said.
"He's all right, they all are," Dolph said. "A guy with a 9mm tried for them. The cop at the door got hit."
"He all right?" I asked.
"He'll live." Dolph didn't sound happy, and it wasn't just the hitter or a wounded cop.
"What happened to the shooter?" I asked.
He laughed, an abrupt, harsh sound. "One of Stephen's 'cousins' threw him up against a wall so hard, his skull cracked. Nurses say the shooter was about to put a round right between the uniform's eyes when he was ... stopped."
"So Stephen's cousin saved the cop's life," I said.
"Yeah," Dolph said.
"You don't sound happy about that."
"Leave it alone, Anita."
"Sorry. What do you want me to do?"
"The detective in charge is Padgett. He's a good cop."
"No small praise coming from you," I said. "Why do I hear a 'but' coming?"
"But," Dolph said, "he gets freaked around the monsters. Someone needs to go down there and hold his hand so he doesn't get carried away with the murderous shapeshifters."
"So I'm a babysitter?"
"It's your party, Anita. I can send someone else. I thought you'd want this one."
"I do, and thanks."
"Don't stay all day, Anita. Make it as quick as you can. Pete McKinnon just called me to ask if he could borrow you."
"Was there another arson?"
"Yes, but it wasn't his firebug. I told you they bombed the Church of Eternal Life."
"Yeah."
"Malcolm is in there," he said.
"Shit," I said. Malcolm was the undead Billy Graham, founder of the fastest-growing denomination in the country. It was the vampire church, but humans could join. In fact, they were encouraged. Though how long they stayed human was debatable.
"I'm surprised his daytime retreat was that obvious."
"What do you mean?"
"Most master vamps spend a lot of time and energy hiding their daytime address so that shit like this doesn't happen to them. Is he dead?"
"You are amusing as hell today, Anita."
"You know what I mean," I said.
"No one knows. McKinnon's going to call you with more details. Hospital first, then his scene. When you get done there call me. I'll figure out where to send you next."
"Have you called Larry?"
"You think he's up to this much solo action?"
I thought about that for a second. "He knows his preternatural stuff."
Dolph said, "I hear a 'but' coming."
I laughed. "We have worked together too damn long. Yeah, but he's not a shooter. And I don't think that's going to change."
"A lot of good cops aren't shooters, Anita."
"Cops can go twenty-five years and never clear leather. Vampire executioners don't have that luxury. We go in planning to kill things. The things we're planning to kill know that."
"If all you have is a hammer, Anita, every problem begins to look like a nail."
"I read Massad Ayoob, too, Dolph. I don't use my gun as the only solution."
"Sure, Anita. I'll call Larry."
I wanted to say, "don't get him killed," but I didn't. Dolph wouldn't get him killed on purpose, and Larry was a grownup. He'd earned the right to take his chances like everyone else. But it hurt something inside of me to know he'd be out there today without me as backup. They call it cutting the apron strings. It feels more like amputating body parts.
I suddenly remembered why today's date was important. "The Day of Cleansing," I said.
"What?" Dolph said.
"The history books call it the Day of Cleansing. The vampires call it the Inferno. Two hundred years ago the Church joined forces with the military in Germany, England, oh, hell, almost every European country except France -- and burned out every vampire or suspected vampire sympathizer in a single day. The destruction was complete and a lot of innocent people went up in the flames. But the fire accomplished their goal, a lot fewer vampires in Europe."
"Why didn't France join with everyone?"
"Some historians think the King of France had a vampire mistress. The French Revolutionaries put out propaganda that the nobility were all vampires at one point, which wasn't true of course. Some say that's why the guillotine was so popular. It kills both the living and the undead."
Somewhere during the mini-lecture I realized that I could ask Jean-Claude. If he missed the French Revolution, it wasn't by much. For all I knew, he'd fled the Revolution by coming to this country. Why hadn't I thought to ask? Because it still freaked me out that the man I was sleeping with was nearly three hundred years older than I was. Talk about a generation gap. So sue me if I tried to be as normal in some areas as possible. Asking my lover about events that happened when George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were still alive was definitely not normal.
"Anita, are you all right?"
"Sorry, Dolph, I was ... thinking."
"Do I want to know about what?"
"Probably not," I said.
He let it go. Not more than a handful of months ago Dolph would have pushed until he thought I'd told him everything about everything. But if we were going to stay co-workers, let alone friends, some things were best left unsaid. Our relationship couldn't survive full disclosure. It never had, but I don't think Dolph understood that until recently.
"Day of Cleansing, okay."
"If you talk to any vampires, don't call it that. Call it the Inferno. The other phrase is like calling the Jewish Holocaust a racial cleansing."
"You've made your point," he said. "Remember while you're out there doing police work that you're still on someone's hit parade."
"Gee, Dolph, you do love me."
"Don't push it," he said.
"Watch your own back, Dolph. Anything happens to you, Zerbrowski's in charge."
Dolph's deep laughter was the last thing I heard before the phone clicked dead. I don't think in the nearly five years I'd known Dolph that he'd ever said goodbye on the phone.