"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.
The phone rang as soon as I put it down. It was Pete McKinnon. "Hi, Pete. Just got off the phone with Dolph. He told me you wanted me down at the main branch of the Church."
"He tell you why?"
"Something about Malcolm."
"We've got nearly every human member of his Church screaming for us to make sure their big cheese didn't get toasted. But we opened the floor up to check on some vamps on the west side and they weren't in coffins. Two of them went up in smoke. If we let Malcolm get cooked, trying to save him. . Let's just say I don't want to do the paper work."
"What do you want me to do?" I seemed to be asking that a lot lately.
"We need to know if it's safe to leave him alone until he can rise on his own, or if we need to figure out how to rescue him. Vampires can't drown, can they?"
I thought the last was a strange question. "Except for holy water, vamps don't have any problem with water."
"Even running water?" he asked.
"You've been doing your homework. I'm impressed," I said.
"I'm big into self-improvement. What about running water?"
"To my knowledge, water isn't a deterrent, running or otherwise. Why do you ask?"
"You've never been to a building after a fire, have you?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"Unless the basement is airtight, it'll be full of water. A lot of water."
Could vampires drown? It was a good question. I wasn't sure. Maybe they could, and that was why some of the folklore talked about running water. Or maybe it was like saying that vampires could shapechange, not true at all. "They don't always breathe, so I don't think they'd drown. I mean, if a vampire woke with his coffin underwater, I think they could just not breathe and get out of the water. But, truthfully, I'm not a hundred percent sure."
"Can you tell if he's okay without going down there?"
"Truth is, I'm not sure. I've never tried anything like that."
"Will you try?"
I nodded, realized he couldn't see it, and said, "Sure, but you're second on my list, not first."
"All right, but hurry. The media is all over this thing. Between them and the Church members, we are not having a good time."
"Ask them if Malcolm is the only vamp down there. Ask them if the basement is steel-reinforced."
"Why would it be?"
"A lot of the basements where vamps sleep have concrete ceilings reinforced with steel beams. The church's basement doesn't have any windows, so it could mean that the lower area was specially designed with vamps in mind. I think you'd need to know that even if you decide to open the floor up."