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"What do you mean?"

"Mosttheir daytime address so that shit like this doesn&039;t happen to the as hell today, Anita"

"You knohat I oing to call you with et done there call ure out where to send you next"

"Have you called Larry?"

"You think he&039;s up to this ht about that for a second "He knows his preternatural stuff"

Dolph said, "I hear a &039;but&039; coether too da Yeah, but he&039;s not a shooter And I don&039;t think that&039;s going to change"

"A lot of good cops aren&039;t shooters, Anita"

"Cops can go twenty-five years and never clear leather Vao in planning to kill things The things we&039;re planning to kill know that"

"If all you have is a hains to look like a nail"

"I read Massad Ayoob, too, Dolph I don&039;t use un as the only solution"

"Sure, Anita I&039;ll call Larry"

I wanted to say, "don&039;t get hiet hirownup He&039;d earned the right to take his chances like everyone else But it hurt so inside of me to know he&039;d be out there today without s It feelsbody parts

I suddenly remembered why today&039;s date was i," I said

"What?" Dolph said

"The history books call it the Day of Cleansing The vao the Church joined forces with the land, oh, hell, almost every European country except France--and burned out every vale day The destruction was complete and a lot of innocent people went up in the flaoal, a lot fewer vampires in Europe"

"Why didn&039;t France join with everyone?"

"So of France had a vaanda that the nobility were all vampires at one point, which wasn&039;t true of course Souillotine was so popular It kills both the living and the undead"

So the mini-lecture I realized that I could ask Jean-Claude If he missed the French Revolution, it wasn&039;t byto this country Why hadn&039;t I thought to ask? Because it still freakedas nearly three hundred years older than I was Talk about a generation gap So sue me if I tried to be as nor ton and Thomas Jefferson were still alive was definitely not norht?"

"Sorry, Dolph, I was thinking"

"Do I want to know about what?"

"Probably not," I said

He let it go Not o Dolph would have pushed until he thought I&039;d told hi to stay co-workers, let alone friends, sos were best left unsaid Our relationship couldn&039;t survive full disclosure It never had, but I don&039;t think Dolph understood that until recently

"Day of Cleansing, okay"

"If you talk to any vampires, don&039;t call it that Call it the Inferno The other phrase is like calling the Jewish Holocaust a racial cleansing"

"You&039;ve made your point," he said "Re police work that you&039;re still on someone&039;s hit parade"

"Gee, Dolph, you do love me"

"Don&039;t push it," he said

"Watch your own back, Dolph Anything happens to you, Zerbrowski&039;s in charge"

Dolph&039;s deep laughter was the last thing I heard before the phone clicked dead I don&039;t think in the nearly five years I&039;d known Dolph that he&039;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?"

"Soot nearly every hu for us to et toasted But we opened the floor up to check on some vamps on the west side and they weren&039;t in coffins Two of the to save him Let&039;s just say I don&039;t want to do the paper work"

"What do you wantthat a lot lately

"We need to know if it&039;s safe to leave hiure out how to rescue hiht the last was a strange question "Except for holy water, vamps don&039;t have any proble water?" he asked

"You&039;ve been doing your homework I&039; into self-i water?"

"Toor otherwise Why do you ask?"

"You&039;ve never been to a building after a fire, have you?" he asked

"No," I said

"Unless the baseht, it&039;ll be full of water A lot of water"

Could vaood question I wasn&039;t sure Maybe they could, and that hy so water Or e, not true at all "They don&039;t always breathe, so I don&039;t think they&039;d drown I mean, if a vampire ith his coffin underwater, I think they could just not breathe and get out of the water But, truthfully, I&039;m not a hundred percent sure"

"Can you tell if he&039;s okay without going down there?"

"Truth is, I&039; like that"

"Will you try?"

I nodded, realized he couldn&039;t see it, and said, "Sure, but you&039;re second on ht, but hurry TheBetween theood 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 bases reinforced with steel beams The church&039;s basement doesn&039;t have any s, so it could ned with vamps in mind I think you&039;d need to know that even if you decide to open the floor up"

"We do"

"Take so faithful aside and ask them questions You need to know the answers either way, and it&039;ll at least give theet there"

"That is the best idea I&039;ve heard in two hours"

"Thanks I&039;ll be there as soon as I can, proht "Wait, Pete Does Malcolm have a human servant?"

"A lot of the people here have vampire bites"

"No," I said "I ht that was just a human with one or two vampire bites"

"So did I once," I said "A human with just a couple of bites is what the vamps call a Renfield, as in the character from the novel Dracula" I&039;d asked Jean-Claude what they called them before the book came out He&039;d said, "slaves" Ask a silly question

"What&039;s a human servant, then?" Pete asked It reminded me of Dolph

"A hu called ives the servant and the vamp a tie that we could use to see if Malcolm is okay"

"Can any vampire have a servant?"

"No, only a master vampire, and not even all of the one, but he could if he wanted to Ask the faithful, though I think if he had one, the servant would be yelling louder than the rest It&039;s still worth a shot If you solve it before I get there, call Dolph says there&039;s plenty of other shit to go around"

"He&039;s not kidding The city is going nuts So far we&039;ve s, but if the crazies keep this up, it&039;s going to get out of hand There&039;s no telling how o up"

"We need to knoho&039;s behind this," I said

"Yes, we do," Pete said "Get here as soon as you can" He sounded so sure I could help I wished I was as certain I wasn&039;t sure I could do shit in broad daylight I&039;d been told once that the only reason I couldn&039;t raise the dead at high noon was that I thought I couldn&039;t I was about to put it to the test I still didn&039;t think I could do it Doubt is the greatest eneic or psychic ability Self-doubt is a self-fulfilling prophecy

"I&039;ll be there as soon as I can"

"Great I won&039;t lie I&039; to be on-site The cops are starting to get so on how to handle the preternatural, but no one trains firemen for this kind of shit"

It had never occurred to me that firemen have to deal with the monsters almost as much as the police They don&039;t hunt theerous, depending on if the monster in question realizes you&039;re there to help or not

"I&039;ll be there, Pete"

"We&039;ll be waiting See ya"

"Bye, Pete"

We hung up I went for my shoulder holster and a different shirt The shoulder holster would chafe with just a tank top on