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“You’ve got a basement full of vampires that you need to rescue without exposing them to sunlight or getting any of your people eaten, right?”

He stared at me for a second or two. “That’s the gist of it.”

“Why can’t you just leave them in the basement until full dark?” I asked.

“The floor could cave in at any minute,” he said.

“Which would expose them to sunlight and kill them,” I said. He nodded.

“Dolph said one vamp was covered with blankets, and rushed to the hospital. Is that why you think the others may not be in their coffins?”

He blinked. “There’s also a vampire on the stairs leading down. It’s…” His gaze fell, then came up suddenly to grab mine, angry. “I’ve seen burn victims but nothing quite like this.”

“Are you sure it’s a vampire?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because vamps exposed to sunlight or fire usually burn completely down to ash and a few bone fragments.”

“We doused it with water,” Wren said. “Thought it was a person at first.”

“What changed your mind?”

It was his turn to look away. “It moved. It was like third-degree burns down to cartilage and muscle, bone, and it held out its hand to us.” His face looked pale, haunted. “No person could have done that. We kept coating it with water, thinking maybe we could save it, but it stopped moving.”

“So you assumed it was dead?” I asked.

All three of them exchanged glances. Captain Fulton said, “You mean it might not be dead?”

I shrugged. “Never underestimate a vamp’s ability to survive, Captain.”

“We’ve got to go back in there and get it to a hospital,” Wren said. He turned as if he’d walk back into the house. Fulton caught his arm.

“Can you tell if the vampire is alive or dead?” Fulton asked.

“I think so.”

“You think?”

“I’ve never heard of a vamp surviving fire. So yeah, I think I can tell if it’s alive. If I said otherwise, I’d be lying. I try not to do that when it’s important.”

He nodded twice, briskly, as if he’d made up his mind about me. “The arsonist threw accelerant all over the floor that we’re going to be walking on top of, and once we’re down in the basement that same floor will be above us.”

“So?”

“That floor is not going to hold, Ms. Blake. I’m going to make this a strictly voluntary job for my people.”

I looked up into his serious face. “How likely is the floor to fall and how soon?”

“No way of knowing. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t caved in by now.”

“It’s a halfway house for the Church of Eternal Life. If it’s like the last basement I saw at a Lifer’s place, the ceiling is concrete reinforced with steel beams.”

“That would explain why it hasn’t fallen in,” Fulton said.

“So we’re safe, right?” I asked.

Fulton looked at me and shook his head. “The heat could have weakened the concrete, or even weakened the tensile strength of the steel beams.”

“So it could still fall down,” I said.

He nodded. “With us in it.”

Great. “Let’s do it.”

Fulton grabbed my arm and gripped it too tight. I stared at him, but he didn’t flinch and he didn’t let me go. “Do you understand that we could be buried alive down there or crushed to death, or even drowned if there’s enough water?”

“Let go of me, Captain Fulton.” My voice was quiet, steady, not angry. Point for me.

Fulton released me and stepped back. His eyes looked a little wild. He was spooked. “I just want you to understand what could happen.”

“She understands,” Dolph said.

I had an idea. “Captain Fulton, how do you feel about sending your people in to a potential deathtrap to save a bunch of vampires?”

Something passed through his dark eyes. “The law says they’re people. You don’t leave people hurt or trapped.”

“But,” I prompted.

“But my men are worth more to me than a bunch of corpses.”

“Not long ago I’d have brought the marshmallows and wieners for the roast,” I said.

“What changed your mind?” Fulton asked.

“Kept meeting too many human beings that were as monstrous as the monsters. Maybe not as scary, but just as evil.”

“Police work will ruin your view of your