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Tucker came back to us. “Time to suit up.” She looked right at me.

I nodded. I let her help me adjust the mask over my face. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing—in, out, in, out. In diving if you breathed too fast, you could blow your lungs. Now it was just a way to keep from hyperventilating.

She fitted the suit’s hood over my head. I watched her do it and knew my eyes were a little too wide.

Wren’s cheerful voice came over the radio in the mask. “Breathe normally, Anita.”

“I am breathing normally,” I said. It sounded odd to be able to talk normally while my own breathing was wheezing, loud and ominous in my ears. With a regulator in, you couldn’t talk, though I’d learned you could scream with a regulator clenched between your teeth. Sounds echo like a son of a bitch underwater.

With the helmet over the mask, visibility was not the best. I practiced turning my head, seeing just how big the blind spots were. My peripheral vision was almost gone.

Tammy’s voice came over the radio. “It’s hard to see in this thing.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Tucker said.

“I hope we’re not in this get-up long enough to get used to it,” I said.

“If we say ‘run,’ run like hell,” Tucker said.

“Because the floor will be caving in, right?” I said.

I think she nodded, but it was hard to tell through the layers. “Right.”

“Fine, but when we get to the stairs, I have to take the lead, and if I say ‘run like hell,’ it means the vampires are going to eat us.”

Wren and Tucker exchanged glances. “You tell us to run,” Wren said, “we’ll ask how fast.”

“Agreed,” Tucker said.

“Great,” I said. Truthfully, it was a damn relief not to have to argue with anyone. No debate. What a relief. If I hadn’t been sweating like a pig, listening to my own breathing echoing horrifically like The Tell-Tale Heart, having to relearn how to walk in metal-lined boots, I’d have said working with the fire department was a break. But it wasn’t. I’d have rather rappelled down on ropes with Special Forces into a free-fire zone than shuffle along in the mummy suit trying not to lose it. It was just a phobia, dammit. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was hurting me. My body didn’t believe the logic. Phobias are like that. Reason doesn’t move them.

Wren stepped onto the floor. It made a noise like a giant groaning in its sleep. He froze, then stomped his feet so hard I thought my pulse was going to spill out my mouth.

“Shouldn’t we be quieter?” I asked.

Wren’s voice came in my ear. “Walk exactly where I walk. Don’t deviate, don’t spread out.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Just because the floor is solid where I’m walking doesn’t mean it’s solid anywhere else.”

“Oh,” I said.

I went right behind Wren, so I got a closeup view of his little stomping dance. It was not comforting. Tucker came behind me, then Detective Reynolds bringing up the rear.

I’d given everybody a cross to put in the pockets of their suits. Why wasn’t everyone wearing one like I was? Because Tucker and Wren were carrying a pack of opaque body bags apiece. Plan was to put the vamps in the bags and take them back up. Inside an ambulance in the body bags they’d be safe until nightfall. If we pulled this off and the ceiling didn’t collapse before darkness, I was going to be pissed. As long as it didn’t fall while we were down here. That I could pass on.

I walked where Wren walked, religiously. Though I did have to say, “Even out of this suit my stride isn’t as big as yours. In the suit I’m damned near crippled. Can I take smaller steps?”

“Just as long as the steps are directly in line with mine, yes,” Wren said.

Relief. The floor was covered with debris. Nails were everywhere in the blackened boards. I understood the metal insoles now. I was grateful for them, but it didn’t make them any easier to walk in.

There was a line to one side going down a hole in the floor. It was a hard suction hose attached to a loud pump some distance away. They were draining the water out of the basement. If the place was watertight, it could be full