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Dolph crouched beside the body. He leaned forward, doing a sort of push-up to bring his face close to the gun. “It’s been fired.”

“I don’t smell any powder near the body,” I said. I didn’t look at Dolph when I said it. I was too busy watching the corridor for movement.

“The gun’s been fired,” he said. His voice sounded rough, clogged.

I glanced down at him. His shoulders were stiff, his body rigid with some kind of pain.

“You know him, don’t you?” I said.

Dolph nodded. “Jimmy Dugan. He was my partner for a few months when I was younger than you are. He retired and couldn’t make it on the pension, so he got a job here.” Dolph shook his head. “Shit.”

What could I say? “I’m sorry” didn’t cut it. “I’m sorry as hell” was a little better but it still wasn’t enough. Nothing I could think of to say was adequate. Nothing I could do would make it better. So I stood there in the blood-spattered hall and did nothing, said nothing.

Zerbrowski knelt beside Dolph. He put a hand on his arm. Dolph looked up. There was a flash of some strong emotion in his eyes; anger, pain, sadness. All the above, none of the above. I stared down at the dead man, gun still clasped tight in his hand, and thought of something useful to say.

“Do they give the guards here silver bullets?”

Dolph glanced up at me. No guessing this time; it was anger. “Why?”

“The guards should have silver bullets. One of you take it, and we’ll have two guns with silver bullets.”

Dolph just stared at the gun. “Zerbrowski.”

Zerbrowski took the gun gently, as if afraid of waking the man. But this vampire victim wasn’t going to rise. His head lolled to one side, muscles and tendons snapped. It looked like somebody had scooped out the meat and skin around his spine with a big spoon.

Zerbrowski checked the cylinder. “Silver.” He rolled the cylinder into the revolver and stood up, gun in his right hand. The shotgun he held loosely in his left hand.

“Extra ammo?” I asked.

Zerbrowski started to kneel back down, but Dolph shook his head. He searched the dead man. His hands were candy-coated in blood when he was done. He tried to wipe the drying blood onto a white handkerchief but the blood stained the lines in his hands, gathered around his fingernails. Only soap and scrubbing would get it off.

He said, softly, “Sorry, Jimmy.” He still didn’t cry. I would have cried. But then, women have more chemicals in their tear ducts. It makes us tear up easier than men. Honest.

“No extra ammo. Guess Jimmy thought five’d be enough for some dumb-ass security job.” His voice was warm with anger. Anger was better than crying. If you can manage it.

I kept checking the corridor, but my eyes kept going to the dead man. He was dead because I hadn’t done my job. If I hadn’t told the ambulance drivers that the body was safe, they’d have put him in the vault, and Jimmy Dugan wouldn’t have died.

I hate it when things are my fault.

“Go,” Dolph said.

I took the lead. There was another corner. I did my little kneel-and-roll routine again. I lay half on my side, gun pointed two-handed down the hallway. Nothing moved in the long, green hallway. There was something lying on the floor. I saw the lower part of the guard first. Legs in pale blue, blood-drenched pants. A head with a long brown ponytail lay to one side of the body like a forgotten lump of meat.

I got to my feet, gun still hovering, looking for something to aim at. Nothing moved except the blood that was still dripping down the walls. The blood dripped slowly like rain at the end of the day, thickening, congealing as it moved.

“Jesus!” I wasn’t sure which uniform said it, but I agreed.

The upper body had been ripped apart as if the vampire had plunged both hands into her chest and pulled. Her spine had shattered like Tinkertoys. Gobbets of flesh, blood, and bone sprinkled the hallway like gruesome flower petals.

I could taste bile at the back of my throat. I breathed through my mouth in deep, even breaths. Mistake. The air