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“Third-degree burn,” I said.

“What caused this?”

“Can I borrow your pencil?” I asked.

He handed it to me without a word.

I dug at what was left of her chest. The flesh was so badly fried that her shirt melted into it. I pushed the layers aside, digging downward with the pencil. The body felt horribly light, and crisp like the burned skin of a chicken. When I’d plunged half the length of the pencil into the burn, I touched something solid. I used the pencil to pry it upward. When it was almost at the surface I put fingers inside the hole and pulled a lump of twisted metal from the burned flesh.

“What is it?” Dolph asked.

“It’s what’s left of her cross.”

“No,” he said.

The lump of melted silver glinted through the black ash. “This was her cross, Dolph. It melted into her chest, caught her clothing on fire. What I don’t understand is why the vampire kept contact with the burning metal. The vampire should be nearly as burned as she is, but it’s not here.”

“Explain that,” he said.

“Animalistic vampires are like PCP addicts. They don’t feel pain. I think the vampire crushed her to his chest, the cross touched him, burst into flames, and the vampire stayed against her, tearing her apart while they burned. Against any normal vampire, she would have been safe.”

“So crosses can’t stop this one,” he said.

I stared at the lump of metal. “Apparently not.”

The four uniforms were looking at the dim hallway, a little frantically. They hadn’t bargained on the crosses not working. Neither had I. The bit about not feeling pain had been a small footnote to one article. No one had theorized that that would mean crosses didn’t protect you. If I survived, I’d have to work up a little article for the Vampire Quarterly. Crosses melting into flesh, wowee.

Dolph stood up. “Keep together, people.”

“The crosses don’t work,” one uniform said. “We gotta go back and wait for special teams.”

Dolph just looked at him. “You can go back if you want to.” He glanced down at the dead guard. “It’s volunteer only. The rest of you go back outside and wait for special teams.”

The tall one nodded and touched his partner’s arm. His partner swallowed hard, his eyes flicking to Dolph, then to the guard’s crispy-crittered body. He let his partner drag him away down the hall. Back to safety and sanity. Wouldn’t it have been nice if we all could have gone? But we couldn’t let something like this escape. Even if I hadn’t had an order of execution, we would have had to kill it, rather than take the risk of letting it get outside.

“What about you and the rookie?” Dolph asked the black cop.

“I’ve never run from the monsters. He’s free to go back with the others.”

The blond shook his head, gun in hand, fingers mottled with tension. “I’m staying.”

The black cop gave him a smile that meant more than words. He’d made a man’s choice. Or would that be a mature person’s choice? Whatever, he was staying.

“One more corner and the vault should be in sight,” I said.

Dolph glanced at the last corner. His eyes met mine and I shrugged. I didn’t know what was going to be around the corner. This vampire was doing things that I would have said were impossible. The rules had been changed, and not in our favor.

I hesitated on the wall farthest from the corner. I pushed my back into the wall and slid slowly into sight, around the corner. I was staring down a short, straight hallway. There was a gun lying in the middle of the floor. The second guard’s gun? Maybe. On the left-hand wall there should have been a big steel door with crosses hanging on it. The steel had exploded outward in a twisted silver mess. They’d put the body in the vault after all. I hadn’t gotten the guards killed. They should have been safe. Nothing moved. There was no light in the vault. It was just a blasted darkness. If there was a vampire waiting in the room, I couldn’t see it. Of course, I wasn’t all that close, either. Close did not seem to be a good idea.

“Clear, as far as I can see,” I said.

“You don’t sound sure,” Dolph said.

“I