"I think so."
"You think?"
"I've never heard of a vamp surviving fire. So yeah, I thinkI 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 fellow man," Detective Tammy said. She and Larry had joined us at last. It had taken Larry a long time to cross those yards. He was far too hurt to insist on going inside the house. Good.
"I'll go in because it's my job, but I don't have to like it," Fulton said.
"Fine, but if we do have a cave-in, we better get dug out before nightfall, because without the vamp chaperone we'll be facing a basement full of new vamps that may not have perfect control over their hunger."
His eyes widened, showing too much white. I would have bet money that Fulton had had a close encounter of the fanged kind once upon a time. There were no scars on his neck, but that didn't prove anything. Vamps didn't always go for the neck, no matter what the movies say. Blood flows near the surface in lots of places.