"Everything okay?" Fulton asked.
"Yeah," I said, "just a little case of nerves."
"You okay down there, Tucker?" he asked.
"It was me," Reynolds said. "Sorry."
The second vamp was male with short brown hair and a sprinkling of freckles still clinging to his white skin. He was over six foot. He was going to be even harder to bag.
Tucker came up with the idea of dragging the coffin to the stairs and using the stairs to help leverage the body. Sounded good to me. The bottom of the stairs wasn't in sunlight, so the vamp shouldn't mind.
Reynolds and Tucker had dragged the coffin to the foot of the stairs by the time Wren came back down. He laid an unzipped bag over the length of the body. "If Reynolds and Tucker steady the coffin, I think I can just roll him into the bag."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Tucker said. She stepped lower in the water.
Reynolds looked to me, and I said, "Sure." She moved to the other side of the coffin, her gun not pointed at anything anymore, flashlight held beam-down into the water like a distant golden ball of light in the dark pool.
Wren leaned in over the body to roll it on its side. "You're in my line of sight again, Wren," I said.
"Sorry," he said, but his arms were half under the body, rolling it. He didn't move out of the way.
"Move, dammit," I said.
"I've almost got him in the bag."
The vampire's head spasmed. It happens sometimes even in their "sleep," but I didn't like it now. "Drop him and step back Wren, now." My cross and Reynolds's cross flared to life like two small white suns.
Wren did what I asked, but it was too late. The vampire turned on him, mouth wide, fangs straining. It bit into the suit with a loud hiss of released air. They were too close to trust the shotgun. "Reynolds, it's yours," I said.
Wren screamed.
Reynolds's gun made sparks in the near darkness. The vampire jerked back from Wren, a hole in its forehead. But it wasn't dead, not even close. Revenants don't die that easy. I fired into that pale face. The face exploded into blood and bits of meat; small heavy pieces rained down into the water with soft plops. It fell back against the raised coffin lid, head gone, hands still spasming in the white satin interior. Legs kicking. Wren fell to his butt on the stairs.
Tucker was saying, "Wren, Wren, answer me."
"I'm here," he said, voice hoarse. "I'm here."
I came two careful steps closer on the water-covered stairs and put another shell in the vampire's chest, blowing a hole in it and the coffin lid behind it. I pumped another shell in the shotgun and said, "Up the stairs, now!"
I knelt by Wren, hand under his arm, the other full of shotgun. Over the ringing in my ears from the guns I heard Tucker say, "Something brushed my leg."
"Out, now!" I tried to force them up the stairs with my voice. I dragged Wren to his feet and pushed him up the stairs. He didn't need much urging. When he reached sunlight, he turned back, waiting for the rest of us.
Reynolds was almost with us. Two wet, dripping arms came up on either side of Tucker.
I yelled, "Tucker!"
The arms closed and she was suddenly airborne, backwards, under the water. It closed over her like a black fist. There'd never been anything to shoot at.
Her voice was crystalline over the radio, breathing so ragged it hurt to hear it. "Wren! Help me!"
I slid down the steps, falling into the water, letting the blackness close over me. My cross flared through the water like a beacon. I saw movement but wasn't sure it was her.
I felt movement in the water seconds before arms grabbed me from behind. Teeth tore into the suit, hands ripping the helmet off like wet paper. It rolled me in the water, and I let it. I let its eager hands carry me around until I shoved the shotgun against its chin and fired. I watched its head vanish in a cloud of blood by the glow of my cross. I still had the breathing mask on, which was why I wasn't drowning.
Tucker's screams were continuous now. Her screaming was everywhere, in the radio, in the water, echoing and constant.
I stood up, the remnants of the suit sliding down my body. I lost some of the echoes of Tucker's screams. The water was conducting the screams like an amplifier.