Being undead gave Karl an edge that the elves didn’t know about. He’s faster than a human, and he’d be invulnerable to the bullets in the elves’ guns – assuming all they were packing was lead. But they might have loaded some silver rounds, too.

Since we didn’t know what the elves’ ammo was, the smart move was for Karl and me to sit there like chumps and let those two little fuckers rob us, instead of risking a gunfight with all these civilians so close.

But that posed a problem, too, and it was going to arise when the elf with the bag got to our table. Even if Karl and I were meek as mice, once we reached for our wallets the guns on our belts would become visible. God only knows what the elf, who was close to the edge already, would do when he saw our weapons. He might start shooting out of sheer panic.

Besides, anything somebody else did could set one of these twitchy bastards off – anything. One of the customers could sneeze, or faint, or scratch an itchy armpit. Even worse, somebody might get a phone call.

Karl and I were going to have to take action before something happened to push the situation out of control. We had to find some way to take these two assholes down, without anybody getting killed – especially us.

We didn’t have long to think about it, either. The elf was just three tables away now.

Then inspiration struck. At least, I hoped it was inspiration and not a sudden attack of stupidity.

There were salt and pepper shakers on every table. When I was sure the two elves were looking elsewhere, I palmed the salt shaker and used my thumbnail to pry off the plastic stopper. About three ounces of salt flowed into my palm. I closed my fist, trying to hang on to as much of it as possible.

Some species of supes are repelled by salt. Others aren’t. But nobody likes it you throw the stuff in their eyes.

I was looking at Karl again. Vampires have super-acute hearing, so I knew he’d hear me when I whispered, “Double play. When I say ‘Please’, take out the one on the table.” Karl gave me a slight nod.

It wasn’t long before the elf with the bag was standing in front of us. “Alright, come on, wallets,” he said tightly. “In the fuckin’ bag – let’s go.”

I slowly turned toward him, then made my face scrunch up like I was about to cry. Like a third-grader who’s been called to the principal’s office, I said, “Pleeease.”

Before the elf could do more than gape at me, Karl’s chair went over backwards as he came out of it vampire-fast. Half a second later, he was up on the table with the other elf before the little bastard even knew it.

The elf standing in front of me looked up toward his pal – he couldn’t help himself. That’s when I threw the fistful of salt into his eyes.

He screamed, dropped the bag, and brought his free hand up to cover his burning eyes. I reached over and grabbed his gun hand. Pointing the automatic away from me, I slammed his wrist down on the table, disarming him. With my other hand, I punched him in the throat.

I heard a scream from the other elf and looked up. Karl had the Magnum now, while the elf was holding his gun hand against his chest, moaning. No surprise there – a broken wrist hurts like hell.

My guy had gotten off easy. He was on the floor, eyes streaming, as he clutched his throat with both hands and tried to remember how to breathe.

I stood up and pulled out the leather folder holding my badge and ID. “Police officer! We’re both police officers! Relax, folks, it’s all over.”

We read both prisoners their rights, put them in cuffs – much to the discomfort of the elf with the broken wrist. – and called for backup. I was going to be spending the rest of my shift back at the station house. I looked forward to interrogating these two idiots once they’d been processed into the system. I wanted to know why elves – who, despite being shiftless and stupid, are normally peaceful creatures – were trying to take down Jerry’s Diner.

I never did finish my coffee. Small loss, really.

The paramedics checked both suspects out at the scene. With my guy, they gently rinsed his eyes with a boric acid solution, determined that he was breathing OK, and declared him fit to be arrested. The other elf’s wrist was broken, just as I’d figured. One of the EMTs put an inflatable cast on it and politely asked Karl not to handcuff that arm again. So the two of them went off to Mercy Hospital’s ER together, the elf’s undamaged wrist cuffed to one of Karl’s.

Karl hadn’t complained about taking the damaged elf to the hospital. He wouldn’t be allowed to take part in any interrogation, anyway. The Supreme Court had ruled in Barlow v. Maine almost forty years ago that anything a suspect said in the presence of a vampire – police officer or not – was inadmissible, since there was no way to establish whether vampiric Influence was used to induce cooperation.

Cops have learned to be careful about this kind of stuff. Nobody wants to see some scumbag’s conviction overturned because his lawyer claims there was a vampire three doors down the hall while the scumbag was answering questions.

That meant the other elf was all mine – sort of. The Scranton PD policy says that no detective is ever supposed to be alone in an interrogation room with a suspect. A lot of other police departments around the country have the same rule. In years past, some cops had been careless or stupid and actually been taken hostage by supposedly harmless prisoners. So now you’re supposed to have at least two detectives present to carry out an interrogation.

Since Karl was at the hospital with the elf he’d maimed, I’d have to get another detective to join me while I talked to our suspect, who hadn’t yet asked for a lawyer. His name was Thorontur Carnesin, according to his driver’s license.

Yeah, lots of them have driver’s licenses. You won’t be surprised to learn that they mostly drive subcompacts.

When I looked inside the Occult Crimes squad room, the only detective around was Marty Sefchik. I knew his shift would start in about an hour – which was when his partner, Carmela Aquilina, usually showed up. Unlike Carmela, Sefchik often came in early. I heard he and his wife didn’t get along so well.

Sefchik was looking at the early edition of the Times-Tribune, but he looked up when I appeared in the squad room door.

“Hey, Stan, what’s up? I hear you and Karl almost got taken off the count by a couple of fuckin’ trolls with slingshots or something.”

“They were doing a little better than slingshots, asshole,” I told him. “One had a 9mm Walther, and the other bastard was packing a Colt Python.”

He whistled. “Serious iron.”

“Uh-huh. And they were elves, not trolls.”

“Get the fuck outta here – elves? When did they get all badass?”

“I don’t know, but I was just about to ask one that very question. Wanna sit in?”

“Fuck, yeah. Gotta be more fun than the paper.”

“Almost anything is. OK, come on.”

The interrogation rooms are ten feet by ten, with furniture consisting of a scarred wooden table and a few beat-up chairs. A big iron ring is screwed onto the top of each table, and a suspect under interrogation gets one wrist handcuffed to the ring. Having a hand free allows the suspect to write or hold paperwork, but makes it pretty hard to commit mayhem. And that table is bolted to the floor.

Thorontur Carnesin had been sitting bent over, with his head resting in the crook of his shackled arm. But he sat up quick enough when we came in. Sefchik and I each pulled up a chair across the table from him.

The elf didn’t look too good. I wasn’t surprised that he had the reddest eyes this side of Transylvania – not after the salt I’d thrown in his face. But he was sweating, and it wasn’t warm in the room, which gets AC pumped in just like the rest of the building. I also noticed some tremor in his hands that hadn’t been present in the diner. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to hold the damn gun steady.