“Shut up – I’m thinking. Or trying to.”

After a few seconds, she said, “Where’s Karl now?”

“In the trunk of my car, zipped up in a plastic body bag.”

“What’re you going to do with him?”

“I was kinda hoping to get some advice from you on that question.”

I heard her breath go out in a long sigh. “My Goddess, Stan, we’re dealing with stuff here that nobody else has ever had to think about, as far as I know.”

“Well, then, I guess it’s time somebody started,” I said. “I nominate you for the honor.”

“My cup runneth under,” she said. “Alright, let’s try to think this through. There’s nothing unusual about a vampire appearing to be a corpse during daylight hours, because he is a corpse – until sunset.”

“When were you planning to tell me something that I don’t already know?”

“Stan,” she said tiredly, “stop. I know you’re worried about Karl, and so am I. But please, just… stop.”

I made myself take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, alright. Sorry.”

“Forget it.”

“But what happened, Rachel? This was the day that Karl wasn’t supposed to be a corpse, remember? He was supposed to be alive and kicking, all day long. What went wrong?”

“Any answer I might give to that is pure speculation at this point. Maybe the spell doesn’t affect every vampire the same way. The one that Annabelle worked with was conscious and functioning the whole day, she said – but it’s always a mistake to generalize from a sample of one. That’s true in both science and magic.”

I’d been about to say, “If you didn’t know whether it was safe, then why did you do it?” when the truth stood up and hit me right in the mouth. She did it because you and Karl asked her to, smart guy. Asked her – shit, you both practically begged her.

So, instead of making a complete ass out of myself, I just said, “Uh-huh.”

“Or maybe having to deal with that jerk holding the cross caused more stress than Karl’s system could handle, considering the strain he was already under.”

“Yeah, the cross was something none of us had counted on,” I said. “But, Rachel, you should have seen him – taking hold of that goon’s wrist, then catching the cross when it fell. I was so proud of him…”

“Yes,” she said, “as well you should be.”

I had to swallow a couple of times before I went on. Keeping most of what I was feeling out of my voice, I said, “It’d be nice if I get the chance to tell him that sometime. You think I will?”

“The simplest answer to that is also the most difficult,” she said, “because it involves waiting. Make sure you’re with Karl at sunset. Not to be blunt about it, but either he’ll rise or he won’t. Then we’ll know.”

“That’s it?” I said. “That’s the best you’ve got?” The promise I’d made myself to remain calm hadn’t lasted very long.

“Well, there is one other method,” she said, sounding like someone whose patience had just been used up. “The advantage of this one is you can do it right now, as soon as you get out to your car. But it does have something of a downside, as well.”

“What?” I practically yelled. “What is it?”

“If Karl is still among the undead, then he still possesses all of a vampire’s vulnerabilities. The sun’s shining nice and strong today – from my window, I can hardly see a cloud in the sky.”

I thought I could see where this was going, and I didn’t like it.

“So what you do,” Rachel said, “is open the trunk, unzip that body bag, and take hold of Karl’s arm. Pull it out of the bag until the sun is shining on it. If it bursts into flame, you’ll know that Karl’s OK – apart from his arm, of course. I imagine it’ll heal, eventually. Are you willing to do that to your partner, Stan? To your friend?”

“The fuck I am,” I said.

“No, I didn’t think so.” We were both quiet for a bit, being pissed off at each other, but when Rachel finally spoke, the anger had drained out of her voice. “I knew you couldn’t,” she said. “I couldn’t do it, either. So, I guess that means we wait, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said dully. “Shit.”

“And if you think the hours between now and sunset are going to be one tiny bit easier on me than they’ll be for you, Stan…”

“I know, Rachel. I know.”

“You’ll be with Karl then. Come sundown.”

“Fuckin’ A right I will be.”

“Then when you, uh, know for sure, call me, OK? No matter… no matter what.”

“Count on it.”

I sat in McGuire’s office, sipping from a cup of his excellent coffee and telling him what Rachel’d said about Karl. The coffee’s rich taste aside, I was just grateful for the caffeine. I felt more tired than I had in a long time, and only part of it came from being short on sleep.

“Fine,” he said when I was done, slapping a palm on his desk. “Just great. One of my detectives may or may not be deceased, and I won’t even know until” – he glanced at his watch – “something like five fucking hours from now.”

“We won’t know,” I said. I might’ve said that with a little more emphasis than I usually use with the boss, but like I said, I was tired.

McGuire stared at me for a second, as if he was wondering how I’d look with a shiny new asshole, but then blew out a breath between his lips and slowly sat back in his chair. “Yeah, alright. I know. It’s not all about me.”

“No, I’d say it was mostly about Karl.”

He nodded tiredly. “Well, while we’re waiting for the sunset to resolve that particular issue, there’s no shortage of other ones to think about.”

“Like what Karl got out of Slattery, there at the end.”

“That’d be pretty high on my list, yeah,” he said. “Helter fucking-skelter. Jesus. Never thought I’d hear that again, except maybe on some TV documentary about the Sixties or something.”

“Patton Wilson,” I said. “He’s back. Has to be.”

“I heard that bastard was hiding out in Australia someplace.”

“Maybe he was,” I said. “Or that could’ve been a rumor he started himself, to throw the feds off his trail. Anyway, I’m betting he’s in Scranton now. Or someplace close by.”

“Close by,” McGuire said with a slow nod. “That’s right – he never was much for delegating, was he?”

“No, he wasn’t,” I said. “He’s a very hands-on terrorist, is Mister Wilson.”

“Terrorist?”

“I don’t know what else to call the bastard. He wants to wipe out all the supes by starting a ‘race war’ between them and humans. If that’s not terrorism, I guess it’ll do until the real thing comes along.”

“Yeah you got a point there. Last time, he just used that bunch of religious whackos he controlled–”

“The Church of the True Cross,” I said.

“Yeah, them. But this time, he’s doing what the military calls ‘fighting on multiple fronts’.”

“Multiple is right,” I said as I rubbed my forehead. “It makes my brain hurt just trying to get a handle on it all.”

“The Patriot Party’s the easy one,” McGuire said. “We got that straight from the horse’s mouth not an hour ago.”

“Wilson’s gotta be behind the Delatassos, too,” I said. “Delatasso Junior, anyway.”

“The bombings, you mean?”

“That’s one part,” I said. “Those bombs have got the people scared shitless, and I don’t blame them. And since the bombing’s all part of the gang war, supes get the blame, with the fucking Patriot Party right there to fan the flames. Just like the Nazis and the Reichstag fire.”

McGuire’s a World War Two buff, so I didn’t have to explain to him what I meant. “For them, it was the Jews,” he said slowly. “And for the PP, it’s supes.”

“With a similar result in mind,” I said.

“You said the bombings were only one part of it,” McGuire said. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I am, if you’re thinking about Slide,” I said. “Drug-addicted supes are gonna commit crimes to get money. And every time they do, the PP gets something else to be outraged about.”