The PP seemed to have money to spare, considering how many billboards and commercials they’d bought. There was even a Super PAC, the Coalition for American Morality or something, that was running TV and radio ads in support of the Patriots, and putting out some other ads that said some real nasty things about Mayor D’Agostino and the incumbent City Council members.

Fucking politicians.

When I got to the squad room, Karl wasn’t at his desk. That was unusual, since he usually gets in before I do. Then I saw him standing in the doorway of McGuire’s office, talking to the boss. Karl looked my way for a moment and I heard him tell McGuire, “Here he is.” Then he closed McGuire’s door and headed my way, walking fast.

When he reached me I asked, “Something up?”

“Not much – just a war. Come on, let’s go.”

House of God.

That’s what they call it – the Catholics do, anyway. Considering how many churches there are around the world, God’s got more houses than Donald Trump.

St. Mark’s Church towered over its South Side neighborhood like a skyscraper over a bunch of mud huts. As usual, God had used an architect who thought big and liked stone.

I wondered if He’d looked out the front window recently. Was He pissed that a little piece of Hell had been left within a hundred feet of His front door? Could be that He was amused. They say that God created everything – and I guess that means He made irony, too.

Karl and I made our slow way down the middle of the street, trying not to step in any of the blood. At least we didn’t have to worry about traffic, since both ends of the block were closed off by police barriers. Behind the yellow sawhorses, reporters screamed for access, forensic techs waited impatiently, and neighbors just stared in shock and disbelief. It was a typical crime scene – even if this particular crime was anything but typical.

Even though it had been dark for hours, everybody could still get a good look at the carnage. The forensics people had set up enough lights for a film set. Difference was, these actors weren’t getting up for another take, no matter who yelled “Action!”

I looked over my shoulder and said quietly to Karl, “You doing OK?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I had something before coming on shift.”

I’d been a concerned that he might be feeling edgy. Some vampires get that way in the presence of a lot of fresh blood – although Karl was used to it. He’d been to a lot of crime scenes.

Our slow progress eventually brought us to the tall man in the black raincoat. He stood, hands in his coat pockets, staring at one of the bodies as if he was trying to memorize it. He didn’t look up as we approached. Lieutenants don’t have to show up at crime scenes, but Scanlon does anyway. I think he likes it.

“Evening, Scanlon.” He outranks me but doesn’t act like it, usually. I used to work Homicide, and even though I’ve been in Occult Crimes for years, we still run into each other at crime scenes – especially those with a body count as high as this one.

Scanlon slowly turned toward me. “Stan.” He looked over my shoulder, nodded, and said, “Karl.”

“Lieutenant.” Karl doesn’t have the long history with Scanlon that I do, so he keeps it formal, usually.

I made a gesture with my chin toward one of the bodies. “They all vampires?”

“That’s what my guys tell me. Once I noticed one body had fangs, I had them check all the others.”

“No wood, though,” Karl said. “Did you notice?”

We both looked at him. “No arrows,” Karl said, “or crossbow bolts, or any of the other things most people use to kill the bloodsucking undead at night, when they’re not lying helpless.”

They, I noticed, not we. But the way he’d said “bloodsucking undead” showed that he wasn’t completely indifferent to what had happened. Karl’s what you might call conflicted.

“Silver bullets for all of them, you figure?” I said.

“That, or maybe charcoal,” Scanlon said. “We had a guy use a charcoal slug on a vampire last year, remember?”

“Forensics will tell us about the bullets,” I said. “But there’s something else I noticed.”

Now I was the focus of attention.

“A couple of them are lying on their backs, and I recognize the faces,” I said. “Both members of the Calabrese Family.”

Scanlon made a disgusted sound. “Fangsters. Jesus.”

“Looks like somebody set up an ambush with the Calabrese guys as the guests of honor,” I said. “They got hurt pretty bad tonight.”

“It wasn’t a shutout, though,” Karl said.

I turned toward him. “What?”

“One of these dead guys is wearing thin latex gloves,” he said.

“Paranoid about leaving his prints?” Scanlon said.

“Could be,” Karl said. “Or maybe he was part of the ambush and figured he’d have to reload eventually.” Karl made a grimace that briefly displayed his fangs. “The bloodsucking undead don’t handle silver bullets too well.”

Scanlon looked from Karl to me. “Vampires… ambushing vampires?”

“Makes a certain amount of sense,” I said. “Word on the street these last few weeks is that a gang from out of town had its eyes on the Calabrese territory. I figured if the rumors were true, it was only a matter of time before the new guys tried what you might call a hostile takeover.”

Scanlon’s head did a slow pan, taking in the crime scene and the six dead men it contained, all of whom had probably died tonight for the second time.

“A vampire gang war,” he said. “Just what we fucking need.”

I shrugged. “Could be worse.”

He looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Yeah? How?”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Back in the car, Karl said, “Looks like the new kids in the neighborhood don’t play nice.”

“No, but they’re playing to win,” I said. “A couple more nights like tonight, and Calabrese is gonna start running out of soldiers.”

“You heard anything about where these new guys’re from?”

“Nothing I’m willing to put any faith in,” I said. “One guy I talked to last week said he thought it was Philly – but it turns out that it was something he got from his cousin, who heard it from some other guy, who was banging a girl who once knew somebody who lived in Philly. Or something like that. You know how it goes.”

“Confidential informants – you gotta love ’em,” Karl said.

“Not when they only have shit to tell me, I don’t. If we’re gonna find out what’s going on, we better get a little closer to the source.”

“So, we going to see Calabrese?”

I thought about that. “No, not tonight. After what happened to his crew, he’ll be hiding out for a while.”

“Hiding out?” Karl showed his fangs in a grin. “Don Pietro Calabrese, capo di tutti vampiri, hiding from his enemies like a rabbit cowering in his hole? Say it ain’t so, Stan.”

“That’s not what Calabrese will call it,” I said. “He’ll say he’s gathering his forces, or planning strategy, or maybe even going to the fucking mattresses. Do wiseguys still say that?”

“Beats me,” he said. “All I know about the Mafia, I learned from Francis Ford Coppola. If I wanted to mess around with those guys, I’d be in Organized Crime.”

“Well, since Calabrese is likely to be unavailable for a while,” I said, “we oughta pay a call on Victor Castle.”

Although Pietro Calabrese was the Godfather of the local vampire “family”, the wizard Victor Castle was the unofficial head of the city’s whole supernatural community. I was never clear on exactly how he got the job – was there an election, or a vicious power struggle, or did Castle simply have better magic than anybody else who wanted the job?

Before Castle, the position of local “supefather” had been held for a long time by an old vampire/wizard named Vollman. But he’d died last year, at the hands of his own son.