"I've got some debris over here," I said.
"You sound like a real fireman," Wren said.
"Coffin?" Detective Tammy asked from the stairs. She slid into the water last.
"No, just a can of some kind."
The coffin had almost floated to me. No effort. I put a hand out to touch it, keeping it floating gently in the small waves. "When Wren and Tucker get up to the coffin, I'm going to back off. Cover me while I pull out the shotgun."
"You got it," Tammy said. She had her flashlight and gun in two hands, one above the other, so the light moved with the barrel of her gun. She was sweeping the water for movement. Just seeing her do that made the tension in my shoulders ease a bit.
"Don't open the coffin until I'm ready," I said. I had a moment to realize that I wasn't worried about my breathing. The suffocating closeness had receded under the pure adrenaline rush of being chest-deep in water with vampires all around. I could be phobic later, after we survived.
Wren and Tucker took either end of the coffin. Even they were having trouble moving in the water in full suits. "I'm going for the shotgun now, Reynolds."
"You're covered," she said.
I backed off and swung the bag around. I had a moment to decide whether to try to put the Browning back in a pants pocket or in the bag where the shotgun was now. I chose the bag. I kept the bag in front though, where I could put a hand in if I needed the gun. I swung the shotgun around, settling the butt of it against my shoulder. I braced myself as much as I could in the water and said, "Open it."
Tucker steadied it, and Wren swung the lid back. He crossed my line of fire while he did it. "You've crossed my line of sight, Wren."
"What?"
"Move to your right," I said.
He did it without any more questions but that one delay could have been enough to get him hurt or dead. The vampire lay on her back, long hair spread around her pale face, one hand clasped on her chest like a sleeping child.
"Okay to move her?" Wren asked.
"Stay out of my line of fire and you can do anything you want," I said.
"Sorry," he said. Even over the mikes he sounded embarrassed.
I didn't have time to soothe his ego. I was too busy watching for vamps. I kept my attention mainly on the one in the open coffin, but I had no peripheral vision in the suit. My hearing was cut in half or more. I felt totally unprepared.
"Why aren't our crosses glowing?" Reynolds asked from just behind me.
"They don't glow around dead bodies," I said.
Wren and Tucker were having trouble getting the body into the bag. Wren finally threw the body across one shoulder and Tucker started squirming the legs into the bag. The vampire lay utterly limp across Wren's back. Her long hair trailed into the water, turning black as it absorbed the water. When they slid her the last bit into the bag, I got a glimpse of her death-pale face, strands of wet hair clinging to it, like a drowning victim.
Tucker zipped the bag and said, "There's water in the bag. I don't know how to avoid it."
Wren got the body as balanced as he could and started for the stairs. "This is going to take a long time with just two of us carrying," he said.
Fulton's voice came over the radios. "We've got two more suits, Ms. Blake. Is it safe to send more men down?"
"Speaking as one of the sacrificial lambs," I said, "yeah. Why should we have all the fun?"
Wren got to the stairs and started climbing up, one hand on the banister. He tried to do the little stomping routine like we did on the way down and nearly fell back into the water. "I'm just going up the stairs. If they collapse, try not to leave me buried until my air runs out."
"Do our best," I said.
"Thanks," he said, sarcasm traveling just fine over the mikes.
Tucker had isolated one of the other coffins. Reynolds slogged over to steady it while Tucker got the lid. She didn't have enough height to swing it back nicely like Wren had. She just shoved. The lid fell back smacking the other coffin with a loud, echoing thunk. The sound made the tips of my fingers tingle.
"Shit," Reynolds breathed.
"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!"