The Night Eternal

Saint Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University

ACID RAIN HAD continued to fall abundantly and steadily, staining everything, soiling the city.

Atop the exterior domed structure on Saint Paul’s Chapel, Mr. Quinlan observed as the column of daylight started to close and lightning detonated within the dark clouds. Sirens were audible now. Police cars were visible heading toward the camp. Human police would soon be there. He hoped Fet and the others could evacuate soon.

He found the small maintenance niche at the base of the dome. There he retrieved the book: the Lumen. He crawled deeper into the niche and found refuge in a structural alcove—away from the rain and the incipient daylight. It was a cramped place beneath the granite roof structure and Mr. Quinlan fit snugly. In a notebook he had jotted some observations, annotated some clues. Safe and dry, he carefully laid down the book.

And he began to read again.

INTERLUDE III OCCIDO LUMEN: SADUM AND AMURAH

THE ANGEL OF DEATH SANG WITH THE VOICE OF GOD AS THE cities were destroyed in a rain of sulfur and fire. God’s face was revealed and His light burned it all in a flash.

The exquisite violence of the immolation was, however, nothing to Ozryel—not any longer. He yearned for more personal destruction. He longed to violate the order, and in doing so, achieve mastery over it.

As Lot’s family fled, his wife turned back and gazed into God’s face, ever changing, impossibly radiant. Brighter than the sun, it burned everything around her and turned her into a pillar of white, crystalline ashes.

The explosion transformed the sand within a five-mile radius of the valley into pure glass. And over it the archangels walked on, their mission accomplished, ordered to return to the ether. Their time as men on earth was at an end.

Ozryel felt the warm smooth glass beneath his soles and felt the sun upon his face and felt an evil impulse rising within him. With the flimsiest of excuses, he lured Michael away from Gabriel, leading him up a rocky bluff, where he cajoled Michael into spreading his silver wings and feeling the heat of the sun upon them. Thus aroused, Ozryel could not control his impulses any longer and fell upon his brother with extraordinary strength, tearing open the archangel’s throat and drinking his luminous, silvery blood.

The sensation was beyond belief. Transcendent perversion. Gabriel came upon him in the throes of violent ecstasy, Ozryel’s brilliant wings open to their full expanse, and was appalled. The order was to return immediately, but Ozryel, still in the grip of mad lust, refused and tried to turn Gabriel away from God.

Let us be Him, here on earth. Let us become gods and walk among these men and let them worship us. Have you not tasted the power? Does it not command you?

But Gabriel held fast, summoning Raphael, who arrived in human form on an arrow of light. The beam paralyzed Ozryel, fixing him to the earth he so loved. He was held between two rivers. The very rivers that fed the canals in Sadum. God’s vengeance was swift: the archangels were ordered to rend their brother to pieces and scatter his limbs around the material world.

Ozryel was torn asunder, into seven pieces, his legs, arms, and wings cast to distant corners of the earth, buried deep, until only his head and throat remained. As Ozryel’s mind and mouth were most offensive to God, this seventh piece was flung far into the ocean, submerged many leagues deep. Buried in the darkest silt and blackest sand at the bottom. No one could ever touch the remains. No one could remove them. There they would stay until the day of judgment at the end of days when all life on earth would be called forth before the Creator.

But, through the ages, tendrils of blood seeped out of the interred pieces and gave birth to new entities. The Ancients. Silver, the closest substance to the blood they drank, would forever have an ill effect on them. The sun, the closest thing to God’s face on earth, would always purge them and burn them away, and as in their very origin, they would remain trapped between moving bodies of water and could never cross them unassisted.

They would know no love and could breed only by taking life. Never giving it. And, should the pestilence of their blood ever spread without control, their demise would come from the famine of their kind.

Columbia University

MR. QUINLAN SAW the different glyphs and the coordinates that signaled the location of the internments.

All the sites of origin.

Hastily, he wrote them down. They corresponded perfectly to the sites the Born had visited, gathering the dusty remains of the Ancients. Most of them had a nuclear plant built above them and had been sabotaged by the Stoneheart Group. The Master had of course prepared this coup very carefully.

But the seventh site, the most important of them all, appeared as a dark spot on the page. A negative form in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. With it, two words in Latin: Oscura. Aeterna.

Another, odd shape was visible in the watermark.

A falling star.

The Master had sent helicopters. They had seen them from the windows of their cars on the slow drive south, back to Manhattan. They crossed the Harlem River from Marble Hill, staying off the parkways, abandoning their vehicles near Grant’s Tomb and then making their way through the steady night rain like regular citizens, slipping onto the abandoned campus of Columbia University.

While the others went below to regroup, Gus crossed Low Plaza to Buell Hall and rode the service dumbwaiter to the roof. He had his coop up there, for the messenger pigeons.

His “Jersey Express” was back, squatting underneath the perch gutter Gus had fashioned.

“You’re a good boy, Harry,” said Gus as he unfurled the message, scrawled in red pen on a strip of notebook paper. Gus immediately recognized Creem’s all-capitals handwriting, as well as his former rival’s habit of crossing out his O’s like null signs.

Gus ate the note and found the carpenter’s pencil he stowed with the corn feed and shreds of paper. He wrote back to Creem, okaying the meet, giving him a surface address on the edge of campus. He didn’t like Creem, and he didn’t trust him, but the fat Colombian was running the black market in Jersey, and maybe, just maybe, he could come through for them.

Nora was exhausted but could not rest. She cried for long bouts. Shuddering, howling, her abs hurting from the intense sobbing.

And when silence finally came she kept running her palm over her bare head, her scalp tingling. In a way, she thought, her old life, her old self—the one that had been born that night in the kitchen, the one birthed out of tears—was now gone. Born to tears, died by tears.

She felt jittery, empty, alone… and yet somehow renewed. The nightmare of their current existence, of course, paled in comparison to imprisonment in the camp.

Fet sat at her side constantly, listened attentively. Joaquin sat near the door, leaning against the wall, resting a sore knee. Eph leaned against the far wall, his arms crossed, watching her try to make sense of what she had seen.

Nora thought that Eph had to suspect her feelings for Fet by now; this was clear from his posture and his location across the room from them. No one had spoken of it yet, but the truth hung over the room like a storm cloud.

All this energy and these overlapping emotions kept her talking fast. Nora was still most hung up on the pregnant campers in the birthing zone. Even more so than on her mother’s death.

“They’re mating women in there. Trying to produce B-positive offspring. And rewarding them with food, with comfort. And they… they seem to have adjusted to it. I don’t know why that part of it haunts me so. Maybe I’m too hard on them. Maybe the survival instinct isn’t this purely noble thing we make it out to be. Maybe it’s more complicated than that. Sometimes surviving means compromise. Big compromise. Rebellion is hard enough when you’re fighting for yourself. But once you have another life growing in your belly… or even a young child…” She looked at Eph. “I understand it better now, is what I’m trying to say. I know how torn you are.”

Eph nodded once, accepting her apology.

“That said,” said Nora, “I wish you had met me at the medical examiner’s office when you were supposed to. My mother would still be here today.”

“I was late,” said Eph, “I admit that. I got hung up—”

“At your ex-wife’s house. Don’t deny it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“But?”

“Just that you being found here wasn’t my fault.”

Nora turned toward him, surprised by the challenge. “How do you figure that?”

“I should have been there. Things would have been different had I been there on time. But I didn’t lead the strigoi to you.”

“No? Who did?”

“You did.”

“I…?” She could not believe what she was hearing.

“Computer use. The Internet. You were using it to message Fet.”

There. It was out. Nora stiffened at first, a wave of guilt, but quickly shook it off. “Is that right?”

Fet rose to defend her. All six feet plus of him. “You shouldn’t talk to her like that.”

Eph did not back up. “Oh, I shouldn’t—? I’ve been in that building for months with almost no problem. They’re monitoring the Net. You know that.”

“So I brought this on myself.” Nora slipped her hand underneath Fet’s. “My punishment was a just punishment—in your eyes.”

Fet shuddered at the touch of her hand. And as her fingers wrapped around his thick digits, he felt as if he could cry. Eph saw the gesture—small under any other circumstances—as an eloquent public expression of the end of his and Nora’s relationship.

“Nonsense,” Eph said. “That’s not what I meant.”

“That is what you are implying.”

“What I am implying—”

“You know what, Eph? It fits your pattern.” Fet squeezed her hand to slow her down, but she blew past that stop sign. “You’re always showing up just after the fact. And by ‘showing up,’ I mean ‘getting it.’ You finally figured out how much you loved Kelly… after the breakup. You realized how important being an involved father was… after you weren’t living with Zack anymore. Okay? And now… I think maybe you’re going to start realizing how much you needed me. ’Cause you don’t have me anymore.” It shocked her to hear herself saying these things out loud, in front of the others—but there it was. “You’re always just a little too late. You’ve spent half your life battling regrets. Making up for the past rather than getting it done in the present. I think the worst thing that ever happened to you was all your early success. The ‘young genius’ tag. You think if you work hard enough, you can fix the precious things you’ve broken—rather than being careful with them in the first place.” She was slowing down now, feeling Fet pulling her back—but her tears were flowing, her voice hoarse and full of pain. “If there’s one thing you should have learned since this terrible thing started, it’s that nothing is guaranteed. Nothing. Especially other human beings…”

Eph remained still across the room. Pinned to the floor, actually. So still that Nora wasn’t sure her words had gotten through to him. Until, after an appropriate amount of silence, when what Nora said appeared to be the last word, Eph stood off the wall and slowly walked out the door.

Eph walked the ancient corridor system, feeling numb. His feet made no impact upon the floor.

Twin impulses had torn at him in there. At first, he wanted to remind Nora how many times her mother had nearly gotten them captured or turned. How badly Mrs. Martinez’s dementia had slowed all of them down over the past many months. Evidently, it didn’t matter now that Nora had, numerous times, directly expressed her wish that her mother be taken from them. No. Everything that went wrong was Eph’s fault.

Second, he was stunned to see how close she seemed to Fet now. If anything, her abduction and ultimate rescue had brought them closer together. Had strengthened their new bond. This twisted most sharply in his side, because he had seen saving Nora as a dry run for saving Zack, but all it had done was expose his deepest fear: that he might save Zack and still find him changed forever. Lost to Eph—forever.

Part of him said it was already much too late. That part of him was the depressive part, the part he tried to stave off constantly. The part he medicated with pills. He felt around for the pack on his back and unzipped the small compartment meant for keys or loose change. His last Vicodin. He placed it on his tongue and then held it there as he walked, waiting to work up enough saliva to swallow it.

Eph conjured up the video image of the Master overlooking its legion in Central Park, standing high upon Belvedere Castle with Kelly and Zack at its side. This green-tinted image haunted him, ate at him as he kept walking, only half-aware of his direction.

I knew you would return.

Kelly’s voice and the words were like a shot of adrenaline, straight to his heart. Eph turned into a familiar-looking corridor and found the door, heavy wood and iron-hinged, not locked.

Inside the asylum chamber, in the center of the corner cage, stood the vampire that was once Gus’s mother. The dented motorcycle helmet tilted ever so slightly, acknowledging Eph’s entrance. Her arms remained bound behind her back.

Eph approached the cage door. The iron bars were spaced six inches apart. Vinyl-sleeved, braided steel-cable bicycle locks secured the door at the top, bottom, and through the old padlock clasp in the middle.

Eph waited for Kelly’s voice. The creature stood still, its helmet steady—perhaps it was expecting its daily blood feed. He wanted to hear her. Eph grew frustrated and stepped back, looking around the room.

On the rear wall, hanging from a rusty nail, was a small ring containing a single, silver key.

He retrieved the key, bringing it to the cell door. No movement from the creature. He fit the key into the top lock and it opened. Then the bottom, and then the middle lock. Still no indication of awareness from the vampire that was Gus’s mother. Eph unwound the cables from the iron bars and slowly pulled open the door.

The door scraped against its frame, but the hinges were oiled. Eph pulled the door wide and stood in the opening.

The vampire did not move from her spot in the center of the cell.

You can never go down / can never go down…

Eph drew his sword and stepped inside. Closer now, he saw his dim reflection in the black-tinted face shield, his sword low at his side.

The creature’s silence pulled him nearer to his reflection.

He waited. A vampiric hum in his head, but slight.

This thing was reading him.

You have lost another. Now you have no one. No one but me.

Eph saw his expressionless face reflected in the visor. “I know who you are,” he said.

Who am I?

“You have Kelly’s voice. But these are the Master’s words.”

You came to me. You came to listen.

“I don’t know why I came.”

You came to hear your wife’s voice again. It is as much a narcotic as those pills you take. You really need it. You really miss it. Don’t you?

Eph did not ask how the Master knew about that. He only knew that he had to be on his guard at all times—even mentally.

You want to come home. To return home.

“Home? Meaning, to you? To the disembodied voice of my former wife? Never.”

Now it is time to listen. Now is not the time to be obstinate. Now is the time to open your mind.

Eph said nothing.

I can give you back your boy. And I can give you back your wife. You can release her. Start anew with Zack by your side.

Eph held his breath in his mouth before exhaling, hoping to slow his rising heart rate. The Master knew how desperate Eph was for Zack’s release and return, but it was important to Eph that he not appear desperate.

He is unturned, and will remain that way, a lesser being, as you wish.

And then, out of his mouth came the words he never thought he would utter: “What is it you want in return?”

The book. The Lumen. And your partners. Including the Born.

“The what?”

Mr. Quinlan, I think you call him.

Eph frowned at his reflection in the helmet visor. “I can’t do that.”

Certainly you can.

“I won’t do that.”

Certainly you will.

Eph closed his eyes and tried to clear his head, reopening them a moment later. “And if I refuse?”

I will proceed as planned. The transformation of your boy will happen immediately.

“Transformation?” Eph trembled, sickened, but fought to suppress his emotions. “What does that mean?”

Submit while you still have something with which to bargain. Give yourself to me in your son’s stead. Get the book and bring it to me. I will take the information contained in the book… and the information contained in your mind. I will know all. You can even return the book. No one will know.

“You would give Zack to me?”

I will give him his freedom. The freedom to be a weak human, just like his father.

Eph tried to hold back. He knew better than to allow himself to be drawn into this conversation, to be lulled into an exchange with the monster. The Master continued to poke around his mind, looking for a way in.

“Your word means nothing.”

You are correct, in that I have no moral code. There is nothing to compel me to uphold my end of the bargain. But you might consider the fact that I keep my word more often than not.

Eph stared at his reflection. He fought, relying on his own moral code. And yet… Eph was indeed tempted. A straight-up trade—his soul for Zack’s—was one he would make in a minute. The thought of Zack falling prey to this monster—either as a vampire or as an acolyte—was so abhorrent, Eph would have agreed to nearly anything.

But the price was far greater than his own tarnished soul. It meant the souls of the others as well. And the fate, more or less, of the entire human race, in that Eph’s capitulation would give the Master final and lasting stewardship of the planet.

Could he trade Zack for everything? Could his decision be the right one? One he wouldn’t look back at with the greatest regret?

“Even if I were to consider this,” said Eph, talking as much to his reflected self as he was to the Master, “there is one problem. I don’t know the location of the book.”

You see? They are keeping it from you. They don’t trust you.

Eph saw that the Master was right. “I know they don’t. Not anymore.”

Because it would be safer for you to know where it was, as a fail-safe.

“There is a transcription—some notes I have seen. Good ones. I can deliver you a copy.”

Yes. Very good. And I will deliver to you a copy of your boy. Would you like that? I require possession of the original. There is no substitute. You must find out its location from the exterminator.

Eph suppressed his alarm at the Master knowing about Fet. Did the Master get it from Eph’s mind? Was he raiding Eph’s knowledge as they spoke here?

No. Setrakian. The Master must have turned him before the old man destroyed himself. The Master had seized all of Setrakian’s knowledge just as he now wanted to seize all of Eph’s: through possession.

You have proven yourself quite resourceful, Goodweather. I am confident you can find the Lumen.

“I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

Haven’t you? I can tell you now that you will have some assistance in this endeavor. An ally. One among your inner circle. Not physically turned—no. Only sympathetically. A traitor.

Eph did not believe this. “Now I know that you are lying.”

Do you? Tell me this. How would this lie profit me?

“…By stirring up discontent.”

There is already plenty of that.

Eph thought about it. It seemed true: he could find no advantage for the Master in lying.

There is one among you who will betray you all.

A turncoat? Had another one of them been co-opted? And then Eph realized that, in expressing it that way, he was already counting himself as having been co-opted as well.

“Who?”

This person will reveal themselves to you, in time.

If another had been compromised and chose to deal with the Master without Eph—then Eph could lose his last, best chance at saving his son.

Eph felt himself swaying. He felt this enormous tension in his mind. Fighting to keep the Master out, and fighting to keep his doubts in.

“I… would need a little time with Zack beforehand. Time to explain my actions. To justify them, and to know that he is fine, to tell him—”

No.

Eph waited for more. “What do you mean, no? The answer is yes. Make it part of the deal.”

It is not part of any deal.

“Not part of any… ?” Eph saw his dismay in the faceplate reflection. “You don’t understand. I can barely even consider doing what you have proposed here. But there is no way—no way in hell—that I go through with this unless I get a guaranteed opportunity to see my boy and know that he is fine.”

And what you don’t understand is that I have neither patience nor sympathy for your superfluous human emotions.

“No patience… ?” Eph pointed the tip of his silver sword at the helmet visor in angry disbelief. “Have you forgotten that I have something you want? Something you apparently very desperately need?”

Have you forgotten that I have your son?

Eph stepped backward as though shoved. “I can’t believe what I am hearing. Look—this is simple. I’m inches away from saying yes. All I’m asking for is ten goddamned minutes…”

It is even simpler than that. The book for your boy.

Eph shook his head. “No. Five minutes—”

You forget your place, human. I have no respect for your emotional needs and will not make them part of the terms. You will give yourself to me, Goodweather. And you will thank me for the privilege. And every time I look at you for the rest of eternity here on this planet, I will regard your capitulation as representative of the character of your entire race of civilized animals.

Eph smiled, his crooked mouth like a weird gash across his face, so stunned was he by the creature’s abject heartlessness. It reminded him of what he was up against—what they were all up against—in this cruel and unforgiving new world. And it astounded him how tone-deaf the Master was when it came to human beings.

In fact, it was this lack of comprehension—this utter inability to feel sympathy—that had caused the Master to underestimate them time and time again. A desperate human is a dangerous human, and this was one truth the Master could not divine.

“You would like my answer?” asked Eph.

I have your answer, Goodweather. All I require is your capitulation.

“Here is my answer.”

Eph reared back and swung at the proxy vampire standing before him. The silver blade sliced low through the neck, lifting the helmeted head from the shoulders, and Eph no longer had to stare at the reflection of his traitorous self.

Minimal spray as the body sagged, the caustic white blood pooling on the ancient floor. The helmet clunked and clattered into the corner, rolling around wobblingly before settling on its side.

Eph had not struck at the Master so much as he had struck at his own shame and his anguish at this no-win situation. He had slain the mouthpiece of temptation in lieu of striking down the temptation itself—an act he knew to be utterly symbolic.

The temptation remained.

Footsteps approached from the hallway, and Eph backed away from the decapitated body, at once realizing the consequence of his actions.

Fet was first inside. Nora followed, stopping short. “Eph! What have you done… ?”

In isolation, his impetuous attack seemed just. Now the consequences came rushing at him, with new footsteps from the hall: Gus.

He did not see Eph at first. He was focused on the interior of the cell in which he kept his mother the vampire. He roared and pushed past the other two and saw the headless body collapsed on the floor, its hands still manacled behind its back, the helmet in the corner.

Gus let out a cry. He drew a knife from his backpack, then rushed at Eph faster than Fet could react. Eph raised his sword at the last moment, to parry Gus’s attack—as a dark blur filled the space between them.

A starkly white hand gripped Gus’s collar, holding him off. Another hand thrust against Eph’s chest as the hooded being separated them with powerful strength.

Mr. Quinlan. Dressed in his black hoodie, radiating vampire heat.

Gus swore and kicked, fighting to get free, his boots a few inches from the ground. Tears of rage flowing freely from his eyes. “Quinlan, let me at this fuck!”

Slow.

Mr. Quinlan’s rich baritone invaded Eph’s head.

“Let me go!” Gus slashed with his knife, but it was little more than a bluff. As furious as Gus was, he still had the presence of mind to respect Mr. Quinlan.

Your mother is destroyed. It is done. And it is for the best. She was gone a long time ago and what was left—it was no good for you here.

“But that choice was mine—! What I did or not—my choice!”

Settle your differences as you wish. But—later. After the final battle.

Quinlan turned his piercing red eyes toward Gus, glowing hot within the dark shadow of his cotton hood. A royal red, richer than the hue of any natural object Gus had ever seen—even the freshest human blood. More red than the reddest autumn leaf and brighter and deeper than any plumage.

And yet, even as Quinlan was one-handedly lifting a man from the floor, these eyes were in repose. Gus would not like to see them turned on him in anger. At least for the moment, he held back his attack.

We can take the Master. But our time is short. We must do it—together.

Gus pointed past Mr. Quinlan, at Eph. “This junkie is worthless to us. He got the lady doctor caught, he cost me one of my men, and he is a fucking hazard and—worse than that—he’s a curse. This shit is bad luck. The Master has his son and has adopted him and leashed him like a fucking pet.”

It was Eph’s turn to go after Gus. Mr. Quinlan’s hand quickly came up against Eph’s chest with the restraining force of a steel pole.

“So tell us,” said Gus, not letting up. “Tell us what that motherfucker was whispering to you in here, just now. You and the Master having a heart-to-heart? I think the rest of us have a right to know.”

Quinlan’s hand rose and fell with Eph’s deep breaths. Eph stared at Gus, feeling Nora’s and Fet’s eyes on him.

“Well?” said Gus. “Let’s hear it!”

“It was Kelly,” said Eph. “Her voice. Taunting me.”

Gus sneered, spitting into Eph’s face. “Weak-minded piece of shit.”

Again a scuffle started. Fet and Mr. Quinlan were needed to keep the two men from tearing each other apart.

“He’s so desperate for the past, he came here to be talked down to,” said Gus. “Some dysfunctional family shit you got going.” To Mr. Quinlan, Gus said, “I tell you, he brings nothing. Let me fucking kill him. Let me get rid of this dead weight.”

As I said, you may settle this any way you desire. But, after.

It was apparent to all, even to Eph, that Mr. Quinlan was protecting him for some reason. That he was treating Eph differently than he might have treated the others—which meant that there was something different about Eph.

I need your help, gathering one final piece. All of us. Together. Now.

Mr. Quinlan released Gus, who surged toward Eph one last time, but with his knife down. “I have nothing left,” he said, up in Eph’s face like a snarling dog. “Nothing. I will kill you when this is all over.”

The Cloisters

THE HELICOPTER’S ROTORS fought off wave after wave of stinging black rain. The dark clouds had unleashed a torrent of polluted precipitation, and yet, despite the darkness, the Stoneheart pilot wore aviator sunglasses. Barnes feared the man was flying blind and could only hope that they remained at a sufficient altitude over the Manhattan skyline.

Barnes swayed in the passenger compartment, hanging on to the seat belt straps crossing over his shoulders. The helicopter, chosen from among a number of models at the Bridgeport, Connecticut, Sikorsky plant, shook laterally as well as vertically. The rain seemed to be getting in under the rotor, slapping sideways against the windows as though Barnes were aboard a small boat in a storm at sea. Accordingly, his stomach lurched and its contents began to rise. He unclipped his helmet just in time to vomit into it.

The pilot pushed his joystick forward, and they began to descend. Into what, Barnes had no clue. Distant buildings were blurred through the wavy windshield, then treetops. Barnes assumed they were setting down in Central Park, near Belvedere Castle. But then a hostile gust of wind spun the helicopter’s tail like a weather vane arrow, the pilot fighting the joystick for control, and Barnes glimpsed the turbulent Hudson River to his near right, just beyond the trees. It couldn’t be the park.

They touched down roughly, first one skid, then the other. Barnes was just grateful to be back on solid ground, but now he had to walk out into a maelstrom. He pushed open the door, exiting into a blast of wet wind. Ducking under the still-spinning rotors and shielding his eyes, he saw, on a hilltop above, another Manhattan castle.

Barnes gripped his overcoat collar and hurried through the rain, up slick stone steps. He was out of breath by the time he reached the door. Two vampires stood there, sentries, unbowed by the pelting rain, yet half obscured by the steam emanating from their heated flesh. They did not acknowledge him, nor did they open the door.

The sign read, THE CLOISTERS, and Barnes recognized the name of a museum near the northern tip of Manhattan, administered by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He pulled on the door and entered, waiting for it to close, listening for movement. If there was any, the pounding rain obscured it.

The Cloisters was constructed from the remnants of five medieval French abbeys and one Romanesque chapel. It was an ancient piece of southern France transported to the modern era, which in turn now resembled the Dark Ages. Barnes called out, “Hello?” but heard nothing in response.

He wandered through the Main Hall, still short of breath, his shoes soaked, his throat raw. He looked out at the garden cloisters, once planted to represent the horticulture of medieval times, which now, due to negligence and the oppressive vampiric climate, had degenerated into a muddy swamp. Barnes continued ahead, turning twice at the sound of his own dripping but apparently alone within the monastery walls.

He wandered past hanging tapestries, stained-glass windows begging for sunlight, and medieval frescoes. He passed the twelve Stations of the Cross, set in the ancient stone, stopping briefly at the strange crucifixion scene. Christ, nailed to the center cross, was flanked by the two thieves, their arms and legs broken, tied to smaller crosses. The carved inscription read PER SIGNU SANCTECRUCIS DEINIMICIS NOSTRIS LIBERA NOS DEUS NOSTER. Barnes’s rudimentary Latin translated this as “Through the sign of the Holy Cross, from our enemies, deliver us, our God.”

Barnes had many years ago turned his back on his given faith, but there was something about this ancient carving that spoke to an authenticity he believed was missing in modern organized religion. These devotional pieces were remnants of an age when religion was life and art.

He moved on to a smashed display case. Inside were two illuminated books, their vellum pages ruffled, the gold leaf flaking, the hand-detailed artwork filling the pages’ lavish borders smudged with dirty fingerprints. He noticed one oversized oval that could only have been left by a vampire’s large talonlike middle finger. The vampire had no need for or appreciation for hoary, human-illustrated books. The vampire had no need for or appreciation for anything produced by a human.

Barnes passed through open double doors underneath a giant Romanesque archway, into a large chapel with an immense barrel-vault ceiling and heavily fortified walls. A fresco dominated the apse over the altar at the northern end of the chamber: the Virgin and Child together, with winged figures poised at either side. Written over their heads were the archangel names Michael and Gabriel. The human kings below them were depicted as the smallest figures.

As he stood before the empty altar, Barnes felt the pressure change inside the cavernous room. A breath of air warmed the back of his neck like the sigh of a great furnace, and Barnes turned slowly.

At first glance, the cloaked figure standing behind him resembled a time-traveling monk arrived from a twelfth-century abbey. But only at first glance. This monk gripped a long, wolf-headed staff in its left hand, and the hand contained the telltale vampire-talon middle finger.

The Master’s new face was just visible inside the dark folds of the cloak’s hood. Behind the Master, near one of the side benches, was a female vampire in tatters. Barnes stared, recognizing her vaguely, trying to match the bald, red-eyed fiend to a younger, attractive, blue-eyed woman he once knew…

“Kelly Goodweather,” said Barnes, so stunned he uttered her name out loud. Barnes, who had believed himself inured to any further new-world shocks, felt his breath go out a bit. She lurked behind the Master, a slinky, pantherlike presence.

Report.

Barnes nodded quickly, having anticipated this. He related the details of the rebels’ break-in exactly the way he had practiced, perfunctorily, aiming to minimize the incursion. “They timed it to occur in the hour before the meridiem. And they had assistance from one who was not human, who escaped before the sun appeared.”

The Born.

This surprised Barnes. He had heard some stories and had been directed to structure the camps with segregated quarters for pregnant women. But before this moment he had never been made aware that any actually existed. Barnes’s mercenary mind saw immediately that this was good for him, in that it removed much of the blame for the disruption from him and his security procedures at Camp Liberty.

“Yes, so they had help entering. Once inside, they took the quarantine crew by surprise. They went on to do great damage to the letting facilities, as I reported. We are working hard to resume production and could be back up to twenty percent capacity within a week or ten days. We did claim one of theirs, as you know. He was turned but self-destroyed a few minutes after sundown. Oh, and I believe I have uncovered the true reason for their attack.”

Dr. Nora Martinez.

Barnes swallowed. The Master knew so much.

“Yes, I had just recently discovered that she had been placed inside the camp.”

Recently? I see… How recently?

“Moments before the upheaval, sir. In any event, I was actively engaged in trying to derive information from her pertaining to Dr. Goodweather’s location and his resistance partners. I thought a less formal, more congenial exchange might be advantageous. As opposed to direct confrontation, which I believe would only have given her the opportunity to prove her fidelity to her friends. I hope you agree. Unfortunately, it was at that time that the marauders entered the main camp, and the alarm was given, and security arrived to evacuate me.”

Barnes could not help but glance at the former Kelly Goodweather now and then, standing in the distance behind the Master, her arms hanging slack. So strange to be talking about her husband and yet see no reaction from her.

You located a member of their group and failed to inform me immediately?

“As I said, I barely had any time to react and… I… I was quite surprised, you understand, caught off guard. I thought I might get farther using a personal approach—she used to work for me, you realize. I had hoped I might be able to leverage my personal relationship with her to derive some helpful information before turning her over to you.”

Barnes maintained a smile, even the fake confidence behind it, as he felt the Master’s presence inside his mind, like a thief rummaging through an attic. Barnes was certain that human prevarication was a concern well beneath the vampire lord.

The head within the hood lifted a moment, and Barnes realized the Master was regarding the religious fresco.

You lie. And you are terrible at it. So—why don’t you try telling me the truth and see if you’re any better at that?

Barnes shuddered and before he realized it, he had explained all the details of his clumsy attempts at seduction and his relationship to both Nora and Eph. The Master said nothing for a moment, then turned.

You killed her mother. They will seek you. For revenge. And I will keep you available for them… that will bring them to me. From this time forward, you may commit your attention fully to your assigned duty. The resistance is nearly at an end.

“It is?” Barnes quickly closed his mouth; he certainly had not meant to question or doubt. If the Master said it was so, then it was so. “Good, then. We have the other camps coming into production, and as I say, repairs on the letting facility at Camp Liberty are ongoing—”

Say no more. Your life is safe for now. But never lie to me again. Never hide from me again. You are neither brave nor smart. Efficient extraction and packaging of human blood is your mission. I recommend that you excel at it.

“I plan to. I mean—I will, sir. I am.”

Central Park

ZACHARY GOODWEATHER WAITED until Belvedere Castle was quiet and still. He emerged from his room into the sickly sunlight of the meridiem. He walked to the edge of the stone plaza at the top of the rise and looked out at the vacant land below. The vampire guards had retreated from the wan light into caves specially blasted into the schist that formed the foundation of the castle. Zachary returned inside the castle to retrieve his black parka before jogging down the walk into the park in violation of the human curfew.

The Master enjoyed watching the boy break rules, test boundaries. The Master never slumbered in the castle, deeming it too vulnerable to attack during the two-hour sun window. The Master preferred his hidden crypt at the Cloisters, buried in a cool bed of old soil. During the downtime of the daylight slumber, the Master had taken to seeing the surface world through Zachary’s eyes, exploiting their bond formed by the Master’s blood treatment of Zachary’s asthma.

The boy unplugged his all-terrain Segway Personal Transporter and rode silently along the park path south to his zoo. At the entrance, he made three circles before opening the front gate, part of his developing obsessive-compulsive disorder. Inside, he rode to the locked case his rifle was kept in, producing the key he had stolen months before. He touched the key to his lips seven times and, properly reassured, undid the lock and pulled out the rifle. He checked the four-round load, double- and triple-checking it until his compulsion was satisfied, and then set off through the zoo with the weapon at his side.

His interest did not lie with the zoo anymore. He had created for himself a secret exit in the wall behind the Tropic Zone and now got off the Segway and emerged into the park, walking west. He stayed off the trails, preferring the tree cover as he walked past the skating rink and the old baseball fields, now mud fields, counting his steps in multiples of seventy-seven until he reached the far side of Central Park South.

He emerged from the trees, venturing out as far as the old Merchant’s Gate entrance, remaining on the sidewalk behind the USS Maine monument. Columbus Circle stood before him, only half of the fountain shoots working, the rest clogged with sediment from the polluted rain. Beyond it, the high-rise towers stood like the smokestacks of a closed factory. Zachary sighted the figure of Columbus atop the fountain statue, blinking his eyes and smacking his lips in unison seven times before he was comfortable.

He saw movement across the wide traffic circle. People, humans, striding across the far sidewalk. Zachary could only make out their long coats and backpacks at that distance. Curfew breakers. Zachary ducked behind the monument at first, flushed with the danger of being discovered, then crept to the other edge of the monument base, peering around it.

The group of four people continued, unaware of him. Zachary sighted them with his weapon, blinking and lip-smacking, using what he had learned about shooting to gauge trajectory and distance. They were tightly grouped, and Zachary thought he had a clear shot, a good chance.

He wanted to fire. He wanted to open up on them.

And so he did, but purposefully pulled his aim high at the last second before squeezing the trigger. A moment later the group stopped, looking his way. Zack remained low and still next to the monument base, certain he would blend in with the backdrop.

He fired three more times: Crack! Crack! Crack! He got one! One was down! Zack quickly reloaded.

The targets ran, turning down the avenue and out of Zack’s view. He drew aim on a traffic light they had passed, just able to make out a sign indicating one of the old police security cameras posted there. He turned and ran back into the cover of the park trees, chased only by the sensation of his secret thrill.

This city in daylight was the domain of Zachary Goodweather! Let all trespassers be warned!

On the street, bleeding from the bullet wound—being dragged away—was Vasily Fet, the rat exterminator.

One Hour Earlier

THEY HAD DESCENDED into the subway at 116th Street a full hour before daylight, in order to give themselves plenty of time. Gus showed them where to wait, near a sidewalk grate through which they could hear the approach of a 1 train, minimizing the amount of time they would have to spend on the platform below.

Eph stood against the nearest building, his eyes closed, asleep on his feet in the pissing rain. And even in those brief intervals he dreamed of light and fire.

Fet and Nora whispered occasionally, while Gus paced and said nothing. Joaquin declined to accompany them, needing to vent his frustration over Bruno’s passing by continuing their program of sabotage. Gus had tried to dissuade him from going out into the city on a bad knee, but Joaquin’s mind was set.

Eph was roused to consciousness by the subterranean shriek of the approaching train, and they bustled down the station steps like the other commuters rushing to get off the streets before the sunlight curfew. They boarded a silver-colored subway car and shook the rain from their coats. The doors closed and a quick glance up and down the length of the car told Eph that there were no vampires on board. He relaxed a bit, closing his eyes as the subway took them fifty-five blocks south beneath the city.

At Fifty-ninth Street and Columbus Circle, they disembarked, rising up the steps to the street. They ducked inside one of the large apartment buildings and found a place to wait behind the lobby, until the dark shroud of night lifted just enough, the sky becoming merely overcast.

When the streets were empty, they emerged into the faded glory of day. The orb of the sun was visible through the dark cloud cover like a flashlight pressed against a charcoal-gray blanket. Street-level windows of certain cafés and shops remained smashed since the initial days of panic and looting, while glass in the upper-story windows largely remained intact. They walked around the southern curve of the immense traffic circle, long since cleared of abandoned cars, the central fountain spewing black water out of every second or third nozzle. The city, during curfew, had a perpetual early-Sunday-morning feel to it, as though most of the residents were sleeping in, the day slow to start. In that sense, it gave Eph a feeling of hope that he tried to savor, even though he knew it to be false.

Then a sizzling sound creased the air overhead.

“What the…?”

The loud crack followed, a gunshot report, sound traveling more slowly than the round itself. The delay said the shot had been fired from a distance, seemingly from somewhere inside the trees of Central Park.

“Shooter!” said Fet. They ran across Eighth Avenue, quickly but not panicked. Gunshots at daylight meant humans. There had been a lot more insanity in the months following the takeover. Humans driven crazy by the fall of their kind and the rise of the new order. Violent suicides. Mass murders. After those died out, Eph would still see people out during the meridiem especially, ranting, wandering the streets. Rarely would he see any people out during the curfew now. The crazies had been killed or otherwise dispatched, and the rest behaved.

Three more shots were fired, crack, crack, crack—

Two of the bullets hit a mailbox, but the third one hit Vasiliy Fet squarely in the left shoulder. It made him twirl, leaving behind a ribbon of blood. The bullet traveled clean through his body, tearing muscle and flesh but miraculously missing the lungs and the heart.

Eph and Nora grabbed Fet as he fell and, with the help of Mr. Quinlan, dragged him away.

Nora pulled Fet’s hand back from his shoulder, quickly examining the wound. Not too much blood, no bone fragments.

Fet eased her back. “Let’s keep moving. Too vulnerable here.”

They cut down Fifty-sixth Street, heading for the F-line subway stop. No more gunfire, no one following them. They entered without encountering anyone, and the underground platform was empty. The F line ran north here, the track curving underneath the park as it headed east to Queens. They jumped down onto the rails, waiting again to make sure they were not followed.

It is only a little farther. Can you make it? It will be a better place to provide you with some medical attention.

Vasiliy nodded to Mr. Quinlan. “I’ve had it much worse.” And he had. In the last two years he had been shot three times, twice in Europe and once while in the Upper East Side after curfew.

They walked the rails by night vision. The cars generally stopped running during the meridiem, the vampires shutting down, though the underground protection from the sun allowed them to move trains if necessary. So Eph remained alert and aware.

The tunnel ceiling was angled, rising to the right, the high cement wall serving as a mural for graffiti artists, the shorter wall to their left supporting pipes and a narrow ledge. A form awaited them at the curve ahead. Mr. Quinlan had gone ahead of them, getting underground well in advance of the sunrise.

Wait here, he told them, then jogged quickly back in the direction from which they came, checking for tails. He returned, apparently satisfied, and, without ceremony or prelude, opened a panel inside the frame of a locked access door. A lever inside released the door, which opened inward.

The short corridor inside was notable for its dryness. It led, through one left turn, to another door. But rather than open that door, Mr. Quinlan instead pried open a perfectly invisible hatch in the floor, revealing an angled flight of stairs.

Gus went down first. Eph was the second to last, Mr. Quinlan securing the hatch behind him. The stairs bottomed out into a narrow walkway constructed by different hands than any of the many subway tunnels Eph had seen over the past year of his fugitive existence.

You are safe accessing this complex in my company, but I strongly recommend that you do not attempt to return here on your own. Various safeguards have been in place for centuries, meant to keep anyone from the curious homeless to a vampire hit squad from entering. I have now deactivated the traps, but for the future, consider yourselves warned.

Eph looked around for evidence of booby traps but saw none. Then again, he had not seen the hatch door that led them here.

At the end of the walkway, the wall slid aside under Mr. Quinlan’s pale hand. The room revealed was round and vast, at first glance resembling a circular train garage. But it was apparently a cross between a museum and a house of Congress. The sort of forum Socrates might have thrived in, had he been a vampire condemned to the underworld. Soupy green in Eph’s night vision, the walls were in reality alabaster-white and preternaturally smooth, spaced by generous columns and rising to a high ceiling. The walls were empty, conspicuously so, as though the masterpieces that once hung there had long ago been taken down and stored away. Eph could not see all the way to the opposite end, so large was the room, the range of his night-vision goggles terminating in a cloud of darkness.

They rapidly tended to Fet’s wound. In his backpack he always carried a small emergency kit. The bleeding had almost stopped, consistent with the bullet having missed any major arteries. Both Nora and Eph were able to clean the wound with Betadine and applied antibiotic cream, Telfa pads, and an absorbent layer on top. Fet moved his fingers and arm and, even in great pain, proved himself still able.

He took a look around. “What is this place?”

The Ancients constructed this chamber soon after their arrival in the New World, after they determined that New York City, and not Boston, would be the port city serving as the headquarters for the human economy. This was a safe, secure, and sanctified retreat in which they could meditate for long periods of time. Many great and lasting decisions about how best to shepherd your race were made in this room.

“So this was all a ruse,” said Eph. “The illusion of freedom. They shaped the planet through us, pushing us toward developing fossil fuels, toward nuclear energy. The whole greenhouse gas thing. Whatever suited them. Preparing for the eventuality of their takeover, their move to the surface. This was going to happen regardless.”

But not like this. You must understand, there are good shepherds, who care for their flock, and there are bad shepherds. There are ways in which the dignity of the livestock can be preserved.

“Even if it’s all a lie.”

All belief systems are elaborate fabrications, if logic is followed out to the end.

“Good Christ,” muttered Eph under his breath—but the room was like a whispering chamber. Everyone heard him and looked his way. “A dictator is a dictator, benign or not. Whether it pets you or bleeds you.”

Did you honestly believe you were absolutely free to begin with?

“I did,” said Eph. “And even if it was all a fraud, I still prefer an economy based on metal-backed currency than one based on human blood.”

Make no mistake, all currency is blood.

“I would rather live in a dream world of light than a real world of darkness.”

Your perspective continues to be that of one who has lost something. But this has always been their world.

“Was always their world,” said Fet, correcting the Born. “Turned out they were even bigger suckers than we were.”

Mr. Quinlan was patient with Fet under the circumstances.

They were subverted from within. They were aware of the threat but believed they could contain it. It is easier to overlook dissension within your own ranks.

Mr. Quinlan briefly looked at Eph before moving on.

For the Master, it is best to consider the whole of recorded human history as a series of test runs. A set of experiments carried out over time, in preparation for the final masterstroke. The Master was there during the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. He learned from the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars. He nested in the concentration camps. He lived among you like a deviant sociologist, learning everything he could from and about you, in order to engineer your collapse. Patterns over time. The Master learned to align himself with influential power brokers, such as Eldritch Palmer, and corrupt them. He devised a formula for the mathematics of power. The perfect balance of vampires, cattle, and wardens.

The others digested this. Fet said, “So your kind, the Ancients, has fallen. Our kind has also. The question is, what can we do about it?”

Mr. Quinlan crossed to an altar of sorts, a granite table upon which were set six circular wooden receptacles, each one not much bigger than a can of soda. Each receptacle glowed faintly in the lens of Eph’s night-vision device, as though containing a source of light or heat.

These. We must carry these back with us. I have spent most of the past two years arranging passage and traveling to and from the Old World in order to collect the remains of all the Ancients. Here I have preserved them in white oak, in accordance with the lore.

Nora said, “You have been around the world? To Europe, the Far East?”

Mr. Quinlan nodded.

“Is it… is it the same there? All over?”

Essentially. The more developed the region, the better the existing infrastructure, the more efficient the transition.

Eph moved closer to the six wooden crematory urns. He said, “What are you preserving them for?”

The lore told me what to do. It did not tell me to what end.

Eph looked around to see if anyone else questioned this. “So you traveled all around the world sweeping up their ashes at great danger to yourself, and you had no interest in why or what for?”

Mr. Quinlan looked at Eph with those red eyes.

Until now.

Eph wanted to press him more on the explanation of the ashes but held his tongue. He did not know the extent of the vampire’s psychic reach, and he was worried about being read and found to be questioning the entire endeavor. For he was still wrestling with the temptation of the Master’s offer. Eph felt like a spy there, allowing Mr. Quinlan to reveal this secret location to him. Eph did not want to know any more than he already did. He was afraid that he was capable of betraying them all. Of trading them and the world for his boy and paying for the transaction with his soul. He grew sweaty and fidgety just thinking about it.

He looked at the others standing there inside the vast underground chamber. Had one among them been corrupted already, as the Master had claimed? Or was this another of the Master’s lies, meant to soften Eph’s own resistance? Eph studied each one in turn, as though his night-vision scope could reveal some identifiable trace of their treachery, like a malignant black stain spreading out from their chest.

Fet spoke up, addressing Mr. Quinlan. “So why did you bring us here?”

Now that I have retrieved the ashes and read the Lumen I am ready to proceed. We have little time left to destroy the Master, but this lair allows us to keep an eye on him. Be close to his own hideout.

“Wait a minute… ,” said Fet, a curious tone in his voice. “Won’t destroying the Master also destroy you?”

It is the only way.

“You want to die? Why?”

The simple and honest answer is that I am tired. Immortality lost its luster for me many centuries ago. In fact, it removes the luster from everything. Eternity is tedium. Time is an ocean, and I want to come ashore. The one bright spot I have left in this world—the one hope—is the potential destruction of my creator. It is revenge.

Mr. Quinlan spoke of what he knew. What he had learned in the Lumen. He spoke in plain terms and with as much clarity as was possible. He explained the origin of the Ancients and the myth of the sites of origin and the emphasis on finding the Black Site, the birth site of the Master.

The part that Gus clicked with most was the three archangels—Gabriel, Michael, and the forgotten third angel, Ozryel—dispatched to fulfill God’s will in destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

“God’s hardasses,” said Gus, identifying with the avenging angels. “But what do you think. Angels? Really? Gimme a fucking break, hermano.”

Fet shrugged. “I believe what Setrakian believed. And he believed in the book.”

Gus agreed with him but couldn’t let it go just yet. “If there is a God, or some something who can send angel assassins—then what the hell’s He waiting for? What if it is all just stories?”

“Backed up by actions,” said Fet. “The Master located each of the six buried segments of Ozryel’s body—the origin sites of the Ancients—and destroyed them with the only force that could accomplish the task. A nuclear meltdown. The only Godlike energy on Earth, powerful enough to obliterate sacred ground.”

With that, the Master not only wiped out its competition but made itself six times more powerful. We know it is still searching for its own site of origin, not to destroy it but to protect it.

“Great. So we just have to find the burial site,” said Nora, “before the Master does, and build an itty-bitty nuclear reactor on it, then sabotage the thing. Is that it?”

Fet said, “Or detonate a nuclear bomb.”

Nora laughed harshly. “That actually sounds like fun.”

Nobody else laughed.

“Shit,” Nora said. “You have a nuclear bomb.”

“But no detonator,” Fet said sheepishly, and looked to Gus. “We are trying to get a line on some sort of solution to that, right?”

Gus answered, lacking Fet’s enthusiasm. “My man Creem, you remember him? Silver-blinged-up banger, built like a big, fat truck? I put him on it, and he says he’s ready to deal. He’s hooked into everything black market in Jersey. Thing is, he’s still a drug dealer at heart. Can’t trust a man with no code.”

Fet said, “All of this is moot if we don’t have a target to shoot at.” He looked at Mr. Quinlan. “Right? And that’s why you wanted to see the Lumen. You think you can learn something from it we couldn’t?”

I trust you all saw the sky mark.

Mr. Quinlan paused and then locked eyes with Eph. And Eph felt as if the Born could read every secret in his soul.

Beyond the limits of circumstance and organization, there exists design. What it was that fell from the sky does not matter. It was an omen, prophesied ages ago and meant to signal the birth site. We are close. Think of it—the Master came here for that very reason. This is the right place and the right time. We will find it.

Gus said, “No disrespect, but I don’t get it. I mean, if you all want to go read a book and think it has little clues for you on how to slay a fucking vampire, then go to it. Pull up a comfortable chair. But me? I think we figure out how to confront this king bloodsucker and blow its ass up. The old man showed us the way, but at the same time, this mystical mumbo jumbo has gotten us where we are—starving, hunted, living like rats.” Gus was pacing, going a little stir-crazy in this ancient chamber. “I got the Master on video. Belvedere Castle. I say we get this bomb together and take care of business directly.”

“My son is there,” said Eph. “It’s not just the Master.”

“Do I look like I give a fuck about your brat?” said Gus. “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression—’cause I don’t give a fuck.”

Fet said, “Cool down, everyone. If we blow this chance, it’s over. Nobody would ever get close to the Master again.”

Fet looked to Mr. Quinlan, whose silence and stillness communicated his agreement.

Gus frowned but didn’t argue the point. He respected Fet, and more so, he respected Mr. Quinlan. “You say we can blow a hole in the ground and the Master disappears. I’m down with that, if it works. And if it doesn’t? We just give up?”

He had a point. The others’ silence confirmed it.

“Not me,” said Gus. “No fucking way.”

Eph felt the hairs go up on the back of his neck. He had an idea. He started talking before he could think himself out of it.

“There might be one way,” he said.

“One way to what?” said Fet.

“To get close to the Master. Not by laying siege to his castle. Without endangering Zack. What if instead we draw it to us?”

“What is this shit?” said Gus. “Suddenly you have a plan, hombre?” Gus smiled at the others. “This ought to be good.”

Eph swallowed to keep his voice in check. “The Master is keyed in on me for some reason. It’s got my son. What if I offer it something to trade?”

Fet said, “The Lumen.”

“This is bullshit,” said Gus. “What are you selling?”

Eph put out his hands and patted the air, asking for patience and consideration for what he was about to suggest. “Hear me out. First of all, we dummy up a fake book in its place. I say I stole it from you and want to exchange it. For Zack.”

Nora said, “Isn’t that pretty dangerous? What if something happens to Zack?”

“It’s a huge risk, but I can’t see getting him back by doing nothing. But if we destroy the Master… it’s all over.”

Gus wasn’t buying it. Fet looked concerned, and Mr. Quinlan gave no indication of his opinion.

But Nora was nodding. “I think this could work.”

Fet looked at her. “What? Maybe we should talk alone about this first.”

“Let your lady speak,” said Gus, never missing an opportunity to twist the knife in Eph’s side. “Let’s hear this.”

Nora said, “I think Eph could lure him in. He’s right—there is something about him, something the Master wants or fears. I keep going back to that light in the sky. Something’s going on there.”

Eph felt a burning sensation ride up from his back to his neck.

“It could work,” said Nora. “Eph double-crossing us makes sense. Draw the Master out with Eph and the fake Lumen. Leave it vulnerable to ambush.” She looked at Eph. “If you’re sure you’re up for such a thing.”

“If we have no other choice,” he said.

Nora went on. “It’s crazy dangerous. Because if we blow it, and the Master gets you… then it’s over. It would know everything you know—where we are, how to find us. We would be finished.”

Eph remained still while the others mulled it over. The baritone voice spoke inside his head: The Master is immeasurably more cunning than you are giving it credit for.

“I don’t doubt that the Master is devious,” said Nora, turning to Mr. Quinlan. “But isn’t this kind of an offer it cannot refuse?”

The Born’s quietness signaled his acceptance, if not his full agreement.

Eph felt Mr. Quinlan’s eyes on him. Eph was torn. He felt now that this gave him flexibility: he could potentially carry out this double-cross or stick to the plan if indeed it appeared it would succeed. But there was another question troubling him now.

He searched the face of his former lover, illuminated by night vision. He was looking for some sign of treachery. Was she the traitor? Had they gotten to her during her brief stay inside the blood camp?

Nonsense. They had killed her mother. Her duplicity would make no sense.

In the end, he prayed that they both possessed the integrity he hoped they’d always had.

“I want to do this,” said Eph. “We proceed on both fronts simultaneously.”

They all were aware that a dangerous first step had just been taken. Gus looked doubtful, but even he seemed willing to go along with it. The plan represented direct action, and, at the same time, he was eager to give Eph just enough rope to hang himself with.

The Born began encasing each wooden receptacle inside a protective plastic sleeve and setting them inside a leather sack.

“Wait,” said Fet. “We’re forgetting one very important thing.”

Gus said, “What’s that?”

“How the hell do we make this offer to the Master? How do we get in touch with it at all?”

Nora touched Fet on his unbandaged shoulder and said, “I know of just the way.”

Spanish Harlem

SUPPLY TRUCKS ENTERING Manhattan from Queens traveled the cleared middle inbound lane on the Queensboro Bridge across the East River, turning either south on Second Avenue or north on Third.

Mr. Quinlan stood on the sidewalk outside the George Washington Houses between Ninety-seventh and Ninety-eighth, forty blocks north of the bridge. The Born vampire waited in the spitting rain with his hood covering his head, watching the occasional vehicle pass. Convoys were ignored. Also Stoneheart trucks or vehicles. Mr. Quinlan’s first concern was alerting the Master in any way.

Fet and Eph stood in the shadows of a doorway in the first block of the houses. In the past forty-five minutes, they had seen one vehicle every ten minutes or so. Headlights raised their hopes; Mr. Quinlan’s disinterest dashed them. And so they remained in the darkened doorway, safe from the rain but not from the new awkwardness that was their relationship.

Fet was running their audacious new plan through his head, trying to convince himself that it might work. Success seemed like an incredible long shot—but then again, it wasn’t as though they had dozens of other prospects lined up and ready to go.

Kill the Master. They had tried once, by exposing the creature to the sun, and failed. When the dying Setrakian apparently poisoned its blood, using Fet’s anticoagulant rodent poison, the Master had merely sloughed off its human host, assuming the form of another healthy being. The creature seemed invincible.

And yet, they had hurt it. Both times. No matter what the creature’s original form was, it apparently needed to exist in possession of a human. And humans could be destroyed.

Fet said, “We can’t miss this time. We’ll never get a better chance.”

Eph nodded, looking out into the street. Waiting for Mr. Quinlan’s signal.

He seemed guarded. Maybe he was having second thoughts about the plan, or maybe it was something else. Eph’s unreliability had caused a rift in their relationship—but the Nora situation had driven home a permanent wedge.

Fet’s main concern now was that Eph’s irritation with Fet not negatively impact their efforts.

“Nothing has happened,” Fet said, “between Nora and me.”

“I know,” said Eph. “But everything has happened between her and me. It’s over. And I know it. And there will be a time when you and I will talk about it and maybe even have a fistfight over it. But now it’s not that time. This has to be our focus now. All personal feelings aside… Look, Fet, we are paired. It was you and me or Gus and me. I’d rather take you.”

“Glad we’re all on the same page again,” said Fet.

Eph was about to respond when headlights appeared once more. This time, Mr. Quinlan moved into the street. The truck was too far away for any human to make out the operator, but Mr. Quinlan knew. He stood right in the truck’s path, headlights brightening him.

One of the rules of the road was that any vampire could commandeer a vehicle operated by a human, in the same manner as a soldier or a cop could a civilian’s in the old United States. Mr. Quinlan raised his hand, his elongated middle finger evident, as were his red eyes. The truck stopped, and its driver, a Stoneheart member wearing a dark suit underneath a warm duster, opened the driver’s-side door with the engine still running.

Mr. Quinlan approached the driver, obscured from Fet’s view by the passenger side of the truck. Fet watched as the driver jerked suddenly inside the cab. Mr. Quinlan leaped up into the doorway. Through the rain-smeared windows, they appeared to be grappling.

“Go,” said Fet, and he and Eph both ran out from their hiding spot, into the rain. They splashed off the curb and across to the driver’s side of the truck. Fet almost ran up into Mr. Quinlan, pulling back only at the last moment when he saw that Mr. Quinlan wasn’t the one struggling. Only the driver was.

Mr. Quinlan’s stinger was engorged, jutting out from the base of his throat at his unhinged jaw, tapering to its tip, which was firmly inserted in the neck of the human driver.

Fet pulled back sharply. Eph came around and saw it too, and there was a moment of bonding between them, of shared disgust. Mr. Quinlan fed quickly, his eyes locked on those of the driver, the driver’s face a mask of paralysis and shock.

For Fet, it served as a reminder of how easily Mr. Quinlan could turn on them—any of them—in an instant.

Fet did not look back until he was certain the feeding was over. He caught sight of Mr. Quinlan’s retracted stinger, its narrow end lolling out of his mouth like the hairless tail of some animal he had otherwise swallowed. Flush with energy, Mr. Quinlan lifted the limp Stoneheart driver out of the truck and carried him, as easily as a bundle of clothes, off the street. Half in the shadows of the doorway, in a gesture of both mercy and convenience, Mr. Quinlan snapped the man’s neck with a firm rotation.

Mr. Quinlan left the destroyed corpse in the doorway before rejoining them on the street. They needed to get moving before another vehicle happened along. Fet and Eph met him at the rear of the truck, where Fet opened the unlocked clasp, raising the sliding door.

A refrigerated truck. “Damn the luck,” said Fet. They had a good hour’s ride ahead of them, maybe two, and for Fet and Eph it was going to be a cold one, because they could not be seen riding in the front. “Not even any decent food,” said Fet, climbing inside and rustling through the scraps of cardboard.

Mr. Quinlan pulled on the rubber strap that lowered the door, closing Fet and Eph in darkness. Fet made certain there were vents for airflow, and there were. They heard the driver’s door close, and the truck slipped into gear, jerking them as the vehicle lurched forward.

Fet found an extra fleece sweatshirt from his pack, pulled it on, and buttoned his coat over it. He laid out some cardboard and set the soft part of his pack behind his head, trying to get comfortable. From the sound of it, Eph was doing the same. The rattling of the truck, both noise and vibration, precluded conversation, which was just as well.

Fet crossed his arms, trying to let go of his mind. He focused on Nora. He knew he would likely never have attracted a woman of her caliber under normal circumstances. Times of war bring men and women together, sometimes for necessity’s sake, sometimes for convenience, but occasionally because of fate. Fet was confident that their attraction was a result of the latter. Wartime is also when people find themselves. Fet had discovered his best self here in this worst situation, whereas Eph, on the other hand, at times appeared to have lost himself completely.

Nora had wanted to come along with them, but Fet convinced her that she needed to remain behind with Gus, not only to conserve her energy but because he knew that she would not be able to stop herself from attacking Barnes if she saw him again, thereby threatening their plan. Besides, Gus needed assistance with his own important errand.

“What do you think?” she had asked Fet, rubbing her bald head in a quieter moment.

Fet missed her long hair, but there was something beautiful and spare about her unadorned face. He liked the fine slope of the back of her head, the graceful line moving across the nape of her neck to the beginning of her shoulders.

“You look reborn,” he said.

She frowned. “Not freakish?”

“If anything, a little more delicate. More vulnerable.”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You want me to be more vulnerable?”

“Well—only with me,” he said frankly.

That made her smile, and him. Rare things, smiles. Rationed like food in these dark days.

“I like this plan,” Fet said, “in that it represents possibility. But I’m also worried.”

“About Eph,” Nora said, understanding and agreeing with him. “This is make-or-break time. Either he falls apart, and we deal with that, or he rises to the occasion.”

“I think he’ll rise. He has to. He just has to.”

Nora admired Fet’s faith in Eph, even if she wasn’t convinced.

“Once it starts growing back in,” she said, feeling her cooling scalp again, “I’ll have a butchy-looking crew cut for a while.”

He shrugged, picturing her like that. “I can deal with it.”

“Or maybe I’ll shave it, keep it like this. I wear a hat most times anyway.”

“All or nothing,” said Fet. “That’s you.”

She found her knit cap, pulling it down tight over her scalp. “You wouldn’t mind?”

The only thing Fet cared about was that she wanted his opinion. That he was a part of her plans.

Inside the cold, rumbling truck, Fet drifted off with his arms crossed tight as if he were holding on to her.

Staatsburg, New York

THE DOOR ROLLED open and Mr. Quinlan stood there, watching them get to their feet. Fet hopped down, his knees stiff and his legs cold, shuffling around to get his circulation up. Eph climbed down and stood there with his pack on his back like a hitchhiker with a long way still to go.

The truck was parked on the shoulder of a dirt road, or perhaps the edge of a long, private driveway, far enough in from the street to be obscured by the trunks of the bare trees. The rain had let up, and the ground was damp but not muddy. Mr. Quinlan abruptly jogged off without explanation. Fet wondered if they were meant to follow him but decided he had to warm up first.

Near him, Eph looked wide-awake. Almost eager. Fet wondered briefly if Eph’s apparent zeal had some pharmaceutical source. But no, his eyes looked clear.

“You look ready,” said Fet.

“I am,” said Eph.

Mr. Quinlan returned moments later. An eerie sight, still: steam came thickly from his scalp and within his hoodie, but none came from his mouth.

A few gate guards, more at the doors. I see no way to prevent the Master from being alerted. But perhaps, in light of the plan, that is not an unfortunate thing.

“What do you think?” asked Fet. “Of the plan. Honestly. Do we even have a chance?”

Mr. Quinlan looked up through the leafless branches to the black sky. It is a gambit worth pursuing. Drawing out the Master is half the battle.

“The other half is defeating it,” said Fet. He eyed the Born vampire’s face, still upturned, impossible to read. “What about you? What chance would you have against the Master?”

History has shown me to be unsuccessful. I have been unable to destroy the Master, and the Master has been unable to destroy me. The Master wants me dead, just as he wants Dr. Goodweather dead. This we have in common. Of course, any lure I put out there on my behalf would be transparent as a ploy.

“You can’t be destroyed by man. But you could be destroyed by the Master. So maybe the monster is vulnerable to you.”

All I can say with absolute certainty is that I have never before tried to kill it with a nuclear weapon.

Eph had fixed his night-vision scope on his head, anxious to get going. “I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s do this before I talk myself out of it.”

Fet nodded, tightening up his straps, fixing his pack high on his back. They followed Mr. Quinlan through the trees, the Born vampire following some instinctual sense of direction. Fet could discern no path himself, but it was easy—too easy—to trust Mr. Quinlan. Fet did not believe he would ever be able to lower his guard around a vampire, Born or not.

He heard a whirring somewhere ahead of them. The tree density began to thin out, and they came to the edge of a clearing. The whirring noise was a generator—maybe two—powering the estate that Barnes apparently occupied. The house was massive, the grounds considerable. They were just right of the rear of the property, facing a wide horse fence ringing the backyard and, within that, a riding course.

The generators would mask much of the noise they might make, but the vampires’ heat-registering night sight was all but impossible to evade. Mr. Quinlan’s flat hand signal held Fet and Eph back as the Born vampire slipped through the trees, darting fluidly from trunk to trunk around the perimeter of the property. Fet quickly lost sight of him, and then, just as suddenly, Mr. Quinlan broke from the trees almost a quarter of the way around the wide clearing. He emerged striding quickly and confidently but not running. Nearby guards left their post at the side door, spotting Mr. Quinlan and going to meet him.

Fet knew a distraction when he saw one. “Now or never,” he whispered to Eph.

They ducked out from the branches into the silvery darkness of the clearing. He did not dare to pull out his sword yet, for fear that the vampires could sense the nearness of silver. Mr. Quinlan was evidently communicating with the guards somehow, keeping their backs to Fet and Eph as they ran up over the soft, dead, gray grass.

The guards picked up on the threat behind them when Fet was twenty feet off. They turned and Fet drew his sword out of his backpack—held it with his good arm—but it was Mr. Quinlan who overpowered them, his strong arms a blur as they came around to choke and quickly crush the muscles and bones of the vampire guards’ necks.

Fet, without hesitating, closed the gap and finished both creatures with his sword. Quinlan knew that the alarm had not been raised telepathically, but there was not a moment to lose.

Mr. Quinlan set off in search of other guards, Fet right on his tail, leaving Eph to head for the unsecured side door.

Barnes liked the second-floor sitting room the best. Book-lined walls, a tiled fireplace with a broad oak mantel, a comfortable chair, an amber-shaded floor lamp, and a side table upon which his brandy snifter was set like a perfect glass balloon.

He unfastened the top three buttons of his uniform shirt and took in the last of his third brandy Alexander. Fresh cream, such a luxury now, was the secret to the thick, sweet richness of this decadent concoction.

Barnes exhaled deeply before rising from his chair. He took a moment to steady himself, his hand on the plush arm. He was possessed by the spirits he had imbibed. Now the entire world was a delicate glass balloon, and Barnes floated around it on a gently swirling bed of brandy.

This house had once belonged to Bolivar, the rock star. His genteel country getaway. Eight figures, this manor had once been worth. Barnes vaguely recalled the media stink when Bolivar first purchased it from the old-money family that had fallen on hard times. The event was a bona fide curiosity because it had seemed so out of character for the goth showman. But that was how the world had become before it all went to hell: rock stars were scratch golfers, rappers played polo, and comedians collected modern art.

Barnes moved to the high shelves, weaving gently before Bolivar’s collection of vintage erotica. Barnes selected a large, thin, handsomely bound edition of The Pearl and opened it upon a nearby reading stand. Ah, the Victorians. So much spanking. He next retrieved a hand-bound text, more of an illustrated scrapbook than a properly published book, consisting of early photographic prints glued onto thick paper pages. The prints retained some silver emulsion, which Barnes was careful to keep off his fingers. He was a traditionalist, partial to the early male-dominated arrangements and poses. He fancied the subservient female.

And then it was time for his fourth and final brandy. He reached for the house phone and dialed the kitchen. Which of his attractive domestics would be bringing him his notorious fourth brandy Alexander tonight? As master of the house, he had the means—and, when properly inebriated, the gumption—to make his fantasies come true.

The phone rang unanswered. Impertinence! Barnes frowned, then hung up and redialed, fearing he might have pressed the wrong button. As it rang a second time, he heard a loud thump somewhere in the house. Perhaps, he imagined, his request had been anticipated and its fulfillment was on its pretty way to him right now. He grinned a brandy smile and replaced the receiver in its old-fashioned cradle, making his way across the thick rug to the large door.

The wide hallway was empty. Barnes stepped out, his polished white shoes creaking just a bit.

Voices downstairs. Vague and muffled, reaching his ears as little more than echoes.

Not answering his phone call and making noise downstairs were clear enough grounds for Barnes to personally inspect the help and select who should bring him his brandy.

He put one shoe in front of the other along the center of the hallway, impressed at his ability to follow a straight line. At the head of the landing leading downstairs, he pressed the button to call for the elevator. It rose to him from the foyer, a gilded cage, and he opened the door and slid the gate aside and entered, closing it, pulling down on the handle. The cage descended, transporting him to the first floor like Zeus upon a cloud.

He emerged from the elevator, pausing to regard himself in a gilded mirror. The top half of his uniform shirt was flapped down, hidden medals hanging heavy. He licked his lips and fixed his hair to look more full upon his head, smoothing out his goatee and generally assuming a look of inebriated dignity before venturing into the kitchen.

The wide, L-shaped room was empty. A pan of cookies lay cooling on a rack on the long central island, a pair of red oven mitts next to them. In front of the liquor cabinet, a bottle of cognac and an unsealed pitcher of cream stood next to measuring cups and an open jar of nutmeg. The phone receiver hung on its wall-mounted cradle.

“Hello?” Barnes called.

First came a rattling sound, like a shelf being bumped.

Then two female voices at once: “In here.”

Intrigued, Barnes continued along the center island to the corner. Rounding it, he saw five of his staff of female domestics—all well-fed, comely, and with full heads of hair—restrained to the end poles of a shelving unit of gourmet cooking tools with flexible zip ties.

His mind-set was such that his first impulse, upon seeing their wrists bound and their full, imploring eyes, was pleasure. His brandy-steeped mind processed the scene as an erogenous tableau.

Reality was slow to part the fog. It was a long, floundering moment before he realized that apparently someone had broken in and restrained his staff.

That someone was inside the house.

Barnes turned and ran. With the women calling after him, he slammed his hip into the island, the pain doubling him over as he groped his way along the counter to the doorway. He rushed out, moving blindly across the first-floor landing and around another corner, heading for the front entrance, his addled mind thinking, Escape! Then he saw, through the violet-tinged glass panes framing the double doors, a struggle outside, ending with one of his vampire guards being struck down by a dark, brute figure. A second figure closed in, slashing with a silver blade. Barnes backed away, stumbling over his own feet, watching more guards from other positions around the grounds moving to engage the raiding party.

He ran as best he could back to the landing. He panicked at the thought of becoming trapped inside the elevator cage and so mounted the curling staircase, pulling himself hand-over-hand along the broad banister. Adrenaline neutralized some of the alcohol in his blood.

The study. That was where the pistols were displayed. He threw himself down the long hallway toward the room—when a pair of hands grabbed him from the side, pulling him into the open doorway of the sitting room.

Barnes instinctively covered his head, expecting a beating. He fell sprawling, thrown into one of the chairs, where he remained, cowering in fear and bewilderment. He did not want to see the face of his attacker. Part of his hysterical fear came from a voice inside his head that most closely resembled that of his dearly departed mother, saying, You’re getting what you deserve.

“Look at me.”

The voice. That angry voice. Barnes relaxed his grip around his head. He knew the voice but could not place it. Something was off. The voice had become roughened over time, deeper.

Curiosity outstripped fear. Barnes removed his trembling arms from his head, raising his eyes.

Ephraim Goodweather. Or, more reflective of his personal appearance, Ephraim Goodweather’s evil twin. This was not the man he used to know, the esteemed epidemiologist. Dark circles raccooned his fugitive eyes. Hunger had drained his face of all cheer and turned his cheeks into crags, as though all the meat had been boiled off the bone. Mealy whiskers clung to his gray skin but failed to fill out the hollows. He wore fingerless gloves, a filthy coat, and faded boots under wet cuffs, laced with wire rather than string. The black knit cap crowning his head reflected the darkness of the mind beneath. A sword handle rose from the pack on his back. He looked like a vengeful hobo.

“Everett,” Eph said, his voice hoarse, possessed.

“Don’t,” said Barnes, terrified of him.

Eph picked up the snifter, its bottom still coated and chocolaty. He brought the mouth of the glass to his nose, drawing in the scent. “Nightcap, huh? Brandy Alexander? That’s a fucking prom drink, Barnes.” He placed the large glass in his former boss’s hand. Then he did exactly what Barnes feared he would do: he closed his fist over Barnes’s hand, crushing the glass between his ex-boss’s fingers. Closing them over the multiple shards of glass, cutting his flesh and tendons and slicing to the bone.

Barnes howled and fell on his knees, bleeding and sobbing. He cringed. “Please,” he said.

Eph said, “I want to stab you in the eye.”

“Please.”

“Step on your throat until you die. Then cremate you in that little tile hole in the wall.”

“I was saving her… I wanted to deliver Nora from the camp.”

“The way you delivered those pretty maids downstairs? Nora was right about you. Do you know what she would do to you if she were here?”

So she wasn’t. Thank God. “She would be reasonable,” Barnes said. “She would see what I had to offer to you. How I could be of service.”

“Goddamn you,” said Eph. “Goddamn your black soul.”

Eph punched Barnes. His hits were calculated, brutal.

“No,” whimpered Barnes. “No more… please…”

“So this is what absolute corruption looks like,” said Eph. He hit Barnes a few times more. “Commandant Barnes! You’re a goddamn piece of shit, sir—you know that? How could you turn on your own kind like this? You were a doctor—you were the fucking head of the CDC for Christ’s sake. You have no compassion?”

“No, please.” Barnes sat up a little, bleeding all over the floor, trying to ease this conversation into something productive and positive. But his PR skills were hampered by the growing inflammation of his mouth and the teeth that were missing. “This is a new world, Ephraim. Look what it’s done to you.”

“You let that admiral’s uniform go right to your fucking head.” Eph reached out and gripped Barnes’s thinning thatch of hair, yanking his face upward, baring his throat. Barnes smelled the decay of Eph’s body. “I should murder you right here,” he said. “Right now.” Eph drew out his sword and showed it to Barnes.

“You… you’re not a murderer,” gasped Barnes.

“Oh, but I am. I have become that. And unlike you, I don’t do it by pushing a button or signing an order. I do it like this. Up close. Personal.”

The silver blade touched Barnes’s throat over his windpipe. Barnes arched his neck farther.

“But,” said Eph, pulling the sword back a few inches, “luckily for you, you are still useful to me. I need you to do something for me, and you’re going to do it. Nod yes.”

Eph nodded Barnes’s head for him.

“Good. Listen closely. There are people outside waiting for me. Do you understand? Are you sober enough to remember this, brandy Alexander boy?”

Barnes nodded, this time under his own power. Of course, at that moment he would have agreed to anything.

“My reason for coming here is to make you an offer. It will actually make you look good. I am here to tell you to go to the Master and tell it I have agreed to trade the Occido Lumen for my son. Prove to me you understand this.”

“Double-crossing is something I understand, Eph,” said Barnes.

“You can even be the hero of this story. You can tell him that I came here to murder you, but now I am double-crossing my own people by offering you this deal. You can tell him you convinced me to take his offer and volunteered to take it back to the Master.”

“Do the others know about this… ?”

Emotions surged. Tears welled in Eph’s eyes. “They believe I am with them, and I am… but this is about my boy.”

Emotions swelled in Ephraim Goodweather’s heart. He was dizzy, lost…

“All you need to do is tell the Master that I accept. That this is no bluff.”

“You are going to deliver this book.”

“For my son…”

“Yes—yes… of course. Perfectly understandable…”

Eph grabbed Barnes by the hair and punched again. Twice in the mouth. Another tooth cracked.

“I don’t want your fucking sympathy, you monster. Just deliver my message. You got it? I am somehow going to get the real Lumen and get word to the Master, maybe through you again, when I am ready to deliver.”

Eph’s grip on Barnes’s hair had relaxed. Barnes realized he was not to be killed or even harmed any further. “I… I heard that the Master had a boy with him… a human boy. But I didn’t know why…”

Eph’s eyes blazed. “His name is Zachary. He was kidnapped two years ago.”

“By Kelly, your wife?” said Barnes. “I saw her. With the Master. She is… well, she is no longer herself. But I suppose none of us are.”

Eph said, “Some of us even became vampires without ever getting stung by anything…” Eph’s eyes grew glassy and damp. “You are a capitulator and a coward, and for me to join your ranks tears at my insides like a fatal disease, but I see no other way out, and I have to save my son. I have to.” His grip tightened on Barnes again. “This is the right choice, it is the only choice. For a father. My boy has been kidnapped and the ransom is my soul and the fate of the world, and I will pay it. I will pay it. Goddamn the Master, and goddamn you.”

Even Barnes, whose loyalty fell on the side of the vampires, wondered to himself how wise it would be to enter into any sort of agreement with the Master, a being marshaled by no morality or code. A virus, and a ravenous one at that.

But of course Barnes said nothing of the kind to Eph. The man holding a sword near Barnes’s throat was a creature worn down almost to the nub, like a pencil eraser with just enough pink rubber left to make one final correction.

“You will do this,” said Eph, not asking.

Barnes nodded. “You can count on me.” He attempted a smile but his mouth and gums were swollen to the point of disfiguration.

Eph stared at him another long moment, a look of pure disgust coming into his gaunt face. This is the kind of man you are now making deals with. Then he threw Barnes’s head back, turning with his sword and starting for the door.

Barnes gripped his spared neck but could not hold his bleeding tongue. “And I do understand, Ephraim,” he said, “perhaps better than you.” Eph stopped, turning beneath the handsome molding framing the doorway. “Everybody has their price. You believe your plight is more noble than mine because your price is the welfare of your son. But to the Master, Zack is nothing more than a coin in its pocket. I am sorry it has taken you so long to see this. That you should have borne all this suffering so unnecessarily.”

Eph stood snarling at the floor, his sword hanging heavily in his hand. “And I am only sorry that you haven’t suffered more…”

Service Garage, Columbia University

WHEN THE SUN backlit the ashen filter of the sky—what passed for daylight now—the city became eerily quiet. Vampire activity ceased, and the streets and buildings lit up with the ever-changing light of television sets. Reruns and rain; that was the norm. Acid, black rain dripped from the tortured sky in fat, oily drops. The ecological cycle was “rinse and repeat,” but dirty water never cleaned anything. It would take decades, if it ever self-cleansed at all. For now, the gloaming of the city was like a sunrise that would not turn over.

Gus waited outside the open door of the facility-services garage. Creem was an ally of convenience, and he had always been a squirrely motherfucker. It sounded like he was coming alone, which didn’t make much sense, so Gus didn’t trust it. Gus had taken a few extra precautions himself. Among them was the shiny Glock tucked into the small of his back, a handgun he had seized from a former drug den in the chaos of the first days. Another was setting the meet here and giving Creem no indication that Gus’s underground lair was nearby.

Creem drove up in a yellow Hummer. Bright color aside, this was just the sort of clumsy move Gus expected from him: driving a notorious gas guzzler in a time of very little available fuel. But Gus shrugged it off, because that was who Creem was. And predictability in one’s rival was a good thing.

Creem needed the big vehicle to fit his body in behind the steering wheel. Even given all their deprivations, he had managed to keep much of his size—only now there was not an ounce of loose fat on him. Somehow he was eating. He was sustaining. It told Gus that the Sapphires’ raids on the vampire establishment were succeeding.

Except he had no other Sapphires with him now. None Gus could see, anyway.

Creem rolled his Hummer into the garage, out of the rain. He killed the engine and worked his way out from the driver’s seat. He had a stick of jerky in his mouth, gnawing on it like a thick, meaty pick. His silver grille shone when he smiled. “Hey, Mex.”

“You made it in all right.”

Creem waved at the air with his short arms. “Your island here is going to shit.”

Gus agreed. “Fucking landlord’s a real prick.”

“Real bloodsucker, huh?”

Niceties aside, they exchanged a simple handshake grip, no gang stuff—while never losing eye contact. Gus said, “Running solo?”

“This trip,” said Creem, hiking up his pants. “Gotta keep an eye on things in Jersey. I don’t suppose you’re alone.”

“Never,” said Gus.

Creem looked around, nodding, not seeing anyone. “Hiding, eh? I’m cool,” he said.

“And I’m careful.”

That drew a smile from Creem. Then he bit off the end of the jerky. “Want some of this?”

“I’m good for now.” Best to let Creem think Gus was eating well and regularly.

Creem pulled out the jerky. “Doggie treat. We found a warehouse with a whole pet-supply shipment that never went out. I don’t know what’s in this thing, but it’s food, right? Will give me a lustrous pelt, clean my teeth and all that.” Creem barked a few times, then snickered. “Cat food cans keep for a good long time. Portable meal. Taste like fucking pâté.”

“Food is food,” said Gus.

“And breathing is breathing. Look at us here. Two bangers from the projects. Still hustling. Still representing. And everybody else, the ones who thought this city was theirs, the tender souls—they didn’t have no real fucking pride, no stake, no claim; where are they now? The walking dead.”

“The undead.”

“Like I always say, ‘Creem rises to the top.’ ” He laughed again, maybe too hard. “You like the ride?”

“How you fueling it?”

“Got some pumps still flowing in Jersey. Check out the grille? Just like my teeth. Silver.”

Gus looked. The front grille of the car was indeed plated in silver. “Now, that I like,” said Gus.

“Silver rims are next on my wish list,” said Creem. “So, you wanna get your backups out here now, so I don’t feel like I’m gonna be ripped off? I’m here in good faith.”

Gus whistled and Nora came out from behind a tool cart holding a Steyr semiauto. She lowered the weapon, stopping a safe thirty feet away.

Joaquin appeared from behind a door, his pistol at his side. He could not disguise his limp; his knee was still giving him grief.

Creem opened his stubby arms wide, welcoming them to the meet. “You wanna get to it? I gotta get back over that fucking bridge before the creeps come out.”

“Show and tell,” said Gus.

Creem went around and opened the rear door. Four open cardboard moving cartons fresh out of a U-Haul store, crammed full of silver. Gus slid one out for inspection, the box heavy with candlesticks, utensils, decorative urns, coins, and even a few dinged-up, mint-stamped silver bars.

Creem said, “All pure, Mex. No sterling shit. No copper base. There’s a test kit in there somewhere I’ll throw in for free.”

“How’d you score all this?”

“Picking up scrap for months, like a junk man, saving it. We got all the metal we need. I know you want this vamp-slaying shit. Me, I like guns.” He looked at Nora’s piece. “Big guns.”

Gus picked through the silver pieces. They’d have to melt them down, forge them, do their best. None of them were smiths. But the swords they had weren’t going to last forever.

“I can take all this off your hands,” said Gus. “You want firepower?”

“Is that all you sellin’?”

Creem was looking not only at Nora’s weapon but at Nora.

Gus said, “I got some batteries, shit like that. But that’s it.”

Creem didn’t take his eyes off Nora. “She got her head smooth like them camp workers.”

Nora said, “Why are you talking about me like I’m not here?”

Creem smiled silver. “Can I see the piece?”

Nora brought it forward, handed it to him. He accepted with an interested smile, then turned his attention to the Steyr. He released the bolt and the magazine, checking the load, then fed it back into the buttstock. He sighted a ceiling lamp and pretended to blow it away.

“More like this?” he asked.

“Like it,” confirmed Gus. “Not identical. I’ll need at least a day though. I got ’em stashed around town.”

“And ammo. Plenty of it.” He worked the safety off and on. “I’ll take this one as a down payment.”

Nora said, “Silver is so much more efficient.”

Creem smiled at her—eager, condescending. “I didn’t get here by being efficient, baldy. I like to make some fucking noise when I waste these bloodsuckers. That’s the fun of it.”

He reached for her shoulder and Nora batted his hand away, which only made him laugh.

She looked at Gus. “Get this dog-food-eating slob out of here.”

Gus said, “Not yet.” He turned to Creem. “What about that detonator?”

Creem opened his front door and laid the Steyr down across the front seat, then shut it again. “What about it?”

“Stop dicking around. Can you do it for me?”

Creem made like he was deciding. “Maybe. I have a lead—but I need to know more about this shit you’re trying to blow. You know I live just across the river there.”

“You don’t need to know anything. Just name your price.”

“Military-grade detonator?” said Creem. “There’s a place in northern Jersey I got my eye on. Military installation. I’m not saying much more than that right now. But you gotta come clean.”

Gus looked at Nora, not for her okay but to frown at being put in this position. “Pretty simple,” he said. “It’s a nuke.”

Creem smiled wide. “Where’d you get it?”

“Corner store. Book of coupons.”

Creem checked on Nora. “How big?”

“Big enough to do a half-mile of destruction. Shock wave, bent steel—you name it.”

Creem was enjoying this. “But you wound up with the floor model. Sold as-is.”

“Yes. We need a detonator.”

“’Cause I don’t know how stupid you think I am, but I am not in the habit of arming my next-door neighbor with a live nuclear bomb without laying down some fucking ground rules.”

“Really,” said Gus. “Such as?”

“Just that I don’t want you fucking up my prize.”

“What’s that?”

“I do for you, you do for me. So first, I need assurances that this thing is going off at least a few miles away from me. Not in Jersey or Manhattan, bottom line.”

“You’ll be warned beforehand.”

“Not good enough. ’Cause I think I know what the hell you’re looking to use this bad boy on. Only one thing worth blowing up in this world. And when the Master goes, that’s gonna free up some serious real estate. Which is my price.”

“Real estate?” said Gus.

“This city. I own Manhattan outright, after all is said and done. Take it or leave it, Mex.”

Gus shook hands with Creem. “Can I interest you in a bridge?”

New York Public Library Main Branch

ANOTHER ROTATION OF Earth, and they were back together again, the five humans, Fet, Nora, Gus, Joaquin, and Eph, with Mr. Quinlan having traveled ahead under cover of darkness. They came out of Grand Central Station and followed Forty-second Street to Fifth Avenue. There was no rain but an exceptional wind, strong enough to dislodge trash accumulated in doorways. Fast food wrappers, plastic bags, and other pieces of legacy refuse blew down the street like spirits dancing through a graveyard.

They walked up the front steps of the main branch of the New York Public Library, between the twin stone lions, Patience and Fortitude. The beaux arts landmark stood like a great mausoleum. They moved through the portico into the entrance, crossing Astor Hall. The massive reading room had suffered only minor damage: looters, in the brief period of anarchy after the Fall, didn’t care much for books. One of the grand chandeliers had come down onto a reading table below, but the ceiling was so high that it may have just been a random structural failing. Some books remained on the tables, some backpacks and their picked-over contents strewn about the tile floor. Chairs were overturned, and a few of the lamp heads were broken off. The silent emptiness of the immense, public room was chilling.

The arched windows high on either side admitted as much light as was available. The ammoniac smell of vampire waste, so omnipresent Eph barely noticed it anymore, registered with him here. It said something that the accumulated knowledge and art of a civilization could be shat upon so carelessly by a marauding force of nature.

“We have to go down?” asked Gus. “What about one of these books here?” The shelves on either side, on two levels along walls running the length of the room below and above the railed walkways, were filled with colored spines.

Fet said, “We need an ornate, old book to double for the Lumen. We gotta sell this thing, remember. I’ve been in here numerous times. Rats and mice are drawn to decaying paper. The ancient texts they keep down below.”

They took to the stairs, turning on flashlights and readying night-vision devices. The main branch had been constructed on the site of the Croton Reservoir, a man-made lake that provided water for the island, made obsolete by the beginning of the twentieth century. There were seven full floors beneath street level, and a recent renovation beneath the adjacent Bryant Park on the rear, west side of the library had added more miles of book stacks.

Fet led the way into the darkness. The figure awaiting them on the landing at the third floor was Mr. Quinlan. Gus’s flashlight briefly illuminated the Born’s face, an almost phosphorescent white, his eyes like red baubles. He and Gus had an exchange.

Gus drew his sword. “Bloodsuckers in the stacks,” he said. “We got some clearing to do.”

Nora said, “If they pick up on Eph, they’ll bounce it to the Master, and we’ll be trapped underground.”

Mr. Quinlan’s mouthless voice entered their heads.

Dr. Goodweather and I will wait inside. I can baffle any attempts at psychic intrusion.

“Good,” said Nora, readying her Luma lamp.

Gus was already moving down the stairs to the next floor, sword in hand, Joaquin limping down behind him. “Let’s have some fun.”

Nora and Fet paired off, following them, while Mr. Quinlan pushed through the nearest door, entering the third underground floor. Eph reluctantly followed him. Inside were wide storage cabinets of aged periodicals and stacked bins of obsolete audio recordings. Mr. Quinlan opened the door to a listening booth, and Eph was obliged to follow him inside.

Mr. Quinlan closed the soundproof door. Eph pulled off his night-vision scope, leaning against a near counter, standing together with the Born in darkness and in silence. Eph worried that the Born could read him and so turned up the white noise in his head by actively imagining and then naming the items surrounding him.

Eph did not want the hunter to detect his potential deceit. Eph was walking a fine line here, playing the same game with both sides. Telling each he was working to subvert the other. In the end, Eph’s only loyalty was to Zack. He suffered equally at the thought of potentially turning on his friends—or spending eternity in a world of horror.

I had a family once.

The Born’s voice shook a nervous Eph, but he recovered quickly.

The Master turned them all, leaving it to me to destroy them. Something else we share in common.

Eph nodded. “But there was a reason it was after you. A link. The Master and I have no past. No commonality. I fell into its path purely by accident of my profession as an epidemiologist.”

There is a reason. We just don’t know what it is.

Eph had devoted hours to this very thought. “My fear is that it has something to do with my son, Zack.”

The Born was quiet for a moment.

You must be aware of a similarity between myself and your son. I was turned in the womb of my mother. And through that, the Master became my surrogate father, supplanting my own human forebear. By corrupting the mind of your son in his formative years, the Master is seeking to supplant you, your influence upon your son’s maturation.

“You mean, this is a pattern with the Master.” Eph should have been discouraged, but instead he found reason to cheer. “Then there’s hope,” he said. “You turned against the Master. You rejected it. And it had much greater influence over you.” Eph stood off the counter, lifted by this theory. “Maybe Zack will too. If I can get to him in time, the way the Ancients got to you. Maybe it’s not too late. He is a good kid—I know it…”

So long as he remains unturned biologically, there is a chance.

“I have to get him away from the Master. Or, more accurately, get the Master away from him. Can we really destroy it? I mean, if God failed to do it so long ago.”

God succeeded. Ozryel was destroyed. It was the blood that rose.

“So, in a sense, we have to fix God’s mistake.”

God makes no mistakes. In the end, all the rivers go to the sea…

“No mistakes. You think that fiery mark in the sky appeared on purpose. Sent for me?”

For me, as well. So that I might know to protect you. To safeguard you from corruption. The elements are falling into place. The ashes are gathered. Fet has the weapon. Fire rained from the sky. Signs and portents—the very language of God. They all will rise and fall with the strength of our alliance.

Again, a pause that Eph could not decipher. Was the Born already inside his head? Had he softened Eph’s mind with conversation so that he could read Eph’s true intentions?

Mr. Fet and Ms. Martinez have cleared the sixth floor. Mr. Elizalde and Mr. Soto are still engaged on floor five.

Eph said, “I want to go to six.”

They went down the stairwell, passing one conspicuous puddle of white vampire blood. Passing the door to the fifth floor, Eph could hear Gus cursing loudly, almost joyously.

The sixth floor began with a map room. Through a heavy glass door, Eph passed into a long room that had once been carefully climate controlled. Panels featuring thermostats and humidity barometers dotted the walls, and the ceiling was spaced with vents, their ribbons hanging limp.

The stacks were long here. Mr. Quinlan fell back, and Eph knew he was somewhere deep beneath Bryant Park now. He proceeded quietly, listening for Fet and Nora, not wanting to surprise them or be surprised by them. He heard voices a few stacks over and moved through a break in the shelves.

They were using a flashlight. That allowed Eph to switch off his night-vision scope. He got close enough to see them through one stack of books. They were standing at a glass table with their backs to him. Above the table, inside a cabinet, were what looked to be the library’s most precious acquisitions.

Fet forced the locks and laid the other ancient texts out in front of him. He focused on one book: a Gutenberg Bible. It had the most potential as a fake. Silvering the page edges would not be difficult, and he could lightly paste in some illuminated pages from the other tomes. Defacing literary treasures was a small price to pay for overthrowing the Master and his clan.

“This,” said Fet. “The Gutenberg Bible. There were fewer than fifty in existence… Now? This may be the last one.” He examined it further, turning it around. “This is an incomplete copy, printed on paper, not vellum, and the binding is not original.”

Nora looked at him. “You’ve learned a lot about ancient texts.”

Involuntarily, Fet blushed at the compliment. He turned around and reached for an information card in a hard plastic sleeve and showed her he had been reading this information. She slapped him lightly on the arm.

“I’m taking it with us now, along with a handful of others to dummy up.”

Fet pulled down a few other illuminated texts, stacking them gently into a backpack.

“Wait!” Nora said. “You’re bleeding…”

It was true. Fet was bleeding profusely. Nora opened up his shirt and popped open a small bottle of peroxide taken from the kit.

She poured it on the bloodstained fabric. The blood bubbled up and fizzed upon contact. That would destroy the scent for the strigoi.

“You must rest,” Nora said. “I order it as your physician.”

“Oh, my physician,” said Fet. “Is that what you are?”

“I am,” said Nora with a smile. “I need to get you some antibiotics. Eph and I can find them. You go back with Quinlan…”

Delicately, she cleaned Fet’s wound and poured peroxide on it again. The liquid ran down the hairs on his massive chest. “You want to make me a blond, eh?” Vasiliy joked. And as terrible as his joke was, Nora laughed at it, rewarding the intent.

Vasiliy pulled off her cap. “Hey, give me that!” she said, and fought Vasiliy’s good arm for possession of the cap. Vasiliy gave her the cap but trapped her in an embrace.

“You’re still bleeding.”

He ran his hand over her bare scalp. “I’m so glad I have you back…”

And then, for the first time, Fet told her, in his own way, how he felt about her. “I don’t know where I’d be right now without you.”

In other circumstances, the burly exterminator’s confession would have been ambiguous and insufficient. Nora would have waited for a bit more. But now—here and now—this was enough. She kissed him softly on the lips and felt his massive arms surround her back, engulfing her, pulling her to his chest. And they both felt fear evaporate and time freeze. They were there, now. In fact it felt like they’d always been there. No memory of pain or loss.

As they embraced, the beam from the flashlight in Nora’s hand glided by the stacks, briefly illuminating Eph hiding there, before he faded back into the book stacks.

Belvedere Castle, Central Park

THIS TIME, DR. Everett Barnes was able to wait until he was out of the helicopter before vomiting. When he was through disgorging his breakfast, he swiped at his mouth and chin with a handkerchief and looked around rather sheepishly. But the vampires showed no reaction to his becoming violently sick. Their expressions, or lack thereof, remained fixed and uncaring. Barnes could have laid a giant egg there in the muddy walkway near the Shakespeare Garden on the Seventy-ninth Street Transverse or had a third arm burst forth from his chest and not suffered any embarrassment in these drones’ eyes. His appearance was terrible, his face bloated and purple, his lips engorged with coagulated blood, and his injured hand bandaged and immobilized. But they paid no attention to any of this.

Barnes caught his breath and straightened a few yards free of the whirling helicopter rotors, ready to move along. The chopper lifted off, whipping rain at his back, and once it was away he opened his broad, black umbrella. His sexless undead guards took as little notice of the rain as they had his nausea, moving along at his side like pale, plastic automatons.

The bare heads of dead trees parted, and Belvedere Castle came into view, set high atop Vista Rock, framed against the contaminated sky.

Below, in a thick ring around the base of the stone, stood a legion of vampires. Their stillness was unnerving, their statuelike presence resembling some bizarre and stupefyingly ambitious art installation. And then, as Barnes and his two guards approached the outer edge of the vampire ring, the creatures parted—unbreathing, expressionless—for them, allowing their approach. Barnes stopped about ten rows in, approximately halfway through, looking at this respectful ring of vampires. He trembled a little, the umbrella vibrating such that dirty rain shook off the tips of the ribs. Here he experienced most deeply a sense of the uncanny: being in the middle of all these human predators, who by all rights should have drunk him or torn him to shreds—but instead stood idly as he passed, if not with respect then with enforced indifference. It was as though he had entered the zoo and gone walking past the lions, tigers, and bears without any reaction or interest. This was completely against their nature. Such was the depth of their enslavement to the Master.

Barnes encountered the former Kelly Goodweather at the door to the castle. She stood outside the door, her eyes meeting his, unlike the rest of the drones. He slowed, almost tempted to say something, like “Hello,” a courtesy left over from the old world. Instead, he simply passed, and her eyes followed him inside.

The clan lord appeared in his dark cloak, blood worms rippling beneath the skin covering his face as he regarded Barnes.

Goodweather has accepted.

“Yes,” Barnes said, thinking, If you knew that, then why did I have to get in a helicopter to come to this drafty castle to see you?

Barnes tried to explain the double-cross but became tangled up in the details himself. The Master did not appear particularly interested.

“He’s double-crossing his partners,” said Barnes, summing up. “He seemed sincere. I don’t know that I would trust him, though.”

I trust his pitiable need for his son.

“Yes. I see your point. And he trusts your need for the book.”

Once I have Goodweather, I have his partners. Once I have the book, I have all the answers.

“What I don’t understand is how he was able to overwhelm security at my house. Why others of your clan weren’t notified.”

It is the Born. He is created by me but not of my blood.

“So he’s not on the same wavelength?”

I do not have control over him as I do my others.

“And he’s with Goodweather now? Like a double agent? A defector?” The Master did not answer. “Such a being could be very dangerous.”

For you? Very. For myself? Not dangerous. Only elusive. The Born has allied himself with the gang member whom the Ancients recruited for day hunting and the rest of the scum that runs with him. I know where to find some information about them…

“If Goodweather surrenders himself to you… then you would have all the information to find him. The Born.”

Yes. Two fathers reuniting with two sons. There’s always symmetry in God’s plans. If he gives himself to me…

A ruckus behind Barnes then made him turn, startled. A teenager, with ragged hair falling over his eyes, stumbling down the spiral staircase. A human, holding one hand to his throat. The boy shook back some of his hair, just enough so that Barnes recognized Ephraim Goodweather in the boy’s face. Those same eyes, that same very serious expression—though now showing fear.

Zachary Goodweather. He was in obvious respiratory distress, wheezing and turning grayish blue.

Barnes stood, starting toward him instinctively. Later it would occur to Barnes that it had been a great while since he had acted on medical instinct. He intercepted the boy, holding him by his shoulder. “I am a doctor,” said Barnes.

The boy pushed Barnes away, pinwheeling his arm, going straight to the Master. Barnes rocked back a few steps, more shocked than anything. The floppy-haired boy fell to his knees before the Master, who looked down at his suffering face. The Master let the boy struggle a few moments longer, then raised its arm, the loose sleeve of its cloak sliding back. His thumb and elongated middle finger snapped together in a blur, pricking the skin. The Master held its thumb over the boy’s face, a single droplet of blood poised on the tip. Slowly, the bead elongated, dripping free, landing in the back of Zack’s open mouth.

Barnes himself swallowed dryly, sickened. He had already thrown up once that morning.

The boy closed his mouth as though having just ingested an eyedropper’s worth of medicine. He grimaced—either at the taste or at the pain of the swallow—and within a few moments his hand came away from his throat. His head hung low as he regained normal respiration, his airway opening, his lungs clearing miraculously. Almost instantly, his pallor returned to normal—the new normal, that is, meaning sallow and sun-hungry.

The boy blinked and looked around, seeing the room for the first time since entering in respiratory distress. His mother—or what remained of her—had entered from the doorway, perhaps summoned by her Dear One’s distress. Yet her blank face showed neither concern nor relief. Barnes wondered how often this healing ritual was performed. Once every week? Once every day?

The boy looked at Barnes as though for the first time, the white-goateed man he had shoved away just moments before.

“Why is there another human here?” asked Zack Goodweather.

The boy’s supercilious manner surprised Barnes, who remembered Goodweather’s son as a thoughtful, curious, well-mannered child. Barnes ran his fingers through his own hair, summoning some dignity.

“Zachary, do you remember me?”

The boy’s lips curled as though he resented being asked to study Barnes’s face. “Vaguely,” he said, his tone harsh, his manner haughty.

Barnes remained patient, upbeat. “I was your father’s boss. In the old world.”

Again, Barnes saw the father in the son—but less so now. Just as the Eph who visited him had changed, so had the boy. His young eyes were distant, distrusting. He had the attitude of a boy-prince.

Zachary Goodweather said, “My father is dead.”

Barnes started to speak, then wisely held back his words. He glanced at the Master, and there was no change of expression in the creature’s rippling face—but Barnes knew somehow not to contradict. For an instant, as he perceived the big picture and saw everyone’s play and position in this particular drama, he felt bad for Eph. His own son… But, Barnes being Barnes, the feeling didn’t last long and he began to think of a way to profit from this.

Low Library, Columbia University

CONSIDER THIS ABOUT the Lumen.

Mr. Quinlan’s eyes were unusually vibrant when he said this.

There are two words consigned to the page indicating the Master’s Black Site: “obscura” and “aeterna.” “Dark” and “eternal.” No exact coordinates.

“Every site had them,” said Fet. “Except that one.”

He was actively working on the Bible, trying to shape it as close to the Lumen as possible. He had amassed a pile of books that he examined and cannibalized for pieces or engravings.

Why? And why just those two words?

“Do you think that is the key?”

I believe it is. I always thought the key to finding the site was in the information in the book—but, it turns out, the key is in the information missing from it. The Master was the last one to be born. The youngest one of them all. It took it hundreds of years to reconnect with the Old World and even longer to acquire the influence to destroy the Ancients’ origin sites. But now—now it has come back to the New World, back to Manhattan. Why?

“Because it wanted to protect its own origin site.”

The fiery mark in the sky confirmed as much. But where is it?

In spite of the thrilling information, Fet seemed distant, distracted.

What is it?

“Sorry. I’m thinking about Eph,” said Fet. “He’s out. With Nora.”

Out where?

“Getting some medicine. For me.”

Dr. Goodweather must be protected. He is vulnerable.

Fet was caught short. “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he said, but now it was his turn to worry.

Macy’s Herald Square

EPH AND NORA exited the subway at Thirty-fourth Street and Pennsylvania Station. It was there at the train station, nearly two years before, that Eph had left Nora, Zack, and Nora’s mother, in a last-ditch attempt to get them safely out of the city before New York fell to the vampire plague. A horde of creatures had derailed the train inside the North River Tunnel, foiling their escape, and Kelly had made off with Zack, taking him to the Master.

They were casing a small closed pharmacy occupying the corner of the Macy’s store. Nora was watching commuters pass them, downtrodden humans on their way to and from work, or else on their way to the ration station at the Empire State Building to exchange work vouchers for clothing or food.

“Now what?” said Eph.

Nora looked diagonally across Seventh Avenue, seeing Macy’s one block away, its front entrance boarded. “We’ll go through the store and into the pharmacy. Follow me.”

The rotating doors had long ago been locked, the broken glass boarded tight. Shopping, either as a necessity or a leisure-time pursuit, no longer existed. Everything was ration cards and vouchers.

Eph pried a piece of plywood off the Thirty-fourth Street entrance. Inside, the “World’s Largest Department Store” was a mess. Racks overturned, clothing torn. It looked less like looting and more like the scene of a fight, or a series of fights. A vampire and human rampage.

They accessed the pharmacy through the store counter. The shelves were almost bare. Nora picked up a few items, including a mild antibiotic and a few syringes. Eph pocketed a bottle of Vicodin when Nora wasn’t looking and jammed it into a small pouch.

In a matter of five minutes they had what they came for. Nora looked at Eph. “I need some warm clothes and a pair of sturdy shoes. These camp slippers are worn down.”

Eph thought about cracking a joke about women and shopping but kept quiet and nodded. Farther inside, it wasn’t so bad. They walked up the famous wooden escalators—the first such set of moving stairs ever installed inside a building.

Their flashlights played over the vacant display floor, unchanged since the end of shopping as the world knew it. The mannequins startled Eph, their bald heads and fixed expressions giving them—in the first moment of illumination—a superficial resemblance to the strigoi.

“Same haircut,” said Nora with a faint smile. “It’s all the rage…”

They moved through the floor, casing the place, looking for any signs of danger or vulnerability. “I am afraid, Nora,” Eph said, much to her surprise. “The plan… I am afraid and I don’t mind admitting as much.”

“The exchange will be difficult,” she said, her voice low as she pulled down shoe boxes in a back room, looking for her size. “That’s the trick. I think you should tell it we are getting the book for Mr. Quinlan to study. The Master surely knows about the Born. Tell it you plan to grab the book as soon as you can. We’ll have a location to set the bomb—and you’ll lure it in. He can bring as much reinforcement as he wants then. A bomb is a bomb…”

Eph nodded. He watched her face for some sign of treachery. They were alone now; if she was going to reveal herself to him as the turncoat, this was the time.

She eschewed more-fashionable leather boots for something sturdy and without heels. “The fake book just has to look good,” Eph said. “It has to look right. I think things will move so quickly, we just need to pass that initial glance test.”

“Fet is on it,” said Nora with absolute certainty. Almost with pride. “You can trust him…” And then she realized who she was talking to. “Listen, Eph. About Fet…”

“You don’t have to say anything. I understand. The world is fucked and we deserve to be only with those who care for us—above and beyond all things. In a strange way… if it was going to be anyone I feel good that it was Fet. Because he will give his life before he allows any harm to come to you. Setrakian knew it and chose him above me and you know it too. He can do what I never could—be there for you.”

Nora felt conflicting emotions now. This was Eph at his best: generous, smart, and caring. She would’ve almost preferred him to be an asshole. Now she saw him for who he really was: the man she had once fallen in love with. Her heart still felt the pull.

“What if the Master wants me to bring the book to it?” asked Eph.

“Maybe you’ll tell him we are chasing you. That you need the Master to come and get you. Or maybe you insist on him bringing Zack to you.”

Eph’s face darkened a moment, remembering the Master’s abject refusal on that point. “That raises a major issue,” he said. “How can I set this thing off and get away?”

“I don’t know. Too many variables right now. This whole thing is going to require a lot of luck. And courage. I wouldn’t blame you if you are having second thoughts.”

She watched him. Looking for a crack in his demeanor… or an opening so that she could reveal her complicity? “Second thoughts?” he said, trying to draw her out. “About going through with this?”

He saw the concern in her face as she shook her head. No hint of duplicity. And he was glad. He was relieved. Things had changed so much between them—but she was at heart the same old freedom fighter she always had been. It helped Eph to believe that he was the same too.

“What is that?” she asked.

“What?” he said.

“It looked almost like you were smiling.”

Eph shook his head. “Just me realizing that the bottom line is that Zack goes free. Whatever it takes to achieve that, I’ll do.”

“I think that’s amazing, Eph. I really do.”

“You don’t think the Master will see right through this?” he said. “You think it will believe that I could do this? That I could betray the rest of you?”

“I do,” she said. “I think it fits the way the Master thinks. Don’t you?”

Eph nodded, glad she wasn’t looking at him at that moment. If not Nora, then who was the turncoat? Not Fet, certainly. Could it be Gus? Could all of his bluster toward Eph be a cover? Or Joaquin was another possible suspect. All this twisty thinking was making him even more crazy.

…can never go down / can never go down the drain.

He heard something out in the main display area. Stirring noises, once assigned to rodents, nowadays meant only one thing.

Nora had heard it too. They switched off their flashlights.

“Wait here,” said Eph. Nora understood that, for this subterfuge to succeed, Eph had to go alone. “And be careful.”

“Always,” she said, drawing silver.

He slid out through the door, careful not to bump the handle of the sword jutting out of his backpack. He pulled on his night-vision monocular and waited for the image to stabilize in his vision.

Everything looked still. All the mannequins had normally sized hands, no extended talon for a middle finger. Eph circled right, keeping to the edge of the room, until he saw the hanger swinging gently on a circular rack near the down escalator.

Eph drew his sword and went swiftly to the top wooden step. The nonworking escalator ran along a narrow, walled space. He descended as quickly and as quietly as he could, then took in the next level from the landing. Something told him to keep going down, and so he did.

He slowed at the bottom, smelling something. A vampire had been here; he was close behind. Strange for a vampire to be out on its own, not otherwise industriously employed. Unless patrolling this department store was its assigned task. Eph ventured out from the escalator, the floor revealed in green. Nothing moved. He was about to start toward a large display when he heard a light click in the opposite direction.

Again he saw nothing. Ducking low, he wove around the clothing racks in the direction of the noise. The sign above the open doorway gave directions for the restrooms and the administrative offices, as well as an elevator. Eph crept past the offices first, looking in every open door. He could come back and try the closed doors after he had cleared the rest of the area. He went to the restrooms, nudging open the door to the women’s room just a few inches to see if it made much noise. It was nearly silent. He entered and scanned the stalls, pushing open each door, sword in hand.

He returned to the hallway and stood listening, feeling as though he had lost whatever thin trail he had been following. He pulled on the men’s-room door and slipped inside. He passed the urinals and poked open each stall door with the tip of his sword, and then, disappointed, turned to leave.

In an explosion of paper and trash, the vampire leaped out of the open trash barrel in the corner near the door, landing on the edge of one of the sinks across the room. Eph lurched backward at first, cursing and swiping at the air with his sword to ward off any stinger attacks. He quickly asserted his position, leading with his silver, not wanting to get backed into a stall. He brandished the weapon at the hissing vampire and circled past it, coming close to the barrel it had sprung from, paper rustling at his feet.

It squatted there, gripping the smooth edge of the sink, its knees up around its head, looking at him. Eph finally got a clear glance at it in the green light of his scope. It was a boy. A ten- or twelve-year-old of African-American descent, with what looked like pure glass in his eyes.

A blind boy. One of the feelers.

The feeler’s top lip was curled such that, by night vision, it looked like an appraising smile. His fingers and toes gripped the front edge of the sink counter as though he were about to pounce. Eph kept the tip of his sword pointed at the feeler’s midsection.

“Were you sent to find me?” Eph said.

Yes.

Eph sagged a bit in dismay. Not at the response, but at the voice.

It was Kelly’s. Speaking the Master’s words.

Eph wondered if Kelly was somehow responsible for the feelers. If she was their wrangler, so to speak. Their dispatcher. And if so, if indeed these blind, psychic vampire children had been placed under her unofficial command, how fitting and sadly ironic at the same time. Kelly Goodweather was still a mother hen, even in death.

“What made it so easy this time?”

You wanted to be found.

The feeler pounced, but not at Eph. The boy sprang from the countertop across the restroom to the wall, then dropped down to the tile floor on all fours.

Eph tracked it with his sword tip. The feeler crouched there, looking at him.

Are you going to slay me, Ephraim?

Kelly’s taunting voice. Had it been her idea to send a boy Zack’s age?

“Why do you torment me like this?”

I could have a hundred thirsty vampires there in moments, surrounding you. Tell me why I should not send them to you now.

“Because the book is not here. And—more important—if you broke our deal, I would slice my own throat before letting you have access to my mind.”

You are bluffing.

Eph lunged at the boy. He skittered backward, bumping into a stall door and stopping inside. “How do you like it?” said Eph. “These threats don’t instill much faith in me that you will keep your end of the bargain.”

Pray that I do.

“Interesting choice of words, ‘pray.’ ” Eph stood in the doorway to the stall now; the corner of the bathroom reeked from neglect. “Ozryel. Yes, I’ve been reading the book you want so badly. And talking to Mr. Quinlan, the Born.”

Then you should know that I am not in fact Ozryel.

“No, you are the worms that crawled out of the murderous angel’s veins. After God had him pulled apart like someone quartering a chicken.”

We share the same rebellious nature. A lot like your son, I imagine.

Eph shook that off, determined not to be an easy mark for the Master’s abuse any longer. “My son is nothing like you.”

Don’t be so sure. Where is the book?

“It was hidden in the stacks deep beneath the New York Public Library this entire time, in case you were wondering. I am supposed to be buying a little time for them now.”

I presume the Born is studying it avidly.

“Correct. That doesn’t worry you?”

To the eyes of the unworthy, it would take years to decipher.

“Good. So you’re not in any rush. Maybe I should step back, then. Wait for a better offer from you.”

And maybe I should draw and quarter your son.

Eph wanted to run his sword through this undead child’s throat. Leave the Master wanting for a while longer. But at the same time he did not want to push the creature too far. Not with Zack’s life on the line. “You’re the one bluffing now. You are worried and are pretending not to be. You want this book and you want it very badly. Why so soon?”

It did not answer.

“There is no other traitor. You are all lies.”

The feeler remained crouched, its back against the wall.

“Fine,” said Eph. “Play it that way.”

My father is dead.

Eph’s heart skipped a beat, stopping dead in his chest for a long moment. Such was the shock of hearing, as clear as though he were there in the room with him, his son Zack’s voice.

He was shaking. He fought hard to keep a furious scream from rising in his throat.

“You goddamned…”

The Master returned to Kelly’s voice. You will bring the book as soon as you can.

Eph’s first fear was that Zack had been turned. But no; the Master was just throwing Zack’s voice, pushing it to Eph through this feeler.

Eph said, “Goddamn you.”

God tried to. And where is He now?

“Not here,” said Eph, his blade lowering a bit. “Not here.”

No. Not in a department store men’s room in a deserted Macy’s. Why don’t you release this poor child, Ephraim? Look into its blind eyes. Wouldn’t striking it down give you great satisfaction?

He did look into its eyes. Glassy and unblinking. Eph saw the vampire… but also the boy he once was.

I have thousands of sons. All of them absolutely loyal.

“You have only one true offspring. The Born. And all he wants is to destroy you.”

The feeler dropped to its knees, raising its chin, baring its neck to Eph, its arms hanging limp at its sides.

Take him, Ephraim, and be done with it.

The feeler’s blind eyes stared into nothingness, in the manner of a supplicant awaiting orders from its lord. The Master wanted him to execute the child. Why?

Eph pointed the tip of his sword at the boy’s exposed neck. “Here,” he said. “Run him into my sword if you wish him released.”

You have no desire to slay him?

“I have every desire to slay him. But no good reason to.”

When the boy did not move, Eph stepped back, pulling away his sword. Something wasn’t right here.

You cannot slay the boy. You hide behind weakness by calling it strength.

Eph said, “Weakness is giving in to temptation. Strength is resisting it.” He looked at the feeler, Kelly’s voice still hanging in his head. The feeler had no link to Eph, not without Kelly. And her voice was being projected by the Master, in an attempt to distract and weaken him, but the vampire Kelly could be anywhere at that moment. Anywhere.

Eph backed out of the stall and started running, rushing up the escalator to where he had left Nora.

Kelly stayed close to the wall, padding barefoot past the racks of clothes. The woman’s scent lingered in the back room behind the shoe display… but her bloodbeat thrummed across the display floor. Kelly approached the changing-room doorway. Nora Martinez waited there with a silver sword.

“Hey, bitch,” Nora greeted her.

Kelly seethed, her mind going out to the feelers, calling them close. She had no clear angle of attack. The silver weapon glowed hot in her view as the bald female human started toward her.

“You really let yourself go,” said Nora, circling around a register. “Cosmetics is on the first floor, by the way. And maybe a turtleneck to cover up that nasty turkey neck.”

The girl feeler came bounding from the stairs, stopping near Kelly.

“Mother-daughter shopping day,” said Nora. “How sweet. I’ve got some silver jewelry I’d love to see you two try on.”

Nora feigned a jab; Kelly and the girl feeler just stared at her.

“I used to be afraid,” said Nora. “In the train tunnel, I was afraid of you. I’m not afraid now.”

Nora unclipped the Luma lamp hanging from her pack, switching on the battery-powered black light. The ultraviolet rays repelled the vampires, the feeler snarling and backing away on all fours. Kelly remained still, only turning as Nora circled away from them, backing away to the stairs. She was using the mirrors to check behind her, which was how she saw the blurred figure darting up from the handrail.

Nora spun and drove her blade deep into the mouth of the boy feeler, the searing silver releasing him almost immediately. She jerked the blade out and spun back, ready for the attack.

Kelly and the girl feeler were gone. Vanished—as though they had never been there in the first place.

“Nora!”

Eph called to her from the floor below. “Coming down!” she yelled back, descending the wooden steps.

He met her there, anxious, having feared the worst. He saw the slick white blood on her blade.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, grabbing a scarf off a nearby rack to clean off her sword. “Ran into Kelly upstairs. She says hi.”

Eph stared at the sword. “Did you… ?”

“No, unfortunately. Just one of her little foster monsters.”

Eph said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Outside, she half-expected a swarm of vampires to greet them. But no. Regular humans moving between work and home, shoulders hunched against the rain.

“How did it go?” asked Nora.

“It’s a bastard,” said Eph. “A true bastard.”

“But do you think it bought it?”

Eph could not look her in the eye. “Yes,” he said. “It bought it.”

Eph was vigilant for vampires, scanning the sidewalks as they went.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Keep moving,” he said. Across Thirty-sixth Street, he pulled over, ducking under the canopy of a closed market. He looked up through the rain, eyeing the rooftops.

There, high across the street, a feeler leaped from the edge of one building to the next. Tracking them.

“They’re following us,” said Eph. “Come on.” They walked on, trying to lose themselves in the masses. “We have to wait them out until the meridiem.”

Columbia University

EPH AND NORA returned to the empty university campus soon after first light, confident they were not followed. Eph figured that Mr. Quinlan had to be underground, probably going over the Lumen. He was headed that way when Gus intercepted them—or, more accurately, intercepted Nora while Eph was still with her.

“You have the medicine?” he asked.

Nora showed him a bag full of their loot.

“It’s Joaquin,” said Gus.

Nora stopped short, thinking vampire involvement. “What happened?”

“I need you to see him. It’s bad.”

They followed him to a classroom where Joaquin was propped up on top of a desk, his pant leg rolled up. His knee was bulbous in two places, considerably swollen. The gangbanger was in great pain. Gus stood on the other side of the desk, waiting for answers.

“How long has it been like this?” Nora asked Joaquin.

Through a sweaty grimace, Joaquin said, “I dunno. A while.”

“I’m going to touch it here.”

Joaquin braced himself. Nora explored the swollen areas around the knee. She saw a small wound below the patella, less than an inch in length and crooked, its edges yellowed and crusty. “When did you get this cut?”

“Dunno,” said Joaquin. “Think I bumped it at the blood camp. Didn’t notice it until long after.”

Eph jumped in. “You’ve been going out on your own sometimes. You hit any hospitals or nursing home facilities?”

“Uh… probably. Saint Luke’s, sure.”

Eph looked at Nora, their silence conveying the seriousness of the infection. “Penicillin?” said Nora.

“Maybe,” said Eph. “Let’s go think this through.” To Joaquin, he said, “Lie back. We’ll be right back in.”

“Hold up, doc. That don’t sound good.”

Eph said, “It’s an infection, obviously. It would be fairly routine to treat this in a hospital. Problem is, there are no more hospitals. A sick human is simply disposed of. So we need to discuss how to care for it.”

Joaquin nodded, unconvinced, and lay back on the desk. Gus, without a word, followed Eph and Nora out into the hallway.

Gus said, looking mostly at Nora, “No bullshit.”

Nora shook her head. “Bacterium, multiresistant. He might have cut himself at the camp, but this is something he picked up at a medical facility. The bug can live on instruments, on surfaces, for a long time. Nasty, and trenchant.”

Gus said, “Okay. What do you need?”

“What we need is something we can’t get anymore. We just went out looking for it—vancomycin.”

There had been a run on vancomycin during the last days of the scourge. Befuddled medical experts, professionals who should have known better than to feed a panic, went on television suggesting this “drug of last resort” as a possible treatment for the still-unidentified strain that was spreading through the country with incredible speed.

“And even if we could find some vancomycin,” said Nora, “it would take a severe course of antibiotics and other remedies to rid him of this infection. It’s not a vampire sting, but, in terms of life expectancy, it might as well be.”

Eph said, “Even if we could get some fluids into him intravenously, it just won’t do him any good, except prolonging the inevitable.”

Gus looked at Eph as though he were going to hit him. “There’s gotta be some other way. You guys are fucking doctors…”

Nora said, “Medically, we’re halfway back to the Dark Ages now. With no new drugs being manufactured, all the diseases we thought we had beat are back, and taking us early. We can maybe scrounge around, find something to make him more comfortable…”

She looked at Eph. Gus did too. Eph didn’t care anymore; he pulled off his pack—where he had smuggled the Vicodin—and opened the zippered pouch and pulled out a baggie full of tablets. Dozens of tablets and pills in different shapes, colors, and sizes. He selected a pair of low-dosage Lorcets, some Percodans, and four two-milligram Dilaudid tabs.

“Start him with these,” he said, pointing to the Lorcets. “Save the Dilaudids for last.” The rest of the bag he turned over to Nora. “Take it all. I’m through with them.”

Gus looked at the pills in his hands. “These won’t cure him?”

“No,” said Nora. “Just manage his pain.”

“What about, you know, amputation? Cutting off his leg. I could do it myself.”

“It’s not just the knee, Gus.” Nora touched his arm. “I’m sorry. The way things are now, there’s just not much we can do.”

Gus stared at the drugs in his hand, dazed, as though he held there the broken pieces of Joaquin.

Fet entered, the shoulders of his duster wet from outside. He slowed a moment, struck by the strange scene of Eph, Gus, and Nora standing together in an emotional moment.

“He’s here,” said Fet. “Creem’s back. At the garage.”

Gus closed the pills in his fist. “You go. Deal with that piece of shit. I’ll be along.”

He went back inside to Joaquin, caressed his sweaty forehead, and helped him swallow the pills. Gus knew that he was saying good-bye to the last person in the world he cared for. The last person he really loved. His brother, his mother, his closest compas: all gone now. He had nothing left now.

Back outside, Fet looked at Nora. “Everything all right? You took a long time.”

“We were being followed,” she said.

Eph watched them embrace. He had to pretend as though he didn’t care.

“Mr. Quinlan get anywhere with the Lumen?” asked Eph once they parted.

“No,” said Fet. “It’s not looking good.”

The three of them headed across the Greek-amphitheater-like Low Plaza, past the library, and on to the edge of the campus, where the maintenance building stood. Creem’s yellow Hummer was parked inside the garage. The blinged-out leader of the Jersey Sapphires had his fat hand on a shopping cart full of semiautomatic weapons that Gus had promised him. The gang leader grinned wide, his silver-plated teeth glowing Cheshire Cat–like inside his considerable mouth.

“I could do some damage with these pop guns,” he said, sighting one out the open garage door. He looked at Fet, Eph, and Nora. “Where’s the Mex?”

“He’ll be along,” said Fet.

Creem, professionally suspicious, mulled this over before deciding it was okay. “You authorized to speak for him? I made that bean eater a fair offer.”

Fet said, “We are all well aware.”

“And?”

“Whatever it takes,” said Fet. “We have to see the detonator first.”

“Yeah, sure, of course. We can arrange that.”

“Arrange it?” said Nora. She looked at his ugly yellow truck. “I thought you were bringing it.”

“Bringing it? I don’t even know what the fuck it looks like. What am I, MacGyver? I show you where to go. Military arsenal. If this place don’t have it, I don’t know that anyplace does.”

Nora looked at Fet. It was clear she didn’t trust this Creem. “So, what, you’re offering us a ride to the store? That’s your great contribution?”

Creem smiled at her. “Intelligence and access. That’s what I bring to the table.”

“If you don’t have this thing yet… then why are you here now?”

Creem brandished the unloaded weapon. “I came for my guns, and for the Mex’s answer. And a little matter of ammunition to load up these babies.” He opened his driver’s-side door, reaching for something between the front seats: a map of Jersey, with a hand-drawn map paper-clipped to it.

Nora showed the maps to Fet and then Eph. “This is what you’re giving us. For the island of Manhattan.” She looked at Fet. “The Native Americans got a better deal than we are.”

Creem was amused. “That’s a map of the Picatinny Arsenal. You see there, it’s in the northern New Jersey skylands, so only about thirty, forty miles west of here. A giant military reserve that the bloodsuckers now control. But I got a way in. Been raiding munitions for months now. Drawn down on most of their ammo—why I need this here.” He patted the weapons as he loaded them into the back of his Hummer. “Started out in the Civil War as a place for the army to store gunpowder. It was military research and manufacturing before the vamp takeover.”

Fet looked up from the map. “They have detonators?”

Creem said, “If they don’t, nobody does. I seen fuses and timers. You gotta know what type you need. Your nuke here? Not that I know what I’m looking for.”

Fet didn’t answer that. “It’s about three feet by five feet. Portable, but not suitcase-small. Heavy. Like a small keg or a trash can.”

“You’ll find something that works. Or you won’t. I don’t make any guarantees, except that I can put you there. Then you take your toy far away and see how she goes. I don’t offer any money-back guarantees. Duds are your problem, not mine.”

Nora said, “You are offering us next to nothing.”

“You want to shop around for a few more years? Be my guest.”

Nora said, “I’m glad you find this so funny.”

“It’s all fucking funny to me, lady,” said Creem. “This whole world is a laugh factory. I laugh all day and night. What do you want me to do, bust out weeping? This vampire thing is one colossal joke, and the way I see it, you’re either in on the joke, or you’re out.”

“And you’re in on it?” said Nora.

“Put it to you this way, bald beauty,” said silver-toothed Creem. “I aim to have the last laugh. So you renegades and rebels better make sure you light the fuse on this fucking thing away from my island here. Take a bite out of… fucking Connecticut or something. But stay off my turf here. Part of the deal.”

Fet was smiling now. “What do you hope to do with this city once you own it?”

“I don’t even know. Who can think that far ahead? I never been a landlord before. This place is a fixer-upper but a one of a kind. Maybe turn this fucker into a casino. Or a skate rink—it’s all the same to you.”

Gus entered then. His hands were deep in his pockets, his face set tight. He was wearing dark glasses but if you looked carefully enough—like Nora did—you could see his eyes were red.

“Here he is,” said Creem. “Looks like we have a deal, Mex.”

Gus nodded. “We have a deal.”

Nora said, “Hold on. He’s got nothing except these maps.”

Gus nodded, still not really in the room yet. “How soon can we get it?”

Creem said, “How about tomorrow?”

Gus said, “Tomorrow it is. On one condition. You wait here tonight. With us. Lead us to it before first light.”

“Keeping an eye on me, Mex?”

“We’ll feed you,” said Gus.

Creem was won over. “Fair enough. I like my steak well-done, remember.” He swung his trunk door shut. “What’s your great plan, anyway?”

“You don’t really need to know,” said Gus.

“You can’t ambush this motherfucker.” Creem looked at them all. “Hope you know that.”

Gus said, “You can if you have something it wants. Something it needs. That is why I’m keeping my eye on you…”

Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather

Columbia University

EPH HAD SKIPPED Gus’s promised meal in order to compose his letter to Zack in one of the empty classrooms down the hall from Joaquin. In doing so, Eph despised the Master at that moment more than he had at any other point in this long, terrible ordeal.

Now he looked over what he had just written. He read it through, trying to approach it as Zack would. Eph had never before considered this from Zachary’s perspective. What would his son think?

Dad loved me—yes.

Dad was a traitor to his friends and his people—yes.

Eph realized, reading this, how saddled with guilt Zack would be. To have the weight of the lost world upon his shoulders. His father having chosen slavery for all for the freedom of one.

Was that really an act of love? Or was that something else?

It was a cheat. It was the easy way out. Zack would get to live as a human slave—if the Master fulfilled its end of the bargain—and the planet would become a vampire’s nest for eternity.

Eph had the sensation of awakening, as though from a fever dream. How could he ever have considered this? It was almost as though, having allowed the Master’s voice into his head, he had also allowed a bit of corruption or insanity. As if the Master’s malignant presence had mentally nested inside Eph’s mind and started to metastasize. Thinking of this actually made him fear for Zack more than ever: he feared Zack being alive next to that monster.

Eph heard someone approaching from the hallway and quickly closed his diary and slid it underneath his pack—just as the door opened.

It was Creem, his bulk nearly filling the door frame. Eph had expected Mr. Quinlan, and Creem’s presence threw him off. At the same time, Eph was relieved: Mr. Quinlan would have seen right through his distress, Eph felt.

“Hey, doc. Looking for you. Alone time, huh?”

“Getting my head straight.”

“I was looking for that Dr. Martinez, but she’s busy.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“Off somewhere with the big dude, the exterminator.” Creem walked in and closed the door, extending his arm, his sleeve rolled back to his thick elbow. A square pad bandage was adhered to his forearm. “I got this cut I need you to look at. I saw the Mex’s boy there, Joaquin. He’s downright fucked. I need this checked out.”

“Uh, sure.” Eph tried to clear his head. “Let’s see.”

Creem came forward, Eph digging a flashlight out of his pack, taking the man’s wide forearm in hand.

His skin color looked good under the bright beam.

“Peel it back for me,” said Eph.

Creem did, his sausage-thick fingers adorned with silver bling. The bandage pulled off wiry black hairs, but the man didn’t flinch.

Eph shone his flashlight down over the revealed flesh. No cut or abrasion.

“I don’t see anything,” said Eph.

Creem said, “That’s because there’s nothing to see.”

He pulled his arm back, standing there, looking at Eph. Waiting for Eph to figure it out.

Creem said, “The Master said I was to reach out to you in private.”

Eph nearly jumped backward. The flashlight fell from his hands, rolling to his foot. Eph picked it up, fumbling with it to turn off the beam.

The gang leader smiled silverly.

“It’s you?” said Eph.

“And you?” said Creem. “Didn’t make no sense.” Creem looked back at the closed door before continuing. “Listen, homeboy. You gotta be more present, you know? Gotta speak up more, play the part. You’re not working it hard enough.”

Eph barely heard him. “How long… ?”

“The Master came to me not too long ago. Fucking mowed down the rest of my crew. But I can respect that. This is the Master’s block now, you know?” A silver snap of his fingers. “But it spared me. The Master had other plans. Made me an offer—the same one I made you people.”

“Turn us in… for Manhattan?”

“Well, for a piece. A little black market, some sex trade, gambling. Said it would help keep people distracted and in line.”

“So this… this detonator… it’s all a lie.”

“Naw, that’s real. I was just supposed to infiltrate you people. It was Gus who came to me with the request.”

“What about the book?”

“That silver book you’re always whispering about? The Master didn’t say. That’s what you’re giving him?”

Eph had to play along here. So he nodded.

“You’re the last one I woulda thought. But hey—those others are soon gonna wish they’d made a deal before us.”

Creem smiled silverly again. His metallic expression sickened Eph.

Eph said, “You really think it’ll honor its deal with you?”

Creem made a face. “Why wouldn’t it? You expect it to honor yours?”

“I don’t even know about that.”

“You think it’ll fuck us?” Creem was getting angry. “Why? What are you getting outta this? Better not say this city.”

“My boy.”

“And?”

“That’s it.”

“That’s all? Your boy. For this fucking sacred book and your friends.”

“He’s all I want.”

Creem stepped back, acting impressed but—Eph could tell—thinking Eph a fool. “You know, I got to thinking, when I found out about you. Why two plans? What’s the Master thinking? Is it going to do both deals?”

“Probably neither,” said Eph.

Creem didn’t like the sound of that. “Anyway, it occurred to me—one of us is the backup plan. ’Cause, you do the deal first, what’s he need me for? I get fucked over, and you get the glory.”

“The glory of betraying my friends.”

Creem nodded. Eph should have paid more attention to Creem’s reaction, but he was too agitated now. Too torn. He saw himself reflected in this bloodless mercenary.

“I think the Master was trying to punk me. I think having the second deal is the same as having no deal. That’s why I told the others about the armory location. ’Cause they’re never gonna make it there. ’Cause Creem’s gotta make his move now.”

Eph became aware of the gangbanger’s closeness then. He checked the man’s hands, and they were empty—but balled into fists.

“Wait,” said Eph, sensing what Creem was about to do. “Hold on. Hear me out. I… I’m not going to do it. It was madness to even consider it. I’m not turning on these people—and you shouldn’t either. You know where a detonator is. We get that, hook it up to Fet’s bomb, and we go after the Master’s Black Site. That way we all get what we want. I get my boy back. You can have your chunk of real estate. And we nail that fucker once and for all.”

Creem nodded, appearing to weigh the offer. “Funny,” he said. “That’s exactly what I would say if the tables were turned and you were about to double-cross me. Adios, doc.”

Creem grasped Eph by his front collar, and there was no time to defend himself. The man’s fat fist and silvered knuckles came hurtling at the side of Eph’s head, and he didn’t feel the blow at first, only noticing the sudden twisting of the room, and then chairs scattering beneath the weight of his falling body. His skull smacked the floor and the room went white and then very, very dark.

The Vision

AS USUAL, OUT of the fire came the figures of light. Eph stood there, immobile—overwhelmed as they approached him. His solar plexus was hit by the energy of one of them as it struck him full-on. Eph resisted, wrestled for what seemed an eternity. The second figure joined the match—but Ephraim Goodweather didn’t give up. He fought bravely, desperately, until he saw Zack’s face again, amid the glow.

“Dad—” Zack said, and then the flashpoint occurred again.

But this time Eph did not wake up. The image gave way to a new landscape of verdant green grass under a warm yellow sun, rippling in an unobtrusive breeze.

A field. Part of a farm.

Clear, blue sky. Scudding clouds. Lush trees.

Eph raised his hand to block the direct sun from his eyes so he could see better.

A simple farmhouse. Small, constructed of bright red bricks with a roof of black shingles. The house was a good fifty yards away—but he reached it in just three steps.

Smoke curled out of the pipe chimney in perfect, repeating formation. The breeze shifted, leveling out the smoke stream, and the exhaust formed into alphabet letters written as though in a neat hand.

… L E Y R Z O L E Y R Z O L E Y R Z O L E Y R Z O…

The smoky letters dissipated, becoming a light ash drifting to the grass. He bent over at the waist in a full jackknife and swiped the blades with his fingers, and found his pads sliced open, red blood oozing out.

A lone, four-paned window in the wall. Eph put his face to it, and when he breathed onto the glass, his breath cleared the opaque window.

A woman sat at the old table in the kitchen. Bright yellow hair, writing in a thick book with a quill made from a beautiful, oversized, brilliant silver feather, dipped in an inkwell filled with red blood.

Kelly turned her head, not all the way toward the window, just enough so that Eph knew that she felt him there. The glass fogged again, and when he breathed it clear, Kelly was gone.

Eph circled the farmhouse, looking for another window or a door. But the house was solid brick, and after one full rotation, he could not even find the wall with the original window. The bricks had darkened to black, and as he backed off from the structure, it became a castle. The ash had turned the grass black at his feet, further sharpening the blades so that every step slashed at his bare feet.

A shadow passed across the sun. It was winged, like a great bird of prey, banking fleetly before sailing away, the shadow fading into the darkening grass.

Atop the castle, a factory-sized smokestack chugged black ash into the sky, turning fair day into ominous night. Kelly appeared on one of the ramparts, and Eph yelled up to her.

“She can’t hear you,” Fet told him.

Fet wore his exterminator’s jumpsuit and smoked a corona, but his head was a rat’s head, his eyes small and red.

Eph looked up to the castle again, and Kelly’s blond hair blew away like smoke. Now she was bald Nora, disappearing inside the upper reaches of the castle.

“We have to split up,” said Fet, pulling the cigar from his mouth with a human hand, blowing silver-gray smoke that curled past his fine, black whiskers. “We don’t have much time.”

Fet the rat ran to the castle and squeezed himself headfirst into a crack in the foundation, somehow wriggling his big body in between two black stones.

Up top, a man now stood in the turret wearing a work shirt bearing the Sears insignia. It was Matt, Kelly’s live-in boyfriend, Eph’s first replacement as a father figure and the first vampire Eph had slain. As Eph looked at him, Matt suffered a seizure, his hands clawing at his throat. He convulsed, doubling over, hiding his face, contorting… until his hands came away from his head. His middle fingers stretched into thick talons, and the creature straightened, now a good six inches taller. The Master.

The black sky opened up then, rain pouring down from above, but the drops, when they landed, instead of the usual slapping patter noise, made a noise that sounded like “Dad.”

Eph stumbled away, turning and running. He tried to outpace the rain through the slashing grass, but drops pelted him at every step, shouting in his ears, “Dad! Dad! Dad!”

Until everything cleared. The rain stopped, the sky turning into a shell of crimson. The grass was gone and the dirt ground reflected the redness of the sky just as the ocean does.

In the distance, a figure approached. It appeared not too far away, but closer, Eph was able to better judge its size. It looked like a human male, but at least three times the height of Eph himself. It stopped some distance away, though its dimensions made it seem nearer.

It was indeed a giant, but its proportions were exactly correct. It was dressed, or bathed, in a glowing nimbus of light.

Eph tried to speak. He felt no direct fear of this creature. He only felt overwhelmed.

Something rustled behind the giant’s back. At once, two broad silver wings fanned open, their diameter longer even than the giant’s height. The gust from this action blew Eph back a step. Arms at its sides, the archangel—the only thing it could be—beat its wings two more times, whipping at the air and taking flight.

The archangel soared, its great wings doing all the work, arms and legs relaxed as it flew toward Eph with preternatural grace and ease. It landed in front of him, dwarfing Eph three times over. A few silver feathers slipped from its plumage, falling quill-first and sticking into the red earth. One floated toward Eph, and he caught it in his hand. The quill became an ivory handle, the feather a silver sword.

The massive archangel bent down toward Eph. Its face was still obscured by the nimbus of light it exuded. The light felt strangely cool, almost misty.

The archangel fixed its gaze on something behind Eph, and Eph—reluctantly—turned.

At a small dinner table poised on the edge of a cliff, Eldritch Palmer, once the head of the Stoneheart Group, sat dressed in his trademark dark suit with a red swastika armband around his right sleeve, using a fork and knife to eat a dead rat laid out on a china plate. A blur approached from the right, a large white wolf, charging toward the table. Palmer never looked up. The white wolf leaped at Palmer’s throat, knocking him from the chair, tearing at his neck.

The white wolf stopped and looked up at Eph—and came racing toward him.

Eph did not run or raise his sword. The wolf slowed near him, paws kicking up dirt. Palmer’s blood stained its snowy mouth fur.

Eph recognized the wolf’s eyes. They belonged to Abraham Setrakian, as did its voice.

“Ahsudau-wah.”

Eph shook his head with incomprehension, and then a great hand seized him. He felt the beating of the archangel’s wings as he was lifted away from the red land, the ground below shrinking and changing. They neared a large body of water, then banked right, flying over a dense archipelago. The archangel dipped lower, diving straight for one of the thousand islands.

They landed on a basin-shaped wasteland of twisted iron and smoking steel. Torn clothes and burned paper were strewn across the charred ruins; the small island was the ground zero of some catastrophe. Eph turned to the archangel, but it was gone—and in its place was a door. A simple door, standing alone in its frame. A sign affixed to it, written in black Magic Marker, illustrated with gravestones and skeletons and crosses, drawn in a young hand, read:

YOU MAY NOT LIVE BEYOND THIS POINT.

Eph knew this door. And the handwriting. He reached for the knob and opened it, stepping through.

Zack’s bed. Eph’s diary was set upon it, but instead of a tattered cover, the diary was faced in silver, front and back.

Eph sat down upon the bed, feeling the mattress’s familiar give, hearing it creak. He opened his diary, and its parchment pages were those of the Occido Lumen, handwritten with illuminated illustrations.

More extraordinary than that was the fact that Eph could read and comprehend the Latin words. He perceived the subtle watermarking that revealed a second layer of text behind the first.

He understood it. In that moment he understood all.

“Ahsudagu-wah.”

As though summoned by the utterance of this very word, the Master stepped through the wall-less door. He threw back the hood shadowing his face, and his clothes fell away; the light of the sun charred his skin, turning it crispy black. Worms wriggled beneath the flesh covering his face.

The Master wanted the book. Eph stood, the feather in his hand a fine sword of silver once again. But instead of attacking, he reversed his grip on the sword’s handle, holding it pointing down—as the Lumen instructed.

As the Master rushed at him, Eph drove the silver blade into the black ground.

The initial shockwave rode out over the earth in a watery ripple. The eruption that followed was of divine strength, a fireball of bright light that obliterated the Master and everything around it—leaving only Eph, staring at his hands, the hands that had done this. Young hands—not his own.

He reached up and felt his face. He was no longer Eph.

He was Zack.