The Night Eternal

Columbia University

AWAKE, GOODWEATHER.

The Born’s voice called Eph back to consciousness. He opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor, the Born standing over him.

What happened?

Leaving the vision for reality was a shock. Moving from sensory overload to sensory deprivation. Being in the dream had felt like being inside one of the Lumen’s illuminated pages. It had seemed more than real.

He sat up, now aware of the headache. The side of his face, sore. Above him, Mr. Quinlan’s face was its usual starkly pale self.

Eph blinked a few times, trying to shake off the lingering hypnotic effect of the vision, clinging to him like sticky afterbirth. “I saw it,” he said.

Saw what?

Eph heard a percussive beating sound then, growing louder, passing overhead, shaking the building. A helicopter.

We are under attack.

Mr. Quinlan helped him to his feet. “Creem,” said Eph. “He told the Master where we are.” Eph held his head. “The Master knows we have the Lumen.”

Mr. Quinlan turned and faced the door. He stood still, as though listening.

They have taken Joaquin.

Eph heard footsteps, soft and distant. Bare feet. Vampires.

Mr. Quinlan grabbed Eph’s arm and lifted him to his feet. Eph looked into Mr. Quinlan’s red eyes, remembering the dream’s end—then quickly put it out of his mind, focusing on the threat at hand.

Give me your spare sword.

Eph did, and after collecting his diary and throwing on his pack, he followed Mr. Quinlan into the corridor. They turned right, finding stairs leading down to the basement, where they entered the underground corridors. Vampires were already in the passages. Noises carried as though conducted on a current. Human yells and sword slashing.

Eph pulled out his sword, turning on his flashlight. Mr. Quinlan moved with great speed, Eph trying to keep up. In a flash, Mr. Quinlan zoomed ahead, and when Eph rounded the corner his beam of light found two decapitated vampires.

Behind you.

Another came out of a side room, Eph spinning and running it through the chest with his blade. The silver weakened it, and Eph withdrew the blade and quickly sliced through its neck.

Mr. Quinlan moved ahead, rushing into battles, slaying vampires before the creatures had a chance to attack. In this way they proceeded through the passageways of the subterranean asylum. A stairway marked with Gus’s fluorescent paint brought them to a passage that led to another stairway, back up into the basement of a campus building.

They exited the mathematics building near the center of the campus, behind the library. Their presence immediately attracted the attention of the invading vampires, who came running at them from all sides without regard for the silver weapons they faced. Mr. Quinlan, with his blazing speed and natural immunity to the infectious worms contained in their caustic white blood, cut down three times as many strigoi as Eph.

An army helicopter approached from the water, swooping overhead, curling hard over the campus buildings. Eph saw the gun mount, though his mind rejected the image at first. He saw the bald vampire head behind the long barrel, then heard the reports, yet still could not process it until he saw the rounds impact the stone walk near his feet—strafing gunfire heading for him and Mr. Quinlan. Eph turned with Mr. Quinlan and ran for cover, getting in under the overhang of the nearest building as the helicopter swung out to come around again.

They ran to the doorway, ducking out of sight for the moment but not entering the building—too easy to become trapped. Eph fumbled out his night scope and held it to his eye just long enough to see dozens of glowing green vampires entering the amphitheater-style quad, like undead gladiators called into battle.

Mr. Quinlan was still next to him, more still than usual. He stared straight ahead as though seeing something somewhere else.

The Master is here.

“What?” Eph looked around. “It must be here for the book.”

The Master is here for everything.

“Where is the book?”

Fet knows.

“You don’t?”

I last saw it in the library. In his hands as he looked for a facsimile to forge…

“Let’s go,” said Eph.

Mr. Quinlan did not hesitate. The giant, domed library was almost directly ahead of them, at the front of the quad basin. He raced out from the doorway and the overhang, slashing an oncoming vampire as he went. Eph followed fast, seeing the helicopter coming back around, wide to his right. He cut down the steps, then back up, the gun firing semiautomatic now, chips of granite pricking at his shins.

The helicopter slowed, hovering over the quad, affording the shooter more stability. Eph ducked between two thick pillars holding up the front portico of the library, partially shielding him from the gunfire. Ahead of him, a vampire got close to Mr. Quinlan and had, as its reward, its head manually torn off its torso. Mr. Quinlan held the door open for Eph, who ran inside.

He stopped halfway through the rotunda. Eph could feel the Master’s presence somewhere within the library. It wasn’t a scent or a vibration; it was the way the air moved in the Master’s wake, curling around itself, creating odd cross-currents.

Mr. Quinlan ran past him, into the main reading room.

“Fet!” called Eph, hearing noises like books falling in the distance. “Nora!”

No reply. He rushed after Mr. Quinlan, but with his sword out, moving it here and there, aware of the Master. He had lost Mr. Quinlan for the moment and so pulled out his flashlight, turning it on.

After nearly a year of disuse, the library had become profoundly dusty. Eph saw the dust hanging in the air in the bright cone of his beam. As he trained his light down along the stacks to an open area at the other end, he noticed a disruption in the dust, as from something moving faster than the eye could see. This disruption, this breathlike rearrangement of particles, moved straight toward Eph at incredible speed.

Eph was struck hard from behind and knocked down. He looked up above him just in time to see Mr. Quinlan take a hard swipe at the advancing air. His sword struck nothing, but on his follow-through he positioned his body to deflect the onrushing threat. The impact was tremendous, though Mr. Quinlan had the advantage of balance.

A stack of bookshelves collapsed next to Eph with tremendous force, the steel fixture driven into the carpeted floor. The loss of momentum revealed the Master, rolling off the downed shelves. Eph saw the dark lord’s face—a moment, just enough to see the worms scuttling madly beneath the surface of its flesh—staring at it before the creature righted itself.

A classic rope-a-dope. Mr. Quinlan had ducked out, drawing the Master to an unguarded Eph, only to blindside it as it attacked. The Master realized this at the same time Eph did, unused as it was to being duped.

BASTARD.

The Master was angry. It rose up and lashed out at Mr. Quinlan, unable to do any lasting damage because of the sword, but going in low and thrusting the Born into the facing book stack.

Then it started away, a black blur, back through the rotunda room.

Mr. Quinlan righted himself quickly and raised up Eph with his free hand. They went running after the Master, through the rotunda room, looking for Fet.

Eph heard a scream, identified it as belonging to Nora, and raced into a side room. He found her with his flashlight. Other vampires had entered from the opposite end, one of them threatening Nora from its perch at the top of a row of stacks, another pair pelting Fet with books. Mr. Quinlan launched himself from a chair, driving at the vampire atop the stacks, catching its neck in his free hand while running it through with his sword, and falling with it into the next row of stacks. That freed Nora to go after the book-hurling vampires. Eph could feel the Master but failed to find it with his flashlight. The marauders were purposeful distractions, Eph knew, but also legitimate threats. He raced down a lane parallel to Fet and Nora’s and met two more intruders coming through the far door.

Eph brandished his sword, but they did not stop. They ran at him and he ran straight at them. He slayed them easily—too easily. Their purpose was simply to occupy him. Eph encountered another one entering but, before attacking it, first risked a look back around the end of the row at Fet.

Fet was slashing and hacking, shielding his face and eyes from the books being thrown at him.

Eph turned and sidestepped the vampire that was nearly upon him, driving his blade through its throat. Another two appeared at the door. Eph made ready to fight them off when he was struck hard by a blow across his left ear. He turned with his flashlight beam and found another vampire standing astride the stacks, hurling books at him. Eph knew then that he had to get out of there.

As he cut down the oncoming pair of sacrificial strigoi, Eph saw Mr. Quinlan streak across the rear of the room. Mr. Quinlan shouldered the book-wielding nuisance off the stacks, launching the vampire across the room—then stopped. He turned in Fet’s direction, and, seeing this, so did Eph.

He watched Fet’s broad blade slice into another wilding vampire—just as the Master descended from the stacks above him, landing behind Fet. Fet was aware of the Master, somehow, and tried to turn and slash at it. But the Master gripped Fet’s backpack, pulling down sharply. The pack slipped back to Fet’s elbows, pinning his arms behind him.

Fet could have shaken free, but that would have meant relinquishing his pack. Mr. Quinlan leaped down off the book stack, racing at the Master. The Master used the thick, sharp nail of its talon-like middle finger to sever the padded shoulder straps, cutting the pack away from Fet even as Fet fought for it. Fet turned and lunged at the Master, and at his pack, with no regard for himself. The Master caught him one-handedly and hurled him—as easily as a book—directly at Mr. Quinlan.

Their collision was violent and loud.

Eph saw the Master with the book bag in hand. Nora faced him now, from the end of her row, standing before him, sword out. What Nora could not see—but the Master and Eph could—were two female vampires racing along the tops of the stacks behind her.

Eph yelled to Nora, but she was transfixed. The Master’s murmur. Eph yelled again, even as he moved, running sword-first at the Master.

The Master turned, deftly anticipating Eph’s attack—but not Eph’s aim. Eph sliced not at the Master’s body, but at the severed strap of the pack itself, just below the Master’s grip. He wanted the Lumen. He clipped the dangling strap and the bag dropped to the library floor. Eph’s momentum took him past the dodging Master—and the action was enough to break Nora’s trance. She turned and saw the strigoi above her, about to strike. Their stingers lashed out, but Nora’s silver sword kept them at bay.

The Master looked back at Eph with ferocious disgust. Eph was off balance and vulnerable to attack—but Mr. Quinlan was getting back on his feet. The Master scooped up the bag of books before Eph could and raced to the rear door.

Mr. Quinlan was up. The Born looked back at Eph, just for a moment, then turned and rushed out the door after the Master. He had no choice. They had to have that book.

Gus chopped at the bloodsucker running at him through the basement, hitting it again before it went down. He ran upstairs to the classroom where Joaquin was and found him lying atop the desk with his head on a folded blanket. He should have been deep in a narcotic sleep, but his eyes were open and staring at the ceiling.

Gus knew. There were no obvious symptoms—it was too early for that—but he could tell that Mr. Quinlan was right. A combination of the bacterial infection, the drugs, and the vampire sting had Joaquin in a stupor.

“Adios.”

Gus did away with him. One swift chop of his sword, and then he stood staring at the unholy mess he had made until the noises from the building stirred him back into action.

The helicopter had returned outside. He heard gunfire and wanted to get out there. But first he ran back into the underground passages. He attacked and slaughtered two unlucky vampires who intervened on his way to his power room. He broke all of his batteries off their chargers, dumping them into a bag with his lamps and his night scopes.

He was alone now—truly alone. And his hideout was blown.

He strapped one Luma lamp to his free hand and readied his sword and set off to fuck up some bloodsuckers.

Eph made his way to a flight of stairs, looking for an exit. He had to get outside.

A door gave way to a loading area and the humid coolness of the night air. Eph switched off his flashlight, trying to orient himself. No vampires, not at the moment. The helicopter was somewhere on the other side of the library, over the quad. Eph started off toward the maintenance garage, where Gus stored his larger weapons. They were vastly outnumbered, and this hand-to-sword combat worked in the Master’s favor. They needed more firepower.

As Eph ran from building to building, anticipating attacks from any direction, he became aware of a presence racing along the rooftops of the campus buildings. A creature following him. Eph caught only glimpses of a partial silhouette, but that was all he needed. He was certain he knew who it was.

As he approached the garage, he noticed a light on inside. That meant a lamp, and a lamp meant a human. Eph ran up to the entrance, close enough to see that the garage door was open. He saw the tricked-out silver grille of a vehicle, Creem’s yellow Hummer backed inside.

Eph had believed Creem to be long gone. Eph turned the corner and saw Creem’s unmistakable barrel-shaped shadow, loading tools and batteries into the rear of the vehicle.

Eph moved quickly but silently, hoping to sneak up on the much larger man. But Creem was on high alert, and something made him spin around, confronting Eph. He grabbed Eph’s wrist, immobilizing his sword arm, then flattened Eph against the Hummer.

Creem got right up in Eph’s face, so close Eph could smell the dog treats on his breath, could see the crumbs still stuck in his silver teeth. “Did you think I was going to be outplayed by some white-bread fuckup with a library card?”

Creem reared back his massive hand, forming a silver-knuckled fist. As he brought it forward toward Eph’s face, a thin figure ran at him from the front of the car, hooking his arm, driving the bigger Creem back toward the rear of the garage.

Eph came off the Hummer coughing for air. Creem was fighting off the intruder in the shadows of the back. Eph found his flashlight, turning it on.

It was a vampire, snarling and scratching at Creem, who was able to hold his own only because of the repellent silver bling on his fingers and the thick silver chains around his neck. The vampire hissed and weaved, slashing with its long talon finger at Creem’s thigh, cutting him, the pain such that the top-heavy Creem collapsed under his own weight.

Eph raised his flashlight beam to the vampire’s face. It was Kelly. She had saved him from Creem because she wanted Eph for herself. The flashlight reminded her of this, and she snarled into its brightness, leaving the wounded Creem and starting toward Eph.

Eph searched the cement floor of the garage for his sword but could not find it. He reached into his pack for his spare but remembered that Mr. Quinlan had taken it.

He had nothing. He backed up, hoping to nudge his fallen sword with his heel, but to no avail.

Kelly approached, crouched low, a sneer of anticipatory ecstasy crossing her vampire face. At long last, she was about to have her Dear One.

And then the look was gone, replaced by a startled expression of fear as she looked past Eph with narrow eyes.

Mr. Quinlan had arrived. The Born stepped next to Eph, its silver sword in hand, tipped in white blood.

Kelly went into full hissing mode, her body tense, ready to spring and escape. Eph did not know what words or sounds the Born was putting into her head, but they distracted and enraged her. He checked Mr. Quinlan’s other hand and did not see Fet’s bag. The book was gone.

Eph, by now at the Hummer’s front door, saw inside the automatic weapons that Gus had delivered to Creem. While the Born compelled Kelly, Eph went into the truck and grabbed the nearest weapon, wrapping its shoulder sling around his forearm. He stepped out and fired past Mr. Quinlan at Kelly, the machine gun suddenly coming to life in his hands.

He missed her with his first volley. Now she was moving, darting up and over the roof of the Hummer to avoid his fire. Eph went quickly around the rear of the truck, shooting at will, chasing the leaping Kelly back out of the garage, firing at her as she raced up the side of the building to the roof and away.

Eph went immediately back inside, to the rear, where Creem was on his feet, trying to get to the Hummer. Eph walked right up to him with the smoking-hot weapon pointed at the gang leader’s considerable chest.

“What the fuck was that?” yelled Creem, looking down at the blood staining his slashed pant leg. “How many of these bloodsuckers you got fighting over you?”

Eph turned to Mr. Quinlan. “What happened?”

The Master. It got away. Far away.

“With the Lumen.”

Fet and Nora came running inside, doubling over, out of breath.

“Watch him,” Eph told Mr. Quinlan before darting outside to cut down any pursuers. But he saw none.

Back inside, Fet was checking Nora for blood worms. They were still trying to catch their breath, exhausted from fright, the fight, and the escape.

“We gotta get the hell outta here,” said Fet between gasps.

“The Master has the Lumen,” said Eph.

“Is everyone all right?” said Nora, seeing Creem in back with Mr. Quinlan. “Where’s Gus?”

Eph said, “Did you hear me? The Master’s got it. It’s gone. We’re through.”

Nora looked at Fet and smiled. Fet made a swirling motion with his finger and she turned around so that Fet could unzip the pack on her back. He pulled out a parcel of old newspaper and unwrapped it.

Inside was the silverless Lumen.

“The Master got the Gutenberg Bible I was working on,” said Fet, smiling more at his own cleverness than the happy outcome.

Eph had to touch it to convince himself that it was real. He looked to Mr. Quinlan to confirm that it was.

Nora said, “The Master’s going to be pissed.”

Fet said, “No. It looks really good. I think he will be pleased…”

Eph said, “Holy shit.” He looked to Mr. Quinlan. “We should leave. Now.”

Mr. Quinlan grabbed Creed roughly by the thick back of his neck.

“What’s this?” asked Nora, referring to Mr. Quinlan’s rough treatment of Creem.

Eph said, “Creem is the one who brought the Master here.” He briefly pointed the weapon at the big man. “But he’s had a change of heart. Now he’s going to help us. He’s going to lead us to the armory to get the detonator. But first we need the bomb.”

Fet was wrapping up the Lumen and returning it to Nora’s backpack. “I can lead you there.”

Eph climbed into the driver’s seat, setting the machine gun on the broad dashboard. “Lead on.”

“Wait,” said Fet, jumping into the passenger seat. “First we need Gus.”

The others jumped in, and Eph started the engine. The headlamps came on, illuminating two vampires coming their way. “Hold on!”

He punched the gas, rolling out toward the surprised strigoi. Eph drove right into them, the creatures perishing on impact with the silver grille. He cut right, off the road, over a dirt lawn, bumping up two steps and onto a campus walkway. Fet took the machine gun and rolled down his window, climbing half out. He sprayed down any pairs or groups of strigoi advancing on them.

Eph turned the corner around one of the larger university halls, crushing an old bicycle rack. He saw the rear of the library and gunned it, avoiding a dry fountain and crushing two more straggling vampires. He came out around the front of the library and saw the helicopter hovering over the campus quad.

He was so focused on the helicopter that he did not see, until the last moment, the long flight of broad stone steps leading down in front of him. “Hang on!” he yelled, both to Fet, hanging outside the window, and to Nora, who was moving weapons in back.

The Hummer dipped down hard and jounced along the stairs like a yellow turtle bumping down a washboard set at a forty-five-degree angle. They rattled around fiercely inside the vehicle, Eph knocking his head against the roof. They bottomed out with a final jolt and Eph swung left, toward the Thinker statue set outside the philosophy building, near where the helicopter had been hovering.

“There!” yelled Fet, spotting Gus and his violet Luma lamp emerging from behind the statue, where he had taken cover from the chopper’s gunfire. The helicopter was turning now toward the truck, Fet raising his weapon and trying to fire one-handedly at the flying machine as he held on to the Hummer’s roof rack. Eph zoomed toward the statue, running down another vampire as he pulled up to Gus.

Fet’s gun choked dry. Shots from the helicopter drove him back inside, the gunfire just missing the truck. Gus came running up and saw Eph behind the wheel, then quickly reached in behind him, imploring Nora, “Give me one of those!”

She did, and Gus brought the machine gun to his shoulder, kicking off rounds at the helicopter overhead—first one at a time, drawing a bead on his target, then firing rapid bursts.

The return gunfire stopped, and Eph saw the helicopter pull back, turning fast, then lower its nose and start away. But it was too late. Gus had hit the Stoneheart pilot, who slumped over with his hand still on the joystick.

The helicopter listed and plummeted, dropping to the corner of the quad on its side, crushing another vampire beneath it.

“Fuck yeah,” said Gus, watching it go down.

The helicopter then burst into flames. Remarkably, a vampire came crawling out of the wreckage, fully engulfed, and started moving toward them.

Gus felled it with a single burst to the head.

“Get in!” yelled Eph over the ringing in his ears.

Gus looked inside the vehicle, ready to defy Eph, not wanting to be told what to do. Gus wanted to stay and slay every single bloodsucker who had dared invade his turf.

But then Gus saw Nora with the muzzle of her gun at Creem’s neck. That intrigued him.

“What’s this?” said Gus.

Nora kicked open her door. “Just get in!”

Fet directed Eph east across Manhattan, then south to the low nineties and east again to the water’s edge. No helicopters, no sign of anyone following them. The bright yellow Hummer was a little too obvious, but they had no time to switch vehicles. Fet showed Eph where to park it, stashed inside an abandoned construction site.

They hurried to the ferry terminal. Fet had always eyed a tugboat docked there, in case of emergency. “And I guess this is it,” he said, stepping behind the controls as they boarded the boat, pushing off into the rough East River.

Eph had taken over watching Creem from Nora. Gus said, “Somebody better explain this.”

Nora said, “Creem was in league with the Master. He gave away our position. He brought the Master to us.”

Gus walked to Creem, holding on to the side of the rocking tug. “Is that true?”

Creem showed his silver teeth. He was more proud than afraid. “I made a deal, Mex. A good one.”

“You brought the bloodsuckers into my crib? To Joaquin?” Gus cocked his head, getting up into Creem’s face. He looked like he was about to go off. “They hang traitors, you piece of shit. Or put them up in front of a firing squad.”

“Well, you should know, hombre, that I wasn’t the only one.”

Creem smiled and turned to Eph. Gus looked his way, as did all the others. “Is there something else we don’t know about?” asked Gus.

Eph said, “The Master came to me through your mother. It offered me a deal for my boy. And I was crazy or weak or whatever you want to call me. But I considered it. I… I kept my options open. I know now that it was a no-win, but—”

“So your big plan,” Gus said. “Your brainstorm to offer the book up to the Master as a trap. That was no trap.”

“It was,” said Eph. “If it was going to work. I was playing both sides. I was desperate.”

“We’re all fucking desperate,” said Gus. “But none of us would turn on our own.”

“I’m being honest here. I knew it was reprehensible. And I still considered it.”

At once, Gus charged at Eph with a silver knife in his hand. Mr. Quinlan, in a blaze of movement, got in front of him just in time, holding Gus back with a palm against his chest.

Gus said to Mr. Quinlan, “Let me at him. Let me kill him right now.”

Goodweather has something else to say.

Eph balanced himself against the motion of the boat, the lighthouse end of Roosevelt Island coming into view. He said, “I know where the Black Site is.”

Gus glared around Mr. Quinlan at him. “Bullshit,” he said.

“I saw it,” said Eph. “Creem knocked me out, and I had a vision.”

“You had a fucking dream?” said Gus. “He’s finally snapped! This guy is fucking insane!”

Eph had to admit it came out sounding more than a little crazy. He wasn’t sure how to convince them. “It was a… a revelation.”

“A traitor one minute, a fucking prophet the next!” said Gus, trying to get at Eph again.

“Listen,” said Eph. “I know how this sounds. But I saw things. An archangel came to me—”

“Oh fucking hell!” Gus said.

“—with great silver wings.”

Gus fought to get after him again, Mr. Quinlan intervening—only this time, Gus tried to fight the Born. Mr. Quinlan took the knife from Gus’s hand, nearly cracking his bones, then broke the knife in two and threw the pieces overboard.

Gus, gripping his sore hand, stood back from Mr. Quinlan like a kicked dog. “Fuck him, and his junkie bullshit!”

He wrestled with himself, like Jacob… like every leader ever to set foot on this earth. It is not faith that distinguishes our real leaders. It is doubt. Their ability to overcome it.

“The archangel… it showed me… ,” said Eph. “It took me there.”

“Took you where?” said Nora. “The site? Where is it?”

Eph feared the vision had started to fade from memory, like a dream. But it remained fixed in his consciousness, though Eph did not think it wise to repeat it now in great detail. “It’s on an island. One of many.”

“An island? Where?”

“Nearby… but I need the book to confirm. I can read it now, I’m positive. I can decipher it.”

“Right!” said Gus. “Just bring him the book! The same one he wanted to turn over to the Master! Just hand it over to him. Maybe Quinlan’s in on it too.”

Mr. Quinlan ignored Gus’s accusation.

Nora waved at Gus to be quiet. “How do you know you can read it?”

Eph had no way to explain it. “I just know.”

“It is an island. You said that.” Nora stepped toward him. “But why? Why were you shown this?”

Eph said, “Our destinies—even those of the angels—are given to us in fragments. The Occido Lumen had revelations that most of us ignored—given to a prophet, in a vision, and then consigned to a handful of lost clay tablets. It has always been like this: the clues, the pieces, that form God’s wisdom come to us through improbable means: visions, dreams, and omens. Seems to me that God sends the message, but leaves it up to us to decipher it.”

“You realize that you are asking us to trust a vision you had,” said Nora to Eph. “After just admitting to us that you were going to mislead us.”

“I can show you,” said Eph. “I know you don’t think you can trust me, but you can. You must. I don’t know why… but I think I can save us. I can save us all. Including Zack. By destroying the Master once and for all.”

“You’re fucking insane,” said Gus. “You were just a stupid asshole but now you are also fucking insane! I bet he knocked back some of the pills he gave Joaquin. He’s telling us about a fucking Ambien dream! The doc is a drug addict, and he’s tripping out. Or else he has the shakes. And we’re supposed to do what he says? After a dream about some angels?” Gus threw up his hands. “You believe that, then you people are as fucking crazy as he is.”

He is telling the truth. Or what he knows to be the truth.

Gus stared at Mr. Quinlan. “Is that the same as being right?”

Fet said, “I think I believe him.” Eph was moved by the nobility of Vasiliy. “I say, back at the blood camp, that sign in the sky was meant for him. There is a reason he had this vision.”

Now Nora looked at Eph as though she barely knew him. Any lingering familiarity she felt she had with him was gone now; he saw that. He was an object now, like the Lumen. “I think we have to listen to him.”

Belvedere Castle

ZACK SAT UPON the big rock inside the snow leopard’s habitat, underneath the branches of a dead tree. He sensed that something was up. Something weird. The castle always seemed to reflect the mood of the Master, in the same way that the weather instruments responded to changes in temperature and air pressure. Something was coming. Zack didn’t know how, but he felt it.

The rifle lay across his lap. He wondered if he would need to use it. He thought of the snow leopard that had once stalked these grounds. He missed his pet, his friend, and yet, in a sense, the leopard was still there with Zack. Inside him.

He saw movement outside the mesh wall. This zoo hadn’t seen another visitor in two years. He used the rifle sight to locate the intruder.

It was Zack’s mother, running his way. Zack had watched her enough to know agitation when he saw it. She slowed as she approached the habitat, seeing Zack inside. A trio of feelers came bounding after her on all fours, like puppies trailing their owner at dinnertime.

These blind vampires were her children now. Not Zack. Now, instead of her having been the one who changed—having turned into a vampire and departed the league of the living—Zack felt that it was he who had passed out of normal existence. That he was the one who had died, in relation to his mother, and lived before her now as a memory she could no longer remember, a ghost in her house. Zack was the strange one. The other.

For a moment, while he had her in his sights, he placed his index finger on the trigger, ready to squeeze. But then he relinquished his grip on the rifle.

He went out through the feeding door, exiting the rear of the habitat, going to her. It was subtle, her agitation. The way her arms hung, her fingers splayed. Zack wondered where she was coming from. And where did she go when the Master sent her out? Zack was her only living Dear One—so whom did she seek? And what now was the sudden emergency?

Her eyes were red and glowing. She turned and started away, commanding the feelers with her eyes, and Zack followed, his rifle at his side. They exited the zoo in time for Zack to see a large group of vampires—a regiment of the legion that ringed the castle of the Master—running through the trees toward the edge of the park.

Something was happening. And the Master had summoned him.

Roosevelt Island

EPH AND NORA waited on the boat, docked on the Queens side of Roosevelt Island, around the northern point of Lighthouse Park. Creem sat watching them from the rear, watching their guns. Across the other side of the East River, Eph saw the lights of a helicopter between buildings, hovering in the vicinity of Central Park.

“What’s going to happen?” Nora asked him, the hood of her jacket keeping out the rain. “Do you know?”

“I don’t,” he said.

“We’re going to make it, right?”

Eph said, “I don’t know that.”

Nora said, “You were supposed to say yes. Fill me with confidence. Make me believe that we can do this.”

“I think we can.”

Nora was soothed by the calm in his voice. “And what do we do about him?” she asked, referring to Creem.

“Creem will cooperate. He will take us to the arsenal.”

Creem huffed at that.

“Because what else does he have?” said Eph.

“What else do we have?” echoed Nora. “Gus’s hideout is blown. So is your place at the ME’s office. Now Fet’s hideaway here, Creem knows about it.”

“We’re out of options,” said Eph. “Though really we’ve only had two options all along.”

“Which were?” said Nora.

“Quit or destroy.”

“Or die trying,” she added.

Eph watched the helicopter take off again, zooming north over Manhattan. The darkness wouldn’t shield them from vampire eyes. The crossing back would be dangerous.

Voices. Gus and Fet. Eph made out Mr. Quinlan with them, cradling something in his arms, like a beer keg wrapped in a tarpaulin.

Gus climbed in first. “They try anything?” he asked Nora.

Nora shook her head. Eph realized then that she had been left there to keep an eye on both of them, as though he and Creem might try to sail away and strand the others on the island. Nora appeared embarrassed that Gus had let Eph learn this.

Mr. Quinlan boarded, the boat dipping down under his weight and the weight of the device. Yet he set it down easily on the deck, a testament to his great strength.

Gus said, “So let’s see this bad boy.”

“When we get there,” said Fet, hurrying to the controls. “I don’t want to open up that thing in this rain. Besides, if we’re going to get inside this army arsenal, we have to make it there by sunup.”

Gus sat on the floor against the side of the boat. The wetness didn’t seem to bother him. He positioned himself and his gun so that he could keep an eye on both Creem and Eph.

They made it back across to the pier, Mr. Quinlan carrying the device to Creem’s yellow Hummer. The oak urns had been loaded previously.

Fet took the wheel, driving north across the city, heading for the George Washington Bridge. Eph wondered if they would hit any roadblocks but then realized that the Master still did not know their direction or destination. Unless…

Eph turned to Creem, wedged tight in the backseat. “Did you tell the Master about the bomb?”

Creem stared at him, weighing the pros and cons of answering truthfully.

He did not.

Creem looked at Mr. Quinlan with great annoyance, confirming Mr. Quinlan’s read of him.

No roadblock. They drove off the bridge into New Jersey, following signs for Interstate 80 West. Eph had dented up Creem’s silver grille nudging a few cars out of the way, in order to clear their path, but they encountered no major obstructions. While they were stopped at an intersection, trying to figure out which way to turn, Creem tried to grab Nora’s weapon and make a break for it. But his bulk prevented him from making any quick movement, and he ate Mr. Quinlan’s elbow, denting his silver grille, just like that of his Hummer.

If their vehicle had been made along the way, the Master would have immediately known their location. But the river, and the proscription against crossing moving bodies of water of their own volition, should have slowed the slaves of the Master who pursued them, if not the Master himself. So it was just the Jersey vampires they had to worry about at the moment.

The Hummer was a fuel guzzler, and the gas-gauge needle leaned close to “E.” They were also racing time, needing to reach the armory at sunup while the vampires slept. Mr. Quinlan made Creem talk, giving them directions.

They pulled off the highway and zoomed toward Picatinny. All sixty-five hundred acres of the vast army installation were fenced. Creem’s way inside involved parking in the woods and trekking a half mile through a swamp.

“No time for that,” said Fet, the Hummer running on fumes. “Where’s the main entrance?”

“What about daylight?” said Nora.

“It’s coming. We can’t wait.” He rolled down Eph’s window and pointed to the machine gun. “Get ready.”

He pulled in, heading straight for the gate, whose sign read, PICATINNY ARSENAL THE JOINT CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR ARMAMENTS AND MUNITIONS, and passed a building labeled VISITOR CONTROL. Vamps came out of the guard shack, Fet blinding them with his high beams and roof-rack lights before ramming them with the silver grille. They went down like milk-filled scarecrows. Those who avoided the Hummer’s swath of destruction danced at the end of Eph’s machine gun, which he fired out from a sitting position, balanced out of the passenger window.

They would communicate Eph’s location to the Master, but the coming dawn—just starting to lighten the swirling black clouds overhead—gave the rest of them a couple of hours’ head start.

That did not account for the human guards, a few of which came out of the visitors center after the Hummer had passed. They were rushing toward their security vehicles as Fet took a corner, wheeling through what looked like a small town. Creem pointed the way toward the research area, where he believed there to be detonators and fuses. “Here,” he said as they approached a block of low-lying, unlabeled buildings. The Hummer coughed and lurched, and Fet turned into a side lot, rolling to a stop. They hopped out, Mr. Quinlan hauling huge Creem from the car like a load of laundry, then pushing the Hummer into a carport space half-hidden from the road. He opened the back and lifted out the nuclear device like luggage, while everyone else, except Creem, grabbed guns.

Inside the unlocked door was a research and development warehouse that had evidently not seen any activity in some time. The lights worked, and the place looked picked over, like a store selling off all its wares at a discount, and the display shelves too. All lethal weapons had been taken, but nonlethal devices and parts remained, on draftsman’s tables and work desks.

“What are we looking for?” asked Eph.

Mr. Quinlan set down the package. Fet pulled off the tarp. The device looked like a small barrel: a black cylinder with buckled straps around its sides and over its lid. The straps bore Russian lettering. A tuft of wires sprouted out of the top.

Gus said, “That’s it?”

Eph examined the tangle of thick, braided wires that ran from beneath the lid. “You’re sure about this thing?” he asked Fet.

“No one’s going to be absolutely sure until this thing mushrooms up to the sky,” said Fet. “It’s a one-kiloton yield, small by nuclear-weapons standards but plenty big for our needs. It’s a fission bomb, low efficiency. Plutonium pieces are the trigger. This thing will take out anything within a half-mile radius.”

“If you can detonate it,” said Gus. “How can we match up Russian and American parts?”

“It works by implosion. The plutonium is projected toward the core like bullets. It’s all laid in there. What we need is something to start the shock wave.”

Nora said, “Something with a delay.”

“Exactly,” said Fet.

“And you’ll have to do it on the fly. We don’t have much time.” She looked at Gus. “Can you get another vehicle together for us? Maybe two?”

Gus nodded. “You people hot-wire this nuclear bomb, I’ll go hot-wire some cars.”

Nora said, “That leaves only one more thing.”

She walked over to Eph and pulled off her pack.

She handed it to him. The Lumen was inside.

“Right,” said Eph, intimidated now that the time was here. Fet was already digging through discarded devices. Mr. Quinlan stood near Creem. Eph found a door that led to a hallway of offices and picked one that was void of any personal effects. A desk, a chair, a file cabinet, and a blank, wall-sized whiteboard.

He pulled the Lumen from Nora’s bag and set it upon the nicked desk. Eph took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind, then opened the first pages. The book felt very ordinary in his hands, nothing like the magical object from his dream. He turned the pages slowly, remaining calm when nothing happened at first, no lightning bolts of inspiration or revelation. The silver threading in the illuminated pages looked dull to his eye underneath the fluorescent ceiling fixtures, the text flat and lifeless. He tried the symbols, touching the page with his fingertips.

Still nothing. How could this be? Perhaps he was just too nervous, too amped up. Nora appeared at his door, Mr. Quinlan behind her. He shaded his eyes with his hands to block them out—trying to block everything out, most important, his own doubts. He closed the book and closed his eyes, trying to force himself to relax. Let the others think what they wanted to think. He went inward. He went to thoughts of Zack. Of freeing his son from the clutches of the Master. To ending this darkness on Earth. To the higher angels flying around inside his head.

He opened his eyes and sat up. He opened the book with confidence. He took his time looking at the text. Studying the same illustrations he had looked at one hundred times before. It wasn’t just a dream, he told himself. He believed this. But, at the same time, nothing was happening. Something was wrong, something was off. The Lumen was holding on to all of its secrets.

“Maybe if you try to sleep,” suggested Nora. “Enter it through your subconscious.”

Eph smiled, appreciating her encouragement, having expected derision. The others wanted him to succeed. They needed him to succeed. He could not let them down.

Eph looked to Mr. Quinlan, hoping the Born had some suggestion or insight.

It will come.

These words made Eph doubt himself more than ever. Mr. Quinlan had no idea, other than faith, faith in Eph, while Eph’s own faith was fading. What have I done? he thought. What will we do now?

“We’ll leave you alone,” said Nora, backing away, closing the door.

Eph shook off his despair. He sat back in the chair and rested his hands upon the book and closed his eyes, waiting for something to happen.

He drifted, at times, but kept waking up, having no luck directing his dreams. Nothing came to him. He tried reading the text two more times before giving up, slamming the book shut, and dreading the walk back out to the others.

Heads turned, Fet and Nora read his expression and his posture, their expectations dashed. Eph had no words. He knew that they understood his distress and frustration, but that didn’t make failure any more acceptable.

Gus came in, shaking rain off his jacket. He passed Creem sitting on the floor near Mr. Quinlan and the nuclear device.

“I got us two rides,” said Gus. “A big army Jeep, enclosed, and an Explorer.” He looked at Mr. Quinlan. “We can get the silver grille onto the Jeep, if you want to help me. They run, but no guarantees. We’ll have to siphon more fuel along the way, or else find a working gas station.” He looked to Fet.

Fet held up his device. “All I know is this is a weatherproof fuse that you can set by hand. Either immediate or delay mode. Just turn this switch.”

“How long is the delay?” asked Gus.

“Not sure. At this point, we’ll have to take what we can get. The wire connections look like they will match up.” Fet shrugged, indicating that he had done as much as he could do. “All we need now is a destination.”

Eph said, “I must be doing something wrong. Or something we forgot, or… something I just don’t know.”

Fet said, “We’ve burned up most of the daylight. When night falls they’re going to start coming for us. We have to move on from here, regardless.”

Eph nodded fast, gripping the book. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Gus said, “We’re done. That’s what you’re telling us.”

Nora said to Eph, “You didn’t get anything from the book? Not even—”

Eph shook his head.

“What about the vision? You said it’s an island.”

“One of dozens of islands. Over twelve in the Bronx alone, eight or so in Manhattan, half a dozen in Staten Island… Like at the mouth of a giant lake.” Eph searched his tired mind. “That’s all I know.”

Nora said, “We can maybe find some military maps. Somewhere around here.”

Gus laughed. “I’m crazy for going along with this, for trusting a crazy coward traitor. For not killing you and saving me this misery.”

Eph noticed Mr. Quinlan doing his usual silent thing. Standing there with arms folded, patiently waiting for something to happen. Eph wanted to go to him, to tell the Born that his faith in Eph was misplaced.

Fet intervened before Eph could. “Look,” he said. “After all we’ve been through—all that we’re going through—there’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t know yourself. I just want you to remember the old man for a second. He died for that thing in your hands, remember. He sacrificed himself so that we would have it. I’m not saying this to put any more pressure on you here. I’m saying it to take the pressure away. The pressure’s gone, as far as I can see. We’re at the end. We’ve got no more. You’re it. We’re with you, thumbs up or thumbs down. I know you’re thinking about your boy; I know it eats at you. But just think about the old man for a moment. Reach down deep. And if there is anything there, you’ll find it—you’ll find it now.”

Eph tried to imagine Professor Setrakian there with him right now, wearing his tweed suit, leaning on the oversized wolf’s-head walking stick that hid his silver blade. The vampire scholar and killer. Eph opened the book. He recalled the one time Setrakian got to touch and read these pages he had sought for decades, just after the auction. Eph turned to the illustration Setrakian had shown them, a two-page spread showing a complex mandala in silver, black, and red. Over the illustration, on tracing paper, Setrakian had laid the outline of a six-limbed archangel.

The Occido Lumen was a book about vampires—not, Eph realized, a book for vampires. Silver-faced and -edged in order to keep it out of the hands of the dread strigoi. Painstakingly designed to be vampire-proof.

Eph thought back to his vision… finding the book upon the outdoor bed…

It had been daylight…

Eph walked to the door. He opened it and stepped out into the parking lot, looking up at the swirling dark clouds beginning to efface the pale orb of the sun.

The others followed him outside into the gloaming, except for Mr. Quinlan, Creem, and Gus, who remained at the door.

Eph ignored them, turning his gaze to the book in his hands. Sunlight. Even if vampires could somehow circumvent the silver protections of the Lumen, they could never read it by natural light, due to the virus-killing properties of the ultraviolet C range.

He opened the book, tipping its pages toward the fading sun like a face basking in the last of the day’s warmth. The text took on new life, jumping off the ancient paper. Eph flipped to the first of the illustrations, the inlaid silver strands sparkling, the image bright with new life.

He quickly searched the text. Words appeared behind words, as though written in invisible ink. Watermarks changed the very nature of the illustrations, and detailed designs emerged behind otherwise bare pages of straightforward text. A new layer of ink reacted to the ultraviolet light…

The two-page mandala, viewed in direct sunlight, evinced the archangel image in a delicate hand, appearing quite silver against the aged paper.

The Latin text did not quite translate itself as magically as it had in his dream, but its meaning became clear. Most elucidating was a diagram revealed in the shape of a biohazard symbol, with points inside the flower arranged like points on a map.

On another page, certain letters were highlighted, which, when put together, formed a peculiar yet familiar word:

Eph read quickly, the insights leaping into his brain through his eyes. The pale sunlight faded quickly at the end, and so did the book’s enhancements. So much more to read and to learn. But for now, Eph had seen enough. His hands continued to tremble. The Lumen had shown him the way.

Eph walked back inside past Fet and Nora. He felt neither relief nor exhilaration, still vibrating like a tuning fork.

Eph looked at Mr. Quinlan, who saw it in his face.

Sunlight. Of course.

The others knew something had happened. Except for Gus, who remained skeptical.

“Well?” said Nora.

Eph said, “I’m ready now.”

“Ready for what?” said Fet. “Ready to go?”

Eph looked at Nora. “I need a map.”

She ran off into the offices. They heard desk drawers slamming.

Eph just stood there, like a man recovering from an electric shock. “It was the sunlight,” he explained. “Reading the Lumen in natural sunlight. It was like the pages opened up for me. I saw it all… or would have, if I’d had more time. The original Native American name for this place was ‘Burned Earth.’ But their word for ‘burned’ is the same as ‘black.’ ”

Oscura. Dark.

“Chernobyl, the failed attempt—the simulation,” said Fet. “It appeased the Ancients because ‘Chernobyl’ means ‘Black Soil.’ And I saw a Stoneheart crew excavating sites around a geologically active area of hot springs outside Reykjavik known as Black Pool.”

“But there are no coordinates in the book,” said Nora.

“Because it was beneath the water,” said Eph. “At the time Ozryel’s remains were cast away, this site was underwater. The Master didn’t emerge until hundreds of years later.”

The youngest one. The last.

A triumphant yell, and then Nora came running back with a sheaf of oversized topographical maps of the northeastern United States, with cellophane street atlas overlays.

Eph flipped the pages to New York State. The top part of the map included the southern region of Ontario, Canada.

“Lake Ontario,” he said. “To the east here.” At the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, east of Wolfe Island, a cluster of tiny, unnamed islands was grouped together, labeled “Thousand Islands.” “It’s there. One of those. Just off the New York coast.”

“The burial site?” said Fet.

“I don’t know what its name is today. The original Native American name for the island was ‘Ahsudagu-wah.’ Roughly translated from the Onondaga language as ‘Dark Place’ or ‘Black Place.’”

Fet slid the road atlas out from beneath Eph’s hands, flipping back to New Jersey.

“How do we find the island?” said Nora.

Eph said, “It’s shaped roughly like the biohazard symbol, like a three-petaled flower.”

Fet quickly plotted their course through New Jersey into Pennsylvania, then north to the top of New York State. He ripped out the pages. “Interstate Eighty West to Interstate Eighty-one North. Gets us right to the Saint Lawrence River.”

“How long?” said Nora.

“Roughly three hundred miles. We can do that in five or six hours.”

“Maybe straight highway time,” said Nora. “Something tells me it won’t be as simple as that.”

“It’s going to figure out which way we’re headed and try to cut us off,” Fet said.

“We have to get going,” said Nora. “We barely have a head start as it is.” She looked to the Born. “Can you load the bomb in the—”

When her voice dropped off, the others turned in alarm. Mr. Quinlan stood next to the unwrapped device. But Creem was gone.

Gus ran to the door. “What the… ?” He came back to the Born. “You let him get away? I brought him into this thing—I was going to take him out.”

We don’t need him anymore. And yet he can still be of use to us.

Gus stared. “How? That rat bastard doesn’t deserve to live.”

Nora said, “What if they catch him? He knows too much.”

He knows just enough. Trust me.

“Just enough?”

To draw fear from the Master.

Eph understood now. He saw it as plain as he had the symbolism in the Lumen. “The Master will be on his way here; that’s guaranteed. We need to challenge it. To scare it. The Master pretends to be above all emotion, but I have seen it angry. It is, going back to biblical times, a vengeful creature. That hasn’t changed. When it administers its kingdom dispassionately, then it is in complete control. It is efficient and detached, all-seeing. But when it is challenged directly, it makes mistakes. It acts rashly. Remember, it became possessed of a bloodlust after laying siege to Sodom and Gomorrah. It murdered a fellow archangel in the grip of a homicidal mania. It lost control.”

“You want the Master to find him?”

“We want the Master to know we have the nuke and the means to detonate it. And that we know the location of the Black Site. We have to get it to overcommit. We have the upper hand now. It’s the Master’s turn to be desperate.”

To be afraid.

Gus stepped up to Eph then. Standing close, trying to read Eph the way Eph had read the book. Taking the measure of the man. Gus held in his hands a small carton of smoke grenades, some of the nonlethal weapons the vampires had left behind.

“So now we have to protect the guy who was going to stab us all in the back,” said Gus. “I don’t get you. And I don’t get this—any of this, but especially you being able to read the book. Why you? Of all of us.”

Eph’s response was frank and honest. “I don’t know, Gus. But I think that part of this is I’m going to find out.”

Gus wasn’t expecting such a guileless response. He saw in Eph’s eyes the look of a man who was scared, and also accepting. Of a man resigned to his fate, whichever way it went.

Gus wasn’t ready to drink the Kool-Aid yet, but he was ready to commit to the final leg of this journey. “I think we’re all going to find out,” he said.

Fet said, “The Master most of all.”

The Dark Place

THE THROAT WAS buried deep in the earth beneath the cold Atlantic sea. The silt around it had turned black upon contact with it and nothing would grow or live near it.

The same was true of every other site where the remains of Ozryel were interred. The angelic flesh remained incorrupt and unchanged, but its blood seeped into the earth and slowly radiated out. The blood had a will of its own, each strand moving blindly, instinctively upward, traversing the soil, hidden from the sun, seeking a host. This is the manner in which the blood worms were born. Within them they contained the remnant of the human blood, tinting their tissue, guiding them toward the scent of their potential host. But also within them they carried the will of their original flesh. The will of the arms, the wings, the throat…

Their thin bodies wriggled blindly for the longest distances. Many of the worms died, infertile emissaries baked by the merciless heat of the earth or stopped by a geological obstacle that proved impossible to negotiate. They all strayed from their birth sites, some even transported away along with the earth on unwitting insect or animal vectors. Eventually they found a host—and they dug in the flesh, like a dutiful parasite, burrowing deep. In the beginning, it took the pathogen weeks to supplant, to hijack, the will and the tissue of the infected victim. Even parasites and viruses learn through trial and error—and learn they did. By the fifth human host body, the Ancients began to master the art of survival and supplantation. They extended their domain through infection, and they learned to play by the new earthbound rules of this game.

And they became masters at it.

The youngest one, the last to be born, was the Master, the throat. God’s capricious verbs gave movement to the very earth and the sea and made them clash and push upward the land that formed the Master’s birth site. It was a peninsula and then, hundreds of years later, an island.

The capillary worms that emanated from the throat were separated from their site of origin and wandered away the farthest, for in this newly formed land, humans had not yet set foot. It was useless and painful to try to nurture or dominate a lower form of life, a wolf or a bear; their control was imperfect and limited, and their synapses were alien and short-lived. Each of these invasions proved fruitless, but the lesson learned by one parasite was instantly learned by the hive mind. Soon their numbers were reduced to only a handful, scattered far away from the birth site: blind, lost, and weak.

Under a cold autumn moon a young Iroquois brave set camp on an earth patch dozens of miles from the birth site of the throat. He was an Onondaga—a keeper of the fire—and as he lay down on the ground, he was overtaken by a single capillary worm, burying itself into his neck.

The pain awakened the man and he instantly reached for the wounded area. The worm was still not entirely burrowed in, so he was able to grab the tail end of it. He pulled with all his might, but the thing wiggled and squirmed against his efforts and finally slipped from his grip, digging into the muscular structure of his neck. The pain was unbearable, like a slow, burning stab, as it wriggled down his throat and chest and finally disappeared under his left arm as the creature blindly discovered his circulation system.

As the parasite overtook the body, a fever started, lasting for almost two weeks and dehydrating its host body. But once the supplantation was complete, the Master sought refuge in the darkened caves and the cold, soothing filth in them. It found that, for reasons beyond its comprehension, the soil in which it overtook its host body provided it with the most comfort, and so it carried around a small clump of earth wherever it went. By now the worms had invaded and taken nourishment from almost every organ in the host’s body, multiplying in his bloodstream. His skin grew taut and pale, contrasting sharply with his tribal tattoos and his ravenous eyes, veiled by the nictitating membrane, glowing brightly in the moonlight. A few weeks went by without any nourishment but finally, close to dawn, he fell upon a group of Mohawk hunters.

The Master’s control over its vehicle was still tentative, but thirst compensated for fighting precision and ability. The transference was faster the next time—multiple worms going into each victim through the wet stinger. Even when the attacks were clumsy and barely completed, they accomplished their end. Two of the hunters fought bravely, their throw-axes doing damage to the body of the possessed Onondaga warrior. But, in the end, even as that body slowly bled out into the earth, the parasites overtook the bodies of their attackers and soon the pack multiplied. Now the Master was three.

Through the years, the Master learned to use its skills and tactics to suit its needs for secrecy and stealth. The land was inhabited by fierce warriors and the places where it could hide were limited to caves and crevices that were well-known to hunters and trappers. The Master seldom transmitted its will into a new body and only did so if the stature or strength of a new host was overwhelmingly desirable. And through the years it gained in legend and name and the Algonquian Indians called it the wendigo.

It longed to commune with the Ancients, whom it naturally sensed and whose empathic beacon it felt across the sea. But every time it attempted to cross running water its human body would fail and be struck by a seizure, no matter the might of the occupied body. Was this tied to the place of his dismemberment? Trapped within the flowing arms of the river Yarden? Was it a secret alchemy, a deterrent written upon his forehead by the finger of God? This and many other rules it would come to learn during its existence.

It moved west and north looking for a route to the “other land,” the continent where the Ancients were thriving. It felt their call—and the urge inside it grew, sustaining the Master over the grueling trek from one edge of the continent to the other.

It reached the forbidding ocean in the frozen lands at the uppermost northwest, where it hunted and fed on the inhabitants of that cold wasteland, the Unangam. They were men of narrow eyes and tanned skin, who wore animal pelts for warmth. The Master, entering the minds of its victims, learned of a crossing to a great land on the other side of the sea, at a place where the shores almost touched, reaching like outstretched hands. It scouted the cold shore, searching for this launching point.

One fateful night, the Master saw a cluster of narrow, primitive fishing ships near a cliff, unloading the fish and seal they had hunted. The Master knew it could cross the ocean aided by them. It had learned to ford smaller bodies of water with human assistance, so why not a larger one? The Master knew how to bend and terrorize the soul of even the hardest man. It knew how to gain and feed upon the fear of its subjects. The Master would kill half the group and announce itself as a deity, a fury of the wood, an elemental force of grander power than his already amazing one. It would suffocate any dissidence and gain every alliance either by pardon or by favor… and then it would travel across the waters.

While hidden beneath a heavy coat of pelts, lying upon a small bed of soil, the Master would attempt the crossing that would reunite it with those closest to its nature.

Picatinny Armory

CREEM HID IN another building for a while, scared of that Quinlan dude and what his reach was. Creem’s mouth still hurt from the elbow he had taken, and now his silver teeth wouldn’t bite right. He was pissed at himself for going back to the maintenance garage at the university for the guns, for being greedy. Always so hungry for more, more, more…

After a while, he heard a car go past, but not too fast, and quiet. It sounded like an electrical car, one of those plug-in compacts.

He headed out toward the one place he used to avoid, the front entrance of Picatinny Armory. Darkness had fallen again, and he walked toward a cluster of lights, wet and hungry and holding the cramp in his side. He turned the corner and saw the smashed gate where they had entered and beings clustered near the Visitor Control building. Creem put his hands up and walked until they saw him.

He explained himself to the humans, but they put him in a locked bathroom anyway, when all Creem wanted was something to eat. He kicked at the door a few times, but it was surprisingly solid; he realized the restroom had doubled as a secret holding cell for problem visitors to the armory. So he sat back on the closed toilet seat and he waited.

A tremendous crash, almost like a blast, shook the walls. The building had taken a blow, and Creem’s first thought was that those assholes had hit a speed bump on the way out and nuked half of Jersey. Then the door opened and the Master stood there in its cloak. It carried a wolf’s-head walking stick in one hand. Two of its little critters, the blind children, scampered around its legs like eager pets.

Where are they?

Creem sat back against the tank of the toilet, oddly relaxed now in the king bloodsucker’s presence.

“They’re gone. They hit the road. Little while ago.”

How long?

“I don’t know. Two vehicles. At least two.”

Which direction?

“I was locked in a fucking bathroom here, how would I know? That vampire they got on their side, the hunter, Quinlan—he’s an asshole. Dented my grille.” Creem touched the unaligned silver in his mouth. “So, hey, do me a favor? When you catch them? Give him and the Mexican an extra kick in the head from me.”

They have the book?

“They got that book. They have a nuclear bomb too. And they know where they are headed. Some Black Site or something.”

The Master stood there, saying nothing. Creem waited. Even the feelers noticed the Master’s silence.

“I said they’re heading for—”

Did they say where?

The Master’s speech pattern was different. The timing of his words was slower.

Creem said, “You know what I could use to jog my memory? Some food. I’m getting weak with fatigue here—”

At once the Master swooped in and gathered Creem in its hands, holding him up off the floor.

Ah yes, said the Master, its stinger slipping from its mouth. Nourishment. Perhaps a bite would help us both.

Creem felt the stinger press against his neck.

I asked you where they are going.

“I… I don’t know. The doc, your other little friend there—he read it in that book. All I know.”

There are other ways to ensure your total compliance.

Creem felt a soft, piston-like thump against his neck. Then a pinprick, and a gentle warmth. He shrieked, expecting to be emptied.

But the Master just held his stinger there and squeezed Creem’s shoulders together, Creem feeling pressure against his shoulder blades and his clavicle, as though the Master was about to crush him like a tin can.

You know these roads?

“Do I know these roads? Sure, I know these roads.”

With an effortless pivot, the Master threw Creem bodily out through the restroom door into the greater Visitor Control building, the big gang leader sprawling on the floor.

Drive.

Creem got up and nodded… unaware of the small drop of blood forming on the side of his neck where the stinger had touched him.

Barnes’s bodyguards walked into his outer office inside Camp Liberty without knocking. Barnes’s assistant’s throat-clearing alerted him to stash the detective book he had been reading in a drawer and pretend to be going over the papers on his desk. They entered, their necks darkly patterned with tattoos, and held the door.

Come.

Barnes nodded after a moment, stuffing some papers into his attaché case. “What is this about?”

No answer. He accompanied them down the stairs and across to the guard at the gate, who let them through. There was a light, dark mist, not enough to warrant an umbrella. It did not appear that he was in any kind of trouble, but then again it was impossible to read anything into his stone-faced bodyguards.

His car pulled up, and they rode sitting next to him, Barnes remaining calm, searching his memory for some mistake or unintended slight he might have made. He was reasonably confident there had been none, but he had never been summoned anywhere quite this way before.

They were heading back to his home, which he thought was a good sign. He saw no other vehicles in the driveway. They walked inside and there was no one there waiting for him, most especially the Master. Barnes informed his bodyguards that he was going to visit the bathroom and spent his alone time in there running the water and teaming up with his reflection in the mirror to try to figure out this thing. He was too old for this level of stress.

He went into the kitchen to prepare a snack. He had just pulled open the refrigerator door when he heard the helicopter rotors approaching. His bodyguards appeared at his side.

He walked to the front door and opened it, watching the helicopter rotate overhead and descend. The skids set down gently on the once-white stones of his wide, circular driveway. The pilot was human, a Stoneheart; Barnes saw that instantly from the man’s black suit jacket and necktie. There was a passenger, but not cloaked, therefore not the Master. Barnes let out a subtle breath of relief, waiting for the engine to turn off and the rotors to slow, allowing the visitor to disembark. Instead, Barnes’s bodyguards each gripped one of his arms and walked him down the front steps and out over the stones toward the waiting chopper. They ducked beneath the screaming rotors and opened the door.

The passenger, sitting with twin seat belts crossed over his chest, was young Zachary Goodweather.

Barnes’s bodyguards boosted him inside, as though he might try to escape. He sat in the chair next to Zack, while they took facing seats. Barnes strapped on his safety restraints; his bodyguards did not.

“Hello again,” said Barnes.

The boy looked at him but did not answer. More youthful arrogance—and maybe something more.

“What’s this about?” asked Barnes. “Where are we going?”

The boy, it seemed to Barnes, had picked up on his fear. Zack looked away with a mixture of dismissal and disgust.

“The Master needs me,” said Zack, looking out the window as the chopper started to rise. “I don’t know why you’re here.”

Interstate 80

THEY DROVE ALONG Interstate 80, west through New Jersey. Fet drove with his foot to the floor, high beams all the way. Occasional debris, or an abandoned car or bus, slowed him down. A few times they passed some skinny deer. But no vampires, not on the interstate—at least, none they could see. Eph sat in the backseat of the Jeep, next to Mr. Quinlan, who was attuned to the vampires’ mental frequency. The Born was like a vampire radar detector: so long as he remained silent, they were okay.

Gus and Nora followed in the Explorer, a backup vehicle in case one of them broke down, which was a real possibility.

The highways were nearly clear. People had tried to evacuate once the plague reached true panic stages (the default human response to an infectious disease outbreak—escape—despite there being no virus-free zone to escape to), and highways jammed all across the country. However, few had been turned in their cars, at least not on the highway itself. Most were taken when they pulled off the main routes, usually to sleep.

“Scranton,” said Fet, passing a sign for Interstate 81 North. “I didn’t think it would be this easy.”

“Long way to go,” said Eph, looking out the window at the darkness rushing past. “How’s our fuel?”

“Okay for now. I don’t want to stop anywhere near a city.”

“No way,” agreed Eph.

“I’d like to get over the border into New York State first.”

Eph looked out at Scranton as they navigated the increasingly cluttered overpasses to the north. He noticed a section of one block burning in the distance and wondered if there were other rebels such as themselves, smaller-scale fighters in smaller urban centers. Occasional electric lights shining in windows drew his eye and made him wonder at all the desperation going on there in Scranton and in similar small cities all across the country and the world. He wondered also where the nearest blood camp was.

“There must be a list of Stoneheart Corporation meatpacking plants somewhere, a master list that would clue us in to the blood camp locations,” said Eph. “Once we get this done, there’s going to be a lot of liberating to do.”

“And how,” said Fet. “If it’s like it was with the other Ancients, then the Master’s clan will die out with him. Vanish. People in the camps won’t know what hit them.”

“Trick will be getting the word out. Without mass media, I mean. We’ll have all these little duchies and fiefdoms popping up across the country. People trying to take control. I’m not so sure democracy will automatically bloom.”

“No,” said Fet. “It’s going to be tricky. Lots of work. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Eph looked at Mr. Quinlan sitting next to him. He noticed the leather sack between his boots. “Do you die with all the others when the Master is destroyed?”

When the Master is obliterated, his bloodline is no more.

Eph nodded, feeling the heat of the half-breed’s supercharged metabolism. “Nothing in your nature prevents you from working toward something that will ultimately result in your own demise?”

You’ve never worked toward something that went against your own self-interest?

Eph said, “No, I don’t think I have. Nothing that could kill me, that’s for sure.”

There is a greater good at stake. And vengeance is a uniquely compelling motivation. Revenge trumps self-preservation.

“What is it you’re carrying in that leather pack?”

I am sure you already know.

Eph remembered the Ancients’ chamber beneath Central Park, their ashes set inside receptacles of white oak. “Why are you bringing along the Ancients’ remains?”

You did not see that in the Lumen?

Eph had not. “Are you… intending on bringing them back? Resurrecting them somehow?”

No. What is done cannot be undone.

“Why, then?”

Because it is foretold.

Eph puzzled over that one. “Is something going to happen?”

Are you not concerned about the ramifications of success? You said yourself that you are uncertain democracy will spontaneously bloom. Humans have never truly had self-rule. It has been that way for centuries. Do you think you will be able to manage on your own?

Eph had no answer for him. He knew that the Born was right. The Ancients had been pulling strings since near the beginning of human history. What would the world look like without their intervention?

Eph watched out his window as the distant blaze, which was substantial, faded from view. How to put it all back together again? Recovery seemed like an impossibly daunting task. The world was already irretrievably broken. For a moment he even wondered if it was worth it.

Of course, that was just fatigue talking. But what had once seemed like the end of their troubles—destroying the Master and retaking stewardship of the planet—would in reality be the beginning of a brand-new struggle.

Zachary and the Master

ARE YOU LOYAL? asked the Master. Are you thankful for all I have provided, for all that I have shown you?

“I am,” answered Zachary Goodweather with not a moment’s doubt. The spiderlike shape of Kelly Goodweather watched her son, perched on a ledge nearby.

The end of times is near. Where we define together this new earth. All that you knew—all of those that were close to you—will be gone. Are you to be faithful to me?

“I will be,” answered Zack.

I have been betrayed many times in the past. You should know that I am thus familiar with the mechanics of such plotting. Part of my will resides in you. You can hear my voice with distinct clarity, and in return, I am privy to your innermost thoughts.

The Master got up and examined the boy. There was no doubt detectable in him. He was in awe of the Master, and the gratitude he expressed was genuine.

I was betrayed once by those who should have been the closest to me. Those that I shared my very essence with—the Ancients. They had no pride in them—no real hunger. They were content living their lives in the shade. They blamed me for our condition and took shelter in the refuse of mankind. They thought themselves powerful, but they were quite weak. They sought alliance. I seek domination. You understand that, don’t you?

“The snow leopard,” said Zack.

Precisely. All relationships are based on power. Domination and submission. There is no other way. No equality, no congeniality, no shared domain. There is only one king in a kingdom.

And here, the Master looked at Zack with calculated precision—enacting what the Master believed human kindness should look like—before adding, One king and one prince. You understand that too, don’t you? My son.

Zack nodded. And with that he accepted both the notion and the title. The Master scanned every gesture, every nuance on the young man’s face. It listened carefully to the rhythm of his heart, looked at the pulse in his carotid artery. The boy was moved—excited by this simulated bond.

The caged leopard was an illusion. One that you needed to destroy. Bars and cages are symbols of weakness. Imperfect measures of control. One may choose to believe they are there to subjugate the creature inside—to humiliate it—but in due time one realizes they also are there to keep it away. They become a symbol of your fear. They limit you as much as the beast within. Your cage is just bigger, and the freedom of the leopard lies in those confines.

“But if you destroy it,” said Zack, developing the thought himself, “if you destroy it… there is no doubt left.”

Consumption is the ultimate form of control. Yes. And now we stand together at the brink of control. Absolute domination of this earth. So—I have to make sure that nothing stands between you and me.

“Nothing,” said Zack with absolute conviction.

The Master nodded, apparently pensive, but in fact building a pause calculated long before for maximum effect. The revelation he was about to give to Zack needed that careful timing.

What if I said to you that your father was still alive?

And then the Master felt it—a torrent of emotions swirling inside Zack. A turmoil that the Master had thoroughly anticipated but that intoxicated him all the same. It loved the taste of broken hopes.

“My father is dead,” said Zack. “He died with Professor Setrakian and—”

He is alive. This has been brought to my attention only recently. As to the question of why he has never attempted to rescue you or contact you, I’m afraid I cannot be of assistance. But he is very much alive and seeks to destroy me.

“I will not let him,” said Zack, and he meant it. And, in spite of itself, the Master felt strangely flattered by the purity of sentiment the young man had for him. Natural human empathy—the phenomenon known as “Stockholm syndrome,” whereby captives come to identify with and defend their captors—was a simple enough tune for the Master to play. It was a virtuoso of human behavior. But this was something more. This was true allegiance. This, the Master believed, was love.

You are now making a choice, Zachary. Perhaps your first choice as an adult, and what you choose now will define you and define the world around you. You need to be completely sure.

Zack felt a lump in his throat. He felt resentment. All the years of mourning were alchemically transformed into abandonment. Where had his dad been? Why had he left him behind? He looked at Kelly, standing nearby, a horrible squalid specter—a monstrous freak. She, too, had been abandoned. Was it not all Eph’s fault? Had he not sacrificed all of them—his mother, Matt, and Zack himself—in pursuit of the Master? There was more loyalty from his twisted scarecrow of a mother than from his human father. Always late, always far away, always unavailable.

“I choose you,” said Zack to the Master. “My father is dead. Let him stay that way.”

And once again, he meant it.

Interstate 80

NORTH OF SCRANTON, they began to see strigoi standing at the side of the highway like sentinels. Passive, camera-like beings appearing out of the darkness, standing just off the road, watching the vehicles zoom past them.

Fet reacted to the first few of them, tempted to slow and slay them, but Eph told him not to bother. “They have already seen us,” said Eph.

“Look at this one,” said Fet.

Eph first saw the WELCOME TO NEW YORK STATE sign by the side of the highway. Then, eyes glowing like glass, the female vampire standing beneath it, watching them pass. The vampires communicated the vehicles’ location to the Master in a sort of internalized, instinctual GPS. The Master knew that they were now making their way north.

“Hand me the maps,” said Eph. Fet did, and Eph read it by flashlight. “We’re making great time on the highway. But we have to be smart. It’s only a matter of time before they throw something at us.”

The walkie-talkie in the front seat crackled. “Did you see that one?” asked Nora in the trailing Explorer.

Fet picked up the radio and answered. “The welcoming committee? We saw her.”

“We have to go back roads.”

“We’re with you. Eph’s looking at the map now.”

Eph said, “Tell her we’ll head up to Binghamton for gas. Then stay off the highway after that.”

They did just that, pulling sharply off the highway at the first Binghamton exit advertising fuel, following the arrow at the end of the off-ramp to a cluster of gas stations, fast food restaurants, a furniture store, and two or three little strip malls, each anchored by a different coffee shop drive-through. Fet skipped the first gas station, wanting more room in case of emergency. The second, a Mobil, featured three aisles of tanks angled in front of an On the Go convenience mart. The sun had long ago faded all the blue letters on the MOBIL sign, and now only the red “O” was visible, like a hungry, round mouth.

No electricity, but they had kept Creem’s hand pump from the Hummer, knowing that they would have to do some siphoning. The ground caps were all still in place, which was a good indication that fuel remained in the underground tanks. Fet pulled the Jeep next to one and pried up the cap with a tire iron. The gasoline smell was pungent, welcome. Gus pulled in and Fet waved him over to back up near the tank opening. Fet pulled out the pump and narrow tubing, feeding the longer end into the ground tank and the shorter end into the Jeep.

His wound had started to hurt again and it bled intermittently, but Fet hid both facts from the group. He told himself he was doing this in order to see it all through—to stick to the end. But he knew that, for the better part, he wanted to be there between Eph and Nora.

Mr. Quinlan stood at the roadside, looking up and down the dark lane. Eph wore his weapon pack over one shoulder. Gus carried a Steyr submachine gun loaded half with silver and half with lead. Nora went around the side of the building, relieving herself and quickly returning to the cars.

Fet was pumping hard, but it was slow work, the fuel only now starting to spray into the Jeep’s tank. It sounded like cow’s milk hitting a tin can. He had to pump faster to achieve a steady flow.

“Don’t go too deep,” said Eph. “Water settles at the bottom, remember?”

Fet nodded impatiently. “I know.”

Eph asked if he wanted to trade off, but Fet refused, his big arms and shoulders doing the work. Gus left them, walking out into the road near Mr. Quinlan. Eph thought about stretching his legs more but found that he did not want to be too far away from the Lumen.

Nora said, “Did you work on the trigger fuse?”

Fet shook his head as he worked.

Eph said, “You know how mechanical I am.”

Nora nodded. “Not at all.”

Eph said, “I’m driving the next leg. Fet can work on the detonator.”

“I don’t like taking so much time,” said Nora.

“We need to wait for the next meridiem anyway. With the sun up, we can work freely.”

Nora said, “A whole day? That’s too much time. Too much risk.”

“I know,” said Eph. “But we need daylight to do this thing right. Got to hold off the vamps until then.”

“But once we get to the water, they can’t touch us.”

“Getting on the water is another task altogether.”

Nora looked to the dark sky. A cool breeze came along and she shrugged her shoulders against it. “Daylight seems like a long time away. I hope we don’t lose our head start here.” She turned her gaze to the deadness of the street. “Christ, I feel like there are one hundred eyes staring at me.”

Gus was jogging back toward them from the sidewalk. “You’re not far off,” he said.

“Huh?” said Nora.

Gus opened the hatch on the Explorer, pulling out two road flares. He ran back to the street, far enough away from the gas fumes, and sparked them to life. One he tossed end over end into the parking lot of the Wendy’s across the road. The spitting red flame lit the forms of three strigoi standing at the building’s corner.

The other he hurled toward some abandoned cars in an old rental car parking lot. That flare bounced off a vampire’s chest before hitting the asphalt. The vampire never flinched.

“Shit,” said Gus. He pointed at Mr. Quinlan. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

They have been here the entire time.

“Jesus,” said Gus. He went running toward the rental car company and opened up on the vampire there. The machine gun reports echoed long after he was done, and the vampire lay on the ground, not dead but down for good and full of bleeding white holes.

Nora said, “We should get out of here.”

“Won’t get far without gas,” said Eph. “Fet?”

Fet was pumping, the fuel flowing more freely now. Getting there.

Gus fired his Steyr across at the other flare, trying to scatter the vampires in the Wendy’s lot, but they didn’t scare. Eph drew his sword, seeing movement behind the cars in the parking lot on the other side. Figures running.

Gus yelled out, “Cars!”

Eph heard the engines approaching. No headlights, but vehicles coming out of the darkness, underneath the highway overpass, slowing to a stop.

“Fet, you want me to—?”

“Just keep them back!” Fet pumped and pumped, trying not to breathe the toxic fumes.

Nora reached inside both cars, turning on each set of headlights, illuminating the immediate area east and west.

To the east, opposite the highway, vampires crowded the edge of the light, their red eyes reflecting like glass baubles.

To the west, coming from the highway, two vans, figures emptying out of them. Local vampires called into duty.

“Fet?” said Eph.

“Here, switch tanks,” said Fet, pumping hard, not stopping. Eph pulled the tubing from the Jeep’s almost-full tank and quickly transferred it to the Explorer, gasoline spraying out onto the hardtop.

Footsteps now, and it took Eph a moment to locate them. Overhead, on top of the canopy roof, right above them. The vampires were encircling them and closing in.

Gus opened up his gun on the trucks, winging a vampire or two but not doing any real damage.

“Move away from the tank!” yelled Fet. “I don’t want any sparks nearby!”

Mr. Quinlan returned from the roadside, near Eph at the vehicles. The Born felt it was his responsibility to protect him.

“Here they come!” said Nora.

The vampires began to swarm. A coordinated effort, first focusing on Gus. Four vampires, two running at him from either side. Gus fired on one pair, shredding them, then wheeled and put down the other two, but only just in time.

While he was occupied, a handful of dark figures seized the opportunity to break from the adjoining lots, running toward the Mobil.

Gus turned and sprayed them, hobbling a few, but had to turn back around as more advanced on him.

Mr. Quinlan darted forward with amazing agility, meeting three advancing fellow strigoi and forcefully driving his open hands into their throats, snapping their necks.

Bang! A small vampire, a child, dropped down onto the roof of the Jeep from the carport roof. Nora swiped at it, and the little vampire hissed and darted backward, the Jeep rocking gently. Eph rushed around past the headlights to the other side of the Jeep, looking to slay the nasty little thing. It wasn’t there.

“Not here!” said Eph.

“Not here either!” called Nora.

Eph said, “Underneath!”

Nora got down and swung her sword underneath the vehicle’s carriage, the blade’s reach long enough to drive the child back out toward Eph’s side. He cut at its lower right leg, severing the Achilles tendon. But instead of retreating again, the maimed vampire came right out from beneath the Jeep and sprang up at him, Eph’s sword meeting it halfway, cutting down the blood-rabid strigoi in midair. He felt the effort more than ever. He felt his muscles twitch and spasm. A flash of pain ran from his elbow to his lower back. His arm curled in a brutal cramp. He knew what it was: he was malnourished, perhaps even to the point of starvation. He ate very little and very badly—no minerals, no electrolytes, his nerve endings terminally raw. He was coming to an end as a fighter. He fell down, releasing his sword, feeling a million years old.

A wet crunching sound startled Eph from behind. Mr. Quinlan was behind him, bright in the headlights, the head of another child vampire in one hand, the body in his other. The vampire had gotten the drop on Eph, but Mr. Quinlan saved him. The Born threw the dripping body parts to the blacktop as he turned, anticipating the next attack.

Gus’s gun rattled out in the street as more vampires converged on them from the edges of darkness. Eph cut down two more adult strigoi running up from behind the gas station store. He was worried about Nora being on her own, on the other side of the cars.

“Fet! Come on!” he yelled.

“Almost!” Fet yelled back.

Mr. Quinlan lashed out, dropping more sacrificial strigoi, his hands dripping white. They just kept coming.

“They’re trying to hold us here,” said Eph. “Slow us down!”

The Master is en route. And others. I can sense it.

Eph stabbed the closest strigoi by the throat, then kicked it in the chest, retrieved his blade, and ran around to the other side of the Jeep. “Gus!” he called.

Gus was already retreating, his smoking gun silent. “I’m out.”

Eph chopped at a pair of vampires coming up on Nora, then whipped the fuel line out of the Explorer’s tank. Fet saw this and finally gave up pumping. He grabbed Eph’s spare sword out of his pack and took care of another animal-like vampire coming over the Explorer’s hood.

Gus jumped into the front seat of the Explorer, grabbing another weapon. “Go! Get out of here!”

There was no time to throw the gas-soaked pump into the truck. They abandoned it there, gas still drooling out of the tube, slicking the hardtop.

“Don’t shoot this close!” said Fet. “You’ll blow us up!”

Eph went for the Jeep’s door. He watched through the windows as Mr. Quinlan grabbed a female vampire by her legs and whipped her head against a steel column. Fet was in the backseat behind Eph, fighting off vamps trying to get in the door. Eph jumped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut and turning the key.

The engine started up. Eph saw that Nora was inside the Explorer. Mr. Quinlan was the last, climbing into the backseat of the Jeep with strigoi running up to his window. Eph threw the truck into drive and curled out into the street, mowing down two vampires with the Jeep’s silver grille. He saw Nora zoom the Explorer out to the edge of the road, then stop short. Gus jumped out with his machine gun and bent low, firing laterally across the hardtop at the leading edge of the fuel spill. It ignited and he jumped into the Explorer, and both trucks sped away as the flame slid toward the uncapped ground tank, igniting the fumes above for one brief, beautiful moment of winged flame—then the ground tank erupted, an angry orange-black blast, making the ground shudder, splitting the canopy, and frying the strigoi still there.

“Jesus,” said Fet, watching out the back window, past the tarp-covered nuclear bomb. “And that’s nothing compared to what we’ve got here.”

Eph gunned it past the vehicles in the road, some of the vampires rushing to get behind the wheel. He wasn’t worried about outrunning them. Only the Master.

Late-arriving vampires darted out into the street, practically throwing themselves into the path of the Jeep in an attempt to slow them down. Eph tore through them, seeing hideous faces for an instant in the headlights just at impact. The caustic white blood ate at the Jeep’s rubber wiper blades after a few back-and-forth swipes. A gang had gathered on the entrance ramp leading back onto Interstate 81, but Eph went right by that ramp, heading down the dark town road.

He followed the main road, handing the map back to Fet, watching for the Explorer’s headlights in his rearview mirror. He didn’t see them. He felt for the walkie-talkie, finding it on the seat near his hip. “Nora? You get out? You two okay?”

Her voice came back a moment later, adrenalized. “We’re good! We’re out!”

“I don’t see you.”

“We’re… I don’t know. Probably behind you.”

“Just keep heading north. If we get separated, meet up at Fishers Landing as soon as you can get there. You got that? Fishers Landing.”

“Fishers Landing,” she said. “Okay.” Her voice crackled.

“Run with your headlights off when you can—but only when you can. Nora?”

“We’re going to… up… onward.”

“Nora, I’m losing you.”

“…Eph…”

Eph felt Fet leaning up behind him. “Radio range is only about one mile.”

Eph checked his mirrors. “They must have headed down another road. So long as they stay off the highway…”

Fet took the radio, trying to raise her, but got nothing. “Shit,” he said.

“She got the rendezvous point,” said Eph. “She’s with Gus. She’ll be all right.”

Fet handed back the radio. “They have enough fuel, anyway. Now all we have to do is stay alive until sunrise.”

At the roadside, beneath a blank marquee sign for an old abandoned drive-in movie theater, an expressionless strigoi followed the Jeep with his eyes as it passed him by.

The Master reached out with its mind. Although it seemed counterintuitive, engaging many different perspectives at once served to focus the Master’s thoughts and soothe its temper.

Through the eyes of one of its minions, the Master watched the green vehicle driven by Dr. Ephraim Goodweather barrel through an unlit intersection in rural upstate New York, the oversized Jeep following the central yellow line. Moving ever north.

It viewed the Explorer driven by Dr. Nora Martinez driving past a church in a small town square. The criminal Augustin Elizalde leaned out the front window, and there was a muzzle flash and the Master’s view disappeared. They were also moving north, along the other side of the highway they had started out on—the interstate on which the Master was now traveling at a high rate of speed.

It saw the boy, Zachary Goodweather, seated in the helicopter crossing the state through the air, traveling northwest on a sharp diagonal. The boy looked out the window of the flying machine, ignoring the airsick Dr. Everett Barnes seated next to him, the older man’s face a bluish shade of gray. The boy, and perhaps Barnes, would be instrumental to the Master in distracting or otherwise persuading Goodweather.

The Master also saw through Kelly Goodweather’s perception. Traveling inside a moving vehicle dulled her homing impulse somewhat, but still the Master felt her closeness to Dr. Goodweather, her former human mate. Her sensitivity gave the Master another perspective with which to triangulate his focus on Dr. Goodweather.

Turn off here.

The town car swerved and zoomed down the exit ramp, the gang leader Creem driving with a heavy foot.

“Shit,” said Creem upon seeing the still-burning service station just up the road. The smell of burned fuel entered the automobile’s ventilation system.

Left.

Creem followed directions, turning away from the blast site, wasting no time. They passed the drive-in theater marquee and the vampire standing watch there. The Master dipped again into its vision and saw itself inside the black town car, hurtling down the roadway.

They were gaining on Goodweather.

Eph roared along country roads, winding their way north. He kept changing routes to keep his pursuers guessing. Vampire sentinels stood watch at every turn. Eph could tell if he had been on the same road for too long when they put obstacles in his way, trying to slow him down or make him crash: other cars, a wheelbarrow, planters from a garden store. Driving upwards of fifty miles per hour on a pitch-black road, these things came up fast in his headlights and were dangerous to maneuver around.

A few times the vampires tried to ram them with a car or follow them. That was Fet’s cue to rise up out of the sunroof with the machine gun in hand.

Eph avoided the city of Syracuse altogether, traveling east around the outskirts. The Master knew where they were—but it still did not know where they were going. That was the only thing saving them right now. Otherwise it would mass its slaves at the shore of the Saint Lawrence River, keeping Eph and the others from getting through.

If possible, Eph would have just kept driving until daylight. But gasoline was an issue, and stopping to refuel was simply too dangerous. They were going to have to risk waiting for daylight at the river, potentially as sitting ducks.

On the plus side, the farther north they drove, the fewer roadside strigoi they saw. The lower rural population was in their favor.

Nora was at the wheel. Reading maps was not one of Gus’s strengths. Nora was confident they were moving north in general but knew that they had occasionally gotten sidetracked a little too far east or west. They were past Syracuse, but suddenly Watertown—the last city of any size before the Canadian border—seemed so far away.

The radio at her hip had crackled a few times, but every time she tried to raise Eph, she received only silence in return. After a while she stopped trying. She did not want to chance running down the batteries.

Fishers Landing. That was what Eph had said, where they were to meet. Nora had lost track of how many hours it had been since sundown, how many more it would be until sunrise—all she knew was that it was too many. She wanted daylight far too badly to dare to trust her own gut estimation.

Just get there, she thought. Get there and figure it out.

“Here they come, doc,” said Gus.

Nora looked all around the street in front of her. She saw nothing, driving so intently through the darkness. Then she saw it: a hint of light through the treetops.

Moving light. A helicopter.

“They’re looking for us,” said Gus. “Haven’t spotted us yet, I don’t think.”

Nora kept one eye on the light and the other on the road. They passed a sign for the highway and realized they had drifted back near the interstate. Not good.

The helicopter circled toward them. “I’m cutting the headlights,” she said, which also meant slowing way down.

They drifted down the dark road, watching the helicopter come around, approaching near. The light grew brighter as it began to descend, maybe a few hundred yards north of them.

“Hold up, hold up,” said Gus. “It’s landing.”

She saw the light setting down. “That must be the highway.”

Gus said, “I don’t think they saw us at all.”

She continued to roll down the road, judging its margins by the black treetop branches framed against the less-black sky. Trying to decide what to do.

“Should we take off?” she said. “Risk it?”

Gus was trying to see through the windshield up to the highway. “You know what?” he said. “I don’t think they were looking for us after all.”

Nora kept her eyes on the road. “What is it, then?”

“You got me. Question is—do we dare to find out?”

Nora had spent enough time with Gus to know that this was not actually a question. “No,” she said quickly. “We need to go. To keep going.”

“It could be something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Why we have to look. I haven’t seen any roadside bloodsuckers for a few miles anyway. I think we’re good for a quick look.”

“A quick look,” said Nora, as though she could hold him to that.

“Come on,” he said. “You’re curious too. Besides—they were using their light, right? That means humans.”

She pulled over to the left side of the road and turned off the engine. They got out of the car, forgetting that the interior lights came on once the doors were opened. They closed them quickly without slamming them and stood and listened.

The rotors were still spinning but slowing down. The engine had just been turned off. Gus held his machine gun away from himself as he scrambled up the weedy, rocky embankment, with Nora just behind and to the left of him.

They slowed at the top, their faces rising beneath the guardrail. The chopper was another one hundred yards or so down the highway. There were no cars in sight. The rotors stopped rotating, though the helicopter light remained illuminated, shining off to the opposite side of the road. Nora made out four silhouettes, one of them shorter than the others. And she could not be sure, but she believed that the pilot—probably a human, judging by the light—was still inside the cockpit, waiting. For what? Taking off again soon?

They ducked back down. “A rendezvous?” said Nora.

“Something like that. You don’t think it’s the Master, do you?”

“Can’t tell,” she said.

“One of them was small. Looked like a kid.”

“Yeah,” said Nora, nodding… and then she stopped nodding. Her head shot up again, and this time she looked over the top of the guardrail. Gus pulled her back down by her belt, but not before she had convinced herself of the identity of the ragged-haired boy. “Oh my God.”

“What?” said Gus. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

She drew her sword. “We have to get over there.”

“Well, sure, now you’re talking. But what’s the—”

“Shoot the adults but not the kid. Just don’t let them get away.”

Nora was up and over the guardrail before Gus could get to his feet. She was running straight at them, Gus having to hustle to keep up. She watched the larger two figures turn her way before she had made any real noise. The vampires saw her heat impression, sensing the silver in her sword. They stopped and turned back to the humans. One grabbed the boy and tried to lift him inside the helicopter. They were going to take off again. The engine turned over, the rotors starting their hydraulic whine.

Gus opened up his weapon, picking at the long tail of the helicopter at first, then stitching up the side toward the passenger compartment. That was enough to drive the vampire carrying the boy away from the chopper. Nora was more than halfway to them now. Gus fanned out wide to her left, picking at the cockpit glass. The glass did not shatter, the rounds punching clean through until a spray of red went out over the opposite end.

The pilot’s body slumped forward. The rotors continued to speed up but the chopper did not move.

One vampire left the man he was guarding and ran at Nora. She saw the dark, decorative ink on its neck and immediately placed the vamp as one of the prison bodyguards—one of Barnes’s bodyguards. The thought of Barnes erased all fear, and Nora came at the vampire with her sword high and her voice at full yell. The big vampire went low at the last moment, surprising her, but she sidestepped him like a matador, bringing down her sword on his back. He skidded across the blacktop on his front side, burning off flesh, then hopped back up to his feet. Pale skin hung from his thighs, chest, and one cheek. That didn’t slow him down. The silver wound to his back did.

Gus’s gun rattled and the big vampire twitched. The shots stunned him but did not put him down. Nora did not give the powerful strigoi time to mount another attack. She treated his neck tattoos like targets and took off his head.

She turned back toward the helicopter, squinting into its rotor wash. The other tattooed vampire was away from the humans, circling Gus. It understood and respected the power of silver—but not the power of a machine gun. Gus walked up on the hissing strigoi, right up inside its stinging radius, and fired a cluster of head shots. The vamp went down backward and Gus advanced and shot up its neck, releasing the creature.

The man was down on one knee, bracing himself on the open door of the helicopter. The boy watched both vampires go down. He turned and ran toward the roadside, in the direction the helicopter light was shining. Nora saw something in his hands, which he held in front of him as he ran.

Nora yelled, “Gus, get him!” because Gus was closest. Gus took off after the kid. The skinny kid was fast enough but unsteady. He jumped over the guardrail and landed all right, but in the shadowy ground beyond he misjudged a step or two and got tangled up in his own feet.

Nora was standing near Barnes beneath the whirling rotor umbrella of the helicopter. He was still airsick and on his knee. Yet when he looked up and recognized Nora’s face, he paled even more.

Nora raised her sword and was ready to strike when she heard four sharp cracks, dulled beneath the sound of the helicopter. It was a small rifle, the boy firing at them in a panic. Nora wasn’t hit but the bullets exploded awfully near. She moved away from Barnes and entered the underbrush. She saw Gus lunge for the boy and tackle him before he could fire again. He picked the kid up by his shirt, turning him toward the light, Gus making sure he wasn’t dealing with a vampire. Gus pulled the empty rifle out of his hand and threw it into the trees. The kid bucked, so Gus gave him a good shake, just violent enough to let him know what could happen to him if he tried to fight. Still, the kid squinted in the light, trying to pull away, genuinely afraid of Gus.

“Easy, kid. Jesus.”

He dragged the squirming boy back over the guardrail.

Nora said, “You okay, Gus?”

Gus wrestled with the kid. “He’s a lousy shot, so yeah.”

Nora looked back at the chopper. Barnes had vanished. She squinted past the helicopter light, searching for him, but to no avail. Nora cursed softly.

Gus took another look at the kid’s face there and noticed something about him, his eyes, the structure of his face. He looked familiar. Too familiar.

Gus looked at Nora. “Oh, come on,” said Gus.

The kid kicked at Gus with the heel of his sneaker. Gus kicked him back, only harder.

“Christ—just like your father,” Gus said.

That slowed the kid down. He looked at Gus, though still trying to pull away. “What do you know?” he said.

When Nora looked at Zack, she both recognized him at once and not at all: the boy’s eyes were nothing like she had remembered. His features had matured as any boy’s would have over a two-year period—but his eyes lacked the light they had once had. If the curiosity was still there, it was darker now, it was deeper. It was as though his personality had retreated into his mind, wanting to read but not to be read. Or maybe he was just in shock. He was only thirteen, after all.

He is hollow. He is not there.

“Zachary,” she said, not knowing what to do.

The boy looked at her for some moments before recognition crept into his eyes. “Nora,” he said, pronouncing the word slowly, as though having nearly forgotten it.

Despite the fact that there were fewer drones available to monitor the various potential automobile routes in northern New York State, the Master’s path grew ever more certain. The Master had viewed Dr. Martinez’s ambush through the eyes of Dr. Barnes’s security detail, until their violent release. Currently, the Master saw the helicopter in the highway, rotors still spinning, viewed through Kelly Goodweather’s eyes.

The Master watched as Kelly directed her driver down a steep embankment to an auxiliary road, driving fast, following the Explorer’s path. Kelly’s bond with Zachary was much more intense than her bond with her ex-mate Dr. Ephraim Goodweather. Her longing was much more pronounced—and, in this moment, productive.

And now the Master had an even better read on the infidels’ progress. They had taken the bait the Master knew would prove irresistible. The Master watched through Zachary’s eyes, sitting in the backseat of the automobile driven by Augustin Elizalde. The Master was all but with them there in the vehicle as they headed to rendezvous with Dr. Goodweather, who had possession of the Lumen and knowledge of the location of the Black Site.

“I am following them,” said Barnes, his voice crackling on a radio. “I will keep you informed. You have me on the GPS.”

And indeed, a dot was visible on the GPS. An imperfect, pale, mechanical imitation of the Master’s bond, but one he could share with the traitor Barnes.

“I have the gun with me,” said Barnes. “I am ready for your command.”

The Master smiled. So obsequious.

They were close, perhaps mere miles away from their destination. Their northern trajectory put them on a path toward Lake Ontario or the Saint Lawrence River. And if a water crossing was in order, no matter. The Master had Creem to ferry him across, if needed, as the gang leader was still nominally human but wholly under his command.

The Master directed the helicopters north at full speed.

Creem’s mouth hurt. His gums burned where his dented silver teeth were attached. At first he thought this was more lingering effects resulting from the elbow he had taken from Mr. Quinlan. But now his fingers were growing sore, enough so that he plucked the bling off his knuckles, giving his digits a rest, the silver jewelry piling up in the cup holder.

He didn’t feel right. He felt woozy and warm. At first he feared some sort of bacterial infection like the one that had claimed Gus’s man. But the more he looked into his rearview mirror at the Master’s dark, worm-writhing face, the more Creem grew anxious, wondering if the Master had infected him. For an instant, he felt something move through his forearm and into his biceps. Something more than a tingle. Something en route to his heart.

Eph’s Jeep reached Fishers Landing first. The northernmost road ran along the edge of the Saint Lawrence. Mr. Quinlan couldn’t pick up on any vampires in the immediate area. They saw a CAMP RIVERSIDE sign pointing toward an area where the road left the water’s edge. They turned down the dirt road, riding out to a large spit of land jutting into the river. There were cabins and a restaurant with an adjacent sweets shop, and a sandy beach boxed in by a dock long and wide enough to be just barely visible over the water.

Eph pulled up sharply in the lot at the end of the road, leaving his headlamps on, and pointed at the water. He wanted to get out on that dock. They needed a boat.

As soon as he shut his door, a powerful light filled his vision, effectively blinding him. By thrusting up his arm, he could just make out multiple sources, one from near the restaurant, the other near a towel shack. He panicked a moment but then realized that these were artificial light sources—something vampires had no need or use for.

A voice called out, “Stop right there! Don’t move!”

A real voice, not a vampire voice projected into his head.

“Okay, okay!” said Eph, trying to shield his eyes. “I’m a human!”

“We see that now,” said the female voice.

A male voice from the other side said, “This one’s armed!”

Eph looked over at Fet on the other side of the Jeep. Fet said, “Are you armed?”

“You better believe it!” called the male voice.

“Can we both put them down and talk?” said Fet.

“No,” said the female voice. “We’re glad you aren’t stingers, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t raiders. Or Stonehearts in disguise.”

“We aren’t either,” said Eph, holding off the lights with his open hands. “We’re here on a… a sort of mission. But there isn’t much time.”

“There’s one more in the backseat!” yelled the male voice. “Show yourself!”

Oh, shit, thought Eph. Where to begin? “Look,” he said. “We came here all the way from New York City.”

“I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you return.”

“You… you sound like fighters. Against the vampires. We’re fighters too. Part of a resistance.”

“We’re full up here, friend.”

Eph said, “We need to get out to one of the islands.”

“Feel free. Just do it from some other point along the Saint Lawrence. We don’t want any trouble, but we’re ready enough for it.”

“If I could have just ten minutes to explain—”

“You got ten seconds to leave. I can see your eyes, and your friend’s. They’re right enough in the light. But if your other friend isn’t getting out of the car, we’re going to start shooting.”

“First of all, we have something fragile and explosive in the car, so for your sake, don’t shoot. Second, you’re not going to like what you see in our other friend here.”

Fet chimed in. “He reads vamp. His pupils will glass up in the light. Because he’s part stinger.”

The male voice said, “No such thing.”

“One such thing,” said Eph. “He’s on our side, and I can explain—or try to—if you’ll give me a chance.”

Eph sensed the light source moving. Advancing on him. He stiffened, expecting an attack.

The male voice from the other light said, “Careful, Ann!”

The woman behind the light stopped about ten yards away from Eph, near enough that he could feel heat coming off the lamp. He made out rubber boots and an elbow behind the beam.

“William!” the female voice called.

William, the bearer of the other light, came running toward Fet. “What is it?”

“Take a good look at his face,” she said.

For a moment, Eph had both beams directly on him.

“What?” said William. “He ain’t no vamp.”

“No, dummy. From the news reports. The wanted man. Are you Goodweather?”

“Yes. Ephraim is my name.”

“Goodweather, the fugitive doctor. Who killed Eldritch Palmer.”

“Actually,” Eph said, “I was falsely accused. I didn’t kill the old bastard. I did try, though.”

“They wanted you real bad, didn’t they? Those motherfuckers.”

Eph nodded. “They still do.”

William said, “I don’t know, Ann.”

Ann said, “You’ve got ten minutes, asshole. But your so-called friend stays in the car, and if he tries to get out, you’re all fish food.”

Fet stood before the back of the Jeep, showing them the device and the timer he had attached by flashlight.

“Shee-it. A goddamn nuclear bomb,” said Ann, revealed to be a woman in her fifties with a long, fraying braid of gray hair, dressed in waders under a fisherman’s slicker.

“You thought it would be bigger,” said Fet.

“I don’t know what I thought.” She looked again at Eph and Fet. William—a man in his forties, wearing a wool sweater shaggy with pulls and droopy blue jeans—remained off to the side, both hands on his rifle. The lamps lay at his feet, one of them still turned on. The indirect light cast Mr. Quinlan, now standing outside the vehicle, in an intimidating cloak of shadows. “Except that your situation here is too bizarre to be untrue.”

Eph said, “We don’t want anything from you, except a map of these islands and a means to get out there.”

“You’re going to detonate this little fucker.”

Eph said, “We are indeed. You’ll want to relocate away from here, whether the island is more than a half mile offshore or not.”

“We don’t live here,” said William.

At first, Ann shot him a look that said he had told too much. But then she softened, allowing that she could be open with Eph and Fet since they had been open with her.

“We live out in the islands,” she said. “Where the damn stingers can’t go. There are old forts from the Revolutionary War out there. We’re in them.”

“How many?”

“All told there’s forty-two of us. Was fifty-six; we’ve lost that many. We’re in three living groups, ’cause even after the world’s ended some assholes still can’t get along. We’re mostly neighbors who didn’t know one another before this damn thing. We keep coming back to the mainland to scavenge for arms, tools, and food, kind of like Robinson Crusoe if you consider the mainland the shipwreck.”

Eph said, “You have boats.”

“We do have fucking boats. Three motorboats and a whole bunch of li’l skiffs.”

“Good,” said Eph. “Very good. I hope you can see fit to loan us one. I’m sorry we’re bringing this trouble your way.” He checked with the Born, who was standing very still. “Anything yet?”

Nothing imminent.

But Eph could tell by the way he answered that they were running out of time. He said to Ann, “You know these islands?”

She nodded. “William knows them best. Like the back of his hand.”

Eph said to William, “Can we go inside the restaurant and you sketch me out directions? I know what I’m looking for. It’s an island with very little growth on it, rocky, shaped like a trefoil, which is like a series of three overlapping rings. Like a biohazard symbol, if you can picture that.”

Ann and William looked at each other in a way that showed they both knew exactly which island Eph was referring to. Eph felt a spike of adrenaline.

A radio crackle surprised them, making jumpy William step back. The walkie-talkie in the front seat of the Jeep. “Friends of ours,” said Fet, moving to the door, reaching in for the radio. “Nora?”

“Oh, thank God,” she said, her voice fuzzy over the airwaves. “We’re in Fishers Landing finally. Where are you?”

“Follow the signs for the public beach. You’ll see a sign for Camp Riverside. Follow the dirt road to the water. Hurry up, but come quietly. We’ve met some others who can help us get out onto the water.”

“Some others?” she said.

“Just trust me and get out here, now.”

“Okay, I see a sign for the beach,” she said. “We’ll be right there.”

Fet set down the radio. “They’re close.”

“Good,” said Eph, turning again to Mr. Quinlan. The Born was watching the sky, as though for a sign. This worried Eph. “Anything we need to know?”

All quiet.

“How many hours do we have until the meridiem?”

Too many, I am afraid.

“Something is troubling you,” said Eph. “What is it?”

I do not enjoy traveling over water.

“I realize that. And?”

We should have seen the Master by now. I don’t like the fact that we have not…

Ann and William wanted to talk, but Eph just wanted them to sketch out the route to the island. So he left them drawing on the back of a paper place mat and returned to Fet, standing before the bomb set upon the candy shop ice cream counter adjacent to the restaurant. Through the glass doors, Eph saw Mr. Quinlan waiting for vampires in front of the beach.

Eph said, “How long will we have?”

Fet said, “I don’t know. I hope long enough.” He showed him the switch with the safety on. “Turn this way for the delay.” It was set to a clock icon raised on the small panel. “Don’t turn it this way.” Toward the X. “Then run like hell.”

Eph felt another cramp crawling up his arm. He clenched his fist and hid the pain best as he could.

“I don’t like the idea of leaving it there. A lot can go wrong in a few minutes.”

“We don’t have an alternative. Not if we want to survive.”

They both looked up at the approaching headlights. Fet ran out to Nora’s car, and Eph remained behind, returning to monitor William’s work. Ann was making suggestions and William was annoyed. “It is four islands out and one over.”

Ann said, “What about Little Thumb?”

“You can’t give these islands pet names and expect everyone else to memorize them.”

Ann looked at Eph and explained, “The third island looks like it has a little thumb.”

Eph looked at the sketch. The route appeared clear enough; that was all that mattered.

Eph said, “Can you take the others down the river to your island ahead of us? We won’t stay, we won’t be using up your resources. Just a place to hide and wait until this is all over.”

Ann said, “Sure. Especially if you think you can do what you say you can do.”

Eph nodded. “Life on Earth is going to change again.”

“Back to normal.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Eph. “We’ll have a long way to go to get back to anything resembling normal. But we won’t have these bloodsuckers running us anymore.”

Ann looked like a woman who had learned not to get her hopes up too high. “I am sorry I called you an asshole, buddy,” she said. “What you are is really a tough motherfucker.”

Eph couldn’t help but smile. These days he would take any compliment, no matter how backhanded it was.

“Can you tell us about the city?” said Ann. “We heard that all of midtown burned down.”

“No, it’s—”

The glass doors opened in the candy shop and Eph turned. Gus entered, holding a machine gun in one hand. Then he saw, through the glass, Nora approaching the door. Instead of Fet, a tall boy of about thirteen walked at her side. They entered and Eph could neither move nor speak… but his dry eyes instantly stung with tears and his throat closed with emotion.

Zack looked around apprehensively, his eyes going past Eph to the old ice cream signs on the wall… then slowly coming back to his father’s face.

Eph walked to him. The boy’s mouth opened but he did not speak. Eph got down on one knee before him, this boy who used to be at about Eph’s eye level when he did that. Now Eph looked up a few inches at him. The mess of hair falling down over his face partially hid his eyes.

Zack said quietly to his father, “What are you doing here?”

He was so much taller now. His hair was long and ragged, swept back from his ears, exactly the way a boy that age would choose to grow his hair without parental intervention. He looked reasonably clean. He appeared well fed.

Eph grabbed him and hugged him hard. In doing so, he was making the boy real. Zack felt strange in his arms, smelled different, was different—older. Weak. It occurred to Eph how gaunt he must have looked to Zack in return.

The boy did not hug him back, standing stiffly, enduring the embrace.

He pushed him backward to look at him again. He wanted to know everything, how Zack had gotten here—but realized nothing else mattered right now.

He was here. He was still human. He was free.

“Oh, Zack,” said Eph, remembering the day he had lost him nearly two years before. He had tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

But Zack was looking at him strangely. “For what?”

He started to say, “For allowing your mother to take you away—” But he stopped. “Zachary,” said Eph, overwhelmed by joy. “Look at you. So tall! You’re a man…”

The boy’s mouth remained open, but he was too stunned to speak. He stared at his father—the man who had haunted his dreams like an all-powerful ghost. The father who had abandoned him, deserted him, the one he remembered as being tall, so powerful, so wise, was a feeble, dry, insignificant thing. Unkempt, trembling, and weak.

Zack felt a surge of disgust.

Are you loyal?

“I never stopped looking,” said Eph. “I never gave up. I know they told you I was dead—I’ve been fighting this whole time. For two years, I’ve been trying to get you back…”

Zack looked around the room. Mr. Quinlan had entered the shop. Zack looked longest at the Born.

“Mother is coming for me,” said Zack. “She’s going to be angry.”

Eph nodded firmly. “I know she will. But… it’s almost over.”

“I know that,” said Zack.

Are you thankful for all I have provided, for all that I have shown you?

“Come here…,” said Eph, squeezing Zack’s shoulders and walking him to the bomb. Fet moved to intercept them, but Eph barely noticed. “This is a nuclear device. We’re going to use it to blow up an island. To wipe out the Master and all of its kind.”

Zack stared at the device. “Why?” he asked in spite of himself.

The end of times is near.

Fet looked at Nora, a chill running down his spine. But Eph didn’t seem to notice, rapt in the role of the prodigal father.

“To make things the way they used to be,” said Eph. “Before the strigoi. Before the darkness.”

Zack looked strangely at Eph. The boy was blinking noticeably, purposefully, like a nervous, self-consoling tic. “I want to go home.”

Eph nodded quickly. “And I want to take you there. All your stuff is in your bedroom just like you left it. Everything. We’ll go as soon as all this is over.”

Zack shook his head, no longer looking at Eph. He was looking at Mr. Quinlan. “Home is the castle. In Central Park.”

Eph’s hopeful expression faltered. “No, you’re never going back there again. I know it’s going to take a little time, but you’re going to be fine.”

The boy is turned.

Eph’s head whipped around to Mr. Quinlan. The Born stood looking at Zack.

Eph stared at his son. He had all his hair; his complexion was good. His eyes weren’t black moons on a sea of red. His throat was not distended. “No. You’re wrong. He’s human.”

Physically, yes. But look into his eyes. He brought someone here with him.

Eph gripped the boy by the chin. He pushed the hair off his eyes. They were a little dim, maybe. A little withdrawn. Zack stared defiantly at first, then tried to look away, as any young teenager would.

“No,” said Eph. “He’s fine. He will be fine. He resents me… it’s only normal. He’s angry at me, and… we just need to put him on a boat. Get him on the river.” Eph looked at Nora and Fet. “The sooner the better.”

They are here.

“What?” said Nora.

Mr. Quinlan pulled his hood down tighter over his head.

Take to the river. I will hold off as many as I can.

The Born went out through the door. Eph grabbed Zack, started him toward the door, then stopped. To Fet, he said, “We’ll move him and the bomb at the same time.”

Fet didn’t like it but said nothing. “He is my son, Vasiliy,” said Eph, choking, begging. “My son… all I have. But I will carry my mission through. I will not fail us.”

For the first time in ages, Fet saw in Eph the old resolve—the leadership that he used to begrudgingly admire. This was the man Nora had once loved, and Fet had once followed.

“You stay here then,” said Fet, grabbing his pack and moving out after Gus and Nora.

Ann and William rushed over to him with the map. Eph said, “Go to the boats. Wait for us.”

“We won’t have enough room for everyone, if you’re going to the island.”

“We’ll work it out,” said Eph. “Now go. Before they try to scuttle them.”

Eph locked the door behind them, then turned back to Zack. He looked at his son’s face, seeking reassurance. “It’s okay, Z. We’re going to be okay. It’s going to be over soon.”

Zack blinked rapidly as he watched his father fold the map and stuff it into his coat pocket.

The strigoi came out of the darkness. Mr. Quinlan saw their heat impressions rushing through the trees and waited to intercept them. Dozens of vampires, with more following behind—perhaps hundreds. Gus came up firing down the dirt road at an unlit vehicle. Sparks popped off the hood and the windshield crackled, but the car kept coming. Gus stood in front of it until he was certain he had put a good kill pattern in the windshield, then jumped out of the way at what he thought was the last moment.

But the car turned his way as he went diving into the woods. A thick trunk stopped the vehicle with a ringing crash, though not before the front grille struck Gus’s legs and sent him flying into the trees. His left arm cracked like a tree branch, and when he got back to his feet he saw it hanging crookedly at his side—broken at the elbow, and maybe the shoulder too.

Gus swore through clenched teeth, the pain severe. Still, his combat instincts kicked in, and he made himself run to the car, expecting vamps to come spilling out like circus clowns.

Gus reached in with his good hand—the one holding his Steyr—and pulled back the driver’s head from the steering wheel. It was Creem, his head now lying back in the seat as though he were napping, except that he had taken two of Gus’s rounds in the forehead, one in the chest.

“Reverse Mozambique, motherfucker,” said Gus, and let the head go, its nose crunching softly against the steering wheel crossbar.

Gus saw no other occupants—though the rear door was strangely open.

The Master…

Mr. Quinlan had moved on in the blink of an eye, hunting his prey. Gus leaned a moment against the vehicle, beginning to gauge the gravity of his arm injury. It was then that he noticed a rivulet of blood oozing from Creem’s neck…

Not a bullet wound.

Creem’s eyes snapped open. He burst from the car, hurling himself toward Gus. The impact of Creem’s massive body knocked the air from Gus’s lungs, like a bull striking a matador, sending him sailing with almost as much force as the car had. Gus held on to his gun, but Creem’s hand closed around his entire forearm with incredible strength, crushing his tendons, forcing his fingers open. Creem’s knee was against Gus’s damaged left arm, grinding the broken bone like a mortar.

Gus screamed, both in rage and pain.

Creem’s eyes were wide open, looking crazed and slightly misaligned. His bling smile began to smoke and steam, his vampiric gums burning away from contact with the silver implants. The flesh burned away from his knuckles for the same reason. But Creem held on, puppeteered by the will of the Master. As Creem’s jaw opened and unhinged with a loud crack, Gus understood that the Master meant to take Gus and through him learn how to trump their plan. The grinding of his left arm drove Gus to howling distraction, but he could see Creem’s stinger budding in his mouth—oddly fascinating and slow—the reddened flesh parting, unfolding, revealing new layers as it awakened to its purpose.

Creem was being forced into overdrive transformation by the Master’s will. The stinger became engorged amid the clouds of silver vapor, getting ready to strike. Drool and residual blood spilled onto Gus’s chest as the demented being that once had been Creem reared its vampiric head.

In a final effort, Gus managed to twist his gun hand enough to aim loosely at Creem’s head. He fired once, twice, three times and, at such close range, each round ripped away huge amounts of flesh and bone from Creem’s face and neck.

Creem’s stinger darted wildly into the air, seeking contact with Gus. Gus kept firing, one round striking the stinger. Strigoi blood and worms flew everywhere, as Gus finally succeeded in shattering Creem’s vertebrae and severing his spinal cord.

Creem tipped over, slumping hard to the ground, twitching and steaming.

Gus rolled away from the energized blood worms. He felt an immediate sting in his leg, and quickly pulled up his left pant leg. He saw a worm sinking into his flesh. Instinctively, he reached for a sharp piece of the damaged automobile grille and dug into his leg. He sliced it open enough so that he could see the wriggling worm, rooting deeper and deeper. Gus grabbed the thing and yanked it out of his wound. The worm’s barbs grabbed hold, and it was excruciating—but he did it, dragging out the thin worm and pounding it into the ground, killing it.

Gus got to his feet, chest heaving, leg bleeding. He didn’t mind seeing his own blood, so long as it remained red. Mr. Quinlan returned and took in the entire scene, especially Creem’s steaming corpse.

Gus grinned. “See, compa? You can’t leave me alone for one fucking minute.”

The Born felt other interlopers advancing along the windy shoreline and pointed Fet in that direction. The first of the raiders advanced on the Born. They came hard, this first sacrificial wave, and Mr. Quinlan matched their viciousness. As he fought, he tracked three feelers to his right, clustered around a female vampire. One of the feelers broke off and engaged him, romping toward the Born on all fours. Mr. Quinlan knocked a two-legged vampire aside to deal with the nimble blind one. He swatted it away, the feeler tumbling backward before springing up again on all fours like an animal pushed off a potential meal. Two other vampires came at him, and Mr. Quinlan moved fast to avoid them, keeping an eye on the feeler.

A body came flying, launching off one of the storefront tables, landing on Mr. Quinlan’s back and shoulders with a high-pitched squeal. It was Kelly Goodweather, her right hand lashing out, raking the Born’s face. He howled and punched backward, and she slashed at him again, but he blocked it, grasping her wrist.

A burst from Gus’s machine gun sent her leaping off Mr. Quinlan’s shoulders. Mr. Quinlan anticipated another attack from the feeler, then saw it lying in the dirt, full of holes.

Mr. Quinlan touched his face. His hand came away sticky and white. He turned to go after Kelly, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Glass shattered somewhere in the restaurant. Eph readied his silver sword. He moved Zack to the corner of the candy counter, keeping him out of harm’s way and yet basically trapped and unable to run. The bomb remained on the wall end of the counter, over Gus’s pack and the Born’s black leather satchel.

A nasty little feeler galloped in from the restaurant, followed by another on its heels. Eph held out his silver blade, letting the blind creatures sense it. A form appeared in the dim doorway behind them, barely a silhouette, dark as a panther.

Kelly.

She looked horribly decayed, her features barely recognizable even to her former husband. The royal red wattle of her neck swayed limply, under dead eyes black and red.

She was there for Zack. Eph knew what he had to do. There was only one way to break the spell. Committing to this made Eph’s sword tremble in his hands—but the vibration originated from the sword itself, not his nerves. As he held the blade before him, it seemed to be glowing faintly.

She walked toward him, flanked by the agitated feelers. Eph showed her his blade. He said, “This is the end, Kelly… and I am so sorry… so goddamn sorry…”

She had no eyes for Eph, only for Zack standing behind him. Her face was unable to register any emotion, but Eph understood the compulsion to have and to protect. He understood it keenly. His back spasmed and the pain became almost unbearable. But somehow he conquered it and held on.

Kelly focused on Eph. She made a motion with her hand, a flick forward, and the feelers rushed him like attack dogs. They came in a crisscross motion, and Eph had a split second to choose between them. He struck at one and missed but managed to kick the other one to the side. The one he missed came right back at him, and Eph caught her with his sword, but off balance and only with the flat of the blade against her head. She went rolling back, dazed and slow to rise.

Kelly leaped onto a table and sprang off it, attempting to jump past Eph to Zack. Eph moved right into her path, however, and they collided, Kelly spinning off to the side and Eph almost falling backward.

Eph saw the other feeler sizing him up from the side and readied his blade. Then Zack burst past him. Eph just barely caught the boy by the collar of his parka, yanking him back. Zack slipped out of the jacket but stayed put, standing just in front of his father.

“Stop it!” Zack said. He held one hand out to his mother and the other to Eph. “Don’t!”

“Zack!” yelled Eph. The boy was near enough to both of them that Eph feared he and Kelly would both grab a hand, resulting in a tug-of-war.

“Stop it!” yelled Zack. “Please! Please—don’t hurt her! She’s all I have… !”

And in saying so, it hit Eph. It was he, the absent father, who was the anomaly. He had always been the anomaly. Kelly’s posture relaxed a moment, her arms dropping down at her bare sides.

Zack said to her, “I’ll go with you. I want to go back.”

But then another force came into Kelly’s eyes, a monstrous, alien will. She sprang all at once, violently shoving Zack aside. Her jaw dropped and her stinger lashed out at Eph, who barely moved in time, watching the muscular appendage snap out into the space where his neck had just been. He swiped at her stinger, but he was off balance and missed.

The feelers pounced on Zack, holding him down. The boy was yelling. Kelly’s stinger retracted, the end tip lolling out of her mouth like a thin, bifurcated tongue. She threw herself at Eph, ducking her head and plowing into his midsection, driving him to the floor. He slid backward, coming to rest hard against the bottom of the counter.

He quickly struggled up to his knees, back in full spasm, his ribs immediately jabbing his chest, a few of them broken and driving into his lungs. This shortened his swing as he brought the sword across, trying to keep her back. Kelly kicked his arm, her bare foot catching him beneath the elbow, his fists slamming against the lower part of the counter. The sword broke free from his grip and clanged to the floor.

Eph looked up. There was a bright red glare in her eyes as Kelly rushed at him for the kill.

Eph reached down without looking and somehow the handle of the sword found his fingers. He got the blade up just as her jaw fell and she thrust forward.

The blade ran straight back through her throat. It came out the back end of her neck, cleaving the root mechanism of her stinger. Eph stared in horror as her stinger went limp, her gaze unbelieving. Her open mouth filled with wormy white blood, her body sagging against the silver sword.

For a moment—probably imagined by Eph, but he accepted it anyway—he saw the formerly human Kelly behind her eyes, looking at him with an expression of peace.

Then the creature returned and sagged in release.

Eph remained holding her up until her white blood ran almost down to his sword handle. Then, overcoming his shock, he pivoted and removed the blade, and Kelly’s body lay upon the floor.

Zack was screaming now. He rose up in a fit of strength and rage, throwing off the feelers. The blind vampire children went wild themselves and ran at Eph. He swung his slickened blade diagonally upward, easily slaying the first one. That made the second jump back. Eph watched as it retreated, loping out of the room with its head turned almost fully over its shoulder, watching Eph until it was gone.

Eph lowered his sword. Zack stood over the remains of his vampire mother, crying and gasping. Zack looked at his father with a look of anguished disgust.

“You killed her,” said Zack.

“I killed the vampire that had taken her away from us. Away from you.”

“I hate you! I fucking hate you!”

In his fury, Zack found a long-handled flashlight on the countertop and grabbed it, going after his father. Eph blocked the strike to his head, but the boy’s forward momentum carried him into Eph and he fell on top of him, pressing against Eph’s broken ribs. The boy was surprisingly strong, and Eph was in agony. Zack hammered away at Eph, Eph blocking the blows with his forearm. The boy lost the flashlight but kept fighting, his fists striking Eph’s chest, hands reaching inside Eph’s coat. Finally Eph dropped his sword in order to grip the boy’s wrists and hold him off.

Eph saw, crumpled in the boy’s left fist, a piece of paper. Zack saw that Eph had noticed and fought his father’s attempts to pry open his fingers.

Eph pulled out the crumpled paper map. Zack had tried to take it from him. He stared into his son’s eyes and saw the presence. He saw the Master seeing through Zack.

“No,” said Eph. “No—please. No!”

Eph pushed the boy away. He was sickened. He looked at the map, then slipped it back into his pocket. Zack stood, backpedaling. Eph saw that the boy was about to take a run at the nuke. At the detonator.

The Born was there, Mr. Quinlan intercepting the boy and swallowing him up in a bear hug, spinning him away. The Born had a diagonal scrape across his face, from his left eye to his right cheek. Eph got to his feet, the ripping pain in his chest nothing compared to the loss of Zack.

Eph picked up his sword and went to Zack, still held by the Born. Zack was grimacing and nodding his head rhythmically. Eph held the silver blade near his son, watching for a response.

The silver did not repel him. The Master was in his mind but not his body.

“This isn’t you,” said Eph, speaking to Zack and also convincing himself. “You’re going to be okay. I have to get you out of here.”

We must hurry.

Eph grabbed Zack from him. “Let’s go to the boats.”

The Born lifted his leather pack to his shoulder, then gripped the straps of the bomb, pulling it off the counter. Eph grabbed the pack at his feet and pushed Zack toward the door.

Dr. Everett Barnes hid behind the trash shed located twenty feet from the restaurant, on the edge of the dirt parking lot. He sucked air through his broken teeth and felt the pleasurable sting of pain that produced.

If there truly was a nuclear bomb in play—which, judging by Ephraim’s apparent obsession with vengeance, there was—then Barnes needed to get as far away from this place as possible, but not before he shot that bitch. He had a gun. A nine-millimeter, with a full clip. He was supposed to use it against Ephraim, but the way he saw it, Nora would be a bonus. The cherry on top.

He tried to catch his breath in order to slow his heart rate. Placing his fingers to his chest, he felt a strange arrhythmia. He barely knew where he was, obeying blindly the GPS that connected him to the Master and that read the positioning of Zack with a unit hidden in the teenager’s shoe. In spite of the Master’s assurances, Barnes was nervous; with these vampires wilding all around the property, there was no guarantee they would be able to know a friend from an enemy. Just in case, Barnes was determined to get to some sort of vehicle if he had any chance to escape before this camp went up in a mushroom cloud.

He spotted Nora about a hundred feet away. He aimed at her as best he could and opened fire. Five rounds cracked out of the gun in rapid succession, and at least one of them connected with Nora, who fell down behind a line of trees… leaving a faint mist of blood floating in the air.

“I got you—you fucking cunt!” said Barnes triumphantly.

He pushed off from the gate and ran across the open lot toward the outlying trees. If he could follow the dirt road back out to the main street, he could find a car or some other means of transportation.

He reached the first line of trees, stopping there, shuddering as he discovered a puddle of blood on the ground… but no Nora.

“Oh, shit!” he said, and instinctively turned and rushed into the woods, tucking the gun in his pants. It burned him. “Shit,” he squealed. He never knew guns got this hot. He bent both arms protectively before his face, the branches ripping at his uniform and stripping medals off his chest. He paused in a clearing and hid in the underbrush, panting, the hot muzzle burning his leg.

“Looking for me?”

Barnes turned until he saw Nora Martinez just three trees away. Her forehead bore a gash, a bleeding, open wound the size of a finger. But she was unharmed otherwise.

He tried to run, but she grabbed the back of his jacket collar, pulling him back.

“We never had that last date you wanted,” she said, hauling him through the trees to the dirt drive.

“Please, Nora—”

She pulled him into the clear and looked him over. Barnes’s heart was racing, his breath short.

She said, “You don’t run this particular camp, do you?”

He pulled the gun out but it tangled on his Sansabelt pants. Nora quickly took it away and cocked it in a single expert move. She pressed it against his face.

He held up his hands. “Please.”

“Ah. Here they come.”

Out of the trees came the vampires, ready to converge, hesitant only because of the silver sword in Nora’s hand. They circled the two humans, looking for an opening.

“I am Dr. Everett Barnes,” Barnes announced.

“Don’t think they care for titles right now,” she said, holding them at bay. She frisked Barnes and found the GPS receiver. She stomped on it. “And I would say you’ve just about outlived your usefulness right now.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I’m going to release a bunch of these bloodsuckers, of course,” she said. “The question is, what are you going to do?”

“I… I have no weapon anymore.”

“That’s too bad. Because, like you, they don’t care much for a fair fight.”

“You… you wouldn’t,” he said.

“I am,” she said. “I’ve got bigger problems than you.”

“Give me a weapon… please… and I will do whatever you want. Whatever you need, I will give you…”

“You want a weapon?” asked Nora.

Barnes whimpered something like “Yes.”

“Then,” Nora said, “have one…”

Out of her pocket, she produced the butter-knife shank she had painfully crafted and buried it firmly in Barnes’s shoulder, jamming it between the humerus and the collarbone.

Barnes squealed and, more important, bled.

With a battle cry, she raced out at the largest vampire, cutting him down, then spinning, drawing more to her.

The rest paused just a moment to confirm that the other human held no silver and that the scent of blood came from him. Then they ran at him like pound dogs thrown a slab of meat.

Eph dragged Zack with him, following the Born to the shoreline where the dock began. He watched Mr. Quinlan hesitate a moment, the keg-shaped bomb in his arms, before crossing from the sand onto the wood planking of the long dock.

Nora came running to meet them. Fet was alarmed at her wound, rushing to her. “Who did this to you?” he roared.

“Barnes,” she said. “But don’t worry. We won’t be seeing him again.” She then looked at Mr. Quinlan. “You have to go! You know you can’t wait for daylight.”

The Master expects that. So I will stay. This is perhaps the last time we will see the sun.

“We’re going now,” said Eph, Zack pulling at his arm.

“I’m ready,” said Fet, starting toward the dock.

Eph raised his sword, holding the point near Fet’s throat. Fet looked at him, anger rising.

“Just me,” Eph said.

“What the… ?” Fet used his own sword to bat Eph’s away. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Eph shook his head. “You stay with Nora.”

Nora looked from Fet to Eph.

“No,” said Fet. “You need me to do this.”

“She needs you,” said Eph, the words stinging as he spoke them. “I have Mr. Quinlan.” He looked back at the dock, needing to go. “Get to a skiff and sail downriver. I’ve gotta give Zack to Ann and William, to get him out of here. I’ll tell them to be looking for you.”

Nora said, “Let Mr. Quinlan set the detonator. You just drop him off.”

“I have to make sure it’s set. Then I’ll be along.”

Nora hugged him hard, then stepped back. She lifted Zack’s chin to look at his face, to try to give him some confidence or consolation. The boy blinked and looked away.

“You’re going to be okay,” she told him.

But the boy’s attention was elsewhere. He was looking skyward, and after a moment Eph heard it too.

Black helicopters. Approaching from the south. Coming in low.

Gus came hobbling down from the beach. Eph saw immediately that his left arm was badly broken—his left hand swelling with blood—though that condition did not in any way cool the gangbanger’s anger toward him. “Choppers!” yelled Gus. “What the hell are you waiting for?”

Eph quickly slipped off his pack. “Take it,” he said to Fet. The Lumen was inside.

“Fuck the manual, man,” Gus said. “This is practice!”

Gus dropped his gun, shaking off his own pack with a painful grunt—first his good arm, and then Nora helped him lift it off his broken one—then rummaged inside for two purple-colored canisters from his pack. He pulled the pins with his teeth, rolling the smoke grenades to the right and to the left.

Violet smoke billowed, lifted by the shore wind, shielding the beach and dock from view and providing some intermediate cover from the approaching helicopters. “Get outta here!” yelled Gus. “You and your boy. Take care of the Master. I’ll cover your ass—but you remember, Goodweather, you and me, we got business to settle after.” Gus gently, though with great pain, pushed the jacket sleeve up from the swollen wrist of his bad arm, showing Eph the scarred word “MADRE,” left there from all of Gus’s bloodletting.

“Eph,” said Nora. “Don’t forget—the Master is still out here somewhere.”

At the far corner of the dock, some thirty yards from shore, Ann and William waited inside two ten-foot aluminum rowboats with outboard motors. Eph ran Zack to the first boat. When the boy would not board willingly, Eph lifted him up bodily and placed him in there. He looked at his son. “We’re going to get through this, okay, Z?”

Zack had no response. He watched the Born loading the bomb onto the other boat, between the rear and middle bench seats, and gently but firmly lift William out, depositing him back on the dock.

Eph remembered the Master was in Zack’s head, seeing this too. Seeing Eph right now.

“It’s just about over,” Eph said.

The violet smoke cover billowed up off the beach, blowing across to the trees, revealing more advancing vampires. “The Master needs a human to take him across water,” said Fet, stepping up with Nora and Gus. “I don’t think there’s anybody left here but us three. We just have to make sure nobody else gets to the skiffs.”

The violet smoke parted strangely, as though folding in on itself. As though something had passed through it at incredible speed.

“Wait—did you see that?” yelled Fet.

Nora heard the thrumming presence of the Master. Impossibly, the wall of smoke changed course completely, curling back from the trees and rolling against the river breeze toward the shore—consuming them. Nora and Fet were immediately separated, vampires rushing at them silently out of the smoke, their bare feet soft on the damp sand.

Helicopter rotors chopped at the air overhead. Cracks and thumps made the sand jump at their shoes, rifle fire from above. Snipers shooting blindly into the smoke cover. A vampire took one to the top of its head just as Nora was about to cut it down. The rotors whipped smoke back at her, and she did a full three-sixty with her sword straight out, blindly coughing, choking. Suddenly she was unsure which side was shore and which was water. She saw a swirling in the smoke, like a dust devil, and heard the thrumming loudly again.

The Master. She kept swinging, fighting the smoke and everything in it.

Gus, keeping his bad arm behind him, rushed blindly sideways through the choking violet cloud, keeping to the shore. The sailboats were tied to a dock unconnected to land, anchored some forty or fifty feet out in the water.

Gus’s left side was throbbing, his arm swollen. He felt feverish as he broke from the edge of the violet cloud, before the river-facing windows of the restaurant, expecting a column of hungry vampires. But he was alone on the beach.

Not so in the air. He saw the black helicopters, six of them directly overhead, with another six or so coming up behind. They hovered low, swarming like giant mechanized bees, whipping sand into Gus’s face. One of them moved out over the river, scattering the surface water, whipping moisture with the force of shards of glass.

Gus heard the rifle cracks and knew they were shooting at the skiffs. Trying to scuttle them. Thumps at his feet told him they were shooting at him too, but he was more concerned about the choppers starting off over the lake—searching for Goodweather, for the nuke.

“Que chingados esperas?” he cursed in Spanish. “What are you waiting for?”

Gus fired at those choppers, trying to bring them down. A scorching stab in his calf dropped him to one knee, and he knew he had been shot. He kept firing at the helicopters heading out over the river, seeing sparks fly off the tail.

Another rifle round pierced his side with the force of an arrow. “Do it, Eph! Do it!” he yelled, falling to his elbow and still firing.

One helicopter wobbled, and a human figure fell from it into the water. The chopper failed to right itself, its rear tail spinning frontward until it collided with another chopper, and both aircraft rolled and crashed down into the river.

Gus was out of ammo. He lay back on the beach, just a few yards from the water, watching the death birds hover over him. In an instant, his body was covered with laser sights projecting out of the colored fog.

“Goodweather gets fucking angels,” said Gus, laughing, sucking air. “I get laser sights.” He saw the snipers leaning out of their open cabin doors, sighting him. “Light me up, motherfuckers!”

The sand danced all around him as he was shot through many times. Dozens of bullets rattled his body, severing it, grinding it… and Gus’s last thought was, You better not mess up this one too, doc.

“Where are you taking me?”

Zack stood in the middle of the boat, rocking in the wake. Their puttering motor had faded into the darkness and the purple fog, leaving only the usual humming sensation in Zack’s head. It mixed with the low throb of the helicopters approaching.

The woman named Ann pushed off from the dock cleat, while William pulled and pulled the rip cord of the coughing outboard motor, streams of violet smoke trailing past them. “To our island downriver.” She looked to William. “Hurry.”

Zack said, “What do you have there?”

“We have shelter. Warm beds.”

“And?”

“We have chickens. A garden. Chores. It’s an old fort from the American Revolution. There are children your age. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe there.”

The Master’s voice said, You were safe here.

Zack nodded, blinking. He lived like a prince, in a real castle in the center of a giant city. He owned a zoo. Everything he wanted.

Until your father tried to take you away.

Something told Zack to stay focused on the dock. The motor turned over, sputtering to life, and William turned in the rear seat and worked the tiller, steering them into the current. The helicopters were visible now, their lights and laser sights brightening the purple smoke on the beach. Zack counted off seven sets of seven blinks as the dock began to recede from view.

A blur of purple smoke burst from the long edge of the dock, flying through the air toward them. Out of it appeared the Master, its cloak flying behind it like wings, arms outstretched, the wolf-headed walking stick in one hand.

Its two bare feet landed in the aluminum boat with a bang. Ann, kneeling at the front point, barely had time to turn. “Fuck me…” She saw the Master before her—recognizing the pallid flesh of Gabriel Bolivar. This was the guy her niece was always yapping about. She wore him on T-shirts, hung his posters on her walls. And now, all that Ann could think of was, I never liked his fucking music…

The Master set down his staff, then reached for her and, in a ripping motion, tore her in half at the waist the way strongmen do very thick phone books—then hurled both halves into the river.

William was transfixed by the sight of the Master, who lifted him by his armpit and flat-handed his face with such tremendous force that William’s neck snapped and his head flopped back off his shoulders like a removed coat hood. It dumped him into the river water as well, then retrieved its walking stick and looked down at the boy.

Take me there, my son.

Zack moved to the tiller and changed course, the Master standing astride the middle bench, its cloak swirling in the wind, as they followed the first boat’s disappearing wake.

The smoke began to thin out, and Nora’s calls to Fet were answered. They found each other and then found their way back to the restaurant, outrunning the rounds from the helicopter snipers overhead.

Inside, they found the rest of Gus’s weapons. Fet grabbed Nora’s hand and they ran to the riverside windows, opening one onto the deck. Nora had picked up the Lumen and had it with her.

They saw the boats bobbing offshore. “Where’s Gus?” asked Nora.

“We’ll have to swim for it,” said Fet. His injured arm was now covered in blood, the wound reopened. “But first—”

Fet fired at the chopper spotlights, shattering the first one he aimed at.

“They can’t shoot what they can’t see!” he yelled.

Nora did the same, the weapon chugging in her grip. She got one too. The remaining lights swept the shoreline for the source of the automatic gunfire.

That was when Nora saw Gus’s body laid out in the sand, river water lapping at his side.

Her shock and sorrow only paralyzed her a moment. Immediately, Gus’s fighting spirit came over her, as well as Fet. Don’t mourn—fight. They moved out aggressively onto the beach, firing away at the Master’s helicopters.

The farther they got away from shore, the harder the boat rocked. The Born held tight to the nuke’s belt straps while Eph steered, trying to keep them from pitching over into the river. Thick, green-black water sloshed over the sides, spraying the bomb’s casing and the oak urns, a thin puddle forming underneath. It was spraying rain again, and they were sailing into the wind.

Mr. Quinlan lifted the urns off the wet floor of the boat, moved them away from the water. Eph did not know what it meant, but the act of bringing the remains of the Ancients to the origin site of the last of their number reminded Eph that it was all about to end. The shock of seeing Zack that way had thrown him off.

He motored past the second island, a long, rocky beach backed by bare, dying trees. Eph checked the map, the paper in his hand growing damp, the ink starting to run and spread.

Eph yelled over the motor and the wind, the pain in his ribs constricting his voice. “How, without turning him, did the Master create this… symbiotic relationship with my boy?”

I don’t know. The key is that he is away from the Master now.

“The Master’s influence will disappear once we do away with it, like all of its vampires?”

Everything that the Master was will cease.

Eph was cheered. He felt real hope. He believed that they could be father and son again. “It’ll be a little like cult deprogramming, I suppose. No such thing as therapy anymore. I just want to get him back to his old bedroom. Start there.”

Survival is the only therapy. I did not want to tell you before, for fear of your losing focus. But I believe the Master was grooming your son for its future self.

Eph swallowed. “I feared it myself. I couldn’t think of any other reason to keep him and not turn him. But—why? Why Zack?”

It may have little to do with your son.

“You mean, it’s because of me?”

I can’t know. All I know is that the Master is a perverse being. It loves to take root in pain. To subvert and corrupt. Perhaps in you it saw a challenge. You were the first one to board the aircraft on which it traveled to New York. You aligned yourself with Abraham Setrakian, its sworn enemy. Achieving the subjugation of an entire race of beings is a feat, but an impersonal one. The Master is one that needs to inflict pain personally. It needs to feel another’s suffering. It needs to experience it firsthand. “Sadism” is your closest modern term for it. And here it has been its undoing.

Exhausted, Eph watched the third dark island pass. After the fourth island, he banked the boat. Difficult to tell the shape of the landmass from the river—and in the darkness impossible to see all six outcroppings without circling it first—but somehow Eph knew that the map was true and this was the Black Site. The bare, black trees on this uninhabited island resembled many-fingered giants burned stiff, arms raised to the heavens in mid-cry.

Eph spotted an inlet and turned toward it, cutting the engine, nosing right onto land. The Born grabbed the nuke and stood, stepping onto the rocky shore.

Nora was right. Leave me here to finish it. Go back to your boy.

Eph looked at the hooded vampire, his face slashed, ready to end his existence. Suicide was an unnatural act for mortal humans to commit—but for an immortal? Mr. Quinlan’s martyrdom was a many times more transgressive, unnatural, violent act.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Eph.

The Born nodded. Then it is time to go.

With that, the Born started up the rocky rise with the keg-sized bomb in his arms and the remains of the Ancients in his pack. Eph’s only hesitation was a memory of his vision and its haunting images. The Born had not been foreseen as the redeemer. But Eph had not had enough time with the Occido Lumen, and perhaps the prophetic reading was different.

Eph dipped the propeller back into the water and gripped the zip cord. He was about to pull when he heard a motor, the sound carrying to him on the swirling wind.

Another boat, approaching. But there had been only one other motorized boat.

Zack’s boat.

Eph looked back for the Born, but he had already disappeared over the rise. Eph’s heart pounded as he stared into the dark mist over the river, straining to see the approaching craft. It sounded like it was coming in fast.

Eph stood and jumped out of the boat onto the rocks, one arm across his broken ribs, the twin handles of his swords wobbling over his shoulders. He charged up the rocky rise as fast as he could, the ground smoking with mist rising into the spitting rain as though the land were heating up in anticipation of the atomic cremation to come.

Eph topped the rise, unable to spot Mr. Quinlan among the trees. He rushed into the dead woods, calling to him, “Quinlan!” as loudly as his chest would allow, then emerged on the other side into a marshy clearing.

The mist was high. The Born had set the weapon down in the approximate center of the trefoil-shaped island, in the middle of a ring of inlaid stones resembling rocky black blisters. He was moving around the device and setting up the white oak receptacles containing the Ancients’ ashes.

Mr. Quinlan heard Eph calling him and turned his way—and just then picked up the Master’s approach.

“It’s here!” yelled Eph. “It’s—”

A blast of wind stirred up the mist. Mr. Quinlan just had time to brace himself before impact, grabbing on to the Master as it streaked in from out of nowhere. The momentum of the body strike carried them many yards away, rolling unseen into the mist. Eph saw something twist and fall through the air—and believed it was Setrakian’s old wolf-handled walking stick.

Eph forgot about his chest pain, running for the bomb, pulling out his sword. Then the mist swirled up around it, obscuring the device.

“Dad!”

Eph turned, feeling Zack’s voice right behind him. He whipped back around fast, knowing he had been suckered. His ribs ached. He went into the haze, looking for the bomb. Feeling the ground for the inlaid stones, trying to find his way.

Then before him, rising out of the mist: the Master.

Eph stumbled backward, shocked at the sight of it. Two slashes crossed the monster’s face in a rough X, the result of the Master’s collision and ensuing fight with the Born.

Fool.

Eph still could not right himself or find words. His head roared as though he had just heard an explosion. He saw ripples beneath the Master’s flesh, a blood worm exiting one open scratch mark and crawling over its open eye to reenter the next. The Master did not flinch. It raised its arms from its sides and took in the smoky island of its origin, then looked triumphantly at the dark heavens above.

Eph summoned all his strength and ran at the Master, sword first, aiming for its throat.

The Master backhanded him squarely across the face with enough force to send Eph airborne, cartwheeling, landing on the stone ground some yards away.

Ahsudagu-wah. Black ground.

Eph first thought that the Master had snapped a vertebra in his neck. The breath was knocked out of him when he hit the ground, and he feared a punctured lung. His other sword had fallen out of his pack, landing somewhere on the ground between them.

Onondaga language. The invading Europeans did not care to translate the name correctly, or at all. You see, Goodweather? Cultures die. Life is not circular but ruthlessly straight.

Eph fought to stand, his fractured ribs stabbing him. “Quinlan!” he called out, his voice mostly just breath.

You should have followed through with our deal, Goodweather. I would never have honored my end of the bargain, of course. But you could have at least spared yourself this humiliation. This pain. Surrender is always easier.

Eph was bursting with every emotion. He stood as tall as he could with the pain in his chest pulling at him. He saw, through the mist, just a few arm lengths away, the outline of the nuclear bomb.

Eph said, “Then let me offer you one last chance to surrender.”

He limped to the device, feeling for the detonator. He thought it a stroke of great luck that the Master had thrown him so close to the device… and it was this very thought that made him look back at the creature.

Eph saw another form emerge from the ground mist. Zack, approaching the Master’s side, no doubt summoned telepathically. Zack looked almost like a man to Eph, like the loved child you one day can no longer recognize. Zack stood with the Master, and suddenly Eph didn’t care anymore—and, at the same time, he cared more than ever.

It is over, Goodweather. Now the book will be closed forever.

The Master had been counting on this. The Master believed that Eph would not harm his son—that he could not blow up the Master if it meant sacrificing Zack too.

Sons are meant to rebel against their fathers. The Master lifted its hands toward the sky again. It has always been that way.

Eph stared at Zack, standing with this monster. With tears in his eyes, Eph smiled at his boy. “I forgive you, Zack, I do… ,” he said. “And I hope to hell that you forgive me.”

Eph turned the screw switch from time delay to manual. He worked as fast as he could, and yet still the Master burst ahead, covering the distance between them. Eph released the detonator just in time, or else the blow from the Master would have torn the wires from the device, rendering it inoperable.

Eph landed in a heap. He shook off the impact, trying to stand. He saw the Master coming for him, its eyes flaring red inside the crooked X.

Behind it, the Born came flying. Mr. Quinlan had Eph’s second sword. It impaled the beast before it could turn, the Master arching with pain.

The Born pulled back the blade, and the Master turned, facing him. Mr. Quinlan’s face was broken, his left cheek collapsed, his jaw unhinged, iridescent blood coating his neck. But still he swiped at the Master, slicing at the creature’s hands and arms.

The Master’s psychic fury sent the mist fleeing as, undeterred by the pain, it stalked its own wounded creation, backing the Born away from the bomb. Father and son entangled in the fiercest battle.

Eph saw Zack standing alone behind Mr. Quinlan, watching raptly, something like fire in his eyes. Then Zack turned, as though his attention had been called to something. The Master was directing him. Zack reached down and picked up something long.

Setrakian’s walking stick. The boy knew that a good twist of the handle shed the bottom wooden sheath, baring the silver blade.

Zack held the sword with both hands. He looked at Mr. Quinlan from behind.

Eph was already running toward him. He got in front of Zack, between him and the Born, one arm over his searing chest, the other holding a sword.

Zack stared at his father before him. He did not lower his blade.

Eph lowered his. He wanted Zack to take a chop at him. It would have made what he had to do that much easier.

The boy trembled. Maybe he was fighting himself inside, resisting what the Master was telling him to do.

Eph reached for his wrists and pulled Setrakian’s sword out of his hands. “Okay,” said Eph. “It’s okay.”

Mr. Quinlan overpowered the Master. Eph could not hear what their minds were saying to one another; he only knew that the roar in his own head was deafening. Mr. Quinlan grabbed the neck of the Master and sank his fingers into it, piercing its flesh, trying to shatter it.

Father.

And then the Master shot out its stinger—and like a piston, it embedded itself in the Born’s neck. Such was its force that it shattered the vertebrae. Blood worms invaded Mr. Quinlan’s immaculate body, coursing under his pale skin for the very first—and very last—time.

Eph saw the lights and heard the helicopter rotors approaching the island. They had found them. The spotlights searched the blighted land. It was now or never.

Eph ran as fast as his punctured lungs would allow, the barrel-shaped device shaking in his view. He was just a few yards out when a howl came up and a blow caught him on the back of the head.

Both swords slipped from his hands. Eph felt something gripping the side of his chest, the pain excruciating. He clawed at the soft dirt, seeing Setrakian’s sword blade glowing silver-white. He’d just grasped the wolf’s-head handle when the Master hoisted him into the air, spinning him.

The Master’s arms, face, and neck were cut and bleeding white. The creature could of course heal itself but had had no chance to yet. Eph slashed at the Master’s neck with the old man’s silver, but the creature caught Eph’s sword arm, stopping the blow. The pain in Eph’s chest was too great, and the Master’s strength was tremendous. It forced Eph’s hand back, pointing Setrakian’s sword at Eph’s own throat.

A helicopter spotlight hit them. In the haze, Eph looked down into the Master’s glowing, scratched-open face. He saw the blood worms rippling beneath its skin, invigorated by the nearness of human blood and the anticipation of the kill. The thrumming roared in Eph’s head, achieving a voice, its tenor rising to almost a nearly angelic level.

I have a new body ready and waiting. The next time anyone looks at your son’s face—they will be looking at me.

The worms bubbled beneath the flesh of its face, as though in ecstasy.

Good-bye, Goodweather.

But Eph eased his resistance against the Master’s grip just before the Master could finish him off. Eph pricked his own throat, opening a vein. He saw his own red blood spurt out, spraying right into the Master’s face—making the blood worms crazy.

They sprang from the Master’s open wounds. They crawled up from the slices in its arms and the hole in its chest, trying to get at the blood.

The Master groaned and shook, hurling Eph away as it brought its own hands to its face.

Eph landed hard. He twisted, needing all his strength to turn back.

Within the column of helicopter light, the Master stumbled backward, trying to stop its own parasitic worms from feasting on the human blood coating its face, obstructing its vision.

Eph watched all of this through a daze, everything slowed down. Then a thump in the ground at his side brought him back to speed.

The snipers. Another spotlight lit him up, red laser sights dancing on his chest and head… and the nuke, just a few feet away.

Eph dragged himself through the dirt, scratching toward the device as rounds pelted the ground around him. He reached it, pulling himself up on it in order to reach the detonator.

He got it in his hand and found the button, then risked one look back at Zack.

The boy stood near where the Born lay. A few of the blood parasites had reached him, and Eph saw Zack struggling to brush them off… then watched as they burrowed in under his forearm and neck.

Mr. Quinlan’s body arose, a new look in his eyes—a new will. That of the Master, who understood the dark side of human nature completely, but not love.

“This is love,” said Eph. “God, it hurts—but this is love…”

And he, who had been late to most everything in his life, was on time for this, the most important appointment he ever had. He pushed the switch.

And nothing happened. For one agonizing moment, the island was an oasis of stillness to Eph, though the helicopters were hovering overhead.

Eph saw Mr. Quinlan coming at him, one final lunge of the Master’s will.

Then two punches to his chest. Eph was down on the ground, looking at his wounds. Seeing the bloody holes there, just to the right of his heart. His blood seeping into the ground.

Eph looked past Mr. Quinlan at Zack, his face glowing in the helicopter light. His will still present, still not overcome. He saw Zack’s eyes—his son, even now, his son—he still had the most beautiful eyes…

Eph smiled.

And then the miracle happened.

It was the gentlest of things: no earthquake, no hurricane, no parting of the seas. The sky cleared for a moment and a brilliant column of pure, sterilizing light a million times more powerful than any helicopter spotlight poured down. The dark cloud cover opened and cleansing light emerged.

The Born, now infected by the Master’s blood, hissed and writhed in the brilliant light. Smoke and vapor surged from its body as the Born screamed like a lobster being boiled.

None of this shook Eph’s gaze from the eyes of his son. And as Zack saw his father smile at him there—in the powerful light of glorious day—he recognized him for all that he was, recognized him as—

“Dad—” Zack said softly.

And then the nuclear device detonated. Everything around the flashpoint evaporated—bodies, sand, vegetation, helicopters—all gone.

Purged.

From a beach well down the river, close to Lake Ontario, Nora watched this only for a moment. Then Fet pulled her around a rocky outcropping, both of them dropping into a ball on the sand.

The shock wave made the old abandoned fort near them shudder, shaking dust and stone fragments from the walls. Nora was certain the entire structure would collapse into the river. Her ears popped and the water around them heaved in a great gush—and even with her eyes tightly closed and her arms over her head, she still saw bright light.

Rain blew sideways, the ground emitted a howl of pain… and then the light faded, the stone fort settled without collapsing, and everything became quiet and still.

Later, she would realize that she and Fet had been rendered temporarily deaf by the blast, but for the moment the silence was profound and spiritual. Fet uncurled himself from shielding Nora, and together they ventured back out around the rock barrier as the water receded from the beach.

What she saw—the larger miracle in the sky—she did not fully understand until later.

Gabriel, the first archangel—an entity of light so bright that it made the sun and the atomic glow pale—came spiraling down around the shaft of light on glowing silver wings.

Michael, the murdered one, tucked his wings and bolted straight down, leveling out about a mile above the island, gliding down the rest of the way.

Then, rising as though out of the earth itself, came Ozryel, together again, resurrected from the collective ashes. Rock and dirt fell from its great wings as it ascended. A spirit again, flesh no more.

Nora witnessed all these portents in the absolute silence of momentary deafness. And that, perhaps, made it sink even deeper into her psyche. She could not hear the raging rumble that her feet felt, she could not hear the crackling of the blinding light that warmed her face and her soul. A true Old Testament moment witnessed by someone dressed not in linen robes but off-the-shelf Gap. This moment rattled her senses and her faith for the rest of her life. Without even noticing it, Nora cried freely.

Gabriel and Michael joined Ozryel and together they soared into the light. The hole in the clouds brightened brilliantly as the three archangels reached it—and then with one last flare of divine illumination, the opening swallowed them up and then closed.

Nora and Fet looked around. The river was still raging, and their skiff had been swept away. Fet checked Nora, making sure she was okay.

We’re alive, he mouthed—no words audible.

Did you see that? asked Nora.

Fet shook his head, not as in, No, but as in, I don’t believe it.

The couple looked at the sky, waiting for something else to happen.

Meanwhile, all around them, large sections of sandy beach had turned to opalescent glass.

The fort residents came out, a few dozen men and women in tatters, some carrying children. Nora and Fet had warned them to take cover, and now the islanders looked to them for an explanation.

Nora had to yell in order to be heard. “Ann and William?” she said. “They had a boy with them, a thirteen-year-old boy!”

The adults shook their heads.

Nora said, “They left before us!”

One man said, “Maybe on another island?”

Nora nodded—though she didn’t believe it. She and Fet had made it to their fort island in a sailboat. Ann and William should have landed long ago.

Fet rested his hand on Nora’s shoulder. “What about Eph?”

There was no way to confirm it, but she knew he was never coming back.