The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (113 page)

But on he ran. And the laughter melted away, fading with distance.

Eph went on blindly, his sword blade clanging into the legs of discarded chairs and scraping against the floor. The Vikes had kicked in, and he was swimming a bit, his body numb but not his head. In walking away, he had turned a corner in his own mind. Now more than ever he wanted to free Nora from the blood camp. To deliver her from the clutches of the vampires. He wanted to show the Master—show it that even in a fucked-up time such as this, it could be done: a human could be saved. That Zack was not lost to Eph, and that the Master’s hold on him was not as secure as it might think.

Eph stopped to catch his breath. His headlamp was dimming, and he tapped it, the light flickering. He needed to figure out where he was and surface, or else be lost in this dark labyrinth. He was anxious to let the others know that he was ready to go to the camp and fight.

He turned the next corner, and at the end of the long, dark corridor, Eph saw a figure. Something about its stance—low-armed, knees lightly flexed—said “vampire.”

Eph’s sword came up. He went a few steps forward, hoping to light the creature better.

It remained still. The narrow corridor walls drifted a bit in Eph’s vision, wobbling thanks to the Vikes. Maybe he was seeing things—seeing what he wanted to see. He had wanted a fight.

Convinced now that it was a figment of his imagination, Eph grew more emboldened, approaching the ghost.

“Come here,” he said, his rage at Kelly and the Master still brimming. “Come and get it.”

The creature stood its ground, allowing Eph a better look. A sweatshirt hood formed a triangular cotton point over its head, shadowing its face and obscuring its eyes. Boots and jeans. One arm hung low at its side, the other hand just hidden behind its back.

Eph strode toward the figure with angry determination, like that of a man crossing a room to slam a door shut. The figure never moved. Eph planted his back leg and delivered a two-handed baseball swing aimed at the neck.

To Eph’s surprise, his sword clanged and his arms kicked back, the handle almost springing loose from his grip. A burst of sparks briefly lit the corridor.

It took Eph a moment to realize that the vampire had parried his blow with a length of steel.

Eph regripped his sword with his stinging palms and rattled knuckles and reared back to swing again. The vampire wielded his steel bar one-handedly, easily deflecting the attack. A sudden boot thrust into Eph’s chest sent him sprawling, tripping over his own feet as he collapsed to the floor.

Eph stared up at the shadowy figure. Entirely real, but . . . also different. Not one of the semi-intelligent drones he was used to facing. This vamp had a stillness, a self-composure, that set him apart from the seething masses.

Eph scrambled back up onto his feet. The challenge stoked the fire burning inside him. He didn’t know what this vampire was, and he didn’t care. “Come on!” he shouted, beckoning the vamp. Again, the creature did not move. Eph evened out his blade, showing the vamp the sharp silver point. He feigned a stab, spinning quickly, one of his best moves, slashing with enough force to cut the creature in two. But the vamp foresaw the move, raising his steel to parry, and Eph countered again, dodging, coming back around the other way and going straight for its neck.

The vamp was ready for him. Its hand grabbed Eph’s forearm, closing on it like a hot clamp. It twisted Eph’s arm with such force that Eph had to arch backward to keep his elbow and shoulder from snapping under pressure. Eph howled in pain, unable to keep his grip on the sword. It popped from his hand and clattered to the floor. With his free hand, Eph went to his belt for his hip dagger, slashing at the vampire’s face.

Surprised, the thing shoved Eph to the floor, reeling back.

Eph crawled away, his elbow burning with pain. Two more figures came running from his end of the hallway, two humans. Fet and Gus.

Just in time. Eph turned toward the outnumbered vamp, expecting it to hiss and charge.

Instead, the creature reached down to the floor, lifting Eph’s sword by its leather-wrapped handle. It turned the silver-bladed weapon this way and that, as though judging its weight and construction.

Eph had never seen a vampire willingly get that close to silver before—much less take a weapon into its hands.

Fet had drawn his sword, but Gus stopped him with a hand, walking past Eph without offering to help him up. The vampire tossed Eph’s sword to Gus, casually, grip first. Gus caught it easily and lowered the blade.

“Of all the things you taught me,” said Gus, “you left out the part about making these great fucking entrances.”

The vampire’s response was telepathic and exclusive to Gus. It pushed back its black hood, revealing a perfectly bald and earless head, preternaturally smooth, almost in the way that thieves appear with nylons stretched over their faces.

Except for its eyes. They glowed fiercely red, like those of a rat.

Eph stood up, rubbing his elbow. This thing was obviously
strigoi,
and yet Gus stood near it. Stood
with
it.

Fet, his hand still on his own sword grip, said, “You again.”

“What the hell is this?” said Eph, apparently the last one to this party.

Gus tossed Eph’s sword back at him, harder than was necessary. “You should remember Mr. Quinlan,” said Gus. “The Ancients’ top hunter. And currently the baddest man in the whole damn town.” Gus then turned back to Mr. Quinlan. “A friend of ours got herself thrown into a blood camp. We want her back.”

Mr. Quinlan regarded Eph with eyes informed by centuries of existence. His voice, when it entered Eph’s mind, was a smooth, measured baritone.

Dr. Goodweather, I presume.

Eph locked eyes with him. Barely nodded. Mr. Quinlan looked at Fet:

I’m here in the hopes that we can reach an arrangement.

Low Memorial Library, Columbia University

I
NSIDE
THE
C
OLUMBIA
University library, in a research room off the cavernous rotunda—once, and still, the largest all-granite dome in the country—Mr. Quinlan sat at a reading table across from Fet.

“You help us break into the camp—you get to read the book,” said Fet. “There is no further negotiation . . .”

I will do that. But you know that you will be vastly outnumbered by both
strigoi
and human guards?

“We know,” said Fet. “Will you help us in? That’s the price.”

I will.

The burly exterminator unzipped a hidden pocket in his backpack and pulled out a large bundle of rags.

You had it on you?
asked the Born, incredulous.

“Can’t think of a safer place,” said Fet, smiling. “Hidden in plain sight. You want the book, you go through me.”

A daunting task, to be sure.

Fet shrugged. “Daunting enough.” He unwrapped a volume lying within the rags. “The
Lumen,
” said Fet.

Quinlan felt a wave of cold travel up his neck. A rare sensation in one so old. He studied the book as Fet turned to face him. The cover was ragged leather and fabric.

“I pulled off the silver cover. Ruined the spine a little bit, but too bad. It looks humble and unimportant, doesn’t it?”

Where’s the silver cover?

“I have it socked away. Easy to retrieve.”

Quinlan looked at him.
You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, exterminator?

Felt shrugged off the compliment.

The old man chose well, Mr. Fet. Your heart is uncomplicated. It knows what it knows and acts accordingly. Greater wisdom is hard to find.

The Born sat with his black cotton hood sloughed off his immaculately smooth, white head. Before him, open to one of the illuminated pages, lay the
Occido Lumen
. Because its silver edging was repellent to his vampiric nature, he carefully turned the pages using the eraser top of a pencil. Now, at once, he touched the interior of the page with his fingertip, almost in the way a blind man would search a loved one’s face.

This document was holy. It contained the creation and history of the world’s vampire race, and as such included several references to Borns. Imagine a human allowed access to a book outlining human creation and answers to most if not all of life’s mysteries. Mr. Quinlan’s deeply red eyes scanned the pages with intense interest.

The reading is slow. The language is dense.

Fet said, “You’re telling me.”

Also, there is much that is hidden. In images and in the watermarks. They appear much clearer to my eyes than yours—but this is going to require some time.

“Which is exactly what we do not have. How much time will it take?”

The Born’s eyes continued scanning back and forth.

Impossible to say.

Fet was aware that his anxiety was a distraction to Mr. Quinlan.

“We are loading the weapons. You have an hour or so—then you’ll come with us. We are getting Nora back . . .”

Fet turned around and walked away. Three steps later, the
Lumen,
the Master, and the apocalypse evaporated. There was only Nora in his mind.

Mr. Quinlan returned his attention to the pages of the
Lumen
and started to read.

INTERLUDE
II
OCCIDO LUMEN:
THE
MASTER
’
S
TALE

T
HERE
WAS
A
THIRD
.

Each of the holy books, the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran, tells the tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. So, in a way, does the
Lumen.

In Genesis 18, three archangels appear before Abraham in human form. Two are said to proceed from there to the doomed cities of the plain, where they reside with Lot, enjoy a feast, and are later surrounded by the men of Sodom, whom they blind before destroying their city.

The third archangel is deliberately omitted. Hidden. Lost.

This is his story.

Five cities shared the vast, lush plain of the Yarden River, near what is today the Dead Sea. And out of all of these Sodom was the proudest, the most beautiful. It rose from its fertile surroundings as a landmark, a monument to wealth and prosperity.

Irrigated by a complex canal system, it had grown randomly through the centuries, radiating outward from the waterways and ending up in a shape that vaguely resembled a dove in flight. Its ten-acre contours crystallized in that form when the surrounding walls were erected around 2024
BC
. The walls were over forty feet tall and six feet thick, constructed of baked mud brick and plastered in gypsum to make them shine brightly in the sun. Within them, mud-brick buildings were built so close together as to be almost on top of one another, the tallest of which was a temple erected to honor the Canaanite god Moloch. The population of Sodom fluctuated around two thousand. Fruits, spices, and grains were abundant, driving the city’s prosperity. The glass and gilded bronze tiles of a dozen palaces were visible at once, glinting in the dying sunlight.

Such wealth was guarded by the enormous gates that gave entrance into the city. Six irregular stones of enormous size and heft created a monumental archway with gates fashioned from iron and hardwoods impervious to fire or battering rams.

It was at these gates that Lot, son of Haran, nephew of Abram, was when the three creatures of light arrived.

Pale they were, and radiant and remote. Part of the essence of God and, as such, void of any blemish. From each of their backs, four long appendages emerged, suffused with feathery light, easily confused with luminous wings. The four jutting limbs fused in the back of the creatures and flapped softly with their every step, as naturally as one would compensate for forward movement by swaying one’s arms. With each step they acquired form and mass, until they stood there, naked and somewhat lost. Their skin was radiant like the purest alabaster and their beauty was a painful reminder of Lot’s mortal imperfection.

They were sent there to punish the pride, decadence, and brutality that had bred within the prosperous walls of the city. Gabriel, Michael, and Ozryel were God’s emissaries—His most trusted, most cherished creations and His most ruthless soldiers.

And among them it was Ozryel who held His greatest favor. He was intent upon visiting the town square that night, where they had been instructed to go—but Lot beseeched them to stay with him at his residence instead. Gabriel and Michael agreed, and so Ozryel, the third, who was most interested in the wicked ways of these cities, was made to acquiesce to his brothers’ wishes. Of the three, it was Ozryel who held the voice of God within himself, the power of destruction that would erase the two sinful cities from the earth. He was, as it is told in every tale, God’s favorite: His most protected, His most beautiful creation.

Lot had been blessed aplenty, with land and cattle and a pious wife. So the feast at his home was abundant and varied. And the three archangels feasted as men, and Lot’s two virginal daughters washed their feet. These physical sensations were new to all three of the angels, but for Ozryel the sensations were overwhelming, achieving a profundity that escaped the other two. This represented Ozryel’s first experience of individuality, of apartness from the energy of the deity. God is an energy, rather than an anthropomorphic being, and God’s language is biology. Red blood cells, the principle of magnetic attraction, neurological synapse: each is a miracle, and in each is the presence and flow of God. When Lot’s wife cut herself while preparing the herbs and oil for the bath, Ozryel beheld her blood with great curiosity; the smell of it excited him. Tempted him. And its color was precious, lush . . . like liquid rubies glinting in the candlelight. The woman—who had protested the men’s presence from the start—recoiled when she discovered the archangel staring at her wound, enraptured.