The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (116 page)

The vampires did not react as humans would. None of them ran out the door to escape or warn others. The alarm went out psychically. Their attack, after the initial shock, came swiftly.

Mr. Quinlan cut one down with a blow to the neck. Gus rushed forward, meeting a charging vampire and running his blade straight through its throat. Decapitation was difficult in close quarters because the broad slashing required to sever the neck risked wounding others, and the blood spray was caustic, laden with infectious worm parasites. Close-quarters combat with
strigoi
was always a last resort, and so the five of them fought their way out of the quarantine intake room as quickly as possible.

Eph, the last to arm himself, was set upon not by vampires but by humans. The veterinarian and one other. He was so startled, he reacted to the attack as though they were
strigoi
and stabbed the vet through the base of his neck. Red arterial spray spritzed the wooden supporting pole in the center of the room as both Eph and the veterinarian stared at one another with wide eyes. “What the hell are you doing!” yelled Eph. The veterinarian sank to his knees, and the second man turned his attention to his wounded friend.

Eph backed away slowly from the dying man, pulled on his shoulder by one of the others. He was shaken;
he had killed a man.

They stepped out of the tent, emerging into the open air inside the camp. The rain had slowed to a misty drizzle. A canvas-roofed path lay before them, but the night prevented Eph from taking in the camp as a whole. No
strigoi
yet, but they knew that the alarm had gone out. It took their eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness—out of which the vampires came running.

The five of them fanned out in an arc, taking on all comers. Here there was room to swing the blade freely, to plant one’s rear foot and drive the sword with enough force to lift the head from the shoulders. Eph hacked hard, moving and slashing and checking constantly behind him.

In this way, they repelled the initial wave. They continued ahead, though without any intelligence as to the organization of the camp. They looked for some indication of where the general population was located. Another pair of vampires came at them from the left, and Mr. Quinlan, protecting his flank, cut them down, then led the others in that general direction.

Ahead, silhouetted against the darkness, was a tall, narrow structure: a lookout post in the center of a stone circle. More vampires came running at top speed and the five men tightened up, moving as a unit, five silver blades cutting together almost as one wide one.

They needed to kill fast. The
strigoi
had been known to sacrifice one or more of their number in an attempt at improving their chances of capturing and turning a human aggressor. Their strategy was such that one or three or even ten vampires were worth sacrificing for the elimination of one human slayer.

Eph curled back behind the others, taking the rear, walking backward as they formed a moving oval, a ring of silver to hold the swarming vampires at bay. His eyes becoming more acclimated to the dark, Eph perceived other
strigoi
slowing in the distance, congregating, holding back. Tracking without attacking. Planning some more coordinated assault.

“They’re massing,” he told the others. “I think we’re being pushed this way.”

He heard the wet cut of a sword, then Fet’s voice. “A building up ahead. Our only hope is to go zone by zone.”

We broke out into the camp too early,
said Mr. Quinlan.

The sky as yet was showing no sign of brightening. Everything hinged upon that unreliable window of sunlight. The trick now was to last inside enemy territory until the uncertain dawn.

Gus swore and cut down another creature. “Stay tight,” said Fet.

Eph continued his slow walk backward. He could just make out the faces of the first line of vampires pursuing them, staring intently. Staring—it seemed—at him.

Was it just his imagination? Eph slowed, then stopped altogether, allowing the others to progress a few yards without him.

The pursuing vampires stopped as well.

“Ah, shit,” said Eph.

They had recognized him. The equivalent of an all-points bulletin on the vampire psychic network was a hit. The hive was alerted to his presence, which meant only one thing.

The Master knew that Eph was there. Watching this through its drones.

“Hey!” said Fet, doubling back to Eph. “What the hell are you doing stopping . . . ?” He saw the
strigoi,
maybe two dozen of them, staring. “Jesus. What are they, starstruck?”

Awaiting orders.

“Christ, let’s just—”

The camp whistle went off—jolting them—a shrill steam scream followed by four more in quick succession. Then silence again.

Eph understood the alarm’s purpose: to alert not just the vampires but also the humans. A call to take shelter, perhaps.

Fet looked to the nearest building. He again checked the sky for light. “If you can lead them away from here, from us—we can get in and out of this place that much more quickly.”

Eph had no desire to be a bouncing red chew toy for this pack of bloodsuckers, but he saw the logic in Fet’s plan. “Just do me a favor,” he said. “Make it fast.”

Fet called back, “Gus! Stay with Eph.”

“No way,” said Gus. “I’m going in. Bruno, get with him.”

Eph smiled at Gus’s obvious distaste for him. He caught Mr. Quinlan’s arm and pulled him back, trading the sword he carried for his own.

I will take care of the human guards,
Mr. Quinlan said, and disappeared in a flash
.

Eph regripped the familiar leather handle, then waited for Bruno to come up at his side. “You okay with this?”

“Better than okay,” said Bruno, out of breath but smiling wide, like a kid. His super-white teeth looked great against his light-brown skin.

Eph lowered his sword, jogging off to the left and away from the structure. The vamps hesitated a moment before following. Eph and Bruno rounded the corner of a long, shedlike outbuilding, all dark. Beyond it, light shone from inside a window.

Lights meant humans.

“This way!” said Eph, breaking into a run. Bruno kept pace, panting. Eph looked back and, sure enough, the vampires were charging around the corner after them. Eph ran toward the light, seeing a vampire standing near the door to the building.

He was a big male, backlit by the faint window light. On his large chest and the sides of his trunklike neck, Eph saw fading tattoo ink, turned green by the white blood and multiple stretch marks.

At once, like a traumatic memory forcing its way back into his consciousness, the Master’s voice was inside Eph’s head.

What are you here for, Goodweather?

Eph stopped and pointed his sword at the big vamp. Bruno spun around next to him, keeping an eye on the drones behind them.

What is it you came here to get?

Bruno roared next to Eph, hacking down two charging vampires. Eph turned, momentarily distracted, seeing the others bunched up just a few yards away—respecting the silver—and then, realizing he had allowed himself to become distracted, turned back fast with his sword up.

The tip of his sword caught the charging vampire in the right breast, entering skin and muscle but not running him through. Eph withdrew quickly and stabbed at the vampire’s throat, just as the thing’s jaw was beginning to drop, baring its stinger. The tattooed vampire shivered and dropped to the ground.

“Fuckers!” yelled Bruno.

They were all coming now. Eph wheeled and readied his sword. But there were just too many, and all moving at once. He started backpedaling—

You are here searching for someone, Goodweather.

—and felt stones beneath his feet as he neared the building. Bruno kept hacking and slaying as Eph backed up three steps, feeling for the door handle, opening the latch, the door giving way.

You are mine now, Goodweather.

The voice boomed, disorienting him. Eph pulled on Bruno’s shoulder, motioning to the gangbanger to follow him inside. They ran past makeshift cages on either side of the narrow walkway, containing humans in various stages of distress. A madhouse of sorts. The people howled at Eph and Bruno as they hurried through.

Dead end, Goodweather.

Eph shook his head hard, trying to chase the Master’s voice from his mind. Its presence was addling, like the voice of madness itself. Add to that the people clawing at the cages as he passed, and Eph was caught in a cyclone of confusion and terror.

The first of the pursuing vampires entered the other end. Eph tried one door, leading to an office of sorts, with a dentist-style chair whose headrest, and the floor beneath it, was crusted with dry, red human blood. Another door led outside, Eph jumping down three steps. More vampires awaited him, having gone around the building rather than through it, and Eph swung and chopped, turning just in time to catch one female leaping at him from the roof.

Why did you come here, Goodweather?

Eph leaped back from the slain female. He and Bruno backed away, side by side, heading toward an unlit, windowless structure set against the high perimeter fence. Perhaps the vampires’ quarters? The camp
strigoi
’s nest?

Eph and Bruno angled themselves, only to find that the fence turned sharply and ended at another unlit structure.

Dead end. I told you.

Eph stood up to the vampires coming toward them in the dark.

“Undead end,” Eph muttered. “You bastard.”

Bruno glanced over at him. “Bastard? You the one who ran us into this trap!”

Once I catch you and turn you, I will know all your secrets.

That turned Eph cold. “Here they come,” he said to Bruno—and got ready for them.

N
ora had arrived at Barnes’s office inside the administrative building ready to agree to anything, including giving herself to Barnes, in order to save her mother and get close to him. She despised her former boss even more than the vampire oppressors. His immorality sickened her—but the fact that he believed she was weak enough to simply bend to his will made her nauseous.

Killing him would show him that. If his fantasy was her submission, her plan was to drive the shank into his heart. Death by butter knife: how fitting!

She would do it as he lay in bed or in the middle of his dinner patter, so hideously civilized. He was more evil than the
strigoi:
his corruption was not a disease, was not something inflicted
upon
him. His corruption was opportunistic. A choice.

Worst of all was his perception of her as a potential victim. He had fatally misread Nora, and all that was left was for her to show him the error of his ways. In steel.

He made her wait out in the hallway, where there was no chair or bathroom, for three hours. Twice he left his office, resplendent in his crisp, white admiral’s uniform, strolling past Nora carrying some papers but never acknowledging her, passing without a word, disappearing behind another door. And so she waited, stewing, even when the single camp whistle signaled the rations call, one hand across her grumbling stomach—her mind squarely focused on her mother and murder.

Finally, Barnes’s assistant—a young female with clean, shoulder-length auburn hair, wearing a laundered gray jumpsuit—opened the door, admitting Nora without a word. The assistant remained in the doorway as Nora passed through. Perfumed skin and minty breath. Nora returned the assistant’s look of disapproval, imagining just how the woman had secured such a plum position in Barnes’s world.

The assistant sat behind her desk, leaving Nora to try the next door, which was locked. Nora turned and retreated to one of the two hard folding chairs against the wall facing the assistant. The assistant made busy noises in an effort to ignore Nora while simultaneously asserting her superiority. Her telephone buzzed and she lifted the receiver, answering it quietly. The room, save for the unfinished wooden walls and the laptop computer, resembled a low-tech 1940s-era office: corded telephone, a pen and paper set, blotter. On the near corner of the desk, just off the blotter, sat a thick chocolate brownie on a small paper plate. The assistant hung up after a few whispered words and noticed Nora staring at the treat. She reached for the plate, taking just a nibble of the dessert cake, a few stray crumbs sprinkling down into her lap.

Nora heard a click in the doorknob, followed by Barnes’s voice.

“Come in!”

The assistant moved her treat to the other side of her desk, out of Nora’s reach, before waving her through. Nora again walked to the door and turned the knob, which, this time, gave way.

Barnes was standing behind his desk, stuffing files into an open attaché case, preparing to leave for the day. “Good morning, Carly. Is the car ready?”

“Yes, sir, Dr. Barnes,” sang the assistant. “They just called up from the gate.”

“Call down and make sure the heat is on in the back.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nora?” said Barnes, still stuffing, not looking up. His demeanor was much changed from their previous encounter at his palatial home. “You have something you wish to discuss with me?”

“You win.”

“I win? Wonderful. Now tell me, what is it I have won?”

“Your way. With me.”

He hesitated just a moment before closing the case, snapping the clasps. He looked at her and nodded slightly to himself, as though having trouble remembering his original offer. “Very good,” he said, then went rooting in a drawer for some other nearly forgotten thing.

Nora waited. “So?” she said.

“So,” he said.

“Now what?”

“Now I am in a very great rush. But I will let you know.”

“I thought . . . I’m not going back to your house now?”

“Soon. Another time. Busy day and all.”

“But—I’m ready now.”

“Yes. I thought you would grow a bit more eager. Camp life doesn’t agree with you? No, I didn’t think so.” He took up the handle of his case. “I’ll soon call for you.”