The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (120 page)

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

HEY MEX.

BAD HERE—ALWAYS HUNGRY. MIGHT CøøK

BIRD WHEN IT FLY BACK.

GøT YR MESSAGE ABøUT DETøNATøR. GøT IDEA

4 U. GIMME YR LøCATIøN AND PUT øUT SøME

DAMN FøøD. CREEM CøMIN 2 TøWN. SET MEET.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eph nodded once, accepting her apology.

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

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

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

“I wasn’t going to.”

“But?”

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

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

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

“No? Who did?”

“You did.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That is what you are implying.”

“What I am implying—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I knew you would return.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can never go down / can never go down . . .

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

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

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

This thing was reading him.

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

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

Who am I?

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

You came to me. You came to listen.

“I don’t know why I came.”

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

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

You want to come home. To return home.

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

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

Eph said nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

“The what?”

Mr. Quinlan, I think you call him.

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

Certainly you can.

“I
won’t
do that.”

Certainly you will.

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

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

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

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

“You would give Zack to me?”

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

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

“Your word means nothing.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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