The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (126 page)

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

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

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

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

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

Service Garage, Columbia University

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You made it in all right.”

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

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

“Real bloodsucker, huh?”

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

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

“Never,” said Gus.

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

“And I’m careful.”

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

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

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

“Food is food,” said Gus.

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

“The undead.”

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

“How you fueling it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Show and tell,” said Gus.

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

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

“How’d you score all this?”

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

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

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

“Is that all you sellin’?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“More like this?” he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Corner store. Book of coupons.”

Creem checked on Nora. “How big?”

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

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

“Yes. We need a detonator.”

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

“Really,” said Gus. “Such as?”

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

“What’s that?”

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

“You’ll be warned beforehand.”

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

“Real estate?” said Gus.

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

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

New York Public Library Main Branch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Quinlan’s mouthless voice entered their heads.

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

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

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

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

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

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