The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (133 page)

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!”

F
et 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. “Bull
shit,
” 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

Z
ACK
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

E
PH
AND
N
ORA
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.