The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (87 page)

“All the way to the end!” said Fet, his voice booming inside the stone tube.

Eph came up alongside Setrakian. The old man was slowing, the nub of his walking stick splashing in the water stream. “Can you make it?” said Eph.

“Have to,” said Setrakian.

“I saw Palmer. Today is the day. The last day.”

Setrakian said, “I know it.”

Eph patted Angel’s arm, the one that held the bubble-wrapped book. “Here.” Eph took the bundle from him, and the hobbling Mexican giant took Setrakian’s arm, helping the old man along.

Eph looked at the wrestler as they rushed, filled with questions he knew not how to ask.

“Here they come!” said Fet.

Eph looked back. Mere shapes in the dark tunnel, to his eyes, coming at them like a dark rush of drowning water.

Two of the Sapphires turned back to fight. “No!” cried Fet. “Don’t bother! Just get through here!”

Fet slowed between two long wooden cases strapped to pipes along the tunnel walls. They looked like speaker bars, set vertically, angled in toward the tunnel. To each, he had rigged a simple switch wire, both of which he gathered in his hands now.

“Down the side!” he yelled to the others behind him. “Through the panel.”

But none of them turned the corner. The sight of the onrushing vampires and Fet standing alone in the tunnel holding the triggers to Setrakian’s contraption was too compelling.

Out of the darkness came the first faces, red-eyed, mouths open. Tumbling over one another in an all-out race to be the first to attack the humans,
strigoi
surged toward them without any regard for their fellow vampires or themselves. A stampede of sickness and depravity, the fury of the overturned hive.

Fet waited, and waited, and waited, until they were nearly upon him. His voice rose in a yell that started in his throat, but by the end seemed to come straight from his mind, a howl of human perseverance into the gale force of a hurricane.

Their hands reached out, the tide of vampires about to overwhelm him—as he flicked both switches.

The effect was something like the ignition of a giant camera flashbulb. The twin devices went off simultaneously in a single explosion of silver. An expulsion of chemical matter that eviscerated the vampires in a wave of devastation. Those in the rear went as
quickly as those at the vanguard, because there was no shadow to hide in, the silver particulate burning through them like radiation, smashing their viral DNA.

The silver tinge lingered in the moments after the great purge, like a shiny snowfall, Fet’s howl fading into the emptied tunnel as the shredded matter that was the once-human vampires settled to the tunnel floor.

Gone. As though he had teleported them somewhere else. Like taking a picture, only once the flash faded, no one was there.

No one complete, at least.

Fet released the triggers and turned back at Setrakian.

Setrakian said, “Indeed.”

They followed another ladder, leading down to a walkway with a railing. At the end was a door that opened onto an under-sidewalk grate, the surface visible above them. Fet climbed up the boxes he had set as steps, and popped the loosened grate free with his shoulder.

They emerged at the 73rd Street ramp entrance onto FDR Drive. A few strays blundered into them as they rushed across the six-lane parkway over the dividing concrete barriers, moving around abandoned cars toward the East River.

Eph looked back, seeing vampires dropping down off the high balcony that was the courtyard at the end of 72nd Street. They came swarming out of 73rd along the parkway. Eph worried that they were backing themselves up against the river, with blood-hungry revenants closing on all sides.

But on the other side of a low iron fence was a landing, a municipal dock of sorts, though it was too dark for Eph to see what it was for. Fet went over first, moving with surly confidence, and so Eph followed with all the others.

Fet ran to the end of the landing, and Eph saw it now: a tugboat, large tires tied all the way around its sides, acting as fenders. They climbed onto the main deck, Fet running up into the wheelhouse. The engine started with a cough and a roar, and Eph untied the aft end. The boat lurched at first, Fet pushing it too hard, then launched away from the island.

Out on the West Channel, floating a few dozen yards off the
edge of Manhattan, Eph watched the horde of vampires clamor to the edge of FDR Drive. They bunched there, trailing the boat along its slow southern path, unable to venture out over moving water.

The river was a safe zone. A no-vamp’s-land.

Beyond the plunderers, Eph looked up at the looming buildings of the darkened city. Behind him, above Roosevelt Island, in the middle of the East River, were pockets of daylight—not pure sunlight, for it was evidently an overcast day, but clarity—between the smoke-veiled landmasses of Manhattan and Queens.

They approached the Queensboro Bridge, gliding underneath the high cantilever span. A bright flash streaked across the Manhattan skyline, turning Eph’s head. Then another went up, like a modest firework. Then a third.

Illumination flares, in orange and white.

A vehicle came tearing up FDR Drive toward the throng of vampires following the boat. It was a Jeep, soldiers in camouflage standing out of the back, firing automatic weapons into the crowd.

“The Army!” said Eph. He felt something he hadn’t felt in some time: hope. He looked around for Setrakian, and, not seeing him, headed into the main cabin.

N
ora finally found a door, leading not to any sort of exit from the tunnel but into a deep storage closet. There was no lock—the planners never anticipated pedestrians one hundred feet below the Hudson—and inside she found safety equipment, such as replacement bulbs for signal lights, orange flags and vests, and an old cardboard box of flares. Flashlights also, but the batteries were all corroded.

She evened out a pile of sandbags in the corner to fashion a seat for her mother, then grabbed a handful of flares, throwing them into her bag.

“Mama. Please, please, be quiet. Stay here. I am coming back. I am.”

Nora’s mother sat on the cold throne of sandbags with a curious look about the closet. “Where did you put the cookies?”

“All gone, Mama. You sleep now. Rest.”

“Here? In the pantry?”

“Please. It’s a surprise—for Papa.” Nora was backing out through the door. “Don’t move until he comes for you.”

She closed the door quickly, scanning the tunnel for vampires with her scope, then dumping two sandbags in front of the door to hold it shut. She then went racing back toward Zack, simultaneously leading her own scent away from her mother.

She had taken the coward’s way out, she supposed—stuffing her poor mother inside a closet—but at least this way there was hope.

She continued back along the eastbound side of the tunnel, looking for the place where Zack had hidden. Things looked different through the soupy green light of the monocular. Her marker had been a stripe of white paint along the low side of the tunnel—but she could not locate it now. She thought again of those two vampires who had come up on her, and was leaping with anxiety.

“Zack!” A yelled whisper. Foolhardy, but concern trumped reason. She had to be near where she had left him. “Zack—it’s Nora! Where are …?”

What she saw before her chased the voice from her throat. Illuminated in her monocular, illustrated on the broad side of the tunnel, was a vast graffiti mural rendered with exceptional technique. It depicted a great, faceless humanlike creature with two arms, two legs, and two magnificent wings.

She realized intuitively that this was the final iteration of the six-petal tags they had been finding all around town. The earlier flowers, or bugs: those were icons, analogs, abstractions. Cartoons of this fearsome being.

The image of this broad-winged creature, and the manner in which it was rendered—at once both naturalistic and extraordinarily evocative—terrified her in a way she could not begin to understand. How eerie was this ambitious work of street art appearing in this dark tunnel so deep beneath the surface of the earth. A brilliant tattoo of extraordinary beauty and menace written upon this bowel of civilization.

An image, she realized at once, intended to be viewed only by vampiric eyes.

A sibilation spun Nora around. In her nightscope, she saw Kelly Goodweather, her face twisted into an expression of want that nearly resembled pain. Her mouth was an open slit, the tip of her stinger flicking like a lizard’s tongue, her parted lips bared in a hiss.

Her torn clothes were still soaked from the surface rain, hanging heavily from her thin body, her hair flattened, smears of dirt streaking her flesh. Her eyes, which appeared screaming white in the greenness of Nora’s scope, were wide with want.

Nora fumbled out her UVC lamp. She needed to put some hot space between herself and her lover’s undead ex-wife—but Kelly came at her with incredible speed, smacking the lamp from her hand before Nora could turn on the switch.

The Luma lamp smashed against the wall and fell to the ground.

Only Nora’s silver blade kept Kelly off her, the vampire leaping up and backward onto the low tunnel shelf. She then hurdled over Nora to the other side, Nora tracking her with her long knife. Kelly feigned an attack, then again bounded overhead. This time Nora swiped at her as she passed, dizzied from having to view the agile creature through her scope.

Kelly landed on the other side of the tunnel, a slash of white appearing on the side of her neck. A surface wound only, but enough to get Kelly’s attention. The vampire viewed its own white blood on its long hand, then flicked it at Nora, her face turning wicked and fierce.

Nora backed off, reaching into her bag for one of the flares. She heard limbs scrabbling over track stones, and did not need to take her eyes off Kelly to see them.

Three little vampire children, two boys and a girl, summoned by Kelly to assist in taking Nora down.

“Okay,” said Nora, twisting the plastic cap off the flare. “You want to do it this way?” She scratched the top of the cap against the red stick and the flare ignited, red flame searing into the darkness. Nora tipped back her scope, able to see with her own eyes now, the flame illuminating their section of the tunnel from ceiling to floor in a nimbus of angry red.

The children loped backward, repelled by the bright light. Nora waved the flare at Kelly, who lowered her chin but did not retreat.

One of the boys came at Nora from the side, emitting a shrill squeal, and Nora stepped into the child with her knife—burying the silver blade deep into its chest, right to the hilt. The child sagged and staggered back—Nora pulling back the blade fast—weakened and dazed. The child spread its lips, attempting a last-ditch sting—and Nora jammed the hot end of the flare into its mouth.

The creature bucked wildly, Nora hacking at it with her knife, screaming all the while.

The child vampire fell, and Nora pulled out the flare, still lit. She whipped around, anticipating Kelly’s rear attack.

But Kelly was gone. Nowhere to be found.

Nora brandished the flare, the two remaining vampire children crouching near their fallen playmate. She made sure that Kelly wasn’t on the ceiling or underneath the ledge.

Uncertainty was worse. The children split up, circling around her on either side, and Nora backed up to the wall beneath the giant mural, ready to do battle, determined not to be ambushed.

E
ldritch Palmer watched the illumination flares streaking over rooftops uptown. Puny fireworks. Match-strikes in a world of darkness. The helicopter approached him from the north, slowing above. He awaited his visitors on the seventy-eighth floor of the Stoneheart Building.

Eichhorst was first. A vampire wearing a tweed suit was like a pit bull wearing a knit sweater. He held the door open, the Master ducking as it entered, striding, cloaked, across the floor.

Palmer watched all this through the reflection in the windows.

Explain.

The voice sepulchral, edged with fury.

Palmer, having summoned the strength to stand, turned on his weak legs. “I cut off your funding. I closed the line of credit. Simple.”

Eichhorst stood to the side, watching with his gloved hands crossed. The Master looked down at Palmer, its raw-red skin inflamed, its eyes crimson and penetrating.

Palmer went on, “It was a demonstration. Of how critical my participation is to your success. It became evident to me that you needed to be reminded of my worth.”

They won the book.

This from Eichhorst, whose contempt for Palmer had always been certain, and returned in kind. But Palmer addressed the Master.

“What does it matter at this late moment? Turn me and I will be only too happy to finish off Professor Setrakian myself.”

You understand so little. But then, you have never viewed me as anything other than a means to an end. Your end.

“And shouldn’t I say the same of you! You, who has withheld your gift from me for so many years. I have given you everything and withheld nothing. Until this moment!”

This book is no mere trophy. It is a chalice of information. It is the last, lingering hope of the pig humans. The final gasp of your race. This, you cannot conceive. Your human perspective is so small.

“Then allow me to see.” Palmer stepped toward him, standing only halfway up the Master’s cloaked chest. “It is time. Deliver to me what is rightfully mine, and everything you need shall be yours.”

The Master said nothing into Palmer’s head. He did not move.

But Palmer was fearless. “We have a deal.”

Did you stop anything else? Have you disrupted any of the other plans we set in motion?

“None. Everything stands. Now—do we have a deal?”

We do.

The suddenness with which the Master leaned down to him shocked Palmer, made his fragile heart jump. Its face, up close, the blood worms coasting the veins and capillaries just beneath the florid beetroot that was its skin. Palmer’s brain released long-forgotten hormones, the moment of conversion upon him. Mentally, he had long ago packed his bags, and yet there was still a burst of trepidation at the first step of the ultimate one-way voyage. He had no quarrel with the improvements the turning would have upon his body; he wondered only what it would do to his long-held consolation and fiercest weapon, his mind.