The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (110 page)

Yes, the old professor. He had plans for you. If only he could see you here. Feeding your
madre
in the same manner he used to feed the infested heart of his long-lost wife. He failed, Gus. As you will fail.

Gus focused the pain in his head on the image of his mother as she once was. His mind’s eye stared at this image in an attempt to block out everything else.

Bring me the others, Augustin Elizalde. Your reward will be great. Your survival will be assured. Live like a king, not as a rat. Or else . . . no mercy. However much you beg for a second chance, I will no longer hear you. Your time is growing short . . .

“This is my house,” said Gus, aloud but quietly. “
My mind,
demon. You are not welcome here.”

What if I gave her back? Her will is stored in me along with the millions of voices. But I can find it for you, invoke it for you. I can give you your mother back . . .

And then, Gus’s mother’s eyes became almost human. They softened and became wet and full of pain.

“
Hijito,
” she said. “My son. Why am I here? Why am I like this . . . ? What are you doing to me?”

It hit him all at once, her nakedness, the madness, the guilt, the horror.

“No!!” he screamed, and reached in through the bars with a trembling hand, sliding the faceplate shut at once. Immediately, once it was closed, Gus felt released, as though by an invisible hand. And in the helmet, the laughter of the Master exploded. Gus covered his ears but the voice continued resounding in his head until, like an echo, it faded away.

The Master had attempted to engage him long enough to get a fix on Gus’s location, so it could send in his army of vampires to wipe him out.

It was just a trick.
Not my mother. Just a trick.
Never deal with the devil—that much he knew.
Live like a king.
Right. The king of a ruined world. The king of nothing. But down here, he was alive. An agent of chaos.
Caca grande.
The shit in the Master’s soup.

Gus’s reverie was interrupted by footfalls in the tunnels. He went to the door and saw artificial light coming around the corner.

Fet came first, Goodweather behind him. Gus had seen Fet a month or two before, but the doctor he had not seen in quite some time. Goodweather looked the worst he’d ever seen him.

They had never seen Gus’s mother before, never even knew he had her here. Fet saw her first, moving to the bars. Gus’s mother’s helmet tracked him. Gus explained the situation to them—how he had it all under control, how she was not a threat to him, his homies, or the mission.

“Holy Christ,” said the big exterminator. “Since when?”

“Long time now,” answered Gus. “I just don’t like to talk about it.”

Fet moved laterally, watching her helmet follow him. “She can’t see though?”

“No.”

“The helmet works? Blocking out the Master?”

Gus nodded. “I think so. Plus, she doesn’t even know where she is . . . it’s a triangulation thing. They need sight and sound and something inside the brain to home in on you. I keep one fully blocked all the time—her ears. Faceplate blocks her sight. It’s her vampire brain and her sense of smell spotting you now.”

“What are you feeding her?” asked Fet.

Gus shrugged. The answer was obvious.

Goodweather spoke up then. “Why? Why do you keep her?”

Gus looked at him. “I guess that’s still none of your fucking business, doctor . . .”

“She’s gone. That thing in there—that’s not your mother.”

“You really think I don’t know that?”

Goodweather said, “There’s no reason to keep her otherwise. You need to release her. Now.”

“I don’t need to do anything. This is my decision. My
madre
.”

“Not anymore she isn’t. My son, if I find that he has been turned, I will release him. I will cut him down myself, without a moment’s hesitation.”

“Well, this ain’t your son. Or any of your business.”

Gus couldn’t see Goodweather’s eyes clearly in the dim room. Last time they had met, Gus could tell that he had been hyped on speed. The good doctor was self-medicating then, and he thought now, too.

Gus turned away from him, back to Fet, cutting Goodweather out of the conversation. “How was your vacation,
hombre
?”

“Ah. Funny. Very relaxing. No, it was a wild goose chase, but with an interesting ending. How’s the street battle?”

“I’m taking it to them as best I can. Keeping the pressure up. Program Anarchy, you know? Agent Sabotage, reporting for duty, every damn night. Burned down four vamp lairs last week. Blew up a building the week before. Never knew what hit ’em. Guerilla warfare and dirty fucking tricks. Fight the power,
manito
.”

“We need it. Any time something explodes in the city, or a thick plume of smoke or dust rises up into the rain, it has to register with people that there are still some in the city who are fighting back. And it’s another thing for the vampires to have to explain away.” Fet motioned to Goodweather. “Eph brought down an entire hospital building a day ago. Detonated oxygen tanks.”

Gus turned to him. “What were you looking for in the hospital?” he asked, letting the doc know that he knew his dirty little secret. Fet was a fighter, a killer like Gus. Goodweather was something more complicated, and simplicity was what they needed now. Gus didn’t trust him. Turning back to Fet, he said, “You remember El Angel de Plata?”

“Of course,” said Fet. “The old wrestler.”

“The Silver Angel.” Gus kissed his thumb and saluted the wrestler’s memory with a fist. “So—call me the Silver Ninja. Got moves that would make your head spin so hard, all your hair would fall out. Two other homeboys with me, we’re on a tear like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Silver Ninja. I like it.”

“Vampire assassin. I’m legendary. And I ain’t gonna rest until I got all their heads on spikes running the length of Broadway.”

“They’re still hanging corpses from street signs. They would love to have yours.”

“And yours. They think they’re badass, but I’m ten times as dangerous as any bloodsucker.
Viva las ratas!
Long live the rats!”

Fet smiled and shook Gus’s hand. “I wish we had a dozen more like you.”

Gus waved that off. “You get a dozen of me, we’d end up killing off each other.”

G
us led them back out of the tunnels to the basement of Buell Hall, where Fet and Goodweather had left the Coleman cooler. He then led them back underground to Low Memorial Library, then up through its administrative offices to the roof. A cool, dark afternoon-night with no rain, only an ominously black cloud of fog rolling in off the Hudson.

Fet popped open the top of the cooler, revealing two magnificent headless tunas sloshing around in what was left of the ice from the ship’s hold.

“Hungry?” asked Fet.

Eating it raw was the obvious thing to do, but Goodweather laid down some medical science on them, insisting that they cook the fish because of the climate changes altering the ocean’s ecosystem; no one knew what kind of lethal bacteria were lurking in raw fish.

Gus knew where to get a decent-sized camping grill from the catering department and Fet helped him carry it up to the roof. Goodweather was sent to break off old car antennas for skewers. They built their fire on the Hudson side between two large roof fans, blocking the flame light from the street and obscuring it from most rooftops.

The fish blackened up nice. Crisp-skinned and warm pink on the inside. A few bites in, Gus immediately felt better. He was so hungry all the time, he was unable to see how malnutrition ran him down both mentally and physically. The protein feast recharged him. Already he was looking forward to heading out on another daylight raid.

“So,” said Gus, with the pleasure of warm food on his tongue, “what is the occasion of this feast?”

“We need your help,” said Fet. He told Gus what they knew about Nora, Fet’s manner turning grave, intense. “She’s got to be in the nearest blood camp, the one north of the city. We want to get her out.”

Gus checked Goodweather, who was supposed to be her boyfriend. Goodweather looked back at him, but strangely without the same fire that Fet had. “Tall order.”

“The tallest. We have to move as soon as possible. If they find out who she is, that she knows us . . . it will be bad for her and worse for us.”

“I’m all for combat, don’t get me wrong. But I try to be strategic, too, these days. My job is not only staying alive but dying human. We all know the risks. Is it worth going in to get her? And I’m just asking, homes.”

Fet nodded, looking at the flames licking at the skewered fish. “I get your point. At this stage, it’s like, what are we doing this for? Are we trying to save the world? World’s already gone. If the vampires disappeared tomorrow, what would we do? Rebuild? How? For whom?” He shrugged, looking to Goodweather for support. “Maybe someday. Until this sky clears, it’d be a fight for survival no matter who runs this planet.” Fet paused to wipe some tuna off the whiskers around his lips. “I could give you a lot of reasons. But, bottom line, I’m just tired of losing people. We’re gonna do this with or without you.”

Gus waved his hand. “Never said anything about doing it without me. Just wanted to get your thinking on it. I like the doc. My boys are due back soon; we can arm up then.” Gus picked off another hot chunk of tuna. “Always wanted to fuck up a farm. All I needed was a good reason.”

Fet was flush with gratitude. “You save some of this food for your guys, energize them.”

“Beats squirrel meat. Let’s put this fire out. I have something to show you.”

Gus wrapped the rest of the fish in paper to save for his
hombres,
then doused the flames with the melted ice. He led them down through the building and across the vacant campus to Buell Hall, into the basement. In a small side room, Gus had wired a stationary bicycle to a handful of battery chargers. A desk held a variety of devices scavenged from the university audiovisual department, including late-model digital cameras with long lenses, a media drive, and some small, portable high-def monitors—all the stuff they just didn’t make anymore.

“Some of my boys been recording our raids and recon. Good propaganda value, if we can get it out there some way. Also been doing some recon work. You know about the castle in Central Park?”

“Of course,” said Fet. “The Master’s nest. Surrounded by an army of vamps.”

Goodweather was intrigued now, moving to the seven-inch monitor as Gus fed it a waiting battery pack and wired in a camera.

The screen came to life, soupy green and black.

“Night-vision lens. Found a couple dozen in collector’s boxes of a shooter video game. They fit on the end of a telephoto. Not a perfect match—and the quality is basically shit, I know. But keep watching.”

Fet and Goodweather bent forward to better view the small screen. After a few moments of deep concentration, the ghostly dark figures in the image started to come together for them.

“The castle, right?” said Gus, outlining it with his finger. “Stone foundation, the lake. Over here, your army of vamps.”

Fet asked, “Where’d you take this from?”

“Roof of the Museum of Natural History. Close as I could get. Had it on a tripod like a sniper.”

The image of the castle parapet trembled mightily, the zoom setting maxed out.

“There we go,” said Gus. “See it?”

As the image stabilized again, a figure emerged onto the high ledge of the parapet. The army below turned their heads toward it in a mass gesture of complete allegiance.

“Holy shit,” said Fet. “Is that the Master?”

“It’s smaller,” said Goodweather. “Or is the perspective out of whack?”

“It’s the Master,” said Fet. “Look at the drones below, how they turn their heads toward him at once. Like flowers bending toward the sun.”

Eph said, “It changed. Jumped bodies.”

“It must have,” said Fet, bursting pride evident in his voice. “The professor did hurt it after all. He had to have. I knew it. Wounded it so that it
had
to take on a new form.” Fet straightened. “I wonder how he did it.”

Gus watched Goodweather concentrating hard on the muddy, trembling image of the new Master moving. “It’s Bolivar,” said Goodweather.

“What’s that?” asked Gus.

“Not what. Who. Gabriel Bolivar.”

“Bolivar?” said Gus, searching his memory. “The singer?”

“That’s him,” said Goodweather.

“Are you sure?” said Fet, knowing exactly who Goodweather was referring to. “It’s so dark, how can you tell?”

“The way he moves. Something about him. I’m telling you—he is the Master.”

Fet looked closely. “You’re right. Why him? Maybe the Master had no time to choose. Maybe the old man hit it so hard, it had to change immediately.”

As Goodweather stared at the image, another vague form joined the Master out on the high parapet. Goodweather seemed to freeze, then tremble as though suffering a chill.

“It’s Kelly,” he said.

Goodweather said this with authority, without any trace of doubt.

Fet pulled back a bit, having more trouble with the image than Goodweather. But Gus could tell that he too was convinced. “Jesus.”

Goodweather steadied himself with a hand on the table. His vampire wife was serving at the side of the Master.

And then a third figure emerged. Smaller, skinnier than the other two. Reading darker on the night-vision scale.

“See that there?” said Gus. “We got a human being living among the vampires. Not just the vampires—the Master. Want to guess?”

Fet stiffened. That was Gus’s first sign that something was wrong. Then Fet turned to look at Goodweather.

Goodweather let go of the table. His legs gave out and he slumped back into a sitting position on the floor. His eyes were still locked on the soupy image, his stomach burning, suddenly flushed with acid. His lower lip trembled, and tears welled up in his eyes.

“That’s my son.”

International Space Station

T
AKE
IT
DOWN
.