The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (128 page)

Low Library, Columbia University

C
ONSIDER
THIS
ABOUT
the Lumen.

Mr. Quinlan’s eyes were unusually vibrant when he said this.

There are two words
consigned to the page indicating the Master’s Black Site: “
obscura
” and “
aeterna
.” “Dark” and “eternal.” No exact coordinates.

“Every site had them,” said Fet. “Except that one.”

He was actively working on the Bible, trying to shape it as close to the
Lumen
as possible. He had amassed a pile of books that he examined and cannibalized for pieces or engravings.

Why? And why just those two words?

“Do you think that is the key?”

I believe it is. I always thought the key to finding the site was in the information in the book—but, it turns out, the key is in the information missing from it. The Master was the last one to be born. The youngest one of them all. It took it hundreds of years to reconnect with the Old World and even longer to acquire the influence to destroy the Ancients’ origin sites. But now—now it has come back to the New World, back to Manhattan. Why?

“Because it wanted to protect its own origin site.”

The fiery mark in the sky confirmed as much. But where is it?

In spite of the thrilling information, Fet seemed distant, distracted.

What is it?

“Sorry. I’m thinking about Eph,” said Fet. “He’s out. With Nora.”

Out where?

“Getting some medicine. For me.”

Dr. Goodweather must be protected. He is vulnerable.

Fet was caught short. “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he said, but now it was his turn to worry.

Macy’s Herald Square

E
PH
AND
N
ORA
exited the subway at Thirty-fourth Street and Pennsylvania Station. It was there at the train station, nearly two years before, that Eph had left Nora, Zack, and Nora’s mother, in a last-ditch attempt to get them safely out of the city before New York fell to the vampire plague. A horde of creatures had derailed the train inside the North River Tunnel, foiling their escape, and Kelly had made off with Zack, taking him to the Master.

They were casing a small closed pharmacy occupying the corner of the Macy’s store. Nora was watching commuters pass them, downtrodden humans on their way to and from work, or else on their way to the ration station at the Empire State Building to exchange work vouchers for clothing or food.

“Now what?” said Eph.

Nora looked diagonally across Seventh Avenue, seeing Macy’s one block away, its front entrance boarded. “We’ll go through the store and into the pharmacy. Follow me.”

The rotating doors had long ago been locked, the broken glass boarded tight. Shopping, either as a necessity or a leisure-time pursuit, no longer existed. Everything was ration cards and vouchers.

Eph pried a piece of plywood off the Thirty-fourth Street entrance. Inside, the “World’s Largest Department Store” was a mess. Racks overturned, clothing torn. It looked less like looting and more like the scene of a fight, or a series of fights. A vampire and human rampage.

They accessed the pharmacy through the store counter. The shelves were almost bare. Nora picked up a few items, including a mild antibiotic and a few syringes. Eph pocketed a bottle of Vicodin when Nora wasn’t looking and jammed it into a small pouch.

In a matter of five minutes they had what they came for. Nora looked at Eph. “I need some warm clothes and a pair of sturdy shoes. These camp slippers are worn down.”

Eph thought about cracking a joke about women and shopping but kept quiet and nodded. Farther inside, it wasn’t so bad. They walked up the famous wooden escalators—the first such set of moving stairs ever installed inside a building.

Their flashlights played over the vacant display floor, unchanged since the end of shopping as the world knew it. The mannequins startled Eph, their bald heads and fixed expressions giving them—in the first moment of illumination—a superficial resemblance to the
strigoi.

“Same haircut,” said Nora with a faint smile. “It’s all the rage . . .”

They moved through the floor, casing the place, looking for any signs of danger or vulnerability. “I am afraid, Nora,” Eph said, much to her surprise. “The plan . . . I am afraid and I don’t mind admitting as much.”

“The exchange will be difficult,” she said, her voice low as she pulled down shoe boxes in a back room, looking for her size. “That’s the trick. I think you should tell it we are getting the book for Mr. Quinlan to study. The Master surely knows about the Born. Tell it you plan to grab the book as soon as you can. We’ll have a location to set the bomb—and you’ll lure it in. He can bring as much reinforcement as he wants then. A bomb is a bomb . . .”

Eph nodded. He watched her face for some sign of treachery. They were alone now; if she was going to reveal herself to him as the turncoat, this was the time.

She eschewed more-fashionable leather boots for something sturdy and without heels. “The fake book just has to look good,” Eph said. “It has to look
right.
I think things will move so quickly, we just need to pass that initial glance test.”

“Fet is on it,” said Nora with absolute certainty. Almost with pride. “You can trust him . . .” And then she realized who she was talking to. “Listen, Eph. About Fet . . .”

“You don’t have to say anything. I understand. The world is fucked and we deserve to be only with those who care for us—above and beyond all things. In a strange way . . . if it was going to be anyone I feel good that it was Fet. Because he will give his life before he allows any harm to come to you. Setrakian knew it and chose him above me and you know it too. He can do what I never could—be there for you.”

Nora felt conflicting emotions now. This was Eph at his best: generous, smart, and caring. She would’ve almost preferred him to be an asshole. Now she saw him for who he really was: the man she had once fallen in love with. Her heart still felt the pull.

“What if the Master wants me to bring the book to it?” asked Eph.

“Maybe you’ll tell him we are chasing you. That you need the Master to come and get you. Or maybe you insist on him bringing Zack to you.”

Eph’s face darkened a moment, remembering the Master’s abject refusal on that point. “That raises a major issue,” he said. “How can I set this thing off and get away?”

“I don’t know. Too many variables right now. This whole thing is going to require a lot of luck. And courage. I wouldn’t blame you if you are having second thoughts.”

She watched him. Looking for a crack in his demeanor . . . or an opening so that she could reveal her complicity? “Second thoughts?” he said, trying to draw her out. “About going through with this?”

He saw the concern in her face as she shook her head. No hint of duplicity. And he was glad. He was relieved. Things had changed so much between them—but she was at heart the same old freedom fighter she always had been. It helped Eph to believe that he was the same too.

“What is that?” she asked.

“What?” he said.

“It looked almost like you were smiling.”

Eph shook his head. “Just me realizing that the bottom line is that Zack goes free. Whatever it takes to achieve that, I’ll do.”

“I think that’s amazing, Eph. I really do.”

“You don’t think the Master will see right through this?” he said. “You think it will believe that I could do this? That I could betray the rest of you?”

“I do,” she said. “I think it fits the way the Master thinks. Don’t you?”

Eph nodded, glad she wasn’t looking at him at that moment. If not Nora, then who was the turncoat? Not Fet, certainly. Could it be Gus? Could all of his bluster toward Eph be a cover? Or Joaquin was another possible suspect. All this twisty thinking was making him even more crazy.

.
. . can never go down / can never go down the drain.

He heard something out in the main display area. Stirring noises, once assigned to rodents, nowadays meant only one thing.

Nora had heard it too. They switched off their flashlights.

“Wait here,” said Eph. Nora understood that, for this subterfuge to succeed, Eph had to go alone. “And be careful.”

“Always,” she said, drawing silver.

He slid out through the door, careful not to bump the handle of the sword jutting out of his backpack. He pulled on his night-vision monocular and waited for the image to stabilize in his vision.

Everything looked still. All the mannequins had normally sized hands, no extended talon for a middle finger. Eph circled right, keeping to the edge of the room, until he saw the hanger swinging gently on a circular rack near the down escalator.

Eph drew his sword and went swiftly to the top wooden step. The nonworking escalator ran along a narrow, walled space. He descended as quickly and as quietly as he could, then took in the next level from the landing. Something told him to keep going down, and so he did.

He slowed at the bottom, smelling something. A vampire had been here; he was close behind. Strange for a vampire to be out on its own, not otherwise industriously employed. Unless patrolling this department store was its assigned task. Eph ventured out from the escalator, the floor revealed in green. Nothing moved. He was about to start toward a large display when he heard a light click in the opposite direction.

Again he saw nothing. Ducking low, he wove around the clothing racks in the direction of the noise. The sign above the open doorway gave directions for the restrooms and the administrative offices, as well as an elevator. Eph crept past the offices first, looking in every open door. He could come back and try the closed doors after he had cleared the rest of the area. He went to the restrooms, nudging open the door to the women’s room just a few inches to see if it made much noise. It was nearly silent. He entered and scanned the stalls, pushing open each door, sword in hand.

He returned to the hallway and stood listening, feeling as though he had lost whatever thin trail he had been following. He pulled on the men’s-room door and slipped inside. He passed the urinals and poked open each stall door with the tip of his sword, and then, disappointed, turned to leave.

In an explosion of paper and trash, the vampire leaped out of the open trash barrel in the corner near the door, landing on the edge of one of the sinks across the room. Eph lurched backward at first, cursing and swiping at the air with his sword to ward off any stinger attacks. He quickly asserted his position, leading with his silver, not wanting to get backed into a stall. He brandished the weapon at the hissing vampire and circled past it, coming close to the barrel it had sprung from, paper rustling at his feet.

It squatted there, gripping the smooth edge of the sink, its knees up around its head, looking at him. Eph finally got a clear glance at it in the green light of his scope. It was a boy. A ten- or twelve-year-old of African-American descent, with what looked like pure glass in his eyes.

A blind boy. One of the feelers.

The feeler’s top lip was curled such that, by night vision, it looked like an appraising smile. His fingers and toes gripped the front edge of the sink counter as though he were about to pounce. Eph kept the tip of his sword pointed at the feeler’s midsection.

“Were you sent to find me?” Eph said.

Yes.

Eph sagged a bit in dismay. Not at the response, but at the voice.

It was Kelly’s. Speaking the Master’s words.

Eph wondered if Kelly was somehow responsible for the feelers. If she was their wrangler, so to speak. Their dispatcher. And if so, if indeed these blind, psychic vampire children had been placed under her unofficial command, how fitting and sadly ironic at the same time. Kelly Goodweather was still a mother hen, even in death.

“What made it so easy this time?”

You wanted to be found.

The feeler pounced, but not at Eph. The boy sprang from the countertop across the restroom to the wall, then dropped down to the tile floor on all fours.

Eph tracked it with his sword tip. The feeler crouched there, looking at him.

Are you going to slay me, Ephraim?

Kelly’s taunting voice. Had it been her idea to send a boy Zack’s age?

“Why do you torment me like this?”

I could have a hundred thirsty vampires there in moments, surrounding you. Tell me why I should not send them to you now.

“Because the book is not here. And—more important—if you broke our deal, I would slice my own throat before letting you have access to my mind.”

You are bluffing.

Eph lunged at the boy. He skittered backward, bumping into a stall door and stopping inside. “How do you like it?” said Eph. “These threats don’t instill much faith in me that you will keep your end of the bargain.”

Pray that I do.

“Interesting choice of words, ‘pray.’ ” Eph stood in the doorway to the stall now; the corner of the bathroom reeked from neglect. “Ozryel. Yes, I’ve been reading the book you want so badly. And talking to Mr. Quinlan, the Born.”

Then you should know that I am not in fact Ozryel.

“No, you are the worms that crawled out of the murderous angel’s veins. After God had him pulled apart like someone quartering a chicken.”

We share the same rebellious nature. A lot like your son, I imagine.

Eph shook that off, determined not to be an easy mark for the Master’s abuse any longer. “My son is nothing like you.”

Don’t be so sure. Where is the book?

“It was hidden in the stacks deep beneath the New York Public Library this entire time, in case you were wondering. I am supposed to be buying a little time for them now.”

I presume the Born is studying it avidly.

“Correct. That doesn’t worry you?”

To the eyes of the unworthy, it would take years to decipher.