Within the column of helicopter light, the Master stumbled backward, trying to stop its own parasitic worms from feasting on the human blood coating its face, obstructing its vision.
Eph watched all of this through a daze, everything slowed down. Then a thump in the ground at his side brought him back to speed.
The snipers. Another spotlight lit him up, red laser sights dancing on his chest and head… and the nuke, just a few feet away.
Eph dragged himself through the dirt, scratching toward the device as rounds pelted the ground around him. He reached it, pulling himself up on it in order to reach the detonator.
He got it in his hand and found the button, then risked one look back at Zack.
The boy stood near where the Born lay. A few of the blood parasites had reached him, and Eph saw Zack struggling to brush them off… then watched as they burrowed in under his forearm and neck.
Mr. Quinlan’s body arose, a new look in his eyes—a new will. That of the Master, who understood the dark side of human nature completely, but not love.
“
And he, who had been late to most everything in his life, was on time for this, the most important appointment he ever had. He pushed the switch.
And nothing happened. For one agonizing moment, the island was an oasis of stillness to Eph, though the helicopters were hovering overhead.
Eph saw Mr. Quinlan coming at him, one final lunge of the Master’s will.
Then two punches to his chest. Eph was down on the ground, looking at his wounds. Seeing the bloody holes there, just to the right of his heart. His blood seeping into the ground.
Eph looked past Mr. Quinlan at Zack, his face glowing in the helicopter light. His will still present, still not overcome. He saw Zack’s eyes—
Eph smiled.
And then the miracle happened.
It was the gentlest of things: no earthquake, no hurricane, no parting of the seas. The sky cleared for a moment and a brilliant column of pure, sterilizing light a million times more powerful than any helicopter spotlight poured down. The dark cloud cover opened and cleansing light emerged.
The Born, now infected by the Master’s blood, hissed and writhed in the brilliant light. Smoke and vapor surged from its body as the Born screamed like a lobster being boiled.
None of this shook Eph’s gaze from the eyes of his son. And as Zack saw his father smile at him there—in the powerful light of glorious day—he recognized him for all that he was, recognized him as—
“
And then the nuclear device detonated. Everything around the flashpoint evaporated—bodies, sand, vegetation, helicopters—all gone.
Purged.
From a beach well down the river, close to Lake Ontario, Nora watched this only for a moment. Then Fet pulled her around a rocky outcropping, both of them dropping into a ball on the sand.
The shock wave made the old abandoned fort near them shudder, shaking dust and stone fragments from the walls. Nora was certain the entire structure would collapse into the river. Her ears popped and the water around them heaved in a great gush—and even with her eyes tightly closed and her arms over her head, she still saw bright light.
Rain blew sideways, the ground emitted a howl of pain… and then the light faded, the stone fort settled without collapsing, and everything became quiet and still.
Later, she would realize that she and Fet had been rendered temporarily deaf by the blast, but for the moment the silence was profound and spiritual. Fet uncurled himself from shielding Nora, and together they ventured back out around the rock barrier as the water receded from the beach.
What she saw—the larger miracle in the sky—she did not fully understand until later.
Gabriel, the first archangel—an entity of light so bright that it made the sun and the atomic glow pale—came spiraling down around the shaft of light on glowing silver wings.
Michael, the murdered one, tucked his wings and bolted straight down, leveling out about a mile above the island, gliding down the rest of the way.
Then, rising as though out of the earth itself, came Ozryel, together again, resurrected from the collective ashes. Rock and dirt fell from its great wings as it ascended. A spirit again, flesh no more.
Nora witnessed all these portents in the absolute silence of momentary deafness. And that, perhaps, made it sink even deeper into her psyche. She could not hear the raging rumble that her feet felt, she could not hear the crackling of the blinding light that warmed her face and her soul. A true Old Testament moment witnessed by someone dressed not in linen robes but off-the-shelf Gap. This moment rattled her senses and her faith for the rest of her life. Without even noticing it, Nora cried freely.
Gabriel and Michael joined Ozryel and together they soared into the light. The hole in the clouds brightened brilliantly as the three archangels reached it—and then with one last flare of divine illumination, the opening swallowed them up and then closed.
Nora and Fet looked around. The river was still raging, and their skiff had been swept away. Fet checked Nora, making sure she was okay.
Fet shook his head, not as in,
The couple looked at the sky, waiting for something else to happen.
Meanwhile, all around them, large sections of sandy beach had turned to opalescent glass.
The fort residents came out, a few dozen men and women in tatters, some carrying children. Nora and Fet had warned them to take cover, and now the islanders looked to them for an explanation.
Nora had to yell in order to be heard. “Ann and William?” she said. “They had a boy with them, a thirteen- year-old boy!”
The adults shook their heads.
Nora said, “They left before us!”
One man said, “Maybe on another island?”
Nora nodded—though she didn’t believe it. She and Fet had made it to their fort island in a sailboat. Ann and William should have landed long ago.
Fet rested his hand on Nora’s shoulder. “What about Eph?”
There was no way to confirm it, but she knew he was never coming back.
EPILOGUE
THE ORIGIN BLAST obliterated the Master’s strain. Every remaining vampire vaporized at the moment of immolation. Vanished.
They confirmed this over the next few days. First by venturing back to the mainland once the waters receded. Then by checking impassioned dispatches over the liberated Internet. Rather than celebrating, people stumbled around in a post-traumatic haze. The atmosphere was still contaminated and the hours of daylight were few. Superstition remained and darkness was, if anything, feared even more than before. Reports of vampires still in existence flared up again and again, every single one eventually attributed to hysteria.
Things did not “go back to normal.” Indeed, the islanders remained in their settlements for months, working to reclaim their mainland properties but reluctant to commit to the old ways just yet. Everything everybody had thought they knew about nature and history and biology had been proved wrong, or at least incomplete. And then
