The Night Eternal

“What the hell are you doing here?” Fet asked, lowering his sword. “I just arrived today…”

Eph stepped away from the wall and returned his own sword to the pack on the floor. “I am examining this vampire.”

Fet came forward to the table, looking at the creature’s crushed face. “Did you do that?”

“No. Not directly. He was struck by a chunk of falling concrete, caused by a hospital I blew up.”

Fet looked at Eph. “I heard it. That was you?”

“They had me cornered. Almost.”

Eph felt relief as soon as he saw Vasiliy—but he also felt a bolt of anger tensing his body. He stood there, frozen. Not knowing what to do. Should he embrace the ratcatcher? Or beat the shit out of him?

Fet turned back to the strigoi on the table, wincing at the sight. “And so you decided to bring him down here. To play with him.”

“I saw an opportunity to answer some outstanding questions about our tormentors’ biological system.”

Fet said, “Looks more like torture to me.”

“Well, that is the difference between an exterminator and a scientist.”

“Maybe,” said Fet, circling the table so that he faced Eph across it. “Or maybe you can’t tell the difference. Maybe, since you can’t hurt the Master, you grabbed this thing in its place. You do realize this creature won’t tell you where your boy is.”

Eph didn’t like it when they threw Zack back at him like that. Eph had a stake in this battle that none of the others understood. “In studying its biology, I am looking for weaknesses in the design. Something we can exploit.”

Fet said, standing across the vampire’s opened body from Eph, “We know what they are. Forces of nature who invade us and exploit our bodies. Who feed off us. They are no mystery to us anymore.”

The creature moaned softly and stirred on the table. Its hips thrust forward and its chest heaved as though humping an invisible partner.

“Jesus, Eph. Destroy this fucking thing.” Fet backed away from the table. “Where’s Nora?”

He had tried to make it sound casual and failed.

Eph took a deep breath. “I think something’s happened to her.”

“What do you mean ‘something’? Talk.”

“When I got back here, she was gone. Her mother, too.”

“Gone where?”

“I think they got rousted from here and left. I haven’t heard from her since. If you haven’t either, then something’s happened.”

Fet stared, stunned. “And you figured the best thing to do was stay here and dissect a fucking vamp?”

“To stay here and wait for one of you two to get in touch with me, yes.”

Fet scowled at Eph’s attitude. He felt like slapping the guy—slapping him and telling him what a waste of time he was. Eph had it all and Fet had nothing, and yet Eph repeatedly squandered or overlooked his good fortune. He would have liked to slap the guy a couple of times alright. But instead he sighed heavily and said, “Take me through this.”

Eph walked him upstairs, showed him the overturned chair and Nora’s abandoned lamp, clothes, and weapons bag. He watched Fet’s eyes, saw them burning. Given Fet’s and Nora’s deception, Eph had thought it might feel good to see Fet suffer—but it didn’t. Nothing about this felt good. “It’s bad,” said Eph.

“Bad,” said Fet, turning toward the windows looking out at the city. “That’s all you got?”

“What do you want to do?”

“You say that as though we even have a choice. We have to go get her.”

“Ah. Simple.”

“Yes! Simple! You wouldn’t want us to go after you?”

“I wouldn’t expect it.”

“Really?” said Fet, turning to him. “I guess we have fundamentally different ideas about loyalty.”

“Yes, I guess we do,” said Eph with enough edge on his words to make them stick.

Fet didn’t respond, but he didn’t back down either. “So you think she was grabbed. But not turned.”

“Not here. But how can we know for sure? Unlike Zack, she has no Dear One to go after. Right?”

Another jab. Eph couldn’t help himself. The computer containing their intimate correspondence was right there on the desk.

Fet understood now that Eph at least suspected something. Maybe he was daring Eph to come right out and make an open accusation, but Eph would not give him the satisfaction. So, instead of answering Eph’s insinuations, Fet countered as usual, attacking Eph’s vulnerable spot. “I assume you were at Kelly’s house again instead of here to meet Nora at the appointed time? This obsession with your son has warped you, Eph. Yes, he needs you. But we need you too. She needs you. This isn’t just about you and your son. Others are relying on you.”

“And what about you?” said Eph. “Your obsession with Setrakian. That’s what your trip to Iceland was. Doing what you think he would have done. Did you figure out all the secrets in the Lumen? No? I thought not. You could have been here as well, but you chose to follow in the old man’s shoes, his self-appointed disciple.”

“I took a chance. We have to get lucky sometime.” Fet stopped himself, throwing up his hands. “But—forget all that. Focus on Nora. She’s our only problem right now.”

Eph said, “Best-case scenario, she’s in a heavily guarded blood camp. If we guess right on which one, then all we have to do is get ourselves inside, find her, and get back out again. I can think of easier ways to commit suicide.”

Fet began packing up Nora’s things. “We need her. Pure and simple. We can’t afford to lose anyone. We need all hands on deck if we’re gonna have any chance of digging ourselves out of this mess.”

“Fet. We’ve seen two years of this. The Master’s system has taken root. We are lost.”

“Wrong—just because I might have struck out on the Lumen doesn’t mean I came back empty-handed.”

Eph tried to figure out that one. “Food?”

“That too,” said Fet.

Eph was not in the mood for a guessing game. Besides, at the mention of real food, his mouth had begun to water, his belly twisting into a fist. “Where?”

“In a cooler, stashed nearby. You can help me carry it.”

“Carry it where?”

“Uptown,” said Fet. “We need to go get Gus.”

Staatsburg, New York

NORA RODE IN the backseat of a town car, speeding through rainy rural New York. The upholstery was dark and clean, but the floor mats were filthy from foot mud. Nora sat all the way over on the right, curled up in the corner, not knowing what was to come next.

She did not know where she was being taken. After her shocking encounter with her former boss Everett Barnes, Nora was led by two hulking vampires to a building with a room full of curtainless showers. The vampires remained near the only door, standing together. She could have made a stand there and refused but felt it was best to go along and see what was to come, perhaps a better chance to escape.

So she disrobed and showered. Self-consciously at first, but when she looked back at the big vampires, their eyes were focused on the far wall with their trademark distant stare, lacking any interest in the human form.

The cool spray—she could not get it hot—felt alien against her bare scalp. Her skin was prickled by needles of cold water, and the runoff spilled unimpeded down the back of her neck and naked back. The water felt good. Nora grabbed a half bar of soap sitting in a recessed tile niche. She lathered her hands and head and bare stomach and found relief in the ritual. She washed her shoulders and neck, pausing to smell the soap right against her nose