The Night Eternal

Fet said, “We’ve burned up most of the daylight. When night falls they’re going to start coming for us. We have to move on from here, regardless.”

Eph nodded fast, gripping the book. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Gus said, “We’re done. That’s what you’re telling us.”

Nora said to Eph, “You didn’t get anything from the book? Not even—”

Eph shook his head.

“What about the vision? You said it’s an island.”

“One of dozens of islands. Over twelve in the Bronx alone, eight or so in Manhattan, half a dozen in Staten Island… Like at the mouth of a giant lake.” Eph searched his tired mind. “That’s all I know.”

Nora said, “We can maybe find some military maps. Somewhere around here.”

Gus laughed. “I’m crazy for going along with this, for trusting a crazy coward traitor. For not killing you and saving me this misery.”

Eph noticed Mr. Quinlan doing his usual silent thing. Standing there with arms folded, patiently waiting for something to happen. Eph wanted to go to him, to tell the Born that his faith in Eph was misplaced.

Fet intervened before Eph could. “Look,” he said. “After all we’ve been through—all that we’re going through—there’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t know yourself. I just want you to remember the old man for a second. He died for that thing in your hands, remember. He sacrificed himself so that we would have it. I’m not saying this to put any more pressure on you here. I’m saying it to take the pressure away. The pressure’s gone, as far as I can see. We’re at the end. We’ve got no more. You’re it. We’re with you, thumbs up or thumbs down. I know you’re thinking about your boy; I know it eats at you. But just think about the old man for a moment. Reach down deep. And if there is anything there, you’ll find it—you’ll find it now.”

Eph tried to imagine Professor Setrakian there with him right now, wearing his tweed suit, leaning on the oversized wolf’s-head walking stick that hid his silver blade. The vampire scholar and killer. Eph opened the book. He recalled the one time Setrakian got to touch and read these pages he had sought for decades, just after the auction. Eph turned to the illustration Setrakian had shown them, a two-page spread showing a complex mandala in silver, black, and red. Over the illustration, on tracing paper, Setrakian had laid the outline of a six-limbed archangel.

The Occido Lumen was a book about vampires—not, Eph realized, a book for vampires. Silver-faced and -edged in order to keep it out of the hands of the dread strigoi. Painstakingly designed to be vampire-proof.

Eph thought back to his vision… finding the book upon the outdoor bed…

It had been daylight…

Eph walked to the door. He opened it and stepped out into the parking lot, looking up at the swirling dark clouds beginning to efface the pale orb of the sun.

The others followed him outside into the gloaming, except for Mr. Quinlan, Creem, and Gus, who remained at the door.

Eph ignored them, turning his gaze to the book in his hands. Sunlight. Even if vampires could somehow circumvent the silver protections of the Lumen, they could never read it by natural light, due to the virus-killing properties of the ultraviolet C range.

He opened the book, tipping its pages toward the fading sun like a face basking in the last of the day’s warmth. The text took on new life, jumping off the ancient paper. Eph flipped to the first of the illustrations, the inlaid silver strands sparkling, the image bright with new life.

He quickly searched the text. Words appeared behind words, as though written in invisible ink. Watermarks changed the very nature of the illustrations, and detailed designs emerged behind otherwise bare pages of straightforward text. A new layer of ink reacted to the ultraviolet light…

The two-page mandala, viewed in direct sunlight, evinced the archangel image in a delicate hand, appearing quite silver against the aged paper.

The Latin text did not quite translate itself as magically as it had in his dream, but its meaning became clear. Most elucidating was a diagram revealed in the shape of a biohazard symbol, with points inside the flower arranged like points on a map.

On another page, certain letters were highlighted, which, when put together, formed a peculiar yet familiar word:

A H S U D A G U–W A H.

Eph read quickly, the insights leaping into his brain through his eyes. The pale sunlight faded quickly at the end, and so did the book’s enhancements. So much more to read and to learn. But for now, Eph had seen enough. His hands continued to tremble. The Lumen had shown him the way.

Eph walked back inside past Fet and Nora. He felt neither relief nor exhilaration, still vibrating like a tuning fork.

Eph looked at Mr. Quinlan, who saw it in his face.

Sunlight. Of course.

The others knew something had happened. Except for Gus, who remained skeptical.

“Well?” said Nora.

Eph said, “I’m ready now.”

“Ready for what?” said Fet. “Ready to go?”

Eph looked at Nora. “I need a map.”

She ran off into the offices. They heard desk drawers slamming.

Eph just stood there, like a man recovering from an electric shock. “It was the sunlight,” he explained. “Reading the Lumen in natural sunlight. It was like the pages opened up for me. I saw it all… or would have, if I’d had more time. The original Native American name for this place was ‘Burned Earth.’ But their word for ‘burned’ is the same as ‘black.’ ”

Oscura. Dark.

“Chernobyl, the failed attempt—the simulation,” said Fet. “It appeased the Ancients because ‘Chernobyl’ means ‘Black Soil.’ And I saw a Stoneheart crew excavating sites around a geologically active area of hot springs outside Reykjavik known as Black Pool.”

“But there are no coordinates in the book,” said Nora.

“Because it was beneath the water,” said Eph. “At the time Ozryel’s remains were cast away, this site was underwater. The Master didn’t emerge until hundreds of years later.”

The youngest one. The last.

A triumphant yell, and then Nora came running back with a sheaf of oversized topographical maps of the northeastern United States, with cellophane street atlas overlays.

Eph flipped the pages to New York State. The top part of the map included the southern region of Ontario, Canada.

“Lake Ontario,” he said. “To the east here.” At the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, east of Wolfe Island, a cluster of tiny, unnamed islands was grouped together, labeled “Thousand Islands.” “It’s there. One of those. Just off the New York coast.”

“The burial site?” said Fet.

“I don’t know what its name is today. The original Native American name for the island was ‘Ahsudagu-wah.’ Roughly translated from the Onondaga language as ‘Dark Place’ or ‘Black Place.’”

Fet slid the road atlas out from beneath Eph’s hands, flipping back to New Jersey.

“How do we find the island?” said Nora.

Eph said, “It’s shaped roughly like the biohazard symbol, like a three-petaled flower.”

Fet quickly plotted their course through New Jersey into Pennsylvania, then north to the top of New York State. He ripped out the pages. “Interstate Eighty West to Interstate Eighty-one North. Gets us right to the Saint Lawrence River.”

“How long?” said Nora.

“Roughly three hundred miles. We can do that in five or six hours.”

“Maybe straight highway time,” said Nora. “Something tells me it won’t be as simple as that.”