The Night Eternal

“The snow leopard,” said Zack.

Precisely. All relationships are based on power. Domination and submission. There is no other way. No equality, no congeniality, no shared domain. There is only one king in a kingdom.

And here, the Master looked at Zack with calculated precision—enacting what the Master believed human kindness should look like—before adding, One king and one prince. You understand that too, don’t you? My son.

Zack nodded. And with that he accepted both the notion and the title. The Master scanned every gesture, every nuance on the young man’s face. It listened carefully to the rhythm of his heart, looked at the pulse in his carotid artery. The boy was moved—excited by this simulated bond.

The caged leopard was an illusion. One that you needed to destroy. Bars and cages are symbols of weakness. Imperfect measures of control. One may choose to believe they are there to subjugate the creature inside—to humiliate it—but in due time one realizes they also are there to keep it away. They become a symbol of your fear. They limit you as much as the beast within. Your cage is just bigger, and the freedom of the leopard lies in those confines.

“But if you destroy it,” said Zack, developing the thought himself, “if you destroy it… there is no doubt left.”

Consumption is the ultimate form of control. Yes. And now we stand together at the brink of control. Absolute domination of this earth. So—I have to make sure that nothing stands between you and me.

“Nothing,” said Zack with absolute conviction.

The Master nodded, apparently pensive, but in fact building a pause calculated long before for maximum effect. The revelation he was about to give to Zack needed that careful timing.

What if I said to you that your father was still alive?

And then the Master felt it—a torrent of emotions swirling inside Zack. A turmoil that the Master had thoroughly anticipated but that intoxicated him all the same. It loved the taste of broken hopes.

“My father is dead,” said Zack. “He died with Professor Setrakian and—”

He is alive. This has been brought to my attention only recently. As to the question of why he has never attempted to rescue you or contact you, I’m afraid I cannot be of assistance. But he is very much alive and seeks to destroy me.

“I will not let him,” said Zack, and he meant it. And, in spite of itself, the Master felt strangely flattered by the purity of sentiment the young man had for him. Natural human empathy—the phenomenon known as “Stockholm syndrome,” whereby captives come to identify with and defend their captors—was a simple enough tune for the Master to play. It was a virtuoso of human behavior. But this was something more. This was true allegiance. This, the Master believed, was love.

You are now making a choice, Zachary. Perhaps your first choice as an adult, and what you choose now will define you and define the world around you. You need to be completely sure.

Zack felt a lump in his throat. He felt resentment. All the years of mourning were alchemically transformed into abandonment. Where had his dad been? Why had he left him behind? He looked at Kelly, standing nearby, a horrible squalid specter—a monstrous freak. She, too, had been abandoned. Was it not all Eph’s fault? Had he not sacrificed all of them—his mother, Matt, and Zack himself—in pursuit of the Master? There was more loyalty from his twisted scarecrow of a mother than from his human father. Always late, always far away, always unavailable.

“I choose you,” said Zack to the Master. “My father is dead. Let him stay that way.”

And once again, he meant it.

Interstate 80

NORTH OF SCRANTON, they began to see strigoi standing at the side of the highway like sentinels. Passive, camera-like beings appearing out of the darkness, standing just off the road, watching the vehicles zoom past them.

Fet reacted to the first few of them, tempted to slow and slay them, but Eph told him not to bother. “They have already seen us,” said Eph.

“Look at this one,” said Fet.

Eph first saw the WELCOME TO NEW YORK STATE sign by the side of the highway. Then, eyes glowing like glass, the female vampire standing beneath it, watching them pass. The vampires communicated the vehicles’ location to the Master in a sort of internalized, instinctual GPS. The Master knew that they were now making their way north.

“Hand me the maps,” said Eph. Fet did, and Eph read it by flashlight. “We’re making great time on the highway. But we have to be smart. It’s only a matter of time before they throw something at us.”

The walkie-talkie in the front seat crackled. “Did you see that one?” asked Nora in the trailing Explorer.

Fet picked up the radio and answered. “The welcoming committee? We saw her.”

“We have to go back roads.”

“We’re with you. Eph’s looking at the map now.”

Eph said, “Tell her we’ll head up to Binghamton for gas. Then stay off the highway after that.”

They did just that, pulling sharply off the highway at the first Binghamton exit advertising fuel, following the arrow at the end of the off-ramp to a cluster of gas stations, fast food restaurants, a furniture store, and two or three little strip malls, each anchored by a different coffee shop drive-through. Fet skipped the first gas station, wanting more room in case of emergency. The second, a Mobil, featured three aisles of tanks angled in front of an On the Go convenience mart. The sun had long ago faded all the blue letters on the MOBIL sign, and now only the red “O” was visible, like a hungry, round mouth.

No electricity, but they had kept Creem’s hand pump from the Hummer, knowing that they would have to do some siphoning. The ground caps were all still in place, which was a good indication that fuel remained in the underground tanks. Fet pulled the Jeep next to one and pried up the cap with a tire iron. The gasoline smell was pungent, welcome. Gus pulled in and Fet waved him over to back up near the tank opening. Fet pulled out the pump and narrow tubing, feeding the longer end into the ground tank and the shorter end into the Jeep.

His wound had started to hurt again and it bled intermittently, but Fet hid both facts from the group. He told himself he was doing this in order to see it all through—to stick to the end. But he knew that, for the better part, he wanted to be there between Eph and Nora.

Mr. Quinlan stood at the roadside, looking up and down the dark lane. Eph wore his weapon pack over one shoulder. Gus carried a Steyr submachine gun loaded half with silver and half with lead. Nora went around the side of the building, relieving herself and quickly returning to the cars.

Fet was pumping hard, but it was slow work, the fuel only now starting to spray into the Jeep’s tank. It sounded like cow’s milk hitting a tin can. He had to pump faster to achieve a steady flow.

“Don’t go too deep,” said Eph. “Water settles at the bottom, remember?”

Fet nodded impatiently. “I know.”

Eph asked if he wanted to trade off, but Fet refused, his big arms and shoulders doing the work. Gus left them, walking out into the road near Mr. Quinlan. Eph thought about stretching his legs more but found that he did not want to be too far away from the Lumen.

Nora said, “Did you work on the trigger fuse?”

Fet shook his head as he worked.

Eph said, “You know how mechanical I am.”

Nora nodded. “Not at all.”

Eph said, “I’m driving the next leg. Fet can work on the detonator.”

“I don’t like taking so much time,” said Nora.

“We need to wait for the next meridiem anyway. With the sun up, we can work freely.”

Nora said, “A whole day? That’s too much time. Too much risk.”