below, the glass spray was just hitting the sidewalk, glittering in the streetlight.
The Master, with his preternatural speed, was already across the street and mounting the facing building. With Bolivar hanging from his free arm, he went over the top railing and disappeared onto the higher roof, into the night.
Setrakian sagged a moment, unable to process the fact that the Master had just been inside that very room and was now escaped. His heart was throwing a fit in his chest, pounding as if it was going to burst.
He turned, and Fet was on the floor holding off the other vampire, Nora assisting with her lamp. Setrakian felt a new burst of rage and went walking over, his silver sword straight out at his side.
Fet saw him coming, his eyes going wide. “No, wait—”
Setrakian struck, sweeping his blade through the vampire’s neck, inches above Fet’s hands, then kicking the decapitated body off of Fet’s chest before the white blood could reach his skin.
Nora ran over to Eph, lying crumpled on the floor. His cheek was cut and his eyes were dilated and terrified — but he appeared un-turned.
Setrakian whipped out a mirror to confirm this. He held it to Eph’s face and found no distortion. Nora shone her lamp on Eph’s neck. Nothing — no breach.
Nora helped him sit up, Eph wincing in pain when his right arm was touched. She touched his chin underneath his cut cheek, needing to embrace him but not wanting to hurt him any further. “What happened?” she said.
Eph said, “He has Kelly.”
Eph tore across the bridge into Queens. He used Jim’s phone to try Kelly’s mobile as he drove.
No ring. Immediate pickup by her voice mail.
Eph speed-dialed Zack again. Zack’s phone kept ringing through to the mailbox.
He screamed around the corner onto Kelton and pulled up hard outside Kelly’s front yard, vaulting the low fence and running up the stairs. He banged on the door and pushed the bell. His keys were hanging on a peg back inside his apartment.
Eph took a running start and put his sore shoulder into the door. He tried it again, hurting his arm even more. The third time he threw himself against the door, the frame splintered, and he fell, sprawling, inside.
He got to his feet and rushed through the house. Slamming into walls around corners, his feet kicking at the steps up to the second floor. He stopped at the door to Zack’s bedroom. The boy’s room was empty.
So empty.
Back downstairs three steps at a time. He recognized Kelly’s emergency go bag next to the broken door. He saw suitcases packed but not zipped. She had never left the city.
The others reached the door just as something struck Eph from behind. A body, tackling him. He fought back immediately, already primed with adrenaline. He rolled his attacker over, holding him off.
Matt Sayles. Eph saw his dead eyes and felt the heat of his overamped metabolism.
The feral thing that was once Matt snarled at him. Eph braced his forearm against Matt’s throat as the recently turned vampire started to open its mouth. Eph went up hard under his chin, trying to block whatever biological mechanism was about to unleash the stinger. Matt’s eyes strained and his head shook all over as he tried to work his throat free.
Eph saw Setrakian drawing his sword behind Matt. Eph yelled, “
The vampire snarled, rolling to a stop, then popping up on all fours, watching Eph get to his feet.
Matt rose, standing hunched over. He was doing weird things with his mouth, a new vampire getting used to the different muscles, his tongue swirling around his open lips in lascivious confusion.
Eph looked around for a weapon, finding only a tennis racket lying on the floor outside the closet. He grabbed the taped grip two-handedly and spun the titanium frame on its side, going after Matt with it. All of his feelings for Matt — this man who had moved into his wife’s house and bed…who wanted to be his boy’s father…who sought to replace Eph — came surging up as he swung for Matt’s jaw. He wanted to shatter it and the horror that lurked inside. The new ones weren’t so coordinated yet, and Eph got in seven or eight good blows, chopping loose teeth and dropping Matt to his knees — before Matt lashed out, catching Eph’s ankle and upending him. Some residual anti-Eph rage still boiled inside Matt too. He rose up gnashing his broken teeth, but Eph kicked Matt in the face, extending his knee and throwing Matt back. Eph retreated around the partition into the kitchen, and it was there he saw the carving knife stuck on a magnet strip.
Rage is never blind. Rage is uniquely focused. Eph felt as if he were looking through the wrong end of a telescope — seeing only the knife, and then only Matt.
Matt came at him and Eph strong-armed him back against the wall. He grabbed a handful of hair and yanked it back in order to expose the vampire’s neck. Matt’s mouth opened, his stinger swishing out, trying to feed on Eph. Matt’s throat rippled and bucked, and Eph attacked it, stabbing,
Eph stopped cutting then. He saw, without truly processing it, the head in his hand with its stinger drooping
He then saw Nora and the others watching him from the open door. He saw the wall and the white mess dripping down it. He saw the decapitated body on the floor. He saw the head in his hand.
Blood worms wriggled up Matt’s face. Past his cheeks and over his staring eyes. Into Matt’s thin hair, approaching Eph’s fingers.
Eph dropped the head, which struck the floor with a thud, not rolling anywhere. He dropped the knife too, which fell soundlessly into Matt’s lap.
Eph said, “They took my son.”
Setrakian pulled him away from the body and the infested vampire blood. Nora turned on her Luma light and irradiated Matt’s body.
Fet said, “Holy, holy shit.”
Eph said again, both as an explanation and as a nail to be banged more deeply into his soul: “They took my son.”
The homicidal roar in his ears was fading, and he recognized the sound of a car pulling up outside. A door opened, soft music playing.
A voice calling out, “Thanks.”
That voice.
Eph went to the broken front door. He looked down the walk and saw Zack getting out of a minivan, shrugging a backpack strap over one shoulder.
Zack made it only as far as the gate door before Eph wrapped him up in his arms. “Dad?”
Eph checked him over, grasping the boy’s head in his hands, examining his eyes, his face.
Zack said, “What are you doing—?”
“Where were you?”
“At Fred’s.” Zack tried to wriggle out of his father’s grip. “Mom never showed, so Fred’s mom took me over to their place.”
Eph let Zack pull back.
Zack was looking past him, at the house. “What happened to our door?”
He took a few steps toward it, until Fet appeared in the doorway, Setrakian behind him. A big guy in a hanging flannel shirt and work boots, and an old man in tweed holding a wolf’s-head walking stick.
Zack looked back at his father, the troubled vibe now fully setting in.
He said, “Where’s Mom?”
