The Fall. Book II of The Strain Trilogy

Dreverhaven removed his hat and placed it on a table, yet still he did not turn around. “May I interest you in an aperitif?”

“Regrettably, no,” answered Setrakian, undoing the twin buckles on his portmanteau while leaving the top clasp closed. “Travel upsets my digestive system.”

“Ah. Mine is ironclad.”

“Please don’t deny yourself on my account.”

Dreverhaven turned around, slowly, in the gloom. “I couldn’t, Monsieur Pirk. It is my practice never to drink alone.”

Instead of the time-worn strigoi Setrakian expected, he was stunned — though he tried to hide it — to find Dreverhaven looking exactly as he had decades before. Those same crystalline eyes. Raven-black hair falling over the back of his neck. Setrakian tasted a pang of acid, but he had little reason to fear: Dreverhaven had not recognized him at the pit, and surely would not recognize him now, more than a quarter century later.

“So,” Dreverhaven said. “Let us consummate our happy transaction then.”

Setrakian’s greatest test of will involved masking his amazement at the vampire’s speech. Or, more accurately, his play at speech. The vampire communicated in the usual telepathic manner, “speaking” directly into Setrakian’s head — but it had learned to manipulate its useless lips in a pantomime of human speech. Setrakian now understood how, in this manner, “Jan-Piet Blaak” moved about nocturnal Amsterdam without fear of discovery.

Setrakian scanned the room for another way out. He needed to know the strigoi was trapped before springing on him. He had come too far to allow Dreverhaven to slip free of his grasp.

Setrakian said, “Am I to understand, then, that you have no concerns about the book, given the misfortune that seems to befall those who possess it?”

Dreverhaven stood with his hands behind his back. “I am a man who embraces the accursed, Monsieur Pirk. And besides — it seems no misfortune has befallen you yet.”

“No… not yet,” lied Setrakian. “And why this book, if I may ask?”

“A scholarly interest, if you will. You might think of me as a broker myself. In fact, I have undertaken this global search for another interested party. The book is rare indeed, not having surfaced in more than half a century. Many believe that the sole remaining edition was destroyed. But — according to your papers — perhaps it has survived. Or there is a second edition. You are prepared to produce it now?”

“I am. First, I should like to see payment.”

“Ah. Naturally. In the case on the corner chair behind you.”

Setrakian moved laterally, with a casualness he did not feel, finding the latch with his finger and opening the top. The case was filled with banded guilders.

“Very good,” said Setrakian.

“Trading paper for paper, Monsieur Pirk. Now if you will reciprocate?”

Setrakian left the case open and returned to his portmanteau. He undid the clasp, one eye on Dreverhaven the entire time. “You might know, it has a very unusual binding.”

“I am aware of that, yes.”

“Though I am assured it is only partially responsible for the book’s outrageous price.”

“May I remind you, Monsieur, that you set the price. And do not judge a book by its cover. As with most clich$eAs, that is good advice often ignored.”

Setrakian carried the portmanteau to the table containing the papers of provenance. He pulled open the top under the faint lamp light, then withdrew. “As you will, sir.”

“Please,” said the vampire. “I should like you to remove it. I insist.”

“Very well.”

Setrakian returned to the bag and reached inside with his black-gloved hands. He pulled out the book, which was bound in silver and fronted and backed with smooth silver plates.

He offered it to Dreverhaven. The vampire’s eyes narrowed, glowing.

Setrakian took a step toward him. “You would like to inspect it, of course?”

“Set it down on that table, Monsieur.”

“That table? But the light is so much more favorable over here.”

“You will please set it down on that table.”

Setrakian did not immediately comply. He remained still, the heavy silver book in his hands. “But you must want to examine it.”

Dreverhaven’s eyes rose from the silver cover of the tome to take in Setrakian’s face. “Your beard, Monsieur Pirk. It obscures your face. It gives you a Hebraic mien.”

“Is that right? I take it you don’t like Jews.”

“They don’t like me. Your scent, Pirk — it is familiar.”

“Why don’t you take a closer look at this book.”

“I do not need to. It is a fake.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps, indeed. But the silver — I can assure you that the silver is quite real.”

Setrakian advanced on Dreverhaven, the book held out in front of him. Dreverhaven backed off, then slowed. “Your hands,” he said. “You are crippled.” Dreverhaven’s eyes went back to Setrakian’s face. “The woodworker. So it is you.”

Setrakian swept open his coat, removing from the interior left fold a sword with a silver blade of modest size. “You have become indolent, Herr Doktor.”

Dreverhaven lashed out with his stinger. Not full-length, merely a feint, the bloated vampire leaping backward against the wall, and then quickly down again.

Setrakian anticipated the ploy. Indeed, the doctor was considerably less agile than many others Setrakian had encountered. Setrakian stood fast with his back to the windows, the vampire’s only escape.

“You are too slow, doctor,” Setrakian said. “Your hunting here has been too easy.”

Dreverhaven hissed. Concern showed in the beast’s eyes as the heat of exertion began to melt its facial cosmetics.

Dreverhaven glanced at the door, but Setrakian wasn’t buying. These creatures always built in an emergency exit. Even a bloated tick like Dreverhaven.

Setrakian feigned an attack, keeping the strigoi off-balance, forcing him to react. Dreverhaven snapped out his stinger, another aborted thrust. Setrakian responded with a quick sweep of his blade, which would have lopped it off at full length.

Dreverhaven made his break then, rushing laterally along the back bookcases, but Setrakian was just as fast. He still held the book in one hand, and hurled it at the fat vampire, the creature recoiling from its toxic silver. Then Setrakian was upon him.

He held the point of his silver blade at Dreverhaven’s upper throat. The vampire’s head tipped back, its crown resting against the spines of his precious books along the upper shelf, his eyes staring at Setrakian.

The silver weakened him, keeping his stinger in check. Setrakian went into his deepest coat pocket — it was lead-lined — and removed a band of thick silver baubles wrapped in a mesh of fine steel, strung along a length of cable.

The vampire’s eyes widened, but it was unable to move as Setrakian lay the necklace over its head, resting it upon the creature’s shoulders.

The silver collar weighed on the strigoi like a chain of hundred-pound stones. Setrakian pulled over a chair just in time for Dreverhaven to collapse into it, keeping the vampire from falling to the floor. The creature’s head dipped to one side, its hands shivering helplessly in its lap.

Setrakian picked up the book — it was, in fact, a sixth-edition copy of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, backed and bound in Britannia silver — and dropped it back into his portmanteau. Sword in hand, he returned to the bookcase toward which the desperate Dreverhaven had lunged.

After some careful searching, wary of booby-traps, Setrakian found the trigger volume. He heard a click and felt the shelf unit give, and then shoved open the swinging wall on its rotating axis.

The smell met him first. Dreverhaven’s rear quarters were windowless and unventilated, a nest of discarded books and trash and reeking rags. But this was not the source of the most offensive stench. That came from the top