“Depends,” said Fet. “These use thallium sulfate, a heavy metal salt that attacks the liver, brain, and muscle. Odorless, colorless, and highly toxic. These over here use a common mammalian blood-thinner.”
“Mammalian? What, something like Coumadin?”
“No, not something like. Exactly like.”
Setrakian looked at the bottle. “So I myself have been taking rat poison for some years now.”
“Yep. You and millions of other people.”
“And this does what?”
“Same thing it would do to you if you took too much of it. The anticoagulant leads to internal hemorrhaging. Rats bleed out. It’s not pretty.”
In picking up the bottle to examine its label, Setrakian noticed something on the shelf behind it. “I do not wish to alarm you, Vasiliy. But aren’t these mouse droppings?”
Fet pushed his way in for a closer look. “Motherfucker!” he said. “How can this be?”
“A minor infestation, I’m sure,” said Setrakian.
“Minor, major, what does it matter? This is supposed to be Fort Knox!” Fet knocked over a few bottles, trying to see better. “This is like vampires breaking into a silver mine.”
While Fet was obsessively searching the back of the closet for more evidence, Eph watched Setrakian slip one of the bottles inside his coat pocket.
Eph followed Setrakian away from the closet, catching him alone. “What are you going to do with that?” he said.
Setrakian showed no guilt at having been discovered. The old man’s cheeks were sunken, his flesh a pale shade of gray. “He said it is essentially blood thinner. With all the pharmacies being raided, I would not like to run out.”
Eph studied the old man, trying to see the truth behind his lie.
Setrakian said, “Nora and Zack are ready for their journey to Vermont?”
“Just about. But not Vermont. Nora had a good point — it’s Kelly’s parents’ place, she might be drawn to it. There’s a girls’ camp Nora knows, from growing up in Philadelphia. It’s off-season now. Three cabins on a small island in the middle of a lake.”
“Good,” said Setrakian. “The water will keep them safe. How soon do you leave for the train station?”
“Soon,” said Eph, checking his wristwatch. “We still have a little time.”
“They could take a car. You do realize that we are out of the epicenter now. This neighborhood, with its lack of direct subway service and comparatively few apartment buildings conducive to rapid infestation, has yet to be totally colonized. We are not in a bad spot here.”
Eph shook his head. “The train is the fastest and surest way out of this plague.”
Setrakian said, “Fet told me about the off-duty policemen who came to the pawnshop. Who resorted to vigilantism once their families were safely away from the city. You have something similar in mind, I think.”
Eph was stunned. Had the old man intuited his plan somehow? He was about to tell him when Nora entered carrying an open carton. “What is this stuff for?” she asked, setting it down near the raccoon cages. Inside were chemicals and trays. “You setting up a dark room?”
Setrakian turned from Eph. “There are certain silver emulsions that I want to test on blood worms. I am optimistic that a fine mist of silver, if possible to derive, synthesize, and direct, will be an effective weapon for mass killing of the creatures.”
Nora said, “But how are you going to test it? Where are you going to get a blood worm?”
Setrakian lifted the lid off a Styrofoam cooler, revealing the jar containing his slowly pulsing vampire heart. “I will segment the worm powering this organ.”
Eph said, “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Only if I make a mistake. I have segmented the parasites in the past. Each section regenerates a fully functioning worm.”
“Yeah,” said Fet, returning from the poison closet. “I’ve seen it.”
Nora lifted out the jar, looking at the heart the old man had fed for more than thirty years, keeping it alive with his own blood. “Wow,” she said. “It’s like a symbol, isn’t it?”
Setrakian looked at her with keen interest. “How do you mean?”
“This diseased heart kept in a jar. I don’t know. I think it exemplifies that which will be our ultimate downfall.”
Eph said, “Being what?”
Nora looked at him with an expression of both sadness and sympathy. “Love,” she said.
“Ah,” said Setrakian, his acknowledgment confirming her insight.
“The undead returning for their Dear Ones,” Nora said. “Human love corrupted into vampiric need.”
Setrakian said, “That may indeed be the most insidious evil of this plague. That is why you have to destroy Kelly.”
Nora quickly agreed. “You must release her from the Master’s grip. Release Zack. And, by extension, all of us.”
Eph was shocked but knew all too well that she was right. “I know,” he said.
“But it is not enough to know what is the correct course of action,” said Setrakian. “You are being called upon to perform a deed that goes against every human instinct. And, in the act of releasing a loved one… you taste what it is to be turned. To go against everything you are. That act changes one forever.”
Setrakian’s words had power, and the others were silent. Then Zack — evidently tired of playing the handheld video game Eph had found for him, or perhaps the battery had finally given out — returned from the van, finding them gathered in conversation. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, young man — talking strategy,” said Setrakian, taking a seat on one of the cartons, resting his legs. “Vasiliy and I have an appointment in Manhattan, so, with your father’s permission, we will catch a ride with you back over the bridge.”
Eph said, “What kind of appointment?”
“At Sotheby’s, a preview of their next auction.”
“I thought they weren’t offering that item for preview.”
“They are not,” said Setrakian. “But we have to try. This is my absolute last chance. At the very least, it will give Vasiliy the opportunity to observe their security.”
Zack looked at his dad and said, “Can’t we do the James Bond security stuff instead of getting on a train?”
Eph said, “ ’Fraid not, little ninja. You gotta go.”
Nora said, “But how will you all keep in touch and connect afterward?” She pulled out her phone. “This thing is just a camera now. They’re toppling cell towers in every borough.”
Setrakian said, “If worst comes to worse, we can always meet back here. Perhaps you should use the ground line to contact your mother, tell her we are on the way.”
Nora left to do just that, and Fet went out to start the van. Then it was just Eph and Zack, the father with his arm around his son, facing the old man.
“You know, Zachary,” said Setrakian, “in the camp I was telling you about, the conditions were so brutal that many times I wanted to grab a rock, a hammer, a shovel, and take down one, maybe two guards. I would have died with them, for certain — and yet, in the searing heat of the moment of choice, at least I would have accomplished
Setrakian never looked at Eph, only the boy, though Eph knew this speech was meant for him.
“That was how I thought. And every day I despised myself for not going through with it. Every moment of inaction feels like cowardice in the face of such inhuman oppression. Survival often feels like an indignity. But — and this is the lesson as I see it now, as an old man — sometimes the most difficult decision is to not martyr yourself for someone, but instead to choose to live
Only then did he look at Eph.
“I do hope you will take that to heart.”
