The Complete Strain Trilogy

  Eph nodded. He watched her face for some sign of treachery. They were alone now; if she was going to reveal herself to him as the turncoat, this was the time.

  She eschewed more-fashionable leather boots for something sturdy and without heels. “The fake book just has to look good,” Eph said. “It has to look right. I think things will move so quickly, we just need to pass that initial glance test.”

  “Fet is on it,” said Nora with absolute certainty. Almost with pride. “You can trust him . . .” And then she realized who she was talking to. “Listen, Eph. About Fet . . .”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I understand. The world is fucked and we deserve to be only with those who care for us—above and beyond all things. In a strange way . . . if it was going to be anyone I feel good that it was Fet. Because he will give his life before he allows any harm to come to you. Setrakian knew it and chose him above me and you know it too. He can do what I never could—be there for you.”

  Nora felt conflicting emotions now. This was Eph at his best: generous, smart, and caring. She would’ve almost preferred him to be an asshole. Now she saw him for who he really was: the man she had once fallen in love with. Her heart still felt the pull.

  “What if the Master wants me to bring the book to it?” asked Eph.

  “Maybe you’ll tell him we are chasing you. That you need the Master to come and get you. Or maybe you insist on him bringing Zack to you.”

  Eph’s face darkened a moment, remembering the Master’s abject refusal on that point. “That raises a major issue,” he said. “How can I set this thing off and get away?”

  “I don’t know. Too many variables right now. This whole thing is going to require a lot of luck. And courage. I wouldn’t blame you if you are having second thoughts.”

  She watched him. Looking for a crack in his demeanor . . . or an opening so that she could reveal her complicity? “Second thoughts?” he said, trying to draw her out. “About going through with this?”

  He saw the concern in her face as she shook her head. No hint of duplicity. And he was glad. He was relieved. Things had changed so much between them—but she was at heart the same old freedom fighter she always had been. It helped Eph to believe that he was the same too.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “What?” he said.

  “It looked almost like you were smiling.”

  Eph shook his head. “Just me realizing that the bottom line is that Zack goes free. Whatever it takes to achieve that, I’ll do.”

  “I think that’s amazing, Eph. I really do.”

  “You don’t think the Master will see right through this?” he said. “You think it will believe that I could do this? That I could betray the rest of you?”

  “I do,” she said. “I think it fits the way the Master thinks. Don’t you?”

  Eph nodded, glad she wasn’t looking at him at that moment. If not Nora, then who was the turncoat? Not Fet, certainly. Could it be Gus? Could all of his bluster toward Eph be a cover? Or Joaquin was another possible suspect. All this twisty thinking was making him even more crazy.

  . . . can never go down / can never go down the drain.

  He heard something out in the main display area. Stirring noises, once assigned to rodents, nowadays meant only one thing.

  Nora had heard it too. They switched off their flashlights.

  “Wait here,” said Eph. Nora understood that, for this subterfuge to succeed, Eph had to go alone. “And be careful.”

  “Always,” she said, drawing silver.

  He slid out through the door, careful not to bump the handle of the sword jutting out of his backpack. He pulled on his night-vision monocular and waited for the image to stabilize in his vision.

  Everything looked still. All the mannequins had normally sized hands, no extended talon for a middle finger. Eph circled right, keeping to the edge of the room, until he saw the hanger swinging gently on a circular rack near the down escalator.

  Eph drew his sword and went swiftly to the top wooden step. The nonworking escalator ran along a narrow, walled space. He descended as quickly and as quietly as he could, then took in the next level from the landing. Something told him to keep going down, and so he did.

  He slowed at the bottom, smelling something. A vampire had been here; he was close behind. Strange for a vampire to be out on its own, not otherwise industriously employed. Unless patrolling this department store was its assigned task. Eph ventured out from the escalator, the floor revealed in green. Nothing moved. He was about to start toward a large display when he heard a light click in the opposite direction.

  Again he saw nothing. Ducking low, he wove around the clothing racks in the direction of the noise. The sign above the open doorway gave directions for the restrooms and the administrative offices, as well as an elevator. Eph crept past the offices first, looking in every open door. He could come back and try the closed doors after he had cleared the rest of the area. He went to the restrooms, nudging open the door to the women’s room just a few inches to see if it made much noise. It was nearly silent. He entered and scanned the stalls, pushing open each door, sword in hand.

  He returned to the hallway and stood listening, feeling as though he had lost whatever thin trail he had been following. He pulled on the men’s-room door and slipped inside. He passed the urinals and poked open each stall door with the tip of his sword, and then, disappointed, turned to leave.

  In an explosion of paper and trash, the vampire leaped out of the open trash barrel in the corner near the door, landing on the edge of one of the sinks across the room. Eph lurched backward at first, cursing and swiping at the air with his sword to ward off any stinger attacks. He quickly asserted his position, leading with his silver, not wanting to get backed into a stall. He brandished the weapon at the hissing vampire and circled past it, coming close to the barrel it had sprung from, paper rustling at his feet.

  It squatted there, gripping the smooth edge of the sink, its knees up around its head, looking at him. Eph finally got a clear glance at it in the green light of his scope. It was a boy. A ten- or twelve-year-old of African-American descent, with what looked like pure glass in his eyes.

  A blind boy. One of the feelers.

  The feeler’s top lip was curled such that, by night vision, it looked like an appraising smile. His fingers and toes gripped the front edge of the sink counter as though he were about to pounce. Eph kept the tip of his sword pointed at the feeler’s midsection.

  “Were you sent to find me?” Eph said.

  Yes.

  Eph sagged a bit in dismay. Not at the response, but at the voice.

  It was Kelly’s. Speaking the Master’s words.

  Eph wondered if Kelly was somehow responsible for the feelers. If she was their wrangler, so to speak. Their dispatcher. And if so, if indeed these blind, psychic vampire children had been placed under her unofficial command, how fitting and sadly ironic at the same time. Kelly Goodweather was still a mother hen, even in death.

  “What made it so easy this time?”

  You wanted to be found.

  The feeler pounced, but not at Eph. The boy sprang from the countertop across the restroom to the wall, then dropped down to the tile floor on all fours.

  Eph tracked it with his sword tip. The feeler crouched there, looking at him.

  Are you going to slay me, Ephraim?

  Kelly’s taunting voice. Had it been her idea to send a boy Zack’s age?

  “Why do you torment me like this?”

  I could have a hundred thirsty vampires there in moments, surrounding you. Tell me why I should not send them to you now.

  “Because the book is not here. And—more important—if you broke our deal, I would slice my own throat before letting you have access to my mind.”

  You are bluffing.

  Eph lunged at the boy. He skittered backward, bumping into a stall door and stopping inside. “How do you like it?” said Eph. “These threats don’t instil
l much faith in me that you will keep your end of the bargain.”

  Pray that I do.

  “Interesting choice of words, ‘pray.’ ” Eph stood in the doorway to the stall now; the corner of the bathroom reeked from neglect. “Ozryel. Yes, I’ve been reading the book you want so badly. And talking to Mr. Quinlan, the Born.”

  Then you should know that I am not in fact Ozryel.

  “No, you are the worms that crawled out of the murderous angel’s veins. After God had him pulled apart like someone quartering a chicken.”

  We share the same rebellious nature. A lot like your son, I imagine.

  Eph shook that off, determined not to be an easy mark for the Master’s abuse any longer. “My son is nothing like you.”

  Don’t be so sure. Where is the book?

  “It was hidden in the stacks deep beneath the New York Public Library this entire time, in case you were wondering. I am supposed to be buying a little time for them now.”

  I presume the Born is studying it avidly.

  “Correct. That doesn’t worry you?”

  To the eyes of the unworthy, it would take years to decipher.

  “Good. So you’re not in any rush. Maybe I should step back, then. Wait for a better offer from you.”

  And maybe I should draw and quarter your son.

  Eph wanted to run his sword through this undead child’s throat. Leave the Master wanting for a while longer. But at the same time he did not want to push the creature too far. Not with Zack’s life on the line. “You’re the one bluffing now. You are worried and are pretending not to be. You want this book and you want it very badly. Why so soon?”

  It did not answer.

  “There is no other traitor. You are all lies.”

  The feeler remained crouched, its back against the wall.

  “Fine,” said Eph. “Play it that way.”

  My father is dead.

  Eph’s heart skipped a beat, stopping dead in his chest for a long moment. Such was the shock of hearing, as clear as though he were there in the room with him, his son Zack’s voice.

  He was shaking. He fought hard to keep a furious scream from rising in his throat.

  “You goddamned . . .”

  The Master returned to Kelly’s voice. You will bring the book as soon as you can.

  Eph’s first fear was that Zack had been turned. But no; the Master was just throwing Zack’s voice, pushing it to Eph through this feeler.

  Eph said, “Goddamn you.”

  God tried to. And where is He now?

  “Not here,” said Eph, his blade lowering a bit. “Not here.”

  No. Not in a department store men’s room in a deserted Macy’s. Why don’t you release this poor child, Ephraim? Look into its blind eyes. Wouldn’t striking it down give you great satisfaction?

  He did look into its eyes. Glassy and unblinking. Eph saw the vampire . . . but also the boy he once was.

  I have thousands of sons. All of them absolutely loyal.

  “You have only one true offspring. The Born. And all he wants is to destroy you.”

  The feeler dropped to its knees, raising its chin, baring its neck to Eph, its arms hanging limp at its sides.

  Take him, Ephraim, and be done with it.

  The feeler’s blind eyes stared into nothingness, in the manner of a supplicant awaiting orders from its lord. The Master wanted him to execute the child. Why?

  Eph pointed the tip of his sword at the boy’s exposed neck. “Here,” he said. “Run him into my sword if you wish him released.”

  You have no desire to slay him?

  “I have every desire to slay him. But no good reason to.”

  When the boy did not move, Eph stepped back, pulling away his sword. Something wasn’t right here.

  You cannot slay the boy. You hide behind weakness by calling it strength.

  Eph said, “Weakness is giving in to temptation. Strength is resisting it.” He looked at the feeler, Kelly’s voice still hanging in his head. The feeler had no link to Eph, not without Kelly. And her voice was being projected by the Master, in an attempt to distract and weaken him, but the vampire Kelly could be anywhere at that moment. Anywhere.

  Eph backed out of the stall and started running, rushing up the escalator to where he had left Nora.

  Kelly stayed close to the wall, padding barefoot past the racks of clothes. The woman’s scent lingered in the back room behind the shoe display . . . but her bloodbeat thrummed across the display floor. Kelly approached the changing-room doorway. Nora Martinez waited there with a silver sword.

  “Hey, bitch,” Nora greeted her.

  Kelly seethed, her mind going out to the feelers, calling them close. She had no clear angle of attack. The silver weapon glowed hot in her view as the bald female human started toward her.

  “You really let yourself go,” said Nora, circling around a register. “Cosmetics is on the first floor, by the way. And maybe a turtleneck to cover up that nasty turkey neck.”

  The girl feeler came bounding from the stairs, stopping near Kelly.

  “Mother-daughter shopping day,” said Nora. “How sweet. I’ve got some silver jewelry I’d love to see you two try on.”

  Nora feigned a jab; Kelly and the girl feeler just stared at her.

  “I used to be afraid,” said Nora. “In the train tunnel, I was afraid of you. I’m not afraid now.”

  Nora unclipped the Luma lamp hanging from her pack, switching on the battery-powered black light. The ultraviolet rays repelled the vampires, the feeler snarling and backing away on all fours. Kelly remained still, only turning as Nora circled away from them, backing away to the stairs. She was using the mirrors to check behind her, which was how she saw the blurred figure darting up from the handrail.

  Nora spun and drove her blade deep into the mouth of the boy feeler, the searing silver releasing him almost immediately. She jerked the blade out and spun back, ready for the attack.

  Kelly and the girl feeler were gone. Vanished—as though they had never been there in the first place.

  “Nora!”

  Eph called to her from the floor below. “Coming down!” she yelled back, descending the wooden steps.

  He met her there, anxious, having feared the worst. He saw the slick white blood on her blade.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded, grabbing a scarf off a nearby rack to clean off her sword. “Ran into Kelly upstairs. She says hi.”

  Eph stared at the sword. “Did you . . . ?”

  “No, unfortunately. Just one of her little foster monsters.”

  Eph said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  Outside, she half-expected a swarm of vampires to greet them. But no. Regular humans moving between work and home, shoulders hunched against the rain.

  “How did it go?” asked Nora.

  “It’s a bastard,” said Eph. “A true bastard.”

  “But do you think it bought it?”

  Eph could not look her in the eye. “Yes,” he said. “It bought it.”

  Eph was vigilant for vampires, scanning the sidewalks as they went.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Keep moving,” he said. Across Thirty-sixth Street, he pulled over, ducking under the canopy of a closed market. He looked up through the rain, eyeing the rooftops.

  There, high across the street, a feeler leaped from the edge of one building to the next. Tracking them.

  “They’re following us,” said Eph. “Come on.” They walked on, trying to lose themselves in the masses. “We have to wait them out until the meridiem.”

  Columbia University

  EPH AND NORA returned to the empty university campus soon after first light, confident they were not followed. Eph figured that Mr. Quinlan had to be underground, probably going over the Lumen. He was headed that way when Gus intercepted them—or, more accurately, intercepted Nora while Eph was still with her.

  “You have the medicine?” he asked.

 
Nora showed him a bag full of their loot.

  “It’s Joaquin,” said Gus.

  Nora stopped short, thinking vampire involvement. “What happened?”

  “I need you to see him. It’s bad.”

  They followed him to a classroom where Joaquin was propped up on top of a desk, his pant leg rolled up. His knee was bulbous in two places, considerably swollen. The gangbanger was in great pain. Gus stood on the other side of the desk, waiting for answers.

  “How long has it been like this?” Nora asked Joaquin.

  Through a sweaty grimace, Joaquin said, “I dunno. A while.”

  “I’m going to touch it here.”

  Joaquin braced himself. Nora explored the swollen areas around the knee. She saw a small wound below the patella, less than an inch in length and crooked, its edges yellowed and crusty. “When did you get this cut?”

  “Dunno,” said Joaquin. “Think I bumped it at the blood camp. Didn’t notice it until long after.”

  Eph jumped in. “You’ve been going out on your own sometimes. You hit any hospitals or nursing home facilities?”

  “Uh . . . probably. Saint Luke’s, sure.”

  Eph looked at Nora, their silence conveying the seriousness of the infection. “Penicillin?” said Nora.

  “Maybe,” said Eph. “Let’s go think this through.” To Joaquin, he said, “Lie back. We’ll be right back in.”

  “Hold up, doc. That don’t sound good.”

  Eph said, “It’s an infection, obviously. It would be fairly routine to treat this in a hospital. Problem is, there are no more hospitals. A sick human is simply disposed of. So we need to discuss how to care for it.”

  Joaquin nodded, unconvinced, and lay back on the desk. Gus, without a word, followed Eph and Nora out into the hallway.

  Gus said, looking mostly at Nora, “No bullshit.”

  Nora shook her head. “Bacterium, multiresistant. He might have cut himself at the camp, but this is something he picked up at a medical facility. The bug can live on instruments, on surfaces, for a long time. Nasty, and trenchant.”

  Gus said, “Okay. What do you need?”