Abraham’s blade ran right into Phade’s throat. Zack pulled back his hand fast, as though having committed a tragic accident, and white fluid came burbling out of Phade’s neck. Phade’s eyes rolled wide with a surge of menace, and before Zack knew what he was doing, he had stabbed the vampire four more times in the throat. The can of spray paint sssssed against Phade’s leg before falling to the ground.
The vampire collapsed.
Zack stood there with the murder weapon in his hand, holding Abraham like something he had broken and didn’t know how to set down.
The patter of advancing vampires woke him up, unseen but bearing down on him out of the darkness. Zack dropped his iPod light, reaching down for the can of silver paint. He got it into his hand and the spray trigger under his finger just as two spiderlike vampire children came screaming out of the dark, stingers flicking in and out of their mouths. The way in which they moved was indescribably wrong, so swift, exploiting the flexibility of youth into dislocated arms and knees, moving impossibly low and tight along the floor.
Zack took aim at the stingers. He sprayed both creatures full in the face—mouth and nose and eyes—before they could get to him. They had a sort of film over their eyes already, and the paint adhered to it, shutting down their vision. They reeled back, trying to clear their eyes with their oversized—for their bodies—hands and having no luck.
This was Zack’s chance to pounce and kill—but, knowing more vampires were on the way, he instead picked up his iPod light and ran before the painted vampires perceived him through other senses.
He saw steps and a door stamped with caution signs. It was locked but not bolted, no one expecting burglars this far beneath sea level, and Zack slipped the point of Abraham’s blade inside the door crack, working it behind the latch. Inside, the thrum of transformers startled him. He saw no other door, and panicked, thinking he was stuck. But a service duct ran a foot off the floor, out of the wall to the left, before turning and angling into the machinery. Zack chanced a look beneath it and did not see a facing wall. He deliberated a moment, then set his iPod down on the floor, lit-screen up, its light reflecting off the metal bottom of the duct. He then slid it down along beneath the duct like a thin puck gliding over an air hockey table. The up-shining light slid down the floor, turning slightly, but going a long way before stopping, hitting something hard. Zack saw that the light was no longer shining off the reflecting duct.
Zack did not hesitate. He got down on his belly and started beneath the duct before crawling back out again, starting over, realizing he could go faster on his already filthy back. Out he went, headfirst along the narrow crawl space. He slid some fifty feet, the floor at times grabbing his shirt, cutting into his back. At the end, his head popped out into a void, the duct turning and rising high up alongside an embedded ladder.
Zack reclaimed his iPod, shining it up. He could see nothing. But he could hear bumps echoing along the duct: vampire children following his route, moving with preternatural ease.
Zack started up the ladder, his paint can in his hand, Abraham stuck in his belt. He went hand-over-hand up the iron rungs, the echoing duct thumps rising with him. He stopped a moment, hooking his elbow on a rung, pulling the iPod from his pocket to check behind him.
The iPod tumbled from his grip. He grabbed after it, nearly slipping from the ladder, then watched it fall.
As the glowing screen dropped, twisting, it flashed past a form rising up the ladder, illuminating another of his evil playmates.
Zack went back to climbing, faster than he thought he could. But never fast enough. He felt the ladder shaking, and stopped and turned just in time. The child vampire was at his heels when Zack hit it with the paint-can spray, stunning it, blinding it—and then kicking at it with his heel until it fell squealing from the ladder.
He kept climbing, wishing he didn’t have to keep looking back. The iPod light was tiny, the floor below a long way away. The ladder shook—harder now. More bodies climbing up the rungs. Zack heard a dog barking—muffled, an exterior noise—and knew he was near some kind of exit. This gave him a boost of energy and he hurried upward, coming to a flat, round roof.
A manhole. The smooth bottom of it, cold from touching the outside. The surface world was right above. Zack pushed with the heel of his hand. He gave it all he had.
It was no use.
He felt someone near, coming up the ladder, and blindly sprayed the paint below him. He heard a noise like moaning and he kicked downward, but the creature did not fall right away. It was hanging on, swinging. Zack kicked downward with one leg, and a hand grabbed his ankle. A hot hand with a strong grip. A vampire child hanging from him, trying to pull him down. Zack dropped the paint can, needing both hands to grip the ladder. He kicked, trying to ram the creature’s fingers into the ladder rungs, but it would not loosen its grip. Until at once—with a squeal—it did.
Zack heard the body smack the wall on the way down.
Another being came up on him before he had time to react. A vampire, he felt its heat, he smelled its earthiness. A hand grabbed his armpit, hooking him, lifting him to the manhole. With two great shoulder shoves, the creature loosened the manhole, throwing it aside. It climbed into the immediate cool of the open air, hauling Zack up with it.
He pulled at the knife at his waist, nearly slicing off his belt trying to work it free. But the vampire’s hand closed around his, squeezing hard, holding him there. Zack closed his eyes, not wanting to see the creature. But the grip held him fast and did not move. As though it were waiting.
Zack opened his eyes. He looked up slowly, dreading the sight of its malicious face.
Its eyes were burning red, its hair flat and dead around its face. Its swollen throat bucked, its stinger flicking at the insides of its cheeks. The look it gave him was a mix of vampiric desire and creature satisfaction.
Abraham slipped from Zack’s hand.
He said:
“Mom.”
They arrived at the building on Central Park via two stolen hotel courtesy cars, encountering no military interference along the way. Inside, the power was out, the elevator inoperable. Gus and the Sapphires started up the stairs, but Setrakian could not climb to the top. Fet did not offer to carry him; Setrakian was too proud for this to even be contemplated. The obstacle appeared insurmountable, and Setrakian, the silver book in his arms, seemed older than ever before.
Fet noted that the elevator was old, with folding gate doors. On a hunch, he went exploring doors near the stairway, and found an old-fashioned dumbwaiter lined with wallpaper. Without a word of protest, Setrakian handed Fet his walking stick and climbed into the half-sized car, sitting with the book on his knees. Angel worked the pulley and counterweight, hauling him up at a gradual rate of speed.
Setrakian rose up in darkness through the building inside the coffin-like conveyance, with his hands resting on the silver plating of the old tome. He was trying to catch his breath, and to settle his mind, but a roll call of sorts ran unbidden through his head: the face of each and every vampire he had ever slain. All the white blood he had spilled, all the worms he had loosed from cursed bodies. For years he had puzzled over the nature of the origin of these monsters on Earth. The Ancients, where they came from. The original act of evil that created these beings.
Fet reached the empty top floor still under construction, and found the door to the dumbwaiter. He opened it and watched a seemingly dazed Setrakian turn and test the floor with his shoe soles before standing out of it. Fet handed him his staff, and the old man blinked and looked at him with only a trace of recognition.
Up a few steps, the door to the empty top-floor apartment was ajar. Gus led the way inside. Mr. Quinlan and a couple of hunters stood beyond the entrance, and only watched them enter. No search, no accosting. Past them, the Ancients stood as before, still as statues, looking out over the falling city.
In absolute silence, Quinlan took position next to a narrow ebony door at the opposite side of the room,
wide left of the Ancients. Fet then realized there were only two Ancients now. Where the third had stood, to the far right, all that remained was what appeared to be a pile of white ash in a small wooden urn.
Setrakian walked farther toward them than the hunters had allowed on his previous visit. He stopped near the middle of the room. An illumination flare streaked over Central Park, lighting the apartment and outlining the two remaining Ancients in magnesium-white.
Setrakian said, “So you know.”
There was no response.
“Other than Sardu—you were Six Ancients, three Old World, three New. Six birth sites.”
Birth is a human act. Six sites of origin.
“One of them was Bulgaria. Then China. But why didn’t you safeguard them?”
Hubris, perhaps. Or something quite like it. By the time we knew we were in danger, it was too late. The Young One deceived us. Chernobyl was a decoy—His site. For a long time he managed to stay silent, feeding on carrion. Now he has moved in first—
“Then you know you are doomed.”
And then the one on the left vaporized into a burst of fine, white light. His form became dust and fell away to the floor amid a searing noise, like a high-pitched sigh. A shock that was partially electric and partially psychic jolted the humans in the room.
Almost instantaneously, two of the hunters were similarly obliterated. They vanished into a mist finer than smoke, leaving neither ashes nor dust—only their clothes, falling in a warm heap on the floor.
With the Ancient went its sacred bloodline.
The Master was eliminating his only rivals for control of the planet. Was that it?
The irony is that this has always been our plan for the world. Allowing the livestock to erect their own pens, to create and proliferate their weapons and reasons to self-destruct. We have been altering the planet’s ecosystem through its master breed. Once the greenhouse effect was irreversible, we were going to reveal ourselves and rise to power.
Setrakian said, “You were making the world over into a vampire nest.”
Nuclear winter is a perfect environment. Longer nights, shorter days. We could exist on the surface, shielded from the sun by the contaminated atmosphere. And we were almost there. But he foresaw that. Foresaw that, once we achieved that end, he would have to share with us this planet and its rich food source. And he does not want that.
“What does he want, then?” Setrakian said.
Pain. The Young One wants all the pain he can get. As fast as he can get it. He cannot stop. This addiction… this hunger for pain lies, in fact, at the root of our very origin…
Setrakian took another step toward the last remaining Ancient. “Quickly. If you are vulnerable through the site of your creation—then so is he.”
Now you know what is in the book—You must learn to interpret it…
“The location of his origin? Is that it?”
You believed us the ultimate evil. A pox on your people. You thought we were the ultimate corrupters of your world, and yet we were the glue holding everything together. Now you will feel the lash of the true overlord.
“Not if you tell us where he is vulnerable—”
We owe you nothing. We are done.
“For revenge, then. He is obliterating you as you stand here!”
As usual, your human perspective is narrow. The battle is lost, but nothing is ever obliterated. In any event, now that he has shown his hand, you may be certain that he has fortified his earthly place of origin.
“You said Chernobyl,” said Setrakian.
Sadum. Amurah.
“What is that? I don’t understand,” said Setrakian, lifting the book. “If it’s here, I am certain. But I need time to decode it. And we don’t have time.”
We were neither born nor created. Sown from an act of barbarity. A transgression against the high order. An atrocity. And what was once sown may be reaped.
“How is he different?”
Only stronger. He is like us; we are him—but he is not us.
In less time than it took to blink, the Ancient had turned toward him. Its head and face were time-smoothed, worn of all features, with sagging red eyes, less a nose than a bump, and a downturned mouth open to toothless blackness.
One thing you must do. Gather every particle of our remains. Deposit them into a reliquary of silver and white oak. This is imperative. For us, but also for you.
“Why? Tell me.”
White oak. Be certain, Setrakian.
Setrakian said, “I will do no such thing unless I know that doing so won’t bring more harm.”
You will do it. There is no such thing now as more harm.
Setrakian saw that the Ancient was right.
Fet spoke up behind Setrakian. “We’ll collect it—and preserve it in a dustbin.”
The Ancient looked past Setrakian for a moment, at the exterminator. With sag-eyed contempt, but also something like pity.
Sadum. Amurah. And his name… our name…
And then it dawned on Setrakian. “Ozryel… The Angel of Death.” And he understood everything, and thought all the right questions.
But it was too late.
A blast of white light and a pulse of energy, and the last remaining New World Ancient vanished into a scattering of snow-like ash.
The last remaining hunters twisted as though in a moment of pain—and then evaporated right out of their clothes.
Setrakian felt a breath of ionized air ripple his clothes and fade away.
He sagged, leaning on his staff. The Ancients were no more. And yet a greater evil remained.
In the atomization of the Ancients, he glimpsed his own fate.
Fet was at his side. “What do we do?”
Setrakian found his voice. “Gather the remains.”
“You’re sure?”
Setrakian nodded. “Use the urn. The reliquary can come later.”
He turned and looked for Gus, finding the vampire killer sifting through a hunter’s clothes with the tip of his silver sword.
Gus was searching the room for Mr. Quinlan—or his remains—but the Ancients’ chief hunter was nowhere to be found.
The narrow door at the left end of the room, however, the ebony door Quinlan had retreated to after they entered, was ajar.
The Ancients’ words came back to Gus, from their first meeting:
He is our best hunter. Efficient and loyal. In many respects, unique.
Had Quinlan somehow been spared? Why hadn’t he disintegrated like the rest?
“What is it?” asked Setrakian, approaching Gus.
Gus said, “One of the hunters, Quinlan… he left no trace… Where did he go?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. You are free of them now,” said Setrakian. “Free of their control.”
Gus looked back at the old man. “Ain’t none of us free for long.”
“You will have the chance to release your mother.”
“If I find her.”
“No,” said Setrakian. “She will find you.”
Gus nodded. “So—nothing’s changed.”
“One thing. They would have made you one of their hunters if they had succeeded in pushing back the Master. You have been spared that.”
“We’re splitting,” said Creem. “If it’s all the same to you. We know the ropes now and it seems to me we can carry on with the good work. But we all have families to gather. Or maybe we don’t. Either way, we have places to secure. But if you ever need the Sapphires, Gus—you just come and find us.”
Creem shook hands with Gus. Angel stood by uncertainly. He sized up one gang leader, and then the other. He nodded at Gus. The big ex-wrestler had chosen to stay.
Gus turned to Setrakian. “I’m one of your hunters now.”
Setrakian said, “You don’t need anything more from me. But I need one more thing from you.”
“Just name it.”
“A ride. A fast one.”
“Fast is my specialty. They got more Hummer
s in a garage underneath this funhouse. Unless that shit evaporated too.”
Gus went off to claim a vehicle. Fet had located, inside a chest of drawers in an adjoining room, a briefcase full of cash. He dumped out the paper currency so that Angel had something to deposit the Ancients’ ashes in. He had heard the entire conversation with Gus. “I think I know where we are going.”
“No,” said Setrakian, still looking distracted, only half-there. “Just me.” He handed Fet the Occido Lumen and his notebook.
“I don’t want this,” said Fet.
“You must take it. And remember. Sadum, Amurah. Will you remember that, Vasiliy?”
“I don’t need to remember anything—I’m going with you.”
“No. The book is the thing now. It must be kept safe, and out of the Master’s claws. We can’t lose it now.”
“We can’t lose you.”
Setrakian shook that off. “I am very nearly lost as it is.”
“That’s why you need me with you.”
“Sadum. Amurah. Say it,” said Setrakian. “That’s what you can do for me. Let me hear that—let me know that you keep those words…”
“Sadum. Amurah,” said Fet obediently. “I know them.”
Setrakian nodded. “This world is going to become a terribly hard place of little hope. Protect those words—that book—like a flame. Read it. The key to it is in my notes. Their nature, their origin, their name—they were all one…”
“You know I can’t make heads or tails—”
“Then go to Ephraim, together you will. You must go to him now.” His voice broke. “You two need to stay together.”
“Two of us together doesn’t equal one of you. Give this to Gus. Let me take you, please…” Now there were tears in the eyes of the exterminator.
Setrakian’s gnarled hand gripped Fet’s forearm with fading strength. “It is your responsibility now, Vasiliy. I trust you implicitly… Be bold.”
The silver plating was cold to touch. He accepted the book finally, because the old man insisted, like a dying man pressing his diary into the hands of a reluctant heir. “What are you going to do?” asked Fet, knowing now that this was the last time he would see Setrakian. “What can you do?”