The Strain

  Setrakian brandished his silver sword. Nora, closing from a different angle, drove Bolivar back toward the front wall of the apartment. The Master was cornered. Attacking Eph in such a small space had been a cardinal mistake.

  Setrakian’s heart pounded in his chest as he turned the blade point out and ran it at the demon.

  The droning inside the apartment expanded suddenly, an explosion of noise inside his head. And Nora’s, and Fet’s, and Eph’s. An incapacitating shockwave of sound that made the old man shrink back for a moment—just long enough.

  He saw a black grin snake across the Master’s face. The giant vampire threw the flailing Eph across the room, his body slamming into the far wall and dropping hard to the floor. The Master hooked Bolivar by the shoulder with one of his long, taloned hands—and lunged at the picture window overlooking Worth Street.

  A splintering crash shuddered the building as the Master escaped in a rain of glass.

  Setrakian ran toward the sudden breeze, to the frame of the window edged with jagged shards. Three stories 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.

  “Hey—a little help!”

  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.”

  Kelton Street, Woodside, Queens

  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.

  Hi, this is Kelly. I’m not able to answer my phone right now…

  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.

  Oh, Christ, he thought. It’s true.

  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, “NO!” and drew from a ready well of rage to kick Matt off him.

  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, knifeknifeknifeknifeknife. Hard and quick, right through the throat and into the wall behind, the blade tip sticking and Eph pulling out again. Crunching cervical vertebra. White goo bubbling. Body sagging, arms flailing. Eph stabbing until the head remained in his hand but the body sagged to the floor.

  Eph stopped cutting then. He saw, without truly processing it, the head in his hand with its stinger drooping through the severed neck, still twitching.

  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. Kelly.

  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?”

  Knickerbocker Loans and Curios, East 118th Street, Spanish Harlem

  EPH STOOD in the book-lined hallway of Setrakian’s apartment. He was looking in on Zack eating a Devil Dog at the old man’s small kitchen table, where Nora was asking him about school, keeping him occupied and distracted.

  Eph could still feel the sensation of the Master’s grip on his head. He had lived a life built on certain assumptions, in a world based on certain assumptions, and now that everything he thought he could rely on was gone, he realized he didn’t know anything anymore.

  Nora saw him watching from the hall, and Eph could tell by the look on her face that she was frightened by the look on his.

  Eph knew that he would always be a little insane from now on.

  He went downstairs two flights to Setrakian’s basement armory. The UV alarm lights at the door were turned off, the old man showing Fet his wares. The exterminator was admiring the modified nail gun, looking like a longer, narrower UZI submachine gun, but orange and black, and with its loading nail magazine feeding the barrel on a slant.

  Setrakian came straight over to Eph. “Did you eat?”

  Eph shook his head.

  “How is your boy?”

  “Scared, but he won’t let it show.”

  Setrakian nodded. “Like the rest of us.”

  “You’ve seen him before. This Thing. The Master.”

  “Yes.”

  “You tried to kill it.”

  “Yes.”

  “You failed.”

  Setrakian squinted, as though looking directly into the past. “I was not adequately prepared. I will not miss again.”

  Fet, holding a lantern-shaped object with a spike on the end of it, said, “Not likely. Not with this arsenal.”

  “Some parts I pieced together myself, from things that came into the store. But I am no bomb maker.” He clenched his gloved claws as proof of this. “I have a silversmith in New Jersey who molds my points and needles.”

  “You mean you didn’t pick this up at Radio Shack?”

  Setrakian took the heavy, lantern-shaped object from the exterminator’s hands. It was constructed of shaded plastic with a thick battery base, a six-inch spike of steel on the bottom. “This is essentially an ultraviolet light mine. It is a single-use weapon that will emit a cleansing spray of vampire-killing light in the pure UVC range. It is designed to clear a large room, and will burn very hot and fast once charged. You want to make certain you are out of the way when it does. The temperature and the radiation can get a bit…uncomfortable.”

  Fet said, “And what’s with this nail gun?”

  “This is powder actuated, operating on a shotgun load of gunpowder to drive the nail. Fifty nails per load, inch and a half brads. Silver of course.”

  “Of course,” said Fet, admiring the piece, getting a feel for the rubber grip.

  Setrakian looked around the room: the old armor up on the wall; the UVC lamps and battery chargers on the shelves; the silver blades and silver-backed mirrors; some prototype weapons; his notebooks and sketches. The enormity of the moment nearly overwhelmed him. He only hoped that fear would not turn him back into the powerless young man he had once been.

  He said, “I have waited for this a very long time.”

  He started upstairs then. Leaving Eph alone with Fet. The big exterminator lifted the nail gun out of its charger. “Where did you find this old guy?”

  Eph said, “He found me.”

  “I’ve been in a lot of basements in my line of work. I look around this little workshop here, and I think—here is the one crazy who’s actually been vindicated.”

  Eph said, “He’s not crazy.”

  “He show you this?” Fet asked. He crossed to the glass specimen jar, the afflicted heart suspended in fluid. “Guy keeps the heart of a vampire he killed as a pet in his basement armory. He’s plenty crazy. But that’s okay. I’m a little crazy too.” He knelt down, putting his face close to the jar. “Here, kitty, kitty…” The sucker shot out at the glass, trying to get him. Fet straightened and turned to Eph with a look of Can-you-believe-this? “This is all a bit more than I bargained for when I woke up this morning.” He sighted the nail gun on the jar, then pulled off his aim, liking the feel of it. “Mind if I claim this?”

  Eph shook his head. “Be my guest.”

  Eph returned upstairs, slowing in the hallway, seeing Setrakian with Zack in the kitchen. Setrakian lifted a silver chain off his own neck—containing the key to the basement workshop—and with his crooked fingers he placed it over Zack’s head, hanging it around the eleven-year-old’s neck, then patted his shoulders.

  “Why did you do that?” Eph asked Setrakian once they were alone.

  “There are things downstairs—notebooks, writings—that should be preserved. That future generations may find helpful.”

  “You’re not planning on coming back?”

  “I am taking every conceivable precaution.” Setrakian looked around, making certain they were alone. “Please understand. The Master has power and speed well beyond that of these clumsy new vampires we are seeing. He is more than even we know. He has dwelled upon this earth for centuries. And yet…”

  “And yet he is a vampire.”

  “And vampires can indeed be destroyed. Our best hope is to flush him out. To hurt him and drive him into the killing sun. Why we must wait for the dawn.”

  “I want to go now.”

  “I know you do. That is exactly what he wants.”

  “He has my wife. Kelly is where she is for one reason only—because of me.”

  “You have a personal stake here, Doctor, and it is compelling. But you must know that, if he has her, she is already turned.”

  Eph shook his head. “She is not.”

  “I don’t say this to anger you—”

  “She is not!”

  Setrakian nodded after a moment. He waited for Eph to compose himself.

  Eph said, “Alcoholics Anonymous has done a great deal for me. But the one thing I never got out of it was the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”

  Setrakian said, “I am the same. Perhaps it is this shared trait that has led us to this point together. Our goals are in perfect alignment.”

  “Almost perfect,” said Eph. “Because only one of us can actually slay the bastard. And it’s going to be me.”

  Nora had been waiting anxiously to speak with Eph, pouncing on him once he stepped away from Setrakian, pulling him into the old man’s tiled bathroom.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Ask me what you’re going to ask me.” She implored him with her fierce brown eyes. “Don’t.”

  Eph said, “But I need you to—”

  “I am scared shitless—but I have earned a place at your side. You need me.”

  “I do. I need you here. To watch Zack. Besides—one of us has to stay behind. To carry on. In case…” He left that unsaid. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  “Too much.”

  Eph could not stop looking in her eyes. He said, “I have to go after her.”

  “I know.”

  “I just want you to know…”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” she said. “But—I’m glad you want to.”

  He pulled her close
then, into a tight embrace. Nora’s hand went up to the back of his head, caressing his hair. She pulled away to look at him, to say something more—and then kissed him instead. It was a good-bye kiss that insisted on his return.

  They parted and he nodded to let her know he understood.

  He saw Zack watching them from the hallway.

  Eph didn’t try to explain anything to him now. Leaving the beauty and goodness of this boy and departing from the perceived safety of the surface world to go down and face a demon was the most unnatural thing Eph could do. “You’ll stay with Nora, okay? We’ll talk when I come back.”

  Zack’s preteen squint was self-protective, the emotions of the moment too raw and confusing for him. “Come back from where?”

  He pulled his son close, wrapping him up in his arms as though otherwise the boy he loved would fracture into a million pieces. Eph resolved there and then to prevail because he had too much to lose.

  They heard yelling and automobile horns outside, and everyone went to the west-facing window. A mass of brake lights clotted the road some four or more blocks away, people taking to the streets and fighting. A building was in flames and there were no fire trucks anywhere in sight.

  Setrakian said, “This is the beginning of the breakdown.”

  Morningside Heights

  GUS HAD BEEN on the run since the night before. The handcuffs made it difficult for him to move freely on the streets: the old shirt he had found, and wound around his forearms, as if he was walking with his arms crossed, wouldn’t have fooled many. He ducked into a movie theater through the back exit and slept in the darkness. He thought of a chop shop he knew over on the West Side, and spent a considerable amount of time making his way over there, only to find it empty. Not locked up, just empty. He dug through the tools he could find there, trying to cut the links joining his wrists. He even ran an electric jigsaw, held with a vise, and nearly sliced his wrists open in the process. He couldn’t do anything one-handed, and eventually left in disgust.

  He went by the haunts of a few of his cholos but couldn’t click up with anyone he trusted. The streets were weird—there wasn’t much going on. He knew what was happening. When the sun started going down, he knew that his time and his options would be running out.