The Night Eternal (Strain Trilogy 3)

by Chuck Hogan

  At that moment, palace guards came pounding at his door. Their orders were to never interrupt his weekly ceremony, but, because they knew his penchant for cruelty, the Master knew that their reason for disturbing him must be one of importance. Accordingly, the Master unbarred the door and admitted them to the gory scene. Months of palace duty had inured the guards to the sight of such desecration and perversion. They informed Thrax that Caligula had survived an assassination attempt and summoned him to the emperor’s side.

  The slave needed to be dispatched and her pregnancy terminated. The rules dictated as much. But the Master did not want to be cheated of his weekly sport, and so Thrax ordered that the doors be guarded until his return.

  It turned out that the supposed assassination plot was simply a bout of imperial hysteria, resulting in the slaying of seven innocent orgy guests. Thrax returned to his chamber not much later to discover that while he was away assuaging the sun god, the centurions had cleared the palace grounds, including the temple, in order to quell the phantom coup. The pregnant slave—infected, wounded—was gone.

  As dawn approached, Thrax persuaded Caligula to dispatch soldiers into all the surrounding cities to find the slave and return her to the temple. Despite a near-sacking of their own land, the soldiers failed to find her. When nightfall finally returned, Thrax went out in search of the slave, but his imprint upon her mind was weak due to her pregnancy. The Master was only a few hundred years old at the time and still apt to make mistakes.

  This particular omission would dog the Master for centuries to come. For within the first month of the new year, Caligula was indeed assassinated, and his successor, Claudius, after a brief period of exile, came into power by procuring the support of the Praetorian guard—and the evil slave Thrax found himself purged and on the run.

  The pregnant slave girl kept moving south, back to the land of her Dear Ones. She gave birth to a pale, nearly translucent baby boy, its skin the color of marble in moonlight. He was born in a cave amid an olive field near Sicily and in that dry land they hunted for years. The slave and the baby shared a weak psychic bond, and although they both survived on the blood of humans, the boy lacked the infecting pathogen necessary to turn his victims.

  Rumors of a demon spread throughout the Mediterranean as the Born grew—and grew quickly. The half boy could sustain limited exposure to the sun without perishing. But otherwise, tainted by the curse of the Master, he possessed all of the vampiric attributes, with the exception of the enslaving link to his creator.

  But if the Master was ever destroyed, so he would be too.

  A decade later, as the Born was returning to his cave just before dawn, he sensed a presence. He saw, within the shadows of the cave, a deeper shadow still, stirring, watching him. Then he felt the voice of his mother waning within him—her signal extinguished. He knew instantly what had happened: whatever was in there had done away with his mother . . . and now awaited him. Without even seeing his enemy, the Born knew the intensity of its cruelty. The thing in the shadows knew no mercy. With absolutely no hesitation, the Born turned away and escaped toward his only refuge: the light of the morning sun.

  The Born survived as best he could. He scavenged and hunted and occasionally robbed travelers in the Sicilian crossroads. Soon he was captured and brought to justice. He was indentured and trained as a gladiator. In exhibitions, the Born defeated every challenger, human or beast, and his unnatural talents and peculiar appearance drew the attention of the senate and the Roman military. On the eve of their ceremonial branding, an ambush by multiple rivals jealous of his success and attention resulted in multiple sword wounds, fatal blows that, miraculously, did not kill him. He healed quickly and was immediately withdrawn from the gladiator school, taken in by a senator, Faustus Sertorius, who had a passing familiarity with the dark arts and held a considerable collection of primitive artifacts. The senator recognized the gladiator as the fifth immortal to be birthed by human flesh and vampiric blood, and thus named him Quintus Sertorius.

  The strange peregrinus was inducted into the army’s auxilia at first but quickly rose through the ranks and joined the third legion. Under the banner of Pegasus, Quintus crossed the ocean to wage war in Africa against the fierce Berbers. He became proficient in handling the pilum, the Roman elongated lance, and it is said that he could throw it with such force as to take down a horse in full gallop. He wielded a double-edged steel sword, a gladius hispaniensis, forged specially for him—void of any silver ornaments and with a bone grip made from a human femur.

  Through the decades, Quintus took the victorious march from the temple of Bellona to the Porta Triumphalis many times and served through generations and various reigns, at the pleasure of every emperor. Rumors about his longevity added to his legend and he grew to be both feared and admired. In Brittania, he struck terror into the hearts and minds of the Pict army. Among the German Gamabrivii, he was known as the Shadow of Steele, and his mere presence kept the peace along the banks of the Euphrates.

  Quintus was an imposing figure. His chiseled physique and preternaturally pale skin gave him the appearance of a living, breathing statue carved of the purest marble. Everything about him was martial and combative, and he carried himself with the greatest assurance. He put himself at the head of every charge, and he was the last to leave the battleground. For the first few years he kept trophies, but, as the slaughter became repetitive, and as these keepsakes began to clutter his domicile, he lost interest. He broke down the rules of combat to exactly fifty-two moves: techniques of balletic precision that brought down his adversaries in fewer than twenty seconds.

  At every step of his career, Quintus felt the persecution of the Master, who had long since abandoned the fifteen-year-old slave Thrax’s body as its host. There were thwarted ambushes, slave vampire attacks, and, only rarely, direct assaults by the Master in various guises. At first Quintus was confused by the nature of these attacks, but over time, he became curious about his progenitor. His Roman military training taught him to go on the offensive when threatened, and so he began tracking the Master, in a search for answers.

  At the same time, the Born’s exploits and his growing legend brought him to the attention of the Ancients, who approached him one night in the middle of battle. Through his contact with them, the Born learned the truth about his lineage and the background of the wayward Ancient they referred to as “the Young One.” They showed him many things under the assumption that, once their secrets were revealed to him, the Born would naturally join them.

  But Quintus refused. He turned his back on the dark order of vampire lords born of the same cataclysmic force as the Master. Quintus had spent all his life among humans, and he wanted to try to adapt to their kind. He wanted to explore that half of him. And, despite the threat the Master posed to him, he wished to live as an immortal among mortals, rather than—as he thought of himself then—a half-breed among purebreds.

  Having been born out of omission rather than action, Quintus was unable to procreate in any way. He was unable to reproduce and could never truly claim a woman as his very own. Quintus lacked the pathogen that would have allowed him to spread the infection or subjugate any humans to his will.

  At the end of his campaign days, Quintus found himself a legate and was given a fertile plot of land and even a family: a young Berber widow with olive skin, dark eyes, and a daughter of her own. In her, he found affection and intimacy and eventually love. The dark woman sang for him sweet songs in her native tongue and lulled him to sleep in the deep cellars of his home. During a time of relative peace, they kept house on the shore of southern Italy. Until one night when he was away, and the Master visited her.

  Quintus came back to find his family turned and lying in wait, attacking him along with the Master. Quintus had to fight them all at once, releasing his savage wife and then her child. He barely survived the Master’s onslaught. At the time, the vehicle chosen by the Master was the body of a fellow legionnaire, an ambitious, ruthless tr
ibune named Tacitus. The short but sturdy and muscular body gave the Master ample margin in the fight. There were almost no legionnaires under five foot ten, but Tacitus had been admitted because he was strong as an ox. His arms and neck were thick and short and made of bulging strands of muscle. His mountainous shoulders and back gave him a slightly hunched aspect but now, as he towered over a beaten Quintus, Tacitus was as straight as a marble column. Quintus had, however, prepared for this occasion—both fearing it and hoping it would one day come. In a hidden fold of his belt, he hid a narrow silver blade—sheathed away from his skin but with a carved sandalwood handle that allowed him to retrieve it fast. He pulled it out and slashed Tacitus across the face, bisecting his eye and snapping his right cheekbone in two. The Master howled and covered its injured eye, out of which blood and vitreous humor poured forth. In a single bound, it jumped out of the house and into the darkened garden beyond.

  When he recovered, Quintus felt a loneliness that would never leave him again. He swore revenge upon the creature that created him—even though such an act would mean his own demise as well.

  Many years later, upon the advent of the Christian faith, Quintus returned to the Ancients, acknowledging who and what he was. He offered them his wealth, his influence, and his strength, and they welcomed him as one of their own. Quintus warned them of the Master’s perfidy, and they acknowledged the threat but never lost confidence in their numerical advantage and the wisdom of their years.

  Through the ensuing centuries Quintus continued his quest for vengeance.

  But for the next seven centuries, Quintus—later Quinlan—never got closer to the Master than he did one night in Tortosa, in what is now known as Syria, when the Master called him “son.”

  My son, wars this long can only be won by yielding. Lead me to the Ancients. Help me destroy them and you may take your rightful place at my side. Be the prince that you truly are . . .

  The Master and Quintus were standing at the edge of a rocky cliff overlooking a vast Roman necropolis. Quinlan knew that the Master had no escape. The nascent rays of daylight were already causing him to smoke and burn. The Master’s words were unexpected and his voice, in Quinlan’s head, an intrusion. Quinlan felt an intimacy that scared him. And for a moment—which he would live to regret for the rest of his life—he felt true belonging. This thing—having taken refuge in the tall, pale body of an ironworker—was his father. His true father. Quinlan lowered his weapon for an instant, and the Master rapidly crawled down the rocky cliff face, disappearing into a system of crypts and tunnels below.

  Centuries later, a ship sailed from Plymouth, England, to Cape Cod in the newly discovered territory of America. The ship was carrying 130 passengers according to the official manifest, but within the cargo compartments several boxes containing earth could be found. The items listed within were earth and tulip bulbs; presumably their owner wanted to take advantage of the coastal climate. The reality was far darker. Three of the Ancients and their loyal ally Quinlan established themselves rather rapidly in the New World, under the auspices of a rich merchant: Kiliaen Van Zanden. The settlements in the New World were in fact little more than a collective banana republic whose mercantile ways were grown into the preeminent economic and military power on the planet in fewer than two centuries’ time—all of which was essentially a front for the real business being conducted belowground and behind closed doors. All efforts were focused on the acquisition of the Occido Lumen, in hopes of answering what, at that time, was the only question remaining for Quinlan and the Ancients:

  How could they destroy the Master?

  Camp Liberty

  DR. NORA MARTINEZ awoke to the shrill camp whistle. She lay in a canvas stretcher hanging from the ceiling, enveloping her like a sling. The only way out was to shimmy under her blanket, escaping through the end, feet first.

  Standing, she sensed immediately that something wasn’t right. She turned her head this way and that. It felt too light. Her free hand went immediately to her scalp.

  Bare. Completely bald. This shocked her. Nora didn’t have many vanities, but she’d been blessed with gorgeous hair, keeping it long even though—as an epidemiologist—it was an impractical choice for a professional. She gripped her scalp now as though fighting a searing migraine, feeling bare flesh where she never had before. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she suddenly felt smaller and—somehow, but truly—weakened. In shaving off her hair, they had also cut away a bit of her strength.

  But her unsteadiness wasn’t just the result of her bare scalp. She felt groggy, swaying for balance. After the confusing admittance process, and her attendant anxiety, Nora was amazed she had been able to sleep at all. In fact, she now remembered that she had been determined to remain awake, in order to learn as much as she could about the quarantine area before proceeding into the general population of the absurdly named Camp Liberty.

  But this taste in her mouth now—as though she had been gagged with a fresh cotton sock—told Nora that she had been drugged. That bottle of drinking water she had been issued—they had doped it.

  Anger rose inside her, some of it aimed at Eph. Unproductive. Instead, she focused on Fet, yearning for him. She was almost certain never to see either of those two men again. Not unless she could find some way out of this place.

  The vampires who ran the camp—or perhaps their human co-conspirators, contract members of the Stoneheart Group—wisely enforced a quarantine for new entries. This type of encampment was tinder for an infectious disease event, one that had the potential to wipe out the camp population, their precious blood providers.

  A woman entered the room through the canvas flaps that hung over the doorway. She wore a slate-gray jumpsuit, the same color and bland style as Nora’s. Nora recognized her face, remembering her from yesterday. Terrifically thin, her skin a pale parchment wrinkled at the corners of her eyes and her mouth. Her dark hair was close-cropped, her scalp due for a shave. Yet the woman appeared upbeat, for some reason Nora could not fathom. Her function here was apparently that of a camp mother of sorts. Her name was Sally.

  Nora asked her, as she had the day before, “Where is my mother?”

  Sally’s smile was all customer service, tolerant and disarming. “How did you sleep, Ms. Rodriguez?”

  Nora had given a false name upon admission, as her association with Eph had certainly landed her name on every watch list. “I slept just fine,” she said. “Thanks to the sedative mixed into my water. I asked you where my mother is.”

  “My assumption is that she has been transferred to Sunset, which is a sort of active retirement community associated with the camp. That is normal procedure.”

  “Where is it? I want to see her.”

  “It’s a separate part of the camp. I suppose a visit is possible at some point, but not now.”

  “Show me. Where it is.”

  “I could show you the gate, but . . . I’ve never been inside myself.”

  “You’re lying. Or else you really believe it. Which means you’re lying to yourself.”

  Sally was just a functionary, a messenger. Nora understood that Sally was not intentionally trying to mislead her but simply repeating what she had been told. Perhaps she had no idea, nor capacity to suspect, that this “Sunset” might not exist exactly as advertised.

  “Please listen to me,” said Nora, growing frantic. “My mother is not well. She is sick, she is confused. She has Alzheimer’s disease.”

  “I am sure she’ll be well looked after—”

  “She will be put down. Without a moment’s hesitation. She’s outlived her usefulness to these things. But she is sick, she is panicked, she needs to see a familiar face. Do you understand? I just want to see her. One last time.”

  This was a lie, of course. Nora wanted to bust the both of them out of there. But she had to find her mother first.

  “You’re human. How can you do this—how?”

  Sally reached out to squeeze Nora’s left arm reassuringly but mechanical
ly. “She truly is in a better place, Ms. Rodriguez. The elderly have rations sufficient to support their health and aren’t required to produce anything in return. I envy them, frankly.”

  “Do you really believe that?” said Nora, amazed.

  “My father is there,” said Sally.

  Nora gripped her arm. “Don’t you want to see him? Show me where.”

  Sally was entirely sympathetic—to the point where Nora wanted to slap her. “I know it is difficult, the separation. What you have to focus on now is taking good care of yourself.”

  “Was it you who drugged me?”

  Sally’s smile drained of conviviality, replaced by concern—perhaps concern for Nora’s sanity, for her future potential as a productive camp member. “I have no access to medication.”

  “Do they drug you?”

  Sally offered no opinion on Nora’s response. “Quarantine is over,” she said. “You’re to be part of the general camp community now, and I’m to show you around, to help you get acclimated.”

  Sally led her out through a small, open-air buffer zone, along a walkway beneath a tarpaulin keeping them from being soaked by rainfall. Nora looked out at the sky: another starless night. Sally had papers for the human at the checkpoint, a man in his fifties wearing a white doctor’s coat over his slate-gray jumpsuit. He looked over the forms, glanced at Nora with the eyes of a customs agent, then let them through.

  Rain found them despite the overhead canopy, splashing at their legs and feet. Nora wore hospital-style foam sandals with spongy soles. Sally wore a comfortable, if damp, pair of Saucony sneakers.

  The path of crushed stone fed into a wide circular walkway surrounding a high lookout post similar to a lifeguard’s station. The rotary formed a hub of sorts, with four other paths extending from it. Warehouse-style buildings stood nearby, long and low, with what appeared to be factory-style buildings farther away. No signs marked the way, only arrows fashioned out of white stone embedded in the muddy ground. Low-wattage lights marked the paths, necessary for human navigation.