by Chuck Hogan
Fet and Eph stood in the shadows of a doorway in the first block of the houses. In the past forty-five minutes, they had seen one vehicle every ten minutes or so. Headlights raised their hopes; Mr. Quinlan’s disinterest dashed them. And so they remained in the darkened doorway, safe from the rain but not from the new awkwardness that was their relationship.
Fet was running their audacious new plan through his head, trying to convince himself that it might work. Success seemed like an incredible long shot—but then again, it wasn’t as though they had dozens of other prospects lined up and ready to go.
Kill the Master. They had tried once, by exposing the creature to the sun, and failed. When the dying Setrakian apparently poisoned its blood, using Fet’s anticoagulant rodent poison, the Master had merely sloughed off its human host, assuming the form of another healthy being. The creature seemed invincible.
And yet, they had hurt it. Both times. No matter what the creature’s original form was, it apparently needed to exist in possession of a human. And humans could be destroyed.
Fet said, “We can’t miss this time. We’ll never get a better chance.”
Eph nodded, looking out into the street. Waiting for Mr. Quinlan’s signal.
He seemed guarded. Maybe he was having second thoughts about the plan, or maybe it was something else. Eph’s unreliability had caused a rift in their relationship—but the Nora situation had driven home a permanent wedge.
Fet’s main concern now was that Eph’s irritation with Fet not negatively impact their efforts.
“Nothing has happened,” Fet said, “between Nora and me.”
“I know,” said Eph. “But everything has happened between her and me. It’s over. And I know it. And there will be a time when you and I will talk about it and maybe even have a fistfight over it. But now it’s not that time. This has to be our focus now. All personal feelings aside . . . Look, Fet, we are paired. It was you and me or Gus and me. I’d rather take you.”
“Glad we’re all on the same page again,” said Fet.
Eph was about to respond when headlights appeared once more. This time, Mr. Quinlan moved into the street. The truck was too far away for any human to make out the operator, but Mr. Quinlan knew. He stood right in the truck’s path, headlights brightening him.
One of the rules of the road was that any vampire could commandeer a vehicle operated by a human, in the same manner as a soldier or a cop could a civilian’s in the old United States. Mr. Quinlan raised his hand, his elongated middle finger evident, as were his red eyes. The truck stopped, and its driver, a Stoneheart member wearing a dark suit underneath a warm duster, opened the driver’s-side door with the engine still running.
Mr. Quinlan approached the driver, obscured from Fet’s view by the passenger side of the truck. Fet watched as the driver jerked suddenly inside the cab. Mr. Quinlan leaped up into the doorway. Through the rain-smeared windows, they appeared to be grappling.
“Go,” said Fet, and he and Eph both ran out from their hiding spot, into the rain. They splashed off the curb and across to the driver’s side of the truck. Fet almost ran up into Mr. Quinlan, pulling back only at the last moment when he saw that Mr. Quinlan wasn’t the one struggling. Only the driver was.
Mr. Quinlan’s stinger was engorged, jutting out from the base of his throat at his unhinged jaw, tapering to its tip, which was firmly inserted in the neck of the human driver.
Fet pulled back sharply. Eph came around and saw it too, and there was a moment of bonding between them, of shared disgust. Mr. Quinlan fed quickly, his eyes locked on those of the driver, the driver’s face a mask of paralysis and shock.
For Fet, it served as a reminder of how easily Mr. Quinlan could turn on them—any of them—in an instant.
Fet did not look back until he was certain the feeding was over. He caught sight of Mr. Quinlan’s retracted stinger, its narrow end lolling out of his mouth like the hairless tail of some animal he had otherwise swallowed. Flush with energy, Mr. Quinlan lifted the limp Stoneheart driver out of the truck and carried him, as easily as a bundle of clothes, off the street. Half in the shadows of the doorway, in a gesture of both mercy and convenience, Mr. Quinlan snapped the man’s neck with a firm rotation.
Mr. Quinlan left the destroyed corpse in the doorway before rejoining them on the street. They needed to get moving before another vehicle happened along. Fet and Eph met him at the rear of the truck, where Fet opened the unlocked clasp, raising the sliding door.
A refrigerated truck. “Damn the luck,” said Fet. They had a good hour’s ride ahead of them, maybe two, and for Fet and Eph it was going to be a cold one, because they could not be seen riding in the front. “Not even any decent food,” said Fet, climbing inside and rustling through the scraps of cardboard.
Mr. Quinlan pulled on the rubber strap that lowered the door, closing Fet and Eph in darkness. Fet made certain there were vents for airflow, and there were. They heard the driver’s door close, and the truck slipped into gear, jerking them as the vehicle lurched forward.
Fet found an extra fleece sweatshirt from his pack, pulled it on, and buttoned his coat over it. He laid out some cardboard and set the soft part of his pack behind his head, trying to get comfortable. From the sound of it, Eph was doing the same. The rattling of the truck, both noise and vibration, precluded conversation, which was just as well.
Fet crossed his arms, trying to let go of his mind. He focused on Nora. He knew he would likely never have attracted a woman of her caliber under normal circumstances. Times of war bring men and women together, sometimes for necessity’s sake, sometimes for convenience, but occasionally because of fate. Fet was confident that their attraction was a result of the latter. Wartime is also when people find themselves. Fet had discovered his best self here in this worst situation, whereas Eph, on the other hand, at times appeared to have lost himself completely.
Nora had wanted to come along with them, but Fet convinced her that she needed to remain behind with Gus, not only to conserve her energy but because he knew that she would not be able to stop herself from attacking Barnes if she saw him again, thereby threatening their plan. Besides, Gus needed assistance with his own important errand.
“What do you think?” she had asked Fet, rubbing her bald head in a quieter moment.
Fet missed her long hair, but there was something beautiful and spare about her unadorned face. He liked the fine slope of the back of her head, the graceful line moving across the nape of her neck to the beginning of her shoulders.
“You look reborn,” he said.
She frowned. “Not freakish?”
“If anything, a little more delicate. More vulnerable.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You want me to be more vulnerable?”
“Well—only with me,” he said frankly.
That made her smile, and him. Rare things, smiles. Rationed like food in these dark days.
“I like this plan,” Fet said, “in that it represents possibility. But I’m also worried.”
“About Eph,” Nora said, understanding and agreeing with him. “This is make-or-break time. Either he falls apart, and we deal with that, or he rises to the occasion.”
“I think he’ll rise. He has to. He just has to.”
Nora admired Fet’s faith in Eph, even if she wasn’t convinced.
“Once it starts growing back in,” she said, feeling her cooling scalp again, “I’ll have a butchy-looking crew cut for a while.”
He shrugged, picturing her like that. “I can deal with it.”
“Or maybe I’ll shave it, keep it like this. I wear a hat most times anyway.”
“All or nothing,” said Fet. “That’s you.”
She found her knit cap, pulling it down tight over her scalp. “You wouldn’t mind?”
The only thing Fet cared about was that she wanted his opinion. That he was a part of her plans.
Inside the cold, rumbling truck, Fet drifted off with his arms crossed tight as if
he were holding on to her.
Staatsburg, New York
THE DOOR ROLLED open and Mr. Quinlan stood there, watching them get to their feet. Fet hopped down, his knees stiff and his legs cold, shuffling around to get his circulation up. Eph climbed down and stood there with his pack on his back like a hitchhiker with a long way still to go.
The truck was parked on the shoulder of a dirt road, or perhaps the edge of a long, private driveway, far enough in from the street to be obscured by the trunks of the bare trees. The rain had let up, and the ground was damp but not muddy. Mr. Quinlan abruptly jogged off without explanation. Fet wondered if they were meant to follow him but decided he had to warm up first.
Near him, Eph looked wide-awake. Almost eager. Fet wondered briefly if Eph’s apparent zeal had some pharmaceutical source. But no, his eyes looked clear.
“You look ready,” said Fet.
“I am,” said Eph.
Mr. Quinlan returned moments later. An eerie sight, still: steam came thickly from his scalp and within his hoodie, but none came from his mouth.
A few gate guards, more at the doors. I see no way to prevent the Master from being alerted. But perhaps, in light of the plan, that is not an unfortunate thing.
“What do you think?” asked Fet. “Of the plan. Honestly. Do we even have a chance?”
Mr. Quinlan looked up through the leafless branches to the black sky. It is a gambit worth pursuing. Drawing out the Master is half the battle.
“The other half is defeating it,” said Fet. He eyed the Born vampire’s face, still upturned, impossible to read. “What about you? What chance would you have against the Master?”
History has shown me to be unsuccessful. I have been unable to destroy the Master, and the Master has been unable to destroy me. The Master wants me dead, just as he wants Dr. Goodweather dead. This we have in common. Of course, any lure I put out there on my behalf would be transparent as a ploy.
“You can’t be destroyed by man. But you could be destroyed by the Master. So maybe the monster is vulnerable to you.”
All I can say with absolute certainty is that I have never before tried to kill it with a nuclear weapon.
Eph had fixed his night-vision scope on his head, anxious to get going. “I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s do this before I talk myself out of it.”
Fet nodded, tightening up his straps, fixing his pack high on his back. They followed Mr. Quinlan through the trees, the Born vampire following some instinctual sense of direction. Fet could discern no path himself, but it was easy—too easy—to trust Mr. Quinlan. Fet did not believe he would ever be able to lower his guard around a vampire, Born or not.
He heard a whirring somewhere ahead of them. The tree density began to thin out, and they came to the edge of a clearing. The whirring noise was a generator—maybe two—powering the estate that Barnes apparently occupied. The house was massive, the grounds considerable. They were just right of the rear of the property, facing a wide horse fence ringing the backyard and, within that, a riding course.
The generators would mask much of the noise they might make, but the vampires’ heat-registering night sight was all but impossible to evade. Mr. Quinlan’s flat hand signal held Fet and Eph back as the Born vampire slipped through the trees, darting fluidly from trunk to trunk around the perimeter of the property. Fet quickly lost sight of him, and then, just as suddenly, Mr. Quinlan broke from the trees almost a quarter of the way around the wide clearing. He emerged striding quickly and confidently but not running. Nearby guards left their post at the side door, spotting Mr. Quinlan and going to meet him.
Fet knew a distraction when he saw one. “Now or never,” he whispered to Eph.
They ducked out from the branches into the silvery darkness of the clearing. He did not dare to pull out his sword yet, for fear that the vampires could sense the nearness of silver. Mr. Quinlan was evidently communicating with the guards somehow, keeping their backs to Fet and Eph as they ran up over the soft, dead, gray grass.
The guards picked up on the threat behind them when Fet was twenty feet off. They turned and Fet drew his sword out of his backpack—held it with his good arm—but it was Mr. Quinlan who overpowered them, his strong arms a blur as they came around to choke and quickly crush the muscles and bones of the vampire guards’ necks.
Fet, without hesitating, closed the gap and finished both creatures with his sword. Quinlan knew that the alarm had not been raised telepathically, but there was not a moment to lose.
Mr. Quinlan set off in search of other guards, Fet right on his tail, leaving Eph to head for the unsecured side door.
Barnes liked the second-floor sitting room the best. Book-lined walls, a tiled fireplace with a broad oak mantel, a comfortable chair, an amber-shaded floor lamp, and a side table upon which his brandy snifter was set like a perfect glass balloon.
He unfastened the top three buttons of his uniform shirt and took in the last of his third brandy Alexander. Fresh cream, such a luxury now, was the secret to the thick, sweet richness of this decadent concoction.
Barnes exhaled deeply before rising from his chair. He took a moment to steady himself, his hand on the plush arm. He was possessed by the spirits he had imbibed. Now the entire world was a delicate glass balloon, and Barnes floated around it on a gently swirling bed of brandy.
This house had once belonged to Bolivar, the rock star. His genteel country getaway. Eight figures, this manor had once been worth. Barnes vaguely recalled the media stink when Bolivar first purchased it from the old-money family that had fallen on hard times. The event was a bona fide curiosity because it had seemed so out of character for the goth showman. But that was how the world had become before it all went to hell: rock stars were scratch golfers, rappers played polo, and comedians collected modern art.
Barnes moved to the high shelves, weaving gently before Bolivar’s collection of vintage erotica. Barnes selected a large, thin, handsomely bound edition of The Pearl and opened it upon a nearby reading stand. Ah, the Victorians. So much spanking. He next retrieved a hand-bound text, more of an illustrated scrapbook than a properly published book, consisting of early photographic prints glued onto thick paper pages. The prints retained some silver emulsion, which Barnes was careful to keep off his fingers. He was a traditionalist, partial to the early male-dominated arrangements and poses. He fancied the subservient female.
And then it was time for his fourth and final brandy. He reached for the house phone and dialed the kitchen. Which of his attractive domestics would be bringing him his notorious fourth brandy Alexander tonight? As master of the house, he had the means—and, when properly inebriated, the gumption—to make his fantasies come true.
The phone rang unanswered. Impertinence! Barnes frowned, then hung up and redialed, fearing he might have pressed the wrong button. As it rang a second time, he heard a loud thump somewhere in the house. Perhaps, he imagined, his request had been anticipated and its fulfillment was on its pretty way to him right now. He grinned a brandy smile and replaced the receiver in its old-fashioned cradle, making his way across the thick rug to the large door.
The wide hallway was empty. Barnes stepped out, his polished white shoes creaking just a bit.
Voices downstairs. Vague and muffled, reaching his ears as little more than echoes.
Not answering his phone call and making noise downstairs were clear enough grounds for Barnes to personally inspect the help and select who should bring him his brandy.
He put one shoe in front of the other along the center of the hallway, impressed at his ability to follow a straight line. At the head of the landing leading downstairs, he pressed the button to call for the elevator. It rose to him from the foyer, a gilded cage, and he opened the door and slid the gate aside and entered, closing it, pulling down on the handle. The cage descended, transporting him to the first floor like Zeus upon a cloud.
He emerged from the elevator, pausing to regard himself in a gilded mirror. The top half of his uniform
shirt was flapped down, hidden medals hanging heavy. He licked his lips and fixed his hair to look more full upon his head, smoothing out his goatee and generally assuming a look of inebriated dignity before venturing into the kitchen.
The wide, L-shaped room was empty. A pan of cookies lay cooling on a rack on the long central island, a pair of red oven mitts next to them. In front of the liquor cabinet, a bottle of cognac and an unsealed pitcher of cream stood next to measuring cups and an open jar of nutmeg. The phone receiver hung on its wall-mounted cradle.
“Hello?” Barnes called.
First came a rattling sound, like a shelf being bumped.
Then two female voices at once: “In here.”
Intrigued, Barnes continued along the center island to the corner. Rounding it, he saw five of his staff of female domestics—all well-fed, comely, and with full heads of hair—restrained to the end poles of a shelving unit of gourmet cooking tools with flexible zip ties.
His mind-set was such that his first impulse, upon seeing their wrists bound and their full, imploring eyes, was pleasure. His brandy-steeped mind processed the scene as an erogenous tableau.
Reality was slow to part the fog. It was a long, floundering moment before he realized that apparently someone had broken in and restrained his staff.
That someone was inside the house.
Barnes turned and ran. With the women calling after him, he slammed his hip into the island, the pain doubling him over as he groped his way along the counter to the doorway. He rushed out, moving blindly across the first-floor landing and around another corner, heading for the front entrance, his addled mind thinking, Escape! Then he saw, through the violet-tinged glass panes framing the double doors, a struggle outside, ending with one of his vampire guards being struck down by a dark, brute figure. A second figure closed in, slashing with a silver blade. Barnes backed away, stumbling over his own feet, watching more guards from other positions around the grounds moving to engage the raiding party.
