Eph lifted the weapon out of the box, turning so that there was no chance of Zack seeing him. “I feel like the Lone Ranger.”
“He had the right idea, didn’t he? But what he didn’t have was expanding tips. These bullets will fragment inside the body, burst. One shot anywhere in the trunk of a strigoi should do the trick.”
The presentation had about it a hint of ceremony. Eph said, “Maybe Fet should have one.”
“Vasiliy likes the nail gun. He is more manually inclined.”
“And you like the sword.”
“It is best to stay with what one is accustomed to, in times of trouble such as these.” Nora came over, drawn by the strange sight of the gun. “I have another, medium-length silver dagger I think would suit you perfectly, Dr. Martinez.”
She nodded, both hands in her pockets. “It’s the only kind of jewelry I want just now.”
Eph returned his weapon to the case, closing the top. This question was easier with Nora here. “What do you think happened up on that rooftop?” he asked Setrakian. “With the Master surviving the sun? Does it mean it is different from the rest?”
“Without doubt, it is different. It is their progenitor.”
Nora said, “Right. Okay. And so we know—painfully well—how subsequent generations of vampires are created. Through stinger infection and such. But who created the first? And how?”
“Right,” said Eph. “How can the chicken come before the egg?”
“Indeed,” said Setrakian, pulling his wolf’s-head-handled walking stick from the wall, leaning on it for support. “I believe the secret to all of this lies in the Master’s making.”
Nora said, “What secret?”
“The key to his undoing.”
They were silent for a moment, absorbing this. Eph said, “Then—you know something.”
Setrakian said, “I have a theory, which has been substantiated, at least in part, by what we witnessed on that rooftop. But I do not wish to be wrong, for it would sidetrack us, and as we all know, time is sand now and the hourglass is no longer being turned by human hands.”
Nora said, “If sunlight didn’t destroy it, then silver probably won’t either.”
“Its host body can be maimed and even killed,” said Setrakian. “Ephraim succeeded in cutting it. But no, you are correct. We cannot assume that silver alone will be enough.”
Eph said, “You’ve spoken of others. Seven Original Ancients, you said. The Master and six others, three Old World, three New World. Where are they in all this?”
“That is something I have been wondering about myself.”
“Do we know, are they with him in this? I assume they are.”
“On the contrary,” said Setrakian. “Against him, wholeheartedly. Of that I am certain.”
“And their creation? These beings came about at the same time, or in the same manner?”
“I can’t imagine some other answer, yes.”
Nora asked, “What does the lore say about the first vampires?”
“Very little, in fact. Some have tried to tie it to Judas, or the story of Lilith, but that is popular revisionist fiction. However… there is one book. One source.”
Eph looked around. “Point me to the box. I’ll get it.”
“This is a book I do not yet possess. One book I have spent a fair portion of my life trying to acquire.”
“Let me guess,” said Eph. “The Vampire Hunter’s Guide to Saving the World.”
“Close. It is called the Occido Lumen. Strictly translated, it means I Kill the Light, or, by extension, The Fallen Light.” Setrakian produced the auction catalog from Sotheby’s, opening it to a folded page.
The book was listed, although in the area where a picture should have run was a graphic reading NO IMAGE AVAILABLE.
“What is it about?” asked Eph.
“It is hard to explain. And even harder to accept. During my tenure in Vienna, I became, by necessity, fluent with many occult systems: Tarot, Qabbalah, Enochian Magick… everything and anything that helped me understand the fundamental questions I faced. They were all difficult subjects to fit in a curriculum but, for reasons I shall not divulge now, the university found abundant patronage for my research. It was during those years that I first heard of the Lumen. A bookseller from Leipzig came to me with a set of black-and-white photographs. Grainy stills of a few of the book’s pages. His demands were outrageous. I had acquired quite a few grimoires from this seller—and for some of them he had commanded a handsome sum—but this… this was ridiculous. I did my research and found that, even among scholars, the book was considered a myth, a scam, a hoax. The literary equivalent of an urban legend. The volume was said to contain the exact nature and origin of all strigoi but, more important, it names all of the Seven Original Ancients… Three weeks later I traveled to the man’s bookshop—a modest store in Nalewski Street. It was closed. I never heard from him again.”
Nora said, “The seven names—they would include Sardou’s?”
“Precisely,” said Setrakian. “And to learn his name—his true name—would give us a hold on him.”
“You’re telling me that all we are looking for is the most expensive White Pages in the world?” said Eph.
Setrakian smiled gently and handed over the catalog to Eph. “I understand your skepticism. I do. To a modern man, a man of science—even one who has seen all that you have—ancient knowledge seems archaic. Creaky. A curiosity. But know this. Names do hold the essence of the thing. And, yes—even names listed in a directory. Names, letters, numbers, when known in depth, possess enormous power. Everything in our universe is ciphered and to know the cipher is to know the thing—and to know the thing is to command it. I once met a man, a very wise man, who could cause instant death by enunciating a six-syllable word. One word, Eph—but very few men know it. Now, imagine what that book contains…”
Nora read the catalog over Eph’s shoulder. “And it’s coming up for auction in two days?”
Setrakian said, “Something of an incredible coincidence, don’t you think?”
Eph looked at him. “I doubt it.”
“Correct. I believe this is all part of a puzzle. This book has a very dark and complicated provenance. When I tell you it is believed to be cursed, I don’t mean that someone fell sick once after reading it. I mean that terrible occurrences surround its very appearance whenever it surfaces. Two auction houses that listed it previously burned to the ground before the bidding began. A third withdrew the item and closed its doors permanently. The item is now valued at between fifteen and twenty-five million dollars.”
“Fifteen and twenty-five…” said Nora, puffing her cheeks. “This is a book we’re talking about?”
“Not just any book.” Setrakian took back the catalog. “We must acquire it. There is no other alternative.”
Nora said, “Do they take personal checks?”
“That is the problem. At this price, there is very little chance we may procure it by legitimate means.”
Eph darkened. “That’s Eldritch Palmer money,” he said.
“Precisely,” said Setrakian, nodding ever so slightly. “And through him, Sardu—the Master.”
Fet’s Blog
BACK AGAIN. STILL trying to sort this thing out.
See, I think people’s problem is, they’re paralyzed by disbelief.
A vamp is some guy in a satin cape. Slicked-back hair, white makeup, funny accent. Two holes in the neck, and he turns into a bat, flies away.
I’ve seen that movie, right? Whatever.
Okay. Now look up Sacculina.
What the hell, you’re already on the Internet anyway.
Go ahead. I did.
You back already? Good.
Now you know that Sacculina is a genus of parasitic barnacles that attack crabs.
And who cares, right? Why am I wasting your time?
What the female Sacculina does after her larva molts is she injects herself into the crab’s body through a vulne
rable joint in its armor. She gets in there and begins sprouting these root-like appendages that spread all throughout the crab’s body, even around its eyestalks.
Now, once the crab’s body is enslaved, the female then emerges as a sac. The male Sacculina joins her now, and guess what? Mating time.
Eggs incubate and mature inside the hostage crab, which is forced to devote all its energy to caring for this family of parasites that controls it.
The crab is a host. A drone. Utterly possessed by this different species, and compelled to care for the invader’s eggs as if they were its own.
Who cares, right? Barnacles and crabs?
My point is: there are plenty of examples of this in nature.
Creatures invading bodies of species completely unlike their own and changing their essential function.
It’s proven. It’s known.
And yet we believe we’re above all this. We’re humans, right? Top of the food chain. We eat, we don’t get eaten. We take, not get taken.
It’s said that Copernicus (I can’t be the only one who thought it was Galileo) took Earth out of the center of the universe.
And Darwin took humans out of the center of the living world.
So why do we still insist on believing we are somehow something more than animals?
Look at us. Essentially a collection of cells coordinated by chemical signals.
What if some invading organism seized control of these signals? Started to take us over, one by one. Rewriting our very nature, converting us to their own means?
Impossible, you say?
Why? You think the human race is “too big to fail”?
Okay. Now stop reading this. Stop cruising the Internet for answers and go out and grab yourself some silver and rise up against these things—before it is too late.
The Black Forest Solutions Facility
GABRIEL BOLIVAR, THE only remaining member of the original four “survivors” of Regis Air Flight 753, waited in a dirt-walled hollow deep beneath the drainage floor of Slaughterhouse #3, two stories below the Black Forest Solutions meatpacking facility.
The Master’s oversize coffin lay atop a beam of rock and soil, in the absolute darkness of the underground chamber—and yet its heat signature was strong and distinct, the coffin glowing in Bolivar’s vision, as though lit brightly from within. Enough so that Bolivar could perceive the detail of the carved edging near the double-hinged top doors.
Such was the intensity of the Master’s ambient body temperature, radiating its glory.
Bolivar was well into the second stage of vampiric evolution. The pain of the transformation had all but receded, alleviated in large part by daily feedings, the red blood meal nourishing his body in a manner akin to protein and water building human muscle.
His new circulatory system was complete, his arteries now delivering sustenance to the chambers of his torso. His digestive system had become simplified, waste departing his body through one single hole. His flesh had become entirely hairless and glass-smooth. His extended middle fingers were thickened, talon-like digits with stone-hard nails, while the rest of his fingernails had molted away, as unnecessary to his current state as hair and genitals. His eyes were all pupil, save for a red ring that had eclipsed the human white. He perceived heat in gray scale, and his auditory function—an interior organ, distinct from the useless cartilage clinging to the sides of his smooth head—was greatly enhanced: he could hear the insects squirming in the dirt walls.
He relied more on animal instincts now than his failing human senses. He was intensely aware of the solar cycle, even when far beneath the planet’s surface: he knew that night was arriving above. His body ran about 323 degrees Kelvin, or 50 degrees Celsius—or 120 degrees Fahrenheit. He felt, beneath the earth’s surface, claustrophobia, a kinship with the darkness and the dampness, and an affinity for tight, enclosed spaces. He felt comfortable and safe underground, pulling the cold earth over himself during the day as a human would a warm blanket.
Beyond all that, he experienced a level of fellowship with the Master beyond the normal psychic link enjoyed by all the Master’s children. Bolivar felt himself being groomed for some larger purpose within the growing clan. For instance, he alone knew the location of the Master’s nesting place. He was aware that his consciousness was broader and deeper than the others. This he understood without forming any emotional response or independent opinion on it.
It simply was.
He was called to be at the Master’s side at the time of rising.
The top cabinet doors opened out at either side. Immense hands appeared first, fingers gripping the sides of the open coffin one at a time, with the graceful coordination of spider legs. The Master pulled itself erect at the waist, clumps of old sod falling from its giant upper half back into the soil bed.
Its eyes were open. The Master was already seeing a great many things, far beyond the confines of this darkened subterranean hollow.
The solar exposure, following its encounter with the vampire hunter Setrakian, the doctor Goodweather, and the exterminator Fet, had darkened the Master both physically and mentally. Its formerly pellucid flesh was now coarse and leathery. This skin crinkled when the Master moved, cracking and starting to peel away. It picked chips of flesh off its body like molting black feathers. The Master was missing over forty percent of its flesh now, which gave it the appearance of some horrible thing emerging from a cast of crumbling black plaster. For its flesh was not regenerating but merely the outer epidermis flaking off to reveal a lower, rawer, vascular level of skin: the dermis, and, in spots, the subcutis below, exposing the superficial fascia. In color, it ranged from gory red to a fatty yellow, like a glistening paste of beet and custard. The Master’s capillary worms were more prominent all over, but especially its face, swimming just beneath the surface of its exposed dermis, rippling and racing throughout its giant body.
The Master felt the nearness of its acolyte Bolivar. It swung its massive legs over the side walls of the old cabinet, lowering itself crinklingly to the dirt floor. Some of its bed soil clung to the Master, clumps of dirt and flakes of flesh falling to the floor as it moved. Normally, a smooth-fleshed vampire slips out of soil as cleanly as a human rises from a bath of water.
The Master plucked a few larger chunks of flesh off its torso. It found that it could not move quickly and freely without shedding some of its wretched exterior. This host vehicle would not last. Bolivar, standing ready near the low burrow that was the room’s exit, was an available option and an acceptable short-term physical candidate for this great honor. For Bolivar had no Dear Ones to cling to, which was one prerequisite for hosting. But Bolivar had only just begun the second stage of evolution. He was not fully mature yet.
It could wait. It would wait. The Master had much to do at present.
The Master led the way, stooping and claw-wriggling out of the chamber, swiftly clambering along the low, winding tunnels, Bolivar following right behind. It emerged into a larger chamber, nearer to the surface, the wide floor a soft bed of damp soil like that of a perfect, empty garden. Here, the ceiling was high enough even for the Master to stand erect.
As the unseen sun set above, darkness beginning its nightly rule, the soil around the Master began to stir. Limbs appeared, a small hand here, a thin leg there, like shoots of vegetation growing out of the ground. Young heads, still topped with hair, rising slowly. Some of them blank-faced, others twisted with the pain of their night rebirth.
These were the blind bus children, hatching sightless and hungry like newborn grubs. Doubly cursed by the sun—at first blinded by its occulted rays, now banished by its fatal ultraviolet spectrum—they were to become “feelers” in the Master’s expanding militia: beings blessed with perception more advanced than the rest of the clan. Their special acuity would make them indispensable both as hunters and assassins.
See this.
So the Master commanded Bolivar, putting into Bolivar’s mind Kelly Goodweather’s point o
f view as she faced the old professor on the rooftop in Spanish Harlem, in the recent past.
The old man’s heat signature glowed gray and cool, while the sword in his hand shone so brightly that Bolivar’s nictitating eyelid lowered in a defensive squint.
Kelly escaped across the rooftops, Bolivar sharing her perspective as she leaped and ran—until she started down the side of a building.
The Master then put into Bolivar’s head an animal-like perception of the building’s location within the clan’s ever-expanding atlas of subterranean transit.
The old man. He is yours.
IRT South Ferry Inner Loop Station
FET REACHED THE homeless encampment before nightfall. He carried the egg-timer explosive and his nail gun in a duffel bag. He ducked down below at the Bowling Green station, picking his way along the tracks toward the South Ferry encampment.
There, he struggled to locate Cray-Z’s pad. Only a few items remained: a few wood shards from his pallets, and the smiling face of Mayor Koch. But it was enough to give Fet a marker. He turned and set out in the general direction of the ducts.
He heard a commotion echoing back through the tunnel. Loud metallic banging, and a rumor of distant voices.
He pulled out his nail gun and made his way toward the loop. There he found Cray-Z, now stripped down to his dirty underwear, brown skin glistening with tunnel seepage and sweat, his ragged braid swinging behind him as he worked to pull up his ratty sofa.
Here was his dismantled home shack, the debris piled up along with the detritus of the other abandoned shacks, forming an obstruction across the tracks. The mound of refuse crested five foot high at its tallest, where he had added some broken track ties for good measure.
“Hey, brother!” called Fet. “What the hell are you doing?”
Cray-Z turned around, standing atop his junk pile like an artist in the throes of madness. He wielded a section of steel pipe in his hand. “It’s time!” he yelled, as though from the summit of a mountain. “Somebody had to do something!”