The Fall

Quiet laughter rattled through its injured body. The Master was way ahead of the game, and all of its various pawns were behaving as expected. Bolivar, the energetic lieutenant in his ranks, was proving quite apt at spreading the thirst, and had even collected a few serfs that could do sun chores for them. Palmer’s arrogance grew with each tactical advance, yet he remained fully under the Master’s control. The Occultation had marked the time for the plan to be set forth. It had defined the delicate, sacred geometry needed, and now-very soon-the earth would burn…

On the floor, one of the morsels groaned, unexpectedly clinging to life. Refreshed and delighted, the Master gazed down upon it. In its mind, the chorus of voices restarted. The Master looked upon the man at his feet, and some pain and fear remained in his gaze-an unanticipated treat.

This time, the Master indulged itself, savoring the tangy dessert. Under the vaulted roof of the Charnel House, The Master lifted the body up, carefully laying its hand over the chest, above the heart of the man, and greedily extinguished the rhythm within.

Ground Zero

THE PLATFORM WAS empty when Eph jumped down onto the tracks, following Fet into the subway tunnel leading alongside the construction bathtub of the Ground Zero project.

He never imagined he would return here, to this place. After everything they had witnessed and encountered before, he could not imagine a force strong enough to compel him to return to the subterranean labyrinth that was the Master’s nest.

But calluses form in as little as one day. Scotch had helped. Scotch helped quite a bit.

He walked over black rocks along the same out-of-service track as before. The rats had not returned. He passed the sump hose abandoned by the sandhogs who had also disappeared.

Fet carried his usual steel rod of rebar. Despite the more appropriate and impactful weapons they carried-ultraviolet lamps, silver swords, a nail gun loaded with brads of pure silver-Fet continued to carry his rat stick, though they both knew there were no longer any rats here. Vampires had infested the rats’ subterranean domain.

Fet also liked the nail gun. Pneumatic air-powered nail guns required tubing and water. Electric nail guns lacked punch and trajectory. Neither was truly portable. Fet’s powder-actuated gun-a weapon from the old man’s arsenal of oddities ancient and modern-operated on a shotgun load of gunpowder. Fifty silver nails per load, fed through the bottom like the magazine of an UZI. Lead bullets put holes in vamps, same as humans-but when your nervous system is gone, physical pain is a nonissue, copper-plated projectiles reduced to blunt instruments. A shotgun had stopping power, but unless you severed the head at the neck, pellet blasts didn’t kill either. Silver, introduced in the form of an inch-and-a-half brad, killed viruses. Lead bullets made them angry, but silver nails hurt them at something like a genetic level. And, almost as important, at least to Eph: silver scared them. As did ultraviolet light in the pure, shortwave UVC range. Silver and sunlight were the vampire equivalent of the exterminator’s rat stick.

Fet had come to them as a city employee, an exterminator who wanted to know what was driving the rats out from underground. He had already run into a few vampires in his subterranean adventures, and his skill set-a dedicated killer of vermin, and an expert in the workings of the city beneath the city-lent itself perfectly to vampire hunting. He was the one who had first led Eph and Setrakian down here in search of the Master’s nest.

The smell of slaughter remained trapped in the underground chamber. The charred stench of roasted vampire-and the lingering ammonia odor of the creatures’ excrement.

Eph found himself lagging behind, and picked up his pace, sweeping the tunnel with his flashlight, catching up to Fet.

The exterminator chewed an unlit Toro cigar, which he was used to talking around. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m great,” said Eph. “Couldn’t be better.”

“He’s confused. Man, I was confused at that age, and my mother wasn’t… you know.”

“I know. He needs time. And that’s just one of many things I can’t give him right now.”

“He’s a good kid. I don’t usually like kids, but I like yours.”

Eph nodded, appreciative of the effort Fet was putting forth. “I like him too.”

“I worry about the old man.”

Eph stepped carefully over the loose stones. “It took a lot out of him.”

“Physically, sure. But there’s more.”

“Failure.”

“That, yes. Getting so near, after so many years of chasing these things, only to see the Master withstand and survive the old man’s best shot. But something else too. There are things he’s not telling us. Or hasn’t told us yet. I am sure of it.”

Eph remembered the king vampire throwing back its cloak in a gesture of triumph, its lily-white flesh cooking in the daylight as it howled at the sun in defiance-then disappearing over the edge of the rooftop. “He thought sunlight would kill the Master.”