The Fall

Fetorski, is it not? Pureblood Ukrainian is an exceedingly rare vintage. Bitter, salty, but with a strong finish. You should know, I am a connoisseur of human blood, Jew. My nose never lies. I recognized his bouquet when you entered. As well as the line of his jaw. You don’t remember?

The beast’s words unnerved Setrakian. Because he hated their source, and because they had, to Setrakian’s ear, the ring of truth.

In the camp of his mind’s eye, he saw a large man wearing the black uniform of the Ukrainian guards, dutifully gripping the bridle of Eichhorst’s mount with gloves of black leather, handing the commandant his Ruger.

It cannot be a mistake that you should be here with the descendant of one of your tormentors?

Setrakian closed his eyes on Eichhorst’s taunts. He cleared his mind, returning his focus to the task at hand. He thought, in a mind-voice as loud as he could make it, in the hope that the vampire would hear him: You will be even more surprised to learn who else I am partnered with this day.

Nora dug out the night-vision monocular and hung it over the Mets ball cap on her head. Closing one eye turned the North River Tunnel green. “Rat vision,” Fet liked to call it, but was she ever grateful for this invention at that moment.

The tunnel area was clear ahead of her, into the intermediate distance. But she could find no exit. No hiding place. Nothing.

She was alone now with her mother, having put enough space between them and Zack. Nora tried not to look at her, even with the scope. Her mother was breathing hard, barely able to keep pace. Nora had her by her arm, practically carrying her over the stones between the tracks, feeling the vampires at their back.

Nora realized she was looking for the right place to do this. The best place. This thing she was contemplating was a horror. The voices in her head-no one else’s but her own-offered countervailing arguments:

You can’t do this.

You cannot hope to save both your mother and Zack. You have to choose.

How can you choose a boy over your mother?

Choose one or lose both.

She had a good life.

Bullshit. We all have good lives, exactly until the moment they end.

She gave you life.

But if you don’t do this now, you are giving her over to vampires. Cursing her for all eternity.

Alzheimer’s has no cure either. She is getting progressively worse. She has already changed from the woman who was your mother. How is that different from vampirism?

She poses no threat to others.

Only to yourself-and Zack.

You will have to destroy her anyway when she returns for you, her Dear One.

You told Eph he needed to destroy Kelly.

Her dementia is such that she won’t even know.

But you will know.

Bottom line: will you also do yourself in before you are turned?

Yes.

But that is your choice.

And it is never an either/or. Never clear-cut. It happens too fast; they are upon you, and you are gone. You must act in advance of the turning. You have to anticipate it.

And yet there are no guarantees.

You cannot release someone before they are turned. You can only tell yourself that this is what you hope you did. And wonder forever if you were right.

It is still murder.

Will you also turn the knife on Zack if the end is imminent?

Maybe. Yes.

You would hesitate.

Zack has a better chance of surviving an attack.

So you would trade the old for the new.

Maybe. Yes.

Nora’s mother said to her, “When in the hell is your lousy father going to get here?”

Nora came back to the moment. She felt too sick to cry. It was indeed a cruel world.

A howl echoed through the long tunnel, chilling Nora.

She went around behind her mother’s back. She could not look her in the face. She tightened her grip on her knife, raising it in order to bring it down into the back of the old woman’s neck.

But all of this was nothing.