The Night Eternal

“When we get there,” said Fet, hurrying to the controls. “I don’t want to open up that thing in this rain. Besides, if we’re going to get inside this army arsenal, we have to make it there by sunup.”

Gus sat on the floor against the side of the boat. The wetness didn’t seem to bother him. He positioned himself and his gun so that he could keep an eye on both Creem and Eph.

They made it back across to the pier, Mr. Quinlan carrying the device to Creem’s yellow Hummer. The oak urns had been loaded previously.

Fet took the wheel, driving north across the city, heading for the George Washington Bridge. Eph wondered if they would hit any roadblocks but then realized that the Master still did not know their direction or destination. Unless…

Eph turned to Creem, wedged tight in the backseat. “Did you tell the Master about the bomb?”

Creem stared at him, weighing the pros and cons of answering truthfully.

He did not.

Creem looked at Mr. Quinlan with great annoyance, confirming Mr. Quinlan’s read of him.

No roadblock. They drove off the bridge into New Jersey, following signs for Interstate 80 West. Eph had dented up Creem’s silver grille nudging a few cars out of the way, in order to clear their path, but they encountered no major obstructions. While they were stopped at an intersection, trying to figure out which way to turn, Creem tried to grab Nora’s weapon and make a break for it. But his bulk prevented him from making any quick movement, and he ate Mr. Quinlan’s elbow, denting his silver grille, just like that of his Hummer.

If their vehicle had been made along the way, the Master would have immediately known their location. But the river, and the proscription against crossing moving bodies of water of their own volition, should have slowed the slaves of the Master who pursued them, if not the Master himself. So it was just the Jersey vampires they had to worry about at the moment.

The Hummer was a fuel guzzler, and the gas-gauge needle leaned close to “E.” They were also racing time, needing to reach the armory at sunup while the vampires slept. Mr. Quinlan made Creem talk, giving them directions.

They pulled off the highway and zoomed toward Picatinny. All sixty-five hundred acres of the vast army installation were fenced. Creem’s way inside involved parking in the woods and trekking a half mile through a swamp.

“No time for that,” said Fet, the Hummer running on fumes. “Where’s the main entrance?”

“What about daylight?” said Nora.

“It’s coming. We can’t wait.” He rolled down Eph’s window and pointed to the machine gun. “Get ready.”

He pulled in, heading straight for the gate, whose sign read, PICATINNY ARSENAL THE JOINT CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR ARMAMENTS AND MUNITIONS, and passed a building labeled VISITOR CONTROL. Vamps came out of the guard shack, Fet blinding them with his high beams and roof-rack lights before ramming them with the silver grille. They went down like milk-filled scarecrows. Those who avoided the Hummer’s swath of destruction danced at the end of Eph’s machine gun, which he fired out from a sitting position, balanced out of the passenger window.

They would communicate Eph’s location to the Master, but the coming dawn—just starting to lighten the swirling black clouds overhead—gave the rest of them a couple of hours’ head start.

That did not account for the human guards, a few of which came out of the visitors center after the Hummer had passed. They were rushing toward their security vehicles as Fet took a corner, wheeling through what looked like a small town. Creem pointed the way toward the research area, where he believed there to be detonators and fuses. “Here,” he said as they approached a block of low-lying, unlabeled buildings. The Hummer coughed and lurched, and Fet turned into a side lot, rolling to a stop. They hopped out, Mr. Quinlan hauling huge Creem from the car like a load of laundry, then pushing the Hummer into a carport space half-hidden from the road. He opened the back and lifted out the nuclear device like luggage, while everyone else, except Creem, grabbed guns.

Inside the unlocked door was a research and development warehouse that had evidently not seen any activity in some time. The lights worked, and the place looked picked over, like a store selling off all its wares at a discount, and the display shelves too. All lethal weapons had been taken, but nonlethal devices and parts remained, on draftsman’s tables and work desks.

“What are we looking for?” asked Eph.

Mr. Quinlan set down the package. Fet pulled off the tarp. The device looked like a small barrel: a black cylinder with buckled straps around its sides and over its lid. The straps bore Russian lettering. A tuft of wires sprouted out of the top.

Gus said, “That’s it?”

Eph examined the tangle of thick, braided wires that ran from beneath the lid. “You’re sure about this thing?” he asked Fet.