The Night Eternal

Eph heard the engines approaching. No headlights, but vehicles coming out of the darkness, underneath the highway overpass, slowing to a stop.

“Fet, you want me to—?”

“Just keep them back!” Fet pumped and pumped, trying not to breathe the toxic fumes.

Nora reached inside both cars, turning on each set of headlights, illuminating the immediate area east and west.

To the east, opposite the highway, vampires crowded the edge of the light, their red eyes reflecting like glass baubles.

To the west, coming from the highway, two vans, figures emptying out of them. Local vampires called into duty.

“Fet?” said Eph.

“Here, switch tanks,” said Fet, pumping hard, not stopping. Eph pulled the tubing from the Jeep’s almost-full tank and quickly transferred it to the Explorer, gasoline spraying out onto the hardtop.

Footsteps now, and it took Eph a moment to locate them. Overhead, on top of the canopy roof, right above them. The vampires were encircling them and closing in.

Gus opened up his gun on the trucks, winging a vampire or two but not doing any real damage.

“Move away from the tank!” yelled Fet. “I don’t want any sparks nearby!”

Mr. Quinlan returned from the roadside, near Eph at the vehicles. The Born felt it was his responsibility to protect him.

“Here they come!” said Nora.

The vampires began to swarm. A coordinated effort, first focusing on Gus. Four vampires, two running at him from either side. Gus fired on one pair, shredding them, then wheeled and put down the other two, but only just in time.

While he was occupied, a handful of dark figures seized the opportunity to break from the adjoining lots, running toward the Mobil.

Gus turned and sprayed them, hobbling a few, but had to turn back around as more advanced on him.

Mr. Quinlan darted forward with amazing agility, meeting three advancing fellow strigoi and forcefully driving his open hands into their throats, snapping their necks.

Bang! A small vampire, a child, dropped down onto the roof of the Jeep from the carport roof. Nora swiped at it, and the little vampire hissed and darted backward, the Jeep rocking gently. Eph rushed around past the headlights to the other side of the Jeep, looking to slay the nasty little thing. It wasn’t there.

“Not here!” said Eph.

“Not here either!” called Nora.

Eph said, “Underneath!”

Nora got down and swung her sword underneath the vehicle’s carriage, the blade’s reach long enough to drive the child back out toward Eph’s side. He cut at its lower right leg, severing the Achilles tendon. But instead of retreating again, the maimed vampire came right out from beneath the Jeep and sprang up at him, Eph’s sword meeting it halfway, cutting down the blood-rabid strigoi in midair. He felt the effort more than ever. He felt his muscles twitch and spasm. A flash of pain ran from his elbow to his lower back. His arm curled in a brutal cramp. He knew what it was: he was malnourished, perhaps even to the point of starvation. He ate very little and very badly—no minerals, no electrolytes, his nerve endings terminally raw. He was coming to an end as a fighter. He fell down, releasing his sword, feeling a million years old.

A wet crunching sound startled Eph from behind. Mr. Quinlan was behind him, bright in the headlights, the head of another child vampire in one hand, the body in his other. The vampire had gotten the drop on Eph, but Mr. Quinlan saved him. The Born threw the dripping body parts to the blacktop as he turned, anticipating the next attack.

Gus’s gun rattled out in the street as more vampires converged on them from the edges of darkness. Eph cut down two more adult strigoi running up from behind the gas station store. He was worried about Nora being on her own, on the other side of the cars.

“Fet! Come on!” he yelled.

“Almost!” Fet yelled back.

Mr. Quinlan lashed out, dropping more sacrificial strigoi, his hands dripping white. They just kept coming.

“They’re trying to hold us here,” said Eph. “Slow us down!”

The Master is en route. And others. I can sense it.

Eph stabbed the closest strigoi by the throat, then kicked it in the chest, retrieved his blade, and ran around to the other side of the Jeep. “Gus!” he called.

Gus was already retreating, his smoking gun silent. “I’m out.”

Eph chopped at a pair of vampires coming up on Nora, then whipped the fuel line out of the Explorer’s tank. Fet saw this and finally gave up pumping. He grabbed Eph’s spare sword out of his pack and took care of another animal-like vampire coming over the Explorer’s hood.

Gus jumped into the front seat of the Explorer, grabbing another weapon. “Go! Get out of here!”

There was no time to throw the gas-soaked pump into the truck. They abandoned it there, gas still drooling out of the tube, slicking the hardtop.

“Don’t shoot this close!” said Fet. “You’ll blow us up!”