The Night Eternal

“Shit,” said Creem upon seeing the still-burning service station just up the road. The smell of burned fuel entered the automobile’s ventilation system.

Left.

Creem followed directions, turning away from the blast site, wasting no time. They passed the drive-in theater marquee and the vampire standing watch there. The Master dipped again into its vision and saw itself inside the black town car, hurtling down the roadway.

They were gaining on Goodweather.

Eph roared along country roads, winding their way north. He kept changing routes to keep his pursuers guessing. Vampire sentinels stood watch at every turn. Eph could tell if he had been on the same road for too long when they put obstacles in his way, trying to slow him down or make him crash: other cars, a wheelbarrow, planters from a garden store. Driving upwards of fifty miles per hour on a pitch-black road, these things came up fast in his headlights and were dangerous to maneuver around.

A few times the vampires tried to ram them with a car or follow them. That was Fet’s cue to rise up out of the sunroof with the machine gun in hand.

Eph avoided the city of Syracuse altogether, traveling east around the outskirts. The Master knew where they were—but it still did not know where they were going. That was the only thing saving them right now. Otherwise it would mass its slaves at the shore of the Saint Lawrence River, keeping Eph and the others from getting through.

If possible, Eph would have just kept driving until daylight. But gasoline was an issue, and stopping to refuel was simply too dangerous. They were going to have to risk waiting for daylight at the river, potentially as sitting ducks.

On the plus side, the farther north they drove, the fewer roadside strigoi they saw. The lower rural population was in their favor.

Nora was at the wheel. Reading maps was not one of Gus’s strengths. Nora was confident they were moving north in general but knew that they had occasionally gotten sidetracked a little too far east or west. They were past Syracuse, but suddenly Watertown—the last city of any size before the Canadian border—seemed so far away.

The radio at her hip had crackled a few times, but every time she tried to raise Eph, she received only silence in return. After a while she stopped trying. She did not want to chance running down the batteries.

Fishers Landing. That was what Eph had said, where they were to meet. Nora had lost track of how many hours it had been since sundown, how many more it would be until sunrise—all she knew was that it was too many. She wanted daylight far too badly to dare to trust her own gut estimation.

Just get there, she thought. Get there and figure it out.

“Here they come, doc,” said Gus.

Nora looked all around the street in front of her. She saw nothing, driving so intently through the darkness. Then she saw it: a hint of light through the treetops.

Moving light. A helicopter.

“They’re looking for us,” said Gus. “Haven’t spotted us yet, I don’t think.”

Nora kept one eye on the light and the other on the road. They passed a sign for the highway and realized they had drifted back near the interstate. Not good.

The helicopter circled toward them. “I’m cutting the headlights,” she said, which also meant slowing way down.

They drifted down the dark road, watching the helicopter come around, approaching near. The light grew brighter as it began to descend, maybe a few hundred yards north of them.

“Hold up, hold up,” said Gus. “It’s landing.”

She saw the light setting down. “That must be the highway.”

Gus said, “I don’t think they saw us at all.”

She continued to roll down the road, judging its margins by the black treetop branches framed against the less-black sky. Trying to decide what to do.

“Should we take off?” she said. “Risk it?”

Gus was trying to see through the windshield up to the highway. “You know what?” he said. “I don’t think they were looking for us after all.”

Nora kept her eyes on the road. “What is it, then?”

“You got me. Question is—do we dare to find out?”

Nora had spent enough time with Gus to know that this was not actually a question. “No,” she said quickly. “We need to go. To keep going.”

“It could be something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Why we have to look. I haven’t seen any roadside bloodsuckers for a few miles anyway. I think we’re good for a quick look.”

“A quick look,” said Nora, as though she could hold him to that.

“Come on,” he said. “You’re curious too. Besides—they were using their light, right? That means humans.”

She pulled over to the left side of the road and turned off the engine. They got out of the car, forgetting that the interior lights came on once the doors were opened. They closed them quickly without slamming them and stood and listened.