The Night Eternal

Ann looked like a woman who had learned not to get her hopes up too high. “I am sorry I called you an asshole, buddy,” she said. “What you are is really a tough motherfucker.”

Eph couldn’t help but smile. These days he would take any compliment, no matter how backhanded it was.

“Can you tell us about the city?” said Ann. “We heard that all of midtown burned down.”

“No, it’s—”

The glass doors opened in the candy shop and Eph turned. Gus entered, holding a machine gun in one hand. Then he saw, through the glass, Nora approaching the door. Instead of Fet, a tall boy of about thirteen walked at her side. They entered and Eph could neither move nor speak… but his dry eyes instantly stung with tears and his throat closed with emotion.

Zack looked around apprehensively, his eyes going past Eph to the old ice cream signs on the wall… then slowly coming back to his father’s face.

Eph walked to him. The boy’s mouth opened but he did not speak. Eph got down on one knee before him, this boy who used to be at about Eph’s eye level when he did that. Now Eph looked up a few inches at him. The mess of hair falling down over his face partially hid his eyes.

Zack said quietly to his father, “What are you doing here?”

He was so much taller now. His hair was long and ragged, swept back from his ears, exactly the way a boy that age would choose to grow his hair without parental intervention. He looked reasonably clean. He appeared well fed.

Eph grabbed him and hugged him hard. In doing so, he was making the boy real. Zack felt strange in his arms, smelled different, was different—older. Weak. It occurred to Eph how gaunt he must have looked to Zack in return.

The boy did not hug him back, standing stiffly, enduring the embrace.

He pushed him backward to look at him again. He wanted to know everything, how Zack had gotten here—but realized nothing else mattered right now.

He was here. He was still human. He was free.

“Oh, Zack,” said Eph, remembering the day he had lost him nearly two years before. He had tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

But Zack was looking at him strangely. “For what?”

He started to say, “For allowing your mother to take you away—” But he stopped. “Zachary,” said Eph, overwhelmed by joy. “Look at you. So tall! You’re a man…”

The boy’s mouth remained open, but he was too stunned to speak. He stared at his father—the man who had haunted his dreams like an all-powerful ghost. The father who had abandoned him, deserted him, the one he remembered as being tall, so powerful, so wise, was a feeble, dry, insignificant thing. Unkempt, trembling, and weak.

Zack felt a surge of disgust.

Are you loyal?

“I never stopped looking,” said Eph. “I never gave up. I know they told you I was dead—I’ve been fighting this whole time. For two years, I’ve been trying to get you back…”

Zack looked around the room. Mr. Quinlan had entered the shop. Zack looked longest at the Born.

“Mother is coming for me,” said Zack. “She’s going to be angry.”

Eph nodded firmly. “I know she will. But… it’s almost over.”

“I know that,” said Zack.

Are you thankful for all I have provided, for all that I have shown you?

“Come here…,” said Eph, squeezing Zack’s shoulders and walking him to the bomb. Fet moved to intercept them, but Eph barely noticed. “This is a nuclear device. We’re going to use it to blow up an island. To wipe out the Master and all of its kind.”

Zack stared at the device. “Why?” he asked in spite of himself.

The end of times is near.

Fet looked at Nora, a chill running down his spine. But Eph didn’t seem to notice, rapt in the role of the prodigal father.

“To make things the way they used to be,” said Eph. “Before the strigoi. Before the darkness.”

Zack looked strangely at Eph. The boy was blinking noticeably, purposefully, like a nervous, self-consoling tic. “I want to go home.”

Eph nodded quickly. “And I want to take you there. All your stuff is in your bedroom just like you left it. Everything. We’ll go as soon as all this is over.”

Zack shook his head, no longer looking at Eph. He was looking at Mr. Quinlan. “Home is the castle. In Central Park.”

Eph’s hopeful expression faltered. “No, you’re never going back there again. I know it’s going to take a little time, but you’re going to be fine.”

The boy is turned.

Eph’s head whipped around to Mr. Quinlan. The Born stood looking at Zack.

Eph stared at his son. He had all his hair; his complexion was good. His eyes weren’t black moons on a sea of red. His throat was not distended. “No. You’re wrong. He’s human.”

Physically, yes. But look into his eyes. He brought someone here with him.

Eph gripped the boy by the chin. He pushed the hair off his eyes. They were a little dim, maybe. A little withdrawn. Zack stared defiantly at first, then tried to look away, as any young teenager would.