LITMIR.BIZ

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      The strigoi quickly sprang onto all fours, facing Eph from a crouch. Its eyes bore into him, surrogates of the Master, the evil presence that had taken everything from him. Eph’s rage flared anew. He swiftly produced his grappling hooks and braced for impact. The vampire charged and Eph went for it—the vampire wattle dangling beneath its chin made for a perfect target. He had done this move hundreds of times—like a worker in a fish plant scaling a big tuna. One hook connected with the throat behind the wattle, sinking quickly and jamming behind the cartilaginous tube that housed the larynx and launched the stinger. Pulling down on it—hard—he blocked the stinger and forced the creature to genuflect with a piglike squeal. The other hook connected to the eye socket, and Eph’s thumb jammed under the jaw, locking the mouth shut. One summer, a long, long time ago, his father had shown him that move when catching snakes on a small river up north. “Clamp the jaw,” he had said, “lock the mouth—so they can’t bite.” Not many snakes were poisonous but a lot of them had a nasty bite and enough bacteria in their mouth to cause a lot of pain. Turned out that Eph—city boy Eph—was good at catching snakes. A natural. He had even been able to show off one good day, catching a snake in the driveway at home when Zack was still a child. He felt superior—a hero. But that was a long time ago. A zillion years BC.

      Now Eph, weak and infirm, was hooking up a powerful, undead creature so hot to the touch, all angry energy and thirst. He was not knee-deep in a cool California stream or climbing out of his minivan to catch a city snake. He was in real danger. He could feel his muscles give. His strength was fading. Yes . . . yes—I would like to give in . . .

      And his weakness made him angry. And he thought of everything he had lost—Kelly, Nora, Zack, the world—and he yanked hard, with a primal scream, ripping the trachial tube and snapping the tense cartilage. The jaw snapped and dislocated under his grimy thumb at the very same time. A surge of blood and worms sprang forth and Eph danced backward, avoiding them studiously, weaving like a boxer out of the reach of his opponent.

      The vampire sprang to its feet, sliding along the wall, howling, wattle and neck torn and flapping, gushing. Eph feigned a strike, the vamp retreating a few steps, wheezing and wailing, an awkward, wet little sound—almost like a duck call. He feinted again, and the vamp didn’t buy it at all this time. Eph had it lulled into a rhythm when the vamp stiffened, then ran off.

      If Eph could ever put together a list of rules of engagement, near the top would have been Never follow a fleeing vampire. Nothing good could come from it. There was no strategic advantage to running down a strigoi. Its clairvoyant alert had already gone out. The vampires had developed coordinated attack strategies over the past two years. Running was either a stalling tactic or an outright ruse.

      And yet, Eph, in his anger, did what he knew not to do. He picked up his swords and pursued it, down the hallway to a door marked STAIRS. Anger and a weird desire for proxy revenge made him hit the door and run up two flights. The female then left the stairwell, and Eph followed it out, the vampire loping down the corridor, Eph chasing after it with a long sword in each hand. The vamp turned right and then left, entering another stairwell, racing up one flight.

      As Eph tired, common sense returned. He saw the female at the far end of the corridor and sensed that it had slowed, that it was waiting for him, making sure that Eph could see it rounding the corner.

      He stopped. It couldn’t be a trap. He had just shown up in the hospital; there was no time. So the only other reason for the vampire to lead him on what amounted to a wild goose chase was . . .

      Eph walked into the nearest patient room, crossing to the windows. The glass was streaked with oily black rain, the city below obscured by ripples of dirty water washing down the glass. Eph strained to see the streets, his forehead against the glass.

      He saw dark forms, identifiable as bodies, racing out onto the sidewalks from facing buildings, flooding the street below. More and more, from around corners and out of doors, like firemen answering a six-alarm call, moving to the hospital entrance.

      Eph backed away. The psychic call had indeed gone out. One of the architects of the human resistance, Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, was trapped inside Bellevue Hospital.

      Twenty-eighth Street Subway

      NORA STOOD AT the corner of Park and Twenty-eighth, rain rapping on the hood of her slicker. She knew she needed to keep moving, but she also needed to know she was not being followed. Otherwise, escaping into the subway system would instead be like walking into a trap.

      Vampires had eyes all over the city. She had to appear like any other human on her way to work or home. The problem with that was her mother.

      “I told you to call the landlord!” said her mother, pulling back her hood to feel the rain on her face.

      “Mama,” said Nora, pushing the hood back over her head.

      “Fix this broken shower!”

      “Shhh! Quiet!”

      Nora had to keep moving. Hard as it was for her mother, walking kept her quiet. Nora gripped her around her lower back, holding her close as she stepped to the curb, just as an army truck approached the intersection. Nora stepped back again, head lowered, watching the vehicle pass. The truck was driven by a strigoi. Nora held her mother tightly, stopping her from wandering into the street.

      “When I see that landlord, he’s going to be sorry he crossed us.”

      Thank goodness for the rain. Because rain meant raincoats, and raincoats meant hoods. The old and infirm had been rounded up long ago. The unproductive had no place in the new society. Nora would never take a risk such as this—venturing out in public with her mother—were there any other choice.

      “Mama, can we play the quiet game again?”

      “I’m tired of all that. This goddamn leaky ceiling.”

      “Who can be quietest the longest? Me or you?”

      Nora started her across the street. Ahead, hanging from the pole that supported the street sign and the traffic signal, hung a dead body. Exhibition corpses were commonplace, especially along Park Avenue. A squirrel on the dead man’s slumped shoulder was battling two pigeons for rights to the corpse’s cheeks.

      Nora would have steered her mother away from the sight, but her mother didn’t even look up. They turned and started down the slick stairs into the subway station, the steps oily from the filthy rain. Once underground, Nora’s mother again tried to remove her hood, which Nora quickly replaced, scolding her.

      The turnstiles were gone. One old MetroCard machine remained for no reason. But the IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING signs remained. Nora caught a break: the only two vampires were at the other end of the entrance, not even looking her way. She walked her mother down to the uptown platform, hoping a 4 5 6 train would arrive quickly. She was holding down her mother’s arms and trying to make the embrace appear natural.

      Commuters stood around them as they had in the old days. Some read books. A few listened to music on portable music players. All that was missing were the phones and the newspapers.

      On one of the poles people leaned against was an old police flier featuring Eph’s face: a copy of his old work ID photograph. Nora closed her eyes, cursing him silently. It was he whom they had been waiting for at the morgue. Nora didn’t like it there, not because she was squeamish—she was anything but—but because it was too open. Gus—the former gangbanger who, following a life-changing encounter with Setrakian, had become a trusted comrade in arms—had carved out space for himself underground. Fet had Roosevelt Island—where she was headed now.

      Typical Eph. A genius, and a good man, but always a few minutes behind. Always rushing to catch up at the end.

      Because of him she had stayed there that extra day. Out of misplaced loyalty—and, yes, maybe guilt—she wanted to connect with him, to check up on him, to make sure he was okay. The strigoi had entered the morgue at street level; Nora had been typing into one of the computers when she heard the glass break. She had just enough time to find her mother, asleep in her wheelchair. Nora could have killed the vampires,

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