LITMIR.BIZ

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giddy. Return journeys will do that. Also, she was the only one who knew he was meeting with the Russians, and so he arrived with his great prize in tow like a boy with a school trophy. His sense of accomplishment was amplified by the excitement and enthusiasm he knew she would show him.

      However, when he arrived at the charred door that led inside to his concealed subterranean chamber, he found it open a few inches. This was not a mistake Dr. Nora Martinez would ever make. Fet quickly removed his sword from his bag. He had to tow the cart inside in order to get it out of the rain. He left it in the fire-damaged hallway and walked down the partially melted flight of stairs.

      He entered his unlocked door. His hideaway did not require much security, because it was so well hidden and because, other than the rare maritime smuggler risking a journey along the Manhattan interior, almost no one else ever set foot on the island anymore.

      The spare kitchen was unoccupied. Fet lived largely on snack food pilfered and stockpiled after the first few months of the siege, crackers and granola bars and Little Debbie cakes and Twinkies that were now reaching or, in some cases, already surpassing their “sell by” dates. Contrary to popular belief, they did become inedible. He had tried his hand at fishing, but the sooty river water was so rife with blight he was worried that no flame could get hot enough to safely cook out the pollution.

      He moved through the bedroom after a quick check of the closets. The mattress on the floor had been just fine with him until the prospect of Nora perhaps staying overnight made him hunt for a proper bed frame. The spare bathroom, where Fet kept the rat-hunting equipment he had salvaged from his old storefront shop in the Flatlands, a few instruments from his former vocation that he had been unable to part with, was otherwise empty.

      Fet ducked through the hole he had sledgehammered open, into the next unit, which he used as a study. The room was stocked with bookshelves and stacked cartons of Setrakian’s library and writings, centered around a leather sofa under a low-hanging reading lamp.

      At about two o’clock in the circularly arranged room stood a hooded figure, well over six feet tall, strongly built. His face receded into the black cotton hood, but the eyes were apparent, piercing and red. In his pale hands was a notebook filled with Setrakian’s fine handwriting.

      He was a strigoi. But he was clothed. He wore pants and boots in addition to the hooded sweatshirt.

      He eyed the rest of the room, thinking ambush.

      I am alone.

      The strigoi put his voice directly into Fet’s head. Fet looked again at the notebook in his hands. This was a sanctuary to Fet. This vampire had invaded it. He could easily have destroyed it. The loss would have been catastrophic.

      “Where is Nora?” Fet asked, and then moved on the strigoi, unsheathing his sword as fast as a man of Fet’s size can move. But the vampire at once eluded him and pushed him down to the ground. Fet roared in anger and tried to wrestle his opponent, but no matter what he did, the strigoi would retaliate with a block and a crippling move, immobilizing Fet—hurting him just enough.

      I have been here alone. Do you, by chance, remember who I am, Mr. Fet?

      Fet did, vaguely. He remembered that this one had once held an iron spike at his neck, inside an old apartment high above Central Park.

      “You were one of those hunters. The Ancients’ personal bodyguards.”

      Correct.

      “But you didn’t vaporize with the rest.”

      Obviously not.

      “Q something.”

      Quinlan.

      Fet freed his right arm and tried to connect with the creature’s cheek but the wrist was clamped and twisted in the blink of an eye. This time it hurt. A lot.

      Now, I can dislocate this arm or I can break it. Your choice. But think about it. If I wanted you dead, you would be by now. Over the centuries I have served many masters, fought many wars. I have served emperors and queens and mercenaries. I have killed thousands of your kind and hundreds of rogue vampires. All I need from you is a moment. I need you to listen. If you attack me again, I will kill you instantly. Do we understand each other?

      Fet nodded. Mr. Quinlan released him.

      “You didn’t die with the Ancients. Then you must be one of the Master’s breed . . .”

      Yes. And no.

      “Uh-huh. That’s convenient. Mind me asking how you got here?”

      Your friend Gus. The Ancients had me recruit him for sun hunting.

      “I remember. Too little, too late, as it turned out.”

      Fet remained guarded. This didn’t add up. The Master’s wily ways made him paranoid, but it was precisely this paranoia that had kept Fet alive and unturned over the past two years.

      I am interested in viewing the Occido Lumen. Gus told me that you might be able to point me in the right direction.

      “Fuck you,” said Fet. “You’ll have to go through me to get it.”

      Mr. Quinlan appeared to smile.

      We seek the same goal. And I have a little more of an edge when it comes to deciphering the book and Setrakian’s notes.

      The strigoi had closed Setrakian’s notebook—one that Fet had reread many times. “Good reading?”

      Indeed. And impressively accurate. Professor Setrakian was as learned as he was cunning.

      “He was the real deal, all right.”

      He and I almost met once before. About twenty miles north of Kotka, in Finland. He had somehow tracked me there. At the time I was wary of his intentions, as you might imagine. In retrospect, he would have made for an interesting dinner companion.

      “As opposed to a meal himself,” said Fet. He thought that perhaps a quick test was in order. He pointed at the text in Q’s hands. “Ozryel, right? Is that the name of the Master?” he said. Fet had brought along with him on his voyage some copied pages of the Lumen to study whenever possible—including an image Setrakian had first focused on upon opening the Lumen. The archangel whom Setrakian referred to as Ozryel. The old professor had lined up this illuminated page with the alchemical symbol of three crescent moons combined to form a rudimentary biohazard sign, in such a way that the twinned images achieved a kind of geometric symmetry. “The old man called Ozy ‘the angel of death.’ ”

      It’s “Ozy” now, is it?

      “Sorry, yeah. Nickname. So—it was Ozy who became the Master?”

      Partially correct.

      “Partially?”

      Fet had lowered his sword by now and leaned on it like a cane, the silver point making another notch in the floor.

      “See, Setrakian would have had one thousand questions for you. Me, I don’t even know where to start.”

      You already started.

      “I guess I did. Shit, where were you two years ago?”

      I’ve had work to do. Preparations.

      “Preparations for what?”

      Ashes.

      “Right,” Fet said. “Something about the Ancients, collecting their remains. There were three Old World Ancients.”

      You know more than you think you do.

      “But still not enough. See, I just returned from a journey myself. Trying to track down the provenance of the Lumen. A dead end . . . but something else broke my way. Something that could be big.”

      Fet thought of the nuke, which made him remember his excitement at returning home, which made him remember Nora. He moved to a laptop computer, waking it from a weeklong sleep. He checked the encrypted message board. No postings from Nora since two days ago.

      “I

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