Bruno went to Nora. “Lady?” he said. “I’m going to burn down this place. For you and for me. Know that.”
Nora nodded, still inconsolable.
“Now go,” said Bruno, turning and starting back into the slaughterhouse with his sword in hand. “All of you!” he yelled at the humans wearing camp jumpsuits, scaring them away. “I need every minute I got.”
Eph offered Nora his hand, but Fet had returned for her, and she left under Fet’s arm, moving past Eph—who, after a moment, followed them over the downed razor wire.
Bruno, raging with pain, felt the worms move inside of him. The enemy was inside his circulatory system, spreading throughout his organs and wriggling inside his brain. He worked quickly to transport the stand-alone UV lamps from the farmstead garden to the bloodletting factory, setting them inside the doors to delay the incursion of the vampires. Then he set about severing the tubes and dismantling the blood-collecting apparatus as though he were tearing apart his own infected arteries. He stabbed and sliced the refrigerated packs of blood, leaving the floor and his clothes awash in scarlet. It splattered everywhere, drenching him, but not before he made sure he wasted every last unit. Then he went about destroying the equipment itself, the vacuums and pumps.
The vampires trying to enter were getting fried by the UV light. Bruno tore down the carcasses and human pelts but did not know what else to do with them. He wished for gasoline and a source of flame. He started up the machinery and then hacked at the wiring, hoping to short-circuit the electrical system.
When the first policeman broke through, he found a wild-eyed, bloody-red Bruno trashing the place. Without any warning he fired upon Bruno. Two rounds broke his collarbone and snapped his left shoulder, shattering it to pieces.
He heard more entering and climbed up a ladder alongside storage shelves, ascending to the highest point in the building. He hung one-handed over the approaching cops and vampires driven wild both by the destruction he had wrought and by the blood soaking his body, dripping to the floor. As vampires ran up the ladder, bounding toward him, Bruno arched his neck over the hungry creatures below, pressing his sword to his throat, and—Fuck you!—wasted the very last vessel of human blood remaining in the building.
New Jersey
THE MASTER LAY still within the loam-filled coffin—long ago handcrafted by the infidel Abraham Setrakian—loaded into the cargo hold of a blacked-out van. The van was part of a four-vehicle convoy crossing from New Jersey back into Manhattan.
The many eyes of the Master had seen the bright trace of the burning spaceship blazing across the dark sky, ripping open the night like God’s own fingernail. And then the column of light and the unfortunate but not surprising return of the Born …
The timing of the brilliant streak in the sky coincided exactly with Ephraim Goodweather’s moment of crisis. The fiery bolt had spared his life. The Master knew: there were no coincidences, only omens.
Which meant what? What did this incident portend? What was it about Goodweather that had provoked the agencies of nature to come to his rescue?
A challenge. A true and direct challenge—one that the Master welcomed. For victory is only as great as one’s enemy.
That the unnatural comet burned the skies over New York confirmed the Master’s intuition that the site of its origin, still unknown, was somewhere within that geographic region.
This knowledge
engaged the Master. In a way, it echoed the comet that had announced the birthing site of another god walking the earth two thousand years ago.
Night was about to fall, the vampires about to rise. Their king reached out, readying them for battle, mobilizing them with its mind.
Every last one of them.
JACOB AND
THE ANGEL
Saint Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University
ACID RAIN HAD continued to fall abundantly and steadily, staining everything, soiling the city.
Atop the exterior domed structure on Saint Paul’s Chapel, Mr. Quinlan observed as the column of daylight started to close and lightning detonated within the dark clouds. Sirens were audible now. Police cars were visible heading toward the camp. Human police would soon be there. He hoped Fet and the others could evacuate soon.
He found the small maintenance niche at the base of the dome. There he retrieved the book: the Lumen. He crawled deeper into the niche and found refuge in a structural alcove—away from the rain and the incipient daylight. It was a cramped place beneath the granite roof structure and Mr. Quinlan fit snugly. In a notebook he had jotted some observations, annotated some clues. Safe and dry, he carefully laid down the book.
And he began to read again.
INTERLUDE III
OCCIDO LUMEN:
SADUM AND AMURAH
THE ANGEL OF DEATH SANG WITH THE VOICE OF GOD AS THE cities were destroyed in a rain of sulfur and fire. God’s face was revealed and His light burned it all in a flash.