The Strain (The Strain Trilogy 1)

The Master's oversize coffin, set here on an altar of rubble and rubbish beneath the ruins of the World Trade Center.

"This is it," Eph said.

Setrakian reached out to the side of the box, almost touching the carvings, then pulling back his twisted fingers. "A long time I have searched for this," he said.

Eph shuddered, not wanting to meet this thing again, with its devouring size and ruthless strength. He remained on the near side, expecting the top doors to burst open at any moment. Fet went around to the facing side. There were no handles on the top doors. One had to slip one's fingers in beneath the lip of the middle seam and pull up. It would be awkward, and difficult to do quickly.

Setrakian stood at the presumed head of the cabinet, his long sword ready in his hand. But his expression was grim. Eph saw the reason for this in the old man's eyes, and it deflated him.

Too easy.

Eph and Fet wriggled their fingers in beneath the double doors, and on a nod of three, pulled them back. Setrakian leaned forward with his lamp and his sword...and discovered a box full of soil. He probed it with his blade, the silver tip scraping the bottom of the great box. Nothing.

Fet stepped back, wild-eyed, full of adrenaline he could not stifle. "He's gone?"

Setrakian withdrew his blade, tapping off the soil on the edge of the box.

Eph's disappointment was overwhelming. "He escaped." Eph stepped back from the coffin, turning to the wasteland of slain vampires inside the stultifying chamber. "He knew we were here. He fled into the subway system fifteen minutes ago. He can't surface because of the sun...so he'll stay underground until night."

Fet said, "Inside the longest transit system in the entire world. Eight hundred miles of tracks."

Eph's voice was raw with despair. "We never even had a chance."

Setrakian looked exhausted but undaunted. If anything, his old eyes showed a bit of fresh light. "Is this not how you exterminate vermin, Mr. Fet? By rousting them from their nest? Flushing them out?"

Fet said, "Only if you know where they're going to end up."

Setrakian said, "Don't all burrowing creatures, from rats to rabbits, construct a kind of back door...?"

"A bolt-hole," said Fet. He was getting it now. "An emergency exit. Predator comes in one way, you run out the other."

Setrakian said, "I believe we have the Master on the run."

Vestry Street, Tribeca

THEY HADN'T TIME to properly destroy the coffin, and so settled for shoving it off its altar of rubble, overturning it and spilling the soil to the floor. They had resolved to return later to finish the job.

Getting back through the tunnels and out to Fet's van took some time, and more of Setrakian's energy.

Fet parked around the corner from the Bolivar town house. They ran the sunny half block to his front door with no effort to conceal their Luma lamps or silver swords. They saw no one outside the residence at that early hour, and Eph started up the crossbars of the scaffolding in front. Over the boarded door was a transom window decorated with the address number. Eph smashed it in with his sword, kicking free the larger shards and then clearing out the frame with his blade. He took a lamp and went inside, lowering himself into the foyer.

His purple light illuminated twin marble panthers on either side of the door. A winged angel statue at the bottom of the curling stairs looked down at him balefully.

He heard it, and felt it: the hum of the Master's presence. Kelly, he thought, misery aching in his chest. She had to be here.

Setrakian came down next, held from the outside by Fet, helped to the floor by Eph. Setrakian landed and drew his sword. He too felt the Master's presence, and with it, relief. They were not too late.

"He is here," said Eph.

Setrakian said, "Then he already knows we are."

Fet lowered two larger UVC lamps to Eph, then clambered over the transom himself, his boots striking the floor.

"Quickly," said Setrakian, leading them under the winding stairs, the bottom floor in the midst of renovation. They moved through a long kitchen of still-boxed appliances, looking for a closet. They found it, empty inside, and unfinished.

They pushed open the false door in the back wall, as it had been pictured in Nora's People magazine printouts.

Stairs led down. A sheet of plastic behind them flapped, and they turned around fast, but it was only riding the draft rising up the stairs. The wind carried the scent of the subway, and of dirt and spoilage.

This was the way to the tunnels. Eph and Fet began arranging two large UVC lamps so they could fill the closet passageway with hot, killing light, and thereby seal off the underground. And block any other vampires from rising up, and, more imperative, ensure that the only way out of the town house was into direct sunlight.

Eph looked back to see Setrakian leaning against one wall, his fingertips pressing against the vest, over his heart. Eph didn't like the looks of that, and had started toward him when Fet's voice turned him back around. "Damnit!" One of the hot lamps tumbled over, clunking to the floor. Eph checked to make sure that the bulbs still worked, then righted the lamp, wary of the radiative light.

Fet quieted him. He heard noises below. Footsteps. The odor in the air changed-became ranker, more rotten. Vampires were assembling.

Eph and Fet backed away from the blue-lit closet, their safety valve. When Eph turned back to the old man, he was gone.

Setrakian had moved back into the foyer. His heart felt tight in his chest, overtaxed by stress and anticipation. So long he had waited. So long...

His gnarled hands began to ache. He flexed them, gripping the sword handle beneath the silver wolf's head. Then he felt something, the faintest breeze in advance of movement...

Moving his drawn sword at the last possible moment saved him from a direct and fatal blow. The impact knocked him back, sending his crumpled body sliding headfirst over the marble floor to slam into the base of the wall. But he kept his grip on his sword. He got back to his feet quickly, swinging his blade back and forth, seeing nothing in the dim foyer.

So fast the Master moved.

He was right here. Somewhere.

Now you are an old man.

The voice crackled inside Setrakian's head like an electric shock. Setrakian swung his silver sword out wide in front of him. A black form blurred past the statue of the weeping angel at the foot of the curling marble stairs.

The Master would try to distract him. This was his way. Never to challenge directly, face-to-face, but to deceive. To surprise from behind.

Setrakian backed up against the wall beside the front door. Behind him, a narrow, door-framing window of Tiffany glass had been blacked over. Setrakian struck at the lead panes, smashing out the precious glass with his sword.