The Strain (The Strain Trilogy 1)

Setrakian brought out his heat scope. He scanned the area, then handed the scope off to Eph. Eph saw bright red shapes moving stealthily through the otherwise cool landscape.

The answer to his question was: they were everywhere. And quickly converging on a point to their north.

Their destination became clear. A kiosk on the Broadway side of the park, a dark structure Eph couldn't make much more of from that distance. He watched and waited until the numbers of returning vampires declined, and Setrakian's scope picked up no other significant heat sources.

They ran to the structure. In the burgeoning light, they saw that it was an information kiosk, kept shuttered overnight. They pulled open the door, and found it empty.

They huddled inside the cramped space, the wooden counter taken up by wire racks full of tourist fliers and tour-bus schedules. Fet turned his little Maglite on twin metal doors in the floor. There were thick eye-holes at either end, the padlocks gone. The lettering across the twin doors read, MTA.

Fet pulled open both doors, Eph with his lamp at the ready. Stairs led down into darkness. Setrakian aimed his flashlight at a faded sign on the wall as Fet started down.

"Emergency exit," Fet reported. "They sealed off the old City Hall station after World War Two. The track turn was too sharp for newer trains, the platform too narrow-though I think the number six local still turns around here." He looked from side to side. "Must have demolished the old emergency exit, and put this kiosk up on top of it."

"Fine," Setrakian said. "Let us go."

Eph followed, bringing up the rear. He did not bother to close the doors behind him, wanting a straight shot to the surface if they needed it. Grime coated the sides of each step, the middles cleaned by regular foot traffic. Darker than night down there.

Fet said, "Next stop, 1945."

The flight of stairs ended at an open door leading to a second flight of wider stairs, leading down to what had to be the old mezzanine. A tiled dome with four arched sides, rising to an ornate skylight of modern glass, was just starting to blue. Some ladders and old scaffolding had been laid against the wooden ticket room along one rounded wall. The arched doorways were without turnstiles, the station predating tokens.

The far arch led to another flight of stairs no more than five persons wide, emptying into the narrow platform. They listened at the arched doorway, hearing only the distant screech of subway car brakes, then emerged fully onto the abandoned platform.

It was like a whispering gallery inside a cathedral. Original brass chandeliers containing bare, dark bulbs hung from the arched ceilings, the interlocking tile along the arches looking like giant zippers. Two vault skylights allowed light through amethyst glass, the rest having been leaded over due to air raid concerns after World War II. Farther away, light appeared through some surface grates, still very faint, but enough to give depth to their perception along the gracefully curved track. There was not one right angle in the entire place. The tile work was damaged throughout, including the glazed terra-cotta of the nearest wall sign, done in gold with green borders, around white plates containing blue letters spelling CITY HALL.

A film of steel dust along the curling platform showed the vampires' footprints, leading into the dark.

They followed the footprints to the end of the platform, jumping down onto the still-live tracks. Everything operated on a leftward curve along the train loop. They switched off their flashlights, Eph's Luma showing urine splashes everywhere, iridescent and multicolored, ending farther on. Setrakian was reaching for his thermal scope when they heard noises behind them. Latecomers moving off the mezzanine stairs into the platform. Eph switched off his wand and they crossed the three rails to the far wall, standing flat against the recessed stone.

The latecomers came off the platform, feet scratching the dusty stones along the rail beds. Setrakian spied them through his heat scope, two bright orange-red forms, nothing unusual about their shape or posture. The first one disappeared, and it took Setrakian a long moment to realize that it had slipped into a seam in the wall, an opening they had somehow missed. The second form stopped at that same spot, but turned there instead of disappearing, looking their way. Setrakian did not move, knowing the creature's night vision was advanced but not yet matured. His thermal reading registered the vampire's throat as its warmest region. A spill of orange down its leg cooled immediately to yellow as it pooled on the ground, the creature emptying its bladder. Its head lifted like an animal scenting prey, looking up the tracks away from their hiding space...then ducked its head and disappeared into the crack in the wall.

Setrakian moved back into the railway, the others following him. The foul smell of fresh, hot vampire piss filled the arched space, the burnt-ammonia scent holding dark associations for Setrakian. The others stepped around the stain on their way to the seam in the wall.

Eph slid his sword out of the sheath across his back, taking the lead. The passageway widened into a hot, rough-walled catacomb smelling of steam. He switched on his Luma light just in time to see the first vampire rising out of a crouch and driving at him. Eph could not get his silver blade up in time, and the vampire threw him back against the wall. His light lay on its side near the streamlet of sewage lying along the guttered floor, and he saw by its hot indigo light that she was, or had been at one time, a woman. She wore a businesslike blazer over a dirtied white blouse, her black mascara rubbed into menacing raccoon eyes. Her jaw dropped and her tongue curled back-and that was when Fet darted out of the passage.

He went at her with his dagger, stabbing her once, low in the side. She rolled off Eph and came back up in a crouch. With a yell, Fet jabbed at her again, this time right above where her heart would have been, into her chest, below her shoulder. The vampire staggered backward, only to rush forward again. With a howl he buried his blade in her lower belly, and she buckled and snarled-but again reacted with more confusion than pain. She was going to keep coming at him.

Eph had recovered enough by this time, and when the vampire went at Fet again, Eph stood and swung his sword at her with two hands, from behind. The impulse to murder was still foreign, and because of this he took a little something off his swing at the end, so that the blade did not find its way through. But it was enough. He had severed the spinal column, the vampire's head flopping forward. Her arms flailed and her body went into seizure as she pitched forward into the sewage in the center of the floor, like something sizzling in an overheated pan.

There was little time to be shocked. The splash-splash-splash sounds echoing in the catacomb were the footfalls of the second vampire running ahead-racing to alert the others.