The Night Eternal (The Strain Trilogy 3)

The Master’s control over its vehicle was still tentative, but thirst compensated for fighting precision and ability. The transference was faster the next time—multiple worms going into each victim through the wet stinger. Even when the attacks were clumsy and barely completed, they accomplished their end. Two of the hunters fought bravely, their throw-axes doing damage to the body of the possessed Onondaga warrior. But, in the end, even as that body slowly bled out into the earth, the parasites overtook the bodies of their attackers and soon the pack multiplied. Now the Master was three.

Through the years, the Master learned to use its skills and tactics to suit its needs for secrecy and stealth. The land was inhabited by fierce warriors and the places where it could hide were limited to caves and crevices that were well-known to hunters and trappers. The Master seldom transmitted its will into a new body and only did so if the stature or strength of a new host was overwhelmingly desirable. And through the years it gained in legend and name and the Algonquian Indians called it the wendigo.

It longed to commune with the Ancients, whom it naturally sensed and whose empathic beacon it felt across the sea. But every time it attempted to cross running water its human body would fail and be struck by a seizure, no matter the might of the occupied body. Was this tied to the place of his dismemberment? Trapped within the flowing arms of the river Yarden? Was it a secret alchemy, a deterrent written upon his forehead by the finger of God? This and many other rules it would come to learn during its existence.

It moved west and north looking for a route to the “other land,” the continent where the Ancients were thriving. It felt their call—and the urge inside it grew, sustaining the Master over the grueling trek from one edge of the continent to the other.

It reached the forbidding ocean in the frozen lands at the uppermost northwest, where it hunted and fed on the inhabitants of that cold wasteland, the Unangam. They were men of narrow eyes and tanned skin, who wore animal pelts for warmth. The Master, entering the minds of its victims, learned of a crossing to a great land on the other side of the sea, at a place where the shores almost touched, reaching like outstretched hands. It scouted the cold shore, searching for this launching point.

One fateful night, the Master saw a cluster of narrow, primitive fishing ships near a cliff, unloading the fish and seal they had hunted. The Master knew it could cross the ocean aided by them. It had learned to ford smaller bodies of water with human assistance, so why not a larger one? The Master knew how to bend and terrorize the soul of even the hardest man. It knew how to gain and feed upon the fear of its subjects. The Master would kill half the group and announce itself as a deity, a fury of the wood, an elemental force of grander power than his already amazing one. It would suffocate any dissidence and gain every alliance either by pardon or by favor … and then it would travel across the waters.

While hidden beneath a heavy coat of pelts, lying upon a small bed of soil, the Master would attempt the crossing that would reunite it with those closest to its nature.

Picatinny Armory

CREEM HID IN another building for a while, scared of that Quinlan dude and what his reach was. Creem’s mouth still hurt from the elbow he had taken, and now his silver teeth wouldn’t bite right. He was pissed at himself for going back to the maintenance garage at the university for the guns, for being greedy. Always so hungry for more, more, more …

After a while, he heard a car go past, but not too fast, and quiet. It sounded like an electrical car, one of those plug-in compacts.

He headed out toward the one place he used to avoid, the front entrance of Picatinny Armory. Darkness had fallen again, and he walked toward a cluster of lights, wet and hungry and holding the cramp in his side. He turned the corner and saw the smashed gate where they had entered and beings clustered near the Visitor Control building. Creem put his hands up and walked until they saw him.

He explained himself to the humans, but they put him in a locked bathroom anyway, when all Creem wanted was something to eat. He kicked at the door a few times, but it was surprisingly solid; he realized the restroom had doubled as a secret holding cell for problem visitors to the armory. So he sat back on the closed toilet seat and he waited.

A tremendous crash, almost like a blast, shook the walls. The building had taken a blow, and Creem’s first thought was that those assholes had hit a speed bump on the way out and nuked half of Jersey. Then the door opened and the Master stood there in its cloak. It carried a wolf’s-head walking stick in one hand. Two of its little critters, the blind children, scampered around its legs like eager pets.

Where are they?

Creem sat back against the tank of the toilet, oddly relaxed now in the king bloodsucker’s presence.

“They’re gone. They hit the road. Little while ago.”

How long?

“I don’t know. Two vehicles. At least two.”

Which direction?

“I was locked in a fucking bathroom here, how would I know? That vampire they got on their side, the hunter, Quinlan—he’s an asshole. Dented my grille.” Creem touched the unaligned silver in his mouth. “So, hey, do me a favor? When you catch them? Give him and the Mexican an extra kick in the head from me.”

They have the book?

“They got that book. They have a nuclear bomb too. And they know where they are headed. Some Black Site or something.”

The Master stood there, saying nothing. Creem waited. Even the feelers noticed the Master’s silence.

“I said they’re heading for—”

Did they say where?

The Master’s speech pattern was different. The timing of his words was slower.

Creem said, “You know what I could use to jog my memory? Some food. I’m getting weak with fatigue here—”

At once the Master swooped in and gathered Creem in its hands, holding him up off the floor.

Ah yes, said the Master, its stinger slipping from its mouth. Nourishment. Perhaps a bite would help us both.

Creem felt the stinger press against his neck.