The Night Eternal (The Strain Trilogy 3)

I asked you where they are going.

“I … I don’t know. The doc, your other little friend there—he read it in that book. All I know.”

There are other ways to ensure your total compliance.

Creem felt a soft, piston-like thump against his neck. Then a pinprick, and a gentle warmth. He shrieked, expecting to be emptied.

But the Master just held his stinger there and squeezed Creem’s shoulders together, Creem feeling pressure against his shoulder blades and his clavicle, as though the Master was about to crush him like a tin can.

You know these roads?

“Do I know these roads? Sure, I know these roads.”

With an effortless pivot, the Master threw Creem bodily out through the restroom door into the greater Visitor Control building, the big gang leader sprawling on the floor.

Drive.

Creem got up and nodded … unaware of the small drop of blood forming on the side of his neck where the stinger had touched him.

Barnes’s bodyguards walked into his outer office inside Camp Liberty without knocking. Barnes’s assistant’s throat-clearing alerted him to stash the detective book he had been reading in a drawer and pretend to be going over the papers on his desk. They entered, their necks darkly patterned with tattoos, and held the door.

Come.

Barnes nodded after a moment, stuffing some papers into his attaché case. “What is this about?”

No answer. He accompanied them down the stairs and across to the guard at the gate, who let them through. There was a light, dark mist, not enough to warrant an umbrella. It did not appear that he was in any kind of trouble, but then again it was impossible to read anything into his stone-faced bodyguards.

His car pulled up, and they rode sitting next to him, Barnes remaining calm, searching his memory for some mistake or unintended slight he might have made. He was reasonably confident there had been none, but he had never been summoned anywhere quite this way before.

They were heading back to his home, which he thought was a good sign. He saw no other vehicles in the driveway. They walked inside and there was no one there waiting for him, most especially the Master. Barnes informed his bodyguards that he was going to visit the bathroom and spent his alone time in there running the water and teaming up with his reflection in the mirror to try to figure out this thing. He was too old for this level of stress.

He went into the kitchen to prepare a snack. He had just pulled open the refrigerator door when he heard the helicopter rotors approaching. His bodyguards appeared at his side.

He walked to the front door and opened it, watching the helicopter rotate overhead and descend. The skids set down gently on the once-white stones of his wide, circular driveway. The pilot was human, a Stoneheart; Barnes saw that instantly from the man’s black suit jacket and necktie. There was a passenger, but not cloaked, therefore not the Master. Barnes let out a subtle breath of relief, waiting for the engine t

o turn off and the rotors to slow, allowing the visitor to disembark. Instead, Barnes’s bodyguards each gripped one of his arms and walked him down the front steps and out over the stones toward the waiting chopper. They ducked beneath the screaming rotors and opened the door.

The passenger, sitting with twin seat belts crossed over his chest, was young Zachary Goodweather.

Barnes’s bodyguards boosted him inside, as though he might try to escape. He sat in the chair next to Zack, while they took facing seats. Barnes strapped on his safety restraints; his bodyguards did not.

“Hello again,” said Barnes.

The boy looked at him but did not answer. More youthful arrogance—and maybe something more.

“What’s this about?” asked Barnes. “Where are we going?”

The boy, it seemed to Barnes, had picked up on his fear. Zack looked away with a mixture of dismissal and disgust.

“The Master needs me,” said Zack, looking out the window as the chopper started to rise. “I don’t know why you’re here.”

Interstate 80

THEY DROVE ALONG Interstate 80, west through New Jersey. Fet drove with his foot to the floor, high beams all the way. Occasional debris, or an abandoned car or bus, slowed him down. A few times they passed some skinny deer. But no vampires, not on the interstate—at least, none they could see. Eph sat in the backseat of the Jeep, next to Mr. Quinlan, who was attuned to the vampires’ mental frequency. The Born was like a vampire radar detector: so long as he remained silent, they were okay.

Gus and Nora followed in the Explorer, a backup vehicle in case one of them broke down, which was a real possibility.

The highways were nearly clear. People had tried to evacuate once the plague reached true panic stages (the default human response to an infectious disease outbreak—escape—despite there being no virus-free zone to escape to), and highways jammed all across the country. However, few had been turned in their cars, at least not on the highway itself. Most were taken when they pulled off the main routes, usually to sleep.