"Why did you do that?" Eph asked Setrakian once they were alone.
"There are things downstairs-notebooks, writings-that should be preserved. That future generations may find helpful."
"You're not planning on coming back?"
"I am taking every conceivable precaution." Setrakian looked around, making certain they were alone. "Please understand. The Master has power and speed well beyond that of these clumsy new vampires we are seeing. He is more than even we know. He has dwelled upon this earth for centuries. And yet..."
"And yet he is a vampire."
"And vampires can indeed be destroyed. Our best hope is to flush him out. To hurt him and drive him into the killing sun. Why we must wait for the dawn."
"I want to go now."
"I know you do. That is exactly what he wants."
"He has my wife. Kelly is where she is for one reason only-because of me."
"You have a personal stake here, Doctor, and it is compelling. But you must know that, if he has her, she is already turned."
Eph shook his head. "She is not."
"I don't say this to anger you-"
"She is not!"
Setrakian nodded after a moment. He waited for Eph to compose himself.
Eph said, "Alcoholics Anonymous has done a great deal for me. But the one thing I never got out of it was the serenity to accept the things I cannot change."
Setrakian said, "I am the same. Perhaps it is this shared trait that has led us to this point together. Our goals are in perfect alignment."
"Almost perfect," said Eph. "Because only one of us can actually slay the bastard. And it's going to be me."
Nora had been waiting anxiously to speak with Eph, pouncing on him once he stepped away from Setrakian, pulling him into the old man's tiled bathroom.
"Don't," she said.
"Don't what?"
"Ask me what you're going to ask me." She implored him with her fierce brown eyes. "Don't."
Eph said, "But I need you to-"
"I am scared shitless-but I have earned a place at your side. You need me."
"I do. I need you here. To watch Zack. Besides-one of us has to stay behind. To carry on. In case..." He left that unsaid. "I know it's a lot to ask."
"Too much."
Eph could not stop looking in her eyes. He said, "I have to go after her."
"I know."
"I just want you to know..."
"There's nothing to explain," she said. "But-I'm glad you want to."
He pulled her close then, into a tight embrace. Nora's hand went up to the back of his head, caressing his hair. She pulled away to look at him, to say something more-and then kissed him instead. It was a good-bye kiss that insisted on his return.
They parted and he nodded to let her know he understood.
He saw Zack watching them from the hallway.
Eph didn't try to explain anything to him now. Leaving the beauty and goodness of this boy and departing from the perceived safety of the surface world to go down and face a demon was the most unnatural thing Eph could do. "You'll stay with Nora, okay? We'll talk when I come back."
Zack's preteen squint was self-protective, the emotions of the moment too raw and confusing for him. "Come back from where?"
He pulled his son close, wrapping him up in his arms as though otherwise the boy he loved would fracture into a million pieces. Eph resolved there and then to prevail because he had too much to lose.
They heard yelling and automobile horns outside, and everyone went to the west-facing window. A mass of brake lights clotted the road some four or more blocks away, people taking to the streets and fighting. A building was in flames and there were no fire trucks anywhere in sight.
Setrakian said, "This is the beginning of the breakdown."
Morningside Heights
GUS HAD BEEN on the run since the night before. The handcuffs made it difficult for him to move freely on the streets: the old shirt he had found, and wound around his forearms, as if he was walking with his arms crossed, wouldn't have fooled many. He ducked into a movie theater through the back exit and slept in the darkness. He thought of a chop shop he knew over on the West Side, and spent a considerable amount of time making his way over there, only to find it empty. Not locked up, just empty. He dug through the tools he could find there, trying to cut the links joining his wrists. He even ran an electric jigsaw, held with a vise, and nearly sliced his wrists open in the process. He couldn't do anything one-handed, and eventually left in disgust.
He went by the haunts of a few of his cholos but couldn't click up with anyone he trusted. The streets were weird-there wasn't much going on. He knew what was happening. When the sun started going down, he knew that his time and his options would be running out.
It was risky going home, but he hadn't seen many cops all day, and anyway he was worried about his madre. He slipped inside the building, trying to keep his shirt-balled hands casual, making for the stairs. Sixteen flights up. Once there, he walked down the hallway and saw no one. He listened at the door. The TV was playing, as usual.
He knew the bell didn't work, so he knocked. He waited and knocked again. He kicked at the foot plate, rattling the door and the cheap walls.
"Crispin," he hissed at his dirtbag brother. "Crispin, you shit. Open the f**king door."
Gus heard the chain lock being undone and the bolt turning inside. He waited, but the door never opened. So Gus unwound the shirt covering his cuffed hands and turned the knob.
Crispin was standing back in the corner, to the left of the couch, which was his bed, when he came around. The shades were all drawn and the refrigerator door was open in the kitchen.
"Where's Mama?" said Gus.
Crispin said nothing.
"Fucking pipehead," said Gus. He closed the fridge. Some stuff had melted and there was water on the floor. "She asleep?"
Crispin said nothing. He stared at Gus.
Gus started to get it. He took a better look at Crispin, who barely rated a glance from him anymore, and saw his black eyes and drawn face.
Gus went to the window and whipped apart the shades. It was night. There was smoke in the air from a fire below.
Gus turned to face Crispin, across the apartment, and Crispin was already charging him, howling. Gus got his arms up and got the handcuff chain across his brother's neck, under his jaw. High enough so that he couldn't get his stinger out.
Gus grasped the back of his head with his hands and pushed Crispin down to the floor. His vampire brother's black eyes bugged and his jaw bucked as his mouth tried to open, which Gus's strangling grip would not allow. Gus was intent on suffocating him, but as time went by and Crispin kept kicking, and there was no blacking out-Gus remembered that vampires didn't need to breathe and could not be killed that way.