The Fall: Book Two of the Strain Trilogy
By Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
4/5
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About this ebook
“A cross between The Hot Zone and ’Salem’s Lot.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“I cannot wait to see where Del Toro and Hogan take us next.”
—James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of Bloodline
The wait is over! Guillermo del Toro, one of Hollywood’s most popular and imaginative storytellers (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) and Hammett Award-winning thriller writer Chuck Hogan (Prince of Thieves) return with The Fall—the second blood-chilling volume in their critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling Strain Trilogy. The Fall picks up where The Strain left off—with a vampiric infection spreading like wildfire across America as a small band of heroes struggles to save the dwindling human race from the vampire plague. Horror fiction and dark fantasy fans will be swept up in this epic story that bestselling author Nelson DeMille describes as “Bram Stoker meets Stephen King meets Michael Crichton.”
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is an Academy Award®–winning film director as well as a screenwriter, producer, and New York Times bestselling novelist. He is best known for his foreign fantasy films, especially Pan’s Labyrinth, and American mainstream movies like The Shape of Water. Del Toro has published multiple bestselling adult novels with HarperCollins, including The Strain, which was adapted into a TV series by FX, and he is the creator of Trollhunters, Netflix’s most-watched children’s series.
Read more from Guillermo Del Toro
Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Fall
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The Strain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fall: Book Two of the Strain Trilogy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Night Eternal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for The Fall
115 ratings61 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A very good follow up book. Del Toro and Hogan have created a very bleak world where it feels like no one is safe. I have no idea how this trilogy is going to wrap up, and that's part of the excitement. I can't wait for the last book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Is it a bit worse than the previous volume? Yes. Does it sometimes have a bit lame dialogues? Yes. But apart from that it`s still a highly entertaining and fast-paced, fairly original vampire story worth reading.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So this one was good a little more gory and definitely more of the "history" of this story very interesting!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the second book in a trilogy. I really enjoyed reading this book although at times I found that it lagged a bit. I really liked the first book and knew I just had to have the 2nd and 3rd books when they came out. What I like about this novel is that it has vampires in it but they are vampires at a very primal animalistic level. Rather than being 100 year old men who still go to high school, the ancients are focusing their energy on total domination of the human race. For all the Twilight fans out there who are going to be upset with that last sentence, I still enjoyed reading Twilight. Don't get me wrong, it was a good series but at times I found myself wondering why on earth would these vampires go back to high school. I know I personally wouldn't want to go back to high school and date a teenager (too much angst for me). Anyhow, it's time to get back to The Fall. As much as I enjoyed the first book, I found myself needing to go back and re-read parts of it because I couldn't remember exactly what had happened. I think that could be because I read so many books in a year it's sometimes hard to get all the characters straight. I am also wondering if it would have been better to wait and read The Fall until the last book comes out. I found myself wanted to know what is going to happen next when I finished the book and I hate that I have to wait to find out. That being said, I think the author did a good job of ending the 2nd book of the trilogy. I find that sometimes it can read like the end of a chapter but in this case it seemed like a logical place to end the book. I love the characters in these books. All the characters come from such different backgrounds but find a way to come together to kick vampire butt. One is a doctor, one is a pest control man, one is a former gang member and another is an old Holocaust survivor. All in all this was an excellent book and I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Review based on book I received from Amazon Vine in exchange for an honest review. I've read this book twice.The vampires are spreading; the government is denying any problems in an attempt to avoid “panic.” Ephraim, Nora, Vasiliy and Dr. Setrakian continue to work together to try to stop the Master, and to keep Zach safe from Kelly, Ephraim’s ex-wife, who is focused on claiming the boy as her Dear One. Meanwhile, Eldritch Palmer continues to plot and plan, entirely focused on keeping himself alive forever. The Master, meanwhile, continues its plan to take over the world. And the other Ancients send out their hunters to try to stop him.Book 2: The Fall continues The Strain Trilogy, further developing the story and re-imagining the vampire mythos. We learn more about the structure of vampire society, and about the Ancients, and meet the mysterious Mr. Quinlan. Many times a middle book in a trilogy loses momentum as it fills in the plot, but not “The Fall.” It continues to speed forward, simultaneously further developing both plot and characters. There were a couple plot points that changed – most confusingly, in “The Strain,” Abraham Setrakian says his wife, Miriam, has been dead for less than 20 years, but in this book he tells the story of her death somewhere in the vicinity of 40 years previously. I’m not sure if it was a case of forgetting what was said in the first book – bad planning – or just a case of Setrakian providing incorrect information previously for his own purposes, and it is never explained. Nonetheless, the series continues to enthrall me and should be well-received by lovers of horror, apocalyptic situations and vampires. Book 3, “The Night Eternal,” has just been released, and I will post a review soon. Stay tuned!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Awesome. Can't wait to read the final of the trilogy to see where it goes from here.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the Strain Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan showed us a world where myth and legend were so much more horrifying that we could ever imagine ending the book on a near cliff-hanger aftermath of the ultimate struggle between good and evil.And now we have the Fall which picks up right where the Strain left off only now that we've had most of the characters introduced and the lines drawn between good and evil the book kicks the action and fear up a notch. Humankind is not alone and only a few people truly understand what is happening. While they struggle against an evil that seems near unstoppable they also try to make the world understand what is truly happening. This is not a normal virus! No normal strain! This is The Fall! Born from the evil of a master vampire and the heroes must race against the clock to find a way to stop it.Without giving away anything I can only say if you loved the Strain then you'll doubly enjoy The Fall. This book has more action, more horror and more answers that only lead to more questions. In book one the Characters were introduced and the plot established so with book two the authors were free to really put the peddle to the metal. I found myself unable to put this book down and my only regret is that I didn't pick these books up until they'd all been written. How will I ever make it until October when the third one comes out? I don't know but when it does come out get your night lights ready and make sure you have plenty of batteries because you won't want to spend too much time in the dark.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Book 2 of the Strain Trilogy, a modern twist on the Vampire legend. combining vampirand End-of-the-World pandemic themes, with conspiracy theory thrown in to boot.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It's been a long time since I read the first book in this series and was sucked into this resurrecting of vampires as true villains. The charm of the first book had definitely faded by the end of this volume.
The action parts were great and would translate well to the silver screen but the drama and mystery parts are really getting convoluted and don't point towards a great finish. There's too many side elements going on. I would have preferred they pull the focus back a bit and shed more light on what was happening in other parts of the globe.
They probably could have condensed the trilogy down into two books.
One of the moments that pulled me right out of the book was the auction. The world is burning, the government virtually non-existent, anarchy reigning yet Sotheby's is still having an auction? BS
Overall I just feel that this book didn't really go anywhere. I'm not looking forward to the third book so much but I still do want to know the rest of the mystery. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rating: 3.5 of 5Explored further everything that captured my attention in the first book. A few surprises I didn't think the authors would pull. Anxious to read the conclusion; although, I'm bummed after Book Two's ending.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The second in The Strain Trilogy. The plot kept moving with action, and there was plenty of interesting storyline. A very interesting take on the vampire genre that has been dumbed down by the Twilight versions of vampiric lore.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The infection continues. The master's master plan is unveiled -- a nuclear winter that makes the world ideal for night-loving vampires. One of the most powerful men in the world is his tool. Palmer wants to live forever, and is promised as much if he does the master's bidding. Building nuclear power plants is among his tasks. We learn a little more about the nature of these vampires, the legacy of the ancient seven, and what motivates and, more importantly, kills them. The infection is not adequately contained, and soon spreads outside of New York City. This has international repercussions, and by the end of the book, less stable governments panic and start lobbing nukes at their enemies, furthering the master's nuclear winter scenario. Not all of our small band of vampire hunters from The Strain make it through this one okay. Former CDC Investigator Ephraim is determined to make an impact -- in the third book of this trilogy.These first two books are just okay. A killer wrap-up hopefully will make the whole thing worthwhile -- but so far, I'm not seeing it. I do enjoy long, epic stories, though, even if they aren't really that good as long as the writing is sound. Del Toro and Hogan have no problems in this regard.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5a strong follow up to the first book in the series, "the strain"
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I absolutely loved this second part of the trilogy. Often, the second book of three tends to be slow and a bit tedious, at least partway through, but no part of this was either of those things. A thrill ride from start to finish, with so many answers leading to so many more questions and so many things left to think about. I definitely wasn't expecting that ending and I'm certainly interested to see where The Night Eternal and the conclusion of the trilogy take this story. I can't wait to get my hands on it!
I have to say, though, that there are some things I just didn't think that I'd like which happened in this book and yet...I'm satisfied about them. For instance, I didn't think that I'd be able to be okay with Setrakian dying before the end of the trilogy, I didn't think I'd be okay with him dying before the Master bit it for good, and I didn't think I'd be okay with the Master choosing a new vessel and casting away Sardu's. But the way that the authors wrote it was completely satisfying and completely fitting. I'm glad that Setrakian got the ending that he did, and I'm glad that he was able to release Sardu at the same time. I'm glad that Sardu's soul was truly released and left the collective of souls that the Master keeps with him, because I've always felt bad for him. So many years. Finally, release. And I'm glad that it was Setrakian who was able to do that, with his last act of defiance, because for Setrakian it began with the Master in that body and I'm glad that for Setrakian and for the Master that body ended with the conclusion of Setrakian's life. I'm glad that Setrakian was able to die peacefully, as well. It just...seemed so perfectly fitting. Something that I had dreaded and had thought I would hate, actually became my favorite part of this second book and, perhaps, it will continue on to be my favorite part of the trilogy itself.
I also have to say that I'm glad that Setrakian was able to destroy Eichhorst, as well.
I was also unsure about Palmer dying before the end of the trilogy, as well. He was such a good adversary, such a good obstacle, but his time really had been played out and I like his ending. I think it was perhaps the best ending I could have wished for for that awful character.
I'm going to be on pins and needles until I can get hold of the last book and see what happens with the remaining characters and what becomes of the world. I definitely recommend this trilogy and this book for anyone who likes sci-fi and vampires, and misses when vampires were the evil thing that went bump in the night and it was okay to hunt them indiscriminately in fiction. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Fall by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan is the second in a vampire trilogy. These are not the sparkly romantic vampires that have recently been the fashion, but yet neither are they the compelling, gothic original vampires. This vampirism is caused by a virus spread by blood worms that are deposited in people by a long stinger that the vampire releases from its throat. These vampires are nasty, disease ridden horrors with very little of their humanity left, although they are obsessed with tracking and turning their “Dear Ones” into their kind. Most of the traditional vampire lore has been done away with, crosses don’t scare these guys, garlic doesn’t repel them and forget about that wooden stake. They are afraid of silver, and sunlight can damage them, so the best solution is to carry a silver weapon and, in order to avoid encounters do your business during daylight hours. The night belongs to them. Overall I find these books over long, overdone and over authored. I prefer my vampires to be the cerebral, dark and literary type. The shock value quickly wears off and then the book is vaguely nasty and gruesome, but there is not enough story to hold my interest. I will take a pass on the third volume.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Fall is the second installment in Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Strain trilogy. In The Strain an airplane full of dead passengers is found on the tarmac of JFK and shortly thereafter chaos ensues. Vampires... and not of the teen heartthrob nor sparkly variety. These are more animalistic in nature and have one goal in particular... total world domination.This book reads almost like a movie... it's actually detailed and vivid enough that you have a clear picture of exactly what is going on. Told in the same style as The Strain, you have various viewpoints and resulting vignettes. Sometimes these different points-of-view can be a little disorienting, but once you get the gist of the storytelling, you see how clever it all is as it comes together.Although I found The Strain to be more of a scientific thriller than a horror story... The Fall was definitely more horror. Very dark, action-packed and with the perfect mix of sci-fi and fantasy you'll find it to be quite the page-turner. While I personally enjoyed The Strain better than I did this second installment, I still would not pass up on the chance of reading this series in its entirety. Eternal Night the third in the trilogy is scheduled to release in late 2011 - I cannot wait!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In this second installement of the strain trilogy, the world is really coming to an end. Where in the first book a small group of people tried, with all their might, to prevent the spreading of a vampiric infection, the second book, show the rise of the vampire and the destruction of the world as we know it. Can't wait to see how this will conclude, because at the end, something good must come out of all this destruction.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Second book of the vampire trilogy and it's, again, really really good. I cannot wait for thelast book. I'm also happy to see Del Toro is having more of an input and not just in the vampiric expertise -- there are some awesome Mexican characters in this one.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Let me be up front here. This book would never have caught my eye if it weren't for other book bloggers and book lovers on Twitter. While I enjoy sci-fi and horror, I tend to be very picky and this book would have come across to me, if I had seen it on my own, as a fangirl type thing. Just not for me. So it would have been a great tragedy, as I have now become a huge fan of not only the book, but this amazing trilogy!Let's start with the fact that you have two amazing authors coming together on this trilogy. You have Guillermo Del Toro (also known for his award-winning filme Pan's Labyrinth) bringing his ability to weave reality into mythology into a stunning piece of art. And you have Chuck Hogan adding the mystique and suspense seen in his crime novels. The pair work flawlessly together, and I was immediately drawn in to the novel, even though I'd never even read the first book in the trilogy.Without the background of what had happened, I discovered a world thrown into chaos. Scary, nasty, primal vampires flood the country, changing the landscape of a once-beloved homeland into a nightmare. I was drawn into the depth of the characters in this novel, from the motherless child, to the ex-gang-banging leader of the anti-vampire crew, to the ever-vigilant vampire hunter Abraham Setrakian. They were all believable as people and drew me further into the story.So I must thank those book lovers I follow on Twitter, for if not for them I would never have heard of this fabulous book.I must also thank the publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book so I was able to read it before it hit the shelves.I urge any sci-fi or horror fan to give this book a try. Even if it doesn't seem like 'your thing'. I know I was stunned to find I loved it, and I'm sure you will love it too.Check out the page for the The Strain Trilogy too!5 out of 5 stars
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Strain was an outstanding book and when I found out about this one I just had to snag it up and read it! This series definately puts a little twist on the vampire genre and I greatly enjoyed reading it! Now the Strain is spreading like wildfire throughout the world and the survivors have learned what they need to do to survive. Yet, we follow a group and one man who has faced the Master once before. Now finding themselves in the middle of a war between new and old vamps. The Master wants all vamps to rise up and take over the world but there is one thing that will stop him and it's a book that once it's found it needs to be used for that purpose. Money, power, supernatural forces take you on the ride of your life in this book. Not only will it chill your blood but it's better than any roller coaster ride I've been on! These two authors take the vampire world from sexy to dark and scary which is what it really would be if they rised up against the human world. Nasty creatures they are, not sparkling and beautiful, But dirty and creepy! Just the way I like 'em!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A quick read - not as captivating as the first, but then again, it is the middle book.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I was really hoping this one would be better than the first - I was wrong. The plot just doesn't seem to flow smoothly and the writing is a bit choppy. I am unsure if I will attempt the third and final book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Barely a three star rating. I am not even sure I care how this thing ends now.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An amazing follow up to "The Strain"! Hogan and del Toro are a winning writing couple and have re-invented the vampire genre, bringing back the horror.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"The sunset of humankind is the dawn of the blood harvest."Authors Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan take the world and their apocalyptic vampire saga to a darker place in the second of their "Strain" trilogy, "The Fall". This second volume is short at less than 300 pages and makes for a satisfying companion when read back-to-back with their first in the series, "The Strain". At the end of "The Strain", our primary players, pawnbroker/professor/vampire-hunter Abraham Setrakian and CDC disease specialist Ephraim Goodweather were left having just injured, but not killed, the Dark Master. Eph's ex-wife had just been turned, and made it clear that she was taking the custody battle over their son Zack to a whole new level."The Fall" propels the trilogy's story at a break neck pace. I couldn't help but feel that this middle frame in the series was carved out as a bridge from the creation of the characters, plot and modern vampire myths of the first book, to the world-shaking catalytic conclusion that I assume (and have read) will take place in the final book. Like the first book, "The Fall" is very dark and weighty. All plot elements and characters are taken with a heavy seriousness – sometimes melodramatic, but contextually appropriate to the story and its themes. The authors write very descriptively, and one can sense the imagery brought to the novel through del Toro's filmmaker's eye.del Toro and Hogan bring a mix of fictional elements to their story. "The Fall" delves deeper into the historic world-wide power struggle and existence of The Ancients - the world's original Vampires. Not all vampires are alike, and while they don't actually appear in many scenes themselves, one feels the pall of their shadow throughout Setrakian's search for a solution to save humanity. Some scenes play out like the slickest wire-fighting battles from The Matrix. Other scenes play out like the bloodiest of zombie-killing video games.As 'literature', this book really rates 3-stars, but I love how Hogan and del Toro build their fictional world, and develop their vampire history and myth. As a story this rates 4-stars, and the myth-building of the first two novels, promises a dramatic finish. I can’t wait to dig into the recently released conclusion.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A stunning continuation of Guillermo del Toro's The Strain. If you read The Strain right when it came out everything will come rushing back at you...no re-read required. We've come so far and still have so far to go!Will the Master win out? What will become of Earth and mankind? How will Eph keep Zach safe from his vampire mother?
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fall is just as complex as The Strain was. If you enjoyed it, then by all means, devour this one. Be warned, a little review of The Strain will come in handy. Also, its a slow start, but quickly picks up and leaves you turning pages. All in all, The Fall is a strong follow up and a great read
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Compared to the first book in the series i was slightly disappointed. Maybe the books title should have been The Chase rather then the fall. The ending sets up for a great third book with more action I hope. Still hooked and eagerly anticipating the third and final installment.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Better than the first in many ways.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Since I've been a fan from the first book, and now, the television show, I have had a blast with both versions of this story. For fans of the show, the books have many differences that make them worth reading as well, and they are major differences. This was so good I am going to go ahead and read book three also.
Book preview
The Fall - Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
The Fall
Book II of The Strain Trilogy
This one is for Lorenza, with all my love.
—GDT
For my four favorite creatures.
—CH
Contents
Extract from the diary of Ephraim Goodweather
Gray Skies
Knickerbocker Loans and Curios, East 118th Street, Spanish Harlem
Interlude I
Fall 1944
Cold Wind Blowing
Knickerbocker Loans and Curios, East 118th Street, Spanish Harlem
Interlude II
Occido Lumen: The Story of the Book
The Master—Part II
Fallen Leaves
The Sewer
Interlude III
Setrakian’s Heart
The Flatlands
Rainfall
Epilogue
Extract from the diary of Ephraim Goodweather
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Other Books by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Extract from the diary of Ephraim Goodweather
Friday, November 26
It took the world just sixty days to end. And we were there to account for it—our omissions, our arrogance…
By the time the crisis went to Congress, and was analyzed, legislated, and ultimately vetoed, we had already lost. The night belonged to them.
Leaving us longing for daylight when it was ours no more…
All this mere days after our uncontestable video evidence
reached the world—its truth drowned in thousands of smirking rebuttals and parodies that YouTube’d us beyond all hope.
It became a Late Night pun, smart-asses that we were, hardy-har-har—until dusk fell upon us and we turned to face an immense, uncaring void.
The first stage of public response to any epidemic is always Denial.
The second, Search For Blame.
All the usual scarecrows were trotted out as distractions: economic woes, social unrest, the racial scapegoating, terrorist threats.
But in the end, it was just us. All of us. We allowed it to happen because we never believed it could happen. We were too smart. Too advanced. Too strong.
And now the darkness is complete.
There are no longer any givens, any absolutes—no root to our existence. The basic tenets of human biology have been rewritten, not in DNA code but in blood and in virus.
Parasites and demons are everywhere. Our future is no longer the natural organic decay of death but a complex and diabolical transmutation. An infestation. A becoming.
They have taken from us our neighbors, our friends, our families. They wear their faces now, the faces of our familiars, our Dear Ones.
We have been turned out of our homes. Cast out of our own kingdom, we roam the outlands in search of a miracle. We survivors are bloodied, we are broken, we are defeated.
But we are not turned. We are not Them.
Not yet.
This is not intended as a record or a chronicle, but as a lamentation, the poetry of fossils, a reminiscence of the end of the era of civilization.
The dinosaurs left behind almost no trace of themselves. A few bones preserved in amber, the contents of their stomachs, their waste.
I only hope that we may leave behind something more than they did.
GRAY SKIES
Knickerbocker Loans and Curios, East 118th Street, Spanish Harlem
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4
MIRRORS ARE THE BEARERS of bad news, thought Abraham Setrakian, standing under the greenish fluorescent wall lamp, staring into his bathroom mirror. An old man looking into older glass. The edges were blackened with age, a corruption creeping ever closer to the center. To his reflection. To him.
You will die soon.
The silver-backed looking glass showed him that much. Many times he had been close to death, or worse; but this was different. In his image he saw this inevitability. And still, somehow, Setrakian found comfort in the truth of the old mirrors. They were honest and pure. This one was a magnificent piece, turn-of-the-century, quite heavy, strung from the wall by corded wire, hanging off the old tile at a downward angle. There were, hung from walls and standing on the floors and leaning against bookshelves, some eighty silver-backed mirrors arranged throughout his living quarters. He collected them compulsively. As people who have walked through a desert know the value of water, so Setrakian found it impossible to pass up the acquisition of a silver looking-glass—especially a smaller, portable one.
But, more than that, he relied upon their most ancient quality.
Contrary to popular myth, vampires certainly do have reflections. In mass-produced, modern mirrors, they appear no different than they do to the eye. But in silver-backed glass, their reflections are distorted. Some physical property of the silver projects these virus-laden atrocities with visual interference—like a warning. Much like the looking glass in the Snow White story, a silver-backed mirror cannot tell a lie.
And so, Setrakian looked at his face in the mirror—between the thick porcelain sink and the counter that held his powders and salves, the rubs for his arthritis, the heated liniment to soothe the pain in his gnarled joints—and studied it.
Here he confronted his fading strength. The acknowledgment that his body was just that: a body. Aged and weakening. Decaying. To the point where he was unsure if he would survive the corporeal trauma of a turning. Not all victims do survive it.
His face. Its deep lines like a fingerprint—the thumb of time stamped firmly onto his visage. He had aged twenty additional years overnight. His eyes appeared small and dry, yellowed like ivory. His pallor was off, and his hair lay against his scalp like fine silver grass matted down by a recent storm.
Pic—pic—pic…
He heard death calling. He heard the cane. His heart.
He looked at his twisted hands, molded by sheer will to fit and hold the handle of that silver cane sword—but able to do little else with any dexterity.
The battle with the Master had weakened him greatly. The Master was stronger even than Setrakian had remembered or presumed. He had yet to process his theories spawned by the Master’s survival in direct sunlight—sunlight that weakened and marked him, but did not obliterate him. The virus-smashing ultraviolet rays should have cut through him like the power of ten thousand silver swords—and yet the terrible creature had withstood it and escaped.
What is life, in the end, but a series of small victories and larger failures? But what else was there to do? Give up?
Setrakian never gave up.
Second-guessing was all he had at the moment. If only he had done this instead of that. If he could have somehow dynamited the building once he knew that the Master was inside. If Eph had allowed him to expire rather than saving him at that last critical moment…
His heart was racing again, just thinking of lost opportunities. Fluttering and skipping beats. Lurching. Like an impatient child inside him, wanting to run and run.
Pic—pic—pic…
A low hum purred above the heartbeat.
Setrakian knew it well: this was the prelude to oblivion, to waking up inside an emergency room, if there were any still operating…
With a stiff finger, he fished a white pill out of his box. Nitroglycerin prevented angina by relaxing the vessels carrying blood to his heart, allowing them to dilate, increasing flow and oxygen supply. A sublingual tablet, he placed it underneath his dry tongue, to dissolve.
There was immediately a sweet, tingling sensation. In a few minutes, the murmur in his heart would subside.
The fast-acting nitro pill reassured him. All this second-guessing, this recrimination and mourning: it was a waste of brain activity.
Here he was now. His adopted Manhattan called to him, crumbling from within.
One week now since the 777 had touched down at JFK. One week since the arrival of the Master and the start of the outbreak. Setrakian had foreseen it from the first news report, as surely as one intuits the death of a loved one when the phone rings at an odd hour. News of the dead plane gripped the city. Just minutes after landing safely, the plane had shut down completely, sitting dark on the taxiway. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention boarded the plane in contact suits and found all passengers and crew dead, but for four survivors.
These survivors were not well at all, their disease syndrome only augmented by the Master. Hidden inside his coffin within the cargo hold of the airplane, the Master had been delivered across the ocean thanks to the wealth and influence of Eldritch Palmer: a dying man who had chosen not to die but instead to trade human control of the planet for a taste of eternity. After a day’s incubation, the virus activated in the dead passengers and they arose from their morgue tables and carried the vampiric plague into the city streets.
The full extent of the plague was known to Setrakian, but the rest of the world resisted the horrible truth. Since then, another airplane had shut down soon after landing at London’s Heathrow Airport, stopping dead on the taxiway to the gate. At Orly Airport, an Air France jet arrived stillborn. At Narita International Airport in Tokyo. At Franz Joseph Strauss in Munich. At the famously secure Ben Gurion International in Tel Aviv, where counterterrorist commandos stormed the darkened airliner on the tarmac to find all 126 passengers dead or unresponsive. And yet no alerts were issued to search the cargo areas, or to destroy the airplanes outright. It was happening too fast, and disinformation and disbelief ruled the day.
And on it went. In Madrid. Beijing. Warsaw. Moscow. Brasília. Auckland. Oslo. Sofia. Stockholm. Reykjavik. Jakarta. New Delhi. Certain more militant and paranoid territories had correctly initiated immediate airport quarantines, cordoning off the dead jets with military force, and yet…Setrakian couldn’t help but suspect that these landings were as much a tactical distraction as an attempt at infection. Only time would tell if he was correct—though, in truth, there was precious little time.
By now, the original strigoi—the first generation of vampires, the Regis Air victims, and their Dear Ones—had begun their second wave of maturation. They were becoming more accustomed to their environment and new bodies. Learning to adapt, to survive—to thrive. They attacked at nightfall, the news reported rioting
in large sectors of the city, and this was partially true—looting and vandalism ran rampant in broad daylight—but no one pointed out that activity spiked at night.
Because of these disruptions occurring nationwide, the country’s infrastructure was beginning to crumble. Food delivery lines were broken, distribution delayed. As absences increased, available manpower suffered and electrical outages and brownouts went unserviced. Police and fire response times were down, and incidences of vigilantism and arson up.
Fires burned. Looters prevailed.
Setrakian stared into his face, wishing he could once again glimpse the younger man within. Perhaps even the boy. He thought of young Zachary Goodweather, just down the hall in the spare bedroom. And, somehow, the old man at the end of his life felt sorry for the boy—eleven years old but already at the end of childhood. Tumbling from grace, stalked by an undead thing occupying the body of his mother…
Setrakian stepped out to the dressing area of his bedroom, finding his way to a chair. He sat with one hand covering his face, waiting for the disorienting sensation to pass.
Great tragedy leads to feelings of isolation, which sought to envelop him now. He mourned his long-lost wife, Miriam. Memories of her face had been crowded out of his mind by the few photographs in his possession, which he referred to often and which had the effect of freezing her image in time without ever truly capturing her being. She had been the love of his life. He was a lucky man; it was a struggle sometimes to remember this. He had courted and married a beautiful woman. He had seen beauty and he had seen evil. He had witnessed the best and the worst of the previous century, and he had survived it all. Now he was witnessing the end.
He thought of Ephraim’s ex-wife, Kelly, whom Setrakian had met once in life and once again in death. He understood the man’s pain. He understood the pain of this world.
Outside, he heard another automobile crash. Gunshots in the distance, alarms ringing insistently—cars, buildings—all going unanswered. The screams that split the night were the last cries of humanity. Looters were taking not only goods and property—they were looting souls. Not taking possessions—but taking possession.
He let his hand fall, landing upon a catalog on the small side table. A Sotheby’s catalog. The auction was to be held in just a few days. This was not a coincidence. None of it was coincidence: not the recent occultation, not the conflict overseas, not the economic recession. Like orderly dominoes we fall.
He lifted the auction catalog and searched for a particular page. In it, without any accompanying illustration, was listed an ancient volume:
Occido Lumen (1667)—A compleat account of the first rise of the Strigoi and full confutation of all arguments produced against their existence, translated by the late Rabbi Avigdor Levy. Private collection. Illuminated manuscript, original binding. In view upon appointment. Estimated $15–$25M
This very book—not a facsimile, not a photograph—was crucial to understanding the enemy, the strigoi. And vanquishing it.
The book was based on a collection of ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets first discovered in jars inside a cave in the Zagros Mountains in 1508. Written in Sumerian and extremely fragile, the tablets were traded to a wealthy silk merchant, who traveled with them throughout Europe. The merchant was found strangled in his quarters in Florence and his warehouses set on fire. The tablets, however, survived in the possession of two necromancers, the famous John Dee and a more obscure acolyte known to history as John Silence. Dee was Queen Elizabeth I’s consultant, and, unable to decipher them, kept the tablets as a magical artifact until 1608 when, forced by poverty, he sold them—through his daughter Katherine—to the learned Rabbi Avigdor Levy in the old ghetto of Metz, in Lorraine, France. For decades, the rabbi meticulously deciphered the tablets, utilizing his unique abilities—it would be almost three centuries before others could finally be able to decipher similar tablets—and eventually presented his findings in manuscript form as a gift for King Louis XIV.
Upon receipt of the text, the king ordered the elderly rabbi’s imprisonment and the destruction of the tablets, as well as of the rabbi’s entire library of texts and devotional artifacts. The tablets were pulverized, and the manuscript languished in a vault alongside many forbidden treasures. Secretly, Mme de Montespan, the king’s mistress and an avid dabbler in the occult, orchestrated the retrieval of the manuscript in 1671. It remained in the hands of La Voisin, a midwife who was de Montespan’s sorceress and confidante, until her exile following her implication in the hysteria surrounding the Affaire des Poisons.
The book subsequently resurfaced briefly in 1823, appearing in the possession of the notorious London reprobate and scholar William Beckford. It appeared listed as part of the library in Fonthill Abbey, Beckford’s palace of excess, where he accumulated natural and unnatural curiosities, forbidden books, and shocking objets d’art. The Gothic Revival construction and its contents were sold to an arms dealer in order to satisfy a debt, and the book remained lost for nearly a century. It was listed erroneously, or perhaps surreptitiously, under the title Casus Lumen as part of a 1911 auction in Marseille, but the text was never produced for display and the auction summarily canceled after a mysterious outbreak gripped the city. In the ensuing years, the manuscript was widely believed to have been destroyed. Now it was at hand, right here, in New York.
But $15 million? $25 million? Impossible to get. There had to be some other way…
His greatest fear, which he dared share with no one, was that the battle, begun so long ago, was already lost. That this was all an endgame, that humanity’s king was already in check, yet stubbornly playing out its few remaining moves upon the global chessboard.
Setrakian closed his eyes against a humming in his ears. But the humming persisted—in fact, grew stronger.
The pill had never had this effect on him before.
Once he realized this, Setrakian stiffened and rose to his feet.
It was not the pill at all. The hum was all around him. Lowgrade, but there.
They were not alone.
The boy, thought Setrakian. With great effort, he pushed himself up and out of the chair, starting for Zack’s room.
Pic—pic—pic…
The mother was coming for her boy.
Zack Goodweather sat cross-legged in the corner of the roof of the pawnshop building. His dad’s computer was open in his lap. This was the only spot in the entire building where he could get connected to the Internet, trespassing on the unsecured home network of a neighbor somewhere on the block. The wireless signal was weak, varying between one and two bars, slowing his Internet search to a crawl.
Zack had been forbidden to use his dad’s computer. In fact, he was supposed to be asleep right now. The eleven-year-old had enough difficulty sleeping on normal nights, a decent case of insomnia he’d been hiding from his parents for some time.
Insomni-Zack! The first superhero he ever created. An eight-page color comic written, illustrated, lettered, and inked by Zachary Goodweather. About a teen who patrolled the streets of New York by night, foiling terrorists and polluters. And terrorist polluters. He never could get the blanket cape folds to come out right, but he was passable with faces, and okay with musculature.
This city needed an Insomni-Zack now. Sleep was a luxury. A luxury no one could afford—if everyone knew what he knew.
If everyone had seen what he had seen.
Zack was supposed to be sacked out in a goose-down sleeping bag inside a spare bedroom on the third floor. The room smelled like a closet, like an old cedar room in his grandparents’ house—one that no one opened anymore except for kids who liked to snoop. The small, oddly angled room had been used by Mr. Setrakian (or Professor Setrakian—Zack still wasn’t clear on that part, seeing how the old man ran the first-floor pawnshop) for storage. Tilting stacks of books, many old mirrors, a wardrobe of old clothes, and some locked trunks—really locked, not the fake kind of lock that can be picked with a paper clip and a ballpoint pen (Zack had already tried).
The exterminator, Fet—or V, as he had told Zack to call him—had hooked up an ancient, cartridge-fed, 8-bit Nintendo system to a pawned Sanyo television set with big knobs and dials on the front instead of buttons, all brought up from the showroom downstairs. They expected him to stay put and play The Legend of Zelda. But the bedroom door had no lock. His dad and Fet had mounted iron bars onto the wall over the window—mounted them on the inside, rather than the outside, bolted to the wall beams—a cage that Mr. Setrakian said was left over from the 1970s.
They weren’t trying to lock him in, Zack knew. They were trying to lock her out.
He searched for his dad’s professional page at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and got a Page Not Found.
So they had already scrubbed him from the government Web site. News hits for Dr. Ephraim Goodweather
claimed he was a discredited CDC official who fabricated a video purporting to show a human-turned-vampire being destroyed. It said that he had uploaded it (actually, Zack uploaded the video for him, one that his dad wouldn’t let him view) onto the Internet in an attempt to exploit the eclipse hysteria for his own purposes. Obviously, that last part was BS. What purposes
did his dad have other than trying to save lives? One news site described Goodweather as an admitted alcoholic involved in a contentious custody battle, who is now believed to be on the run with his kidnapped son.
That left Zack with a lump of ice in his chest. The same article went on to say that both Goodweather’s ex-wife and her boyfriend were currently missing and presumed dead.
Everything made Zack feel nauseous these days, but the dishonesty of this article was especially toxic to him. All wrong, every last word. Did they really not know the truth? Or…did they not care? Maybe they were trying to exploit his parents’ trouble for their own purposes?
And the talkback? The comments were even worse. He could not deal with the things they were saying about his dad, the righteous arrogance of all these anonymous posters. He had to deal right now with the awful truth about his mom—and the banality of the venom spewed in blogs and forums missed the point completely.
How do you mourn someone who isn’t really gone? How do you fear someone whose desire for you is eternal?
If the world knew the truth the way Zack knew the truth, then his dad’s reputation would be restored, and his voice heard—but still nothing else would change. His mom, his life, would never be the same.
So, mostly, Zack wanted it all to pass. He wanted something fantastic to happen to make everything right and normal again. As when he was a child—like five or something, he broke a mirror and just covered it with a sheet, then prayed with all his might for its restoration before his parents found out. Or the way he used to wish his parents would fall back in love again. That they would wake up one day and realize what a mistake they had made.
Now he secretly hoped that his dad could do something incredible. Despite everything, Zack still assumed that there was some happy ending awaiting them. Awaiting all of them. Maybe even something to bring Mom back to the way she was.
He felt tears coming, and this time he didn’t fight them. He was up on the roof; he was alone. He wanted so badly to see his mother again. The thought terrified him—and yet he yearned for her to come. To look into her eyes. To hear her voice. He wished for her to explain this to him the way she did every troubling thing. Everything is going to be just fine…
A scream somewhere deep in the night brought him back to the present. He peered uptown, seeing flames on the west side, a column of dark smoke. He looked up. No stars tonight. And only a few airplanes. He had heard fighter jets zooming overhead that after noon.
Zack rubbed his face in the crook of his elbow sleeve and turned back to the computer. With some quick desktop searching, Zack discovered the folder containing the video file he was not supposed to view. He opened it and heard Dad’s voice, and realized Dad was operating the camera. Zack’s camera, the one his dad had borrowed.
The subject was hard to see at first, something in the dark inside a shed. A thing leaning forward on its haunches. A guttural growl and a back-of-the-throat hiss. The slinking noise of a chain. The camera zoomed in closer, the dark pixilation improving, and Zack saw its open mouth. A mouth that opened wider than it should, with something resembling a thin silver fish flopping inside.
The shed-thing’s eyes were wide and glaring. He mistook their expression for one of sadness at first, and hurt. A collar—apparently, a dog collar—restrained it at the neck, chained to the dirt floor behind it. The creature looked pale inside the dark shed, so bloodless it was nearly glowing. Then came a strange pumping sound—snap-chunk, snap-chunk, snap-chunk—and three silver nails, propelled from behind the camera (from Dad?) struck the shed-thing like needle-bullets. The camera view jerked up as the thing roared hoarsely, a sick animal consumed with pain.
Enough,
said a voice on the clip. The voice belonged to Mr. Setrakian, but it was not a tone like anything Zack had ever heard out of the kindly, old pawnbroker’s mouth. "Let us remain merciful."
Then the old man stepped into view, intoning some words in a foreign, ancient-sounding language—almost like summoning a power or declaring a curse. He raised a silver sword—long and bright with moonlight—and the shed-thing howled as Mr. Setrakian swung the sword with great force…
Voices pulled Zack out of the video. Voices from the street below. He shut the laptop and stood, staying back, peering over the raised edge of the roof down to 118th Street.
A group of five men walked up the block toward the pawnshop, trailed by a slow-moving SUV. They carried weapons—guns—and were pounding on every door. The SUV stopped before the intersection, right outside the front of the pawnshop. The men on foot approached the building, rattling the security gates. Calling, Open up!
Zack backed away. He turned to go to the roof door, figuring he’d better get back to his room in case anyone came looking.
Then he saw her. A girl, a teenager, high school probably. Standing on the next roof over, across an empty lot around the corner from the shop entrance. The breeze lifted her long nightshirt, ruffling it around her knees, but did not move her hair, which hung straight and heavy.
She stood on the raised edge of the roof. The very edge, balanced perfectly, no wavering in her posture. Poised at the brink, as though wanting to try to make the jump. The impossible leap. Wanting to and knowing she would fail.
Zack stared. He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure. But he suspected.
He raised a hand anyway. He waved to her.
She stared back at him.
Dr. Nora Martinez, late of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, unlocked the front door. Five men in combat gear with armored vests and assault weapons stared her down through the security grate. Two of them wore kerchiefs, covering their lower faces.
Everything all right in there, ma’am?
one of them asked.
Yes,
said Nora, looking for badges or any kind of insignia and seeing none. So long as this grate holds up, everything is fine.
We’re going door-to-door,
said another. Clearing blocks. Some trouble down that way
—he pointed toward 117th Street—but we think the worst of it is moving downtown from this direction.
Meaning Harlem.
And you are…?
Concerned citizens, ma’am. You don’t want to be in here all alone.
She’s not,
said Vasiliy Fet, the New York City Bureau of Pest Control Services worker and independent exterminator, appearing behind her.
The men sized up the big man. You the pawnbroker?
My father,
said Fet. What sort of trouble are you seeing?
Trying to get a handle on these freaks rioting in the city. Agitators and opportunists. Taking advantage of a bad situation, making it worse.
You sound like cops,
said Fet.
If you’re thinking about leaving town,
said another one, avoiding the topic, you should go now. Bridges are stacked up, tunnels jammed. Place is going to shit.
Another said, You should think about getting out here and helping us. Do something about this.
Fet said, I’ll think about it.
Let’s go!
called the driver of the SUV idling in the street.
Good luck,
said one of the men, with a scowl. You’ll need it.
Nora watched them go, then locked the door. She stepped back into the shadows. They’re gone,
she said.
Ephraim Goodweather, who had been watching from the side, emerged. Fools,
he said.
Cops,
said Fet, watching them round the street corner.
How do you know?
asked Nora.
You can always tell.
Good thing you stayed out of sight,
Nora said to Eph.
Eph nodded. Why no badges?
Fet said, Probably got off shift and huddled up at happy hour, decided this wasn’t how they were going to let their city go out. Wives all packed up for Jersey, they’ve got nothing to do now but bang some heads. Cops feel they run the place. And they’re not half wrong. Street-gang mentality. It’s their turf and they’ll fight for it.
When you think about it,
said Eph, they’re really not that much different than us right now.
Nora said, Except that they’re carrying lead when they should be wielding silver.
She slipped her hand into Eph’s. I wish we could have warned them.
Trying to warn people is how I got to be a fugitive in the first place,
said Eph.
Eph and Nora were the first to board the dead plane after SWAT team members discovered the apparently dead passengers. The realization that the bodies weren’t decomposing naturally, coupled with the disappearance of the coffin-like cabinet during the solar occultation, had helped convince Eph that they were facing an epidemiological crisis which could not be explained by normal medical and scientific means. The grudging realization opened him up to the revelations of the pawnbroker, Setrakian, and the terrible truth behind the plague. His desperation to warn the world of the true nature of the disease—the vampiric virus moving insidiously through the city and out into the boroughs—led to a break with the CDC, which then tried to silence him with a trumped-up charge of murder. He had been a fugitive ever since.
He looked to Fet. Car packed?
Ready to go.
Eph squeezed Nora’s hand. She did not want to let him go.
Setrakian’s voice came down the spiral stairs in back of the showroom. Vasiliy? Ephraim! Nora!
Down here, professor,
replied Nora.
Someone approaches,
he said.
No, we just got rid of them. Vigilantes. Well-armed ones.
I don’t mean someone human,
said Setrakian. "And I cannot