Zack stared at his father before him. He did not lower his blade.
Eph lowered his. He wanted Zack to take a chop at him. It would have made what he had to do that much easier.
The boy trembled. Maybe he was fighting himself inside, resisting what the Master was telling him to do.
Eph reached for his wrists and pulled Setrakian’s sword out of his hands. “Okay,” said Eph. “It’s okay.”
Mr. Quinlan overpowered the Master. Eph could not hear what their minds were saying to one another; he only knew that the roar in his own head was deafening. Mr. Quinlan grabbed the neck of the Master and sank his fingers into it, piercing its flesh, trying to shatter it.
Father.
And then the Master shot out its stinger—and like a piston, it embedded itself in the Born’s neck. Such was its force that it shattered the vertebrae. Blood worms invaded Mr. Quinlan’s immaculate body, coursing under his pale skin for the very first—and very last—time.
Eph saw the lights and heard the helicopter rotors approaching the island. They had found them. The spotlights searched the blighted land. It was now or never.
Eph ran as fast as his punctured lungs would allow, the barrel-shaped device shaking in his view. He was just a few yards out when a howl came up and a blow caught him on the back of the head.
Both swords slipped from his hands. Eph felt something gripping the side of his chest, the pain excruciating. He clawed at the soft dirt, seeing Setrakian’s sword blade glowing silver-white. He’d just grasped the wolf’s-head handle when the Master hoisted him into the air, spinning him.
The Master’s arms, face, and neck were cut and bleeding white. The creature could of course heal itself but had had no chance to yet. Eph slashed at the Master’s neck with the old man’s silver, but the creature caught Eph’s sword arm, stopping the blow. The pain in Eph’s chest was too great, and the Master’s strength was tremendous. It forced Eph’s hand back, pointing Setrakian’s sword at Eph’s own throat.
A helicopter spotlight hit them. In the haze, Eph looked down into the Master’s glowing, scratched-open face. He saw the blood worms rippling beneath its skin, invigorated by the nearness of human blood and the anticipation of the kill. The thrumming roared in Eph’s head, achieving a voice, its tenor rising to almost a nearly angelic level.
I have a new body ready and waiting. The next time anyone looks at your son’s face—they will be looking at me.
The worms bubbled beneath the flesh of its face, as though in ecstasy.
Good-bye, Goodweather.
But Eph eased his resistance against the Master’s grip just before the Master could finish him off. Eph pricked his own throat, opening a vein. He saw his own red blood spurt out, spraying right into the Master’s face—making the blood worms crazy.
They sprang from the Master’s open wounds. They crawled up from the slices in its arms and the hole in its chest, trying to get at the blood.
The Master groaned and shook, hurling Eph away as it brought its own hands to its face.
Eph landed hard. He twisted, needing all his strength to turn back.
Within the column of helicopter light, the Master stumbled backward, trying to stop its own parasitic worms from feasting on the human blood coating its face, obstructing its vision.
Eph watched all of this through a daze, everything slowed down. Then a thump in the ground at his side brought him back to speed.
The snipers. Another spotlight lit him up, red laser sights dancing on his chest and head … and the nuke, just a few feet away.
Eph dragged himself through the dirt, scratching toward the device as rounds pelted the ground around him. He reached it, pulling himself up on it in order to reach the detonator.
He got it in his hand and found the button, then risked one look back at Zack.
The boy stood near where the Born lay. A few of the blood parasites had reached him, and Eph saw Zack struggling to brush them off … then watched as they burrowed in under his forearm and neck.
Mr. Quinlan’s body arose, a new look in his eyes—a new will. That of the Master, who understood the dark side of human nature completely, but not love.
“This is love,” said Eph. “God, it hurts—but this is love …”
And he, who had been late to most everything in his life, was on time for this, the most important appointment he ever had. He pushed the switch.
And nothing happened. For one agonizing moment, the island was an oasis of stillness to Eph, though the helicopters were hovering overhead.
Eph saw Mr. Quinlan coming at him, one final lunge of the Master’s will.