“You don’t need to know anything. Just name your price.”
“Military-grade detonator?” said Creem. “There’s a place in northern Jersey I got my eye on. Military installation. I’m not saying much more than that right now. But you gotta come clean.”
Gus looked at Nora, not for her okay but to frown at being put in this position. “Pretty simple,” he said. “It?
??s a nuke.”
Creem smiled wide. “Where’d you get it?”
“Corner store. Book of coupons.”
Creem checked on Nora. “How big?”
“Big enough to do a half-mile of destruction. Shock wave, bent steel—you name it.”
Creem was enjoying this. “But you wound up with the floor model. Sold as-is.”
“Yes. We need a detonator.”
“’Cause I don’t know how stupid you think I am, but I am not in the habit of arming my next-door neighbor with a live nuclear bomb without laying down some fucking ground rules.”
“Really,” said Gus. “Such as?”
“Just that I don’t want you fucking up my prize.”
“What’s that?”
“I do for you, you do for me. So first, I need assurances that this thing is going off at least a few miles away from me. Not in Jersey or Manhattan, bottom line.”
“You’ll be warned beforehand.”
“Not good enough. ’Cause I think I know what the hell you’re looking to use this bad boy on. Only one thing worth blowing up in this world. And when the Master goes, that’s gonna free up some serious real estate. Which is my price.”
“Real estate?” said Gus.
“This city. I own Manhattan outright, after all is said and done. Take it or leave it, Mex.”
Gus shook hands with Creem. “Can I interest you in a bridge?”
New York Public Library Main Branch
ANOTHER ROTATION OF Earth, and they were back together again, the five humans, Fet, Nora, Gus, Joaquin, and Eph, with Mr. Quinlan having traveled ahead under cover of darkness. They came out of Grand Central Station and followed Forty-second Street to Fifth Avenue. There was no rain but an exceptional wind, strong enough to dislodge trash accumulated in doorways. Fast food wrappers, plastic bags, and other pieces of legacy refuse blew down the street like spirits dancing through a graveyard.
They walked up the front steps of the main branch of the New York Public Library, between the twin stone lions, Patience and Fortitude. The beaux arts landmark stood like a great mausoleum. They moved through the portico into the entrance, crossing Astor Hall. The massive reading room had suffered only minor damage: looters, in the brief period of anarchy after the Fall, didn’t care much for books. One of the grand chandeliers had come down onto a reading table below, but the ceiling was so high that it may have just been a random structural failing. Some books remained on the tables, some backpacks and their picked-over contents strewn about the tile floor. Chairs were overturned, and a few of the lamp heads were broken off. The silent emptiness of the immense, public room was chilling.
The arched windows high on either side admitted as much light as was available. The ammoniac smell of vampire waste, so omnipresent Eph barely noticed it anymore, registered with him here. It said something that the accumulated knowledge and art of a civilization could be shat upon so carelessly by a marauding force of nature.
“We have to go down?” asked Gus. “What about one of these books here?” The shelves on either side, on two levels along walls running the length of the room below and above the railed walkways, were filled with colored spines.
Fet said, “We need an ornate, old book to double for the Lumen. We gotta sell this thing, remember. I’ve been in here numerous times. Rats and mice are drawn to decaying paper. The ancient texts they keep down below.”
They took to the stairs, turning on flashlights and readying night-vision devices. The main branch had been constructed on the site of the Croton Reservoir, a man-made lake that provided water for the island, made obsolete by the beginning of the twentieth century. There were seven full floors beneath street level, and a recent renovation beneath the adjacent Bryant Park on the rear, west side of the library had added more miles of book stacks.
Fet led the way into the darkness. The figure awaiting them on the landing at the third floor was Mr. Quinlan. Gus’s flashlight briefly illuminated the Born’s face, an almost phosphorescent white, his eyes like red baubles. He and Gus had an exchange.
Gus drew his sword. “Bloodsuckers in the stacks,” he said. “We got some clearing to do.”
Nora said, “If they pick up on Eph, they’ll bounce it to the Master, and we’ll be trapped underground.”