Fet forced the locks and laid the other ancient texts out in front of him. He focused on one book: a Gutenberg Bible. It had the most potential as a fake. Silvering the page edges would not be difficult, and he could lightly paste in some illuminated pages from the other tomes. Defacing literary treasures was a small price to pay for overthrowing the Master and his clan.
“This,” said Fet. “The Gutenberg Bible. There were fewer than fifty in existence … Now? This may be the last one.” He examined it further, turning it around. “This is an incomplete copy, printed on paper, not vellum, and the binding is not original.”
Nora looked at him. “You’ve learned a lot about ancient texts.”
Involuntarily, Fet blushed at the compliment. He turned around and reached for an information card in a hard plastic sleeve and showed her he had been reading this information. She slapped him lightly on the arm.
“I’m taking it with us now, along with a handful of others to dummy up.”
Fet pulled down a few other illuminated texts, stacking them gently into a backpack.
“Wait!” Nora said. “You’re bleeding …”
It was true. Fet was bleeding profusely. Nora opened up his shirt and popped open a small bottle of peroxide taken from the kit.
She poured it on the bloodstained fabric. The blood bubbled up and fizzed upon contact. That would destroy the scent for the strigoi.
“You must rest,” Nora said. “I order it as your physician.”
“Oh, my physic
ian,” said Fet. “Is that what you are?”
“I am,” said Nora with a smile. “I need to get you some antibiotics. Eph and I can find them. You go back with Quinlan …”
Delicately, she cleaned Fet’s wound and poured peroxide on it again. The liquid ran down the hairs on his massive chest. “You want to make me a blond, eh?” Vasiliy joked. And as terrible as his joke was, Nora laughed at it, rewarding the intent.
Vasiliy pulled off her cap. “Hey, give me that!” she said, and fought Vasiliy’s good arm for possession of the cap. Vasiliy gave her the cap but trapped her in an embrace.
“You’re still bleeding.”
He ran his hand over her bare scalp. “I’m so glad I have you back …”
And then, for the first time, Fet told her, in his own way, how he felt about her. “I don’t know where I’d be right now without you.”
In other circumstances, the burly exterminator’s confession would have been ambiguous and insufficient. Nora would have waited for a bit more. But now—here and now—this was enough. She kissed him softly on the lips and felt his massive arms surround her back, engulfing her, pulling her to his chest. And they both felt fear evaporate and time freeze. They were there, now. In fact it felt like they’d always been there. No memory of pain or loss.
As they embraced, the beam from the flashlight in Nora’s hand glided by the stacks, briefly illuminating Eph hiding there, before he faded back into the book stacks.
Belvedere Castle, Central Park
THIS TIME, DR. Everett Barnes was able to wait until he was out of the helicopter before vomiting. When he was through disgorging his breakfast, he swiped at his mouth and chin with a handkerchief and looked around rather sheepishly. But the vampires showed no reaction to his becoming violently sick. Their expressions, or lack thereof, remained fixed and uncaring. Barnes could have laid a giant egg there in the muddy walkway near the Shakespeare Garden on the Seventy-ninth Street Transverse or had a third arm burst forth from his chest and not suffered any embarrassment in these drones’ eyes. His appearance was terrible, his face bloated and purple, his lips engorged with coagulated blood, and his injured hand bandaged and immobilized. But they paid no attention to any of this.
Barnes caught his breath and straightened a few yards free of the whirling helicopter rotors, ready to move along. The chopper lifted off, whipping rain at his back, and once it was away he opened his broad, black umbrella. His sexless undead guards took as little notice of the rain as they had his nausea, moving along at his side like pale, plastic automatons.
The bare heads of dead trees parted, and Belvedere Castle came into view, set high atop Vista Rock, framed against the contaminated sky.
Below, in a thick ring around the base of the stone, stood a legion of vampires. Their stillness was unnerving, their statuelike presence resembling some bizarre and stupefyingly ambitious art installation. And then, as Barnes and his two guards approached the outer edge of the vampire ring, the creatures parted—unbreathing, expressionless—for them, allowing their approach. Barnes stopped about ten rows in, approximately halfway through, looking at this respectful ring of vampires. He trembled a little, the umbrella vibrating such that dirty rain shook off the tips of the ribs. Here he experienced most deeply a sense of the uncanny: being in the middle of all these human predators, who by all rights should have drunk him or torn him to shreds—but instead stood idly as he passed, if not with respect then with enforced indifference. It was as though he had entered the zoo and gone walking past the lions, tigers, and bears without any reaction or interest. This was completely against their nature. Such was the depth of their enslavement to the Master.
Barnes encountered the former Kelly Goodweather at the door to the castle. She stood outside the door, her eyes meeting his, unlike the rest of the drones. He slowed, almost tempted to say something, like “Hello,” a courtesy left over from the old world. Instead, he simply passed, and her eyes followed him inside.
The clan lord appeared in his dark cloak, blood worms rippling beneath the skin covering his face as he regarded Barnes.
Goodweather has accepted.
“Yes,” Barnes said, thinking, If you knew that, then why did I have to get in a helicopter to come to this drafty castle to see you?
Barnes tried to explain the double-cross but became tangled up in the details himself. The Master did not appear particularly interested.