The Fall

“I guess I throw it away.”

And a plastic receptacle? When you’ve emptied its contents?

“Fine, I get it. You throw back your pints of blood and then toss away the human bottle. Here’s what I want to know. Why me?”

Because you appear capable.

“How you figure that?”

Your criminal record, for one. You came to our attention through your arrest for murder in Manhattan.

The fat, naked guy rampaging through Times Square. The guy had attacked a family there, and at the time Gus was like, “Not in my city, freak.” Now, of course, he wished he had stayed back like all the rest.

Then you escaped police custody, slaying more uncleans in the process.

Gus frowned. “That ‘unclean’ was my compadre. How you know all this, living down here in this shithole?”

Be assured that we are connected with the human world at its uppermost levels. But, if balance is to be maintained, we cannot afford exposure—precisely what this unclean strain threatens us with now. That is where you come in.

“A gang war. That, I understand. But you left out something super-fucking important. Like—why the fuck should I help you?”

Three reasons.

“I’m counting. They better be good ones.”

The first is, you will leave this room alive.

“I’ll give you that one.”

The second is, your success in this endeavor will enrich you beyond that which you ever thought possible.

“Hmm. I don’t know. I can count pretty high.”

The third … is right behind you.

Gus turned. He saw a hunter first, one of the badass vamps who had grabbed him off the street. Its head was cowled inside a black hoodie, its red eyes glowing.

Next to the hunter was a vampire with that look of distant hunger now familiar to Gus. She was short and heavy, with tangled black hair, wearing a torn housedress, the upper front of her throat bulging with the interior architecture of the vampire stinger.

At the base of the stitched V of her dress collar was a highly stylized, black-and-red crucifix, a tattoo she said she regretted getting in her youth but which must have looked pretty fucking boss at the time, and which, since his youngest days, had always impressed Gusto, no matter what she said.

The vampire was his mother. Her eyes were blindfolded with a dark rag. Gus could see the throbbing of her throat, the want of her stinger.

She senses you. But her eyes must remain covered. Within her resides the will of our enemy. He sees through her. Hears through her. We cannot keep her in this chamber for long.

Gus’s eyes filled with angry tears. The sorrow ached in him, manifested in rage. Since about age eleven, he had done nothing but dishonor her. And now here she was before him: a beast, an undead monster.

Gus turned back to face the others. This fury surged within him, but here he was powerless, and he knew it.

The third is, you get to release her.

Dry sobs came up like sorrowful belches. He was sickened by this situation, appalled by it, and yet …

He turned back around. She was as good as kidnapped. Taken hostage by this “unclean” strain of vampire they kept talking about.

“Mama,” he said. Although she listened, she showed no change of expression.

Slaying his brother, Crispin, had been easy, because of the longstanding bad feelings between them. Because Crispin was an addict and even more of a failure than Gus. Doing Crispin through the neck with that shard of broken glass had been efficiency in action: family therapy and garbage disposal rolled into one. The rage he accumulated through decades had evaporated with every slash.

But delivering his madre from this curse, that would be an act of love.

Gus’s mother was removed from the chamber, but the hunter stayed behind. Gus looked back at the three, seeing them better now. Awful in their stillness. They never moved.

We will provide you with anything you need to achieve this task. Capital support is not an issue, as we have amassed vast fortunes of human treasure through time.

Those who received the gift of eternity had paid fortunes over the centuries. Within their vaults, the Ancient Ones held Mesopotamian coils of silver, Byzantine coins, sovereigns, Deutsche marks. The currency mattered nothing to them. Shells to trade with the natives. “So—you want me to fetch for you—is that it?”

Mr. Quinlan will provide you with anything you need. Anything. He is our best hunter. Efficient and loyal. In many respects, unique. Your only restriction is secrecy. Concealment of our existence is paramount. We leave it to you to recruit other hunters such as yourself. Invisible and unknown, yet skilled at killing.

Gus bridled, feeling the pull of his mother behind him. An outlet for his wrath: maybe this was just what he needed.

His lips pursed into an angry smile. He needed manpower. He needed killers.

He knew exactly where to go next.

IRT South Ferry Inner Loop Station

FET, WITH ONLY one false turn, led them to a tunnel that connected to the abandoned South Ferry Loop Station. Dozens of phantom subway stations dot the IRT, the IND, and the BMT systems. You don’t see them on the maps anymore, though they can be glimpsed through in-service subway car windows on active rails—if you know when and where to look.

The underground climate was more humid here, a dampness in the ground soil, the walls slick and weeping.

The glowing trail of strigoi waste became more scarce here. Fet looked around, puzzled. He knew that the route down Broadway was part of the city’s original subway project, South Ferry having opened for commuters in 1905. The underwater tunnel to Brooklyn opened three years later.

The original mosaic tiling featuring the station initials, SF, still stood, high on the wall, near an incongruously modern sign—

NO TRAINS STOP HERE

—as if anyone would make that mistake. Eph moved into a small maintenance bay, scanning with his Luma.

Out of the darkness, a voice cackled, “Are you IRT?”

Eph smelled the man before he saw him. The figure emerged from a nearby alcove stuffed with ripped and soiled mattresses—a toothless scarecrow of a man dressed in multiple layers of shirts, coats, and pants. His body scent patiently distilled and aged through all of them.

“No,” said Fet, taking over. “We’re not here rousting anybody.”

The man looked them over, rendering a snap judgment as to their trustworthiness. “Name’s Cray-Z,” he said. “You from up top?”

“Sure,” said Eph.