This cloud was black, blocking out the stars, making a dark night even darker.
He turned in a circle, bewildered. He walked beyond the ring of red landing lights, and, around one of the giant air-conditioning units, saw an open door, faint light emanating from within. He walked to it, stopping there with his cuffed hands outstretched, debating whether or not to go inside, then realizing that he had no choice. It was either sprout wings or see this thing through.
Faint red light inside came from an EXIT sign. A long staircase led down to another propped-open door. Through it was a carpeted hallway with expensive accent lighting. A man dressed in a dark suit stood halfway down, hands folded at his waist. Eph stopped, ready to run.
The man said nothing. He did nothing. Eph could see that he was human, not vampire.
Next to him, built into the wall, was a logo depicting a black orb bisected by a steel-blue line. The corporate symbol for the Stoneheart Group. Eph realized, for the first time, that it resembled the occulted sun winking its eye closed.
His adrenaline kicked in, his body preparing to fight. But the Stoneheart man turned and walked away to the end of the hall, to a door, which he opened and held.
Eph walked toward him, warily, sliding past the man and through the door. The man did not follow, instead closing the door with him remaining on the other side.
Art adorned the walls of the vast room, supersized canvases depicting nightmarish imagery and violent abstraction. Music played faintly, seeming to find his ears in the same measured volume as he moved throughout the room.
Around a corner, at the edge of the building walled in glass, looking north at the suffering island of Manhattan, was a table set for one.
A stream of low light spilled down onto the white linen, making it glow. A butler, or a waiter—a servant of some kind—arrived when Eph did, pulling out the only chair for him. Eph looked at the man—he was old, a domestic for life—the servant watching him without meeting his eye, standing with every expectation that his guest should take the seat offered him.
And so Eph did. The chair was pushed in beneath the table, a napkin opened and laid across his right thigh, and then the servant walked away.
Eph looked at the great windows. The reflection made it appear he was seated outside, at a table hovering some seventy-eight stories over Manhattan, while the city roiled in paroxysms of violence beneath him.
A slight whirring noise undercut the pleasant symphony. A motorized wheelchair appeared out of the gloom, and Eldritch Palmer, his frail hand operating the steering stick, rolled across the polished floor to the opposite side of the table.
Eph began to get to his feet—but then Mr. Fitzwilliam, Palmer’s bodyguard-cum-nurse, appeared in the shadows. The guy was bulging out of his suit, his orange hair cut high and tight, like a small, contained fire atop his boulder of a head.
Eph relented, sitting back down.
Palmer pulled in so that the front of his chair arms lined up with the tabletop. Once he was set, he looked across at Eph. Palmer’s head resembled a triangle: broad-crowned with S-shaped veins evident at both temples, narrowing to a chin that trembled with age.
“You are a terrible shot, Dr. Goodweather,” said Palmer. “Killing me might have impeded our progress somewhat, but only temporarily. However, you caused irreversible liver damage to one of my bodyguards. Not very hero-like, I must say.”
Eph said nothing, still stunned by this sudden change of venue from the FBI in Brooklyn to Palmer’s Wall Street penthouse.
Palmer said, “Setrakian sent you to kill me, did he not?”
Eph said, “He did not. In fact, in his own way, I think he tried to talk me out of it. I went on my own.”
Palmer frowned, disappointed. “I must admit, I wish he was here, rather than you. Someone who could relate to what I have done, at least. The scope of my achievement. Someone who would understand the magnitude of my deeds, even as he condemned them.” Palmer signaled to Mr. Fitzwilliam. “Setrakian is not the man you think he is,” said Palmer.
“No?” said Eph. “Who do I think he is?”
Mr. Fitzwilliam approached, pulling a large piece of medical equipment on casters, a machine with whose function Eph was not familiar.
Palmer said, “You see him as the kindly old man, the white wizard. The humble genius.”
Eph said nothing as Mr. Fitzwilliam pulled up Palmer’s shirt, revealing twin valves implanted in his thin side, the man’s flesh hashed with scars. Mr. Fitzwilliam connected two tubes from the machine to the valves, taping them sealed, then switched on the machine. A feeder of some kind.
Palmer said, “In fact, he is a blunderer. A butcher, a psychopath, and a disgraced scholar. A failure in every respect.”
Palmer’s words made Eph smile. “If he was such a failure, you wouldn’t be talking about him now, wishing I were him.”
Palmer blinked sleepily. He raised his hand again and a distant door opened, a figure emerging. Eph braced himself, wondering what Palmer had in store for him—if this scallywag had a taste for revenge—but it was only the servant again, this time carrying a small tray on his fingertips.
He swept in front of Eph and set a cocktail down before him, rocks of ice floating in amber fluid.
Palmer said, “I am told you are a man who enjoys a stiff drink.”
Eph looked at the drink, then back at Palmer. “What is this?”
“A Manhattan,” said Palmer. “It seemed appropriate.”
“Not the damn drink. Why am I here?”
“You are my guest for dinner. A last meal. Not yours—mine.” He nodded to the machine feeding him.
The servant returned with a plate covered with a stainless-steel dome. He set it in front of Eph and removed the cover. Glazed black cod, baby potatoes, Oriental vegetable medley—all warm and steaming.
Eph didn’t move, looking down at it.
“Come now, Dr. Goodweather. You haven’t seen food like this in days. And don’t worry about it having been tampered with, poisoned or drugged. If I wanted you dead, Mr. Fitzwilliam here would see to it promptly and then enjoy your meal himself.”
Eph had actually been looking at the utensils set out for him. He grasped the sterling-silver knife, holding it up so that it caught the light.
“Silver, yes,” said Palmer. “No vampires here tonight.”
Eph took up his fork and, with his eyes on Palmer, and his handcuffs clinking, cut into the fish. Palmer watched as he brought a morsel to his mouth, chewing it, juices exploding on his dry tongue, his belly rumbling with anticipation.
“It has been decades since I ingested food orally,” said Palmer. “I grew accustomed to not eating while recuperating from various surgical procedures. Really, you can lose your taste for food surprisingly easily.”
He watched Eph chew and swallow.
“After a time, the simple act of eating comes to appear quite animalistic. Grotesque, in fact. No different than a cat consuming a dead bird. The mouth-throat-stomach digestive tract is such a crude path to nourishment. So primitive.”
Eph said, “We’re all just animals to you, is that it?”
“‘Customers’ is the accepted term. But certainly. We, the overclass, have taken those basic human drives and advanced our own selves through their exploitation. We have monetized human consumption, manipulated morals and laws to direct the masses by fear or hatred, and, in doing so, have managed to create a system of wealth and remuneration that has concentrated the vast majority of the world’s wealth in the hands of a select few. Over the course of two thousand years, I believe this system worked pretty well. But all good things must end. You saw, with the recent market crash, how we have been building to this impossible end. Money built upon money built upon money. Two choices remain. Either utter collapse, which appeals to no one, or the richest push the pedal to the floor and take it all. And here we are now.”
Eph said, “You brought the Master here. You arranged for him to be on that airplane.”
&nb
sp; “Indeed. But, doctor, I have been so consumed with the orchestration of this endeavor for lo these past ten years that to recount it all for you now would truly be a waste of my last hours. If you don’t mind.”
“You are selling out the human race so you can live forever—as a vampire?”
Palmer put his hands together in a gesture of prayer, but only to rub his palms and generate some warmth. “Are you aware that this very island was once home to as many different species as Yellowstone National Park?”
“No, I wasn’t. So we humans had it coming, is that your point?”
Palmer laughed softly. “No, no. No, that is not it. Far too moralistic. Any dominant species would have ravaged the land with equal or grander enthusiasm. My point is that the land doesn’t care. The sky doesn’t care. The planet doesn’t care. The entire system is structured around a long-winded decay and an eventual rebirth. Why are you so precious about humanity? You can already feel it slipping away from you now. You’re falling apart. Is the sensation really all that bad?”
Eph remembered—with a spike of shame now—his apathy in the FBI debriefing room after his arrest. He looked with disgust at the cocktail Palmer expected him to drink.
Palmer continued, “The smart move would have been to cut a deal.”
Eph said, “I had nothing to offer.”
Palmer considered this. “Is that why you still resist?”
“Partly. Why should people like you have all the fun?”
Palmer’s hands returned to his armrests with the certainty of revelation. “It’s the myths, isn’t it? Movies and books and fables. It has become ingrained. The entertainment we sold, that was meant to placate you. To keep you down but still dreaming. Keep you wanting. Hoping. Coveting. Anything to direct your attention away from your sense of the animal, toward the fiction of a greater existence—a higher purpose.” He smiled again. “Something beyond the cycle of birth, reproduction, death.”
Eph pointed at Palmer with his fork. “But isn’t that what you’re doing now? You think you are about to go beyond death. You believe in the same fictions.”
“Me? A victim of the same great myth?” Palmer considered this angle, then discounted it. “I have made a new fate. I am forsaking death for deliverance. My point is—this humanity your heart bleeds for is already subservient, and fully programmed for subjugation.”
Eph looked up. “Subjugation? What do you mean by that?”
Palmer shook his head. “I am not about to detail everything for you. Not because you might do something heroic with this information—you cannot. It is too late. The die is already cast.”
Eph’s mind reeled. He remembered Palmer’s speech from earlier in the day, his testimony. “Why do you want a quarantine now? Sealing off cities? What is the point? Unless … are you trying to herd us together?”
Palmer did not answer.
Eph went on, “They can’t turn everybody, because then there would be no blood meals. You need a reliable food source.” It hit him then, what Palmer had said. “Food delivery. The meatpacking plants. Are you …? No …”
Palmer folded his old hands in his lap.
Eph pressed him. “And then—what about the nuclear power plants? Why do you need them to come on line?”
Palmer answered by saying again, “The die is already cast.”
Eph set down his fork, wiping the knife blade with his napkin before setting it down as well. These revelations had killed his body’s junkie-like urge for protein.
“You’re not insane,” said Eph, actively trying to read him now. “You’re not even evil. You are desperate, and certainly megalomaniacal. Absolutely perverse. Is all this spun out of a rich man’s fear of death? You trying to buy your way out of it? Actually choosing the alternative? But—for what? What have you not already done that you lust after? What will be left for you to lust for?”
For the briefest moment, Palmer’s eyes showed a hint of fragility, perhaps even fear. In that instant he was revealed to be just what he was: a fragile, sick old man.
“You don’t understand, Dr. Goodweather. I have been sick all my life. All my life. I had no childhood. No adolescence. I have been fighting against my own rot for as long as I can remember. Fear death? I walk with it every day. What I want now is to transcend it. To silence it. For what has being human ever done for me? Every pleasure I have ever experienced has been tainted by the whisper of decay and disease.”
“But—to be a vampire? A … a creature? A bloodsucking thing?”
“Well … arrangements have been made. I will be exalted somewhat. Even at the next stage, there has to be a class system, you know. And I have been promised a seat at the very top.”
“Promised by a vampire. A virus. What about his will? He is going to invade yours as he has all the others—possess it, make yours an extension of his own. What good is that? Merely trading one whisper for another …”
“I have dealt with worse, believe me. But it is kind of you to show such concern for my well-being.” Palmer looked to the great windows, beyond their reflection to the dying city below. “People will prefer any fate to this. They will welcome our alternative. You’ll see. They will accept any system, any order, that promises them the illusion of security.” He looked back. “But you haven’t touched your drink.”
Eph said, “Maybe I’m not so preprogrammed. Maybe people are more unpredictable than you think.”
“I don’t think so. Every model has its individual anomalies. A renowned doctor and scientist becomes an assassin. Amusing. What most people lack is vision—a vision of the truth. The ability to act with deadly certainty. No, as a group—a herd, that is your word—they are easily led, and wonderfully predictable. Capable of selling, turning, killing those that they profess to love in exchange for peace of mind or a scrap of food.” Palmer shrugged, disappointed that Eph was evidently through eating and the meal was over. “You will be going back to the FBI now.”
“Those agents are in on it? How big is this conspiracy?”
“‘Those agents’?” Palmer shook his head. “As with any bureaucratic institution—say, for instance, the CDC—once you seize control of the top, the rest of the organization simply follows orders. The Ancients have operated that way for years. The Master is no exception. Don’t you see that this is why governments were established in the first place? So, no, there is no conspiracy, Dr. Goodweather. This is the very same structure that has existed since the beginning of recorded time.”
Mr. Fitzwilliam unplugged Palmer from his feeding machine. Eph saw that Palmer was already half a vampire; that the jump from intravenous nourishment to a blood meal was not a great one. “Why did you have me here?”
“Not to gloat. I believe that has been made clear. Nor to unburden my soul.” Palmer chuckled before returning to seriousness. “This is my last night as a man. Dinner with my would-be assassin struck me as a meaningful part of the program. Tomorrow, Dr. Goodweather, I will exist in a place beyond death’s reach. And your kind will exist—”
“My kind?” said Eph, interrupting.
“Your kind will exist in a manner beyond all hope. I have delivered to you a new Messiah, and the reckoning is at hand. The mythmakers were right, save for their characterization of the second coming of a Messiah. He will indeed raise the dead. He will preside over the final judgment. God promises eternal life. The Master delivers it. And he will establish his kingdom on earth.”
“And what does that make you? The kingmaker? It sounds to me like you are one more drone doing his bidding.”
Palmer pursed his dry lips in a condescending manner. “I see. Another clumsy attempt to instill doubt in me. Dr. Barnes warned me against your stubbornness. But I suppose you have to try again and again—”
“I’m not trying anything. If you can’t see that he’s been stringing you along, then you deserve to get it in the neck.”
Palmer held his expression steady. What worked behind it—that was another matter. “Tomorrow,” he said, “i
s the day.”
“And why would he deign to share power with another?” said Eph. He sat up, his hands dropping below the table. He was winging it here, but it felt right. “Think about it. What sort of contract is holding him to this arrangement? What’d you two do, shake hands? You’re not blood brothers—not yet. Best-case scenario, by this time tomorrow you’ll be just another bloodsucker in the hive. Take it from an epidemiologist. Viruses don’t make deals.”
“He would be nowhere without me.”
“Without your money. Without your mundane influence, yes. All of which”—Eph nodded at the anarchy below them—“exist no more.”
Mr. Fitzwilliam stepped forward then, moving to Eph’s side. “The helicopter has returned.”
“And so it is good evening, Dr. Goodweather,” said Palmer, wheeling back from the table. “And good-bye.”
“He’s been out there turning folks for free, left and right. So ask yourself this. If you’re so damn important, Palmer—why make you wait in line?”
Palmer was rolling slowly away. Mr. Fitzwilliam hoisted Eph roughly to his feet. Eph was lucky: the silver knife he had hidden, tucked inside his waistband, only grazed his upper thigh.
“What’s in it for you?” Eph asked Mr. Fitzwilliam. “You’re too healthy to be dreaming of eternal life as a bloodsucker.”
Mr. Fitzwilliam said nothing. The weapon remained tight against Eph’s hip as he was led away, back up to the roof.
RAINFALL
THUD-BUMP!
Nora shivered at the first impact. Everyone felt it, but few realized what it was. She didn’t know much herself about the North River Tunnels that connected Manhattan and New Jersey. She guessed that, under normal circumstances—which, let’s face it, didn’t exist anymore—it was maybe a two-to-three-minute trip total, traveling deep below the Hudson River. A one-way trip, no stopping. The only way in or out through the surface entrance and exit. They probably hadn’t even hit the halfway point, the deepest part, yet.
Bam-BAMM-bam-bam-bam.
The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal Page 63