Guillermo del Toro - The Strain. Book I of The Strain Trilogy

Eph said, “I cut him.”

Setrakian used his sword to get to his feet, as one arm was hurt and hanging limp. He moved to the next flight of stairs going up.

There was white vampire blood on the unfinished planking of the stairs.

Sore but determined, they climbed the steps to the top. This was Bolivar’s penthouse, the top floor of the taller of the two conjoined town houses. They entered the bedroom half, looking for vampire blood on the floor. Seeing none, Fet went around the unmade bed to the far windows, tearing down the room-darkening curtains, letting in light but no direct sun. Eph checked the bathroom and found it even larger than he had expected, with facing, gold-framed mirrors reflecting him into infinity. An army of Ephraim Goodweathers with swords in their hands.

“This way,” gasped Setrakian.

Fresh streaks of white stood out against a black leather chair in the broader media room. Two arched and heavily draped doorways along the eastern wall showed soft light edging beneath the hem of the long curtains. The roof of the adjoining town house lay beyond.

There they found the Master standing in the center of the room, his worm-infested face angled down toward them, onyx eyes staring, the dangerous daylight behind him. Iridescent white blood dripped, slow and irregular, down his arm and off his elongated hand, falling from the tip of his unearthly talon to the floor.

Setrakian limped forward, his sword dragging behind him, scoring the wood floor. He stopped and raised the silver blade with his one good arm, facing the Master — his heart racing at too many beats per minute.

“Strigoi ,” he said.

The Master stared, impassive for the moment, demoniacally regal, his eyes two dead moons in clouds of blood. The sole indicator of his predicament was the excited wriggling of the blood parasites beneath his inhuman face.

For Setrakian, the moment was nearly at hand…and yet his heart was locking up, shutting him down.

Eph and Fet converged behind him, and the Master had no alternative but to fight his way out of this room. His face spread into a savage sneer. He kicked up a long, low table at Eph, which battered him backward, and with his good arm sent a club chair sliding at Setrakian. These moves had the effect of splitting them, the Master blazing through the middle, going straight at Fet.

Fet raised his lamp, but the Master dodged and came clawing at him from the side. Fet went down, falling, dazed, near the top of the stairs. The Master lunged past him, but Fet was fast, swinging the lamp on him — right into the Dark One’s snarling face. The UVC rays staggered him, driving him back against the wall, the plaster cracking against his great weight. When the Master’s claws came down from his face, his eyes were wider than before, and seemingly lost.

The Master was blinded, but only temporarily. They all sensed their advantage here, and Fet went right at him with the lamp. The Master flailed back wildly. Fet drove the towering beast back across the room toward the curtained doors, and Eph rushed after him, slashing at the Dark One’s cloak, catching a bit of flesh. The Master’s talon swung but struck no one.

Setrakian gripped the chair that had been slid at him, his sword clattering to the floor.

Eph cut down the heavy drapes over one of the arches, revealing bright sunlight. Decorative iron grating barred the glass doors, but with one chop of his blade, the latch cracked free in a spray of sparks.

Fet kept driving the Master backward. Then Eph spun around, looking to Setrakian to administer the finishing blow. That was when he saw the old professor laid out on the floor next to his sword, gripping his chest.

Eph froze, looking at the vulnerable Master, then at Setrakian, dying on the floor.

Fet, holding his lamp on the vampire like a lion trainer with a footstool, said, “What are you waiting for?”

Eph ran to the old man. He got down on his hands and knees and saw the distress in Setrakian’s face, the distant stare. His fingers plucked at his vest, over his heart.

Eph set down his sword. He ripped open the vest and his shirt, baring Setrakian’s sagging chest. He reached up under his jaw for a pulse, but couldn’t find one.

Fet yelled back, “Hey, Doc!” He kept pressing forward, pinning the Master up against the edge of the sunlight.

Eph massaged the old man’s chest over his heart. He didn’t start CPR right away because he was worried about the man’s bones, about crushing his rib cage. Then he noticed that Setrakian’s old fingers were no longer poking at his heart, but were reaching for his vest.

Fet turned back in a panic to see what the hell was holding them up. He saw Setrakian laid out on the floor and Eph kneeling over him.

Fet looked for a moment too long. The Master clawed at Fet’s shoulder and pulled him in.

Eph squeezed the pockets of Setrakian’s tweed vest and felt something. He pulled out the little silver pillbox and quickly unscrewed the top. A dozen tiny white tablets tumbled to the floor.

Fet was a big man himself, but he was a child in the Master’s grip. He still had the lamp in his hand, even though his arms were pinned. He turned it on the Master, burning his side — and the blinded beast roared in pain but did not relinquish his grip. The Master’s other hand gripped the top of Fet’s head and wrenched back his neck despite Fet’s resistance. Then Fet found himself staring up into this unspeakable face.

Eph pinched up one of the nitroglycerin tablets and cupped the old man’s head in his hand. He worked open his clenched jaw and slipped the pill in underneath the old man’s cool tongue. He pulled out his fingers and shook Setrakian, yelling at him. And the old man’s eyes opened.

The Master opened his mouth over Fet and extended his stinger, lashing about in the air above Fet’s wide eyes and exposed throat. Fet fought mightily, but the compression of the back of his neck cut off the blood flow to his brain, so the room blackened and his muscles went limp.

Eph yelled, “No!” and ran at the Master with his sword, slashing the blade across the abomination’s broad back. Fet fell to the floor in a heap. The Master’s head whipped around, his stinger searching, his clouded eyes finding Eph.

“My sword sings of silver! ” cried Eph, slicing at the Master’s upper chest. The blade did indeed sing, though the Dark One flew backward and avoided it. Eph swung again — and missed again — the Master thrashing backward, out of control. He was in the sunlight now, framed before the twin glass doors, the full and broad daylight of a rooftop patio behind him.

Eph had him. The Master knew he had him. Eph brought his sword up with two hands, ready to stab it up through the Master’s bulging neck. The king vampire stared down at Eph with something like outright disgust, summoned even more height, and raised the hood of his dark cloak over his head.

“Die!” said Eph, running at him.

The Master turned and crashed through the plate-glass doors and out onto the open patio. Glass exploded as the cloaked vampire fell rolling onto the hot clay tiles, in full view of the killing sun.

He came to a rest momentarily, hunched over on one knee.

Eph’s momentum carried him through the shattered door, where he stopped, staring at the cloaked vampire, awaiting the end.

The Master trembled, steam rising from within its dark cloak. Then the king vampire stood to its full height, quivering as though in the grip of a violent seizure, his great claws curled into beastlike fists.

With a roar he threw off his cloak. The ancient garment fell away, smoking, to the tile. The Master’s nude body writhed, his pearlescent flesh darkening, cooking, changing from fair, lily white to a dead black leather.