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Nora turned and saw, by the light of the passengers’ phones, the train wheels goopy with white vampire blood. Gobs of pale skin and the black gristle of crushed bones hung from the undercarriage. Nora wondered if they were run down accidentally—or had they thrown themselves in the path of the charging train?

Thrown themselves seemed most likely. And if so—then what for?

Nora thought she knew. With the image of Kelly still bright in her mind, Nora threw one arm around Zack, taking her mother by the hand and running for the rear of the train.

New Jersey was a long walk away, and they were not alone here.

They heard screaming aboard the train now. Passengers being mauled by pale creatures marauding through the cars. Nora tried to keep Zack from looking up and seeing the faces pressed against the windows, regurgitating saliva and blood.

Nora got to the end of the train, rounding it—stepping over crushed vampire corpses on the tracks, using her UV light to kill any lurking blood worms—and starting up the other side, where there was a clear path toward the front car.

Tunnels carry and distort noises. Nora wasn’t sure what she was hearing, but its presence put an extra scare into her. She exhorted the people following them to stop a moment and be quiet and still.

She heard a noise like scuttling, only many times repeated and magnified through the tunnel. Coming behind them, in the same direction the train had been traveling. A horde of footsteps.

The light from the cell phone screens and Nora’s UV lamp had very little range. Something was coming at them out of the dark void, and Nora corralled Zack and her mother and started running the other way.

The hunter pulled back from Fet’s side, his spike still poised at Fet’s neck. Setrakian had started to tell the Ancients about Eldritch Palmer’s association with the Master.

We know already. He came to us some time ago, petitioning us for immortality.

“And you refused him. So he went across the street.”

He did not meet our criteria. Eternity is a beautiful gift, entrance into an immortal aristocracy. We are rigorously selective.

The voice reverberating inside Fet’s head sounded like a scolding parent’s multiplied a thousandfold. He looked at the hunter next to him and wondered: some long-dead European king? Alexander the Great? Howard Hughes?

No—not these hunters. Fet guessed he was an elite soldier in his former life. Plucked off a battlefield, perhaps during a special-ops mission. Drafted by the ultimate selective service. But who knew which army? What era? Vietnam? Normandy? Thermopylae?

Setrakian said—confirming for himself lifelong theories as he stated these facts—“The Ancients are connected to the human world at its uppermost levels. They assume the initiate’s wealth, which helps them insulate themselves and assert their influence across the globe.”

Were it a simple business transaction, his wealth is substantial enough. But we require more than riches. What we seek is power, access, and obedience. He lacked the last.

“Palmer grew angry when the gift was refused him. So he sought out the rogue Master, the young one—”

You seek to know all, Setrakian. Greedy until the end. Let us agree that you are half correct in everything. Palmer may have sought out the Seventh, yes. But be assured—it was the Seventh who found him.

“Do you know what it is he wants?”

We do know.

“You must know then that you are in trouble. The Master is creating minions by the thousands, too many for your hunters to cut down. His strain is spreading. These are beings you cannot control, not through power or influence.”

You spoke of the Silver Codex.

The power of their voices made Fet squint.

Setrakian stepped forward. “What I want from you is unlimited financial support. I require it immediately.”

The auction. Don’t you think we have considered this before?

“But bidding on it yourselves, employing a human representative, risked exposure. Impossible to guarantee the motives. Better to scuttle each potential sale throughout the years. But that will not be possible this time. I am certain that the timing of this widespread attack, the occultation of the Earth, and the reappearance of the book are no coincidence. It is all aligned. Do you deny this cosmic symmetry?”

We do not. But then again, the outcome will follow the design no matter what we do.

“Doing nothing seems to me like a flawed plan.”

And what would you want in return?