The Fall (33 page)

An auction is as much theater as marketplace, and the entire affair had a distinctly fin-de-siècle feel: a final burst of flamboyant spending, a last-gasp display of capitalism in the face of overwhelming economic doom. Most of the attendees were gathered simply for the show. Like well-dressed mourners at a funeral service.

Excitement mounted as the auctioneer appeared. Anticipation rippled throughout the room while he ran through his opening remarks and the ground rules for bidders. And then he gaveled the auction underway.

The first few items were minor baroque paintings, hors d’oeuvres to whet the bidders’ appetites for the main course.

Why did Setrakian feel so tense? So out of sorts, so paranoid suddenly? The deep pockets of the Ancients were today his deep pockets. It was inevitable that the long-sought book would soon be in his hands.

He felt strangely exposed, sitting where he was. He felt… observed, not passively, but by knowing eyes. Penetrating and familiar.

He located the source of his paranoia behind a pair of smoke-tinted glasses, three rows behind him on the opposite aisle. The eyes belonged to a figure dressed in a suit of dark fabric, wearing black leather gloves.

Thomas Eichhorst.

His face appeared smoothed and stretched, his body overall looking too well-preserved. It was flesh-colored makeup and a wig, certainly… yet there was something else besides. Could it have been surgery? Had some mad doctor been retained to keep his appearance close to that of a human, in order that he might walk and mix with the living? Even though they were hidden behind the Nazi’s glasses, Setrakian felt a chill knowing that Eichhorst’s eyes had connected with his.

Abraham had been merely a teen when he entered the camp—and so it was with young eyes that he looked upon the former commandant of Treblinka now. He experienced that same spike of fear, combined with an unreasonable panic. This evil being—while he was still a mere human—had dictated life and death inside that death factory. Sixty-four years ago… and now the dread came back to Setrakian as though it had been yesterday. This monster, this beast—now multiplied a hundredfold.

Acid burned the old man’s throat, nearly choking him.

Eichhorst nodded to Setrakian, ever so gently. Ever so
cordially.
He appeared to smile—but indeed, it was not a smile, just a way of opening his mouth enough to give Setrakian a glimpse of the tip of his stinger inside, flickering at his rouged lips.

Setrakian turned back to face the dais. He hid the trembling of his crooked hands, an old man ashamed at his boyhood fright.

Eichhorst had come for the book. He would battle for it in the place of the Master, bankrolled by Eldritch Palmer.

Setrakian went into his pocket for his pillbox. His arthritic fingers worked clumsily and doubly hard, as he did not wish Eichhorst to see and enjoy his distress.

He slipped the nitroglycerin pill discreetly beneath his tongue and waited for the pill to take effect. He pledged to himself that, even if it took his very last breath, he would beat this Nazi.

Your heart is erratic, Jew.

Setrakian did not react outwardly to the voice invading his head. He worked hard to ignore this most unwelcome guest.

In his vision, the auctioneer and the stage disappeared, as did all of Manhattan and the continent of North America. Setrakian saw for the moment only the wire fences of the camp. He saw the dirt muddied with blood and the emaciated faces of his fellow craftsmen.

He saw Eichhorst sitting atop his favorite steed. The horse was the only living thing inside the camp to which he showed any hint of affection, by way of carrots and apples—enjoying feeding the beast right in front of starving prisoners. Eichhorst liked to dig his heels into the horse’s sides, making him whinny and rear up. Eichhorst also enjoyed practicing his marksmanship with a Ruger while sitting atop the riled horse. At each assembly, a worker was executed at random. Three times it was a man standing directly next to Setrakian.

I noticed your bodyguard when you entered.

Did he mean Fet? Setrakian turned and saw Fet among the onlookers standing in back, near a pair of well-tailored bodyguards flanking the exit. In his exterminator’s coveralls, he appeared completely out of place.

Fetorski, is it not? Pureblood Ukrainian is an exceedingly rare vintage. Bitter, salty, but with a strong finish. You should know, I am a connoisseur of human blood, Jew. My nose never lies. I recognized his bouquet when you entered. As well as the line of his jaw. You don’t remember?

The beast’s words unnerved Setrakian. Because he hated their source, and because they had, to Setrakian’s ear, the ring of truth.

In the camp of his mind’s eye, he saw a large man wearing the black uniform of the Ukrainian guards, dutifully gripping the bridle of Eichhorst’s mount with gloves of black leather, handing the commandant his Ruger.

It cannot be a mistake that you should be here with the descendant of one of your tormentors?

Setrakian closed his eyes on Eichhorst’s taunts. He cleared his mind, returning his focus to the task at hand. He thought, in a mind-voice as loud as he could make it, in the hope that the vampire would hear him:
You will be even more surprised to learn who else I am partnered with this day.

Nora dug out the night-vision monocular and hung it over the Mets ball cap on her head. Closing one eye turned the North River Tunnel green. “Rat vision,” Fet liked to call it, but was she ever grateful for this invention at that moment.

The tunnel area was clear ahead of her, into the intermediate distance. But she could find no exit. No hiding place. Nothing.

She was alone now with her mother, having put enough space between them and Zack. Nora tried not to look at her, even with the scope. Her mother was breathing hard, barely able to keep pace. Nora had her by her arm, practically carrying her over the stones between the tracks, feeling the vampires at their back.

Nora realized she was looking for the right place to do this. The best place. This thing she was contemplating was a horror. The voices in her head—no one else’s but her own—offered countervailing arguments:

You can’t do this.

You cannot hope to save both your mother and Zack. You have to choose.

How can you choose a boy over your mother?

Choose one or lose both.

She had a good life.

Bullshit. We all have good lives, exactly until the moment they end.

She gave you life.

But if you don’t do this now, you are giving her over to vampires. Cursing her for all eternity.

Alzheimer’s has no cure either. She is getting progressively worse. She has already changed from the woman who was your mother. How is that different from vampirism?

She poses no threat to others.

Only to yourself—and Zack.

You will have to destroy her anyway when she returns for you, her Dear One.

You told Eph he needed to destroy Kelly.

Her dementia is such that she won’t even know.

But you will know.

Bottom line: will you also do yourself in before you are turned?

Yes.

But that is
your
choice.

And it is never an either/or. Never clear-cut. It happens too fast; they are upon you, and you are gone. You must act in advance of the turning. You have to anticipate it.

And yet there are no guarantees.

You cannot release someone before they are turned. You can only tell yourself that this is what you hope you did. And wonder forever if you were right.

It is still murder.

Will you also turn the knife on Zack if the end is imminent?

Maybe. Yes.

You would hesitate.

Zack has a better chance of surviving an attack.

So you would trade the old for the new.

Maybe. Yes.

Nora’s mother said to her, “When in the hell is your lousy father going to get here?”

Nora came back to the moment. She felt too sick to cry. It was indeed a cruel world.

A howl echoed through the long tunnel, chilling Nora.

She went around behind her mother’s back. She could not look her in the face. She tightened her grip on her knife, raising it in order to bring it down into the back of the old woman’s neck.

But all of this was nothing.

She didn’t have it in her heart, and she knew this.

Love is our downfall.

Vampires had no guilt. That was their great advantage. They never hesitated.

And, as though to prove this point, Nora looked up to find herself being stalked along each side of the tunnel. Two vampires had crept up on her while she was distracted, their eyes glowing white-green in her monocular.

They did not know that she could see them. They did not understand night-vision technology. They assumed that she was like all the rest of the passengers—lost in the darkness, wandering blind.

“You sit here, Mama,” said Nora, nudging her knees out, lowering her to the tracks. Otherwise, she would go wandering off. “Papa’s on his way.”

Nora turned and walked toward the two vampires, moving directly between them without looking at either one. Peripherally, they left the stone walls in their loose-jointed way.

Nora took a deep breath before the kill.

These vampires became the recipients of her homicidal angst. She lunged first at the one on the left, slashing it faster than the creature could leap. The vampire’s bitter cry rang in her ears as she whipped around and faced the other, who was eyeing her sitting mother. The creature turned back toward Nora from its crouch, its mouth open for the stinger strike.

A splash of white filled her scope like the rage flaring in her head. She slaughtered her would-be attacker, chest heaving, eyes stinging with tears.

She looked back the way she came. Had these two passed Zack to get to her? Neither one appeared flush from a meal, though the night vision couldn’t give her an accurate read of their pallor.

Nora grabbed her lamp and turned it on the corpses, frying the blood worms before they had a chance to wriggle over the rocks toward her mother. She irradiated her own knife as well, then switched off the lamp, returning to help her mother to her feet.

“Is your father here?” she said.

“Soon, Mama,” said Nora, hurrying her back toward Zack, tears running down her cheeks. “Soon.”

Setrakian didn’t bother getting in on the bidding for the
Occido Lumen
until the price crossed the $10 million threshold. The rapid pace of the bidding was fueled not only by the extraordinary rarity of the item but also by the circumstances of the auction—this sense that the city was going to come crumbling down at any moment, that the world was changing forever.

At $15 million, the bidding increments rose to $300,000.

At $20 million, $500,000.

Setrakian did not have to turn around to know whom he was bidding against. Others, attracted by the “cursed” nature of the book, jumped in early but fell away once the pace reached an eight-figure frenzy.

The auctioneer called for a brief break in the action at $25 million, reaching for his water glass—but really only stoking the drama. He took a moment to remind those present of the highest auction price ever paid for a book: $30.8 million for da Vinci’s Codex Leicester in 1994.

Setrakian now felt the eyes of the room upon him. He kept his attention focused on the
Lumen,
the heavy, silver-covered book brilliantly displayed under glass. It lay open, its facing pages projected upon two large video screens. One was filled with handwritten text, the other showcasing an image of a silver-colored human figure with broad white wings, standing in witness of a distant city being destroyed by a storm of yellow and red flame.

The bidding resumed, rising quickly. Setrakian fell back into a rhythm of raising and lowering his paddle.

The next genuine audience gasp came as they crossed the $30 million threshold.

The auctioneer pointed across the aisle from Setrakian for $30.5 million. Setrakian countered up at $31 million. It was the most expensive book purchase in history now—but what did such landmarks matter to Setrakian? To mankind?

The auctioneer called for $31.5 million, and got it.

Setrakian countered with $32 million before even being prompted.

The auctioneer looked back to Eichhorst, but then, before he had a chance to request the next bid, an attendant appeared, interrupting him. The auctioneer, showing just the right amount of pique, stepped away from the podium to confer with her.

He stiffened at the news, ducked his head, then nodded.

Setrakian wondered what was happening.

The steward then came around off the dais, and began walking up the aisle toward him. Setrakian watched her approach in confusion—then watched as she passed him, going three more rows back, stopping before Eichhorst.

She knelt in the aisle, whispering something to him.

“You may speak to me right here,” said Eichhorst—his lips moving in a pantomime of human speech.

The steward spoke further, attempting to preserve the bidder’s privacy as best she could.

“That is ridiculous. There is some mistake.”

The steward apologized, but remained firm.

“Impossible.” Eichhorst rose to his feet. “You will suspend the auction while I rectify this situation.”

The steward glanced quickly back at the auctioneer, and then up at the Sotheby’s officials watching from behind balcony glass high along the walls, like guests observing a surgery.

The steward turned to Eichhorst and said, “I am afraid, sir, that is just not possible.”

“I must insist.”

“Sir…”

Eichhorst turned to the auctioneer, pointing at him with his paddle. “You will hold your gavel until I am allowed to make contact with my benefactor.”

The auctioneer returned to his microphone. “The rules of auction are quite clear on this point, sir. I am afraid that without a viable line of credit—”

“I indeed do have a viable line of credit.”