The Night Eternal. Chuck Hogan

the acquisition of the Occido Lumen, in hopes of answering what, at that time, was the only question remaining for Quinlan and the Ancients:

      How could they destroy the Master?

       Camp Liberty

      DR. NORA MARTINEZ awoke to the shrill camp whistle. She lay in a canvas stretcher hanging from the ceiling, enveloping her like a sling. The only way out was to shimmy under her blanket, escaping through the end, feet first.

      Standing, she sensed immediately that something wasn’t right. She turned her head this way and that. It felt too light. Her free hand went immediately to her scalp.

      Bare. Completely bald. This shocked her. Nora didn’t have many vanities, but she’d been blessed with gorgeous hair, keeping it long even though—as an epidemiologist—it was an impractical choice for a professional. She gripped her scalp now as though fighting a searing migraine, feeling bare flesh where she never had before. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she suddenly felt smaller and—somehow, but truly—weakened. In shaving off her hair, they had also cut away a bit of her strength.

      But her unsteadiness wasn’t just the result of her bare scalp. She felt groggy, swaying for balance. After the confusing admittance process, and her attendant anxiety, Nora was amazed she had been able to sleep at all. In fact, she now remembered that she had been determined to remain awake, in order to learn as much as she could about the quarantine area before proceeding into the general population of the absurdly named Camp Liberty.

      But this taste in her mouth now—as though she had been gagged with a fresh cotton sock—told Nora that she had been drugged. That bottle of drinking water she had been issued—they had doped it.

      Anger rose inside her, some of it aimed at Eph. Unproductive. Instead, she focused on Fet, yearning for him. She was almost certain never to see either of those two men again. Not unless she could find some way out of this place.

      The vampires who ran the camp—or perhaps their human co-conspirators, contract members of the Stoneheart Group—wisely enforced a quarantine for new entries. This type of encampment was tinder for an infectious disease event, one that had the potential to wipe out the camp population, their precious blood providers.

      A woman entered the room through the canvas flaps that hung over the doorway. She wore a slate-gray jumpsuit, the same color and bland style as Nora’s. Nora recognized her face, remembering her from yesterday. Terrifically thin, her skin a pale parchment wrinkled at the corners of her eyes and her mouth. Her dark hair was close-cropped, her scalp due for a shave. Yet the woman appeared upbeat, for some reason Nora could not fathom. Her function here was apparently that of a camp mother of sorts. Her name was Sally.

      Nora asked her, as she had the day before, “Where is my mother?”

      Sally’s smile was all customer service, tolerant and disarming. “How did you sleep, Ms. Rodriguez?”

      Nora had given a false name upon admission, as her association with Eph had certainly landed her name on every watch list. “I slept just fine,” she said. “Thanks to the sedative mixed into my water. I asked you where my mother is.”

      “My assumption is that she has been transferred to Sunset, which is a sort of active retirement community associated with the camp. That is normal procedure.”

      “Where is it? I want to see her.”

      “It’s a separate part of the camp. I suppose a visit is possible at some point, but not now.”

      “Show me. Where it is.”

      “I could show you the gate, but . . . I’ve never been inside myself.”

      “You’re lying. Or else you really believe it. Which means you’re lying to yourself.”

      Sally was just a functionary, a messenger. Nora understood that Sally was not intentionally trying to mislead her but simply repeating what she had been told. Perhaps she had no idea, nor capacity to suspect, that this “Sunset” might not exist exactly as advertised.

      “Please listen to me,” said Nora, growing frantic. “My mother is not well. She is sick, she is confused. She has Alzheimer’s disease.”

      “I am sure she’ll be well looked after—”

      “She will be put down. Without a moment’s hesitation. She’s outlived her usefulness to these things. But she is sick, she is panicked, she needs to see a familiar face. Do you understand? I just want to see her. One last time.”

      This was a lie, of course. Nora wanted to bust the both of them out of there. But she had to find her mother first.

      “You’re human. How can you do this—how?”

      Sally reached out to squeeze Nora’s left arm reassuringly but mechanically. “She truly is in a better place, Ms. Rodriguez. The elderly have rations sufficient to support their health and aren’t required to produce anything in return. I envy them, frankly.”

      “Do you really believe that?” said Nora, amazed.

      “My father is there,” said Sally.

      Nora gripped her arm. “Don’t you want to see him? Show me where.”

      Sally was entirely sympathetic—to the point where Nora wanted to slap her. “I know it is difficult, the separation. What you have to focus on now is taking good care of yourself.”

      “Was it you who drugged me?”

      Sally’s smile drained of conviviality, replaced by concern—perhaps concern for Nora’s sanity, for her future potential as a productive camp member. “I have no access to medication.”

      “Do they drug you?”

      Sally offered no opinion on Nora’s response. “Quarantine is over,” she said. “You’re to be part of the general camp community now, and I’m to show you around, to help you get acclimated.”

      Sally led her out through a small, open-air buffer zone, along a walkway beneath a tarpaulin keeping them from being soaked by rainfall. Nora looked out at the sky: another starless night. Sally had papers for the human at the checkpoint, a man in his fifties wearing a white doctor’s coat over his slate-gray jumpsuit. He looked over the forms, glanced at Nora with the eyes of a customs agent, then let them through.

      Rain found them despite the overhead canopy, splashing at their legs and feet. Nora wore hospital-style foam sandals with spongy soles. Sally wore a comfortable, if damp, pair of Saucony sneakers.