"Seven days." "Seven more days passed and the levee broke wide open." "The government exhausted its resources trying to contain the infections in Washington, Atlanta, Dallas, but it spread to 20 more cities, then 50." "There was nowhere to run." "Outbreaks were reported in Germany," "India, Africa," "Japan." "Countries tried their own ways to stop it, but to no avail." "One global environment now engaged in a global war." "Here in New York, we held our battle lines against an enemy that continued to evolve." "But for how much longer?" "Were we still seeking victory or simply forestalling defeat?" "There's no need to take your next turn." "You've already lost." "Bullshit." "_" "We can play out the next six moves, or you can just knock over your king right now." "Maintain some dignity." "Yeah, it's not gonna happen." "Fine, it was bullshit." "But this game is so boring!" "Yeah, well, I think it's over, anyway." "Behind you." "Yeah, you've got some of your own." " We're only keeping one, right?" " Yeah, the smallest one." "You can thank me later." "Look at that." "Is that all the bioweapon does now?" "I've seen worse with herpes." "From strigoi WMD to "not as bad as herpes."" "Not a great week." "This will work." "Welcome to the lab, love." "Thanks for donating your body to science." "_" "Come on." "You jealous?" "Huh?" "There's enough for both of you, man." "Later, my bitches." "Hah!" "Wahoo!" "_" "I'm reading a chapter on strigoi hunters." "A long line of them, dating all the way back to the ancient Sumerians." "A Phoenician hunter set fire to a ship full of people merely on the suspicion that there was a strigoi on board." "How is any of this useful?" "There's a commonality among all these hunters:" "the desire to act alone." "They appear monomaniacal and often seem to be gripped by madness." "Good thing none of this applies to you." "Or you." "_" "It is rude to just stand there." "Mr. Pirk, is it?" "Yes." "Roald Pirk." "And you are Ms. Van Orden?" "You may call me Saskia." "I passed along to my associate," "Mr. Kruger, the papers of provenance that you sent me, and his interest in the item is greater than ever." "That is good news." "Between us, Mr. Kruger is not his real name, is it?" "What makes you say that?" "I did a little digging on my own." "In my line of work, I need to make sure potential buyers have" " the means to close the deal." " I assure you, Mr. Kruger has significant resources at his disposal." "Yes, if he is the person I suspect him to be, he is a viable buyer indeed." "I just need you to verify a few details." "Is he a German?" " Yes." " And was he loyal to the Fatherland during the war?" "Yes, he was." "I heard a rumor he was employed at one of the concentration camps in Poland." "Doing good work there, in my opinion." "I wouldn't know about that." "I see." "Well, it would please me to meet him." "And, upon completing a deal, deliver the Lumen into his hand." "I will warn you, there have been others who have attempted to sell him forgeries." "They did not come to happy ends." "This transaction will be nothing but honourable." "Difficult times are also opportunities for people to come together." "You are not alone." "At Stoneheart Freedom Centres, we have food... clean water, and medicine." "All you need is your freedom card." "Good morning, Eldritch." " _" " Ah, Herr Eichorst." "Eldritch." "Are you alright?" " Nurse!" " Mr. Palmer?" "Mr. Palmer?" "Mr. Palmer?" " Can you hear me?" " Yes." "A little help here, folks?" " Alright, come on." " There we go." "There you go." "How many fingers am I holding up?" " I'm fine." "I just stumbled." " I'm going to get an IV." "I..." "No need for that..." "We can come back another time if you're not up for this." "Who are you?" " Sanjay Desai." " He's a new associate of ours, Eldritch." "Working to help us." "A very impressive young man." "And I hear that you are facilitating a very important shipment for us." "And what business is that of yours?" " Oh, it's very much my business." " Come again?" "Don't upset yourself, Eldritch." "Now, what is the status of the Aurora Cutlass?" "The ship left port in Egypt 31 days ago." "That's excellent." "Now we need you to make sure that it ports here in New York." "Given the chaos of the moment, it is a challenge for any vessel" " to be permitted in the harbour." " Make sure that it docks?" " Pardon me?" " I'm sure Eldritch" " will accomplish this." " What's on that ship" " that's so important?" " If you need to know, then I will tell you." "In the meantime, please alert us the moment it reaches the docks." "Thank you." "It's been a pleasure." "What's been a pleasure?" "This transaction." "Have a good day." "Wow, you must have gotten up early." "Never went to bed." "Here, look at this." "We haven't been finding anything particularly useful, looking for vulnerabilities in the endocrine and circulatory system." "And I figured let's just start fresh." "Let's strip everything down to basics." "Oh!" "This is it." "That's the parasite." "This is the organism that's infecting people." " This is what we're fighting." " So it's just a stinger," " a spinal column, and a brain?" " No, not just any brain." "The tissue is necrotic." "If you or I had a brain this diseased, we'd barely be able to maintain a heartbeat, let alone coordinate with others or stalk prey." "Now, look at this." "Worms." "Not much better than shit for brains, if you ask me." "Yeah." "The worms aren't just the vector for transmission." "They seem to comprise the core of their nervous system." "And I'm never eating noodles again." "Coffee?" "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" "Turn off the microwave!" "OK, turn it back on again." "Why?" "Come here." "What do you think it is that they're reacting to?" "Do you think microwaves are escaping?" "Not if you trust government safety regulations." "So microwaves are definitely escaping." "And the worms are somehow responding to it." "It's like they've woken up." "_" "This was supposed to be secure, Frank." "Those people moved here because we told them it was a safe zone." "It could have been a lot worse." "Our response teams..." "I don't need you spinning this." "Just tell me how the hell" " they're getting in here." " They must be coming" " from underground, somehow." " You said we cleared" " all the tunnels." " We did." "Well, however it's magically happening, they've got us chasing our tails." "These guys should've been out last night taking back the rest of Manhattan, not stuck here" " on clean-up duty, I mean..." " I know..." "This is not how we win, Frank!" "We're moving backwards." "I'm trying." "Not hard enough." "Let's go, guys." "_" "Great!" "A hipster strigoi..." "It's been a week." "Did you get" " the powder working again?" " No, but look at this." "Hi, I'm Dutch Velders." "I fought with you, right here in Red Hook, actually." "Here, look at this." "We believe this is the communication center" " of the strigoi brain." " And watch this!" "When I cause pain to Strigoi A..." "I get a pronounced response in Strigoi B. This proves that they're communicating by way of some highly evolved signals." "This is a biological system." "The way a migratory bird can fly 3,000 miles to some specific winter nesting spot in Mexico." "Complex?" "Mysterious?" "Yes, but empirically solvable." "But you haven't solved it." "I need a new weapon." "We are running out of time." "You saw them last week?" "You saw how they were different, less directed." "Shut down their communication, we can get them back into that condition." " Let's go." " If we can pull this off, we can have a devastating effect on them." "No." "Not "if." When-when we're going to." "Then do it." "And do it fast." "Love her in person." "Hey!" "We're supposed to keep the munchers out of the safe zones, not give them new ways to come in..." "So this is the thing that actually makes the microwaves" " in the microwave?" " The magnetron, yeah." "I'm using the radio to modulate a frequency with a signal from a dead station." "So if I'm right about the microwaves being their carrier frequency, then this should blast the strigoi with white noise, and drown out all the communication it's getting." "You know what might do the most good for New York in the meantime?" "If Justine Faraldo got laid." "Well, that can be your next project." "Well, I was going to give that assignment to you." "She does have a kind of sexy power thing going on." "Now, I don't trust you with this thing, so you're on torture duty." "Speaking of "sexy power," what about Fet?" "Well, it might help your relationship with him if he heard you say that." "What about him?" " You guys gonna try to reconnect?" " Think not." "He made it very clear he wants nothing more to do with me." "Microwave gun test commencing." "Look at that!" "There's no more spike!" "We're actually blocking their signal!" "Let's not pop the champagne cork just yet." "Need to test this with real strigoi that aren't strapped down with their guts hanging out." "You're very by the book, aren't you?" "It says here that an ancient Egyptian hunter from the town of Meir managed to "bury a plague, ending its terrible reign forever."" "How does one bury a..." ""The seven plagues, mortal only to the face of God."" "The seven Ancients." "Could this Egyptian possibly have killed one?" "The Old World Ancients are not all accounted for." "How did the Egyptians accomplish this?" "It doesn't say." "It's possible the details have been lost to history." "I cannot believe that." "The illustrations could contain" " some hidden meaning." " It's possible." "Although it would be easier to discern if we were looking at the genuine article." "If you think I would let you within a hundred feet of the Lumen..." "I'm not going to steal it again, Professor." "You have my word." "Yes, your word." "I want these answers just as much as you do." "Wait right here." "_" "Yes?" "What is it?" "Mr. Kruger?" "My name is Roald Pirk." "I believe you are expecting me." "Ah, yes." "Just a moment." "Have we met someplace before, sir?" "Not that I recall." "Please." "May I offer you a drink?" "If it's all the same to you, I wish to get our business completed as soon as possible." "Why?" "Surely you don't believe all of the superstitious notions that people have about the book?" "I'll just say it has been a peculiar burden to possess it." "Well, you'll be glad to know that I'm about to unburden you, then." "And you, you have no concerns at all," "Mr. Kruger?" "About curses, calamities?" "I am a man who embraces the accursed, Mr. Pirk." "Now, if you will excuse me for a moment." "For you." "Good?" "Yes." "Very good." "And now, it is your turn." "Bring it closer, please." "Closer." "Go on." "Take it." "Feel the weight of the silver in your hands." "I do not need to." "I can tell that it is a fake." "And you are not who you say you are, Jew!" "_" "I recognized you right away." "I expect you wish you had brought your cane inside with you!" "This'll do." "I've worked for years to arrange for this encounter." "I was expecting to find Thomas Eichhorst." "This was meant for him, you see." "But in his absence," "Dr. Dreverhaven," "I will settle for you." "It's as though the book is deliberately hiding the solution for how they defeated the Ancient." "Yes, but hiding it from whom?" "Strigoi can't read from a silver-bound book." "And yet, here you are." "I'm beginning to wonder if even more elaborate measures were taken." "Come with me, Mr. Quinlan." "Follow me as far as you can." "Sunlight!" "They used sunlight to hide the text so the strigoi could never read it." ""After being surrounded" ""by an army of thousands," ""the living plague was contained" ""within a stone sarcophagus" ""lined with an alloy" ""of silver and lead." ""A tomb for the creature" ""and for the crimson worm" ""within it." "Trapped for all eternity."" "A box?" "The box." "I told you you would find nothing." "Herr Eichorst keeps his whereabouts a mystery." "I don't believe you." "That sunlight will be on you in minutes, Doctor." "A man can only be threatened by that of which he is afraid, and I am not afraid of death." "At a certain point, repetition diminishes pleasure." "This room is too shallow." "Now, there must be another room here." "Sudden immolation, a fitting end for a visionary, no?" "If it is my time to go, then so be it." "Who were those men in there?" "They were clients of my associate, Saskia, the woman who sent you here." "Men who visited her prostitutes?" "Yes, yes!" "Disrespectful men who harmed them." "No one will miss them." "No one will miss you either." "Sunlight is too good for you, Herr Doktor." "What?" "What are you doing?" "Ow!" "What is that for?" "You-you don't know what you're doing!" "True," "I am not an anatomy expert like you." "However, I do know you have an amazing ability to heal." "But... if you were to lose one of your limbs..." "No, no, no!" "You cannot do that!" "It would never grow back." "I'm damning you to hell, Dr. Dreverhaven." "Any last words?" "No?" "I suppose you said them already." "Bingo." "Holy shit." "They're digging their own tunnels now." " That's how six." " _ of my tagged munchers came out to hunt tonight." "And when the sun went down, they used these new tunnels to pop up" " inside your safe zone." " Shit!" "The good news is that now I know" " where they're coming from." " Central Park." "Underneath Central Park." "I found an old chamber, way deep down." "I'm telling you, there were thousands of them down there." "Central Park, central nest." "Then we go after it with everything we've got." "It didn't make any sense to me the strigoi could be so high functioning with so little brainpower." "And then I realized I'm still thinking in human terms." "All they need is a receiver to get the Master's instructions." "Exactly." "If we can block that, they turn back into dumb animals." "Ready?" "Yeah." "All right, little monkey, how are you gonna get that tasty, tasty blood?" "That's right." "You grab the pipe, you stick it through the cage, pull the dish towards you." " Oh!" " It's OK." "There's no way he can get through this door." "What the hell is he doing?" "I don't know." "Yeah, there's no way he can get that open." "He seems pretty good at it." "OK, turn it on." "Haha!" "Aww, look at the poor lummox." "A rapidly plummeting IQ... it's adorable." "The microwave-gun challenge test is a success, strongly showing that our hypothesis that..." " You're still shooting it, right?" " Yeah!" "Let me make some adjustments." " Whatever you're doing, do it fast!" " I'm trying." "It's not working!" "AH!" "So, they have found some way of getting around the interference." "The Master's system is more complex than we thought." "You don't have to be so blue about it." "It's totally "figure-outable."" "No, no, it's just, uh... when things are going well, it helps me keep my mind from going to... to dark places." "Well, we just have to make things go well then." "Oh, is that all we have to do?" "I feel better already." "You really think the Egyptians trapped an Ancient inside this sarcophagus?" "Yes." "And he's probably still there." "I should have thought of this before, as I did something similar once." "Not to an Ancient, but to a sentient strigoi." "He'd always been a monster, a psychopath, even as a human." "_" "What you got in that thing, man?" "A rabid dog." "I spent decades trying to cast the memory from my mind." "It's the closest to madness I've ever come." "Good things can be born out of madness, Professor." "Don't you see?" "Imprisonment is the key to defeating the Master." "Not combat or physical destruction." "As long as the crimson worm survives, the Master can always transfer bodies." "Yes, but if he is contained within the silver, and his communicative power suppressed by the lead inside the box, then he's truly powerless." "No wonder he's hiding." "Yes." "Therein lies the challenge." "We now know how to defeat the Master, but we don't know where he is." "Or even who he is." "There is one person who could find out." "_" "Have you reconsidered my offer?" "I will never give you the formula for the white, but I will give you a dose." "How long will a dose last?" "Long enough." "In exchange, you will find out whose body the Master has taken." "He is no longer in Bolivar's body?" "So he has lost faith in you." "Should I question your ability to do this?" "No-no, I can do it." "He still needs me." "Of that, I am certain." "Otherwise, I would already be dead." "You can find him?" "Yes, I can." "I will." "To a new alliance."