But the Master had seen her. The Master saw everything. Even—especially—while feeding. His night vision was extraordinary and nearly telescopic, in varying shades of gray, and registered heat sources in a glowing spectral white.

Finished, though not satiated—never satiated—he let his prey slide limply down his body, his great hands releasing the turned human to the gravel floor. The tunnels around him whispered with winds that fluttered his dark cloak, trains screaming in the distance, iron clashing against steel, like the scream of a world suddenly aware of his coming.

Exposure

EXPOSURE

Canary Headquarters, Eleventh Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street

Canary Headquarters, Eleventh Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street

On the third morning following the landing of Flight 753, Eph took Setrakian to the office headquarters of the CDC Canary project on the western edge of Chelsea, one block east of the Hudson. Before Eph started Canary, the three-room office had been the local site for the CDC’s World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, investigating links between the 9/11 recovery effort and persistent respiratory ailments.

Eph’s heart lifted as they pulled up at Eleventh Avenue. Two police cars and a pair of unmarked sedans with government license plates were parked outside the entrance. Director Barnes had come through finally. They were going to get the help they needed. There was no way Eph, Nora, and Setrakian could fight this scourge on their own.

The third-floor office door was open when they got there, and Barnes was conferring with a plainclothes man who identified himself as an FBI special agent. “Everett,” said Eph, relieved to find him personally involved. “Your timing is perfect. Just the man I wanted to see.” He moved to a small refrigerator near the door. Test tubes clinked as he reached for a quart of whole milk, uncapping it and drinking it down fast. He needed the calcium the same way he had once needed booze. We trade off our dependencies, he realized. For instance, just last week Eph had been fully dependent upon the laws of science and nature. Now his fix was silver swords and ultraviolet light.

He brought the half-empty bottle away from his lips with the realization that he had just slaked his thirst with the product of another mammal.

“Who is this?” asked Director Barnes.

“This,” said Eph, swiping the milk mustache from his upper lip, “is Professor Abraham Setrakian.” Setrakian was holding his hat, his alabaster hair bright under the low ceiling lights. “So much has happened, Everett,” said Eph, swallowing more milk, putting out the fire in his belly. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Barnes said, “Why don’t we start with the bodies missing from the city morgues.”

Eph lowered the bottle. One of the cops had edged closer to the door behind him. A second FBI man was sitting at Eph’s laptop, pecking away. “Hey, excuse me,” said Eph.

Barnes said, “Ephraim, what do you know about the missing corpses?”