If the degree of devotion to a Dear One in life bore any correlation to their desire to reunite in death…then Eph knew that Kelly would never give up. She would go on haunting her son forever unless someone put a stop to it.

Their custody battle for Zack was not over.

Eph looked at their faces…and then at the fires raging on television…and then turned to the computer. He pressed the enter key, completing Zack’s task. He dispatched video proof of the raging vampire into the world…and then went into the kitchen, where Kelly kept the scotch. For the first time in a long time, he poured himself a drink.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge and enthusiastically recommend the book Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan (Bloomsbury, 2004).

About the Authors

About the Authors

Born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, GUILLERMO DEL TORO made his feature directorial debut in 1993 with the film Cronos, and has since gone on to direct Mimic, The Devil’s Backbone, Blade II, Hellboy I, Hellboy II, and Pan’s Labyrinth, which garnered enormous critical praise worldwide and won three Academy Awards. He will direct two films based on The Hobbit, to be produced by Peter Jackson.

CHUCK HOGAN is the author of several acclaimed novels, including The Standoff and Prince of Thieves, which won the 2005 Hammett Award and was called one of the ten best novels of the year by Stephen King. Prince of Thieves will soon be a major motion picture.

Other Books by Chuck Hogan

ALSO BY CHUCK HOGAN

The Killing Moon

Prince of Thieves

The Blood Artists

The Standoff

Credits

Credits

Jacket design by Ervin Serrano

Copyright

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE STRAIN. Copyright © 2009 by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition May 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-188233-3

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Publisher

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

Canada

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900

Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada

New Zealand

HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

P.O. Box 1

Auckland, New Zealand

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

77-85 Fulham Palace Road

London, W6 8JB, UK

United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

10 East 53rd Street