And so he did, but purposefully pulled his aim high at the last second before squeezing the trigger. A moment later the group stopped, looking his way. Zack remained low and still next to the monument base, certain he would blend in with the backdrop.

He fired three more times: Crack! Crack! Crack! He got one! One was down! Zack quickly reloaded.

The targets ran, turning down the avenue and out of Zack’s view. He drew aim on a traffic light they had passed, just able to make out a sign indicating one of the old police security cameras posted there. He turned and ran back into the cover of the park trees, chased only by the sensation of his secret thrill.

This city in daylight was the domain of Zachary Goodweather! Let all trespassers be warned!

On the street, bleeding from the bullet wound—being dragged away—was Vasily Fet, the rat exterminator.

One Hour Earlier

THEY HAD DESCENDED into the subway at 116th Street a full hour before daylight, in order to give themselves plenty of time. Gus showed them where to wait, near a sidewalk grate through which they could hear the approach of a 1 train, minimizing the amount of time they would have to spend on the platform below.

Eph stood against the nearest building, his eyes closed, asleep on his feet in the pissing rain. And even in those brief intervals he dreamed of light and fire.

Fet and Nora whispered occasionally, while Gus paced and said nothing. Joaquin declined to accompany them, needing to vent his frustration over Bruno’s passing by continuing their program of sabotage. Gus had tried to dissuade him from going out into the city on a bad knee, but Joaquin’s mind was set.

Eph was roused to consciousness by the subterranean shriek of the approaching train, and they bustled down the station steps like the other commuters rushing to get off the streets before the sunlight curfew. They boarded a silver-colored subway car and shook the rain from their coats. The doors closed and a quick glance up and down the length of the car told Eph that there were no vampires on board. He relaxed a bit, closing his eyes as the subway took them fifty-five blocks south beneath the city.

At Fifty-ninth Street and Columbus Circle, they disembarked, rising up the steps to the street. They ducked inside one of the large apartment buildings and found a place to wait behind the lobby, until the dark shroud of night lifted just enough, the sky becoming merely overcast.

When the streets were empty, they emerged into the faded glory of day. The orb of the sun was visible through the dark cloud cover like a flashlight pressed against a charcoal-gray blanket. Street-level windows of certain cafés and shops remained smashed since the initial days of panic and looting, while glass in the upper-story windows largely remained intact. They walked around the southern curve of the immense traffic circle, long since cleared of abandoned cars, the central fountain spewing black water out of every second or third nozzle. The city, during curfew, had a perpetual early-Sunday-morning feel to it, as though most of the residents were sleeping in, the day slow to start. In that sense, it gave Eph a feeling of hope that he tried to savor, even though he knew it to be false.

Then a sizzling sound creased the air overhead.

“What the…?”

The loud crack followed, a gunshot report, sound traveling more slowly than the round itself. The delay said the shot had been fired from a distance, seemingly from somewhere inside the trees of Central Park.

“Shooter!” said Fet. They ran across Eighth Avenue, quickly but not panicked. Gunshots at daylight meant humans. There had been a lot more insanity in the months following the takeover. Humans driven crazy by the fall of their kind and the rise of the new order. Violent suicides. Mass murders. After those died out, Eph would still see people out during the meridiem especially, ranting, wandering the streets. Rarely would he see any people out during the curfew now. The crazies had been killed or otherwise dispatched, and the rest behaved.

Three more shots were fired, crack, crack, crack—

Two of the bullets hit a mailbox, but the third one hit Vasiliy Fet squarely in the left shoulder. It made him twirl, leaving behind a ribbon of blood. The bullet traveled clean through his body, tearing muscle and flesh but miraculously missing the lungs and the heart.

Eph and Nora grabbed Fet as he fell and, with the help of Mr. Quinlan, dragged him away.

Nora pulled Fet’s hand back from his shoulder, quickly examining the wound. Not too much blood, no bone fragments.

Fet eased her back. “Let’s keep moving. Too vulnerable here.”