Fet missed her long hair, but there was something beautiful and spare about her unadorned face. He liked the fine slope of the back of her head, the graceful line moving across the nape of her neck to the beginning of her shoulders.
“You look reborn,” he said.
She frowned. “Not freakish?”
“If anything, a little more delicate. More vulnerable.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You want me to be more vulnerable?”
“Well—only with me,” he said frankly.
That made her smile, and him. Rare things, smiles. Rationed like food in these dark days.
“I like this plan,” Fet said, “in that it represents possibility. But I’m also worried.”
“About Eph,” Nora said, understanding and agreeing with him. “This is make-or-break time. Either he falls apart, and we deal with that, or he rises to the occasion.”
“I think he’ll rise. He has to. He just has to.”
Nora admired Fet’s faith in Eph, even if she wasn’t convinced.
“Once it starts growing back in,” she said, feeling her cooling scalp again, “I’ll have a butchy-looking crew cut for a while.”
He shrugged, picturing her like that. “I can deal with it.”
“Or maybe I’ll shave it, keep it like this. I wear a hat most times anyway.”
“All or nothing,” said Fet. “That’s you.”
She found her knit cap, pulling it down tight over her scalp. “You wouldn’t mind?”
The only thing Fet cared about was that she wanted his opinion. That he was a part of her plans.
Inside the cold, rumbling truck, Fet drifted off with his arms crossed tight as if he were holding on to her.
THE DOOR ROLLED open and Mr. Quinlan stood there, watching them get to their feet. Fet hopped down, his knees stiff and his legs cold, shuffling around to get his circulation up. Eph climbed down and stood there with his pack on his back like a hitchhiker with a long way still to go.
The truck was parked on the shoulder of a dirt road, or perhaps the edge of a long, private driveway, far enough in from the street to be obscured by the trunks of the bare trees. The rain had let up, and the ground was damp but not muddy. Mr. Quinlan abruptly jogged off without explanation. Fet wondered if they were meant to follow him but decided he had to warm up first.
Near him, Eph looked wide-awake. Almost eager. Fet wondered briefly if Eph’s apparent zeal had some pharmaceutical source. But no, his eyes looked clear.
“You look ready,” said Fet.
“I am,” said Eph.
Mr. Quinlan returned moments later. An eerie sight, still: steam came thickly from his scalp and within his hoodie, but none came from his mouth.
“What do you think?” asked Fet. “Of the plan. Honestly. Do we even have a chance?”
Mr. Quinlan looked up through the leafless branches to the black sky.
“The other half is defeating it,” said Fet. He eyed the Born vampire’s face, still upturned, impossible to read. “What about you? What chance would you have against the Master?”
“You can’t be destroyed by man. But you could be destroyed by the Master. So maybe the monster is vulnerable to you.”
Eph had fixed his night-vision scope on his head, anxious to get going. “I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s do this before I talk myself out of it.”
Fet nodded, tightening up his straps, fixing his pack high on his back. They followed Mr. Quinlan through the trees, the Born vampire following some instinctual sense of direction. Fet could discern no path himself, but it was easy—too easy—to trust Mr. Quinlan. Fet did not believe he would ever be able to lower his guard around a vampire, Born or not.
