Read Online The Fall by Chuck Hogan, Guillermo Del Toro - Free Book Online Page B

proposal?” Gus banged on the side of his head as though it were a malfunctioning appliance. “I guess I’m fucking listening—unless I have a choice.”
    We need a daylight serf. A hunter. We are a nocturnal race of beings, you are diurnal.
    “Diurnal?”
    Your endogenous circadian rhythm corresponds directly to the light-dark cycle of what you call a twenty-four-hour day. Your kind’s inbred chronobiology is acclimated to this planet’s celestial timetable, in reverse of ours. You are a sun creature.
    “Fucking what?”
    We need someone who can move about freely during daylight hours. One who can withstand sun exposure, and, in fact, use its power, as well as any other weapons at his disposal, to massacre the unclean.
    “Massacre the unclean? You are vampires, right? Are you saying you want me killing your own kind?”
    Not our kind. This unclean strain spreading so promiscuously through your people—it is a scourge. It is out of control.
    “What did you expect?”
    We had no part in this. Before you, stand beings of great honor and discretion. This contagion represents the violation of a truce—an equilibrium—that has lasted for centuries. This is a direct affront.
    Gus stepped back a few inches. He actually thought he was starting to understand now. “Somebody’s trying to move in on your block.”
    We do not breed in the same random, chaotic manner as your kind. Ours is a process of careful consideration.
    “You’re picky eaters.”
    We eat what we want. Food is food. We dispose of it when we are satiated.
    A laugh rose inside Gus’s chest, nearly choking him. Talking about people like they were three for a dollar at the corner market.
    You find that humorous?
    “No. The opposite. That’s why I’m laughing.”
    When you consume an apple, do you throw away the core? Or do you conserve the seeds for planting more trees?
    “I guess I throw it away.”
    And a plastic receptacle? When you’ve emptied its contents?
    “Fine, I get it. You throw back your pints of blood and then toss away the human bottle. Here’s what I want to know. Why me?”
    Because you appear capable.
    “How you figure that?”
    Your criminal record, for one. You came to our attention through your arrest for murder in Manhattan.
    The fat, naked guy rampaging through Times Square. The guy had attacked a family there, and at the time Gus was like, “Not in my city, freak.” Now, of course, he wished he had stayed back like all the rest.
    Then you escaped police custody, slaying more uncleans in the process.
    Gus frowned. “That ‘unclean’ was my compadre. How you know all this, living down here in this shithole?”
    Be assured that we are connected with the human world at its uppermost levels. But, if balance is to be maintained, we cannot afford exposure—precisely what this unclean strain threatens us with now. That is where you come in.
    “A gang war. That, I understand. But you left out something super-fucking important. Like—why the fuck should I help you?”
    Three reasons.
    “I’m counting. They better be good ones.”
    The first is, you will leave this room alive.
    “I’ll give you that one.”
    The second is, your success in this endeavor will enrich you beyond that which you ever thought possible.
    “Hmm. I don’t know. I can count pretty high.”
    The third… is right behind you.
    Gus turned. He saw a hunter first, one of the badass vamps who had grabbed him off the street. Its head was cowled inside a black hoodie, its red eyes glowing.
    Next to the hunter was a vampire with that look of distant hunger now familiar to Gus. She was short and heavy, with tangled black hair, wearing a torn housedress, the upper front of her throat bulging with the interior architecture of the vampire stinger.
    At the base of the stitched V of her dress collar was a highly stylized, black-and-red crucifix, a tattoo she said she regretted getting in her youth but which must have looked pretty fucking boss at the time, and