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Carpe Noctem

‘The Strain’ Fanfiction.

Slow burn, OC/ Quinlan

Part One - Landing

The beginning of the fall started as many do, silently. An odd occurrence, a mystery that the professionals couldn't solve. How had everyone on that flight died? Why?

Unfortunately I was one of those who could answer their questions.

New York was doomed as soon as the plane had taken off from a runway at Berlin airport. From the moment that coffin had been placed into its cargo hold. Humans brought about their own destruction, as we tend too.

Regis Airline Flight 753 carried the bringer of our end.

I had missed the action, twisted in an ever unfulfilling sleep. Nightmares always bothered me, left me turning and waking every couple of hours. It was a great source of annoyance for whoever was curled around me in the bed during that time. At this point it was Alex, had been for a few months. He was handsome, in that waifish sort of way. His family was well connected, and he was easy. I supposed I had liked him, more than quite a lot of the others I'd wasted myself with. It was an accident, a happy one most of the time. I quite liked him and he liked me, because I was so different, as he liked to say, to those preppy snobby girls he'd grown up with. It was a polite way to say I was massively below his social standing, someone his parents would hate the very idea of before they even knew about my stint behind bars. I was his rebellion.

He hadn't stirred when my phone had rang, that wasn't an unusual occurrence. My phone went at all time of the day, some fairly unsanitary people tended to call. This wasn't one of them, I'd answered, bleary eyed and darted into the bathroom as soon as I had recognised the voice, the familiar rattle. Vaun told me about a plane that had landed two hours ago, with everyone onboard dead. They were stumped it seemed, could find no medical reason for it. “Is it him?” He wasn't sure, but the Ancients were restless. “I need you to get a list of all the passengers.” He'd demanded rather than asked, I didn't mind. I was starting to feel my chest tighten, “What if it really is...what do we do Vaun?”

“Then we end it. We do what we need to do.” He pauses, the clicks echo down the line, “Sort the flight list and then get to the airport.”

“On it.” I breathe, trying to find some comfort in his adamant words. I was a little dizzy still, my lungs constricting. If this was really happening then... I shook that away. I'd known about the Master since I was eleven years old, I'd known about Vaun longer. I'd put hundreds of hours into learning how to fight against the Strigoi, how to win if it ever came down to it. Other than my fights against the ones serving Vaun I had never actually met a Strigoi, never actually killed one.

Fantasy.

He hangs up, I dial another number and offer far too much money for the list of names. For the dead. It would be better if they were just dead, if Vaun's instincts were wrong. That was unlikely. I use my inhaler and begin to dress, all sense of fatigue dissipates and I fail at being quiet now, finally waking Alex. “What are you doing?”

“I'm sorry, I need to go. There's an emergency at work.” He questions me a little, buys my lies and lays off as I run back into his plush bathroom to somewhat sort my hair. I take my handbag, check, and am satisfied, by the gun laying inside. I wasn't going to the airport without a weapon, I wasn't going defenceless.

“Shit,” He exclaims, much louder than the muttering on whatever television channel he has flicked on to. “You seen the news? Holy shit.” He starts another sentence, and I hear the creak as he stands and moves across the room. “I think that...” The vibrations as he turns on his phone start instantly. I'm ready but hover as I slip my boots on, I shouldn't be wasting any precious time but the look on his face as he scrolls through his messages, as it rings again and he plasters the device against his cheek, breathes his mothers name stops me. His eyes fill easily, “I'll come, yeah, as soon as...I'm, I'm on my way. Yeah...yeah...okay, okay. I'm coming.” He chucks the phone down onto the duvet.

“What's wrong?”

“You're not the only one with an emergency.” He tries to joke, although it doesn't touch his expression, “Ted was on that flight, Mom says. He was coming home earlier to surprise...” His voice breaks. “Your brother.” I don't need to ask, and allow his grief to touch me, another mistake. I slam into his chest. He lets himself crumble for a few minutes. “I'm going to my parents place and then they're going to take the...bod...” He can't finish.

I tell him I'm sorry about a hundred times. But I need to go, he can sense that, my own pretend emergency must take residence. “As soon as I'm sorted I'll come, 'kay? You need to be with your family.” He agrees and I leave. I don't see Alex again. The turned attack the ones they love. Alex's brother gets him within the week.

The airport is a dead end, and one that very nearly gets me arrested. It confirms what I feared though, it confirmed exactly who had been on that flight. I get there just in time to watch as the media swarms on a stressed looking man, mid to late thirties, conventionally attractive which is no doubt why he was chosen to be the face of the operation. He offers me no new information but I'm good at eavesdropping, in being in the right place at the right time. I hear a chubbier man who clearly works with him expressing concern about the four people 'still alive' and their fight to keep them in quarantine. It's my attempt to get to them a little later which almost gets me taken off by a particularly feisty police officer.

I also see an old man, dressed smartly as if the occasions calls for it carted away by police for having a walking stick that is secretly a silver sword. He knew. That was painstakingly obvious. I make sure to take note of his appearance. I didn't know about anyone else – human at least, in the city that knew about the master. Not in the flesh anyway and I run through his odd appearance several times throughout the coming hours, especially that cane. It clicks while I'm sipping a grossly overpriced coffee, even in a tragedy the shops remain open, the corporations keep their hands out. I'd seen a picture of the cane, there had been a time I'd been obsessed with trying to find others who knew – other humans. I knew enough low life's with skills to search low and high on the internet for the word Strigoi. There were tonnes of mentions, most casually thrown into folk lore and myth. But there had been a news article, from decades ago about a professor somewhere in Europe, a student writing about his odd side comments, a conversation they had had. Professor Setrakian. Abraham Setrakian, I knew that name. I knew that sword.

I google him whilst waiting for any further updates, pay the silly introduction fee for a website that promises property details but is little better than spying and I get an address, a pawn shop. I save it and decide quickly against telling Vaun. I wanted my own secret, and he would detest me getting anyone else involved.

I leave a couple of hours later, the flight manifest on my phone and with a sense of dread that didn't seem like it would ever leave me. It sticks firmly, throughout everything that happens over the next few days, we prep, and we kill.

I didn't know how I expected to feel about my first real kill, about seeing my first proper Strigoi. Vaun said it would be difficult because at this stage they still looked human, they still looked like people. They weren't, he'd drilled that into my head for years. They were husks, as soon as the worms entered them the Master started to take over. He'd offered me a rare smile when I'd made a comment about hive mindsets. They did as the Master said, he could see through all their eyes, he could sense what they sensed. They ate, they turned. The only tiny human part, Vaun warned, which was much more painful now than in practice, was the sense of love. All they felt was hunger, but love was strong, a very human sense of hunger, and the turned would naturally go for those they loved, mothers would most want to turn their children, to drain them of their blood and have them join the Master as well.

It was odd to have already started fighting a war that no-one else seemed aware of.

(Sorry, I know it’s a slow, blocky start - just moving along with the timeline!)