5. Madness

Complete story — includes the ending

Many world cities have been infected as strigoi numbers grow exponentially. Eph and Dutch have been capturing strigoi for Eph's biological experiments. Elsewhere, Fet follows two strigoi implanted with GPS trackers. Setrakian and Quinlan continue studying the Lumen. Quinlan and Setrakian note each other's strigoi-hunting obsession, to a point where other hunters were driven mad. Eldritch Palmer, in rapidly declining health, meets Eichhorst's new associate, Sanjay Desai. Eichhorst is pleased when Palmer reports that a cargo shipment from Egypt is on schedule. While performing a strigoi necropsy, Eph discovers that microwaves affect the creature's crude central nervous system, disrupting their collective communication ability. Justine Feraldo and Captain Frank Kowalski are dismayed that strigoi have infiltrated previously secured areas of Manhattan. Fet encounters strigoi digging tunnels for their brethren to enter the city through Central Park. He also discovers a massive strigoi nest. In a flashback scene set in 1972, Setrakian poses as a seller of a fake Occido Lumen to lure and entrap Eichhorst. Instead, he encounters Dr. Draverhaven, the sadistic Nazi doctor turned sentient strigoi. Setrakian overpowers the doctor, eventually dumping him alive into the North Sea, trapped inside a steamer trunk. In the present, Setrakian discovers text hidden within the Lumen's pages: the Master can be defeated by containing him in a silver-lined sarcophagus. Setrakian enlists Palmer's help, offering a dose of the "white" in exchange for learning the identity of the Master's new host body and his whereabouts. Further testing by Eph and Dutch reveals the strigoi can quickly adapt to the microwave interference.