Department 19: Zero Hour

by Will Hill

  The exact year was lost to him, although he believed he had been either eight or nine, young and scrawny and trailing after his brothers as though they were gods.

  The sun had been blazing down from a perfect blue sky; he could remember the feeling on his skin so clearly, the warm prickle that was not uncomfortable, but that warned him he was about to burn. Alexandru and Valeri had run off into the woods that backed on to the house, delighting in his inability to keep up with them; he had tried, his heart pounding in his chest, his limbs pumping for all they were worth, but they had eventually disappeared into the distance. He had returned to the house on the verge of tears, forcing himself not to give in to them; his father had made it clear on numerous occasions that Rusmanov men did not cry.

  Valentin had heaved open the heavy front door, intending to seek out the comforting words and arms of Ivana, the governess to whom he was far closer than either of his parents. She would most likely be in the kitchen, overseeing the preparation of dinner.

  As the door swung silently on well oiled hinges, he heard a noise he didn’t recognise. It sounded like the panting of Sasha, the Labrador he had been given for his birthday when he was very young, only louder and deeper. He wandered into the grand entrance hall, and was about to call out for Ivana when something stopped him, a strange sense that he had stumbled upon a secret.

  Instead, he followed the sound towards his father’s study, at the north-east corner of the house. The door was slightly ajar, and the grunting and growling was louder than ever as he stood outside, his feet rooted to the spot. Curiosity was coursing through him, threatening to overwhelm him, but his father’s study was a private, sacred space, and the punishment for entering it without permission was likely to be both severe and protracted. Valentin stood listening to the strange noises, desperate to know what was making them, until a solution suddenly occurred to him. He inched towards the door, soft on the balls of his feet, and leant forward until his eye was level with the gap between it and its frame, and looked down at the floor; his feet were still safely three inches outside the limit of his father’s study. He lifted his eyes, and looked into the room.

  Alexei Rusmanov was leaning over the wide desk that stood at the rear of the room, his hands gripping the edges of the wooden surface, his eyes closed, the noises that Valentin had followed emerging from between his gritted teeth as his narrow body rocked back and forth. Beneath him was Anya, the maid who had joined their household the previous winter when she turned sixteen, the fourth member of her family to serve the Rusmanovs. Her black skirt was crumpled around her hips, and one of her legs was sticking straight up in the air, her stocking rolled down and gathered at her knee. She was staring up at the ceiling, her face expressionless, her arms lying on the desk at her sides.

  Valentin stared. He was instantly certain that this, whatever it was, was something he was not supposed to be seeing, but he was unable to tear himself away. His mother had gone into Constanţa with her sisters and their summer guests, as they did most days; perhaps this was simply what happened when his father was alone in the house.

  Perhaps it was normal.

  He was pondering this possibility when his father suddenly raised his head, opened his eyes, and stared directly at him.

  “Who’s there?” bellowed Alexei Rusmanov, leaping up from the desk and hauling his trousers closed. “Valeri? Is that you, boy?”

  Anya rolled over on the desk and looked towards the door, her cheeks flushing with shame. She scrambled to her feet, pushing her skirt down and smoothing her clothes back into place. Valentin watched, utterly unable to move.

  Caught, he thought, frantically. I’m caught.

  “Out!” bellowed Alexei, pointing at Anya as he strode round his desk. Her eyes widened momentarily, then she fled, scurrying out through the door that connected the study to the servants’ passageways that ran behind the wood-panelled walls of the dacha. Alexei didn’t give her so much as a glance; he stormed across the room, kicked the door open, and grabbed his youngest son by the back of his neck. Valentin’s paralysis broke, and he yelled and squirmed as his father dragged him into the study and slammed the door shut.

  “You little rat!” shouted Alexei, throwing his son to the floor. “You dare to spy on me?”

  Valentin fought to find his voice. “I wasn’t spying, Papa,” he managed, his voice choked with tears. “I wasn’t, truly I wasn’t. I heard noises, Papa, and I followed them. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Alexei stared down at him with hot fury dancing in his eyes, his hands already undoing the belt that would be the instrument of Valentin’s punishment. Then the anger disappeared, and his father reached a hand down to him. Valentin took it, and let himself be hauled roughly up on to unsteady legs.

  “It’s not your fault,” said Alexei. “You are a curious creature, Valentin, and you always have been. The error is mine.”

  “I’m sorry,” repeated Valentin.

  “Don’t be,” said his father. “There is no need. There are things every boy should know, in time. Normally, they come later, but you have always been unwilling to wait for anything. So perhaps it is time.”

  Valentin had no idea what his father was talking about, but he nodded eagerly; being talked to was infinitely preferable to being beaten.

  “Men and women,” said Alexei. “They are not the same. You understand this, yes?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Good. They are different, because what God intends for them is different. Men are hard creatures, because God wants us to fight, and kill, and defeat our enemies. Women are soft, because God wants them to keep their men happy, to provide for them, and care for them. Do you see?”

  Valentin nodded.

  “When the world was much younger than it is now, the men would hunt animals for food while the women waited at home, ready to clean and cook them. When the men returned, discussing the hunt with their women was forbidden. Can you tell me why?”

  Valentin nodded eagerly. “Because it was not their business.”

  Alexei smiled, an expression full of warmth and pride. “You are so clever, my son,” he said. “That is exactly why. It was not their business. What the men had done would upset the women, and it was better for them not to know. Because what the men did was for the good of everyone. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “So you understand why your mother does not need to know what you saw in this room. It would upset her, and you would not want to upset her, would you?”

  Valentin frowned. “Of course not, Papa.”

  “That is because you are a good boy, Valentin. And why we are both so proud of you.”

  “Thank you, Papa.”

  Alexei knelt down and beckoned his son forward. He went willingly, and let himself be enveloped in his father’s arms.

  Valentin left the study full of love. The Rusmanov patriarch was hard, and often cold, but his youngest boy never doubted his love for his sons; it would only be much later, in the fullness of adulthood, that he would realise how poisonous and damaging that love had truly been.

  He made his way quickly out on to the grounds, searching for any sign of his brothers. The sun hung in the sky above Constanţa to the east, and the grass and trees shimmered in its gentle glow as motes of dust swirled in the light. It was never silent outside the dacha; the forest rustled constantly with movement, and the waves crashing at the base of the cliffs were always audible. But there was a stillness, a peace, to the place; it heartened Valentin, and he set about his search with a wide smile on his young, handsome face.

  As he rounded the north-east corner of the sprawling house, he heard voices coming from the stable block that stood at the edge of the forest. Valentin quickened his step, so much so that he was almost running when he reached the door and pulled it open.

  His heart sank, just a little; at the far end of the building, watching with obvious impatience as one of the staff shoed his favourite horse, stood Valeri. Valentin had hoped i
t had been Alexandru he had heard; they could have gone for a ride through the forest, or out along the cliff path. Valeri could, on increasingly rare occasions, still be persuaded to do such things with his youngest brother, but they were now invariably accompanied by a grim expression of duty and an insistence on silence throughout.

  “What is it?” shouted Valeri, staring at him with a stern expression on his face. “What do you want?”

  Valentin stood up straight and walked down the stable block. “A word in private, brother,” he said.

  Valeri cursed, ordered the blacksmith to hurry, and strode down the stables, his greatcoat billowing out behind him. “Speak then,” he said, as he arrived at his brother’s side. “What is so important?”

  Valentin took a deep breath, then told his brother what he had seen in their father’s study. His voice was lowered, but he could not hide his excitement at the prospect of approaching the status of equality with the rest of the Rusmanov men; he had known the time would eventually come when his youth no longer counted against him, and he was hopeful that the moment had finally arrived.

  Valeri listened in silence as he finished his tale, then smiled thinly and shook his head. “Is that it?” he asked. “Father has taken every maid and governess that has ever set foot in our house, yet you come running in here to tell me what I already know like some gossiping scullery maid?”

  Embarrassed heat rose into Valentin’s cheeks.

  “And now you’re blushing like a scullery maid,” said Valeri, smiling cruelly.

  Valentin looked down at the dirt floor of the stables; he could no longer meet his brother’s eye. Then a hand shot out and took hold of his arm, squeezing it hard.

  “Say it,” said Valeri.

  “Say … what?” gasped Valentin, through the pain.

  “Say, ‘I’m a scullery maid.’”

  “No,” said Valentin. “I won’t—”

  Valeri squeezed again and twisted, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of Valentin’s arm. “Say it,” he said, his voice low and full of menace.

  Tears welled up in the corners of Valentin’s eyes. “No,” he managed again. “You can’t—”

  Valeri twisted harder.

  The pain was awful; it burned and pulsed, and Valentin wondered almost absently whether his brother would actually break his arm out of nothing more than spite. He pulled and pushed, trying to loosen the grip, but couldn’t; it was like trying to break free from a statue. Shame and frustration roared through him as the pain increased. He wanted to scream that it wasn’t fair, that Valeri was bigger than him, but he knew such a protest would only encourage his brother; it was a complaint completely unbefitting a Rusmanov. Anger, at himself and at his stupid, hateful brother, boiled up through him, filling him with fire, scorching everything in its path, and, acting on nothing more than furious instinct, Valentin did something he had never done before.

  He balled his free hand into a fist, reared back, and punched his older brother square in the face.

  Valeri’s eyes flew open, and he released his brother’s arm. Then his expression of surprise turned to one of clear, terrible delight.

  The momentary rush of euphoria that had filled Valentin as the punch connected evaporated, and he ran for the stable door, his heart pounding in his chest, his brother thundering after him. He made it through the door and, as the dacha’s grounds opened up before him, believed for a single, glorious moment that he might escape. Then Valeri crashed into him, wrapping thick arms round his legs and driving him to the ground.

  Valentin started to cry, bitter tears of pure frustration, and hated himself for them. Pain and fear mingled into panic, but beneath it something deeper and more primal thrashed and howled: the sickening horror of helplessness. He screamed for mercy as Valeri dragged him back into the stables by his ankles, flipped him up and over, and rammed his head into the horse trough.

  The water was freezing; it sprayed up his nose and poured down his throat, and he began to cough underwater. His eyes were open, but he could see nothing as pressure began to build in his chest; he bucked and thrashed, whipping his head back and forth as the cold began to numb it. And in some distant corner of his mind he understood that Valeri wasn’t going to let him go, that he was going to drown him in the horse trough.

  Red and grey spots circled at the edges of his vision as he began to suffocate, his lungs screaming for air, his body weakening with each passing second. As he went limp, when all he could see was grey and all he could feel was pain, he was jerked upwards, his brother’s hand in his hair, and thrown down to the hay-covered floor.

  He lay there for a long time, coughing and sobbing and dragging air into his trembling body. When he was finally able to move, he curled himself into a ball, unable to face his brother; shame filled every fibre of his being, every bit as hot and sharp as the physical pain in his chest.

  “Look at me,” said Valeri, softly.

  He shook his head, his eyes fixed on the floor.

  “Look at me, brother.”

  Valentin slowly turned his head, and looked. His brother was standing over him, regarding him with an expression that could easily have been mistaken for affection by someone who did not know Valeri Rusmanov.

  “Next time you hit someone,” he said, “be brave. Men don’t run, brother. Men stand and fight.”

  Amen to that, thought Valentin, and turned the handle.

  The door slid open with a long, juddering screech, and Valentin instantly heard movement from within the depths of the house. He walked calmly into the centre of the entrance hall, which had always been immaculate in his father’s day; now dust coated the floor and the furniture, and several of the wooden wall panels were broken and scratched. He ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead and sending a torrent of rainwater cascading down his neck, and waited for whoever was lurking in the dacha to show themselves.

  For a long moment, there was only silence. Then Valentin heard footsteps thud across the floor from the direction of the kitchen, and a vampire in his mid-twenties strolled casually out of the corridor.

  “About time, Pete,” said the man. “Seriously, how long does it take to …”

  His voice trailed off as he saw the smiling figure of Valentin standing before him. He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widening and flickering red in the corners, and opened his mouth as the ancient vampire moved.

  Valentin crossed the space between them in a blur and took the vampire by the throat, cutting off whatever sound he had been about to make. He lifted the man into the air, carried him backwards as though he weighed nothing, and slammed him into the wall with an impact that shook the entire house. The vampire’s eyes flared open with shock and pain, his fists beating futilely at the hand that was holding him.

  The youngest Rusmanov slid the man down the wall until his scrabbling feet touched the floor, then hammered his right leg out in two devastating kicks. The vampire’s legs broke mid-shin with a pair of sickening crunches; the colour disappeared from his face as though it had been sucked out and, as the hand around his throat released him and let him slump to the floor, he let out a piercing howl of agony.

  Valentin stepped back, leaving the stricken vampire screaming and clutching at his shattered legs, and took a deep breath. Throughout the house he could hear the rattle of footsteps and a cacophony of frightened shouts and growls. He isolated the separate sounds, and nodded to himself as the noise grew louder.

  Eight more of them. As I thought.

  He kept moving until his back was almost against the front door, a position from where he could not be surrounded. It was unquestionably overcautious, as Valentin doubted that the vampires making their way through his family’s house were capable of causing him a problem from whichever direction they attacked, but he saw no need to complicate matters; he had no desire to be inside the dacha any longer than necessary.

  The wide entrance hall was suddenly full of movement and noise as vampires spilled into
it from the corridors on either side. They crowded round their fallen friend, shouting and shrieking and asking him what had happened, failing entirely to notice the stranger standing in the shadows. The vampire with the broken legs was alternately screaming and gritting his teeth against the pain, but was nodding his head in the direction of the door, trying in vain to warn his friends. In the end, Valentin spared him further effort.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Valentin, his voice loud and pleasantly warm. “Please may I have your attention?”

  The eight vampires turned as one, their eyes flooding red, their fangs sliding into place, guttural growls and high-pitched hisses rising from their throats. Valentin smiled as he took a closer look at them; they were a ragtag bunch of five women and three men, the youngest barely out of her teens, the oldest a man who looked as though his vampire side was the only thing allowing him to walk unaided. At the centre of the group, a woman who appeared to be in her late forties pulled herself together slightly quicker than the others, and it was to her that Valentin turned his attention.

  “I’m prepared to overlook the fact that you are trespassing in property that belongs to my family,’ he said. “Providing you answer me one simple little question. Where is my brother?”

  The woman spat on the floor as the rest of the vampires howled with derision. “You have no authority here, traitor,” she said. “This house belongs to Valeri, and we are here at his command. Here, waiting for you.”

  Valentin smiled. “Tell me your name.”

  “My name is Genevieve,” hissed the woman. “Yours is traitor.”

  Valentin’s smile widened. “Indeed. Valeri is part of my family, to my eternal shame and regret, so I believe you’ll find my statement was quite accurate. But let’s not dwell on that. You say you are here at my brother’s command?”

  The vampires growled their agreement.

  “And you,” continued Valentin, directing his gaze squarely at Genevieve. “You are in love with him, are you not?”