Department 19: Zero Hour

by Will Hill

  We’re no longer the good guys, he thought, with a sadness that stabbed at his heart. Maybe we were once, but those days are gone. Now we’re the lesser of two evils.

  And that’s all.

  Matt Browning’s report appeared in his mind, and he winced. “It wasn’t just us, was it?” he said.

  “I am sorry?” said Aleksandr.

  “It wasn’t only Blacklight that Demidov and Zellev infiltrated. Major Simmons of NS9 took one of my Lieutenants hostage this morning, at gunpoint. He tried to leave a live operation with him and a set of specimens that might prove vital to the work of the Lazarus Project, but my Operator managed to kill him. Safeguard was his last word. This was barely eight hours ago.”

  “That is … regrettable,” said Ovechkin.

  Why? wondered Holmwood. Because Matt Browning almost died, or because you’re going to have to explain all this to Bob Allen?

  “I’m assuming his intention was to take the specimens to Russia?” said Turner.

  “I do not know,” said Ovechkin. “We are still analysing Demidov’s preliminary data. Our conclusion is that the Safeguards were intended as observers, rather than saboteurs. But there is much we do not yet understand.”

  “It’s quite a coincidence,” said Turner. “Brennan goes rogue to avoid detection, then Simmons tries to steal invaluable information, and they die within twenty-four hours of each other.”

  “Our investigation is ongoing,” said Ovechkin, his face pale. “As I told you.”

  “What about everywhere else?” asked Holmwood. “Not just NS9, but the FTB, PBS6, all the other Departments. How many of their Operators did you send back to them as traitors?”

  Ovechkin flinched. It was a tiny gesture, but Holmwood saw it; a momentary flicker of pain, or shame, or both.

  “Many,” he said. “A great many, over the years.”

  “Are they all dead as well?”

  “Many of them are,” said Ovechkin. “But no. Not all of them.”

  “Christ,” said Holmwood. “This is going to cause chaos.”

  “Maybe not,” said Turner. “If the Departments can get to them before they realise they’ve been identified, maybe they can be removed.”

  “Maybe,” said Ovechkin. “Although, as you said, Major Turner, the timing of Major Simmons’ actions does seem highly coincidental. Unless he perceived some threat to his cover that we are not aware of.”

  “Tell the rest of the Departments to exercise extreme caution when you inform them, Aleksandr,” said Holmwood. “The Safeguards are clearly prepared to use force to evade capture.”

  “The data suggests that was an element of their programming,” said Ovechkin.

  “What Brennan did was more than just using force,” said Turner. “It was a carefully planned strategy. He manipulated Valentin Rusmanov’s servant into planting the bombs that were meant for myself and Lieutenant Randall, then wrote HE RISES where he left the tracking chip he’d cut out of his own arm. There’s no other way to view his behaviour than as a calculated attempt to make it appear he betrayed us to Dracula, knowing full well that’s the assumption we’d be likely to make.”

  “But he didn’t,” said Holmwood, his voice low. “He was working for our friends.”

  Which means we’ve lost our best lead to Dracula’s location, he thought. All our hopes now lie with Valentin. God help us.

  “I am sorry, Cal,” said Ovechkin. “There are only so many different ways I can say so.”

  “Fine,” said Holmwood. He gave his head a quick shake, trying to clear some of the fog that had settled into it. “Send through everything you have on our Department, and don’t make the mistake of assuming this matter is closed. But there are other calls you need to make right now, Aleksandr, and if I were you I’d put Bob Allen at the top of your list. One of his men just held a gun to a Blacklight Operator’s head and I’m pretty sure he’s going to be keen to know why. Let’s speak again when the rest of the Departments are up to speed.”

  “Agreed,” said Ovechkin. “I wish this had not happened, Cal. I hope you can believe me.”

  “I believe you,” replied Holmwood. “Start putting it right.”

  Valentin Rusmanov floated in the cold night air, the smell of the sprawling pine forest below him filling his nostrils. His eyes glowed steadily in the darkness as he stared at his target: the squat, distant shape of Château Dauncy.

  As he had suspected, finding it had not been difficult.

  After saying goodbye to Anderson in San Sebastián the previous evening, he had walked down on to the dark, deserted beach and risen silently into the air, disappearing instantly from view. Using cold, damp banks of low-lying cloud as cover, Valentin had accelerated north-east, soaring and gliding over rising thermals and between shifting areas of pressure, the air fluttering his jacket like wings, his travel bag hanging below him like a bomb about to be released from its housing, until the illuminated spread of Bordeaux appeared and he dropped unnoticed into its maze of dark streets.

  He took a room in a grand, slightly faded hotel on the northern bank of the Garonne that he was sure he had stayed in before, paying for two nights even though he only intended to stay for one. It was one of the annoyances of being a vampire, as hotel checkout times were invariably long before the sun went down, and thus impossible for the supernatural to accommodate.

  Valentin, whose personal wealth was so vast as to be essentially incalculable, didn’t notice such things, however; he merely handed over an emerald-green card embossed with the name of a bank in Zurich that the vast majority of the world’s very richest men and women had never heard of, took a map of the Gironde from a shelf beside the reception desk, and retired to his room. There, he unfolded the map on the bed, and immediately found what he was looking for: Château Dauncy, twenty miles to the south-west, in the middle of a pine forest that spread almost all the way to the Atlantic coast.

  I probably flew over it on my way here, thought Valentin, and allowed himself a small smile.

  He ordered oysters and magret de canard from room service, opened one of the bottles he had filled with the blood of a boy he had turned in Rome, and lay back on the bed.

  Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow I will keep the promise I made.

  Now that time had come.

  Even from a distance of ten miles or more, Valentin’s supernaturally sharp eyes could pick out the bright squares of the château’s windows, could hear snatches of conversation as they floated on air that felt thick and full of electricity. As if on cue, a clap of thunder rolled in the distance, reverberating in his ears and through his bones. Lightning flashed to the north, and it began to rain; a light drizzle of cold, salt-edged water that quickly became first a steady downpour, then a hammering torrent. Thunder boomed again, closer this time, and Valentin smiled as the wind picked up speed and water fell from the heavens.

  He had considered flying straight back to Blacklight with the information he had gleaned from Anderson, but had quickly decided against it; he could not be entirely certain the intelligence was accurate without visiting the château himself. He didn’t believe for a moment that Anderson would intentionally lie to him, as he was certain that deception was beyond his abilities. It was, however, quite possible that the huge, child-like vampire was wrong.

  When I see them, he thought, that’s when I’ll know. When I see Dracula and my brother with my own eyes.

  Valentin took a deep breath and flew slowly towards the château, a dark shadow passing silently above the vast, churning forest.

  In the study on the top floor of Château Dauncy, Dracula’s eyes flared a deep, oily crimson; he threw his head back, the scent of the past filling his nostrils, his body trembling with sensation.

  Valeri rose instantly from his chair and flew to his master’s side. “My lord,” he said, his voice full of concern. “What is it?”

  Dracula slowly brought his head level, his eyes blazing, and the eldest Rusmanov frowned as a thin smile broke across the fa
ce of his master.

  “Your brother,” said the first vampire, rolling the words round his mouth as though they tasted delicious. “He is coming.”

  Valeri’s frown deepened. He took a deep breath, inhaling the mingled scents of the château and the forest, and narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure, my lord?”

  “You cannot smell his treacherous stench?” asked Dracula.

  “No, my lord. I cannot.”

  “I can,” said Dracula, his smile widening into a grin. “It seems my power has finally overtaken yours, my old friend. Perhaps order is finally returning to the world.”

  “Perhaps so, my lord,” said Valeri, trying not to let the rebuke register on his weathered face. “Where is my brother?”

  Dracula rose to his feet and crossed to his desk. The wooden box containing the item that Valeri had dutifully acquired stood on top, its lid open. The first vampire lifted it out, smiled, then fastened it to his belt and flew across the study. Valeri followed his master as he pulled open the door to the balcony and floated through it. Wind and rain gusted into the room, and a shiver ran up Valeri’s spine; he told himself it was the cold air of the storm, but wasn’t able to entirely convince himself. There was a nagging voice in the back of his head, a voice that sounded maddeningly like Henry Seward’s, that insisted it was something else.

  Fear.

  Not of Dracula, or what his rise was going to mean for a world that Valeri had long held in contempt; fear over what role there would be for him in the new world, if his master no longer needed him to provide comfort and counsel.

  Where will that leave you? the voice asked. What will you do then?

  “Out there,” said Dracula, pointing at the dark expanse of the forest. “Above the trees. He is almost here.”

  “I will deal with him, my lord,” said Valeri.

  Dracula shook his head, sending rainwater spraying from his long hair. “I asked you to do so some time ago, Valeri. You failed. I will handle this myself.”

  “Of course, my lord,” said Valeri, shame burning in his chest. “What would you have me do?”

  “Gather everyone and meet me in the courtyard,” said Dracula, returning his gaze to the roiling horizon. “Bring our guest too.”

  “My lord,” said Valeri. “Surely there is no need to—”

  Dracula’s hand closed round his neck and the rest of his suggestion died in his throat. The first vampire’s face was suddenly twisted fury, his eyes flaming with blackened red, a thunderous growl rising from deep within him; he lifted Valeri effortlessly into the air and drove him backwards against the stone wall of the balcony with terrible, almost casual force. Valeri felt the skin on the back of his head split like tissue paper, felt warm blood cascade down his neck as pain arrived in the centre of his skull, sharp and huge.

  “Need?” growled Dracula. His face was mere millimetres from Valeri’s, steam rising in clouds from where rainwater was running into the heat of his eyes. “You speak to me of need? There is no need for you to concern yourself with anything other than doing exactly what I tell you, when I tell you. Your usefulness is at an end, Valeri. I no longer need you. Is that clear?”

  Valeri’s eyes widened with shock as the air in his lungs ran out. He forced a tiny nod, the motion sending nauseating pain through his head, and felt his master’s grip loosen, enough for a whistling current of air to make its way down his throat.

  “Will you do as I have ordered?” asked Dracula, his swirling eyes turning Valeri’s stomach. “Now, and always? Or have we reached the end of our association? Think hard, old friend, before you answer.”

  “I … will …” managed Valeri, and, all at once, the pressure on his neck was gone. He slid to the wet ground, his hands going to his damaged throat as he sucked in air that felt like cold fire. He raised his head, his heart thumping with dreadful misery, and saw Dracula extending a hand down towards him. There was a long, pregnant moment, second after second that thrummed with tension, until Valeri took his master’s hand, as both vampires had known, deep down, that he would, and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

  “You are a proud man, Valeri,” said Dracula. “You always have been. Pride is a virtue, but it bruises easily. It scars. If you and I are to continue on our path together, swallow down your pride, and do it now. I cannot have you with me unless I can rely entirely on your obedience. Do you understand?”

  “I do,” said Valeri, his voice cold and dead. “My lord.”

  The first vampire narrowed his eyes and stared at him. Long seconds passed, during which Valeri knew his fate was being decided, and in which he realised, to his own surprise, that he cared little about the decision.

  I gave you my life, he thought, his heart a ball of ice in his chest. Both my lives. You live now only because of me. And this is how you repay me.

  Then something occurred to him, a thought that sickened him to his very core.

  Valentin was right.

  A smile rose on to Dracula’s narrow face. “Good,” he said, and clapped Valeri hard on the shoulder. “Then let us say no more about this unpleasantness. Rouse your comrades and bring our guest to the courtyard. I will meet you there.”

  The first vampire turned and leapt gracefully over the wall of the balcony, from almost exactly the same spot where Henry Seward had made an ill-fated escape attempt.

  Can it only have been a month since then? wondered Valeri. It seems so very much longer.

  He stared at the empty balcony, then flew back through the study and down the wide staircase of the château, to carry out the orders he had been given.

  As Dracula descended slowly to the cobbled surface of the courtyard, he gave serious consideration, not for the first time, to killing Valeri Rusmanov.

  To do so would give him no pleasure; his old friend was the first human being he had ever turned, and he had rarely regretted the decision. Valeri’s long service had been solid, if sometimes lacking the imagination and appetite for improvisation that distinguished the truly great servants, qualities that had always been far more evident in the youngest Rusmanov, the man who was now approaching in the darkness. But regardless of Valeri’s limitations, the truth, that he would never have spoken out loud, was that Dracula would always be grateful for the diligent quest that had restored him to life, a quest that had taken over a century to achieve. He was simply no longer sure that it should be enough to guarantee Valeri’s continuing survival.

  The eldest Rusmanov had undoubtedly proved useful during the long, maddening months of Dracula’s recuperation, but the first vampire was beginning to believe that it had given him an inflated sense of his own value; he could not permit anyone to consider himself irreplaceable, or anything that came close to approaching his equal. Everyone, human and vampire, was his subordinate, and that was how it must stay.

  Valeri had seen him at his very worst: as weak as a baby, and just as unable to feed and care for himself. And although nobody else in the château had been granted access to him during those first terrible weeks, Dracula sensed that the perception of him among the gaggle of Rusmanov acolytes who filled the cellars was of a sick man, a vampire far below the height of his powers. Now that was clearly no longer the case, it was possible a demonstration was in order; a restatement of the hierarchy, an illustration of the punishment awaiting even the slightest instance of subordination or presumption.

  And nothing would send a greater message, to both the vampires in the château, and the ones in the wider world who were awaiting news, than if he pulled his oldest friend’s beating heart from his chest and drank its blood in front of everyone.

  But as the courtyard rose up to meet him, Dracula again ruled it out, at least for now. Fear had always been his weapon of choice, the cornerstone upon which his new authority would be built, but fear was unreliable; it prompted the subservient to make decisions based purely on self-interest, in the hope of their continued survival. This could be powerful, when wielded carefully, and Dracula was a veteran of such blood
y work. It could not, however, replace the comfort that came from true, selfless loyalty. Providing the lesson he had just been forced to teach Valeri had been truly taken in – which was something he knew he was going to have to keep a careful eye on – then his oldest companion could be relied upon to make decisions based only on what was best for his master, with his own profit, even his own life, a secondary consideration. This was something more valuable even than fear; it was adoration.

  It was love.

  Valentin Rusmanov’s breath froze in his chest.

  So it’s true, he thought. Part of me didn’t want to believe it, even now, but it’s really true. He is risen.

  He had swooped down into the tightly packed mass of pine trees half a mile from the low stone wall that marked the edge of Château Dauncy’s grounds, and made his way towards it, floating above the increasingly sodden ground. Light glowed from what seemed like a hundred windows, and warm yellow lit the courtyard beyond the wall; the grand old building looked as though it was preparing to host some official function, rather than hiding the most dangerous creature in the world.

  When he reached the edge of the forest, where the tall trees gave way to row after row of low vines, Valentin paused. His dark suit blended into the shadows as his supernatural eyes scanned the château for any sign of his brother or his former master; he had realised he could smell them both when he was still halfway across the forest, but he had not turned back, even as his heart sank in his chest and a chill crept up his spine.

  Until he saw them, he would not believe.

  Rain lashed down in sheets, sliding in diagonal lines across the old stone walls, battering out a drumbeat on the cobbles of the courtyard. Valentin watched from the treeline, concentrating on preventing his eyes from glowing involuntarily red; he did not want to give his position away to any watching guards. He scanned the outbuildings, the sheds and huts that had presumably once been used to tend the vines, the low eastern and western wings, then focused on the courtyard before the towering wooden doors, and gasped.