by Will Hill
In generations.
“Here,” shouted Larissa, and swooped down to the ground. “Right here.”
The four Operators stopped and looked where she was pointing. At the point where two of the huge tree trunks met, a rectangular hole had been cut. It was barely wide enough for a human being, but its straight edges were clear evidence that it was deliberate. As was the fact that it would have been very hard to see without Larissa’s supernatural eyesight; shrubs and bushes blocked it almost entirely from view, no doubt by design.
“I saw at least two more of them,” said Larissa, her eyes glowing red with excitement. “This was the closest.”
“OK,” said Petrov, and drew his T-Bone. “We go through.”
Jamie’s heart was thudding in his chest like it was about to explode. Five pairs of eyes were fixed on the hole between the trees, on the entrance it clearly was. Five chests rose and fell, the sound of breathing the only noise in the silent, empty forest, until Petrov stepped forward, turned himself sideways, and slid through the opening.
For long seconds, there was only silence, pregnant with tension. Then the Russian’s voice echoed back to them through the hole; it sounded low and thick, as though it had suddenly been filled with emotion.
“It is OK.”
Larissa moved instantly; she let out a low growl, and disappeared through the entrance. Van Orel grinned, as though he had suddenly, belatedly become aware of how truly strange the situation they found themselves in was, and followed her. Jamie stood aside so that Engel could go next, then took a deep breath, and squeezed through the narrow opening.
Jamie’s first thought was that it reminded him of the Loop.
On the other side of the wall of trees was a vast circle of neatly tended grass, across which ran two stone paths that formed a cross at the middle. The forest canopy hung overhead, as thick and impenetrable as ever, but with a number of remarkable modifications. Square holes had been made in it at wide intervals, forming three long concentric rings; sunlight blazed down through them in neat shafts, hitting the ground on a beautiful arrangement of gardens and vegetable patches.
Beyond the shimmering edges of the light, the ground was covered with the same dull grass as the rest of the forest. But where the sunbeams touched down, great blooms of flowers sprang up, high and colourful, sending intoxicating scents into the air; roses, chrysanthemums, lilies, orchids, and countless others that Jamie didn’t recognise. To the left of where the squad were standing, rows of vegetables were bathed in sunlight, their green stalks lush and full.
“My God,” said Jamie, his eyes wide, his voice low. “This is incredible.”
Larissa appeared at his side, her mouth hanging open with apparent disbelief. “This is his place,” she said, softly. “He made this, Jamie. He built it so he could be safe outside, but things would still grow. Can you imagine even thinking of such an idea?”
Jamie shook his head.
No, he thought. I can’t. I just can’t. This is crazy.
“Building,” said Petrov, and pointed towards the centre of the circle. “Ready One. Carpenter, take point.”
Jamie nodded and drew his T-Bone, his eyes still fixed on the streaming beams of sunlight. It felt like being inside a cathedral, like being in the presence of something glorious; where the rest of the forest was full of gloomy darkness, this felt like a place of peace, of tranquillity. He led his squad mates across the grass and on to the nearest stone path; the contrast between the perpetual twilight and the pillars of light was blinding, but when he squinted he could make out an angular shape ahead of them.
“What is it, Larissa?” he said, his feet thudding on stone.
“Looks like a cabin,” she said, narrowing her glowing eyes.
“Is he here? Can you smell him?”
Larissa shook her head. “The air’s so full,” she said. “The flowers, the trees, it’s overwhelming. But he’s here. I’m sure of it.”
Jamie nodded, and quickened his pace. He led the squad past a pair of glorious flower beds, over which bees and butterflies were fluttering lazily, and fought back the urge to laugh; the place felt unreal, like it shouldn’t exist. It made no sense that it should be here, but he was walking towards the centre of it.
“This is so bloody weird,” said Van Orel from behind him, his voice full of confused wonder. “I keep expecting to wake up.”
Jamie grinned, and glanced over at Larissa. She smiled back at him, her eyes dancing red, and he felt a strange feeling spread suddenly through him; it was a dizzying, swirling happiness, completely inappropriate for a Priority Level 1 operation, but utterly insistent.
It felt close to euphoria.
The squad walked through the innermost ring of light with Jamie’s attention still fixed on his girlfriend; he guessed that the awe he and the rest of the squad were feeling inside the walled circle paled into insignificance next to the wonder that must be filling her mind. Once they were past it, Jamie’s vision cleared, and he saw that Larissa had been right; before them was a log cabin, built long and low with pale wood that stood out in the gloom. Smoke spiralled from a stone chimney, and a door stood in the centre of the wall they were approaching.
“Hold,” said Petrov, when they were fifty metres away. “Kinley, you will be in the air. Carpenter, you will stay on point, I will follow you. Van Orel left, Engel right. Nobody will do anything without my go. Is that clear?”
“Clear,” chorused his squad mates.
Jamie felt a familiar cold settle into him as Larissa rose silently into the air, the sensation of the world around him sharpening and slowing down that always took place when violence moved from possible to likely. He welcomed it; more than that, he trusted it. He raised his T-Bone behind him as Petrov moved up to his shoulder and Engel and Van Orel slid silently away to the left and right. Jamie took a deep breath, and was about to take a first careful step towards the cabin when its door swung open, and a man with a wide smile on his bearded face strolled out and looked at them.
The five members of the DARKWOODS squad froze where they stood.
The first victim – for that was who the man surely was – was tall and appeared to be in his mid-thirties, although they all knew that his true age was far, far greater. He was dressed in blue jeans and a checked shirt, and wore heavy, scuffed leather boots on his feet. His hair was roughly chopped, and his black beard was full and thick. Jamie looked more closely, his heart thundering in his chest, his skin covered in gooseflesh, and saw that the man’s eyes were green with a dancing flicker of red in their corners, full of life and warmth.
“Good morning,” he said. “My name is Gregor. I presume you are looking for me?”
Paul Turner drained his fourth cup of coffee and waited for Kate Randall to knock on the door of his office. It was 10.29am, and the young Lieutenant was always scrupulously punctual; it was one of the many things he liked about her.
The Security Officer had slept better than he had expected. He had stayed with Cal Holmwood for more than an hour after the Director had ended his video call, talking through the ramifications of the SPC Director’s revelation. Aleksandr Ovechkin had assured them that the project known as Safeguard was dead, that Richard Brennan had been the last Blacklight Operator to fall victim to it, and neither Turner nor Holmwood had doubted the truth of what they had been told; the SPC regime was very different than it had been in the Soviet era.
And the truth was, they had to take Ovechkin’s word for it; ISAT was complete and had found no other persons of interest within the Department. If there were still spies inside the Loop, and the Safeguard programming was deep enough that ISAT had not exposed it, there was very little they could do.
Turner was still debating whether to tell Kate about Safeguard. There was no obligation for him to do so; despite her Zero Hour clearance, she was merely a Lieutenant, and objectively speaking, a highly inexperienced one at that. But she had become far more important to him than her rank suggested, and even though they were
his stock in trade, he didn’t like keeping secrets from her.
His watch ticked over to 10.30. Ten seconds later there was a knock on the door to his office.
Turner smiled. “Come in,” he called.
The door opened and Kate stepped through it. She nodded respectfully as she closed it behind her, then crossed the room and stood in front of his desk.
“Good morning, sir,” she said.
“Morning,” he replied. “Sleep well?”
Kate grinned. This had become an ongoing joke between the two of them, as the honest answer was almost always, ‘Badly, if at all.’
“Great,” she said. “You?”
“Like a baby. Sit down.”
Kate settled herself into a chair and rested her clipboard on her knees. It contained the overnight reports from the Surveillance, Security and Intelligence Divisions, and rarely offered anything in the way of good news.
“Report,” he said.
“More vampire-related violence against civilians, sir,” said Kate. “No deaths, which is something, I suppose, but a dozen assaults, GBH, ABH, two attempted murders. It’s getting worse, just like you said it would.”
Turner nodded. The situation outside the Loop was absolutely precarious. Despite the continuing absence of any official statement regarding the supernatural, belief was spreading rapidly, bringing fear and paranoia with it. The Surveillance Division had all but abandoned their efforts to get Kevin McKenna’s editorial taken down from the internet; it was moving far faster than they could keep up with.
Those who believed, including the men and women responsible for what were becoming nightly attacks on anyone who aroused their suspicions, were still the minority, but Turner was not sure how long that would remain the case. He was starting to believe they were on the brink of a major social collapse, a panic that would cost hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.
The reports coming in from the other Departments confirmed that the problems were not confined to the UK. It was a small world now, smaller than ever before, and the same fear that was rippling through Blacklight’s island jurisdiction was taking root in every corner of the globe. NS9 had already advised the Pentagon to prepare for the possibility of deploying the National Guard to maintain order, and had told the White House not to discount the option of declaring martial law. Russia, Brazil, Germany and South Africa had all taken similar steps. China, where access to the internet was censored and monitored, was coping better; its vast rural population was easier to keep uninformed, and the government was already in possession of highly efficient machinery to crack down on any disorder. Despite that, the reports coming out of Beijing were not devoid of concern; PBS6 was clearly not taking the situation lightly.
It’s a powder keg, Turner thought. The whole planet. All that remains to be seen is where the spark comes from.
“All right,” he said. “We’re deploying the active roster at maximum capacity, and we’ve instructed the police to expect an increase in violent crime. Unless the situation changes, there’s not much more we can do right now.”
Kate nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Turner looked at his young Lieutenant for a long moment. “I have to tell you something,” he said, eventually. “Something that happened yesterday.”
Kate leant forward in her chair. “OK,” she said. “Tell me.”
Turner was about to do so when his console beeped into life. He picked it up off his desk and thumbed it open to reveal a message from the Director of the Surveillance Division.
FROM: Griffiths, Major Alison (NS302, 41-D)
TO: Turner, Major Paul (NS303, 36-A)
TV Channel 3. PRIORITY LEVEL 1.
Turner frowned, and passed the console to Kate. She read the message as he tapped keys on his desktop terminal, turning on the screen that hung on the wall of his office and tuning it to Channel 3.
The screen showed the familiar primary-coloured set of Coffee Break, a hugely popular news and chat show that ran for ninety minutes every weekday morning. Two large sofas were arranged round a wide coffee table that was usually covered with newspapers, magazines and coffee mugs, but was empty except for a glass bottle of dark red liquid. A huge picture window behind the sofas normally provided a sweeping view of the Thames, but was covered by a heavy black curtain, creating a deep gloom on the set. Turner frowned, then looked at the three figures sitting on the sofas.
On the left, in their usual places, were Patrick and Helen, the presenters of Coffee Break. Patrick was in his early fifties, handsome, hugely charming, with a wide smile and white hair; he had been a children’s television presenter before switching channels and conquering light entertainment, and Turner remembered watching him interview pop stars and introduce cartoons on Saturday mornings two and a half decades earlier.
Helen was barely half Patrick’s age, a pretty blond who had once been an underwear model, but had quickly made the transition into TV, presenting a series of talent shows and appearing as a guest on innumerable comedy quizzes. There had been a number of unkind columns written when she got the job on Coffee Break, by pundits who dismissed her as eye candy, reliant entirely on her looks and the figure that had once seen her in great demand as a model. But she had surprised her critics with an intelligence they had not expected, and an absolute inability to suffer fools; the internet was full of clips of her losing her temper with guests who had attempted to justify viewpoints that were stupid, or ignorant, or both. The almost palpable chemistry between her and Patrick only added to what was a slick, highly entertaining ninety minutes of television.
On the sofa opposite the presenters sat a man in his early twenties, wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. He was looking at Patrick and Helen and smiling as though he didn’t have a care in the world, as though he spent all of his mornings on a live television show that a quarter of the country was watching.
Turner realised what he was looking at a millisecond before a pink banner appeared at the bottom of the screen, containing five terrible, devastating words.
EXCLUSIVE: I AM A VAMPIRE
He grabbed the phone on his desk, searched its memory for Alison Griffiths’ name, and held it to his ear. “Put this on every screen in the base,” he said, when the Surveillance Director answered. “Right now.” He slammed the phone down, then grabbed his radio and twisted its dial to the setting that broadcast his voice through the entire Loop. “Attention,” he said. “This is the Security Officer. Please direct your attention to the nearest screen.”
“Oh shit,” said Kate, her eyes wide. “Is this live?”
Turner nodded. “It’s happening now,” he said. “Give me my console, Kate.”
Kate looked down, a frown on her face, then held the plastic rectangle out towards him; she had clearly forgotten she had it. Turner took it from her and typed a message to the Director of the Intelligence Division, ordering him to alert the civilian authorities, knowing it was redundant even as his fingers tapped the screen; there was nothing they could do to stop what was about to happen.
“Welcome back to Coffee Break,” said Patrick, looking sombrely into the camera. “For those of you who are just joining us—”
“Where have you been?” interjected Helen.
“Right,” said Patrick, casting a smile in her direction before returning his gaze to his audience. “But if you are just tuning in, Helen and I are joined this morning by Gideon, who is here today because he claims – and I can’t quite believe that I’m about to say this – that he’s a vampire. A real, blood-drinking, living-forever, supernatural vampire. Isn’t that right, Gideon?”
The man on the sofa nodded. “That’s right.”
“At his request, we’ve blacked out all the windows, so I apologise if you can’t see us quite as well as normal,” continued Patrick. “What would happen if we hadn’t covered them?”
Gideon smiled. “I would catch fire,” he said. “And your cleaners would have a very messy sofa to deal
with.”
“You would catch fire?” said Helen, sitting forward. “You would actually burst into flames?”
“Yes,” said Gideon. “The fire is purple, which is something to do with how ultraviolet light reacts with my cells. It burns very hot and very fast.”
“I assume it would be very painful?” said Patrick.
“It hurts,” said Gideon. “I can promise you that.”
“And you would die?” asked Helen.
Gideon shook his head. “Not necessarily,” he said. “We’re very hard to kill. But if I didn’t put out the flames, I’d burn down to a pile of ash.”
“But you wouldn’t be dead?” asked Patrick. He was now sitting forward as well, enthralled by what their guest was saying.
“I could still be revived,” said Gideon. “Even from ash. With enough blood, I could be myself again in an hour or two.”
“How is that possible?” asked Helen.
Gideon shrugged. “I’m no biologist,” he said. “Ask Blacklight. I’m sure they understand the science better than I do.”
Paul Turner felt his insides turn to water.
That’s it, he said. No amount of denials are going to work, not this time. It’s out there.
“Blacklight,” said Helen. “That’s the organisation Kevin McKenna wrote about, in the editorial that has become a phenomenon on the internet. The organisation he described as the vampire police.”
Gideon nodded. “They’re more like the vampire SAS,” he said. “They’re soldiers, highly equipped and resourced. They have the authority to destroy vampires where they stand. No trials, no judges. Just execution.”
“So McKenna was right?” said Patrick. “In what he wrote?”
“Everything Kevin McKenna wrote was the truth,” said Gideon. “Why else would they have killed him?”
Turner reached for his radio, his hand seeming to move in slow motion, and keyed it to the Security Division frequency.
