Department 19: Zero Hour

by Will Hill

  “How are you doing?” asked Jamie. “Tonight is the full moon, right?”

  Frankenstein nodded. “I’m fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Does it hurt?” asked Jamie. “When it’s this close? Can you feel it coming?”

  “Yes, it hurts,” said Frankenstein. “And yes, I can feel it.”

  “How can you bear it? Knowing this awful thing is going to happen to you every month?”

  Frankenstein grunted with laughter. “What else would you have me do?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jamie.

  “What about you?” he asked. “How does it feel to be a vamp?”

  Jamie shrugged. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “I feel the same, mostly. I mean, I still feel like me. But my senses have gone crazy, like they’ve all been turbocharged. The world seems totally different to how it did before.”

  “And the hunger?” asked Frankenstein.

  “I don’t know,” said Jamie, shaking his head. “I was in the infirmary when I turned, and they gave me painkillers and blood as soon as it started. So I really don’t know. Larissa has tried to prepare me for it, but she said that you can’t really describe it to someone. I guess I’ll know when it hits me.”

  Frankenstein burst out laughing. It was a huge, rumbling sound, like an avalanche on its way to destroy a mountain village.

  Jamie narrowed his eyes. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “You and me,” said Frankenstein. “A vampire and a werewolf, about to go to war with a creature that most of the world thinks is just a character in a story. How the hell did we get here?”

  Jamie grinned. “Fate?” he said. “Destiny? Really, really bad luck?”

  “Or karma?” suggested Frankenstein. “Perhaps you and I were terrible people in our previous lives.”

  Jamie joined in with his laughter, rocking back in his chair and holding his sides, and, for a moment, Frankenstein felt guilty; it seemed unfair that he should be able to laugh while Julian was estranged from the people he loved, while Henry Seward remained in Dracula’s clutches, and while the entire Department was preparing for a mission from which many, if not all, of them would not return. But there were times when there was nothing to do but take joy in the simple pleasures of life that were, ultimately, what they were fighting to preserve.

  Camaraderie. Friendship. Loyalty.

  Love.

  Jamie got to his feet, his face pink from the exertion of laughing. “I have to go,” he said. “I’ll see you in the hangar?”

  Frankenstein nodded. “You will.”

  Jamie walked across the small quarters. Frankenstein stepped back to make room, but the teenager wasn’t heading for the door; instead, he wrapped his arms round Frankenstein’s chest and gave him a tight, fierce hug.

  For a moment, he stood as stiff as a board, unsure of what to do, taken aback by the boy’s display of affection. Then slowly, very slowly, he wrapped his arms round Jamie’s shoulders.

  Kate took a deep breath and pressed the CALL button on her mobile.

  At the same time, Matt walked out on to the tarmac beyond the wide hangar doors, his phone pressed to his ear.

  “Dad?” they both said.

  Cal Holmwood walked down the centre of the Fallen Gallery, past the marble bust of Quincey Harker, and stopped in front of the portraits that filled the wall at the far end. Six men, rendered in careful strokes of oil paint, stared down at him, their eyes clear, their faces stern, their names the stuff of legend.

  Jonathan Harker. Abraham Van Helsing. Quincey Morris. John Seward. Henry Carpenter. And his own great-great-grandfather, Arthur Holmwood, whose money had long ago bought the land beneath which Cal now stood. He felt the weight of the past pressing down on him, more so than at any time since his father had come to him on his twenty-first birthday and explained to him that there was another world, one full of darkness and wonder, and that he could be a part of it if he wished. He would have given anything to ask the advice of the founders, even though he doubted they would be able to imagine the scale of the challenge that he was facing; it would nonetheless have eased his restless soul to have someone tell him he was doing the right thing.

  Cal lowered his head in a silent moment of respect to his ancestor and his friends, then walked back the way he had come. He reached the most recent portraits, likenesses of George Harker Jr and his brother John, and looked at the remaining space between it and the wooden doors at the end of the gallery. There was enough room for perhaps ten more portraits, the same number on the opposite wall.

  I wonder how much of that room will have been allocated tomorrow, he thought. And whether there will be anyone left to see the new pictures hung.

  It had been suggested, on several occasions, that a portrait of Henry Seward be commissioned, but Cal had rejected the idea each time. He was not by nature naive, and as time had passed, he had begun the process of reconciling himself with the idea that the Director was gone. But until he was sure, until the evidence was incontrovertible, he had refused to hang his friend in this place of the dead; it was a stance he was particularly proud of, now that Valentin had confirmed that Seward was still alive.

  “You’re a real bastard, Henry,” he said aloud, staring at the empty space on the wall. “Why did you never tell me how hard this job really was? I was your Deputy for almost five years, and you never gave me the slightest hint of what you must have been going through every day. I could have helped you, if you’d let me.”

  He tried to imagine what the Director’s response would be to this accusation, tried to hear his friend’s voice in his head.

  You didn’t need to know, Cal. I had no intention of going anywhere, and it was my burden to carry. It came with the job.

  “I thought I understood,” he said. “But I didn’t really get it. I didn’t really know how it felt to have people you saw walking through the corridors the day before, die on an operation you ordered. I didn’t understand how much of this basically comes down to doing what you think is best, and hoping you’re right.”

  It’s hard, my old friend. I would never try and tell you otherwise. You mourn every death, and you keep them with you longer than anyone else, because you think on some level they were all down to you. But if that’s true, then every Operator that comes back alive is down to you too, down to you sending them out there with the right squad mates and the right training. You can’t take it all on your shoulders, Cal. It’s too big.

  “We’re coming for you, Henry,” he said, his voice low. “You just have to hang on a little while longer. You have to promise me you’ll do that, because I can’t handle what’s coming on my own. I’m going to need your help.”

  You know me, Cal. I’ll hang on as long as I can. You can count on that.

  The Interim Director closed his eyes and nodded in the long, empty room. “I know you will,” he said. “I’ll see you soon, my friend, and I’ll be praying that it’s soon enough.”

  Cal opened his eyes. His head seemed lighter than it had when he entered the Fallen Gallery, and his mind felt sharper; what he had to do seemed clearer, somehow more manageable.

  “Thank you, Henry,” he said, then strode towards the doors that would take him back out into a base that was full of men and women preparing for war.

  Given that she had been mentioned by name in Cal Holmwood’s speech, Larissa Kinley was no more surprised than Jamie when the orders for the French operation arrived on her console.

  She was pacing in her quarters, waiting impatiently for her boyfriend. After the Interim Director’s speech had ended, Jamie had told her he needed some time to himself, time she knew full well he would spend talking to his mother and to Frankenstein. Larissa didn’t begrudge him it, even though he knew there was nobody she could talk to, no way for her to follow Cal’s instructions. She had briefly considered whether this might finally be the moment to reach out to her family, but had quickly decided against it; it was incredibly unlikely that they would a
ccept a call from her, and even if they did, the amount of lies and tongue-biting self-control that would be required on her part was simply too depressing a prospect. Instead, she paced, and waited, and wondered what the future might hold, for herself and for Jamie.

  For them both.

  Larissa would never, as long as she lived, forgive the first victim for what he had done to her boyfriend; if the chance ever arose, she intended to make him pay for it in blood. She knew there were people, possibly even amongst those she called her friends, who were sceptical as to how genuine her desire for Jamie never to be turned had truly been. It was understandable; she could see why someone who had never felt their body screaming for fresh blood, threatening madness if it wasn’t sated, might consider the idea of a vampire couple and see nothing more than some gooey idea of eternal love. On occasion, she had been sure that even Jamie himself had not believed her position on the matter.

  In truth, she had never been more serious about anything in her life.

  Vampirism had never felt to her like being anything more than half alive; the condition that many considered a gift had always seemed to her a curse, and there was nothing that Larissa hoped for more in the world than the discovery of a cure. Now, after what had been done to Jamie in Romania, her desire for such a breakthrough was stronger than ever. Because she had been honest the last time they discussed the subject; she wanted to grow old with him, have a real life with him, not some supernatural approximation.

  There was a knock on her door. Larissa floated into the air, swept across the small room, and pulled it open to reveal Jamie standing in the corridor. His face was pale, and his eyes were worryingly red, but he smiled instantly at the sight of her, and she felt a familiar rush of panicky love stampede through her. He stepped through the door, kicked it shut behind him, took her face in his hands, and kissed her.

  Fire roared through her, and she kissed him back as her vampire side awoke, hungry and full of desire. She forced herself to break the kiss while she was still capable of doing so, and found Jamie staring at her with eyes that glowed the colour of blood. She recoiled as he let go of her face, his smile disappearing.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just not used to seeing you like that.”

  He winced. “This is me now, Larissa,” he said. “You’re going to have to get used to it.”

  “And I will,” she said. “I’m sure I will. It’s just going to take a little while.”

  “OK,” said Jamie. He walked across her quarters and let himself flop down on to her bed. Larissa stayed where she was; she was sure he expected her to lie beside him, but she suspected it would probably only make the awkward atmosphere in the room worse.

  “How was your mum?” she asked.

  Jamie shrugged. “She’s fine.”

  “Frankenstein?” she said. “Is he—”

  “I don’t want to talk about him,” interrupted Jamie. “Or my mum, or anyone else. I want to talk about you and me, Larissa.”

  “OK,” she said, forcing a smile on to her face. “So talk.”

  “I didn’t want this to happen to me,” he said, sitting up and looking directly into her eyes. “I know I joked about it too much, and I know at least part of you is wondering whether I’m happy about it. This happened because it needed to, you know that. It was the best we were going to get from the first victim, and it happened to be me that he bit. I didn’t do it to hurt you, or spite you, and I need to know that you’re going to be OK with it.”

  The first victim bit you because you called him a coward, she thought. Let’s not forget that part of it. You never asked him if he’d be willing to bite someone, you baited him until he bit you. There’s a difference.

  “I know you didn’t want this,” she said. “And I’ll be OK with it. But it’s hard for me, Jamie, and I need you to understand why.”

  “OK,” he said, and gave her a smile that she was reasonably sure was genuine. “We’ll probably both be dead in a few hours anyway.”

  “That’s cheery,” said Larissa, and grinned at him. “Thanks a lot.”

  “My pleasure,” said Jamie. He opened his mouth to speak again, but a knock on the door cut his words off in his throat.

  Matt Browning stood in the corridor, waiting for his friend to open the door. He heard movement inside the quarters, and as the locks clunked and thudded he allowed his eyes to close for a brief, peaceful moment that he hoped would stave off his tiredness for at least a few more minutes.

  After leaving Kate and Larissa outside the infirmary, he had barely had time to say hello to his Lazarus Project colleagues and turn on his computer before the message summoning the entire Department to the Ops Room had arrived. He had hurried back down to the lab as soon as Cal Holmwood finished speaking, and had not been remotely surprised to receive orders to carry on with his work while the Operational force went to confront Dracula; every member of Lazarus had quickly received the same orders, and had responded with clear and obvious relief.

  Matt didn’t begrudge them it; they were scientists, not soldiers, and, in truth, he had no more desire to face Dracula and Valeri than they did. Where he differed from his colleagues was that his three closest friends in the world would be going, with no guarantee that any of them would return.

  “Are you OK?” Natalia asked, leaning towards his desk.

  “I’m fine,” he replied, and gave her what he hoped was a convincing smile.

  “You are worried about Jamie and Larissa and Kate?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Of course I am.”

  “You should go and find them,” said Natalia. “Before they go.”

  A hush fell across the lab, as Professor Karlsson got to his feet and asked for everybody’s attention.

  “You’ve all had your orders,” he said. “So we all know what we’re doing. The Interim Director wants us to continue our work, and I expect all of you to follow his orders with your very best effort. I know that it will be hard, that some of you have friends who are about to put themselves in harm’s way, but you cannot help them by staring into thin air and worrying about them until they return. The only way you can help is by doing your job. Is that clear?”

  There was a murmured chorus of agreement.

  “Good,” said Karlsson. “On to happier news. Thanks to the efforts of someone in this room, I have returned from Beijing to find that remarkable developments have taken place in my absence. The preliminary data that I have just finished reviewing is nothing short of astonishing, and I will be handing out new workflows by the end of the day to enable us to best take advantage of it. What I, and I suspect all of you, would like to know, is exactly how we came into possession of this new data. So, Matt, if you’d like to come up here and tell us what happened in San Francisco, I think we’d be very interested to hear it.”

  Every pair of eyes in the lab turned towards Matt. He blushed, and glanced at Natalia; she was staring at him, her gaze steady, her mouth curled into a small smile of encouragement.

  “Matt?” said Professor Karlsson.

  He looked at the Lazarus Project Director, then got to his feet.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid it’ll have to wait.”

  Matt stepped round his desk, leant down, taking care not to move his neck as he did so, and pressed his lips against Natalia Lenski’s. There was an audible intake of breath from his colleagues, and he smiled as he broke the kiss; the Russian girl was looking up at him with eyes that were wide with surprise, but her smile had expanded into a grin that made him feel dizzy.

  He had looked into her eyes for a long moment, pregnant with possibility. Then he pushed open the main doors of the lab and stepped out into the corridor, leaving a stunned silence behind him.

  The door in front of him opened and Larissa appeared.

  “Hey, you,” she said, and pulled the door wide. “Come in.”

  Matt smiled, and stepped past her into her quarters.

/>   “Matt!” exclaimed Jamie. “Good to see you, mate.”

  “Jamie,” he said. “How are you?”

  “A creature of the night, by all accounts,” said Jamie. “Yourself?”

  “I’m fine,” said Matt, taking a seat on the edge of Larissa’s bed. “I’m already sick to death of this collar, but I’m fine. Have you guys seen Kate?”

  Jamie shook his head. “Not since Cal’s speech,” he said. “You?”

  “No,” said Matt. “She must be up in Security. You’ll see her in the hangar, I’m sure.” He paused. “You are going, right? I mean, I sort of assumed, given what Cal said.”

  “We’re going,” said Larissa.

  “Are you scared?” he asked.

  “I am,” she replied. “I don’t know about him, but I definitely am.”

  “I am too,” said Jamie. He pushed himself across Larissa’s bed until his back was against the wall, the smile gone from his face. “I feel like I’m supposed to say I’m not, but I am.”

  “You’d be an idiot if you weren’t,” said Matt. “Being scared means you’ll be careful, which means you’ll come back.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Larissa.

  A horrible silence filled the room.

  This is insane, thought Matt. How can we be talking about them dying like it’s a genuine possibility? It’s ridiculous. They’re my age, for Christ’s sake, and we’re talking about death like it’s no big deal.

  “Have you talked to your mum?” he said, eventually. “Does she know what’s going on?”

  Jamie nodded. “She knows,” he said. “She doesn’t like it, not in the slightest, but she understands. I thought she was going to ask me not to go, to be honest with you. That’s what I was dreading. But she didn’t. I don’t think she wanted to make it any harder for me.”

  “That was good of her,” said Larissa.

  “It was,” said Jamie. “She’s like that.”

  Matt stared at his friends, feeling like he was about to either explode or burst into tears. The last few months had been the happiest of his life, the first time he had felt like he truly belonged anywhere. Now it seemed as though it was on the verge of falling apart, and he was utterly furious about it.