Department 19: Zero Hour

by Will Hill

He would have readily admitted that Blacklight and its allies had proven themselves worthy opponents; they had been creative, and clever, and thrown themselves into the fight with undoubted bravery and skill. But they were still merely human, with the exception of the wolf and their handful of tame vampires, and no match for what he felt in his bones he had again become.

  A god.

  Dracula drew his sword and descended, like the blade of a guillotine. As the ground rose up towards him, Valentin looked directly at him, his eyes black, his mouth hanging open. Then Valeri swung a punch that connected with a sound like a cannon, and the youngest Rusmanov was gone.

  Dracula accelerated, and landed with an impact that echoed across the courtyard. For a long moment, there was silence, as every pair of eyes turned towards him. He stood up straight, and raised his sword as Operators and vampires alike regarded him with stunned horror.

  Dracula smiled, and narrowed his eyes.

  Then he roared into battle with the force of a hurricane, hacking and rending and growling with the sheer, unadulterated pleasure of violence.

  And the surviving Operators, who had begun to tentatively share Paul Turner’s belief that they might yet carry the day, understood the reality of their situation.

  They had never stood a chance.

  “So tell me something,” said Angela. “If you and Larissa have kids, are they going to come out with fangs and glowing red eyes?”

  Jamie stared at her, incredulous. “Are you actually kidding me?” he asked.

  Angela smiled. “I’m just making conversation.”

  “Now, though?” asked Jamie. “Right now? Really?”

  Angela’s smile widened. “I’m just asking what everyone is wondering,” she said. “No need to be so touchy about it.”

  “Let’s talk about it later,” said Jamie. “Maybe when the fate of the world isn’t resting in our hands?”

  “Fine,” said Angela, and rolled her eyes theatrically. “Although I’m sure you used to be more fun. Let’s get on with it then.”

  Jamie couldn’t help but smile; Angela Darcy was one of the deadliest human beings he had ever met, a woman whose highly classified career was soaked in blood, but she was also one of the most effortlessly charming, and most intelligent. As he reached the end of the passage and stopped in front of a door with a heavy padlock hanging from it, he realised how much calmer he felt, and marvelled at her cleverness.

  I doubt she’s ever said a single word without thinking it through first, he thought. It sounded like she was fishing for gossip, but she knew it would take my mind off what we’re doing. She’s never less than two steps ahead of me.

  Henry Seward’s scent was stronger than ever as Jamie twisted open the padlock and turned the door’s handle. The room beyond it was small, containing only a porcelain sink and a cast-iron bed frame, topped with a bare mattress.

  Lying on the thin rectangle of material was Admiral Henry Seward.

  Jamie gasped out loud; the sight of the Director was so shocking that he was simply unable to stop himself.

  Seward looked as though he had aged ten years in the months since Valeri had stolen him from the Loop. His skin was grey and deeply lined, and hung from his bones like old meat. An eyepatch covered a socket that Jamie presumed was empty, and scars, thick ridges of bright white, criss-crossed his arms and face. His fingertips were wrapped in bloody bandages, and his skin was bruised black and purple.

  If he hadn’t been able to see the Director’s chest rising and falling, Jamie’s first assumption would have been that he was looking at a corpse.

  “Oh my God,” said Angela, her voice tiny beside him.

  Seward lifted his head from the mattress and looked at them with a single eye that was filmy and bloodshot. Then something passed across his face, the ghost of an expression of concern.

  “Look out …” he croaked.

  Jamie’s eyes flared red; he spun round and shoved Angela Darcy backwards. She stumbled along the corridor, shouting in protest, but he ignored her; he was turning back into Henry Seward’s cell as a vampire woman leapt from behind the door and tore Jamie’s throat out with her fingernails.

  Cal Holmwood watched Dracula drop from the sky and screamed for the Combined Operational Force to regroup.

  It made no difference.

  The first vampire was nothing short of a force of nature, a blur of death and mayhem, too fast for the eye to follow. Within thirty seconds of him joining the fight, Holmwood saw four Operators fall at the edge of his sword, limbs hacked clean away, blood pumping into the air in crimson freshets. He bellowed into his helmet’s microphone, his words sounding directly in the ears of every Operator still standing, ordering them to fall back and create separation, but for every one who obeyed his order, there was another who was simply frozen to the spot, unable to tear their gaze away from the horror that had been unleashed in their midst.

  Cal unholstered his MP7, fired a burst into the air, and ran headlong into the battle. He dodged between Operators and vampires, ducking thrown punches and whistling stakes, heading towards the château, in front of the remains of which Dracula had played his last, most devastating card.

  Himself.

  A vampire lunged from nowhere and landed a glancing blow on the side of his helmet; he tumbled to the ground, his ears ringing. The MP7 spilled from his grip, and he drew the metal stake from his belt as he rolled on to his back, searching for his attacker. He brought it up as the vampire, who looked barely more than a teenager in his T-shirt and ripped jeans, flung himself down towards him.

  The stake slid into the vampire’s chest like a knife through butter, stopping the man’s fangs centimetres from Holmwood’s face. They snapped together, as blood and spit poured on to Holmwood’s cheeks and chin, and a pair of red eyes glowered at him; he saw the wide black pupils at the centre of the swirling crimson before the stake worked its way into the vampire’s heart, and he exploded across Holmwood’s face and body in a vast, steaming deluge.

  Cal stifled a cry of disgust, and pushed himself backwards across the ground, his boot heels digging long trenches in the gravel. He felt something hard against his lower back, and turned to see his MP7 lying on the ground. He grabbed it, clambered to his feet, and looked wildly around the battlefield, looking for Paul Turner, looking for—

  Crunch.

  Holmwood rocked forward on the balls of his feet, then looked down at his stomach. The tip of a blade, impossibly wide and wickedly sharp, was sticking out of the black fabric of his uniform. He frowned, confused by what he was seeing, and tried to take a breath.

  Nothing happened.

  His body seemed to be frozen, locked in some limbo state; he couldn’t move, or breathe. Then there was a noise like raw steak being sliced, and the metal tip disappeared. A millisecond later the pain arrived, and he realised what had happened to him.

  Cal Holmwood sank to his knees, blood pouring out of a hole in his stomach that seemed almost ridiculous; it was so big, so wide and clean at the edges, that even as his system began to shut down and send him into shock, he wanted to laugh.

  Nobody could have a hole that big in their gut and still be alive.

  Not for long, at least.

  As he pressed his gloved hands to the wound, trying futilely to stem the torrent of steaming blood, he heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel and raised his head. Standing in front of him, with an enormous sword in his hand and an expression on his face that seemed almost benevolent, was Dracula.

  “Do not despair,” said the ancient vampire, his voice low and gentle. “Your men fought well. They were a credit to you. But you could never have prevailed.”

  Holmwood tried to speak, but his mouth filled instantly with blood. He gagged, choked down some of the horribly warm liquid, and managed to spit the rest of it out on to the gravel.

  “You could be turned,” said Dracula, his eyes glowing softly. “Even now there might still be time. But you would not want that, and I would not insult you by in
sisting. I will give you the dignity of a clean death, one commander of men to another.”

  Cal Holmwood looked up at the vampire, searching for mercy, for humanity in the monster’s face, and finding none.

  I’m sorry, he thought. I tried.

  As Dracula swung the sword, he closed his eyes.

  To Paul Turner, it seemed to happen in slow motion.

  The sword moved through the air as slowly and inevitably as a storm cloud and slid through Cal Holmwood’s neck as though it was as insubstantial as smoke. For a terrible moment, one that Turner would relive over and over in his worst nightmares, nothing happened. Then his friend’s head slid to one side and tumbled to the ground. Blood spurted up from the stump of his neck in a wide arc as the decapitated body toppled over on to the gravel.

  A sound rose through Turner’s throat and emerged from his mouth. It contained nothing recognisable as words; it was a primal scream of shock and misery, a howl of abject despair. He raised his T-Bone and fired it at the distant shape of Dracula, but the first vampire was gone before the stake was halfway to its target. It clattered against a standing piece of château wall, and wound itself back in as Turner scanned the battlefield, searching for the vampire they had come to France to kill. He ran forward, his mind reeling, his only clear thought a simple one.

  If we don’t destroy him now, we aren’t going to get him. Cal will have died for nothing.

  On the far side of the courtyard, he saw his target.

  Dracula was at the edge of the battle, working his way back towards the centre, cutting a bloody swathe through the Combined Operational Force. Black figure after black figure fell beneath his sword, the majority of them not even dead; the huge blade sent them to the ground with terrible, savage wounds, where Valeri’s followers fell on them like rabid dogs and finished them off. Turner saw an Operator stand his ground in front of the ancient vampire’s onslaught, saw him raise his MP7 and empty it into the vampire’s body.

  Dracula laughed, and hacked the man almost in half.

  As the Operator spun to the ground, his visor flew up, and Turner felt his stomach lurch again. It was Patrick Williams, his eyes rolled white, his torso cleaved open, his blood running out of his body in enormous quantities. Mercy, if there was any left to be had, came in the fact that it was clear, even from a distance, that Williams was dead before he reached the ground.

  Turner sprinted forward. He had no idea how to stop the tsunami of death that Dracula had unleashed, or if he even could; he only knew that he had to try, that he had to do something, no matter how futile it might be. He shouldered a vampire out of the way, ducked as the hissing woman swung her razor-sharp nails in his direction, straightened up, and found himself face to face with the first vampire that had ever lived.

  Dracula smiled at him, his head cocked to one side, his glowing eyes slightly narrowed, as though he was examining a potentially interesting species of insect. Turner took a deep breath, and was about to raise his T-Bone when a deafening howl filled the air of the courtyard. Dracula had just enough time to frown before the huge grey-green wolf thundered into him from the side, sending them both crashing to the bloodstained gravel.

  Jamie staggered backwards, panic surging through him as blood pumped out of his neck in a high-pressure jet. There was no pain, but, as he raised his hands to defend himself against the thrashing, clawing vampire, he noted with horror how heavy they felt; he could already feel himself starting to weaken.

  The vampire’s whirling fists thudded into his shoulders and face, driving him backwards as his blood gushed against her face and her open, screeching mouth. He reeled, his vision greying at the edges, his legs feeling like they were made of lead, until he heard Angela Darcy say a single word.

  “Duck.”

  Jamie tipped himself back and allowed his weight to pull him to the ground. He hit the stone floor hard; he saw stars, then a metallic blur above him, trailing wire. There was a wet crunch, a howl of pain, then a bang as air rushed into previously occupied space. Blood exploded in the narrow passage, splashing the walls and falling on to him in a thick, sticky rain.

  A millisecond later Angela was kneeling at his side.

  “Jamie?” she said, her voice low and urgent. “Talk to me, Jamie. What do you need?”

  “Blood,” he gargled. The word was barely recognisable, but Angela nodded and disappeared. He heard running footsteps, and focused all his attention on the ceiling above him, trying to stay calm, to not go into shock.

  Easy, he told himself. Larissa has survived worse than this, more than once. Take it easy.

  He tried. But the sensation of his own blood spilling warmly out over his neck and jaw was so awful that he felt nausea rise up from his stomach, carrying with it the sweet darkness of unconsciousness.

  Crack.

  Angela Darcy’s gloved hand connected with his cheek with a sound like a gunshot and his eyes flew open. She was kneeling over him, clutching the vampire who had been lying beneath the collapsed wall, back near the staircase. The man’s body had come apart at the waist, so she was technically only holding the upper half of him, but the skin at his neck was still pink, still packed with blood. Angela lowered the man down over Jamie, then took her stake and stabbed a hole in the side of his throat. Blood spilled out – not the hosepipe spray that had erupted from his own severed jugular, more of a thick river – and cascaded into his mouth.

  Instantly, Jamie felt his strength return. His eyes flooded red, and a deep growl rose in his throat as he swallowed the still-warm blood. Then he felt something few people on the planet had ever known, a sensation that was almost indescribable.

  He felt the gaping wound in his neck repair itself.

  It was as though someone had set his spine on fire then soaked his skin in acid; the pain burned and scoured, so vast that all he could do was hang on and hope to ride it out. In the back of his mind, a voice told him to keep drinking, that it would be over soon, so he did.

  And it was.

  A minute later Jamie sat up and cautiously pressed a gloved finger to his neck. The skin was tender; it felt tight, as though it needed stretching, but the wound was gone. He climbed to his feet and looked at Angela Darcy.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She smiled. “No problem. You’d do the same for me.”

  He grinned, then turned back to the room at the end of the corridor. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get him out of here.”

  She nodded and walked into the cell; he followed close behind her.

  “Angela?” said Henry Seward, his voice little more than a croak. “Are you real?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied. “I’m real, we both are. We’re here to get you.”

  Jamie stared at the Director, his heart racing in his chest, miserable anger flooding him. There could never be enough payback for this, no revenge enough for what Valeri and Dracula had done to one of the finest men he had known.

  “Who’s that with you?” asked Seward, his voice sounding slightly stronger. “Jamie Carpenter?”

  The sound of his name broke Jamie’s paralysis. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Can you move, sir?”

  “I can’t walk,” said Seward. “My legs won’t hold me.”

  “No problem,” said Jamie. He stepped forward, ready to carry the Admiral out of the château and kill any vampire he saw on the way, then stopped; Seward was staring at him with a look of abject horror.

  “Oh no,” whispered the Director. “Oh, Jamie. What have they done to you?”

  “It’s a bit of a long story, sir,” he said. “Let’s save it for another time.”

  He reached down and scooped Seward up, horrified by how light his body was; it felt as though he was carrying nothing more than a sack of bones. “Angela,” he said. “You lead us back the way we came. Anything moves, you shoot first. Got it?”

  Angela nodded.

  “All right then,” said Jamie. “Let’s go.”

  The battle didn’t stop when Cal Holmwood di
ed; that would be the thing that Larissa always remembered.

  It felt like there should have been a pause, a moment of respect for the Interim Director, but there was nothing; the fighting raged on around her, increasingly feverish and desperate, at least from the perspective of those on the side of humanity. She watched Holmwood fall to the ground as his head rolled away from his body, and felt her vampire side retreat, just for a moment; it did not feel empathy, and was uncomfortable with the concept of loss. With it went the fire that had been burning joyously since the helicopters touched down, what now felt like hours ago, and in its place rose emotions that had been subsumed by her desire to spill blood: grief for Cal Holmwood; pride at the way her friends and colleagues were fighting so valiantly; and a thick wave of guilt at the realisation that she had let Jamie go looking for Henry Seward with only Angela Darcy for company.

  Her crimson eyes widened. She turned towards the building, about to go and help her boyfriend, and found herself face to face with Kelly, the NS9 Operator who had been one of her closest friends in Nevada. Her eyes were wide, and her face was pale and blood-spattered beneath a visor that had been pushed up, but she was grinning nonetheless; Larissa smiled involuntarily, taken aback by the sudden appearance of a familiar face.

  “Hey,” shouted Kelly. “This is pretty wild, huh? Are you OK?”

  Larissa nodded. But as she opened her mouth to answer, the hulking shape of Valeri Rusmanov rose up behind her friend, smiling cruelly.

  “Look out!” she screamed.

  Kelly’s face furrowed into a frown. She began to turn, but Valeri’s huge hands closed on the sides of her head and lifted her off the ground. Larissa leapt forward, reaching desperately for her friend, as Kelly pounded at the vampire’s hands, her legs kicking helplessly at nothing. She was barely five metres away when Valeri twisted Kelly’s head sharply; her neck broke with an audible snap that stabbed through Larissa’s heart like a knife.

  Valeri threw the dead woman aside as though she was nothing, and settled his glowing eyes on Larissa. She skidded to a halt, risked a glance at her fallen friend, who had landed in a tangle of limbs, then focused her attention on the eldest Rusmanov. He was smiling at her, his hands dangling loosely at his sides. Larissa felt the heat in her eyes become almost unbearable as her vampire side returned with a vengeance, bringing with it a rage so great she thought she must surely burst into flames.