Battle Lines

by Will Hill

  AH: Just do your job, Mr. Supernova. That’s the only advice I have for you. Treat it like any other story, and see what you can turn up. I wish you the very best of luck, I honestly do.

  JS: Cheers. I think.

  (Tape ends.)

  * * *

  Kevin McKenna dropped the transcript onto his desk and exhaled heavily; it felt like he had been holding his breath the entire time he had been reading. The dead cigarette fell from his lips, making him jump; he had forgotten all about it.

  Jesus, Johnny, he thought. How desperate were you?

  The transcript was nonsense, so much so that McKenna felt almost embarrassed for his former mentor. This kind of tattling, tabloid silliness was so far beneath the Johnny Supernova he had once known that it made him genuinely sad.

  Things must have been so much worse than I realized. The Johnny I used to know would have laughed this guy out of his flat.

  McKenna got up from his chair and flicked through the rest of the folder. It contained four or five pages of notes, written in Johnny Supernova’s distinctive sloping scrawl. He gathered them up, held them over the wire rubbish bin that sat beside his desk, then paused.

  He left you this in his will. It’s disrespectful just to throw it out.

  He put the folder back on his desk, grabbed his jacket, and walked quickly out of his office. A minute later he was in the elevator, checking his watch.

  Should still be able to catch the second half, he thought.

  Then a pang of sadness gripped his heart. He had not really thought about Johnny Supernova in a long time, not even when the obituaries ran in the newspapers and magazines. By then, they had long since ceased to live in the same world.

  Goodbye, Johnny. Sleep well, you crazy bastard.

  9

  THE SHOCK OF THE NEW

  Stevenage, Hertfordshire

  I’ve lost him!” shouted Alex Jacobs. “Next level up!”

  Angela Darcy swore and ran for the concrete ramp, John Carlisle keeping pace at her side.

  Operational Squad F-5 had been about to head back to the Loop when a call had come through from the Surveillance Division informing them of a new target. Squad Leader Angela Darcy had asked no questions; she had merely told their driver to head for the new coordinates as quickly as possible.

  She was tired, and knew her squad felt the same. They had taken down a vampire in the north London suburbs, a routine operation that had been perfect for Carlisle. The rookie had been with the SBS in Portsmouth until barely a month earlier, when recruitment to replace the men and women lost during Valeri’s attack had begun in earnest, and he had been summoned to Blacklight to begin his training. He was doing well under Angela’s tutelage; she had been encouraged by the poise and calm he had displayed on his two missions so far, characteristics that she had long since come to take for granted from Alex Jacobs. The quiet, experienced operator had spent long spells in the Intelligence and Security Divisions but had requested reinstatement to the active roster immediately after the attack that had hurt the Department so badly. Angela had watched him closely for the first few days, looking for signs of operational rust, but quickly realized she had nothing to worry about—Jacobs had slipped into the black operator’s uniform as though he had never taken it off.

  They had found their target, a disoriented, raving vampire in his early twenties wearing the tattered remains of a white hospital gown, exactly where the Surveillance Division had told them they would: in a rail freight yard outside Stevenage Station. Angela had led her squad toward him with their weapons drawn, ready to put one more vampire out of its misery before heading for home and the warm comfort of their beds. The target had backed away from them, his eyes glowing red, twitching and twisting like a cornered animal. Angela had been about to give the order to fire when the vampire, its eyes wide with confused panic, turned, sprinted across the metal rails, and leaped over a brick wall into the second level of the multistory parking garage that served the station.

  Angela gasped. The vampire had been little more than a blur, a streak of white that had been gone before she could even tighten her finger on her T-Bone’s trigger.

  “Jesus,” said Carlisle. The rookie was staring up at the looming concrete structure of the garage. “I’ve never seen anything move that fast.”

  Jacobs said nothing. He simply turned, raised his visor, and gave Angela a look whose meaning was clear.

  Neither have I.

  Angela felt the faintest flicker of unease in her stomach and pushed it down. “Follow me,” she said.

  She led them back along the deserted platforms and out of the empty station. The parking garage rose tall against the night sky, an ugly lump of concrete, lit weakly from within by flickering yellow light.

  “Do you think he’s still in there?” asked Jacobs.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, her gaze fixed on the towering building. “Let’s find out.”

  Angela’s boots thudded on the concrete as she ran up to the garage’s uppermost level. They had chased the vampire up through the structure, getting little more than a glimpse of him on each floor, and she felt a surge of relief as she crested the ramp and surveyed the wide-open area.

  No more levels, she thought. Nowhere for you to go.

  Carlisle and Jacobs arrived beside her, weapons drawn, visors down. There were only a handful of cars parked on this level, spread out between the thick concrete pillars that supported the dilapidated structure. Water dripped steadily from numerous cracks in the ceiling, and the smell of gasoline and grease was thick in the air.

  “Where is he?” asked Jacobs.

  “On this level somewhere,” said Angela. “Spread out and find him.”

  The three black-clad figures moved slowly toward the center of the garage, spacing out as they walked. Angela was on the left, her T-Bone resting against her shoulder, her breathing shallow and steady. Through the thermographic filter on her visor the garage was a landscape of gray and blue, cold and uninviting.

  “Stay alert,” she said, via the comms system that linked them together. “Let’s take him down clean and easy.”

  Three pairs of boots clicked quietly across the concrete. In the distance, Angela could hear cars making their way along the bypass, but the garage itself was silent. She felt a chill run up her spine as she remembered the speed the vampire had shown in the train yard, but tried to ignore it.

  Nothing to worry about. Just a routine kill.

  She looked across the wide concrete space and checked her squad mates. Jacobs was ten yards to her right, moving steadily, with Carlisle the same distance again beyond him. A grim smile rose on her face as she watched them, an expression that froze in place as a voice suddenly echoed around them.

  “Leave me alone,” it growled. “I just want to be left alone.”

  Angela stopped dead. “Hold,” she said, then flicked her visor up as her squad mates did as they were ordered. She surveyed the empty space, looking for the source of the voice, suddenly acutely aware that the structural pillars were more than wide enough for someone to hide behind.

  She reached down and twisted the control dial on her belt. “Why don’t you come out?” she asked, her amplified voice booming through the parking garage. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I’m not afraid!” screamed the vampire. Its voice was shrill, reverberating against the flat concrete walls. “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not! Leave me alone!”

  “We can’t do that,” she replied, her voice steady. “Just come out.”

  There was no reply.

  Angela scanned the area slowly, looking for any sign of their target. There was nothing: no shadow, no movement, nothing to give away his position. She looked at Jacobs, his T-Bone resting in his hands, then at Carlisle, standing easily between two pillars with his MP5 at his shoulder.

&
nbsp; Then something white moved. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but it was already too late.

  The vampire emerged from behind one of the concrete pillars so suddenly it was as though he materialized from thin air. Carlisle began to turn, bringing his gun around, but was far too slow; one of the vampire’s fists slammed into his visor with a noise like a clap of thunder. The purple plastic shattered beneath the force of the blow, sending jagged shards into the operator’s face and neck, drawing pulsing blood from innumerable cuts. Carlisle crashed unconscious to the concrete floor, his body spasming, his legs drumming involuntarily on the ground.

  The vampire howled, an ear-splitting bellow of triumph, and turned its crimson gaze on Jacobs as the veteran operator raised his T-Bone.

  * * *

  Jacobs pushed down the fear that was pressing on his heart and slid his finger inside the trigger guard, his attention focused completely on the monster before him. The vampire was almost naked, his modesty spared by the fluttering scraps of what had once been his hospital gown. The man was skinny, almost malnourished, and his shaven head was covered in whirls and loops of pink scar tissue. His eyes blazed red and his mouth hung open, revealing gleaming white fangs.

  The T-Bone settled against Alex Jacobs’s shoulder. He aimed down the barrel, sighting the center of the vampire’s chest. He began to tighten his finger on the trigger, but before he could exert enough pressure to fire the weapon, he found himself aiming at nothing as the vampire crouched low and came for him.

  It surged across the concrete floor and seized his left hand, pushing it up and back. His finger convulsed against the T-Bone’s trigger, sending the metal stake slamming into the ceiling before it bounced back down and skittered away. The vampire’s grip was impossibly strong, and Jacobs screamed as he felt the bones in his wrist grind together. He beat at the monster with his free hand, but nothing happened. The vampire’s face rose up before his own, glowing red and twisted with madness, and Jacobs felt terror explode through him as his hands were gathered together in a crushing, vice-like grip and pulled forward, his body bending involuntarily at the waist as his feet scrabbled against the ground.

  * * *

  Angela Darcy fought back a momentary wave of panic and forced herself to stay calm, to do her job. Her squad had been decimated in what seemed like the blink of an eye. John Carlisle was twitching on the ground, blood pouring from his ruined face, while Alex Jacobs was being manhandled by the vampire like a squirming, protesting puppet.

  This isn’t right, she had time to think. Not right at all.

  Too strong.

  Too fast.

  She raised her T-Bone and saw immediately that she had no clear shot; there was no way to fire the metal stake into the vampire’s body without hitting Jacobs. She slammed the T-Bone back into its holster, drew her UV beam gun, aimed it at the vampire, and thumbed the button in one fluid motion. A beam of bright purple light burst across the garage and engulfed him. He had no time to react before his body erupted into flames.

  Purple fire licked across the vampire’s skin, scouring it black, and blood began to spill from a spider’s web of cracks. He howled in agony, but did not release his grip on Jacobs’s hands. The operator was protected from the flames by his uniform, but they billowed over and around him, and his screams matched the monster’s. Angela watched, her eyes wide with horror beneath her visor, as the burning, howling vampire dragged Jacobs forward until his body was at a right angle, then brought his burning arm down across both of the operator’s. Jacobs’s arms broke with a terrible crunch, and his eyes rolled back as he lost consciousness. Then the vampire threw him aside, and came towards her.

  Burning lumps of the vampire’s body were falling to the concrete floor as he moved, hissing and steaming, on the cold ground. Angela backed slowly away, keeping a wide distance between them; she had seen the vampire’s speed twice now and would not take any chances. Without taking her eyes from the disintegrating face, she drew her MP5 and emptied it into the vampire’s legs, blowing out his knees and shattering the long, thick bones. He slumped to the ground, no longer making any sound, and swayed on his ravaged knees, his arms wide, his mouth open and full of fire.

  Jesus Christ, she thought. Oh Jesus Christ.

  Angela Darcy had seen a great many terrible things in the course of her highly classified career, but this was one of the very worst. She took a deep breath, dropped the MP5, and drew her T-Bone again. The vampire appeared to look at her, but there were purple flames where his eyes had been, so she couldn’t be sure. Her T-Bone felt heavy as she aimed it at the heart of the twitching, burning thing and pulled the trigger.

  What was left of the vampire exploded, spraying blood across the dirty concrete floor. Angela was already moving, sprinting across the parking garage and yelling into her helmet microphone, demanding emergency medical evacuation for her fallen squad mates.

  10

  IN CONVERSATION

  Jamie Carpenter stood outside a door on Level C and took a deep breath, trying to slow his racing heart.

  He had left Ellison and Morton absorbing the detail of their briefing, what little there was. Of the five vampire targets they had been given, only one had so far been identified: Eric Bingham, a paranoid schizophrenic who had been caught attempting to strangle his infant niece, had wandered past a police station in Peterborough and been captured on CCTV. The Surveillance Division’s facial recognition system had instantly identified him, logged his location into their system, and tracked him as he moved slowly south. The other four targets were mysteries, nothing more than heat blooms on satellite screens. Every effort would continue to be made to identify them before Jamie’s squad moved against them; knowing whether they had been violent men before their turnings could prove vital.

  They were scheduled to depart in just over an hour and a half, so Jamie had ordered his squad mates to meet him in the hangar in seventy-five minutes. He had been about to head down to the dining hall to grab a late breakfast when Jack Williams called and told him the news.

  Angela Darcy’s squad mates were both in the infirmary, being tended to by the Blacklight medical staff. Jacobs’s arms had been set and splinted, and Carlisle’s wounds had been treated and stitched. They were both going to recover, but Jacobs was going to be inactive for several months, and Carlisle had required surgery to remove a shard of plastic that had stopped a millimeter short of his left eyeball.

  “One vamp put them both down,” said Jack. “Angela said she’d never seen anything like it.”

  Jamie thanked him for passing on the news, and warned him to be careful out there. Jack told him to do the same and cut their connection.

  The door in front of him was no different from any of the hundreds of others on B and C, the residential levels of the Loop; what lay behind it was why his heart was accelerating so sharply. He reached out a gloved hand, noted with anger its visible tremble, and knocked heavily on the door.

  Silence.

  Jamie knocked again, and was about to turn and walk away when he heard a deep voice emerge from inside the room.

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me,” he replied. “Jamie.”

  For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the door unlocked with a series of smooth clicks and swung open a fraction. Jamie reached out and pushed it inward, revealing a spacious room, far larger than his own quarters. It was sparse and scrupulously neat; the surface of the desk was clear, the bed was neatly made, the floor was clean and polished. A pair of armchairs sat opposite the desk. One was empty; the other was straining under the weight of its occupant.

  The monster, now once again going by the name Victor Frankenstein, looked up as Jamie walked into his room. He was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck, and black trousers and boots. A thick multicolored beard sprouted from his cheeks and chin, and his hair fell carelessly across his forehead
and below his ears. His appearance was not against regulations—Blacklight operated a far looser dress code than the regular military, just as the special forces did—but it worried Jamie nonetheless. On a small table beside the armchair stood a glass, a bottle of whisky, and a bowl of ice, and these items worried him, too, given that it was barely noon.

  “Hey,” said Jamie, settling into the empty armchair.

  “Good evening,” replied Frankenstein.

  “It’s afternoon,” said Jamie, forcing a smile. “Early afternoon.”

  “I don’t care,” replied Frankenstein. He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. “How are you, Jamie? Looking after yourself?”

  “I’m trying,” he replied. “It was easier with you looking after me as well.” He smiled again, trying to encourage the monster, to flatter him. “A lot easier.”

  “I’m sure it was,” said Frankenstein. “It’s a shame you’ve had to grow up so fast. You didn’t deserve it.”

  “I know,” said Jamie. “But that’s the world, isn’t it? Bad things happen.”

  Frankenstein nodded. “Bad things happen.”

  The monster’s free hand slid to the middle of his chest and rested there. Beneath the material of his shirt was a long pattern of scars, far more recent than the many others that covered his uneven flesh. They had been carved into him with a scalpel by Dante Valeriano, the self-styled vampire king of Paris, whom Frankenstein had injured terribly almost a century earlier, and who had spent the subsequent decades focusing on nothing but his insatiable desire for vengeance. In truth, he had been a fraud, a working-class boy from Saint-Denis called Pierre Depuis who had asserted dominance over the Parisian vampires with little more than bravado and a compellingly fictional history. Jamie and a small squad of operators had destroyed the vampire king in the theater where he lived and brought the captive Frankenstein home, but not before Valeriano had begun to exact his revenge.