by Will Hill
Three more vampires fell out of the sky, blood pouring from wounds that looked like the work of a wild animal, and Kate skidded to a halt.
“Go on!” she shouted. “I’ll clear up!”
Jamie nodded, sprinting after Larissa, who had dropped back to the ground and taken cover behind the nearest truck. Behind him, he heard three gargled screams and three thuds of changing air pressure, as Kate staked what was left of the vampires who had met Larissa in the air. A second later she was at their side, panting, her uniform splashed with blood.
“How many left?” asked Jamie.
Larissa lifted her visor back and sniffed the air. Her eyes were blazing red, the colour of boiling blood, and her fangs were gleaming white triangles beneath her upper lip.
“Five,” she answered. “The one you T-Boned is still alive, but only just. The other four are between the trucks. The scents are too close together – I can’t separate them.”
Don’t worry, thought Jamie. Four frightened vampires. Easy.
A noise began to swell from the direction of the freighter, and Jamie peered round the corner of the truck. The woman who had been the second to leave the ship was standing at the bottom of the gangway, surrounded by a small group of emaciated men and women; she was still holding the little girl with one arm, but with the second she was waving frantically up at the deck of the freighter. As Jamie watched, an elderly woman nervously poked her head above the railing at the top of the gangway, then slowly started down it. Behind her, a crowd of men and women followed, the metal creaking beneath them as they made their way towards dry land.
Movement blurred in the corner of Jamie’s eye, and he pulled back round the corner next to Kate and Larissa.
“At least one is on the other side of this truck,” he whispered, his voice inaudible to anyone but them, the noise cancelled by the dampening contours of his helmet. “Kate, work your way round the other end. Larissa, go over the top. We’ll corner him.”
The two girls nodded. Kate moved away silently down the length of the truck, as Larissa floated easily up into the air. Jamie took a deep breath, and stepped round the corner. The vampire who was standing between the two trucks looked almost pitifully frightened; he was twitching and turning in circles, nostrils flared, trying to look in every direction at once. Then Kate appeared beyond him, and the vampire saw her. He hissed, a low, terrified noise, and turned to run, only to find Jamie barring his escape route. He screeched, a look of pure dread on his middle-aged face, and turned his head to the sky, to the one way he might escape the fate that had befallen his colleagues.
“Hi,” said Larissa, sweetly. She was sitting on the edge of the truck’s roof, staring down at the vampire with her red eyes glowing.
The vampire let out a howl of despair, and ran towards Kate. Then the stakes from two T-Bones pulped his chest, and he exploded in a shower of blood. Larissa floated down, then suddenly accelerated past Jamie, a low snarl of pleasure emanating from her throat. One of the three remaining vampires, his instinct for self-preservation overwhelmed by the torrent of fresh blood that had been spilled on the other side of the truck, was careering round the corner, a look of primal hunger on his face.
Larissa shot past him like a bullet, without even slowing, and tore his head from his shoulders without so much as a grunt of effort. The headless body took a couple of faltering steps, then fell face down in front of Jamie, who staked it, a grimace of disgust on his face. The head burst in Larissa’s hand like a water balloon, and she let out a yelp of annoyance.
“Give me a chance to drop the head next time,” she said. “I nearly made it through this mission without getting any blood on me.” She laughed, and Jamie felt his stomach flip.
Sometimes the awesome power that coursed through his girlfriend – is that what she is now? My girlfriend? – scared him more than he would ever have admitted to her, and made her take pleasure in things that even he, as battle-scarred as he was, found appalling. He knew it wasn’t really her, it was the vampire side of her; surrounded by blood, in a fight for her life, it took her over completely. But when it was over, she would be Larissa again, he knew.
Or at least, he hoped he knew.
Behind him, he heard the snarl of a vampire, but he didn’t even hurry to turn around. He trusted Kate completely; by the time he was facing her, the vampire was already staggering back against the side of the truck, a gaping hole in its chest. Kate turned her back as it burst, splashing blood and viscera against the backplate of her body armour.
Three down. One to go.
Squad G-17 regrouped at the front of the second truck, and walked slowly towards the third. They were careful, but not overly so; a single vampire was no match for them, and they knew it. As if on cue, the final vampire burst out from where he had been cowering as his friends died around him, took a single look at the three approaching figures, turned tail and ran for his life.
He made it ten metres before he collided with the mass of men and women emerging from the freighter’s gangway.
The first blow was struck by a tall Asian man with a metal fire extinguisher in his hand, crushing the vampire’s skull almost flat on one side. Blood pistoned into the air, and the vampire fell to the floor, his mouth working uselessly as he tried to form words, perhaps trying to beg them not to do it, to plead for mercy.
There was no mercy.
When it was over, the prisoners slumped to the ground, their heads in their hands, their arms wrapped round loved ones. Almost all of them were weeping, their narrow chests heaving up and down. The woman holding the little girl did not sit down, however; she had taken no part in the destruction of the vampire, but nor had she made any attempt to stop it. She looked at the six dark figures, their purple visors hiding their faces from view, and said two halting, uncertain words.
“Thank. You.”
“You’re welcome,” replied Jack Williams, and pointed at the ground. “Stay here. Help coming. Stay here.”
The woman nodded, then lowered herself to the ground, keeping the little girl carefully cradled against her.
Jack led the combined team away, and gathered them into a circle.
“Good work,” he said, raising his visor. “Damn good work today. That was as clean as I’ve ever seen it done, and we got the leader alive. Great work, truly.” He smiled around at the five Operators, who raised their own visors and grinned back at him, grinned at the pleasure of a job done well as the adrenaline began to leave their systems. “Alert the Northumbrian Police; tell them they’ve got two hundred refugees on the banks of the Tyne. Then let’s take our survivor home and find out what he knows,” Jack continued. “Shaun, radio the chopper.”
Shaun Turner nodded, and pulled the radio from his belt. As they made their way back towards the truck, he coded in and told their pilot that they were ready for extraction. A deep noise instantly rumbled through the night as the helicopter that had brought them north lumbered into the air less than a quarter of a mile away, on the other side of Hadrian Road.
At the rear of the truck they found the vampire foreman.
He was slumped on his knees, his head lowered against his chest, in the middle of an enormous pool of blood. He was pale, and his skin was flickering as his veins pushed what blood remained in his body desperately round his system, trying to keep it operational. He was breathing, incredibly slowly, as they approached him.
“He’s on the brink,” said Larissa. “He’ll be dormant by the time we get him back to the Loop. He’s lost too much blood.”
“Then they can revive him in the lab,” said Jack. “Makes transporting him easier.”
Shaun Turner stepped forward, and hunkered down in front of the vampire.
“Where were you taking all those people?” he asked.
There was the tiniest movement in the vampire’s shoulders, suggesting he understood he was being spoken to, but no response. Shaun reached out to lift the injured vampire’s head up, and Kate was suddenly overcome with panic. She
stepped forward, saying Shaun’s name, as his gloved fingers touched the vampire’s chin. He paused as she arrived at his side, shooting a look of annoyance in her direction as she reached out to pull his hand away. Then the vampire’s head reared up, his eyes glowing a dull red, and he lunged forward with the last of his strength, like a dying dog.
His mouth closed on Kate’s arm.
The fangs slid into her flesh, and she watched with what was almost amazed detachment as the vampire shook his head, once, and tore a ragged chunk of flesh out of her arm. He spat it out on the concrete, and collapsed backwards, his eyes rolling back in his head.
14
SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT
PARIS, FRANCE FOUR WEEKS EARLIER
Frankenstein sat on a bench outside Notre Dame de Paris, watching the worshippers file out of evening mass. It was Christmas Eve, and the ancient cathedral had been nearly full to capacity.
He had taken to coming here at the same time every evening, as the last of the sunlight played across the ancient ramparts and gargoyles far above his head. There were usually crowds of tourists gazing up at the huge stone building, cameras slung round their necks and guidebooks in their hands as teenage kids glided around and between them on skateboards and bikes, but the plaza had been largely deserted while the service was taking place. The cold and the festive season had seen most of the tourists leave the city, and most Parisians stay inside.
Those whose faith had compelled them out into the freezing night had flocked into the comparative warmth of the cathedral as the bells rang for the Christmas mass at six o’clock. Frankenstein had stood among them on several occasions as the grand organ boomed and wailed, as the choir harmonised, as the incense smoked and fumed, and the bishop conducted his service from before the ancient altar.
Today, he had chosen to stay outside.
He found watching the faces of the men and women who departed from the cathedral after the mass as illuminating as the service itself; the blank disinterest of those for whom the ritual was nothing more than a chore, a habit they weren’t quite able to break, against the beatific rapture of the faithful, full to the brim with God’s blessings and trembling at the almighty power of their Lord.
The depths of their feelings fascinated him. Because he, after almost three weeks in the city whose name had sparked his only flash of recognition since beginning his shallow, empty second life, felt nothing.
He felt nothing at all.
Frankenstein had arrived in Paris with his entire body a ball of flaming agony. After a day and a half pressed tightly into the bowels of the truck, he had managed to hobble away unseen when the driver brought his rig to a halt outside the Marché d’Intérêt National, the vast food market in the southern suburb of Rungis. Frankenstein had asked a man working in a mobile café for directions to the centre of the city, and began walking north. As he made his way towards the middle of Paris, a creeping sense of disappointment had settled on him.
He recognised absolutely nothing.
Not a single building, or landmark, not a street sign or the name of a restaurant; nothing triggered a rush of memory like the one he had experienced at the transport café in Germany. He saw nothing that made him feel like he had ever been to this place before.
He reached the river, the wide, winding expanse of water at the heart of the city, and felt nothing. He was waiting for an epiphany, for the locks in his head to grind into action and release, spilling his memory back into his possession.
But it never came.
For almost three weeks now, he had wandered the Parisian streets. He was as confused and disoriented as ever, more so perhaps, having been given what had felt like the first clue to unlocking his identity, only to be denied further progress. The stares of the tourists and the people going about their lives made him uncomfortable, and he began to spend his days in the dark corners of the museums and churches that littered the city, hidden away from prying eyes.
At night, he walked the streets of Pigalle and the Marais, keeping to the shadows. He watched the laughing groups of men and women as they spilled from the bars and cafés, the drug dealers and the sex workers, as they conducted their transactions in the narrow alleyways and dark street corners.
Frankenstein had no idea what he was going to do with the new life he had been given, and was aware of a growing sense, deep in his bones, that he did not want to continue with it at all. Several times he had stood on one of the bridges, staring down at the dark, freezing water of the Seine, wondering how it would feel to pitch himself over the railing; a moment of panic perhaps, a second or two of falling, then icy oblivion, washing down his throat and filling his lungs.
He would not steal, and he was too proud to beg, so he subsisted on the thin soup ladled out by the bright-eyed, enthusiastic young men and women who brought their vans to the arches beside the Gare du Nord every night. He queued patiently, alongside the drunks and the addicts and the mentally ill, waiting for his turn, while all the while a small voice in the back of his mind told him not to waste his time.
You’re prolonging your own misery, it whispered. Nothing more.
Frankenstein got up from the bench and walked north, ignoring the stares of the tourists and the pointing fingers of their children. He crossed the Seine on Rue de la Cité, and cut right then left on to Rue Vieille du Temple. He was walking quickly, his head down, his moth-eaten, second-hand coat drawn tightly round him, when a voice shouted loudly from the other side of the street, shouted a name that split his head wide open.
“Henry Victor?”
Just as it had in the parking area of the transport café, something gave way in Frankenstein’s mind, and a torrent of indecipherable information poured out, overwhelming him. He staggered, as his mind filled with the lost sights and sounds of his life; they were jumbled, non-sequential to the point of abstraction, but he felt, for a moment, as though he might weep. They were fractions of something bigger, something whole, and they filled him with hope that who he was, the man he had been, might not be lost forever.
Then they were gone, as suddenly as they had arrived, and a man was standing in front of him, a wide smile on his face.
“Henry Victor!” he exclaimed. “It is you!”
The man was tall, although Frankenstein still towered over him. He was dressed in an elegantly cut navy blue suit, and a cream shirt that was open at the neck. His face was narrow, his blond hair combed into a neat side parting, and he was looking at the monster with an expression of utter incredulity.
“Do I know you?” asked Frankenstein, slowly.
The man frowned, and took a half-step backwards.
“You are Henry Victor, are you not?” he asked. “It’s me, Latour. I know it has been almost a century since we last saw each other, but I didn’t think I was quite so forgettable.”
Frankenstein looked at the man. He was clearly no older than forty, and probably several years younger than that.
“Almost a century?” he asked. “How can that be?”
Latour narrowed his eyes, and for an instant, Frankenstein was sure he saw red flicker in their corners. Then it was gone, and geniality returned to the stranger’s face.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked.
“It’s no business of yours, but I remember nothing beyond the last ten weeks,” replied Frankenstein, allowing a rumble of anger into his voice. “Regardless, it is impossible that either of us could have been alive a century ago. It is ludicrous to even suggest it.”
“My God,” said Latour, his voice low. “Are you serious? You remember nothing?”
Frankenstein didn’t answer; he simply stepped round Latour and continued to make his way up Rue Vieille du Temple, without a backward glance. But Latour immediately appeared in front of him again, and he stopped.
“I’m getting tired of—”
“Please, let me speak,” interrupted Latour. His eyes were wide, and he was looking at Frankenstein with something close to pity. “Y
ou must be so confused. And, to be honest with you, it looks as though you find yourself somewhat down on your luck. Is that fair?”
Frankenstein glanced down at his battered clothing.
“And if it is?” he replied. “What do you propose to do about it?”
“I know you,” said Latour, and suddenly there was passion in his voice. “If you tell me that you don’t remember, then I believe you. But it is the truth, whether you find it ridiculous or not. So perhaps I can be of service. Perhaps I can help you to remember.”
“How would you do that?” asked Frankenstein. His voice remained gruff, but a sliver of hope had opened in his heart.
If this man knew me before, perhaps he really can help.
“I think dinner would be a good place to start,” replied Latour, and smiled. “You look as though you’re starving. I have a table in a restaurant five minutes’ walk from here. We can share a meal, and talk, and maybe something will come back to you. If it doesn’t, then we part as friends. It’s Christmas, after all, and no one should be on their own. How does that sound?”
Latour was right about one thing: Frankenstein was starving. Latour watched as his companion devoured a thick slab of foie gras and a chateaubriand that had been intended for two, washing it down with a bottle of Château Batailley. But he was wrong about the other: nothing he said prompted any reaction from the monster, whose memories appeared completely inaccessible.
This is a piece of astonishing good fortune, he thought, as he watched the huge man eat. Remarkable even.
He told Frankenstein of the time they had spent together in the distant summer of 1923; the places they had been, the men and women in whose circles they had moved. The names would have been impressive, to even a casual listener, but to the monster they were meaningless.
