Department 19, The Rising, and Battle Lines

by Will Hill

  “It’s time,” said the vampire. “We’re going to see an old friend, and I’d prefer we not be late. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  Frankenstein nodded weakly.

  “Splendid,” said Latour, beaming down at him. “In which case, we’ll take a cocktail downstairs in fifteen minutes, before we set out for the Marais. That is ample time, I hope?”

  “Time for what?” whispered Frankenstein.

  “For you to dress of course,” said Latour, favouring the monster with the kind of look usually reserved for the simple-minded. He extended one of his long, slender arms, and indicated in the direction of the door. A servant was standing in the empty space, holding a huge leather suit carrier carefully in his hands.

  Frankenstein stared, uncomprehending.

  “I took the liberty of having you measured while you slept,” said Latour. “An uncivilised way to do things, I appreciate, and I do apologise. However, time was short, and one simply cannot be dressed as you are to attend the theatre, can one?”

  Frankenstein looked down at what he was wearing, the same heavy woollen jumper and hard-wearing trousers Magda had given him in Dortmund, a lifetime ago.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Luckily, I do,” replied the vampire. “I’ll leave Lionel here to help you. Fifteen minutes, please; don’t make me come back up here.”

  Then Latour was gone, leaving him alone with the servant, who regarded him with professional neutrality and eyes that momentarily flashed a clear warning red.

  “Whenever you’re ready, sir,” said the servant, and unzipped the leather case.

  Ten minutes later Frankenstein made his way awkwardly to the bottom of the grand staircase that spiralled up through the centre of Latour’s apartment.

  The tuxedo he was wearing fitted him perfectly, but he still felt incredibly uncomfortable; he plucked at the sleeves and shook his feet, trying to make the hems of the trousers settle atop his mirror-gleaming shoes. A piece of classical music was floating through the open door of the large salon at the end of the eastern corridor, and he made his way towards it.

  Latour was lying on a chaise longue in the centre of the room, his eyes closed and a smile on his pale face; one hand held a dark red cigarette that Frankenstein had come to learn was liberally laced with a drug of some kind, a drug that was distilled at least in part from human blood, while the other floated back and forth in the air in time with the music that was emanating from a sleek black stereo system in the corner of the room.

  “Chopin’s Nocturnes, Op. 27,” said Latour, without opening his eyes. He had heard his prisoner’s clumsy, uneven footsteps since the monster had stepped on to the first stair, three floors above. “It was your favourite, once upon a time. But I assume you don’t remember that?”

  “You know I don’t,” replied Frankenstein. “I remember nothing else, so why would a piece of music be any different?”

  “Music has the capacity to lift the soul,” said Latour, swinging his long legs gracefully down to the floor and regarding Frankenstein. “Even a soul as dark and broken as yours. But indeed, I am not surprised; as always, what I feel for you is pity.”

  To hell with your pity, thought Frankenstein.

  Latour strolled over to a long wooden bar beneath the wide pair of windows that dominated the room. The sun was long set, and the neon lights of nocturnal Paris glowed through the glass. The vampire poured two glasses full of a clear liquid from a silver cocktail shaker, picked them up and floated back across the room. He handed one to Frankenstein, and raised the other.

  “To experience,” he said, softly. “To all the accumulation of a life, both good and bad.”

  Frankenstein raised his glass, held it for a moment, then lifted it to his lips and took a sip. The liquid was sharp, and bitter, and felt hot as it rolled across his tongue.

  “What is this?” he asked, fighting the urge to cough.

  “It’s a martini,” replied Latour. “You used to love them. I thought it might… oh, never mind.”

  There was silence in the salon for a long moment. Frankenstein was watching Latour closely, and had seen the momentary grimace pass across the vampire’s face when he had asked what the drink was. Part of it was embarrassment, he knew; the vampire was an epicure, a devotee of the very finest things that life had to offer, and the question had made him uncomfortable. It was an unpleasant reminder that he lived in a world in which there were people who did not know what a martini was, despite his strenuous efforts to avoid crossing their paths.

  But it was more than that; it was disappointment, and sadness too, and Frankenstein realised something profound. Latour’s repeated efforts to jar his memory back to life by providing him with familiar objects and sensations from the past were not just a source of entertainment for the vampire; they were genuine attempts by Latour to bring back his friend, a man that, Frankenstein suddenly saw with enormous clarity, the vampire deeply missed.

  “It’s good,” said Frankenstein, motioning towards the beautiful, delicate glass in his huge grey-green hand, then drained the rest of the drink. “I can see why I used to like them.”

  Latour nodded, then checked his watch and almost sadly announced that there was sufficient time for a second drink, and then they would need to depart.

  “Where are we going?” asked Frankenstein, as Latour refilled their glasses. “You mentioned a theatre?”

  “Of a sort,” replied Latour. “The place we’re going is the place we met, and where I flatter myself we spent many contented evenings together. It goes by the name of La Fraternité de la Nuit, and it is the home of—”

  “The Brotherhood of the Night,” said Frankenstein, softly. The words had appeared in his head from nowhere, translated from the French without his having needed to consider the process. It was a strange feeling, a reminder of the vast realms of knowledge that were locked away inside his mind.

  “Exactly,” said Latour, narrowing his eyes. “Clearly, not everything has been lost to you.”

  “It would seem not,” replied Frankenstein. “When I saw the word Paris, I knew it was familiar, and it led me here. I understood the words you said, so I said them. My most fervent hope is that more information will be returned to me, in time.”

  Latour said nothing; he merely drained his second martini in one long swallow, and set the glass on the varnished wooden surface of the bar. Frankenstein followed suit, his hand trembling ever so slightly.

  “It’s time,” said Latour. The warmth that had momentarily infused the vampire’s voice was gone; what was left was cold, and sharp. “Are you ready?”

  Frankenstein raised himself up to his full height. He towered over his former friend, his head nearly brushing the lowest crystals of the chandelier that hung in the centre of the high ceiling.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Forty minutes later Lionel brought Latour’s black Rolls Royce smoothly to a halt on Rue de Sévigné and stepped out of the long, angular car. A second later he appeared beside the passenger door, and pulled it open; the door swung from a hinge at the rear, rather than at the front, as Lionel stepped respectfully out of view, and held it open for his master.

  Fear welled up inside Frankenstein as he stared at the open door.

  “What are we doing here, Latour?” he asked. “Tell me that much, please? I know I can’t stop whatever it is that is about to happen, so just tell me. Please?”

  Latour’s face creased for the briefest of moments, and a tiny flame of hope bloomed in Frankenstein’s chest. But then the vampire’s eyes flared red, and it was extinguished.

  “Get out,” he said. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  Frankenstein swallowed hard, then did as he was told. He clambered out through the door and on to the immaculate pale stone pavement outside, casting a desperate look down the quiet street in the vain hope that there might be someone in sight who could help him. Then Latour was ushering him towards an ornate black gate, beyond which stood
a beautiful pale stone building which Frankenstein couldn’t help but notice had no windows. The vampire produced a key and unlocked the gate, then led Frankenstein up to an imposing wooden door, upon which he knocked three times.

  Frankenstein waited silently; fatalism had settled over him, bringing with it an eerie sense of calm. He was under no illusions that what was waiting behind the door was going to be anything other than awful; Latour had not held him against his will to deliver him somewhere pleasant. But he realised that he was no longer scared, and that was a blessing to be appreciated, if only a small one.

  The door swung silently open, and Latour looked pointedly at Frankenstein. He took a deep breath and stepped through the door, hearing Latour close it firmly behind them. He found himself standing in a small lobby; to his left was a lectern, behind which was standing an elderly man in immaculate evening wear. The man was staring at Frankenstein with an expression of utter shock on his lined face.

  “Staring is generally considered rude,” said Latour, removing his coat and holding it out towards the lectern.

  The old man blinked, and his equilibrium returned. He dragged his gaze away from Frankenstein, then stepped smoothly out from behind the lectern.

  “Welcome back to La Fraternité de la Nuit, gentlemen,” he said, his voice like oil. He took Latour’s coat, waited for the monster to shrug his over his misshapen shoulders and then addressed Frankenstein specifically. “It is a particular pleasure to see you again, sir. It has been far too long; your presence has been greatly missed.”

  “Thank you,” said Frankenstein, warily. He had seen the flicker of red in the corners of the man’s eyes as he spoke, and it had disconcerted him.

  What place is this? Where have I been brought?

  “Enough chatter,” said Latour, shooting the elderly man a look of obvious warning. “We have business with Lord Dante; I presume he is in attendance?”

  “Of course, sir,” replied the old vampire. “His dining room is open to you both, as it always has been.”

  “Fine,” replied Latour. He strode across the lobby to the small door at its rear, and waited. Frankenstein slowly followed him, like a man going to the gallows, and, lowering his huge head below the frame, walked through the door as Latour opened it.

  He emerged into a small theatre, and was instantly struck by two contrasting sensations; the first was a churning nausea, as the smell of spilled blood hit his nostrils, and his eyes absorbed the horror of what was playing out before him. On the small stage, in front of the sixty or so seats that were arrayed before it, a vampire man was dancing with the dead body of a woman. Her neck and shoulders were studded with bloody circular holes, her mouth was huge and empty, her eyes wide and staring.

  But the second sensation he felt, as he stood unsteadily in this old place of violence and misery, was, if anything, even worse; he felt an immediate comfort, a deep, reassuring feeling that he had been here before, a tangible moment of feeling something other than empty.

  It felt like coming home.

  What kind of man was I that I would ever have come to a place like this? thought Frankenstein, wretchedly. This is a place for the worst the world has to offer, the things that live in the shadows, in the darkest corners of the night.

  The monsters.

  “I’ve been here before,” he said, slowly.

  “Of course you have,” said Latour. “I told you as much.”

  “I know you did,” replied Frankenstein. “But even if you hadn’t, I would have known. I can feel it.”

  “Do you remember the things you did here?” asked Latour. “The things that we did together? Do you remember Lord Dante?”

  Frankenstein searched his shattered mind for answers, but found none. He shook his head with frustration.

  “Not to worry,” said Latour, a smile of unbridled pleasure on his face. “I’m quite certain he remembers you. Come with me.”

  Latour led him behind the seats, round the sloping left-hand wall of the theatre, to a wooden door. The vampire knocked on it once, and then pushed it open. He nodded towards Frankenstein, who walked forward, to the place he had always been destined to return.

  31

  ECHOES OF THE PAST

  Jamie Carpenter got up from his chair and walked slowly around the cell, his mind whirring. Valentin Rusmanov watched him, a gentle smile on his ancient face.

  I don’t believe him, thought Jamie. I can’t. It was my fault that Frankenstein died. I’ve always known it was.

  But the vampire’s words wouldn’t leave him, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that they were untrue. And in the very back of his mind, the sly, wheedling voice that usually told him the things he didn’t want to hear was whispering to him.

  Maybe you just wanted to believe that. Maybe it was easier to think it was your fault than to believe he sacrificed himself for you.

  That made no sense to Jamie; why would he have carried around such a heavy weight of guilt voluntarily? But as the voice kept whispering and Valentin’s words churned over and over, he was forced to admit to himself that he had used the belief that he was to blame for Frankenstein’s death as fuel to keep him going, to keep him moving forward; it was the indignant fire at the heart of his desire to prove himself to everyone, the thing that kept him searching, kept him trying to atone.

  That doesn’t have to change, whispered the voice. He died so that you could live. You can still honour him, honour his sacrifice, and show everyone that he didn’t make the wrong decision. But maybe you need to put down the guilt, before it becomes too heavy.

  “Jamie?” asked Valentin. “Are you all right?”

  He stopped pacing, and turned to face the vampire.

  “Why did you say all that?” he asked.

  “All what?”

  “About it not being my fault about Frankenstein. What were you trying to do?”

  “I wasn’t trying to do anything,” said Valentin. “I was merely giving you my honest opinion.”

  Jamie stared at him for a long moment, then walked back to his chair. He lowered himself into it, his eyes never leaving Valentin’s face.

  “I told you I wanted to talk about my grandfather,” said Jamie. “Not about Frankenstein. I don’t want to talk about him any more.”

  “Usually, I would agree without reservation,” replied Valentin. “The mere thought of him, of his discoloured, uneven skin, his second-hand blood, turns my stomach. But I’m afraid he and your grandfather are inextricably linked. So I may not be able to avoid mentioning him altogether. Is that going to be all right? I really don’t want to upset you again.”

  A wicked smile curled at the corners of Valentin’s mouth, and a red-hot pillar of anger surged through Jamie.

  Calm. Be calm. Don’t let him get to you. Don’t give him what he wants. Calm.

  “That’s fine,” he replied, as neutrally as he was able.

  “Marvellous,” said Valentin, the smile still in place. “It’s difficult to know where to start, to be completely honest with you. There isn’t really a vampire society out there, at least not in the way that I think some of your colleagues believe there is. There are vampires who live together in groups that I suppose one could charitably refer to as social, there are vampires who operate as family units, as husbands and wives and children, and there are individual vampires who enjoy each other’s company, just as humans do. The latter is the situation that I have spent my life in; I live alone, in New York, discounting my dear Lamberton of course, but I regularly socialise with the same men and women of my kind. In some cases I have been doing so for almost a century.”

  “All right,” said Jamie. “I get it. Why are you telling me this?”

  Valentin sighed, clearly disappointed.

  “I’m telling you because the consensus in Blacklight, and the other Departments like it, seems to be that there is some kind of unified organisation of vampires out there in the night, with leaders and goals and strategies, working towards the downfall of h
umanity. Which, I’m afraid to tell you, is ridiculous. Most of the vampires out there live their lives as they alone see fit, often taking great pains to avoid others like them. There are two things you need to understand: firstly, that the vast majority of vampires don’t know nearly as much as you think they do about you and your friends, and your compatriots around the world. Secondly, that everything I’ve just described will change, for the markedly worse, if Dracula is allowed to rise to his full strength.”

  A shiver ran up Jamie’s spine at the mention of the first vampire, but he was determined not to allow Valentin to dictate the conversation.

  “I understand,” he said. “And I want to talk about Dracula. But you said you were going to tell me about my grandfather, and yet you seem to be talking about everything apart from him.”

  “The point, my impatient little friend,” said Valentin, “is that even though word does not travel as widely and quickly through the vampire ranks as your superiors would like to believe, there are those of us who tend to be more aware of what is going on in the world than others. I have always been such a vampire; I have made it a priority to be aware of any developments that have the potential to impact on the life I lead. The formation of your little group, after Dracula’s defeat, was such a development.

  “My brother Valeri encountered Quincey Harker and his friends in Rome after the end of the First World War, and barely escaped with his life. So I began to take an interest in what was happening in London, from the perspective of self-preservation; as a result, when your grandfather appeared in my home threatening to blow it sky-high unless I allowed him to murder one of my guests, his name was already familiar to me.”

  Jamie felt a surge of pride rush through his chest, pride in the bravery of a man he’d never met. He tried to imagine what it must have been like for his grandfather, standing in the middle of a room full of vampires, the only thing stopping them from tearing him to pieces the whim of the creature that was sitting two metres away from him.