Department 19, The Rising, and Battle Lines

by Will Hill

  “You remember nothing,” said Lord Dante. “That is your claim, monster?”

  “Don’t call me that,” growled Frankenstein.

  “I apologise, Mr Frankenstein,” said Lord Dante, a smile emerging on his face. “But that is your position? That your memories are lost to you?”

  “It is not a position,” replied Frankenstein, his voice low. “It is simple fact.”

  “You do not remember the many nights you spent in this room, in my company?”

  “No. I do not.”

  “You do not remember the meals we shared, the happy hours we idled away?” Lord Dante’s voice was rising, the tremble in it becoming more pronounced.

  “No.”

  “The tortures we revelled in, the blood we drank, the lives we brought to their end?”

  “No!” bellowed Frankenstein, his voice booming through the small room, deafeningly loud. “I do not remember, and I’m glad that I don’t!”

  “What about this?” roared Lord Dante, rising from his chair and tearing open his shirt. “Do you remember this, you foul, disloyal monster?”

  Frankenstein stared at the narrow, mottled grey chest of the vampire king of Paris, and felt his eyes widen involuntarily. Emerging from the sagging flesh, directly over the ancient monster’s heart, was a wide, thin piece of metal, extending perhaps two centimetres beyond the surface of the vampire’s skin. Where the metal penetrated the flesh, there was a thick ridge of scar tissue, a crust of pale pink amid the expanse of fading grey.

  “No,” said Frankenstein, distantly. He could not take his eyes from the unnatural sight before him. “I don’t remember that.”

  The fire in Lord Dante’s eyes subsided, and he looked at Frankenstein with an expression that was strangely close to pity.

  “I do remember,” he said. “For almost ninety years, I have been unable to forget what you did to me, for even a single minute. You put this blade in my chest over a common, lying little whore, and left me here for dead. You, whom I considered my friend. Can you imagine how that felt?”

  Frankenstein said nothing; he was sure the vampire was not interested in a reply.

  “Of course you can’t,” continued Lord Dante, after barely a pause. “You can’t imagine what it was like to have your heart almost cleaved in two by someone you would have trusted with your life. You can’t imagine what it’s like to feel your body begin to collapse, only to hold together at the final moment as your heart heals round the blade, condemning you to a life of mortal proportions.”

  “I can’t imagine,” said Frankenstein, simply. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  A thick, vicious growl emerged from Lord Dante’s throat, and the old monster took half a step towards Frankenstein, who suddenly realised how much effort the vampire king was expending on trying to keep his fury under control.

  “This blade, your filthy peasant’s knife, has been in my body for almost a century,” Lord Dante snarled. “The flesh of my heart grew back round it before I expired, saving me from destruction, but removing it would have been the end of me. Worse than that, crueller even than that, is the fact that the blade stops my heart from properly regenerating my cells, no matter how much blood I take.”

  Frankenstein stared at the vampire king, then looked helplessly at Latour; he understood that he stood accused of having stabbed a blade into the monster’s chest, but the rest of the vampire king’s words were meaningless.

  “His Majesty is ageing,” said Latour, softly. “The blade you placed in his heart has robbed him of his immortality.”

  Frankenstein looked back at Lord Dante, his frail body heaving up and down as he fought to control himself. His red eyes stared at Frankenstein, who fought the overwhelming urge to smile.

  It almost doesn’t matter if I never know the rest, he thought. Knowing this will be enough. This is one good thing I can be sure I did.

  The door at the side of the room slid open, and the butler re-emerged, dragging behind him a dark-haired girl who could not possibly have been more than fifteen. She was clutching a beautiful porcelain doll, and wearing a summer dress the colour of daffodils; her eyes were wide with fear as the butler hauled her into the room and pushed her towards Latour. The girl bumped her hip on the edge of the table, cried out and almost fell, but Latour moved invisibly quickly across the room and caught her.

  “Shush,” he said. “Shush, child. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

  The girl looked hopefully up into Latour’s pale, handsome face, then burst into tears and buried herself in his chest. Frankenstein watched crimson rise in his old friend’s eyes as the girl pressed herself against him, and saw an awful expression of lust creep across his mouth.

  The butler silently placed a large, ornate bottle on the table. Frankenstein was not watching as Lord Dante lifted it in his shaking hands and drained it of the dark red liquid it contained; his eyes were fixed with utter revulsion on Latour. If he had been watching, he would have seen the vampire king wipe his mouth with the back of one shaky hand, then throw his head back as his body begin to change.

  Power, old and familiar, flooded through Lord Dante. He required as much blood as any other vampire on earth just to keep his degrading body in one piece, such was the unhealable nature of the injury Frankenstein had inflicted on him. But no amount of blood appeared to delay the passage of time; he was more than one hundred and twenty years old, and his body was failing him.

  But the litres of blood he had just drunk would return to him an approximation of the power he had once had, even though it would be short-lived, and carry with it the most excruciating pain the following day. It would, he knew, take all his remaining strength to hold his body together. But right now, he could not have cared less; he had waited for this day for almost a century, and nothing would deny him his vengeance.

  The vampire king of Paris felt the loose, old man’s skin that coated his bones begin to pull tight as the blood flowed through him; his eyes rose forth from their sunken depths, and again blazed the unholy red that had once struck fear into every nocturnal creature in northern France. He felt his muscles grow, filling the suit that had once fitted him like an exquisitely tailored glove, and felt strength flood into them. His throat worked soundlessly as he rode the crest of the wave of ecstasy that was rolling through his body, firing his nerves with starbursts of electricity so exquisite it was all he could do not to fall to the surface of the table and weep.

  Eventually, it passed; his vision cleared, his heart slowed back to its usual irregular staccato and Lord Dante looked around the dining room with new eyes. His butler had disappeared through the servants’ door, Latour was kneeling beside his new pet, whispering reassurances that he had absolutely no intention of honouring, while the monster, the hated, cursed monster, watched his old friend with disgust curdling his face. The vampire king stretched his arms above his head until he heard his muscles creak, then stepped silently around the table and approached his nemesis.

  The first Frankenstein knew of Lord Dante’s proximity was when the vampire king’s hand encircled his throat. He would have screamed, but the ancient vampire’s grip was like a vice, constricting his windpipe and leaving him unable to draw breath. Lord Dante lifted him up and back, slamming him into the wall with an impact that shook the entire room, and terror galvanised Frankenstein’s body, and he swung his arms at the smiling, suddenly youthful face of the vampire king.

  The blows landed solidly, hammering roundhouse swings that would have levelled most creatures on earth, but Lord Dante didn’t so much as flinch; if anything, his smile widened. Frankenstein grabbed at the hand that was holding him, trying to prise open the fingers as his lungs screamed for air, as his vision began to grey at the edges.

  As the room grew dark, he tore his gaze away from Lord Dante and threw a desperate, pleading look in the direction of Latour. His old friend wore a sour expression, the look of a man who has belatedly discovered that something has proven to be much less fun than he
had expected, but he made no move to help, even as Frankenstein began to suffocate.

  Constellations of white and grey spots whirled across his vision, and he felt his chest begin to contract as the last of the oxygen in his lungs was absorbed, leaving him empty. There was an enormous pressure in his head, as though it was about to burst, but he felt strangely calm; there was no panic, no fear, just an unexpectedly easy acceptance of the fate that was about to befall him. He felt sadness at never having regained the memories of his life, but he also felt a gentle wave of relief; it was awful to live in the dark, and he would be glad to be released from it.

  Then, at the last second before he slipped into unconsciousness, the pressure eased. But far from providing relief, it brought with it a screaming wave of agony as his body fought for air. It felt as though every part of him was on fire. He slumped down the wall and rolled lamely on to his back, his chest heaving, his mouth hauling in burning lungfuls of oxygen.

  His vision began to clear, and he stared up from the floor into the face of Lord Dante. The vampire king was looking down at him, his chest heaving as he tried to calm himself, the expression on his face something close to lust.

  “Not so fast,” breathed the ancient vampire. “You don’t get away so easily, not after all these years.”

  Lord Dante looked over at Latour, and gestured towards the prone, gasping monster. “Pick him up,” he said. “I want to introduce him to the rest of our guests.”

  Latour hesitated for a moment, long enough for Lord Dante’s eyes to flare in their sockets, an unequivocal gesture of warning. Latour nodded, then stepped forward and scooped Frankenstein up with one hand by the back of his neck, like a cat picking up one of her kittens. Frankenstein dangled limply as the vampire lifted him into the air and carried him towards the door. His chest rose and fell steadily; his chin slumped against it, his eyes barely open. The monster had realised that he was no longer going to die, and it had broken the last of his spirit.

  Just let it be over quickly, he thought, distantly. That’s all I ask. Whatever is in store for me, let it be quick.

  Latour shoved open the door that led back into the theatre, and held it open for the vampire king. Lord Dante strode through it, his eyes blazing red, his face a mask of triumph.

  “Brothers and sisters!” he bellowed, and the theatre fell silent. The audience turned their heads to look in his direction and the vampire on the stage let the dead girl fall to the floor. The look on the majority of the vampires’ faces was one of surprise; it was rare for any of them to see Lord Dante, much less hear him address them.

  In the decades since Frankenstein had buried his kukri knife in the vampire king’s chest, he had become a peripheral figure in his own club, seldom seen except by the tiny handful of vampires he still considered his favourites. Latour was one of them, and he had often been forced to answer anxious questions from other members about Lord Dante’s health, to rebuff desperate entreaties that they be allowed to enter the private dining room and offer him their supplication.

  The vampire king had withdrawn into his small room, where he had feasted on men and women supplied by his butler, and in time he had become little more than a legend; a monster hiding in the shadows where none were allowed to venture, a dark presence behind the scenes who, if the members of the Fraternité were honest, made them feel uncomfortable.

  Attendance had steadily declined over the years, a sign that all was no longer right in the old building. It remained the safest place for vampires in all of Paris, a place where every appetite, no matter how obscene, could be indulged, yet fewer and fewer vampires chose to take advantage of its debauched freedoms. The presence of Lord Dante, so diminished from the godlike creature he had once appeared, caused them a discomfort that was almost physical, like an itch that they could not reach to scratch. As a result, fewer than fifteen vampires were inside the Fraternité to hear Lord Dante’s voice boom across the theatre, to see him stride down its aisle as Latour carried Frankenstein easily towards the stage.

  “My God,” someone whispered, as the small procession passed.

  The look on Lord Dante’s face was one of pure, unbridled joy; it looked as though he had been brought back to life. His dinner jacket billowed behind him as he reached the front of the stage, and floated effortlessly up on to it. Latour followed him at a respectful distance, carrying his prisoner, and floated up beside the vampire king as he turned to address the meagre crowd.

  “Friends,” he boomed. “You find yourselves witness to a truly auspicious event, an event that will stand alongside any in the great history of this Fraternité.”

  He paused, beaming out at his confused audience. There was whispering, and one or two fingers pointing in the direction of Frankenstein, but most of the vampires were staring at Lord Dante, scarcely able to believe that he had left the dining room that had become his self-imposed cell, let alone that he was standing before them and addressing them, his face filled with a fire that even the longest-serving members of the Fraternité had not seen for many decades.

  “Nearly ninety years ago,” continued the vampire king, “a great wrong was done to me. An act of betrayal so cowardly, so unjustified, that it left me questioning the wisdom of continuing to provide this sanctuary for the creatures of the night, among many other things. I have withdrawn from you, my brothers and sisters; it cannot have escaped your notice, and I apologise for it. The perpetrator, who I am at last able to bring before you, was something base and rotten, a foul thing that should never have been given life; a mistake that I am finally, after long years, in a position to correct.”

  In the centre of the stage stood a thick wooden post that had been used for every conceivable horror in the long years since Lord Dante had erected it, when the Fraternité was founded. It was to this post that the vampire king now instructed Latour to tie Frankenstein securely.

  As Latour bent to his work, leaning the limp monster against the wood and gathering thick coils of rope from where they lay strewn on the stage, Lord Dante continued to speak.

  “Some of you have been members of this Fraternité long enough to recognise the creature beside me,” he said, his eyes burning coals. “This is the creature that did this to me, whom I have waited almost a century to take my revenge upon.” As he spoke, he unbuttoned his shirt and held it open, displaying the thin slice of metal that protruded from his chest. “And now, my friends, that time is at hand.”

  Lord Dante turned away from his audience, and regarded the helpless monster. Frankenstein’s arms were tightly bound behind the post, looped and tied at the wrists, without so much as a millimetre of give. His feet had been set at a more forgiving angle, but were equally secure; the only part of his body that he could move more than a centimetre or two was his head, which he raised slowly as he heard Lord Dante’s approaching footsteps. He forced his eyes open, and saw the ancient vampire looking at him with an expression that seemed almost regretful. Then the vampire king’s face twisted into a wide, teetering grin of madness, and Frankenstein saw the vampire’s right shoulder move as he cocked his fist.

  He never saw the punch itself.

  It pistoned into his stomach, driving every molecule of air from his lungs; he heard a sound explode involuntarily from his mouth, like a huge balloon bursting, and felt his eyes bulge in their sockets as his body attempted to process the agony that was blooming in his midsection. He opened his mouth to scream, but found he could not; his body was in spasm, paralysed by the need to drag fresh oxygen into his shocked lungs.

  He stared helplessly into the face of Lord Dante, his chest tightening and constricting as his lungs deflated, and realised, strangely calmly, that he couldn’t breathe. Panic burst through him, and he twisted and turned against his bindings, his oxygen-starved muscles weakening by the second, his mind racing with terror at the thought of dying like this, like an animal, for the amusement of a handful of monsters. As he thrashed and struggled, increasingly weakly, Lord Dante leant his terrible smiling
face in close to his own.

  “It’s an awful feeling, isn’t it?” said the vampire king, softly. “Helplessness. It physically hurts.”

  Frankenstein stared, incapable of responding. His vision was starting to grey at the edges, and he felt an enormous pressure building in the centre of his chest. He was waiting for darkness to envelop him when Lord Dante sighed, then shoved one of his pale, delicate hands into his mouth.

  He felt the cold fingers invade the back of his throat, and then his gag reflex triggered, even as his body teetered on the brink of shutting down. There was nothing in his stomach, so all that burst up and around the vampire’s fingers were strings of watery bile. Lord Dante withdrew his hand, a look of utter disgust creasing his face; he flicked his hand down towards the stage, splattering the liquid on to the wooden boards.

  Frankenstein felt his whole body tremble, as his gag reflex broke his paralysis; he sucked in a single quavering, tremulous breath, and air that felt like razor blades scoured his throat and lungs. He slumped against the wooden pole, his eyes rolling back in his head, his huge, lumpen chest heaving, and knew nothing more.

  Breathing heavily, Lord Dante turned back to his audience, who were staring at him with rapt attention, cruel excitement on their faces.

  “Send word,” he breathed. “To every member of the Fraternité de la Nuit, wherever they may be. Tell them that Lord Dante is risen, and that he summons them here two nights from now. Tell them he has something planned that not a single one of them will want to miss.”

  34

  HOW TO STEAL FIRE FROM THE GODS

  “A cure?” asked Jamie. “What do you mean a cure?”