Department 19: The Rising

by Will Hill

  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. “You 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.

  Frankenstein listened politely as Latour explained, with frustration creeping into his voice, that the two of them had walked and eaten and drunk with the finest minds of the generation, that they had been present at parties and gatherings that society columnists would have killed for an invitation to. He listened, and then he apologised for his inability to remember the famous artists and writers who appeared to still have Latour under their spell, even now.

  When both men had eaten their fill, they strolled north, into the heart of the Marais. Their conversation remained pleasant, and amicable, but it was clear to them both that it was fruitless. Frankenstein remembered nothing more than he had when they sat down together, and remained extremely sceptical about Latour’s claims of the time they had spent in each other’s company.

  He believed that the man had known him, had become convinced of that; the detail in his stories had been too compelling, too closely woven to be entirely fabricated. But the year that Latour kept returning to, 1923 – that was simply impossible for Frankenstein to accept. He had eventually asked his companion outright how such a thing could be possible, but Latour had refused to answer.

  “Some things you must find out for yourself,” was all he would say.

  They passed across Place de la République and headed north-west on Boulevard de Magenta, discussing trivialities: the weather, the architecture of the city, the hordes of wandering tourists. For all his doubts, Frankenstein was in no hurry to take leave of his companion, as he had nowhere else to be.

  As the two men crossed the entrance to a dimly lit alleyway, a female voice issued from the darkness.

  “Both of you for sixty,” it said, the words slurring slightly as they echoed from the shadows.

  Latour stopped, and regarded Frankenstein with a look that chilled him; a look of naked hunger. Suddenly Frankenstein wanted to be away from this man; he didn’t know why, but the feeling was clear and strong. He was formulating an excuse when Latour grabbed his arm and hauled him into the alleyway.

  The source of the voice was a girl, barely out of her teens. She was leaning in the shadows, her exposed arms and legs bony and pale. She was smoking a cigarette and staring coolly at the two men as they approached her. She opened her mouth to say something more, but never got the chance.

  As Frankenstein watched, Latour’s eyes changed. Dark red, almost black in the flickering light of the street lamp on the main street, spilled into them
, and they began to glow with unnatural fire, sending a wave of terror hurtling through Frankenstein, freezing him to the spot where he stood. Then Latour moved with inhuman speed, and lifted the girl into the air by her throat.

  Before Frankenstein had time to react, Latour hauled her pale throat to his mouth, and sank his teeth into it. The girl tried to scream, as blood began to gush out of her neck, but Latour held her tight, and it emerged as little more than a gurgle. A revolting slurping sound issued from the man as he drank the warm blood from her veins, and after less than a minute, her head slumped sideways, her eyes closed.

  Frankenstein stood, paralysed by absolute fear. When Latour turned, a dreadful smile on his blood-smeared face, his eyes the glowing colour of Hell, and held the girl out towards him, he thought for a nauseating second that he was going to faint.

  “Drink,” said Latour. “It’s been too long, old friend. Drink. Maybe the man you were will remember the taste.”

  Frankenstein stared at the glistening wound, at the thick streams of blood that were running down the girl’s chest, and lurched back, his hands raised in horrified protest. He collided with the wall of the alleyway and lost his balance, sliding to the wet ground, his eyes fixed on the girl’s bleeding neck.

  “No?” said Latour. “A shame. Clearly, your tastes have changed somewhat in the last ninety years.”

  He dropped the girl to the ground as though she was nothing, then slid liquidly across the alleyway and flopped down next to Frankenstein, who was so overwhelmed with revulsion that he scrambled away, crawling across the ground like a baby.

  Latour reached over, grabbed the collar of his coat and hauled him back.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, conversationally, pulling a cigarette from a silver tin in his jacket pocket and lighting it. His face was coated in the girl’s blood, with red light glowing from his eyes and a wicked smile twisting his lips. “I know you have nowhere to go. I know there is no one to miss you. But most importantly, I am the only person in this city who knows who you really are. I’m the only friend you have.”

  He smiled at Frankenstein, then leapt back to his feet and crossed the alleyway. He lifted the barely breathing girl from the ground, and placed his hands round her throat.

  “D-don’t,” managed Frankenstein. His voice came out as a rasp. “Please don’t. Let her live.”

  Latour cocked his head, and looked at the monster.

  “Why?” he asked. “That would be far more unkind.”

  Then he strangled the girl, as Frankenstein squeezed his eyes shut, and waited for it to be over.

  Seconds later, seconds that seemed like hours, he felt hands on his shoulders, and opened his eyes a fraction. Latour, his eyes returned to normal, the majority of the blood gone from his face, was crouching in front of him, regarding him with a kind expression.

  “Come,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of Boulevard de Magenta. “You will stay with me. My apartment is only a short walk from here.”

  Frankenstein shook his head, slowly. His mind was reeling with the sheer unnatural cruelty of what Latour had done. His stomach was churning, and a hopelessness, a self-loathing more powerful than anything he had ever felt, was washing over him, threatening to drown him.

  Crack.

  Latour slapped his face, hard.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” he said. The kindness was once more gone from his face, replaced by a look of vicious amusement. “Come now, while you can do so under your own steam.”

  He gripped the lapels of Frankenstein’s coat, then pulled him to his feet. He linked arms with the monster, as though they were nothing more than two old friends out for a stroll on the town, and led him out on to the street. Then he began to walk north, with Frankenstein following mechanically at his side, lost inside his own ravaged mind, trapped in a nightmare from which there seemed to be no waking.

  15

  ALL FALL DOWN

  For a moment, nobody moved. Kate stared at the blood pumping out of the hole in her arm, as Shaun Turner looked on with an expression of total incomprehension. Jamie felt like his legs had been turned to lead, as though he couldn’t move them, physically couldn’t move them. In the end, it was Larissa who reacted first.

  Her eyes flooded involuntarily red at the sight and smell of the running blood, but the look on her face was pure concern. She shoved Jamie and Jack out of the way and slid to Kate’s side, ignoring Shaun completely.

  Her movement broke the spell that had been momentarily holding them fast; Jamie started to shout, asking Kate over and over if she was all right. Jack got on the radio and ordered the helicopter to make an emergency medical pick-up. Angela stared at Kate, her face unreadable, the face of someone who has seen horrors that no one should have to see. Larissa clamped her hand over the wound, squeezing it tightly with her superhuman strength, and Kate cried out in pain. Shaun Turner pulled the stake from his belt, turning towards the comatose vampire.

  “No!” yelled Jack Williams, as he realised, too late, what his squad member was going to do. But Shaun gave no indication that he had even heard his squad leader’s voice; he dropped to his knees and hammered his metal stake into the motionless vampire’s chest. The foreman exploded with a dull thud, a pathetic spray of blood that flickered briefly in the cold night air. Then Shaun was moving again, this time to Kate’s side, demanding that Larissa let him see the damage.

  “Get back,” growled Larissa, and Shaun recoiled.

  “It’s OK,” said Kate, in a low voice, but Larissa ignored her.

  “Jamie,” she said, her eyes blazing. “Call the Loop and tell them to have a transfusion ready when we land.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Jack Williams, then took a step backwards as Larissa snarled at him, her fangs bared and gleaming in the light from the truck.

  “I don’t want you to do it. I want Jamie to do it,” she growled. “Your squad has done enough already. We’ll take care of her from here.”

  “Take it easy,” said Angela. “Shaun didn’t—”

  “It’s OK,” interrupted Turner. “She’s right. I shouldn’t have… it was stupid.”

  “We agree on that at least,” said Larissa, her voice vibrating with anger. She looked over at Jamie, who was watching her with wide eyes. “Jamie,” she snapped. “Get on the radio. Why am I having to ask you again?”

  Jamie’s face flushed with heat, and he fumbled the radio from his belt. He entered his passcode, acutely aware of the look of enjoyment on Angela’s face as she watched, then tuned into the Operational frequency.

  “NS-303, 67-J reporting a medical emergency. Over.”

  The radio crackled as his message was passed through layers of encryption and voice recognition in the Loop’s Communications Division.

  “What is the nature of the emergency? Over.”

  “Vampire bite to the left forearm of Operator Kate Randall. Over.”

  “Significant blood loss? Over.”

  Jamie glanced over at Kate. Her arm was still bleeding, but the pressure Larissa was exerting had slowed it to a steady trickle. Kate’s face was pale, but her jaw was set with determination; as he watched, Larissa leant in and whispered something, and Kate smiled, weakly.

  “Negative,” he replied. “Infection is the primary risk. Over.”

  “What’s your ETA? Over.”

  Jamie was about to answer when the squat black helicopter roared into view above the deserted shipyard. He heard screams from the men and women who had been captive on the freighter, and saw Larissa lift Kate into her arms as though she weighed nothing, ready for the chopper’s arrival.

  “Approximately thirty-five minutes. Over.”

  “Understood. A trauma team and transfusion unit are being scrambled. Over.”

  “Out.”

  Jamie clipped the radio back on to his belt, and ran to his friends. The noise from the helicopter was deafening, its engines screaming as it prepared to touch down.

  “How�
�s she doing?” he yelled, over the howl of the rotors.

  “She didn’t lose much blood,” shouted Larissa. “She’ll be all right as long as we get her transfused.”

  The helicopter hit the ground, hard, the tyres of its wheels screeching. The side door slid open and the co-pilot appeared, framed against the glowing green light of the helicopter’s interior. He reached out his hands towards Kate, but Larissa ignored him and floated quickly up into the chopper, with her friend in her arms.

  “Come on!” shouted Jack, waving his squad towards the door.

  Shaun and Angela climbed nimbly into the belly of the chopper, and then Jack was shouting at Jamie. He ran forward and leapt up into the vehicle, his boots thudding on to the metal floor. He turned back to pull Jack Williams aboard, then the pilot fired the helicopter’s huge engines and they were airborne before Jamie slid the door shut.

  The helicopter raced south, skimming low over the countryside, its rotors sending a bone-jarring cacophony of noise through the insulated cabin as the pilot pushed the huge aircraft as hard as she would go.

  Kate had refused to lie down on one of the benches that spanned the width of the chopper’s cabin, despite pleas from Larissa and Shaun Turner for her to do so. She was sitting upright beside Larissa, who was eyeing the four male Operators with the same expression that a wolf gives when someone comes too near to one of her cubs.

  Kate’s face was pale; she was holding her free hand over the wound on her arm, which Larissa had wrapped with a field dressing as soon as they were all safely aboard, and staring directly ahead, looking at no one. Jamie appeared to be doing the same; he had his head back against the rest behind his seat, and seemed to be looking at the opposite wall. But he was really looking at Shaun Turner.