Department 19: The Rising

by Will Hill

  “It’s nice to see you again,” said Matt, and Jamie laughed. Larissa still looked slightly unsteady, but she smiled.

  “You too,” she said. “I guess there’s probably a conversation we need to have at some point, but for what it’s worth, I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I really didn’t mean to do it.”

  “It’s OK,” replied Matt, his hand fluttering instinctively to the scar that ran across his throat. “No harm done.”

  There was a chilly moment of silence before Jamie, who had no intention of letting his good work be undone, pulled his chair loudly across the floor and flopped down into it. The noise and the movement broke the spell, and the other three followed suit. There was another, warmer, silence, until Kate asked Matt how come he was back here, in the Loop, and Larissa asked Jamie how his day had been, and then all four of them were talking, as though they were old friends, the stress and heartache of the previous day seemingly put aside, at least momentarily.

  This is right, thought Jamie. The four of us, like this. I don’t know why, it just feels right.

  Then a powerful sense of guilt washed through him, as he realised something he should have realised far, far earlier; that it wasn’t Larissa or Kate that had changed the dynamic between the three of them.

  It was him. He had done it.

  Well, no more, he thought. I’m putting an end to all of it. Today.

  27

  THE ILLUMINATED CITY, PART II

  PARIS, FRANCE 23RD AUGUST 1923

  The private dining room of Lord Dante, the vampire king of Paris, was the colour of blood.

  The walls were thickly lined with crimson velvet, the floor covered in a dark red carpet of such thickness that a visitor’s shoes would sink up to the laces. The domed ceiling was painted red and decorated with patterns in similar hues, whirls and spirals that hurt the eyes. The grand circular dining table that dominated the square room was covered in a scarlet cloth; the armchairs that surrounded it were upholstered in crimson leather. The only elements of the room that did not follow this gruesome colour scheme were Lord Dante himself, and the small number of companions he had chosen to share his evening with.

  Dante was dressed, as always, in evening wear. The black of his tuxedo was so deep that it appeared to absorb light, creating the illusion of a vacuum, of an absence that the eye could not discern. The starched white shirt was flawless, as was the black bow tie that perched beneath its winged collars. The vampire king’s cape, an affectation that he proclaimed allowed him to feel closer to days long gone, to the youth he had spent in centuries now consigned to the history books, was the shiny black of oil on the outside, the thick, dark red of arterial blood on the inside.

  The vampire king looked no older than twenty-five, but had been turned by Valeri Rusmanov himself more than three hundred years earlier, as he so delighted in telling the endless gaggles of vampires who flocked adoringly to his table. It made him, to his understanding, the fourth oldest vampire in the world, the oldest who was not a Rusmanov, and significantly older and more powerful than any other vampire in Paris, or indeed the whole of France. His belief in his superiority over younger vampires was unshakeable, and he would not tolerate any suggestion to the contrary.

  Less than two weeks earlier Frankenstein had watched, his eyes wide, his mind twisted by opium, as Dante tortured a vampire for the crime of merely suggesting that perhaps there should be more to a vampire than merely the time elapsed since they had been turned.

  The vampire king’s response had been to push his hand into the treasonous vampire’s head, through his lying mouth, so deeply that his fingers could be seen moving beneath the man’s scalp. He had demanded that the vampire take back his comment, even though he was fully aware that such a retraction was impossible while his fingers danced inside the stricken man. Eventually, tiring of the sport, he had torn the head from the shoulders, cast it aside with the same disdain that a child discards a toy they have become bored with, and pierced the insubordinate man’s heart with a silver fork. The explosion of blood soaked Dante and his guests, but the vampire king appeared not to notice, and his fellow diners pretended to do the same, for fear of similar treatment if they objected.

  Lord Dante looked up as Frankenstein and Latour entered the room, and smiled widely in their direction.

  “Gentlemen!” he cried. “You honour me with your presence! Join me at my table, do!”

  The vampire king was sitting at the rear of the room, his armchair facing the door. There was no head to the round table, but Dante’s position made it somehow feel as though he was sitting at it anyway. Three of the seven remaining seats were occupied, although the chairs directly to Dante’s left and right had been left respectfully empty.

  A middle-aged woman in a painfully narrow corset, her face powdered bright white, her long limbs slender and delicate, sat opposite the vampire king. To her left sat a nervous-looking vampire in a drab suit. The regularity with which he glanced at the woman, and the henpecked expression on his face, marked him out immediately as her husband.

  Sitting alone on the other side of the table, equidistant between Dante and the white-faced woman, was a vampire of indeterminate age, his long hair hiding his face as he slumped in his seat, wrapped in a thick black overcoat. In the corner of the room lay the body of a young girl, her clothes soaked with the blood that had spilled from the wide tear in her throat. She was slumped over, as though drunk, or asleep, but she was neither.

  Latour bowed theatrically towards Lord Dante, his eyes closed, a beatific look on his face. Frankenstein dipped his head briefly, his eyes never leaving those of the vampire king. They took the two seats either side of Dante, provoking a look of profound jealousy from the woman at the opposite end of the table.

  “Do not be envious,” said Dante, noticing. “All seats at my table are of equal worth. The distance between us, dear Agathe, does not correspond to the depth of my feelings for you.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” whispered Agathe, the woman with the white face, but her eyes burned red, and she stared at Frankenstein and Latour with open loathing.

  “Jacques!” cried Dante, throwing his arms in the air. A door, set subtly into the wall of the dining room, opened immediately, and a vampire waiter appeared beside the vampire king’s chair.

  “Yes, Your Majesty?” asked the servant, and Dante favoured him with a broad smile.

  “A libation, Jacques, for my guests,” he said.

  The waiter bowed, then disappeared through the door. A moment later he returned, holding an ornate crystal bottle, full of a dark red liquid.

  “Less than an hour out of the vein,” said Dante, nodding in the direction of the slumped, lifeless girl. “As sweet a drop as you will ever have tasted.”

  There was a murmur of approval from the table, as the waiter poured blood into the delicate crystal glasses that stood in front of each of the guests. When the glasses were full, Dante raised his towards his guests, who lifted theirs in kind.

  “Long life,” he said, solemnly. “Lived to its fullest.”

  The diners repeated the toast, then drank deeply from their glasses. Frankenstein winced at first, as he always did; the blood had thickened since it had been collected, and was unpleasantly lukewarm. But he persevered; the metallic taste of the blood, and the sense of uncompromising, self-loathing decadence that accompanied it, soon overcame his initial distaste.

  The table descended into conversation, and Frankenstein again found himself stranded between two streams of chatter. The woman with the white face was talking to Lord Dante and Latour, leaning so far towards the vampire king that she was in danger of overbalancing in her chair. Latour was unable to complete a sentence; the woman interrupted him every single time, her eyes fixed on Dante, desperate for his attention, and his approval.

  Latour, for his part, appeared amused by her naked hunger, and allowed himself to be overridden. The woman’s husband was attempting to engage the
long-haired vampire, who was refusing to offer more to the fledgling conversation than a series of brief, deep grunts. As a result, it was Frankenstein who first heard the commotion in the theatre’s auditorium.

  The sounds coming through the door were muffled by the thick wood, but were nonetheless unmistakable; the grunts and growls of excited vampires, the thunder of running feet and then, clear above the racket, a solitary female scream. The sound, high and full of abject terror, drew the attention of the diners, who turned their gazes to the door.

  “Who disturbs our evening?” asked Lord Dante, his voice full of affront. “Jacques! To me!”

  The door slid open again and the vampire waiter instantly appeared, as though he had been standing on the other side of the door, waiting in case he was needed.

  Probably exactly what he has been doing, thought Frankenstein. Pathetic, subservient creature.

  “Go and learn the nature of this commotion,” ordered Dante. “They all know full well that I expect revelry kept to a minimum when I am entertaining guests.”

  Jacques bowed deeply, crossed the dining room and disappeared through the door.

  “Intolerable,” muttered Dante, shaking his head. “A king should be able to dine in peace, should he not? I ask so little of them, and they treat me thus. Perhaps I need to remind them of their places in the order of things.”

  “Quite right, my lord,” said the woman, enthusiastically. “You should destroy them all.”

  “Perhaps I should,” replied Dante, fixing his dark red eyes on her. “Perhaps I will start with you, if you don’t curb your impertinent tongue. How would that be?”

  The woman shrank back in her chair, a look of fear on her brilliant white features.

  “Your Majesty,” she spluttered. “I must apologise. I-I meant no disres—”

  “Hush your pleading,” said Dante. He was no longer looking at the woman; his attention was firmly fixed on the door. The noise in the auditorium had ceased, and the vampire king and his guests waited for the waiter to return.

  The door slammed open and Jacques backed into the room, hissing and snarling, his red eyes blazing. Held tightly in one of his arms was a blonde girl, no older than twenty-five, her eyes blank with fear. She was struggling in his grip, half-heartedly grabbing and slapping at the arm, but the waiter paid no attention to her in the slightest. Jacques kicked the door violently shut, a low growl dying in his throat as he turned to face the vampire king. The red disappeared from his eyes, and he smoothed himself down with his free hand. The savagery that had been emanating from him as he backed into the room was gone; the servile, neatly groomed waiter had returned.

  “My apologies, Your Majesty,” he said, smoothly. “I would not have had you see me like that.”

  “There is no need to apologise,” replied Lord Dante, although he was not looking at his servant. He was staring with open desire at the girl who had been dragged into the room. “It is not healthy for men such as us to hide our natures at all times. The beast that dwells within us requires release, does it not?”

  “As you say, Your Majesty,” replied Jacques, bowing once more, his grip on the girl remaining tight.

  “Who is this girl that you have brought to join us?”

  “A gift, Your Highness,” said Jacques. “Girard believed she might be to your tastes, and brought her here, as a token of his loyalty and his love for you. Babineaux objected, and tried to take her for himself. The dispute was in full swing when I entered.”

  “Did you resolve it?” asked Dante.

  “I did, Your Majesty.”

  “Satisfactorily?”

  “Not from Babineaux’s perspective, Your Majesty,” replied the butler. “He will make no further attempts to deny the king of Paris what is rightfully his. Or further attempts at anything else, my lord.”

  “Excellent,” said Dante, a cruel smile on his face. “Let me inspect this gift, Jacques. And be sure to send Girard to me before the night ends, so I might make him aware of my gratitude.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” replied Jacques, and held the girl out towards his master. Her head was slumped, her chin resting on her chest. She appeared to be barely conscious. Jacques shook her by the shoulders, and when she failed to respond, reached a gnarled hand around and slapped her pale cheek.

  The sound was like a rifle shot in the small dining room, and the girl’s eyes instantly flared open, rolling around in their sockets before settling on the lustful face of Lord Dante. When she faced him, her eyes widened even further, but Frankenstein, who was watching intently, didn’t believe it was from fear. He felt his muscles tighten involuntarily; to his old eyes, the expression looked like something else.

  It looked like recognition.

  “Pierre?” said the girl, her voice little more than a whisper. “Oh, thank God. Please don’t let them hurt me, Pierre. Please.”

  The smile on Lord Dante’s face didn’t so much as flicker, but something in his eyes changed. Frankenstein, who had turned his attention to his host, saw it happen, and realised with a rush of savage pleasure that it was fear.

  The vampire king was afraid.

  Why, though? he wondered. Why does this girl frighten him?

  “Leave us, Jacques,” said Dante, his smile rigid.

  The waiter released the girl, who didn’t move; she was staring at the vampire king with a look of salvation on her face, her hands clasped between her breasts. Jacques bowed, and backed out of the dining room, leaving Dante alone with his guests, and the gift that had been given to him.

  The atmosphere in the room had suddenly become charged, to the obvious bafflement of the vampire king’s guests. Latour, who was looking at the girl with outrage written all over his face, was the first to speak.

  “Wench,” he hissed. “You dare speak to Lord Dante in such a familiar manner? You are addressing a being to whom you are less than nothing, who has lived for four centuries and more. You will bow your head before you speak to him again, and you will refer to him as Your Majesty. If you do not, I will tear the tongue from your head.”

  The girl looked at him, tears brimming in the corners of her eyes.

  “B-but,” she replied, her voice quavering, “I… I know him. He lived in Saint-Denis, when I, when I was growing up. His name is Pierre Depuis. Or it w-was. He disappeared when I was just a little girl, more than t-twenty years ago. Everyone thought… everyone thought he was dead.”

  “Kill her, Latour,” said Dante, his face colouring a red so deep it was almost purple. “I would hear no more of her ravings.”

  Latour leapt from his chair, his eyes colouring red. The white-faced woman did likewise, and grabbed the girl by her shoulders, causing her to shriek with fear.

  “Wait!” boomed Frankenstein. He had not taken his eyes from Dante’s face, nor had he moved in his seat. The volume of his voice and obvious severity in the tone made both Latour and the woman hesitate.

  “You contradict me, monster?” hissed Lord Dante. “In this place, you would do so? You would dare?”

  Frankenstein looked evenly at his host. “Do you know what she is talking about, Dante?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” blustered the vampire king. “She has clearly mistaken me for some peasant boy.”

  Frankenstein glanced at the girl, who was openly trembling.

  “She seems quite sure,” he said. “Why do you suppose that might be?”

  “I have no idea,” replied Lord Dante. “Are you asking me to attempt to understand the thinking of this girl? I cannot begin to perceive the primitive way her mind works. Now kill her, Latour, while the mood of the evening might still be salvaged.”

  Latour looked at Dante, then back at Frankenstein. His face wore a look of confusion, and a conflict of loyalty was evident in his eyes.

  “W-why would you want to hurt me, Pierre?” asked the girl, tears now flowing down her face. “What d-did I ever d-do to you?”

  Lord Dante leapt to his feet, so quickly that it was impossible t
o see the movement. His eyes burst crimson, and he swept the glasses, bottles, china plates and silver cutlery from the table, where they crashed against one of the red walls.

  “Enough!” he screamed, his voice high and furious. “That is more than enough! I am Dante Valeriano, the vampire king of Paris, and I have never heard of this man you are mistaking me for. Now kill her, Latour – I command you to kill her!”

  Latour didn’t move.

  He was staring at Frankenstein, a pleading look on his face. The monster realised that everyone around the table was looking at him, that the authority in the room was shifting away from the vampire king. Dante followed the gazes of his guests, and realised it too.

  “You doubt me, Frankenstein?” he asked, his voice full of menace. “After all the time we have spent in each other’s company, you doubt me?”

  The monster ignored him, and stared around at his guests.

  “Tell me,” he said, his voice like rumbling boulders. “How long have any of you ladies and gentlemen actually known our illustrious host?”

  The cowed man, the husband of the white-faced woman, wiped his brow with a handkerchief, and looked at Frankenstein.

  “Well, sir,” he said, nervously. “Of course we have only had the pleasure of Lord Dante’s presence among us these last ten years or so. It is common knowledge that before that he was in seclusion, avoiding the Tartars who had been sent to bring his head to Moscow.”

  He smiled, like a schoolboy who is relieved to have been asked a question to which he knows the answer. Frankenstein thanked him, then turned a gaze of utter contempt towards Dante, who visibly recoiled.

  “You mongrel,” growled the vampire king. “You dare doubt that I am who—”

  “I dare,” interrupted Frankenstein, pushing his chair backwards and rising to his full, towering height. “I doubt you, my lord. I have seen better fakers and far better liars than you this past century, and I doubt you. I call you Pierre Depuis, of Saint-Denis. I call you a fraud.”