Department 19: The Rising

by Will Hill

  But he could wait.

  He had no intention of pushing his luck with Professor Talbot, who had already demonstrated enormous trust by allowing him even this far into the Lazarus Project. He resumed his course towards the gene sequencers, and after a momentary pause, Talbot joined him.

  “So how long have you been working on this?” he asked, as Talbot began to check the readings on the front of the machines. “How long have you all been down here?”

  “I’ve been working on a variation of this project for most of my adult life,” replied Talbot. He took a small console from his pocket, and entered a series of numbers into a spreadsheet. “I was recruited into Department 19 a year ago, and we accelerated our efforts after Dracula’s remains were lost. But my work was already well under way before then; I worked with Francis Collins on the Human Genome Project in Maryland, then on viral engineering at the Strangeways lab in Cambridge, and then I got the opportunity to continue my work down here.”

  “Opportunity?” asked Jamie, grinning. He knew full well that it would have been made clear to the Professor that refusing the offer was not a realistic option.

  “I suppose it was really more of an instruction,” replied Talbot, smiling back. “But not one I was reluctant to follow, especially once the scale of the project was made clear to me: complete authority to recruit staff, a computer array more powerful than any in the world, a basically limitless budget and the challenge to do something that would save thousands of lives. Who could have turned that down?”

  “Obviously not you,” said Jamie.

  “Obviously.”

  They moved down the line of gene sequencers, Talbot taking readings from each one in turn.

  “So who are all these people?” Jamie asked, nodding towards the men and women hunched over their desks.

  “Geneticists,” replied Talbot, without looking round. “Virologists. Doctors. All hired from the best research institutes around the world. They’re the finest minds in their fields.”

  Jamie stared at the Lazarus Project staff; there was a focused intensity in the room, a feeling of communal genius bent to a single purpose. Each of the men and women in the white coats appeared to be simultaneously in a world of their own and part of a greater organism, like super-intelligent bees in a hive. He knew he could never, ever, in a thousand years, understand the work they were doing, but the thought did not make him feel inadequate. Instead, all he felt was admiration.

  Talbot straightened up, regarding Jamie with a warm smile.

  “Is there anything else I can show you?” he asked. “Anything else you want to know? If not, I should probably be getting back to work.”

  Jamie was about to say no, when a thought suddenly leapt into his mind, and he blushed a deep, dark red.

  “What is it?” asked Talbot.

  Oh God. Can I? I haven’t turned, so it must be safe. But still.

  “If a human being,” he said, cautiously, “were to, er, kiss a vampire? That would be risky, right?”

  Talbot gave him a long look, then broke into a laugh.

  “Speaking hypothetically,” he replied. “I assume we are speaking hypothetically, Mr Carpenter?”

  “Of course,” said Jamie, his face burning.

  “Of course. Well, in that hypothetical situation, the human would be quite safe as long as the vampire in question kept his or her fangs withdrawn. The virus that causes the turn doesn’t exist anywhere else, so the risk of infection would be negligible.”

  “Right,” said Jamie. “That’s good to know.”

  “Hmm,” said Talbot. “I’m sure it is.” He grinned broadly at Jamie, then placed a hand on his back and led him towards the door. “If you have any other questions,” he continued, “or if you just want someone to talk to, you know your way down here. OK?”

  “I understand,” said Jamie. “Thank you. Really.”

  “You’re welcome,” replied Talbot. He opened the door, and Jamie stepped through it and back into the corridor of Level F. As Talbot swung the door closed, Jamie saw a flicker of something else pass across the Professor’s face, as though he wanted to say something else, but was either unable to do so, or decided against it. Then the door thudded into place, shutting Jamie out.

  35

  HOPE IS A DANGEROUS THING

  TODAY

  “I have secrets,” said Jamie, slowly. “But I have no intention of sharing them with you.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to,” said Valentin. “But I can see on your face that there is something you want to say. What is it?”

  Jamie was impressed, despite himself; the old vampire’s powers of observation were remarkable. “There is something,” he admitted. “Last year, when we were searching for my mother, we visited a place called Valhalla. Have you heard of it?”

  Valentin nodded. “The commune in the north,” he said. “Vampires holding hands and singing songs and denying what they are.”

  “OK,” said Jamie. “It was founded by a man called Grey, who is supposed to be the oldest British vampire. It was him who turned Larissa; she was one of a lot of teenage girls he attacked over the years, all while he was preaching peace and love. He was cast out of Valhalla when his followers found out what he’d done, but before he went, he told me something, something he thought was why we were there in the first place. Something about Dracula.”

  Valentin said nothing, but he narrowed his eyes slightly as he waited for Jamie to continue.

  “He told me that there was only one way to destroy Dracula for good, and that it had to do with the blood of his first victim, the first person he ever turned. Frankenstein knew the legend, and asked him why he was bothering to tell us because even if it was true, everyone knew that Valeri was the first human being Dracula ever turned, and he would never allow himself to be used to destroy his master. But Grey told us that he had once been at a party thrown by you, where you had told him that the accepted story might not be the true story. Do you remember that?”

  A smile crept across Valentin’s face.

  “I do,” he said. “We were on the roof of my home in Manhattan, waiting for the sun to come up. I don’t believe he was calling himself Grey at the time, although I can’t remember what name he was using. I liked him; he was a regular fixture in New York that summer.”

  “So you did tell him that there was more to the story than people think?” asked Jamie. “He was telling the truth?”

  “He was,” said Valentin. “I told him that my brother is not quite so important to the legend of Dracula as most people believe, and certainly not as important as Valeri would like to think. But if you’re going to ask me for more details, I should warn you now that I don’t know them.”

  Jamie’s heart sank. “What do you mean, you don’t know them?” he asked.

  “I mean, I don’t know them. I don’t know for sure that I’m right; perhaps Valeri is the key to my former master’s immortality. But over the years, more years than you can possibly imagine, things were said, or not said, and I came to the conclusion that there was more to the story of Dracula’s transformation than we knew. Put simply, I don’t believe my brother was the first victim.”

  “Did Dracula ever say that?” asked Jamie. “Did you ever ask him directly?”

  Valentin laughed.

  “I never asked him anything directly, Jamie,” he replied. “He was our master, our Prince, our second father. He demanded nothing less than utter obedience, utter subservience, and that was what we gave him. He told us the story of his rebirth only once, and what he said was that after he was turned in the forest outside Budapest, he came straight back to the battlefield to find us. When he did so, he turned Valeri, then Alexandru, and then finally myself. He made no mention of any others.”

  “So why do you think—”

  “Instinct, Mr Carpenter,” interrupted Valentin. “Centuries of watching the way men and women lie, and cheat, and conceal. Glances, looks, body language. None of it matters now; I have told you
the conclusion I have come to, as the vampire who now calls himself Grey told you. You can choose to believe me, or not.”

  Jamie absorbed what the vampire was saying; it seemed so loose, so tenuous, but he did not think the ancient monster would have mentioned it at all if he didn’t believe in the truth of what he was saying. Jamie was sure that being wrong ranked highly on Valentin’s list of least favourite experiences.

  “So you don’t think the key to stopping Dracula lies with Valeri?” he asked. “You think it’s out there somewhere?”

  “That’s what I believe,” replied Valentin. “But I would urge you not to get your hopes up too quickly, Jamie. If I am right, and there was a vampire turned by Dracula before my brothers and me, then he or she would now be more than five hundred years old, if they are even still alive. There’s every chance that they have been destroyed, and the chance to stop my former master is long gone.”

  “You don’t believe that, though, do you?” asked Jamie. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here. If there was no chance to stop Dracula, I mean.”

  “Think that if you wish, Mr Carpenter,” replied Valentin, smoothly. “But I have already told you why I’m here: because I have no wish to watch Dracula tear this world, of which I am very fond, to pieces.”

  Jamie hesitated, then asked the one question he really didn’t want to hear the answer to.

  “What will it be like?” he asked. “If Dracula is allowed to rise. Tell me the truth.”

  “It will be terrible,” said Valentin, simply. “When he was still a man, I helped him wage a campaign of terror across eastern Europe, for no other reason than his own lust for power, and the insults he believed he had received at the hands of the Turks. The things that were done beneath his banner, I cannot even describe to you; things that make my stomach churn at the memory of them, almost five hundred years later. His appetites for power, and for revenge, are beyond any I have seen in any other living creature. And for a while, after he was turned, they were sated.

  “We lived like kings in the shadows, in the dark places, safe in the knowledge that we were invulnerable to harm, or so we thought. Until Vlad began to become restless, and sought companionship. Valeri was disgusted when he announced his plan to move to London; he would never say it, but it was clear. He thought it a rejection of everything we had fought for, bled for. But Dracula was unmoved by my brother’s disapproval, and we went our separate ways. Until he was killed by the men who founded this very organisation, on the plains beneath his castle.”

  “But he wasn’t killed, was he?” said Jamie, in a low voice. “That’s the whole problem.”

  “Indeed. However, at the time, we had no way of knowing that was the case. It wasn’t until many years later, until the experiments carried out by Van Helsing himself, that we realised there was a chance our master could be revived. And by then it was too late; the remains were gone, and it took Valeri almost a century to recover them.”

  “But you said that Dracula was sated, before he died,” said Jamie. “You said he was on the verge of moving into society, of leaving behind his old ways. Why are you so sure he will want to terrorise the world now?”

  “I once saw my former master murder every single inhabitant of a small town in what is now northern Romania,” said Valentin. “And not just murder them. For three days, our army visited every torture you can imagine on these poor people, and plenty that I hope you can’t. We killed, and tortured; we made the streets run with blood. We forced parents to kill their children, brothers to rape their sisters, husbands to blind and maim their wives. When it was over, we burned the bodies and the buildings, and we salted the ground, so nothing could ever grow there again. And do you know why we did it?”

  Jamie shook his head.

  “Because as we rode through the town, the mayor’s wife did not bow deeply enough as Prince Vlad passed her,” said Valentin. His face looked haunted, the face of a man who knows he can never make peace with the things he has done, and has decided not to try. “For that one tiny unintentional insult, more than a hundred men, women and children died in agony. So I ask you this: can you even begin to imagine what Dracula will do as revenge for having lain dormant beneath the ground for more than a century?”

  Jamie stepped through the second door of the double airlock, his hair still fluttering from the rush of the gas that had billowed around him, and was not at all surprised to see Major Turner waiting for him. The Security Officer was leaning against the wall; he did not appear to have moved at all while Jamie had been inside the cellblock.

  “You made it then,” said Turner, the ghost of a smile on his narrow, empty face. “Well done.”

  “Thanks,” said Jamie, slightly unsteadily. The horror of the tale Valentin had told him had shaken him; its implications for the wider world if Dracula was allowed to regain his full strength were almost beyond comprehension.

  “The Director wants a full report,” said Turner. “Immediately.”

  Jamie nodded. He walked slowly past the Security Officer, who reached out a hand and gripped his shoulder, surprisingly gently. Jamie stopped, and turned to face him.

  “You did well,” said Turner. “I was listening. You should be proud.”

  “I don’t feel proud,” said Jamie.

  The two men looked at one another for a long moment, then Turner nodded, and removed his hand. Jamie turned away, and walked slowly to the lift at the end of the corridor.

  He got out on Level A, and made his way slowly towards Admiral Seward’s quarters. The euphoria he had felt during the early part of his conversation with Valentin, as he heard about his grandfather’s exploits in New York, as he began to allow for the possibility that he was not to blame for Frankenstein’s death, had been replaced by a crushing weariness and a sense of terrible foreboding. Valentin’s description of the things he had done on the orders of Dracula, the details of the first vampire’s sadism and thirst for revenge, had filled him with horror; he had first thought about his mother, happily busying herself in her cell, then about Larissa, and Kate, and Matt. What would become of them if Dracula was allowed to rise?

  He wondered, not for the first time, if he was putting them in danger by merely being their friend; he was certain that Dracula would be taking a special interest in him once he discovered that it was he who had destroyed Alexandru.

  I’m putting them in harm’s way, he thought, as he trudged along the corridor. They’d be safer without me around.

  He attempted to push such gloomy thoughts from his mind as he approached Admiral Seward’s quarters. The guard Operator nodded at him as he passed, and then Jamie knocked on the heavy door. It unlocked almost instantly, and the Director of Department 19 called for him to enter.

  By the time Jamie was standing in front of Admiral Seward’s desk, the exact same spot where he had been standing only an hour or so earlier, where he felt like he had spent an awfully large amount of time since he had arrived at the Loop, the Director’s face was a mask of even professionalism. But as the door had been swinging open, Jamie had seen, for just a split second, a look of open relief on the Admiral’s face.

  “Lieutenant Carpenter,” said Seward. “Good to see you made it. How was it?”

  “It was… interesting, sir,” replied Jamie, carefully.

  “I’ve seen a transcript of the conversation,” said Seward. “Do you believe what he told you about Dracula? About how to destroy him?”

  “I’m not sure, sir,” replied Jamie. “I think he believes it. But I don’t know. Like he said, sir, even if he’s right, it would have taken place so long ago that I don’t see how there would be anything we could do about it.”

  “Nonetheless,” said Seward, “you were sitting there with him, looking at him as he spoke. Do you think there is anything to his claim?”

  Jamie considered for a moment, remembering the look on Valentin’s face as he explained his theory, a look that was almost smug, full of delight in his own superior knowledge.

  �
�Yes, sir,” he said, eventually. “I think there might be.”

  “Then I’ll have it investigated,” said Seward, making a note on one of the many pieces of paper that cluttered the surface of his desk. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that—”

  “Everything Valentin told me is Zero Hour classified,” said Jamie. “I understand, sir.”

  Admiral Seward nodded. There was a look of slight discomfort on his face, as though he was about to do something he didn’t really want to.

  “I also have to investigate his claims about your grandfather, Jamie,” he said, softly. “You understand, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Jamie. “I knew you would. And I need to know if what Valentin said was true.”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” promised the Director. “And whatever happens, I won’t let anyone sully John’s memory. He was one of the best we ever had; nothing is going to change that.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The two men sat in silence for a long moment that wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but was thick with the secrets of the past. After a moment, Jamie sought out safer ground.

  “Do you want to hear my initial report, sir?”

  “No need, Jamie,” replied Seward. “I have the transcript, like I said.”

  Jamie frowned.

  “Sir, Major Turner told me that—”

  “I know what Major Turner told you,” interrupted the Director. “He told you what I ordered him to tell you. There’s something I need to share with you, but I don’t want to get your hopes up unnecessarily.”

  Jamie felt a tingle of excitement run up his spine.

  “Hopes up about what, sir?”

  Seward reached out and plucked a folder from the top of a teetering pile of identical folders. He held it in the air for a moment, as though debating the wisdom of handing it to the teenager. Then he sighed, and extended his arm; Jamie took the folder eagerly from his fingers, opened it and looked down at the cover sheet.