by Will Hill
Paul Turner, who like everyone else had stopped when Valentin had bellowed his brother’s name, took advantage of the momentary confusion, and fired Daybreaker rounds into the spines of four vampires who had been distracted by the impending collision of the two remaining Rusmanov brothers. Their screams, and the explosions of blood that followed them, broke the truce that had settled temporarily over the landing area, and vampires and Operators threw themselves back into the fight.
Valentin and Valeri faced each other on the dark tarmac of the runway, their eyes glowing molten red so dark it was almost black. At the edge of the long strip of tarmac, Larissa lay on the grass and watched, her heart pounding.
“You have always been a stain on our family’s name, brother,” spat Valeri. “But I would have thought that this betrayal was beneath even you.”
“You know nothing about me, brother,” replied Valentin, smiling. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“You are a traitor,” said Valeri, simply. “I know that much. And you will die.”
He moved, so fast that even Larissa could barely see him, and swung his fist towards Valentin. The power in the punch was devastating; it would have smashed his brother’s head to pulp had it connected.
But it didn’t.
Valentin moved in a blur, sliding away and down from where the punch was aimed. He appeared behind his brother like a jack-in-the-box, and brought both his fists down on the back of the ancient vampire’s neck. Valeri crashed to the ground, blood exploding from his face where it was driven into the tarmac. But he was moving before the crimson liquid even began to run, leaping back to his feet and expanding the distance between himself and his brother.
“You’re faster than I remember,” grunted Valeri, grudgingly.
“And you are as slow and predictable as always,” replied Valentin, then looked over at Larissa. “Are you hurt?” he asked.
Larissa shook her head, bewildered.
“I would have helped sooner,” continued Valentin, his attention returned to his brother, who was circling him slowly. “But no one thought to come and let me know I was needed. I was forced to make my own way out, to get away from that infernal alarm, if nothing else. Just in time too, it would appear.”
Larissa opened her mouth to shout a warning, but there was no time. Valeri shot forward like a bullet out of a gun, his arms wide, intending to grab his brother round the waist and drag him to the ground, but Valentin needed no warning. He stepped effortlessly into the air, and brought his foot down on the back of his brother’s head, stamping it into the tarmac with a revolting crunch as Valeri’s nose and jaw broke. This time Valeri was still for a moment, as pain exploded through his head.
This cannot be, he thought, as he tasted his own blood in his mouth. This is impossible.
Valentin leapt away, and regarded the prone figure.
“So strong, brother,” he said, softly. “So powerful but so slow, as you always have been. You never understood that there was more to battle than brute strength. Hopefully, you’re realising it now?”
With a roar that shook the ground, Valeri pushed himself to his feet, and stared at Valentin, his expression clouded with raging, all-consuming hatred. His face was squashed flat, the nose broken in at least two places, the jaw crooked and lumpen, and blood was running freely from a dozen cuts. Valeri shook his head quickly, as if to clear it, then came for his brother again.
Henry Seward ducked under the outstretched arms of a vampire woman, and plunged his stake into her chest. He was running again before she exploded, hauling the small panel from his belt and checking the timer, willing the numbers to be low.
0:58…
0:57…
0:56…
Come on, he screamed to himself. Come on goddamn you. Another minute, just one more tiny little minute.
Then something barrelled into him from the side, below the waist, and he heard his leg break as he was driven to the ground. The pain was enormous, but bigger, and sharper, was the despair that flooded through him as he thudded to the cool tarmac. He gritted his teeth, and rolled on to his back. Anderson was standing over him, his child’s face alive with excitement. He reached down and picked Seward up by the collar of his uniform, and waved him enthusiastically back and forth, like a child who has won a prize at a funfair.
“Got him!” he bellowed. “Valeri! I’ve got him!”
Shaun Turner looked over from his vantage point at the edge of the runway, and saw the swollen, misshapen vampire holding the Director of Department 19 aloft like a rag doll. Without hesitating, he leapt to his feet and sprinted back into the battle. Kate was on her feet less than a second later and sprinting after him, calling his name.
Valeri and Valentin looked around at the sound of Anderson’s voice, then returned their attention to each other. Valentin saw his brother’s eyes flick towards the captive Seward, and he circled so that he was between his brother and the stricken Director.
“Forget it, brother,” he said.
Valeri shifted his gaze to Anderson, then back to his brother, and then to the ground beneath his feet. He was standing where the tarmac of the runway ended, and the grass began. A light suddenly came on inside Valeri’s head; he turned away from his brother to where Larissa lay on the grass.
Valentin realised what his brother was going to do a matter of milliseconds too late to prevent it. He screamed a warning at Larissa as he leapt forward, but he was too late. Valeri raced across the grass, covering the gap between himself and Larissa in less than a heartbeat. Without slowing, he reached down with one ancient hand, and pulled her throat out with one quick flick of his wrist.
Larissa felt no pain, just a terrible sensation of being pulled open, and then she slid on to her back as blood gushed out into the air above her. Less than a second later Valentin was kneeling at her side, his crimson eyes burning in the darkness. He glanced up and saw Valeri sprinting towards Anderson and Admiral Seward, and then looked down at Larissa. Blood was spraying out of her neck in staggering quantities, and she was already turning pale. He looked again at the fleeing Valeri, felt the rage burning in his chest at the mere thought of letting his brother escape, then made his decision.
Valentin reached into Larissa’s throat with his long, elegant fingers, pinched shut her carotid artery and her jugular vein, and then thrust his other forearm into her mouth. Larissa bit down on pure reflex, and Valentin gave out a gasp that was as full of pleasure as it was of pain. His blood began to run into the girl’s mouth, and he felt the delicate tissue in her neck begin to grow back. He craned his head around as Larissa drank from him, and watched his brother arrive at Anderson’s side.
Valeri screeched to a halt beside Anderson, lifting Henry Seward out of his grip. The Director of Department 19 kicked with his one good leg, and beat at the vampire’s arm, but it was futile.
“I got him,” said Anderson, happily. “I did. Me.”
“Shut up,” snarled Valeri, looking around at the raging battle. “Shut up and let me think.”
The fighting ranging across the landing area was furious, and brutal. There were no elegantly choreographed duels, or miraculous rescues or escapes; the men and women of Blacklight were fighting for their lives, and were fighting hard. Valeri surveyed the scene, saw his brother crouched next to the bleeding vampire girl and made the only decision he could make.
“Home,” he barked at Anderson. “Tell my master I’m bringing him his prize.”
Anderson didn’t reply; instead, he stepped into the air, and disappeared over the thick forest to the east.
Valeri took a last look around at the scene, a final check as to whether it was possible to achieve both the objectives his master had given him. But he saw no way to do so; his men would kill the rest of the Blacklight soldiers, but Valentin was stronger than he remembered, and faster, and the tiny, frightening thought occurred to him at the very back of his mind that it was possible that he could no longer defeat his younger brother. And Seward
was the priority, he reasoned; he was about to step into the air, to leave the remnants of his army to fend for themselves, when he sensed movement behind him.
Shaun Turner drew his stake as he closed on Valeri Rusmanov. Admiral Seward was dangling from the second oldest vampire in the world’s grasp, and the monster himself appeared to be deep in thought. Shaun focused on the spot on Valeri’s wide back, just to the left of the spinal column, where he would plant his stake less than a second from now.
Then Valeri moved.
Shaun tried to stop, but his momentum carried him forward, directly into the arm that Valeri swung with all the power of a tornado. The vampire’s closed fist caught Shaun on the side of his jaw, lifting him off the ground. Kate, who was less than two metres behind her boyfriend, yelling for him to stop, heard the terrible crunch as Shaun’s neck broke under the impact of Valeri’s haymaker swing. He fell to the ground completely limp, his legs and arms tangled over themselves. She slid to the ground beside him, and heard someone screaming; several seconds passed before she realised it was her.
Standing over her, Valeri grunted with satisfaction, then floated easily into the air.
Paul Turner heard Kate scream, and began to run. The pitch of the scream, the absolute horror contained in the long syllable, told him something was wrong, more wrong than everything else that was happening around him. He saw Valeri rising gently into the air, saw Kate on her knees on the tarmac, and saw—
An awful sensation of cold spilled through his body.
He knew he was still running, because he could hear the sound of his feet hitting the tarmac, but the sound seemed to be coming from somewhere else; it was low, and muffled, and unreal.
His mind yawed wildly as the world began to grey at the corners. Then he was stationary, without any memory of having slowed or stopped, and he was looking down at the broken body of his son.
Cal Holmwood saw Valeri rise into the air, and ran towards the fleeing monster. He saw one Operator, he thought it might be Kate Randall, kneeling beside another, but he ignored them. Admiral Seward hung helplessly in Valeri’s huge, ancient hand, and that was all Cal could think about.
He drew his T-Bone as he sprinted across the tarmac, noticing that Paul Turner was running in the same direction as he was.
Of course he is, he thought, full of admiration for his colleague. No surprise there.
Cal fired his T-Bone as he ran, and watched the stake whistle past Valeri’s torso. Holmwood engaged the winch immediately, winding the stake back towards the barrel without breaking his stride. He looked over at Turner as he approached, and saw that the Security Officer was standing still, almost directly beneath the rising Valeri.
“Shoot!” he bellowed, as he ran. “For God’s sake, Paul, shoot!”
Henry Seward watched the ground retreating below him, and scrabbled for the metal panel on his belt. His fingers slipped across its smooth surface, then caught one of the corners, and pulled it free. He twisted it in his hand, looked down at the small screen, and felt a surge of savage elation. The screen contained three words.
FIRE?
YES/NO
He felt a grim smile on his face as he pressed his thumb against the word YES.
Nothing happened.
He raised the panel again, and felt his heart sink as he read the words on the screen.
RANGE EXCEEDED
Beneath him, he saw Paul Turner standing motionless, his eyes cast towards the ground, and saw Cal Holmwood arriving beneath him at a flat sprint. He flicked his wrist, and sent the metal panel spinning down towards him.
Cal Holmwood felt the thud of the stake returning to the barrel of his T-Bone, and was about to raise it to his shoulder again when something landed at his feet with a metallic thunk; he looked down, and saw a small square of metal lying on the tarmac in front of him. His gaze flicked up to the shrinking figure of Admiral Seward, who was rising steadily in Valeri’s grip. They were almost out of reach; if he was going to shoot, it had to be now. But the square of metal on the ground could only have come from Seward, and if he had had the presence of mind to throw it down as he was carried to his likely death, then Holmwood reasoned it must be pretty important.
Swearing heartily, he threw his T-Bone to the ground, darted forward and picked up the metal rectangle. He turned it over, and saw three words of red text glowing on the black screen.
Fire? Fire what?
He pressed his thumb against the YES, and the screen changed. A small series of dots lit up and then winked out, over and over again. Cal Holmwood stared at them, wondering what they meant, then suddenly realised that the ground beneath him was rumbling.
Around the perimeter of the Loop, just inside the interior fence, along the length of the long runway, and at wide intervals across the grounds between, circular sections of the ground were opening. Grass, tarmac, concrete; four-metre-wide circles lowered into the ground, then slid aside, revealing dark holes in the surface of the earth. Operators and vampires scattered out of the way of the holes that opened on the landing area where the battle was being fought, and ceased fighting; humans and vampires alike stared, and wondered what was happening.
An almighty thud rattled the entire base, as the lids that had covered the hidden holes reached the end of their tracks, and stopped. Then the rumbling began anew, and shapes began to rise from the dark openings.
Huge circular balls of glass emerged from the holes, glittering in the light spilling from the open hangar doors and the red laser array beyond the fence. The balls were at least three metres in diameter, and resting on thick metal poles. The glass had a purple tint, and Cal Holmwood, with a flash of clarity, realised what they were.
Oh my God, he had time to think.
“Visors!” he bellowed over the Operational channel. “Everybody, right now!”
He reached up and pulled his own down over his face, as a high-pitched whine suddenly stabbed into his ears. He felt the hair on his body begin to stand up, even through the material of his uniform; it was as though the air itself was suddenly full of electricity. Around him, Operators retreated from the vampires they were engaging, pulling their visors down over their faces. The whine became a scream, so loud and high that Cal thought his eardrums must be about to burst. Then his visor suddenly turned jet black, completely shutting out the world beyond it.
As a result, he didn’t see the world explode into blinding, brilliant ultraviolet light.
48
SOME WOUNDS NEVER HEAL
At a distance of 22,245 miles above the surface of the earth, Skynet 6-1 cruised in geostationary orbit.
Its vast solar panel wings, the same width as those of a commercial airliner, reflected the sun’s rays in a glittering kaleidoscope of colours, twinkling and shimmering in the freezing air of the troposphere. They hummed as they gathered solar energy and converted it into the electricity that would fuel the satellite for the duration of its twenty-year lifespan.
Skynet 6-1 was the first of its class, a highly classified Ministry of Defence black project that was a secret to even Britain’s closest allies, equipped with photographic and thermographic capabilities far beyond those known to the public. It was capable of pinpointing a section of the earth’s surface as small as a matchbox, of monitoring and assessing every civilian and encrypted communication frequency currently in use, of detecting heat blooms from further beneath the surface of the earth than the deepest missile silo, or the very limits of the vertical ranges of the latest submarines.
On the underside of the square, gold-coloured body of the satellite, a two-metre-diameter lens pointed towards the distant blue planet. The laser that could be fired from the lens was capable of striking a single human being, or heating a nuclear reactor to the point of meltdown in less than thirty seconds. The satellite represented the absolute front line of Britain’s national security; it floated silently, watching and listening, far above the men and women it was designed to protect, men and women who were completely oblivious to i
ts existence.
Its hundreds of regular systems and routines were cycling when a tiny corner of the British countryside suddenly erupted into blinding purple light.
There was a conversation taking place in Kabul that had triggered a number of the deep Echelon code words, and the satellite’s processor, a remarkably advanced series of microchips that represented a quantum leap towards the realisation of artificial intelligence, was assessing whether to bring the discussion to the attention of the Security Services. In the Sudan, there was sporadic radio contact between two factions of rebel guerrillas, who were exploring the possibility of a combined assault on a Russian-owned oil refinery in the deep jungles near the ocean. In Washington, a Congressman was confessing to his brother that he had cheated on his wife, and that there were pictures to prove it.
Skynet 6-1 recorded them all, and hundreds more, stacking and analysing and prioritising them, before transmitting a report to the GCHQ in southern England. It sent its reports every fifteen minutes, every day of the year, and would continue to do so until it reached its planned obsolescence, at which point its orbit would gradually begin to degrade, until eventually it tumbled into the earth’s atmosphere, disintegrating entirely in the searing heat below.
The huge bloom of purple light lasted for less than five seconds, but in that time the satellite’s sensors reacted and assessed the situation. Thermodynamic imaging was instantly used to assess the likely nature of the event, and returned negative results. It was not an explosion; there had been a sharp spike in the ground temperature, but it was already receding. There were a number of tiny fires burning in the area beneath the burst of light, but they were not assessed to be a significant threat to the surrounding area.
