Darkest Night

by Will Hill

  An alarm tone rang out of the speakers as the screen changed to display an alert from the Surveillance Division.

  ECHELON INTERCEPT REF. 97692/3BR

  SOURCE. Emergency call (landline telephone 01522 983572)

  TIME OF INTERCEPT. 22:07

  TRANSCRIPT BEGINS.

  OPERATOR: Emergency service operator, which service, please?

  CALLER: I need the police and the fire brigade.

  OPERATOR: What is the nature of the emergency?

  CALLER: There’s a bloody mob outside my house. They’re trying to get into my neighbour’s and they’re shouting that they’re going to burn them out. You have to come now.

  OPERATOR: Please stay calm, sir. Tell me your address.

  CALLER: It’s 83 Lemington Close, Lincoln.

  OPERATOR: Emergency services are on their way, sir. Are you in danger yourself?

  CALLER: I don’t know. I don’t think so, unless they torch next door. They’re vampires, my neighbours. They’re vampires and people are trying to get to them. They’ve got cans of petrol and sticks and bloody bats. There’s dozens of them.

  OPERATOR: Stay in your home and lock the doors, sir. Help will be there very soon.

  TRANSCRIPT ENDS.

  INTERCEPT REFERENCE LOCATION. Lemington Close, Lincoln, Lincolnshire. 53.247426, -0.501337

  RISK ASSESSMENT. Priority Level 1

  “Jesus,” said Ellison, her face pale. “How far?”

  “Eight minutes,” said their driver.

  “Do it in five,” said Jamie.

  Four and a half minutes later the van hurtled into Lemington Close, a suburban cul-de-sac of small detached houses and neatly tended lawns.

  The external cameras showed the three Operators a wide view of the street; halfway down it, gathered outside one of the houses on the left, was a surging crowd of people, screaming and shouting and waving lengths of wood and cricket bats in the air. It was at least twenty strong, perhaps even thirty or thirty-five.

  “How close do you want to be, sir?” asked their driver.

  “Right behind them,” said Jamie. “Ellison, Qiang, Ready One as soon as we’re clear of the van. I want this dispersed as quickly as possible. I don’t care where they go, as long as it’s away from here. Scare the shit out of them and send them running. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” said his squad mates, looks of calm determination on their faces.

  The van’s brakes squealed, rocking them in their seats as the vehicle shuddered to a halt. Jamie threw open the door, leapt down on to the road, and was sent crashing to the ground as something hard and heavy smashed into the back of his head.

  The impact was huge; without the protective cushioning of his helmet, it would have shattered his skull into a thousand pieces. He slammed on to the tarmac, his eyes wide, his head ringing, and felt his vampire side come roaring forward; heat filled his eyes, his fangs slid down from his gums, and a wave of fury exploded through him as he leapt back to his feet and looked around for whoever had been stupid enough to hit him.

  A baseball bat swung out of the darkness, directly towards his visor, but he was ready for it; he flung himself backwards, rising easily into the air and hovering above the tarmac. The man holding the bat overbalanced and staggered sideways; Jamie sped forward, his gloved hands curled like claws, and hurled him against the rear of the van. The man’s head cracked against the metal and he folded to the ground, the bat tumbling from his grip. Behind him, Jamie’s squad mates leapt out of the van as Ellison spoke directly into his ear.

  “Jesus Christ, sir. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” said Jamie, his voice little more than a growl. “Move out.”

  The three Operators stared at the chaos unfolding before them. Half the crowd were still focused on the house, screaming abuse through the windows and hammering on the door. The others had turned to face the new arrivals, their faces twisted with anger; there was a fleeting moment of stillness before they rushed forward, bellowing and swinging their fists and bats. Jamie shouted for his squad mates to spread out and push them back, but they were swallowed up by the rioting crowd before they had a chance to move. They were instantly separated as punches and blows rained down on them, and Jamie felt a flicker of fear in his stomach as he leapt backwards into the air, trying to regroup.

  Never seen anything like this before, he thought. Never seen so much anger.

  Qiang was driven back against the van, shielding himself from attacks with his arms, kicking out as the crowd surged against him. He rolled to his right, trying to create separation, and was pursued out into the middle of the road by a dozen of the feral men and women. In front of the house, Ellison had managed to get clear and was backing away across the lawn, her Glock pointing at the crowd; it flicked from side to side as she retreated from the baying mob. Jamie watched, hoping against hope that she didn’t pull the trigger; if they shot one of the crowd, he suspected they would have to shoot many more to get out of the cul-de-sac alive.

  Jamie bared his teeth behind his visor, and hurled himself into the men and women who had followed him away from the kerb, scattering them like bowling pins. They scrambled to their feet as he backed away again, straining his ears for the sounds of sirens; their presence had clearly inflamed the situation, and unless the police arrived soon he was increasingly sure this was going to end with someone dead.

  There.

  The approaching two-tone scream sent relief rushing through him. He spun in the air, saw a fire engine speed round the corner, and felt his heart sink.

  We need police, not firemen. This crowd isn’t going to be scared of firemen.

  “Block it!” shouted a voice from near the house, as if reading his mind. “Block it out now!”

  Jamie turned back towards the besieged house in time to see a middle-aged woman apply a lighter to a rag stuffed into a clear bottle, and hurl the Molotov cocktail through the big picture window at the front of the building. The glass shattered, before heat and flames exploded out of the empty space with a vast whoosh. Jamie recoiled as three men peeled away from the main crowd and sprinted to the kerb. They climbed into cars and screeched towards the approaching fire engine, smoke billowing from their tyres, then braked and turned the vehicles nose to nose, blocking the entire width of the road. The fire engine skidded to a halt, its horn blaring, but by the time the firemen were out of their cab and shouting for the cars to be moved, the drivers were already running back towards Jamie, who watched them, unsure of what to do; the situation was escalating so quickly, and it was like nothing he had ever had to deal with before.

  Behind him, the burning living-room curtains billowed through the broken window, dripping lumps of flaming cloth on to the lawn beneath. Away to his left, Ellison was still retreating, her gun trained on her pursuers, and out in the middle of the road, Qiang was fighting for his life; he had managed to get hold of one of the crowd’s baseball bats and was swinging it almost indiscriminately, keeping the advancing mob just about at bay. In front of the house, the remainder of the men and women had abandoned trying to get through the front door, and had backed away from the increasing heat of the fire; they were screaming up at the windows of the house, chanting “NO MORE VAMPS” over and over again. Everywhere Jamie looked was violence, and flames, and hatred; it was like a suburban scene from Hell.

  Then he heard it.

  From somewhere inside the house, over the screams and shouts of the crowd, over the roar as the fire took hold of the thin walls and cheap furniture and began to burn in earnest, came the distant sounds of two voices screaming for help, and something smaller, and much worse.

  It was the high-pitched wail of a baby.

  The noise galvanised Jamie; the heat in his eyes rose to a temperature that was close to agonising, and he rocketed through the air towards the fire engine. He dropped to the ground in the middle of the road, and shouted for the firemen gathered round the blockade to get out of the way. They did as they were told, backing away w
ith wide eyes as Jamie took hold of the front bumper of one of the cars. He threw it up and over on to its roof, took a millisecond to marvel at his own strength, then did the same to another car, creating a gap that was wide enough for the fire engine.

  “Get moving!” he yelled. “There are people on the first floor!”

  He didn’t waste time waiting for them; he leapt into the air and sped back towards the burning house. He spun to a halt above the lawn, dodged a volley of thrown stones and half-bricks, and assessed the situation. Qiang had moved almost thirty metres down the street, but a trail of groaning, semi-conscious men and women had been left in his wake, and he was now being pursued by only four.

  He can handle them on his own, thought Jamie.

  To his left, Ellison was still retreating from a crowd that was bigger than ever, now swollen by those who had lost interest in the burning house or lost their appetite for chasing Qiang. Her Glock was pointing steadily at them and, as Jamie watched, she twisted a dial on her belt.

  “Get back now!” she shouted, her voice amplified and booming. “This is your last warning!”

  A man at the front of the crowd, who was wearing a smart shirt and trousers and looked like he should have been at home checking his stock portfolio, bellowed something incoherent and leapt forward. Ellison swung the Glock towards him, and pulled the trigger. The shot was deafening; the crowd screamed as the bullet took the man in the stomach and exited through his back with a huge gout of blood that splashed across the rest of the crowd. The man fell to the ground, his hands clutching at his belly, and began to scream.

  Half of the crowd scattered, stumbling and running across the road, disappearing down the narrow alleys between the houses. Those that remained, most of them splashed with blood that wasn’t theirs, stared down at the screaming man for a long moment, then turned on Ellison, their faces contorted with anger.

  “Scum!” they screamed. “Dirty scum! Murdering bastards!”

  But Ellison had not been remotely distracted by the wounded man; with the crowd’s attention diverted, she had holstered her Glock and drawn her MP7. The submachine gun was now resting steadily against her shoulder, its barrel tracking slowly back and forth across the crowd.

  “Stay where you are,” she warned. “Nobody else needs to get hurt. Just stay right there until the police arrive.”

  Her mention of the police proved the final straw; the remainder of the once seemingly untameable crowd turned tail and fled, leaving only the man screaming and bleeding on the lawn and the trail of prone figures that Qiang had managed to incapacitate as he retreated. The Chinese Operator now ran back towards his squad mate, and Jamie knew that they could handle the situation without him; he rose through the air, shot forward, and smashed through the first-floor window at the front of the house.

  He landed in a bedroom thick with acrid smoke. The filters in his helmet shielded him from the worst of it, but he instantly began to cough as he searched the room, checking that there was nobody hiding underneath the bed or in the cupboard. When he was sure that it was empty, he took a deep breath and kicked the door off its hinges. A roaring ball of fire burst into the room, but he ducked beneath it and forced his way out into an inferno.

  Flames had charged up the stairs, setting the walls and ceiling ablaze. The heat was overpowering, despite his uniform’s climate-control system, and for a terrible moment Jamie was transported back to another place, to a room full of burning petrol in which a man he had tried to help had been suspended, his guts spilled, his life ended at the point of a knife.

  A fit of coughing cleared his mind, and he looked around the landing; there were three visible doors, one at the top of the stairs, and two more on the other side of the corridor. Jamie listened, trying to pick up the voices again, but could hear nothing over the roar of the fire; as he watched, it reached the carpet at the top of the stairs and began to spread. He flew forward, ducking his head as chunks of burning ceiling tiles rained down on him, and kicked open the first door he came to.

  Screams rang out, and Jamie shoved his way into the room. The smoke inside seemed almost solid, so thick that he could not see more than a few centimetres beyond his visor. He dropped to his hands and knees, hacking and coughing, his chest wracked with pain, and crawled forward. The smoke was mercifully thinner near the floor, and in the corner of the room, seemingly as far away from the door as it was possible to be, he could make out two huddled figures clutching shapes wrapped in towels in their arms.

  “Help!” cried one of the figures, its voice raw and choked. “Help us, please!”

  Jamie crawled round the foot of a bed and along the wall towards them. When he was beneath the window, he held his breath, leapt up into the dense black cloud, and blindly smashed out the glass with his gloved hand. Smoke billowed out through the opening, but the change in pressure sucked flames into the room from the landing, and the two figures screamed again.

  Jamie ducked back down and reached out towards them. “Come on!” he yelled. “Take my hand!”

  A woman crawled forward, her eyes flickering with pale pink fire, her skin grey and pallid. She took hold of his hand and he pulled her towards him, the towel-wrapped object in her other hand.

  “Where’s the baby?” he yelled. “I heard a baby!”

  “Here,” croaked the woman, and nodded at the towel. “I’ve got her.”

  “Can you fly?” asked Jamie.

  The woman nodded.

  “OK,” he said, and let go of her hand. “I’m going to boost you through the window. In front of the house are two people wearing the same uniform as me. Go straight to them, not to anyone else. Got it?”

  She nodded again.

  “All right,” said Jamie. “Go!” He grabbed the woman beneath her armpits and pushed her up and through the empty window frame. She screamed and, for a terrible moment, he was sure she was going to plummet to the ground. But she righted herself, hovered unsteadily in the air for a brief second, and flew away from the burning house, her baby clutched tightly against her.

  He dropped back to his hands and knees and crawled forward again. He reached the second figure, a man in his early thirties holding a cardboard box covered with a towel.

  “We have to go!” shouted Jamie. “Put that down and come on!”

  The man shook his head; his eyes were streaming with tears, but there was determination in them. “Take this,” he said, and held out the box. “Be careful with it. I’ll follow you.”

  Jamie wasted no time arguing. He took the box, felt it shake as something inside it moved, and got to his feet. The smoke was thicker than ever, and half the room was burning; flames were spreading over the walls and ceiling, and through the open door he could see nothing but fire. The man appeared beside him, coughing around the hand covering his mouth. Jamie threw himself backwards through the window, gripping the box tightly, and floated in the cool air, his gaze fixed on the inferno inside the house.

  Nothing happened.

  He waited, his heart thundering in his chest, and was about to dive back into the fire when the man appeared, half jumping and half falling through the window. Jamie darted forward and caught his hand; the man arrested his fall, and let himself be dragged over the burning roof of the house and down on to the lawn on the other side.

  Jamie released the man; he staggered, but stayed upright, and went to the woman. She was sobbing, the baby in her arms, and the man pulled her against him and hugged her as his own tears began to flow. Beyond them, pairs of firemen were spraying huge jets of water into the house. Jamie watched as one of the emergency personnel made their way towards him.

  “Anyone else in there?” he asked.

  Jamie flipped his visor up and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Just them.”

  The fireman let out a long sigh of relief, then clapped Jamie hard on the shoulder. “Good work, mate,” he said. “Well bloody done.”

  More sirens screamed down the road, and Jamie turned to see three police cars pull
to a halt beside their van, their lights spinning. Half a dozen officers climbed out and stared incredulously at the carnage around them: the burning house, the gut-shot man, the unconscious men and women scattered across the road, the sobbing vampires, and the three jet-black figures standing on the lawn. Jamie smiled behind his visor.

  I bet the paperwork on this will be fun, he thought. Rather you than me.

  The box in his hands rattled again. He crouched down, set it on the grass, and slowly pulled back the towel. Lying in the box, partly wrapped in a bright red blanket, was a black and white cat; its eyes were pink from the smoke, but its side was rising and falling steadily. Jamie reached a gloved hand into the box, scratched the cat behind its ear, and heard an appreciative purr. The blanket around her stomach was moving and he pulled it back, suddenly – joyfully – sure what he was going to see.

  Five kittens were lined up in a neat row, suckling determinedly at their mother. They were tiny, barely more than a couple of weeks old at most, their heads mostly ears, their bodies balls of fluff, their eyes firmly shut. Two were jet-black, one was the same black and white as the mother, and two were brown and white tabbies, their backs already covered with beautiful markings that ran down to their stubby tails.

  “Oh God,” said Ellison. “That is genuinely the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. I want one. Actually, scratch that. I want all of them.”

  Jamie looked around. His squad mates were standing behind him, their visors raised as they stared down at the box. Qiang was smiling, and Ellison looked like all her Christmases had come at once.

  “Look after them,” said Jamie, and stood up. “I need to talk to their owners.”

  Ellison crouched down in his place, and began stroking the cat as he walked towards the vampire couple. Their sobbing had ceased; they were standing with their arms round each other, their attention fixed entirely on the baby they were holding between them.

  “How are we doing over here?” asked Jamie.

  The man looked up, and gave him a look of such fierce gratitude that Jamie almost took a step back. “We’re all right,” he said, his voice barely more than a croak. “Are the cats OK?”