by Will Hill
Without taking his eyes off the van – if that was even what it was – Jamie spun in the air and rocketed towards it. The wind howled around him and the cold chilled his bones as he raced forward; without the protection of his visor, his eyes would have been streaming with tears. As he soared above the flat rooftops and empty car parks, he twisted the comms dial on his belt and opened a line to his squad mates.
“I see the van!” he shouted. “Follow my locator signal! Fast as you can!”
“We’re moving,” replied Ellison. “We’ve got you.”
Jamie left the line open, swooped lower, and felt a wave of savage excitement roll through him. Moving slowly along an access road below him, in what he guessed was an attempt to avoid drawing attention to itself, was a dark van.
I can see you, he thought.
He scanned the surrounding area and dropped lower. No more than two miles ahead, the access road merged on to a busy local thoroughfare, and beyond that his supernaturally sharp eyes picked out the wide illuminated lanes of a motorway.
Have to get them before they reach it.
Behind him, he heard the rumble of a second engine. He rotated in the air, and saw the van containing his squad mates hurtle round a corner and accelerate along the road beneath him. It was gaining quickly on the target vehicle, but, as he turned back, he realised that its driver had seen the new arrival too. Jamie swore heavily. He should have anticipated that, should have ordered his squad to centre on his position without using the main access road, but it was too late for that now; the Night Stalkers’ van had leapt forward and was racing towards the distant intersection.
Jamie hung in the air, momentarily unsure of what to do. Then an idea came to him, one that would not be found in any of Blacklight’s tactical instruction manuals, and he burst forward again, grinning behind his visor. He accelerated, descending towards the road that was now little more than a blur beneath him. The van was directly ahead, its brake lights acting like a homing beacon, its engine howling.
He pushed himself to fly even faster, and drew alongside the vehicle. The van’s driver, his face hidden by a balaclava, glanced out of the window and saw him; their eyes locked for the briefest of moments, before Jamie hurled himself sideways and slammed into the metal side of the van.
The impact was agonising; it drove the air out of him as pain exploded through his head. He flipped up and over, his limbs flailing out of control, as the van tilted on to two wheels then crashed on its side with a shower of sparks and a deafening screech of metal, and as he hurtled helplessly towards a brick wall that looked horribly solid, Jamie’s reeling mind formed a single thought.
This might not have been such a brilliant idea.
Jamie opened his eyes and saw Ellison and Qiang standing over him, a combination of concern and anger on their faces.
He lifted his head, felt a nauseating bolt of pain race up the back of his neck, and looked down at himself; he was lying at the base of the brick wall, his legs splayed, his shoulders flat on the pavement. One of his arms was folded beneath him, but the other …
Jamie’s head swam. His right arm was broken at the elbow, snapped almost all the way back on itself. He felt no pain, but knew it was only a matter of time until it arrived. His arm looked so violently wrong that he felt his gorge rise, and he fought back the urge to vomit.
“Don’t move,” said Ellison.
She crouched down beside him and tipped blood into his mouth from a plastic bottle. He swallowed the liquid hungrily, feeling the pain and disorientation disappear as heat bloomed behind his eyes, and watched with horrified fascination as his arm slowly un-broke: it folded out until it was straight, then the angular points of shattered bone beneath the sleeve of his uniform flattened out and disappeared. He kept drinking until the arm felt like new, then groaned, and sat up.
Behind his squad mates, the Night Stalkers’ van lay on its side, surrounded by a halo of spilled oil and shattered glass. Its passenger and rear doors were open, one of its back wheels was still spinning slowly, and Jamie realised he could not have been out for long.
Probably no more than thirty seconds or so.
“Did you get them?” he asked. “Where are they?”
Qiang shook his head. “Gone.”
Jamie frowned. “What do you mean, gone? Gone where?”
“They were out of the van by the time we got here,” said Ellison. “They scattered when they saw us.”
“Why didn’t you go after them?” asked Jamie, his voice rising.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Ellison, her eyes narrowing. “Maybe because our squad leader was lying unconscious with a badly broken arm and a belt full of deadly weapons for the taking?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “You knew I’d be fine. You should have gone after them.” He got carefully to his feet, stretched his repaired arm, and faced his squad mates. “Get back in the van. I’ll search from above. They can’t have gone far.”
Ellison took a step towards him. “Is this going to be a regular thing?” she asked, her eyes flashing with anger. “You doing stupid, reckless shit that means we have to put you back together afterwards? Because I’m already bored of it. Sir.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re a vampire, Jamie,” said Ellison. “You’re not indestructible. It’s time you understood the difference.”
“Noted,” said Jamie. His squad mate’s sudden disapproval had made him recoil, but his embarrassment at his telling-off and the knowledge that she was right were threatening to turn into anger. “Now are you going to help me find these scumbags or not?”
Ellison stared at him for a long moment, then rolled her eyes. “Of course we are,” she said, and glanced at Qiang. “Come on.”
Jamie’s squad mates headed for their van, which was idling next to the vehicle that he had destroyed. He was about to rise back into the air and begin the search for whoever had been inside it when a loud chorus of beeps rang out.
He grabbed at his belt. “That’s me,” he said.
“It’s all of us,” said Ellison, pulling out her console as Qiang did the same behind her.
Jamie frowned. He thumbed his screen into life and read the message that appeared.
ACTIVE_ROSTER/L1/FULL_RECALL/RETURN_TO_BASE/ASAP
ALL_CURRENT_OPERATIONAL_OBJECTIVES_OVERRULED
“What the hell?” asked Ellison. “I’ve never heard of the active roster being recalled.”
He shook his head. “Me neither.”
“It must be serious,” said Qiang.
Jamie grimaced. Whoever had been in the Night Stalker van could not have got far, especially if – as was likely considering the state of their vehicle – any or all of them were injured. He was sure they could find them, and was full of a burning desire to do so; he had come to hate the Night Stalkers with an anger that bordered on irrational, and now, when they were within his reach, he was being told to let them go and return to the Loop.
It was infuriating.
“Damn it!” he shouted. “What’s going on that’s so serious they can’t handle it without us?”
The American watched as the waiter refilled his glass, disappointed to realise the emotion that had filled him for the last four years was still there.
Despite the quality of the wine in the bottle and the steak frites on his plate, the magical surroundings of the ancient walled city, and the bright, shining happiness the long-planned European trip was bringing Cynthia, it burned as strongly within him as it had on the first day after his retirement; a single emotion of profound clarity.
He missed the army.
And he was now certain that he always would.
Alan Foster had retired as Colonel after four decades of long and decorated service. In the chaos that followed what was now known as V-Day, when the vampire Gideon had appeared on British television and announced the existence of his kind, he had called his former CO at the Pentagon and offered to re-enlist. He could still be useful, he had insis
ted, could help them handle what was happening. His old boss had thanked him, and told him they had it under control. And as Alan looked at the liver spots on the back of the hand holding his refilled wine glass, he understood why.
Old, he told himself. You’re too damn old.
“Honey?” asked Cynthia. “Are you all right?”
He smiled. “Sorry. I was miles away.”
“Was I boring you?”
Alan searched his wife’s beautiful, immaculately made-up face for the tiny downward curve of her mouth that would let him know she was genuinely annoyed; instead, he saw the deep laughter lines at the corners of her eyes that always betrayed her when she teased him.
“No more than usual,” he said, his smile widening.
Cynthia let out a gasp of fake outrage, and threw an olive at him. He swatted it aside – he was still fast, despite his years – and raised his glass. She clinked hers against it, and smiled as the sound rang out across the brasserie’s terrace. Alan left his glass raised for a second or two, then sat back in his chair, took a deep sip of wine, and let his gaze drift.
The walls of the fortified city curved above and below where they sat, thick fortifications that had been built and rebuilt in the centuries since the Romans had first realised the strategic importance of Carcassonne. Above the roofs of the shops and restaurants rose the high angular tower of the Basilica of St Nazaire and St Celse, the ancient church that had been the region’s cathedral until 1801, when a new building had been erected beyond the walls of the original city.
Couples strolled through the cobbled square beyond the brasserie’s terrace as families strode back and forth, the children clad in sweatshirts and baseball caps bearing images of Carcassonne, the parents laden down with bags of shopping. The air was cool, but alive with sound, conversation and laughter and the shouted entreaties of waiters as they tried to persuade the undecided that their establishment was unquestionably the very finest in the city. Alan watched them all, the army-shaped hole inside him temporarily filled by steak and wine and contentment.
Then something caught his eye, on the far side of the square: a momentary flash of glowing red.
His hand went instantly to his belt, where the butt of a pistol would usually have been. Back home in Houston, he carried the .45 Beretta that had been his retirement present from his staff every day, but here, far from home, he was unarmed. He cursed silently, and scanned the square. His eyes were still sharp, mercifully undimmed by age, and he had no reason to doubt what he had seen. But now he saw nothing.
“Al?” asked Cynthia, the levity gone from her voice. “Everything all right?”
He glanced at her, and smiled. “Fine,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.” But as he looked back out across the square, he wasn’t sure that was true.
Standing in a doorway on the far side of the wide space was a young man, his face almost entirely hidden by the hood of his top. Tourists were flowing past, paying the man no attention whatsoever, but Alan stared at him for a long moment; he couldn’t know for sure, but he was suddenly convinced that the eyes hidden by the shadow of the hood were fixed on his own.
“Alan?” asked Cynthia again.
“It’s all right,” he replied, without shifting his gaze. “If I tell you to move, don’t ask any questions, OK? Just do what I say.”
“Alan, you’re scaring me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Just do what I tell you. Please, Cynthia.”
At the north-eastern corner of the square, where an ornate stone arch marked the start of a road that led down the hill, a woman had appeared. Her face was also hidden by a hood, and she stood as perfectly still as the man in the doorway. Moving his head as little as possible, Alan scanned the wide, bustling space, and felt his blood run cold.
Eight men and women were standing motionless in the square; the man in the doorway, one by each of the four corner exits, and three stood like statues in the midst of the crowd. Their faces were hidden, but the angles of their heads converged on a single point: the table where he and Cynthia were sitting.
They know, he realised. They know I’ve seen them.
Alan took a deep breath. “In ten seconds’ time,” he said, “we’re going to get up and you’re going to lead me into the kitchen. Walk quickly, but don’t run. Don’t stop if anyone asks what you’re doing. Just keep moving and I’ll be right behind you.”
“OK,” said Cynthia. Her voice was low, but full of determination.
“Good,” he said. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Alan.”
“I know you do,” he said, and gave his wife a fierce smile. “Now go.”
Cynthia got to her feet and slung her bag over her shoulder. Alan pushed back his chair and stood up, trying to keep all eight of the stationary figures in sight as he did so. But as he lifted his coat off the back of his seat, his concentration was broken, and in that brief moment they moved; he searched the crowd frantically, looking for hoods, for deliberate movement.
There.
His eyes found one of the women as she threw back her hood, took hold of a man who had, until a millisecond earlier, been strolling through the square without a care in the world, and sank a pair of gleaming fangs into his face.
The man’s scream was deafening, a piercing screech of pain and terror. Then the rest of the hooded figures tore into the crowd, and it was joined by a chorus of others. Blood sprayed into the air as panic descended over the square; people ran blindly in every direction, crying and screaming as footsteps thundered across the cobblestones. Alan watched, his heart stopped dead in his chest.
On the far side of the square, a female vampire swooped into a wide-eyed group of Japanese tourists, scattering them. They tumbled to the ground as the woman ripped at their necks, her eyes glowing, her face twisted into a vicious grin of delight. Blood began to run between the worn cobblestones, shimmering beneath the yellow street lights.
At the centre of the crowd, people collided with each other and tumbled beneath stampeding feet. Alan saw a woman fall on her shoulder, and heard the dull crack and scream of agony as it dislocated. She tried to sit up, her face ghostly pale, and was driven back down as one of the hooded vampires landed on her like a bird of prey. The man dug his fingers into her neck and tore out her throat with a casual flick of his wrist. Blood jetted above the heads of the running, panicking crowd; the vampire was moving again before it reached the ground, throwing himself into the chaos, hacking and slashing at anything that moved.
“What is this?” asked Cynthia, her voice low. “Alan?”
He barely heard her; he was transfixed by the savagery that had been unleashed around them. Their fellow diners appeared similarly frozen; they were watching the carnage with wide eyes, as though it was a piece of particularly challenging street theatre. Something whistled through the air and landed with a wet thud in the centre of the table to Alan’s left. It was a human head, its eyes blinking rapidly, its mouth twitching as though still trying to form words.
“Alan?”
The occupants of the table screamed and pushed themselves back, upending their chairs and breaking the collective paralysis of their fellow patrons. The restaurant was suddenly full of movement and noise, as men and women flooded blindly out into the cobbled square that had become a slaughterhouse.
“ALAN!” screamed Cynthia.
He jumped, and turned to face his wife, his heart racing. Then he was moving, taking a tight hold of her hand and leading her against the flow of diners, towards the kitchen at the rear of the restaurant. He kicked open the swing door, and ran into a wide room full of metal and steam. Two chefs shouted their objections, but he ignored them, his eyes locked on an open door at the far end of the kitchen. Cynthia kept pace behind him, so much so that she thudded painfully into him when he skidded to a halt beside a low shelf near the back door.
“What is it?” she shouted. “What’s wrong?”
Alan examined the shelf. Its edge was a row of hooks, fro
m which hung blades of every shape and size. He grabbed a long carving knife and held it out to his wife, handle first. Cynthia took it without a word as he lifted down a thick, heavy cleaver, tested the weight in his hand, and grunted with approval. He was about to head for the door when something lying on a counter made him pause.
It was a meat-tenderising hammer, but it was unlike anything Alan had ever seen: almost a metre long, with a spiked head that made it look like it belonged in a medieval torture chamber rather than a kitchen. He transferred the cleaver to his left hand, hefted the hammer in his right, and ran through the back door, Cynthia close behind him. A shape loomed out of the shadows, and he raised the hammer, but the figure stepped into the light of the kitchen door before he swung it, revealing a waiter with tendrils of smoke curling out of his nostrils.
“Ce qu’il se passe?” asked the man.
Alan wasted no time replying. He pushed the waiter aside, ignored a rapid torrent of French insults, and led Cynthia down a metal staircase. They found themselves on a small road, one of the narrow arteries that wound through Carcassonne, hidden from the tourists upon whom the city depended. The road was on a slight incline, and Alan didn’t waste a moment deciding which way to go.
Down, he thought. All the ways out are down.
Their feet clattered over the cobblestones as they ran. The volume of the screams from the square decreased as he led Cynthia round a corner at the bottom of the street, but they were still horribly audible, and seemingly endless.
A growling shape leapt from the shadows, two points of red glowing in the centre of its face, and Alan’s military instincts took over; he swung the meat hammer in a flat arc, slamming it into the vampire’s jaw. The studs ripped through the flesh of its cheek and the impact shuddered painfully up his arm. The vampire crashed to the ground, its head hitting the cobblestones with a sound like a breaking egg, and lay still. Alan didn’t give it a second look; he sprinted forward, Cynthia at his side.
