by Will Hill
He had allowed his army a few hours to celebrate once the medieval city had been taken; vampires had filled the Hôtel de la Cité and the cobbled squares, drinking blood and alcohol, tormenting and torturing the last few tourists who had been flushed from their hiding places in the surrounding streets. The hostages, locked safely in their rooms, were off-limits, however; he had made that abundantly clear, along with the penalty that would befall anyone who disobeyed his orders. In the early hours, he had called the revelry to a halt, and ordered Emery to oversee the creation of the gruesome decorations that now adorned the walls of the city. They had finished their work as the first light crept over the eastern horizon, and he had allowed most of them to seek the cover of darkness and the emptiness of sleep; there would be work to do as soon as the sun set again. The rest were on a watch rota that Osvaldo had organised; they patrolled the empty streets and perched high above the low sprawl, waiting to see what form the human response would take.
Dracula was confident that it would not come for at least a day, whatever it was; in truth, he was counting on it. His enemies’ best option would have been to send everything they had into Carcassonne, as quickly as they possibly could; his vampire army was loyal and enthusiastic, but it was also inexperienced and undisciplined, and he knew it could be routed if it was attacked with enough conviction. But to respond so quickly, with the overwhelming force a frontal assault would require, would have risked the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, and he was certain that they would not entertain the prospect of such losses, especially given the carnage that his followers had unleashed around the world overnight.
Osvaldo had shown him the television coverage of the crashed planes and the blood-soaked underground stations, and he had felt a brief surge of pride; his followers had carried out their missions to the letter, and had provided an invaluable diversion. Dracula knew, probably better than anyone alive, that battles were won by the commander best able to focus solely on the destruction of the enemy; collateral damage, innocent victims, destruction of property, morality and fairness were all distractions, and ultimately worthless. Victory was earned, more often than not, by sheer, bloody force of will.
His enemies’ attention would be divided while they gathered forces from around the globe, analysed and overanalysed the terrain and resources and tactics they would employ, and reassured the relatives of the men and women on the list of hostages that Osvaldo had dropped on to the television crews gathered around the walls, all of which played directly into Dracula’s hands; he was a medieval General, and a large-scale, winner-takes-all battle was not something he feared.
It was, in fact, exactly what he wanted.
Death or glory, he thought. Win or lose. One battle to end them all.
He walked away from the station, leaving the increasingly restless crowd to their desperation. The main street that ran up to the walled city was almost deserted; its clothes shops and mobile-phone kiosks and brasseries and cafés should by now have been getting ready to open, but their shutters were all down, and the pavements were empty. He turned south, heading out of the central commercial district and into the residential streets that encircled it.
The contrast was immediately striking; here, the narrow roads were full of activity, as civilians dragged their belongings out of their homes and forced them into overflowing car boots or on to groaning roof racks. There was a feverish sense of urgency rising from the residents, as if they were worried they might look at their watches and see that forty-eight hours had passed in an instant, or – perhaps more likely – that Dracula would not keep his word. The thought gave him great satisfaction; he intended to honour the two days he had promised, unless his position was attacked, but it pleased him to see that this was not being taken for granted.
There was nothing in the world he enjoyed more than proof that people were scared of him.
He strolled along one of the streets, ignored by everyone. Up ahead, in the small garden of a terraced house, a heavy-set man was bellowing up at an open window, demanding that his wife hurry up. The woman strode out of the house, her face crimson with anger, and shouted back at her husband, demanding to know exactly why he thought it was OK for him to just stand outside and order people around.
On the pavement outside the garden, a little girl in a pink coat sat on a three-wheeled bike, watching her parents scream at each other. She stared at them for a few moments, then turned away, clearly bored, and began pedalling her bike determinedly towards Dracula. He smiled at her, and she smiled back in the mischievous way of all children when an adult they don’t know – a stranger – notices them. She pedalled faster, then turned her handlebars and darted between two parked cars, her eyes fixed on the pavement on the other side of the road. Dracula looked past her and saw a car approaching, moving far too fast. He registered the blank, panicked face of the driver, the screaming parents whose attention was still focused angrily on each other, the little girl on the bike who was about to emerge in the middle of the road, and realised what was going to happen.
Delicious, he thought. How absolutely delicious.
For a moment, he did nothing.
Then he sprinted forward, taking care not to leave the ground or let glowing heat enter his eyes, and out into the centre of the road. The car driver didn’t see him; he was staring into the middle distance, seeing nothing but escape. Dracula accelerated, racing towards the parked cars from between which the bike would appear, any second now. There would be no chance for the car to stop; it would hit the little girl head-on, at killing speed.
He reached the parked cars as a small, determined blur of pink rattled out from between them. To his surprise, the car driver did see her, and then finally him. He braked, but far too late; the car kept coming, screeching across the tarmac towards them. The girl looked round and screamed as Dracula reached her; he lifted her off her bike with one hand, as though she weighed as little as a feather, and dived out of the way. He rolled across the bonnet of a parked car, the girl wrapped in his arms, as the car that had almost obliterated her skidded to a halt twenty metres down the road. For a long second there was silence, until the little girl began to shriek.
Her mother and father rushed out of their garden, their eyes wide, the colour drained from their faces, as he sat up and held the girl out towards them. The woman snatched her from his hands and held her tight, sobbing and shaking and whispering that it was all right, she was OK, she was all right. Dracula climbed off the bonnet, and was instantly grabbed into a crushing bear hug by the girl’s father.
“Merci,” he gasped. “Merci, monsieur. Merci bien.”
He grinned. This was all simply too delightful.
“De rien,” he said.
The father released him, and hauled his daughter out of his wife’s arms. He started scolding her, telling her that she was lucky to be alive, that she knew she was never, ever, ever to ride her bike in the road. His wife looked with eyes that were wet with tears as the driver of the car appeared beside them, his face white with shock.
“I didn’t see her,” he said. “She rode right out. You all saw. I couldn’t have seen her.”
The woman threw herself at him, her face blazing with anger, and pounded his chest with her fists. The driver recoiled, raising his arms in self-defence as he was driven back against the garden wall by the fury of her assault.
“Slow down!” she screamed. “Slow down, you stupid shit!”
“I’m sorry!” shouted the driver, turning his body away from her blows. “I didn’t see her! I’m sorry!”
Dracula watched the unfolding scene with happiness radiating through him. He looked down at the pavement and saw a stone at the bottom of the garden wall; it was about the size of a grapefruit, and smooth. He stepped round the yelling, flailing woman and picked it up.
Perfect, he thought, feeling its weight in his hand.
The driver had curled into a crouch, his head down, his hands over the back of his neck. Dracula caught one of h
is attacker’s swinging fists and put the stone in it without a word.
The girl’s mother didn’t hesitate for even a single second; she brought the stone crashing down on the back of the driver’s head. He let out a strangled grunt and slid to one knee, blood spurting from his scalp, bright red in the early morning light. The little girl screamed again. Her father pressed her tightly against his chest and covered her eyes with his hand, but made no attempt to stop his wife as she swung the heavy stone a second time. It connected with the driver’s head with a sound like breaking crockery, and he slumped to the ground, his eyes rolling, his limbs twitching.
Dracula turned away as the woman knelt on the pavement, her face a mask of blind animal savagery, and walked back towards the main road as she brought the stone down again and again.
Jamie’s stomach churned as he took a seat at the Ops Room table.
Even by the elevated standards of Blacklight, the last twenty-four hours had been remarkably chaotic; the acts of terrorism that had been unleashed across the world, acts that had cost tens of thousands of innocent lives and announced that Dracula had finally made his move, had sent shock waves through the Department. He had watched the coverage of the unfolding crisis in the officers’ mess, standing silently as Dracula issued his proclamation from atop the walls of the medieval city, as planes tumbled from the sky and men and women were butchered without mercy in subway cars and shopping malls.
Nobody had said a word; Jamie doubted that anything would have been remotely adequate to describe what they were seeing. The first vampire in the flesh at last, the absent threat that had loomed over every Operator for months staring into a trembling camera and announcing the opening gambit of his campaign against the human world.
Unsurprisingly, nobody had talked about anything else for the rest of the night, and a single question had been asked over and over again.
What the hell do we do now?
Jamie glanced around the Ops Room table as Paul Turner got to his feet at its head. His colleagues were staring silently at the Director, their faces pale and tight.
“Zero Hour Task Force in session,” said Turner. “All members present. There are three things that we need to discuss today, the first of which is no doubt extremely obvious. As you must all know by now, what this group was first brought together to prevent has now come to pass. The images from Carcassonne, and from around the world, leave no room for ambiguity. Dracula has finally made his move.”
“Right,” said Angela Darcy. “So what are we going to do about it?”
“I will tell you what’s been discussed so far,” said Turner. “I spoke to the Directors of the other Departments this morning, including the FTB, who are liaising directly with the French government. We have no reliable intelligence regarding what happens to Carcassonne once Dracula’s deadline passes, but given the acts of terrorism that took place last night and the hostages that we know he’s taken, the consensus is that we cannot afford to simply hope for the best. The residents of the city appear to agree, as early estimates suggest that as many as twenty per cent of them fled overnight, with a great many more preparing to leave this morning. The French government has officially requested assistance from NATO and the UN, who have agreed to send peace-keeping troops and disaster-relief resources into the area, although neither is expected to arrive for at least eighteen hours.”
“Why so long?” asked Kate Randall.
Turner gave her a thin smile. “Global bureaucracy moves slowly at the best of times, Lieutenant. It moves even slower when most of the world’s major countries are dealing with the aftermath of the worst acts of terrorism they’ve ever known. Thankfully, both the Red Cross and UNICEF have already arrived at the scene and begun the process of assisting the refugees of Carcassonne. They will be establishing a displaced persons camp outside the city, and Director Allen of NS9 is en route to set up a local command centre at the same location.”
Frankenstein frowned. “Why is Bob Allen going?” he asked. “Why not someone from the FTB?”
“Because France has allowed NATO to assume authority over the situation,” said Turner, “and the White House wanted an American commander on the ground.”
“So what do we do?” asked Jack Williams. “Twiddle our thumbs?”
“We’ll provide General Allen with any assistance or resources he requests,” said Turner. “Right now, the priority is to clear Carcassonne as fully as possible before the deadline, so if we’re needed to help with that, we will go. If the government asks us to go to London and help with the aftermath of the Tube attack, we will say yes. In the meantime, we will wait, and we will prepare ourselves, which is what the third point of this briefing will cover. Before then, I want to discuss something else.”
Jamie took a deep breath. ‘Wait and see’ had not been what he wanted to hear, and the looks on the faces of his colleagues told him he was not alone in that opinion. He understood the situation the Directors found themselves in: until Dracula’s plans became clear, the priority had to be to remove as many people from Carcassonne as possible, even though Jamie suspected that they were playing directly into the first vampire’s hands by doing so. It seemed clear that the widespread attacks and the forty-eight-hour deadline had been specifically designed by Dracula to occupy the time and resources of his enemies, and prevent them from formulating a rapid response. But even if so, there was no real alternative; given the previous night’s chaos and dreadful loss of life, the French government and the supernatural Departments simply could not be seen to be ignoring a credible threat to an entire city of innocent people.
“Second item,” said Turner. “While I appreciate that everything else may now seem inconsequential, we cannot allow ourselves to be frozen in the headlights by Dracula. We have to carry on our work, no matter what’s happening in France, and, as a result, tonight will see the first public release of the vampire cure developed by the Lazarus Project, at University College Hospital in London. We’re expecting protests and demonstrations from both pro- and anti-vampire organisations, so we’ll be sending Operational Squads to ensure the safety and security of those who volunteer to receive the treatment. Captain Williams, I’m putting you in charge of this.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Great,” he said. “There’s definitely nothing more important I could be doing right now than babysitting doctors while they give injections to vampires.”
Turner stared at him. “Are you finished?”
Jack stared back for a brief moment, but crumbled under the weight of the Director’s gaze. “I’m finished,” he said. “Sorry, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Turner. “I want you to take two squads to London, and I expect you to treat this like the Priority Level 1 operation it is. Every single dose of the cure robs Dracula of a potential soldier, and tips the odds in our favour.”
“Fractionally,” said Angela Darcy.
“Maybe so,” said Turner. “But perhaps we can shift them a bit further. For the third item on our agenda, I’m going to ask Lieutenant Browning to take over. Matt?”
Jamie frowned as his friend got to his feet.
What’s this, Matt? he wondered. What haven’t you told me?
“Thank you, sir,” said Matt, and glanced nervously around the room. “I want to tell you about PROMETHEUS, a last-resort strategic programme that has been developed in secret over the last few months. It was a hypothetical exercise, pending the existence of a workable cure, but today sees its official launch. It will—”
“Hang on,” said Jamie. “What do you mean, developed in secret?”
Matt looked over at Turner, who had sat down.
“Membership of this Task Force is not a VIP card, Lieutenant Carpenter,” said the Director. “There are things that are classified above Zero Hour, and until now, PROMETHEUS was one of them.”
Jamie felt anger threaten to bloom in his stomach, but forced it down; instead, he shifted his gaze back to Matt, his eyes narrowing.
“Like I was sayi
ng,” said Matt, “PROMETHEUS depended on the discovery and production of a workable cure. It’s a strategic application of the principles of what has become known as the Browning Theory, and an extrapolation of certain—”
“For God’s sake, Matt,” said Angela. “Just tell us what it is.”
Matt blushed, and nodded. “Sorry,” he said. “To prepare for the likely confrontation with Dracula, the active roster of the Department will be turned into vampires. That’s what PROMETHEUS is.”
There was a moment of stunned silence before the Ops Room burst into uproar. Jack Williams and Frankenstein were out of their seats, as the rest of the Task Force hurled questions back and forth across the table.
“This is a joke, right?” bellowed Jack Williams. “Please tell me this is a joke?”
The embarrassed colour in Matt’s cheeks had darkened to crimson, but he did not back down from the reaction his words had caused; he looked straight at Jack, and shook his head. Jamie stared, too stunned to speak or even move; he never would have thought he would hear such a concept from the mouth of his gentle, nervous friend. Matt’s relationship with Natalia and his increasing influence inside the Loop had changed him in recent months, seen him grow into himself, but Jamie suddenly felt as though he didn’t know him at all any more.
I don’t recognise this person, he thought, as his colleagues shouted and argued around him.
“What’s the point?” demanded Kate. “If we turn Operators today, they’ll still be weak when we fight Dracula. Or do you think it’s going to be months until we have to deal with him?”
“They’ll still be stronger than they are now,” said Matt. “And we can give them the best possible chance. We have access to one of the most powerful vampires in the world.”
A chill ran up Jamie’s spine. “Valentin?” he said. “That’s who you’re going to use for this?”
Matt turned to him. “Yes, Jamie,” he said. “Valentin has agreed to help us.”
