by Will Hill
“Jesus,” said Larissa.
Jamie nodded. “I shouted for them to stop, but they staked the vamp anyway. I went after them, but one of them drew an MP5 and emptied it into my chest. My uniform stopped most of the bullets, but a few got through, and they got away from Qiang and Ellison. The second time we didn’t get there until the vamp was already dead, but we located their van and I took it out. We were about to go after them on foot when Carcassonne happened, and everyone got called back to the Loop.”
Matt listened, his heart pounding. Hearing what his dad had been a part of described so bluntly was awful; he could not imagine what the vampire victims of the Night Stalkers had gone through, the terror as they were dragged from their homes to be murdered in cold blood.
“How much do you know about what happened two nights ago?” he asked, his voice low. “With Kate’s dad?”
“Paul brought me up to speed,” said Jamie.
“All I got told was that Kate was hurt,” said Larissa. “I’d like to know how.”
Matt took a deep breath, and began to talk. When he was finished, Larissa grimaced.
“I’m sorry, Matt,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “It’s not me you should feel sorry for, though. It’s Kate, and her dad, and all the innocent people my dad hurt. I can’t even begin to understand it, to be honest with you. I don’t even know how to start trying. The only thing I really know is that I’m done with him. I can’t forgive him for this.”
“As long as you know it’s not your fault,” said Jamie. “The Harker thing, and everything afterwards. None of it is on you.”
Matt nodded. “I know exactly whose fault it is,” he said. “It’s his. But he’s never going to get the chance to hurt anyone else. He’s never going to get out of that cell.”
Tears rose in the corners of his eyes, and he blinked them away.
“All right,” said Jamie, a frown of concern on his face. “Let’s talk about something else. How’s PROMETHEUS going?”
Matt grunted with laughter. “Way to lighten the mood, Jamie.”
Jamie smiled. “No problem,” he said. “Well?”
“The Director suspended the programme overnight,” he said. “Jack Williams was the last one.”
I bet he was pleased about that, thought Jamie, after what he said in the briefing.
“How far through did we get?” he asked.
“Seventy-two Operators have been turned so far,” said Matt. “Just over forty-five per cent of the active roster, and twenty-four of them are recovering in the infirmary. They should be discharged this afternoon.”
“Why is it on hold?” asked Larissa.
“I’m sorry,” said Jamie. “I didn’t think. Do you even know about PROMETHEUS?”
Larissa nodded. “I know about it. Angela briefed me yesterday on what’s been happening while I was away.”
“OK,” said Jamie.
“So why is it on hold?” repeated Larissa.
Matt shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I think it means we’re going to France,” said Jamie. “Soon. That’s the only reason I can think of to suspend the programme, so we don’t have any Operators halfway through the process when we ship out.”
“I’ve heard the same suggestion inside Lazarus,” said Matt. “But I genuinely don’t know. I’d tell you if I did.”
“No more secrets,” whispered Larissa.
Jamie shot a glance in her direction, his expression unreadable, then looked back at Matt. “Have you tested the Operators who’ve been turned?”
Matt nodded. “There’s no baseline for vampire power, no growth chart, for want of a better description, but testing indicates that their strength and speed are comparable to the Broadmoor patients. They’d be extremely powerful if we could wait a year before we needed to use them.”
Jamie smiled. “Wouldn’t that be great?” he said. “But it’s still better than nothing.”
The memory of watching Valentin Rusmanov bite Operator after Operator hit Matt like a punch in the stomach. He shuddered, and nodded at his friend.
“It worked,” he said. “If nothing else, it definitely worked.”
Larissa’s eyes had narrowed. “I still can’t believe the Director authorised it,” she said. “What happened if people didn’t want to be turned?”
“Nobody was forced,” he said.
“Did anyone refuse?”
“Six.”
“And where are they now?” asked Larissa.
“In cells on Level H,” said Matt.
Glowing red flashed momentarily into Larissa’s eyes. “They were locked up because they wouldn’t let the Department turn them?”
“That’s right,” he said, aware of the look of unease that had appeared on Jamie’s face.
“And you’re OK with that?” said Larissa, her voice little more than a growl.
Matt sighed. “No,” he said. “I’m not. But I’m tired of defending PROMETHEUS, Larissa. Like I said to Jamie before you got here, I didn’t give the order, I didn’t make it mandatory, and I certainly didn’t decide the punishment for those who refused to take part. All I did was help create the science that made it possible. And to be perfectly honest with you, given that we now have a working cure, I really don’t see what the big deal is.”
Larissa smiled narrowly, crimson still flickering in the corners of her eyes. “You’re the only non-vampire sitting at this table,” she said. “I don’t know how qualified you are to make that statement.”
“All right,” said Jamie, frowning at her. “Take it easy.”
“It’s fine,” said Matt. “If you want to take it up with the Director, Larissa, then be my guest. But I’m not going to fight with you about this, and I’m not exactly sure why you think you get to just stroll back in here and start criticising. Are you even still an Operator? Have you told anyone where you’ve been for the last six months?”
Larissa stared at him; he held her gaze as Jamie looked back and forth between them, his eyes wide with worry. After a long, silent moment, the glow in her eyes faded away, and she nodded.
“You’re right,” she said. “That was crappy of me. I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” said Matt, instantly. “I really don’t want to fight.”
Larissa nodded, and sat back in her chair. Matt took a nervous sip of coffee and looked at Jamie, silently willing him to break the tension. Thankfully, his friend did not let him down.
“Speaking of the cure,” said Jamie, “I assume you heard about what the last couple of nights have been like in London?”
Matt nodded, grateful for the slight change of subject. “I read the reports,” he said. “It sounds like the first one was crazy.”
“The first what?” asked Larissa.
“The first distribution of the cure,” said Jamie. “We’re releasing it in eight hospitals around the country, and it’s all going pretty smoothly now, but the first night it was just one, UCH in London, and it was pretty hairy.”
“You were there?” asked Larissa.
Jamie nodded. “Mine and Jack’s squads were the security. About four hundred vampires turned up, trying to get the cure, and we had anti-vampire protesters, anti-cure protesters, and about a hundred police trying to keep them apart.”
“What happened?” asked Matt. “I read there was some violence.”
“There was,” said Jamie. “Although it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The vampires kicked off when we had to announce that we were only taking ten more of them, and then the protesters broke the police line and someone threw a bottle that hit one of the vamps in the head. So she went mental, and we had to go in and calm it all down.”
“Jesus,” said Matt.
Jamie shrugged. “It was all right in the end,” he said. “I went back to London two nights ago and it was better, and the reports from last night were better still. I think we’re on top of it.”
“Still speaking of the cure,” said Lar
issa. “How’s your mum, Jamie?”
Jamie grimaced. “I haven’t seen her,” he said. “They locked the infirmary down when they started testing the cure, and then the last two days have been crazy.”
Larissa frowned. “You haven’t had five minutes to go down and see if she’s all right?”
“No,” said Jamie, his eyes narrowing. “What with people coming back out of the blue and Dracula starting the end of the world, I’ve had a lot to deal with.”
Larissa stared at her ex-boyfriend; he held her gaze for a long moment.
“I saw her,” said Matt, softly.
Jamie frowned. “Saw who?”
“Your mum,” he said. “I saw her in the cellblock, when I went to get Valentin for the start of PROMETHEUS.”
“Was she all right?”
Matt nodded. “She seemed fine,” he said. “Happy. She was talking to Valentin. She said she was looking forward to seeing you.”
Jamie grimaced. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I meant to,” said Matt. “But like you said, it’s been crazy.”
“You knew she’d been discharged,” said Larissa. “You shouldn’t need Matt to tell you that your mother would like to see her son.”
Red flashed into the corners of Jamie’s eyes, but died as quickly as it had arrived. His grimace deepened, and he nodded.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll fix it. For now, let’s talk about something more cheerful, shall we?”
“What’ve you got in mind?” asked Larissa.
“Carcassonne.”
Matt burst out laughing, spraying coffee across the table. Jamie and Larissa recoiled, wide grins on their faces.
“Sorry,” he said. “Are there any updates from France?”
“Only what we’ve seen on the news and what we were told in the Zero Hour briefing,” said Jamie. “But things are happening. The Director was in Carcassonne yesterday, and I really think the suspension of PROMETHEUS is telling.”
“What don’t I know?” asked Larissa. “Angela brought me up to speed, but I don’t think she told me everything.”
“Has your Zero Hour classification been reinstated?” asked Jamie.
“I don’t know,” said Larissa.
“Did you know your friend General Allen is running things on the ground?”
“No,” said Larissa.
Jamie nodded. “He’s taken charge on behalf of NATO and the FTB is taking the lead on behalf of the Departments. I think everything else is public knowledge.”
Larissa nodded. “All right,” she said. “That’s a smart move. Bob Allen will do a good job.”
“So what do you think our response is actually going to be?” asked Matt.
“I don’t know,” said Jamie, and shook his head. “Paul will tell us as soon as they finalise a plan, but if you ask me, I think we need to move as soon as possible. If we don’t, Carcassonne will just be the start.”
“Level with me,” said Matt. “And I mean level with me. If we go in after Dracula, what are the chances we make it out alive?”
Jamie shrugged. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “Probably not all that good. Larissa?”
“Not good,” she said, and nodded. “Valentin and I fought Dracula together and didn’t beat him, and that was more than six months ago. He’ll be stronger now than he was then, probably a lot stronger.”
“It doesn’t make any sense, does it?” said Matt. “The end of the world, I mean. It’s just something people say, that doesn’t really mean anything. But we might be about to watch it happen.”
They fell silent. The loud buzz of the canteen continued around them, but for a long moment, the three teenagers merely stared at each other.
Matt was suddenly full of desperate love for his friends, the two sitting with him and the one who was lying unconscious one floor above them. There were problems between them, problems that were sticky and hard to solve and had opened wounds that he knew ran deep, but they were all still here, still breathing in and out, still mostly intact, on the outside at least. For how much longer, nobody knew, but for right now they were still alive, and they would fight with everything they had until the end.
“America,” said Larissa, suddenly.
Jamie frowned. “What?”
“That’s where I went,” she said, her eyes fixed on her ex-boyfriend.
Matt looked at his friend. Jamie’s face had paled, but he saw neither the anger nor the hostility he was expecting; what he saw instead was something that looked a lot like resignation, or even acceptance.
“To Nevada?” asked Jamie.
Larissa shook her head. “Upstate New York,” she said. “I built something there, on the banks of the Hudson River, a community for vampires. We called it Haven.”
“Like Valhalla?” said Matt.
“Exactly like that,” said Larissa, and gave him a small smile. “For vampires who didn’t want to hurt anyone, and were willing to swear an oath that they wouldn’t. That’s where I was, until the day before yesterday.”
“What did Valentin have to do with it?” asked Jamie.
“Didn’t he tell you?” asked Larissa.
“No,” said Jamie. “He’s always refused to tell anyone what you and he talked about the night you left.”
Larissa nodded. “I asked him not to tell anyone where I was going,” she said. “I just sort of assumed he wouldn’t keep his word.”
“So he did know where you were?”
“Of course,” said Larissa. “Haven is built on an estate that belongs to him.”
“Why did he help you?” asked Matt. “It doesn’t seem like something he’d do.”
Larissa shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t ask for anything in return. I suppose he probably enjoyed the thought of damaging the Department, and I’m absolutely sure he loved refusing to tell you where I was.”
Jamie stared at her, and said nothing.
“Would you ever have come back?” asked Matt. He knew this was extremely dangerous ground, but he wanted as many cards on the table as possible. “If it wasn’t for Dracula, would you be here?”
Larissa looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “Haven is my home.”
Jamie winced, but nodded; he had clearly expected nothing else. Matt’s heart went out to him, but he did not regret asking the question; it was better for everyone to know where they stood.
A deafening rattle of noise broke the silence, as the console of every Operator in the canteen beeped in unison. The room was suddenly full of movement as men and women, including the three friends sitting at the table in the corner, reached as one for their belts.
FROM: Turner, Major Paul (NS303, 36-A)
TO: Active_Roster
ALL/MANDATORY_BRIEFING/PRIORITY_LEVEL_1/OR/1230
Matt checked his watch as a cold ball of unease settled into his stomach.
Twelve thirty, he thought. Ninety minutes from now.
Jamie set his console down on the table and smiled at his friends.
“What did I tell you?” he said. “This is it. It’s time.”
Julian Carpenter folded the letter, slid it into an envelope, and sealed it shut. He placed it carefully in the inside pocket of his black holdall, set the bag on the floor beside his green duffel, and walked out of the kitchen of his mother’s cottage.
He stopped in the narrow hallway, breathing in the familiar smell of the old house; it went right to the heart of him, to the place where nostalgia and loss and regret gathered, and he let the sensations mingle, savouring them for what he was sure would be the last time. He hoped he was wrong; despite the painful unravelling of his life over the last few years, he had no wish to die. But he did have to be realistic, and what he was about to do was unquestionably fraught with risk; he was consoling himself with the hope that – if the worst was to happen – the letter he had just written would go some way to explaining why he had hurt the people he loved so badly.
Julia
n stepped into the lounge and did a slow circuit of the room, turning off the electricity outlets and drawing the curtains. He had hated being confined in this place – a prison that was comfortable and familiar was somehow far worse than a concrete box in the bowels of the Loop – but as he made his final preparations to leave it, he nonetheless felt a small, bitter stab of sadness. His family had spent happy days and weeks in the old cottage, and there had been a time when he had believed there would be many more to come. But such a prospect was now long dead, and the reality was very different.
His wife was beyond his reach, his son had made it very clear that he never wanted to see him again, and his only other friend in the world, the one to whom he owed more than anyone else, had also cut ties with him. He had received an email a week after his ill-fated reunion with Jamie, containing three short sentences. It had been sent from an address he didn’t recognise, but there had been absolutely no doubt from whom it had come.
I did what you asked, even though I knew it would cost me dearly. Consider the oath I swore paid in full.
Do not contact me again.
He couldn’t blame Frankenstein for his decision.
Julian had known that if the monster did him the favour that he had requested, if he brought his son to see him, it would expose his part in the deception the two of them had perpetrated, and he had known that the fallout, particularly from Jamie, would likely be awful. He had known, and he had asked Frankenstein anyway, playing on the monster’s loyalty, and on the oath he had sworn to protect the Carpenter family. He had not been surprised by the email, and the cold, painful rebuke it contained; he knew he deserved it.
Julian strode back into the kitchen, hefted the bags on to his shoulders, and headed for the front door. Through its frosted glass, he could see the blurred silhouette of Ben waiting for him; the teenager, who lived half a mile down the road towards Caister, was on time, which was at least something. He stepped through the door, locked it behind him, and walked down the path.
“Morning, Ben,” he said. “All right?”
