by Will Hill
“Copy that,” said Bob Allen. “Ready One. Wait for my go.”
“This is it,” said Turner, his voice low.
Allen gave him a hard, thin smile. “It looks like it,” he said. “Scared?”
“Of course I am.”
“Me too,” said Allen. “Wouldn’t be human if we weren’t, right?”
Turner shook his head, and looked out across the line of Operators. It was an astonishing display of strength, particularly given the speed with which it had been assembled, but, even as he looked at it, he knew that the space in front of the army was not where the battle was going to be won or lost; their ultimate fate rested in the hands of five men and women who were still six miles behind their colleagues. He twisted the comms dial on his belt and spoke into his helmet’s microphone.
“Strike team,” he said. “Do you copy?”
“Copy, sir,” said Angela Darcy. “Standing by.”
“We’re in position,” said the Director. “Wait for my go.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Out.”
The Security Officer looked round at her squad mates. “Everyone get that?”
Jamie nodded, as the rest of the strike team murmured in agreement.
“Good,” said Angela. “Stay calm. They’ll let us know when they need us.”
They were standing in a secure room at the middle of the camp’s command centre, watching an array of screens showing live feeds of the battlefield from satellites and vehicle-mounted cameras; the army of Operators was clearly visible, still and silent as it waited. Ellison and Qiang and Jack Williams and Dominique Saint-Jacques and dozens more of Jamie’s friends were among them, and he felt pride flood through him as he stared at the screen.
Nobody could have asked us for more than we’ve given, he thought. Nobody can ever say we didn’t do everything we could.
Seventy miles away, in the waters off the town of Perpignan, Commander Alain Masson ordered the Terrible up to launch depth.
The submarine was the lead boat of the Triomphant class, the cornerstone of France’s nuclear deterrent. There were four, with at least one at sea at all times, ready to do the unthinkable if the unthinkable was ever required. In hardened tubes that ran the length of her foredeck, sixteen M51 missiles waited silently, each containing ten independently targeting nuclear warheads capable of delivering a hundred times as much firepower as the bomb that had destroyed Hiroshima.
Command of the Terrible was the highest honour the French Navy could bestow, and Masson did not take it remotely lightly. His crew were their country’s last line of defence, a devastating deterrent lurking silent and unseen beneath the waves, and if the time came for him to give a launch order, Masson knew they would do their duty, regardless of the consequences.
“Launch depth, sir,” said the diving officer.
“Good,” said Masson. “Commence hover.”
“Hovering, sir.”
He nodded, and checked the communications screen where new orders would appear if they were issued, orders that he could still scarcely contemplate.
The screen was dark.
For now.
Turner stared up at the medieval city, his heart full of unexpected joy.
Deep down, the Blacklight Director did not expect to survive the coming battle; he believed the remainder of his life could likely now be measured in minutes rather than years. But as he stared, he found that the prospect didn’t fill him with fear; he was proud of the life he had lived, a life of thrills and marvels and danger, and if it was really about to end in these blasted ruins, then so be it.
He would meet death head-on, without regrets.
Purple and orange blazed across the horizon to the west, reflecting against low banks of clouds to create a breathtaking vista of light. Turner smiled; it was as though the universe had decided to provide their army with a glorious final reminder of what they would soon be fighting for, of the beauty and wonder of the world they were trying to protect.
The air changed.
He felt it before he heard it, in his teeth and his bones; a thick humming vibration, rising rapidly. Turner frowned and looked along the line of Operators. His vampires had felt it too, whatever it was; they were growling and hissing, several of them holding the sides of their helmets.
What the hell? he had time to wonder, before the noise rose to a deafening, pulverising scream, and coherent thought left his mind.
The sound tore through him, making his insides feel like they were going to be shaken to pieces; it was otherworldly, impossibly loud and terrifyingly high-pitched. Vampire Operators collapsed to the ground and thrashed in the ash and mud as their Director fell to his knees, his head boiling with pain, distantly aware that the sound would be even louder without the dampeners and filters in his helmet, a prospect he could not begin to imagine. Beside him, Bob Allen lurched to his right and tumbled out of the back of the jeep on to the ground; Turner could do nothing but watch.
The pitch rose and rose as he screamed silently behind his visor. On his belt, the lens and bulb of his ultraviolet torch shattered, sending broken glass tumbling to the ground. He saw the same happen to the weapons of the line of Operators, and managed to twist round on his knees in time to see the windscreens of the vehicles and the lights of the helicopters explode, their glass unable to withstand the aural onslaught that had been unleashed from God only knew where. The windscreens of the helicopters were bulletproof plastic, and didn’t break, but he saw several lurch alarmingly as their flight crews reeled against the noise.
Turner looked down as the agony inside his head reached a blistering crescendo, saw the broken shards of his UV beam gun, and slumped to the floor of the jeep’s bed as understanding hammered into him.
Sonic-disruption weapon. Destroy our UV lights. Disorient our vampires. Dear God, what else is there? What more has he planned that we haven’t seen coming?
Then, as suddenly as it had arrived, the sound disappeared.
Turner lay flat on his back, his eyes squeezed shut, trying to clear his mind. He reached a trembling hand inside his helmet and clicked his fingers beside his right ear, praying that he would hear the snap. It was distant, low and muddy, but it was there, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
Not deaf. Thank God.
He climbed back to his feet, and was relieved to see Bob Allen standing unsteadily beside the jeep before he checked their army. The Multinational Force’s line was ragged and broken, and he could see blood running down the necks of a number of the Operators, but, as he watched, the ones who had fallen to the ground dragged themselves up and started to regroup.
Movement.
It started near the summit of the hill, by the tall towers of the Basilique Saint-Nazaire, and gathered pace as it descended. By the time it reached the battlements and spilled through the gate and over the walls, it had become a flood, a vast torrent of vampires, thousands of them, maybe as many as there were Operators waiting for them. They stopped barely half a mile away and formed an uneven line, jostling and clawing and snarling at each other, their eyes casting a thick crimson glow in the gathering darkness. Turner magnified the view through his visor – which, mercifully, was made of plastic, and had survived – and scanned the old city of Carcassonne. In the distance, floating above the highest walls, he saw the dark silhouette of a single figure.
This is it, he thought.
“Darcy?” he said, his voice low.
“Yes, sir?” said his Security Officer.
“Are you OK?”
“We’re OK, sir,” she said. “What the hell was that?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” said Turner. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go.”
There was no further reply; he knew the strike team would be gathering their equipment and preparing to carry out their part in what was about to unfold.
Bob Allen climbed back into the jeep and glanced in his direction. The American’s face was white with pain,
but his gaze was solid and determined; Turner met it with his own, and nodded.
The NS9 Director raised his radio.
“Go.”
Immediately, as though operated by remote control, the wide line of Operators moved forward; several of them staggered their first few steps, but not a single one hesitated. The howling din from Dracula’s followers increased as a number of them rose into the air, their burning eyes fixed on the approaching army. In the jeeps either side of the one Turner and Allen were standing in, the other Directors watched their men and women march away. Out of the corner of his eye, Turner saw Aleksandr Ovechkin cross himself and momentarily lower his head; when he raised it again, the Russian’s eyes were cold and clear.
The crunching rhythm of footsteps across the broken ground increased as the Operators quickened their pace. The vampires began to move forward, darting and snapping and hissing; through his visor, Turner could see savage grins, and the fervent anticipation of violence.
“Ready One!” bellowed Allen. “Kill them! Kill them all!”
Larissa followed the rest of the strike team out of the command centre, her spine tingling with excitement.
The waiting had been almost unbearable; now the battle was actually beginning, they would finally know whether they were going to savour victory or suffer defeat. In the distance, the first crackle of gunfire and the first screams of pain reached her supernatural ears. She shivered with a mixture of unease and anticipation, and looked at her squad mates.
“Shall we?” asked Valentin, a smile on his pale, handsome face.
“By all means,” said Angela. “Let’s do it.”
Jamie nodded, took hold of Frankenstein beneath his arms, and rose into the air. The monster grimaced at the indignity, but said nothing. Larissa followed suit, relishing – as she always did – the moment when her feet left the ground. Valentin and Angela joined them, and for a silent moment, the five men and women floated in the air, staring at each other. Larissa’s heart was pounding in her chest, but her mind was clear; she enjoyed the sensation of clarity, knowing from long experience that it would soon be replaced by the rampaging bloodlust of her vampire side.
“Follow me,” said Angela.
Ellison felt power surge through her as she stepped into the air and, for the briefest of moments, found herself completely overwhelmed.
She had been using her supernatural abilities constantly for the three days since she had been turned, and had believed she was starting to understand them; she could control her eyes and her fangs, was managing to cope with the sensory overload of her dramatically improved sight and hearing, and was able to fly in a straight line, more or less. But nothing she had experienced in the Playground had remotely prepared her for what she was feeling now; her vampire side had sent fire coursing through her nerve endings, coating her skin with electricity and bulldozing everything from her conscious mind beyond the need to fight and kill and drown in blood.
Ahead of her, the vampire army spread out for what seemed like miles, but Ellison didn’t care; she accelerated through the air with her eyes blazing and a wide grin on her face, and as she drew the stake from her belt, her mind was full of an urgent question.
How can I go back from this? How can I possibly let this power go?
There was an explosion of noise as she and her vampire colleagues thundered into Dracula’s followers, sending them flying in all directions. Behind her, the unturned Operators charged in, the noise of their guns deafening. The scent of blood filled her nostrils as screams and crunching thuds rang out from all sides, and Ellison felt savage satisfaction as she buried her stake into the chest of a vampire who looked like he was suddenly, belatedly unsure exactly what he had got himself into. The man burst with a thunderclap of blood, but she was already past him, pushing on into the blurred, screeching line of the enemy. She plunged her stake between the shoulders of a vampire whose face she never saw, felt its point puncture the heart, and leapt forward without even wasting time to look back and see the woman explode.
A vampire dropped out of a sky that was suddenly full of blood and movement, an expression of desperate hunger on his face, and swung an axe at her head. Ellison moved without thinking, sliding beneath the axe’s wicked arc, her knees skidding through the black ash of the battlefield. The swing dragged the vampire off balance; she rose like a shark from the depths and slammed her stake up through the soft flesh beneath his chin. The metal point burst out of the vampire’s mouth, shattering his teeth into enamel splinters, and his eyes widened comically as he screamed around the metal filling his mouth. She wrenched the stake out, and drove it into his chest. The man stared at her with a momentary expression of disbelief before he exploded, his blood drenching her uniform and splattering to the burnt ground like crimson rain.
Ellison shook liquid and flesh off the stake, and threw herself into the battle, her head full of the urge to commit violence, her vampire side in total, gleeful control.
High above the burnt, bloody ground, in the still air around the Basilique Saint-Nazaire, Dracula watched the opening moments of the battle unfold.
His eyes had flared red-black as the smell of blood floated up into his supernaturally sharp nostrils, and it had taken every bit of his self-control not to dive through the air and hurl himself into the fray, to merely watch and wait instead. He did not believe the battle would be lost; he was sure his enemies would not have anticipated the surprises he had in store for them, or be able to counter them when they were sprung. But a growing part of him hoped that he was wrong, that the men and women in black would somehow overcome the odds stacked against them, and that the fighting would reach the point where it required his personal intervention.
Until then, he would restrain himself.
At the centre of the second line of the Multinational Force, with only the vampire Operators between him and Dracula’s followers, Julian Carpenter sprinted forward.
For what felt like as long as he could remember, he had been spinning aimlessly, seemingly unable to assert any control over the chaos his life had become. His family, career, friends, even his liberty: all had either been compromised or taken from him entirely, leaving him a spectator in the limbo that had become his reality. But some part of himself had returned as he flew to France in direct disobedience of the order Cal Holmwood had given him, and had grown once he reached the displaced persons camp and found himself surrounded by Operators and technicians and guns and T-Bones and helicopters. Now, as he drew his MP5 from his belt and trained it on the snarling, charging line of vampires, a profound sense of peace settled over him.
I’m home, he thought, and squeezed the trigger.
Fire licked from the end of the submachine gun’s barrel as the deafening rattle of gunfire filled his ears and the smell of cordite filled his nostrils. The vampires he had aimed at scattered in all directions, hurling themselves into the air and swooping away as the two armies collided, but Julian ignored the ones his bullets had missed and focused on those they hadn’t. Through the raging, fighting mass, he saw a vampire with ragged holes where his knees should have been trying to crawl back the way he had come, churning the ground with his elbows as he dragged himself across it. Julian sprinted forward, letting his MP5 swing down on its strap as he drew his T-Bone, and skidded to a halt. He raised the launcher in a smooth arc, and as he levelled it and sighted down the barrel, his chest tightened with nostalgia so profound that it momentarily threatened to send him to his knees.
Jesus.
He shook it off, and pulled the trigger. The T-Bone fired with a bang of exploding gas and a screech of unspooling wire, and the metal stake punctured the crawling vampire’s back; the man burst in a shower of steaming blood. The stake wound back towards the T-Bone’s barrel as Julian stalked forward, searching the chaos for the other victims of his bullets.
Movement.
On his right.
He spun, bringing the T-Bone round, and was hit in the face by what seemed like a bucket of
blood. It splashed across the visor of his helmet, soaking the shoulders and chest of his uniform, and Julian staggered backwards, recoiling with horror. He wiped frantically at his visor with his gloved hands, and felt his stomach lurch as he saw the source of the blood: a Blacklight Operator, her helmet gone, her throat sliced to the bone, her eyes wide and staring as she sank to her knees and toppled over on to her side. For a long moment, he merely stared; despite the hours spent lost in his memories, his endless daydreams of reinstatement, and his desperate need to do something, to be something again, he had forgotten the raw reality of this life. It was death, and pain, and blood.
In the end, it always came down to blood.
Julian balled a fist and punched the side of his helmet. His head cleared, in time for him to duck beneath a severed arm hurled from somewhere inside the pulsing, thundering crowd, take a deep breath, and wade back into the fight.
Floating above the drawbridge that had once controlled access to the medieval city of Carcassonne, Osvaldo watched with an impassive expression as vampires began to die in their hundreds.
He felt a tiny pang of sorrow as men and women whose company he had enjoyed were staked and shot, their blood spilling on to the ground, their lives ending in sudden violence, but their deaths were ultimately irrelevant, and unavoidable. The first few minutes of the battle had always been destined to be chaos; both armies were fresh, and the initial exchanges would favour the experienced soldiers and their guns and stakes. From his high vantage point, he saw the two long lines envelop each other, creating a seething mass of humans and vampires, tearing and clawing and firing and flying.
Screams began to echo across the darkening expanse of the battlefield as the battle began in earnest. Osvaldo knew this was when his master’s army would assert themselves: once the fighting became close and messy, and their speed and savagery would begin to tell.
And it wouldn’t matter in the slightest if every single one of them died, he reminded himself. This is merely the opening act of the play.
