Darkest Night

by Will Hill

  “Thanks,” said Jack Williams. “I owe you one.”

  “Don’t mention it,” she said. “Are you OK?”

  “Surviving,” said Jack, and smiled. “For now, at least. Do you want to kill some vampires with me?”

  Ellison smiled at him. “I’d be delighted.”

  Emery stared up at the crucified woman, trying to decide whether to wake her up so he could hurt her again.

  He knew – had always known – that the way he saw the world wasn’t how everyone else saw it, and, although he had always refused to do so for the many psychiatrists and psychologists who had asked him over the years, he was quite capable of explaining the difference; he was simply unable to attach any importance to other people, to their feelings, their wants and desires, and – ultimately – their lives. He knew they were real, in the sense that they physically existed, but beyond that, they meant nothing to him; they were like ghosts, like grey shadows moving through the world. There was no reason to respect them, or consider them.

  No reason not to hurt them.

  No reason at all.

  The woman groaned as her eyelids fluttered. Emery understood enough to know she would be considered attarctive by the other ghosts, but such things were of no interest to him. To him, she was merely a plaything.

  Soft, fragile meat, and nothing more.

  “Wake up,” he whispered.

  The woman stirred again, and opened one eye. Emery held up a screwdriver, let her see it, and felt familiar warmth in his stomach as the eye widened with fear.

  “I’m sorry,” he lied. “This is really going to hurt.”

  “Be straight with me,” said the French President. “Is the battle lost?”

  “No, sir,” said Minister Desjardins. “But the situation is precarious. That cannot be denied.”

  “Do the rest of you agree with that assessment?” asked the President.

  “Yes, sir,” said Chief of Staff Ducroix.

  “Yes, sir,” said Vallens, in his empty office. “I agree.”

  “So be it,” said the President. “General Ducroix, I want you to release my Presidential launch codes. Transmit them to Mont Verdun and tell them to order the Terrible to arm their missiles and load the target package. There is to be no launch unless I personally give the order. Is that clear?”

  “It is clear, sir,” said Ducroix. “Although I urge you to give the Multinational Force more time.”

  “As do I,” said Vallens.

  “I will give them every chance to complete their mission,” said the President. “But if they fail, I will not hesitate to do what is necessary. If that is a problem for any of you, let me know now so I can relieve you of duty.”

  Jesus, thought Vallens. This is real. This is actually happening.

  “That won’t be necessary, sir,” said Ducroix. “I will transmit the codes and your order to Mont Verdun.”

  “Good,” said the President. “Do it now.”

  Jamie stared at the twelve vampires standing in the middle of the road, his eyes burning with heat.

  For a long moment, nobody moved a muscle. Then, as if responding to a silent shout of ‘Charge’, the strike team sprinted up the street, Jamie taking the lead. He and his colleagues were outnumbered three to one, but the fight was still nothing short of a mismatch; it was over in thirty bloody, brutal seconds.

  He accelerated towards the closest vampire like a human wrecking ball. The man swung a punch that would have annihilated most people, but which seemed to Jamie like it was moving in slow motion; he slipped past it and hammered a gloved fist on to the point of the vampire’s chin. The man was sent flying, his eyes rolling back white, his limbs limp, and collided with the stone wall above the door of a café with a bone-cracking impact, before sliding to the ground in a heap.

  Beside him, Frankenstein crouched low and swung one of his tree-trunk arms into the stomach of a female vampire with blonde hair down to her waist and crimson hatred in her eyes; the breath exited her lungs with a sound like a bursting balloon, and she folded to the ground, her eyes bulging in their sockets. The monster plunged a stake into her heart as Jamie did the same to the vampire he had punched.

  Two down, he thought, grinning savagely behind his visor.

  Larissa tore into the vampires, her stake glinting under the remaining street lights. She plunged it through the heart of one, reversed it, and brought it around in a backhand sweep that was little more than a gleaming blur. Two vampires burst with thunderclaps of blood, but she gave no sign of even having noticed; she advanced on a third, who staggered backwards, a look of outright terror on his face. She leapt through the air, as fast as a striking cobra, and slammed the sole of her boot into the vampire’s neck; his face turned instantly purple as the red glow died in his eyes. He made a hoarse gasping noise, followed by a thick grunt as her stake broke through his sternum and a loud pop as he exploded across the cobblestones.

  That’s five, thought Jamie.

  One of the vampires leapt on to his back, but he threw it over his shoulder without so much as flinching. The woman spun up into the air, a look of immense surprise on her face, then shrieked in pain as he drove her down on to the street shoulder first. The bone broke, and her arm collapsed uselessly across the cobbles. The shriek reached an ungodly pitch and volume, and the vampire looked almost relieved when Jamie staked her.

  Six.

  “Catch,” said Valentin.

  Jamie turned towards the old vampire, plucked something red and dripping out of the air as it flew towards him, and looked at it; it was a human heart, still beating in his gloved hand.

  “Jesus, Valentin,” he shouted, and dropped the organ. He stamped it flat, and jumped as a man sprawled on the other side of the street burst into strings of gore. Valentin ran through the steaming mess, lifted two of the remaining vampires into the air by their throats, hammered their heads together with a sound like breaking glass, and hurled them down the road. They fell in a tangled heap at Frankenstein’s feet; the monster shook his head, then crouched down and staked them quickly in turn.

  Nine.

  One of the final three vampires, a man in his early sixties with a mane of silver-grey hair, rushed towards Jamie. He hammered his stake up through the man’s ribs, lifting him off the ground and splitting his heart in two; he saw no value in prolonging the man’s suffering. The vampire burst, drenching him with blood. Jamie gagged behind his visor; the smell of the steaming liquid was overpoweringly strong.

  Ten. Time to finish this.

  Jamie drew his T-Bone and fired it through the back of a vampire woman as she retreated from Larissa, her hands raised in surrender. He hit the button that wound the metal stake back in before the woman had even exploded; it sped back through a cloud of blood and lodged in the barrel. He turned and fired the weapon again, sending the dripping stake through the armpit of the last of the vampires, a man who was staring around at the carnage that had befallen his colleagues with wide-eyed incredulity. The man burst with a wet thunderclap; the stake wound back in as silence descended over the cobbled street.

  Twelve.

  Jamie flipped his visor up and looked at his squad mates. There were small smiles on all their faces, the thrill of the fight combined with the pride of overwhelming victory. Jamie opened his mouth to congratulate them, then frowned as gunfire echoed down the narrow street, from somewhere near the summit of the medieval city.

  There are no Operators up there, he thought. What the hell is going on?

  On the bridge of the Terrible, Commander Masson felt a shiver race up his spine as the command screen lit up.

  A printer rattled instantly to life, spitting out the order that arrived from the Central Military Command facility at Mont Verdun. Masson tore off the sheet of paper and read the short paragraph.

  “Sir?” asked Clément, the Terrible’s executive officer. “Is it a launch order?”

  “No,” he said, and shook his head. “Give me weapons control.”

  Clém
ent nodded, and opened a line to the small station one deck below where the weapons officer sat hunched in front of a dozen screens and terminals. Masson lifted down his comms handset and held it to the side of his face.

  “Weapons control?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Load targeting package 0193/3475. Arm missiles five through eight and await further orders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Masson placed the handset back in its cradle.

  “Is this happening, sir?” asked Clément, his face pale.

  “I don’t know,” said Masson. “Not yet, at least. I want an immediate ship-readiness report. If we are ordered to launch, I want the protocols followed to the letter.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Clément. “Right away.”

  “And tell the crew to stay calm,” said Masson. “This might still come to nothing.”

  “Do you really think so, sir?”

  “No,” said Masson. “But I live in hope.”

  Guérin ran towards Field 1, his uniform soaked in blood that wasn’t his.

  He had raised the alarm as loudly and widely as he could, but it had not been enough; the killing had already started as the security squad and tech staff and charity workers emerged from the mess hall, frowns of concern on their faces. The first screams had come from Field 11, but had quickly spread throughout the entire camp, which now resembled a scene from Hell; fires were burning in every field, filling the sky with an orange glow, and everywhere he looked were vampires, trailing glowing streaks of red light as they chased panicking men and women in all directions.

  The gunfire that had briefly rung out as the security Operators attempted to repel the invaders had all but fallen silent; Guérin had no idea if any of them were still alive, or whether they had tried to flee with everyone else, and as he sprinted through the Field 1 gate, he realised it made little difference.

  The command centre loomed before him, an angular sprawl of tents and buildings. He had been in Field 5, firing his MP5 at vampires that seemed as insubstantial as smoke, when Central Director Vallens’ voice had sounded in his ear, demanding an update on the situation on the ground. He had screamed something incoherent, his attention entirely focused on the massacre unfolding around him; he had temporarily forgotten the potential consequences of Paris believing the battle was lost, but now they filled his mind, huge and unimaginable.

  A vampire dropped silently out of the dark sky in front of him, and he shot it in the face without breaking stride. The vampire crashed to the ground, rolling and screaming. Guerin knew it wasn’t dead, but didn’t care as long as he was not stopped before he reached the command centre and spoke to Vallens; what happened after that didn’t matter. He raced forward, as men and women on all sides were plucked into the air and came back down in pieces, then staggered as a huge explosion hammered the air to his right; he guessed it was the vehicle fuel store going up. He glanced over at the rising cloud of fire, steadied himself and ran on.

  The security door slammed shut and locked behind him as Guérin sprinted into the command centre. The entire building shook as something hit it with a deafening thud, followed by another, and another. The lights above his head flickered but he ignored them, as he ignored the sound of the outer tents being ripped apart as the vampires sought a way into the command centre. There were several centimetres of reinforced steel around its nerve centre, but he had no idea how long it would withstand their efforts; he would just have to hope it was long enough.

  The main screen above the comms bench was displaying a high-resolution satellite feed of the battle, and Guérin felt his blood run cold as he stared at it. The Multinational Force was still fighting, and still numbered in the many hundreds, at least, but was about to be encircled by the second front of vampires approaching from the north, from in front of the vast fire caused by the destruction of the helicopters. He scrolled through the secure comms list, selected Central Director Vallens’ name, and paused.

  Maybe you shouldn’t try to stop them, whispered a voice in the back of his head. Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s the only way to save this situation.

  He stared for a long moment, then clicked CALL. He could not allow a nuclear launch on French soil without at least being able to say he had done all he could to stop it.

  “Guérin?” said Vallens.

  “Sir,” he said. “The camp is overrun, and I don’t know how long I can stay on the line. But you can’t let them do this, sir. You have to give the Operators more time. You have to—”

  “Captain,” interrupted Vallens. “There’s nothing more I can do. It’s out of my hands.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The codes have been transmitted to Mont Verdun,” said Vallens. “The decision now rests solely with our President.”

  “Has he given the launch order?” asked Guerin.

  “Not yet,” said Vallens. “But if he decides to, there’s nothing I can do to stop him.”

  Guérin stared at the satellite feed, unable to think of a remotely appropriate response to what the DGSI Director was saying.

  “Are you still there, Captain?” asked Vallens. “Can you get out?”

  He grimaced. “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, sir,” he said. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

  “I’m sure you will,” said Vallens, his voice low. “Good luck, Captain.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Guérin. “Out.”

  He clicked END, and checked the magazine of his MP5.

  Seven rounds, he thought. It could be worse. Could be a lot better, though.

  There were thousands of full clips in the armoury, barely a hundred metres from where he was standing, but he knew without checking the camp’s CCTV monitors that there was no possible way he could reach them. The command centre door thudded again, and Guérin saw a large dent appear at its centre. The sounds of movement around the secure room intensified, until it sounded like he was standing at the centre of a hurricane. From somewhere beyond the reinforced inner walls came the shriek of rending metal, and he checked the magazine again before he loaded it back into the MP5.

  Seven rounds.

  Six for them.

  One for me, if it comes to it.

  Alan Foster ran along the hotel corridor with the vampire guard’s keys in his hand, opening door after door and whispering to his fellow hostages to follow him.

  Several refused to move, shaking their heads with faces full of shame and fear, and two men told him to stop what he was doing, that he was going to get everyone into trouble. Foster ignored them; he had never believed for a single moment that the vampires were ever going to let them go, and if he was going to die then he was damn well going to do it on his feet rather than cowering behind a door.

  By the time he reached the end of the corridor, Cynthia moving silently at his side, there were almost thirty people following him: men and women of at least a dozen nationalities and a range of ages, their faces pale but determined. Foster paused in the atrium at the end of the first floor, from where a wide staircase curved down to the lobby below, and darted his head round the corner of the wall.

  “One by the entrance hallway,” he whispered, turning back to face the freed hostages. “Two directly below.”

  “Only three?” asked a Japanese woman. “That is not many.”

  Foster nodded. She was right; three was not many. He had been expecting to find the lobby crawling with vampires; if he was entirely honest, he had been expecting his escape to end in a Butch and Sundance charge, in which he would kill as many vampires as possible before he died a glorious death. But three? Three might actually be possible.

  “We do this now,” he said. “So if you aren’t sure, this is your last chance to go back to your rooms. I promise that nobody will think any less of you.”

  Not a single person moved; the hostages stared at him with clear eyes.

  “All right,” he said, and
pointed at a door on the opposite side of the atrium. “I want you all to go down the service stairs, as quietly as you can. When you hear shots, rush the lobby. There’ll be two guns lying on the ground. Take them, and meet me at the bottom of the staircase.”

  “I’m staying with you,” said Cynthia.

  Foster shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re not. I need you to go with the others.”

  His wife stared at him, then nodded.

  “All right,” he said. “Wait till you hear the shots. Now go.”

  Cynthia led the hostages across the atrium, opened the door, and disappeared through it. The others followed her, as Foster risked a second glance down into the lobby.

  The vampires hadn’t moved. The two below him were chatting to each other, as the one by the entrance hall stared out of the window, his fingers tapping its wooden frame with obvious boredom.

  OK, he told himself. Let’s do this.

  Foster took a deep breath and inched round the corner, the SIG raised to his shoulder. He settled his shoulder against the wall at the top of the staircase, then sighted along the submachine gun’s barrel, aiming at the head of one of the vampires standing below him.

  Everything slowed down.

  The years fell away as Foster’s heart beat steadily in his chest; it was as though he had never retired, had never been forced to waste his final years behind a desk.

  It was like he was young again.

  He took another deep breath, held it, and pulled the trigger.

  The vampire’s head exploded in a shower of bone and brain, but Foster was already swinging the gun to the right, targeting the second vampire who was now soaked in his partner’s blood, his face a perfect expression of wide-eyed shock. Foster shot him above the ear, blowing off the top of his head, and brought the gun round again, searching for the vampire by the reception desk on the far side of the lobby. The man had spun round at the sound of the shots, his eyes blazing red, but either surprise or indecision – or both – froze him to the spot; Foster sighted a third time, and shot him in the mouth. The vampire’s teeth erupted in a hail of blood, and he sank to his knees, clutching at his ruined face. Foster shot him again and the vampire folded to the ground, limbs twitching.