Department 19 d1-1

by William Hill

  Thick black hair began to sprout from Stevenson’s skin, bursting through his pores and tearing through his uniform. His eyes turned yellow, and his shaking became so frenzied that McBride was thrown loose.

  “Somebody help him!” cried Kate, her voice high and anguished.

  Morris pulled the Glock from his belt for a second time and knelt down next to Stevenson’s head. The man-if he still was a man-was twitching and shaking on the grass, apparently oblivious to the small crowd gathered around him. Morris cocked the gun, and placed the barrel against Stevenson’s temple.

  Larissa turned Kate away from the stricken operator and held the teenage girl’s face tightly against her shoulder, covering her eyes. Jamie watched, unable to tear himself away, as Morris pulled the trigger.

  A spray of blood and brain flew in the dark air, and then Stevenson was still. The change, which was less than half complete, reverted quickly, and within thirty seconds, the operator was lying motionless on the grass, the coarse black hair gone, his limbs straight and human again.

  They dragged him under the shelter of a tangled bush and left him. There was nothing else they could do for him; time was becoming short, and they needed to keep moving.

  After a few minutes, in which time Kate composed herself and McBride said a silent good-bye to his friend, they walked down the slope toward the monastery.

  44

  IN THE HOUSE OF GOD

  Jamie stepped into the monastery’s courtyard and stopped dead, his breath caught in his throat. He didn’t believe in God and, therefore, didn’t believe in hell, but he doubted that even if it were real, it couldn’t be any worse than what he was looking at now.

  The team had made their way across the plain and approached the monastery silently, spread in a line across the dark grass, crouching as they moved. They had stopped with their backs against the stone wall beside the tall arch that led into the building, three on either side, their weapons drawn. Screams of pain and high shrieks of pleasure floated on the night air, and thick smoke drifted across their nostrils, alive with the acrid scents of burning wood and meat. Morris motioned silently for McBride to lead them in, but Jamie shook his head vigorously. They were so nearly there; so nearly at the place where Alexandru was waiting for them, where his mother was being held, and he would not stand still while other men led the way. He crouched low and swung around the edge of the stone arch into the courtyard.

  The cobblestoned yard was small; it was walled on all sides, and an opening stood in the middle of each. The ones to the left and right led into low buildings that Jamie guessed had been stables, and the one at the rear, opposite the arch through which he had just entered, led into the monastery itself. But between it and him was a scene dragged bloodily from the very worst corners of his imagination.

  A large bonfire had been built in the middle of the courtyard. Jamie felt the heat of it on his face as soon he rounded the corner; a thick column of gray smoke climbed into the pale silver sky, and explosions of sparks burst into the air.

  The bodies of monks were strewn around the cobblestoned ground. Many were naked, others still wrapped in their brown robes. Appalling violence had been visited on them. Blood was everywhere; dripping into pools at the bases of the walls, splashed in crimson swirls on the pale stone, running freely between the cobblestones beneath their feet.

  Kate began to weep, quietly. The rest of the team looked slowly around the courtyard, their faces gray, their eyes wide.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said McBride.

  “Me neither,” said Morris, shaking his head.

  They walked slowly around the bonfire, their weapons at their shoulders, and faced the open doorway that would take them inside the monastery’s main building. The opening was dark and uninviting.

  “Follow me,” said Jamie, softly, and stepped inside.

  In front of Jamie was a solid stone wall on which a single word had been scrawled in thick streaks of red: WELCOME

  Corridors led away to his right and left, lit by oil lamps that hung in ornate metal holders at head height. The watery-yellow lamps illuminated the passages, and Jamie saw dark shapes lying on the ground in both directions.

  Get a hold of yourself. It’s only going to get worse.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Kate, her voice trembling. “The monastery is a square, with the chapel hall on the other side. We’ll end up in the same place either way.”

  “All right,” said Jamie. “Then we split up.”

  He looked at Morris and McBride, who were standing together, their black uniforms rendering them almost invisible in the darkness.

  “You two, take Kate and check the right corridor. Me and Larissa will take the left.”

  A look of panic rose in Kate’s face, but he ignored it.

  Nearly there. You’re nearly there.

  He was, and he knew it. Somewhere in this building, probably waiting for him to appear, was Alexandru. And if the old vampire was here, then so was his mother.

  I’m sure of it.

  He grabbed Larissa’s hand and pulled her along the corridor that led away to the left. She came without protest, curling her fingers around his, as the two operators led Kate to the right. She cast a nervous look over her shoulder but allowed herself to be led away.

  Jamie and Larissa stepped around the bodies of dead monks that littered the floor of the narrow passage. They stared blankly, their eyes wide and uncomprehending, blood pooled around them, their mouths twisted in pain. Jamie ignored them; there was nothing that could be done. They passed wooden door after wooden door. He pushed one open and looked in on a bedroom so austere it was closer to a prison cell. The stone walls and floor were unadorned; the only contents of the room were a wooden chair that stood in front of a small desk on which lay a large Bible, and a wooden bed that looked incredibly uncomfortable. He closed the door, and they rounded a corner at the end of the corridor.

  Movement flashed in front of them, and Jamie held his T-Bone out in front of him. He pulled his torch from his belt as Larissa’s eyes reddened beside him, and shone it down the passage. Crawling up the wall ten feet in front of them, like an awful overgrown insect, was one of the monks. It turned its head toward them as the light from Jamie’s torch passed over it, and the look on its pale, narrow face was purgatory. Its eyes gleamed red, but the mouth was contorted into a wide silent howl, and tears spilled down its cheeks. It clawed at the pale stone of the wall, tearing its fingers to shreds, and then it slammed its forehead into the wall, splitting the skin, sending blood pouring down its face. It did it again and again and again.

  “Stop that!” yelled Jamie, and the monk fell awkwardly off the wall, landing in a heap on the floor.

  It looked at them with an expression of pure agony, and Jamie thought he had never seem such misery in the face of a living creature. It crawled a few feet toward them, sobbing and weeping, and Jamie took a step backward, leveling the T-Bone at the approaching figure. It shuffled onto its knees and faced them.

  “Damned,” it said in a choked voice that was almost a whisper. “Damned.”

  Larissa made a noise in her throat, and Jamie looked at her. She was staring at the vampire, and he realized with horror that she knew exactly what he was going through.

  “Tried not to do it,” the monk whispered. “Not strong enough. Damned. Damned for all eternity.”

  Jamie shone the torch past the weeping figure, and the beam picked out the body of a second monk, lying slightly further down the corridor. His neck had been ripped out, but there was very little blood on the floor around him.

  The hunger was on him, and he fed on one of his brothers. Oh God.

  He raised the T-Bone and pointed it at the monk’s chest. The broken, anguished figure in the brown habit didn’t so much as flinch. It simply linked its hands in front of its stomach and closed its eyes. Jamie took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.

  The explosion of blo
od brought two more vampire monks shambling along the corridor. They swayed out of the darkness, their red eyes gleaming, but Jamie and Larissa were ready. He tossed her the stake he had reclaimed from Kate, and they strode forward to meet them. Larissa leapt into the air, her broken left arm hanging beneath her, taking the confused, newly turned vampires by surprise, and plunged the stake into the chest of the nearest monk. It grimaced briefly, then burst in a shower of blood. Jamie T-Boned the other, the projectile punching a neat round hole in his brown robe and the skin beneath. It exploded, soaking the pale walls a dark crimson. Larissa stepped forward, leaned toward the dripping blood, then stopped, and turned to Jamie.

  “Look away,” she said.

  “Why?” he replied.

  “I don’t want you to see this. Please, Jamie.”

  He nodded and turned his back on her. From behind him came a wet sound, then a stifled grunt of pleasure.

  “OK,” she said, after a long moment.

  He turned back and looked at her. Her lips shone red, and her arm was no longer broken; she was rotating it in its socket, inspecting it, and looking at him with shame on her face.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s keep going.”

  He reached a hand out to her, and she accepted it, gratitude on her beautiful, blood-streaked face.

  They were nearly at the end of the corridor when they heard a soft weeping from behind one of the wooden doors. Jamie pushed it carefully open.

  The room was identical to the one that he had inspected earlier, but this one wasn’t empty. Huddled in the corner was a monk, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around his legs. His head was lowered, and he was shaking and weeping as Jamie crossed the room and knelt on the cold stone floor in front of him. Larissa stayed in the doorway, watching the corridor.

  “Are you hurt?” asked Jamie, placing a hand on the man’s arm.

  The monk raised his head, and Jamie cried out, shoving himself backward across the stone floor.

  A crucifix had been carved into the man’s face; across the ridge of his forehead and then down from his hairline, along the length of his nose, through his mouth, splitting his lips into flapping chunks, and down to the end of his chin. The wound was wide and deep, and blood was gushing down his ruined face and onto his habit.

  “Oh God,” said Jamie.

  At the mention of his Lord, the monk began to babble, a running stream of prayer.

  “YeathoughIwalkthroughthevalleyoftheshadowofdeathIwillfe arnoevilbecausethouartwithme.”

  Jamie stood up and backed away from the huddled shape, his face twisted with despair.

  There’s nothing you can do for him. Think about your mother. Focus.

  But he couldn’t. He could think only about the tortured, violated man curled in the corner in front of him and wonder again what manner of creature he was dealing with, a creature that would inflict such savagery on men who had devoted their lives to peace.

  “Come on,” said Larissa, softly, and he turned to look at her. “We have to keep moving. You can’t help him.”

  He followed her out into the corridor, and they rounded the final corner together. On the ground in front of them, a large arrow had been painted with blood, pointing the way they were facing. Two words had been written beneath it: THIS WAY

  Hatred spilled through Jamie, hatred for Alexandru and all his kind, a hatred that burned so hot in his chest he thought he would burst into flames. “Does he think this is a game?” he hissed.

  Larissa grabbed his arm.

  “It is a game,” she said. “To him, that’s all this is. Ilyana, your father, your mother, those are just details. It’s violence and pain and misery that he loves. Remember that when you face him.”

  A shout echoed down the corridor, and Jamie shone his torch along it. Morris, McBride, and Kate were walking quickly down it, and Jamie and Larissa went to meet them.

  The team was reunited in front of a large wooden door.

  “What did you find?” asked Jamie.

  “Later,” said McBride, his face drawn and pale, and Jamie nodded.

  They stood in front of the door, the five of them, with Jamie in the center.

  This is it. No matter what lies behind this door, you don’t leave this place without her. You make her proud.

  “Ready?” asked Morris.

  Jamie took a deep breath. “Ready,” he said, and pushed the door open.

  But he wasn’t ready at all.

  45

  THE TRUTH HURTS

  Alexandru Rusmanov sat in the chapel hall on a wooden chair so ornately carved it looked like a throne.

  It stood on a raised stone platform at the back of the large hall. An enormous wooden cross stood behind it, before a tall stained-glass window that faced the gray surface of the North Sea, a hundred feet below. A wooden lectern, from which Jamie guessed the abbot had conducted the monastery’s services, had been thrown aside and lay broken on the stone floor.

  A long wooden dining table had been treated with similar disdain; it lay smashed along one of the long walls of the hall, surrounded by the plain wooden chairs that had seated generations of the monks of Lindisfarne. Above it, set into alcoves along the high wall, were crude statues of saints. Their carved faces stared down solemnly into the middle of the hall.

  Then Jamie saw her.

  His mother.

  Marie Carpenter stood at Alexandru’s left, her face pale and tightly drawn.

  “Mom!” he cried. He couldn’t help himself.

  She’s alive. She’s still alive. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

  His mother’s eyes lit up at the sound of his voice, and she looked at him with such love that he thought his heart might burst. She hadn’t realized that one of the figures that had entered the hall was her son, but even as relief flooded through her that he was still alive, Jamie was still alive, she was screaming at him not to come any closer, to stay away, to run for his life.

  “Listen to your mother, boy,” advised Alexandru, his voice warm and friendly, and spread his arms wide.

  Jamie had taken a step toward her, without realizing he had done so, and he paused. He looked along the length of the stone platform, beyond Alexandru’s outstretched hands, and his heart sank.

  Standing silently along the platform were more than thirty vampires in a loose line. At Alexandru’s right was Anderson, the huge vampire with the child’s face. His shoulders rose like a ridge of mountains, vast and misshapen, a long black coat covering them and reaching almost to the floor. Beyond him, and beyond his mother on the other side, were vampires of every age and gender. A woman in her sixties, dressed in a prim trouser suit, stood alongside a skeletally thin teenage boy, wearing torn jeans and nothing else. His ribs stood out on his narrow torso, and his eyes were sunken into his skull. Beside his mother, looking at her in a way that made Jamie want to tear his eyes out, was a fat man in a shiny gray suit. His face was red and a coating of sweat stood out on his forehead as he stared at Marie. The vampires looked contemptuously down at Jamie and his companions, while their master regarded him calmly.

  “So,” Alexandru said, leaning forward and rubbing his hands together, as though he were about to start a particularly exciting debate. “Jamie Carpenter. We meet again, if you’ll forgive the cliche.”

  His eyes flickered to Jamie’s left, his attention caught by something. Then his face twisted into a scowl, and he stared at Larissa with his blood-red eyes. “ You,” he said, all the warmth gone from his voice. “You dare show your face in front of me again?”

  “I dare,” replied Larissa.

  “Your death will be my masterpiece,” Alexandru said, and grinned at her. “No creature on earth has ever suffered like you will suffer.”

  “I’m not afraid of you anymore,” said Larissa, staring up at the ancient vampire.

  “You should be,” said Thomas Morris. Then he pulled Quincey Morris’s bowie knife from his belt and ran it across McBride’s throat. The operator fell to his knees, bl
ood jetting from severed arteries, and folded to the floor. McBride was dead before Jamie had time to realize what had happened.

  Morris walked slowly across the chapel hall, his head lowered, like a man going to the gallows, and stepped up onto the platform. Anderson moved aside to accommodate him, and Alexandru laughed gently as the Blacklight operator took his place at his side.

  Jamie stared at the platform, at Morris standing stiffly beside Alexandru, and realized he was dead. They all were; Larissa, Kate, his mother, and him.

  All dead.

  Oh, no. Oh, please, no.

  “Tom,” he said. “Tom, what are you doing?”

  Behind him he heard a small noise emerge from Kate’s throat, and a snarl emanate from Larissa.

  Morris was looking down at Jamie with pure hatred; it twisted his features into a face he didn’t recognize. “I’m doing what needs to be done,” he said. “What should have been done a long time ago.”

  Jamie felt tears welling up within him and shoved them back down. He had never felt so utterly alone.

  “But why?” he asked in a broken child’s voice. “We’re friends. You said we were the same.”

  Anger flashed across Morris’s face. “We are nothing alike,” he spit. “My family has been betrayed and held back by Blacklight for more than a century. Yours was given every advantage, even though you never deserved them.” He smiled cruelly at Jamie. “You want to know why I did it, is that it? You want an explanation? Fine, I’ll tell you why. Your father killed my father.”

  Morris sighed deeply, as though he had wanted to get this off his chest for a very long time. “He didn’t pull the trigger,” he continued. “But he might as well have. Him and Seward and Frankenstein, and the rest. He gave his life to Blacklight, and they turned on him at the first sign of trouble. They betrayed him and sold him down the river, and they did it with smiles on their faces.”

  “But we checked the logs,” said Jamie, desperately. “You haven’t accessed the operational frequency in weeks. How did you give it to Alexandru? How did you tell him we were coming to Northumberland?”