Department 19: Zero Hour

by Will Hill

  I have not yet forgiven you, he thought, as he floated back out into the corridor, for what you made me do.

  Valentin felt a stab of pain in his heart as he looked at the priceless treasures that now lay in tatters; the accumulated wonders of a long life destroyed for reasons no grander than malice and spite. He flew slowly down the corridor towards the round atrium at the centre of the floor; there were identical spaces on each level of his home, the five above ground and the two below. All were flanked by two elevator shafts and opened on to the central staircase, the grand, sweeping column of marble and carved wood that Valentin thought of as the spine of the house.

  He was greeted in the atrium by another deluge of spray-painted insults, and the twisted, broken remains of the Alexander Calder mobile that had hung from the ceiling since Valentin had liberated it from an SS Colonel fleeing for South America in 1945. The mobile’s beautiful, delicate wings had been pulled down and torn apart, the broken shards strewn across the floor. Valentin stared at them, and realised he could not go downstairs; he knew what he would find, and the prospect of floating through the ruins of his life filled him with a despair so profound it was almost physical.

  Then something drifted through the silent atrium, carried up from below on the faintest current of air, and his eyes flooded a dreadful crimson-black. It would have been undetectable to anyone without Valentin’s supernatural senses, but to him it was as strong and clear as the beam of a lighthouse.

  It was the scent of a vampire.

  Still here, he thought, and felt his body physically tremble with anticipation. Whoever did this. They’re still here.

  The heat in Valentin’s eyes built to an almost unbearable temperature. He floated in the air, letting the scent of the intruder fill his nostrils, tasting heat and blood and sweat. Then he swept silently forward, his jacket billowing out behind him, and descended the staircase like a bird of prey. He ignored the graffiti and destruction in the atria as he soared through them; his mind was burning solely with the prospect of vengeance. Within seconds, he was standing before the grand double doors that led into the ground-floor ballroom, the cavernous space where he had first encountered an agent of what would become known as Blacklight, where the chain of events that had led him to this moment had been set in slow, languorous motion.

  Valentin took a deep breath, then threw open the doors. They hit the walls of the atrium with a noise like coffin lids slamming shut, the impact reverberating through the thick stone of the old building. He stepped into the ballroom and took a quick glance around the room; the grand chandelier, beneath which thousands of men and women had twirled and spun, lay shattered across the black and white marble floor. Tiles had been torn up and hurled throughout the room, sticking out of the walls and ceiling like splinters in skin. The long bar that ran the length of the far wall had been tipped over and smashed, its bottles and glasses now little more than a carpet of twinkling wreckage spreading out across the broken tiles. Then he saw the two figures standing at the edge of the floor, and the damage to the room was forgotten.

  The vampires were embracing, frozen in the middle of what looked to Valentin’s experienced eye like an amateurish waltz. The woman was wearing a long ballgown dripping with jewellery that he immediately recognised; it had been taken from the collection in his dressing room on the fifth floor. The man was wearing a tuxedo that had been crafted for Valentin by Coco Chanel in her apartment on Rue Cambon, as Europe breathed a sigh of relief at the end of the Great War. They stared at him with wide eyes, with the guilty half-smiles of people who have been caught doing something they are not supposed to.

  “At last,” said the man, finding his voice first. “The traitor returns. I’m surprised you have the nerve to show your—”

  The last words the man ever spoke died in his throat as Valentin crossed the ballroom in a blur of navy blue and trailing red. The vampires, who had been happily desecrating his home for almost a month, didn’t have time to blink before he was upon them.

  Valentin closed a pale hand round the man’s neck, crushed his windpipe as though it was tissue paper, and threw him across the cavernous room. The vampire crashed into the panelled wall, sending an explosion of blood and splintered wood into the air, then slid to the floor, clutching weakly at his neck as his face turned rapidly purple. The woman’s eyes began to redden as her mouth yawned open, but before she could form a single syllable, Valentin shoved his hands through skin and muscle and took hold of her shoulder bones, his fingernails scraping across them like metal down a blackboard.

  Blood gushed out across the backs of his hands, soaking the cuffs of his shirt, as the woman threw back her head and screamed in agony. Valentin lifted her into the air, blood raining down on to his face and neck, and spread his arms wide. The woman came apart with a sound like a roll of paper being torn in half, huge and wet. She fell to the ground in two pieces, her eyes wide with shock as her insides spilled out across the black and white tiles.

  Valentin wiped blood from his own eyes and saw the woman’s heart lying in the centre of the steaming mess. He stamped it flat, and what was left of the vampire burst with a series of pitiful bangs and thuds. Valentin had already turned away, and was bearing down on the other stricken male vampire like the angel of death, a bloodstained vision from the depths of some terrible nightmare.

  The vampire raised a trembling hand in a futile plea for mercy. Valentin kicked it aside with such force that he heard the bones in the man’s arm snap like cocktail sticks, then lowered himself over the vampire, his knees resting either side of the man’s chest. Air whistled out of the vampire’s ruined throat; he was incapable of forming words, but his eyes were wide and pleading.

  Valentin didn’t say a word; he began to punch the vampire in the face, over and over again, his arm rising and falling like a piston. Blood flew in the silent air of the ballroom, as the ancient vampire gave himself over entirely to the terrible, brutal beauty of revenge.

  Sometime later his mind cleared.

  What lay on the ground beneath Valentin was now little more than a bubbling mass of red and pink. His arm screamed with pain, and he found he could no longer raise it above his shoulder. He got slowly to his feet and stamped a foot through the vampire’s chest, crushing the heart that was still flickering with life. There was a thump as what was left of the vampire’s body burst, spraying the already soaked Valentin with yet more blood, but he barely noticed. The euphoria of vengeance was gone, and all that remained was the inevitable emptiness, the inescapable truth that one act cannot cancel out another.

  He flew across the ballroom without a backward glance, then up the sweeping curves of the staircase and along the corridor until he was again standing in the middle of his study. He strode over to room’s north wall, slid his fingers across a wooden panel that appeared identical to all the others until he found the tiny depression the invading vampires had missed, and pressed it firmly.

  A motor whirred into life, and a large section of the wall slid out and to the side, revealing a vault with a round metal door that looked like it belonged on a submarine. Valentin placed a hand into a plastic slot and felt a needle break the skin of his index finger. A drop of blood fell into the chamber of a small centrifuge which spun into life, analysing the DNA contained in the crimson liquid. There was a long pause, then a black panel above the slot turned green and the door rumbled open. Valentin stepped through it and into the vault, a metal cube with an uncrackable safe at the rear and metal shelving on either side.

  Two of the shelves were full of gold bars, gleaming under strip lights set into the ceiling. Below them were three shelves full of money: dollars, euros, pounds, yen and yuan, all wrapped tightly in clear plastic. On the opposite wall, clear plastic boxes contained bonds and share certificates, many of them more than a hundred years old.

  Under the boxes lay three wooden racks full of wine bottles, and it was these that Valentin first turned his attention to. He reached out a blood-soaked hand, carefu
lly lifted a bottle from the middle of the highest rack, and examined the label. The word Petrus was printed in ornate red lettering beneath a severe illustration of a bearded man and 1947 in simple black print. He had been saving the bottle, arguably the finest of the entire twentieth century, for an occasion that was special even by his own rarefied standards; he was now beginning to think that such an occasion might never arise.

  Working incredibly carefully, Valentin applied an opener to the bottle’s cork, until it gave way with a loud pop and an escape of air that was overpoweringly, almost impossibly fragrant as it entered his nostrils. He raised the bottle to his lips, took a delicate sip, and sighed deeply as a smile of glorious contentment appeared on his face. He took a second, longer drink, then put the bottle down and forced himself to focus.

  Valentin lifted an elegant overnight bag from the bottom shelf, filled it with two stacks of each currency and two of the gold bars, and zipped it shut. He hoisted the bag on to his shoulder, picked up the bottle of Petrus, and took a long look around the vault; he knew there was every chance he would never see it again. Then he floated through the door, pushed it shut behind him, and flew out of his study, heading for the roof he had landed on less than fifteen minutes earlier.

  The ancient vampire looked out across the dark expanse of Central Park, swigging liberally from the priceless bottle of wine. His head was starting to feel agreeably fuzzy, and the lights of Manhattan that shimmered to the south were starting to ever so slightly blur.

  You could just go, said a voice at the back of his head. It was the voice that had encouraged him to live exactly as he pleased for more than a century, to think of nobody but himself. Fly south. Brazil, or Cuba. Let Blacklight deal with this.

  Valentin had stood in the grounds of the Loop barely three hours earlier, promising Paul Turner that he would find Valeri and Dracula, find them and deliver their location back to Blacklight, and he had meant it; he had leapt into the cold air of eastern England, burning with an alien desire to help prevent his former master plunging the world into darkness. But now, standing on the roof of his devastated home with the evening breeze fluttering against his skin, he found himself torn.

  If the end was truly nigh, if the rise of Dracula was genuinely unavoidable, then the sensible thing to do would be to disappear into the dark corners of the world he knew so well and enjoy whatever time still remained. But something nagged at him, something that manifested as a stubborn reluctance to do so. Part of it was the invasion of his home, a cruel, petty violation that he had no doubt had been personally ordered by his brother. And another part was something that surprised him even as he realised it: a curious unwillingness to betray Paul Turner. The Blacklight Security Officer was hard, and had made absolutely no secret of his dislike and distrust of Valentin. But he was also honest, courageous, and utterly committed to both his mission and his men, qualities that the former General Rusmanov had once prized extremely highly, in the time when he had still been a man.

  Valentin drained the bottle of Petrus and flipped it casually towards Central Park; it spiralled end over end, light reflecting off its dark green surface, until it disappeared into the gloom. Then he lifted the overnight bag, swung it over his shoulder, and stepped off the roof.

  Colonel Victor Frankenstein closed his eyes, hoping the billowing rush of gas would clear his mind.

  The unnaturally long span of his life had contained many occasions that prompted him to consider the limits of the oath he had sworn to John Carpenter as the snow fell on Manhattan in the first hours of 1929. It appeared to be simplicity itself: protect the Carpenter family. But he had come to understand that there were two meanings to the promise he had made: protecting the Carpenters from the external dangers that seemed endlessly drawn to the family, and protecting them from themselves.

  As far as the first interpretation was concerned, he had done his duty, and done it well. John had lived to be an old man, in no small part thanks to Frankenstein’s interventions and watchful eye; even the recent revelation, that John had simultaneously struck a clandestine deal with Valentin Rusmanov in which Operator and vampire agreed not to pursue each other, did little to undermine the monster’s sense of achievement.

  He had similarly saved Julian Carpenter’s life more times than he could remember; had stopped nails and fangs meant for his neck, had stood at his side as bullets and blades flew, and accompanied him safely back to the Loop night after long, dark night. And when the time came, he had done the same for Julian’s son; he had gone to Lindisfarne, his ears ringing with rebuke, had stood with Jamie as he faced down Alexandru Rusmanov, and watched with great pride as the boy’s quick thinking and bravery had ultimately won the day.

  But the second interpretation? Protecting the Carpenters from themselves? On that count, he was not so sure.

  Frankenstein had warned Julian in the aftermath of HUMMINGBIRD, the Priority Level 1 operation to Budapest that had seen Jamie’s father destroy Ilyana, the wife of Alexandru Rusmanov, that repercussions for his actions were inevitable. But Julian, whom he had loved like a brother, and who possessed enormous capacities for kindness and loyalty, had also carried within himself an infuriating streak of arrogance. When Alexandru’s revenge finally came, made possible by the traitor Thomas Morris, it had taken Julian by surprise. And although Frankenstein was one of only two people who really knew what happened the night that Julian died, he would always believe that he had failed to protect his friend from himself.

  Now, barely more than two years later, he was already beginning to wonder if he wasn’t failing Julian’s son the same way. Jamie was similar to his father in so many ways: brave, headstrong, rebellious, loyal, utterly maddening, with a profound distaste for being told what to do, even when the advice was genuinely meant. He had seen for himself exactly how dangerous vampires were, yet was now in some kind of unnatural relationship with one of them, over the objections of both Frankenstein and his mother. He had also led an almost suicidally risky operation into the Parisian underworld to rescue the monster himself, which, although Frankenstein would always be grateful, had been remarkably ill-advised.

  Finally, and worst of all, had been the bizarre relationship that Jamie had struck up with Valentin Rusmanov during the vampire’s captivity in the Loop. Despite, or possibly because of, Frankenstein’s explicit instruction that he not talk to Valentin under any circumstances, Jamie had become a regular visitor to the ancient vampire’s cell. Frankenstein had gone down to the cell block and warned Valentin not to speak to Jamie again, making it clear that he, unlike some inside the Loop, would never trust a single poisonous word that emerged from the vampire’s mouth.

  Valentin’s response had cut him to the bone; he had suggested that Frankenstein concern himself with why Jamie was going to a vampire for guidance, rather than to the monster who had sworn to protect him.

  Frankenstein had wondered. And wondered.

  And now he was on his way to talk to the one other person who might know.

  The gas dissipated and the airlock’s inner door swung open to reveal the long central corridor of Level H, the Loop’s detention block. As he neared the last cell on the left, his footsteps echoing loudly in the still, silent space, he paused; he was momentarily overcome by an absurd urge to brush down his uniform and straighten his hair. He pushed it away, smiling to himself, and walked out in front of the cell.

  Marie Carpenter looked up from a worn sofa and gasped; her eyes flared a deep, glowing red, and her face, which was every bit as beautiful as Julian had repeatedly described it, time and time again, curdled into a mask of revulsion. It was gone almost instantly, replaced by a warm, polite expression that he imagined would once have greeted visitors to the Carpenter family home, but it had been there; they both knew it.

  For Frankenstein, it was nothing new; his appearance had been causing shock and dismay for well over a century and a half. But it still hurt.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Marie, getting to her feet and appro
aching the ultraviolet barrier that formed the front wall of her cell. Her face was colouring pink with embarrassment. “That was awful of me. I just … I wasn’t expecting it to be you. Please forgive me.”

  Frankenstein forced a smile. “It’s all right, Mrs Carpenter,” he said. “At least you didn’t scream.” It was a small joke, but it managed to crack the ice, if not break it entirely.

  “Call me Marie,” said Jamie’s mother, smiling back at him. “And do come in, please.”

  Frankenstein nodded and stepped through the purple barrier, feeling his skin tingle as he did so. He extended a hand, which Marie shook without hesitation.

  “Victor Frankenstein,” he said, more formally than he meant to.

  “Marie Carpenter,” replied Jamie’s mother. “I saw you on Lindisfarne, but it’s lovely to properly meet you. Although Jamie has told me so much about you that I feel like I know you already.”

  “Likewise,” said Frankenstein. “He speaks about you with such love. His father did the same.”

  Marie winced, then quickly rallied. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “I suspect you knew Julian far better than I ever really did.”

  Frankenstein shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “The man who came home to you every night was the man he was. He only lied about what he did for a living.”

  “Quite a big lie, though, wouldn’t you say?” said Marie, forcing a sad, narrow smile.

  “Yes,” said Frankenstein. “I would. I know he hated having to do it, if that’s any consolation.”

  “It is,” said Marie. “Not a lot, but it is. Henry Seward told me the same thing.”