by Will Hill
“Got it,” said Van Orel.
Jamie lifted the visor again and approached the villagers, trying to summon a friendly expression on to his face.
“Hello,” he said. “Do any of you speak English?”
There was no response from the villagers; they merely stared at him, their breath clouding in the cold air, their weapons hanging at their sides. Then a man stepped forward, and regarded the two Operators with eyes that were little more than dark slits.
Jamie swallowed hard. The villager towered over him by at least half a metre; his muscle-clad torso was covered by a woollen coat that was stretched tight across his chest and biceps, above tree-trunk legs wearing blue jeans and a pair of heavy black boots. The dark eyes peered down at Jamie from either side of a flat, squashed nose that sat above a thick black beard covering the man’s cheeks, chin and neck.
“I speak English,” said the man, his voice a low rumble.
Jamie nodded. “Great,” he said, his mouth dry. “My name is Jamie. I’m a Lieutenant in the British Army. I’d like to ask you some—”
“You are lying,” growled the man. “You are not army.”
Jamie frowned. “Excuse me?”
“You are vampire police,” said the man. “You think that we are all backward out here, away from your cities, but we know what you are. You are the Blacklight.”
“Christ,” whispered Van Orel, whose visor and microphone were still in place. “So much for below the radar.”
“How do you know that word?” asked Jamie.
“I read it, vampire policeman,” said the villager. “Are you surprised that I can read?”
Jamie could feel his annoyance at the man’s attitude threatening to boil into anger. He had said nothing to cause any offence, and the aggression seemed unwarranted.
“No,” he said. “I’m not surprised you can read. What is your name?”
“Florin,” said the man.
“And what’s this village called?”
“You could not pronounce it,” said Florin. Behind him, one of the other villagers laughed.
“Easy,” said Van Orel, his voice low and urgent in Jamie’s ear. “Take it easy, man.”
“You’re probably right,” said Jamie, forcing a small smile. “I probably couldn’t. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Florin shrugged.
“Thank you,” said Jamie. “We’re looking for someone who lives in the forest, someone who has lived there for a long time. Do you know who I’m talking about?”
Florin’s eyes narrowed even further. “Nobody lives in the forest.”
“Are you sure?” asked Jamie. “We have other information.”
“I am sure, policeman,” said Florin. “The forest is a place of death. A cursed place. What is in there does not live.”
“So there is something?”
“You saw the wolf,” said Florin. “It was not there yesterday.”
“So it was put there for us?”
“I am not saying anything,” said Florin. “You leave now.”
“One more question,” said Jamie.
Florin shook his head. “No more.”
“Come on,” said Van Orel.
Jamie knew he should follow his squad mate’s advice, but was reluctant to do so; it galled him to slink away when he was told to, like a schoolboy sent out of the classroom by a teacher. But he also had no desire to aggravate the situation until it turned physical; there would be little to be gained from violence, on either side.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll go. Thank you for your time.”
Florin said nothing. Behind him, the rest of the villagers began to disperse, but the huge man didn’t move; his eyes stayed fixed on Jamie’s own. Jamie met the dark gaze for a long moment, then turned back towards the wall. Van Orel was already on the other side, waiting for him. Jamie was about to climb over the pale stone and join his squad mate when the villager’s voice rumbled again, and he turned back.
“Do not go into the forest,” said Florin. “If you value your lives, and your minds, you will not go in. It is old, and full of darkness. We stay at the edges, and we do not enter it unless we must. If you go in with your uniforms and your weapons, then I fear that all that awaits you will be sorrow. So leave, while you still can.”
“You know what’s in there, don’t you?” said Jamie, his voice low. “Is it a vampire? A very old vampire?”
“It is death,” said Florin. “Cold, and patient, and empty. We will not speak again.” And with that, the huge villager turned and strode away without a backward glance.
Jamie watched until the man’s towering shape disappeared into the gloom, then turned to face Van Orel. The South African had flipped up his visor and had an incredulous expression on his face.
“Mate,” he said. “Where the hell are we? I mean, seriously.”
Jamie smiled. “Not a clue,” he said. “Let’s head back. Maybe Larissa will find something.”
“So you and Larissa,” said Van Orel, as the two Operators fell back into step beside each other. “That’s a thing, right?”
Jamie nodded. “It’s a thing.”
“That’s cool,” said Van Orel. “She seems awesome.”
“She is.”
Van Orel smiled. “She’s sort of terrifying too. Or is that just me?”
“Trust me,” Jamie said, and grinned widely. “It’s not just you.”
Floating in the darkness above the thick canopy of trees, Larissa tried to hold back the desperation that was threatening to crash through her like a tidal wave.
She loved hearing Jamie say she was awesome, and didn’t mind him agreeing with Van Orel that she was terrifying; her vampire side, lurking as always in the back of her mind, took it as a great compliment. And she knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, to use her supernatural abilities to listen to people who didn’t know they were being listened to, but as far as she was concerned, the current situation justified it.
She had floated above the camp for several minutes, listening to Tim talk about her to Jamie with a familiarity that made her blood run cold. She didn’t know whether her boyfriend already suspected that something was going on, that there was a history he wasn’t aware of, but it would only be a matter of time if Tim continued to be so deliberately suggestive. At some point, Jamie, whose temper could be dangerously short on occasions, would demand to know exactly what Tim was implying, and even though Larissa knew she had technically done nothing wrong – she had pushed Tim away when he kissed her in Mexico, had warned him not to try it again in Las Vegas – it was going to be hard convincing Jamie of that when she had carefully cut Tim out of every story she had told about her time in Nevada. He trusted her, she was sure of that, but she would not be able to blame him if he was unable to believe her.
If Tim kept talking, that was. If she couldn’t find a way to shut him up.
When the American Special Operator had walked into the Ops Room of the Schwartzhaus, Larissa had almost laughed out loud at the bitter irony of the situation. She had – selfishly, she knew – turned down the mission to search for Adam precisely because she had wanted to avoid ever seeing Tim Albertsson again.
Now he was not only on the same operation as her and the boyfriend she had kept his existence a secret from, but was in charge of it.
Worse, she thought, as she floated in the cool air above the forest. So much worse. So unfair.
But even as the thought entered her head, she knew it was nothing more than self-pity. Tim Albertsson being chosen to lead DARKWOODS was unquestionably unlucky, but the situation she was now trying to find a way out of was entirely of her own making. If she had been honest with Jamie when she got back from Nevada, if she had told him about Tim and his feelings for her and explained straight away that nothing had happened, then things would be very different; they would be able to present a united front to Tim, both of them aware of his apparent determination to cause trouble, and ready to repel his comments and smiles and glances.
; She wouldn’t be feeling panic squirm in her stomach, panic that was bordering on despair.
She wouldn’t be trying to work out, for the umpteenth time, exactly why she had decided not to tell Jamie about Tim.
She wouldn’t be wracking her brains for ways to keep two members of a squad of six away from each other.
She wouldn’t be worrying about herself instead of focusing on one of the most important missions in the history of Blacklight, the very thing she had chastised Jamie for after they landed in Germany.
Larissa took a deep breath and sank rapidly to the ground, arriving at the small area that would serve as their camp at exactly the same moment as Jamie and Van Orel. She had no intention of allowing Jamie and Tim to talk to each other without her there again, if she could possibly help it. The Special Operator looked up at the sudden return of half of his squad, and smiled.
“Larissa,” he said. “Report.”
“Nothing to tell,” she replied. “I can’t see anything through the trees. There are no breaks, no clearings, and the whole forest is thick with jasmine and nightshade, so I can’t smell anything either. If he is in there, we’re going to have to search for him on the ground.”
“I thought as much,” said Albertsson. “But good work anyway. How was the village, you two?”
“Friendly,” said Van Orel.
“Really?”
“No,” said Jamie. “Not in the slightest. One of the villagers spoke English, and he told us not to go into the forest. As far as they’re concerned, the only thing in there is death.”
“Nice,” said Engel. “I can’t wait.”
“What about the wolf?” asked Petrov.
“Apparently it wasn’t there yesterday,” said Jamie.
“So it was put there for us,” said Albertsson. “Whoever is in there knew we were coming.”
“It looks that way, sir,” said Jamie.
Larissa looked round at her squad mates. The night air was bitterly cold and the atmosphere in the camp reflected it; during the briefing and their journey to this dark corner of Romania, the squad had been loud and lively, full of the usual bragging and mutual sizing up that occurred whenever Operators who didn’t know each other were thrown together. Now there was a palpable air of unease. Their location was every bit as remote as the briefing had described, and Larissa, who alone had seen the sprawling forest from above, seriously doubted whether it was going to be possible to call for help if something went wrong once they were inside it.
“All right,” said Albertsson. “We all knew how this was going to go. So we’re going to take it like any other operation, slowly and carefully, watching each other’s backs every step of the way. Each of you is the best there is, which is why I asked for you. I have complete faith in you all. So get some rest now, and when the sun comes up we do our jobs. Arkady, Jamie, get the shelter up. Greta, Kristian, build us a fire. Larissa, come sit with me. I want a detailed report of what you saw from above.”
Larissa’s stomach churned. “I told you what I saw, sir,” she said. “I think it’s a better use of my time if I help get the camp up and running.”
Tim Albertsson smiled. “By all means, Lieutenant. Do what you think is best.”
Larissa stared at the Special Operator, fighting back both the heat in her eyes and the desire to wipe Tim’s smile off his face with her fist. She nodded, almost imperceptibly, and turned away to find Jamie watching her steadily, his eyes narrowed.
This is impossible, she thought, as she floated over to her boyfriend and started unpacking the squad’s gear. This is absolutely impossible. What the hell am I going to do?
Matt Browning pressed his hands against the flat of the leather seat as the SUV turned the corner at Potrero Avenue and Twenty-First Street and hoped none of his fellow passengers noticed the deep breaths he was taking.
It didn’t matter how many times in the last eight hours he had been reminded that his role was merely that of an observer; he was still wearing a Glock 17 in a shoulder holster beneath his hoodie in an unfamiliar city alongside men and women he didn’t know, looking for a man nobody was certain had ever actually existed.
To Matt, whose life was rooted in the measurable and explainable, it was more than slightly unnerving.
The three NS9 Operators sitting in the back of the SUV with him were also in plain clothes. The sun was sinking steadily towards the horizon, beyond the wharfs and beaches and the great red span of the Golden Gate Bridge, but was still stubbornly bright, which meant there was no cover of darkness to hide the all-black uniforms the Operators were used to. It forced them to go as civilians, and Matt found it disconcerting – it was rare for him to see sunlight, let alone take part in a daytime operation.
Far less disconcerting had been his discovery that one of the Operators he would be accompanying to San Francisco was Danny Lawrence, whom Larissa had spoken about with great fondness. She had often said that he looked like a farmer, and Matt had been amused to see that she was exactly right; Danny was tall and broad, with a loud voice and an equally loud personality that had immediately put Matt at his ease. Danny had greeted him with a wide smile and immediately asked him how Larissa was; it had warmed Matt’s heart to see the obvious affection in the American’s face as he did so.
“She’s well,” he replied.
“Glad to hear it,” said Danny. “Tell her we miss her.”
Matt had promised he would, then followed Danny on to a helicopter that rumbled to a halt outside the wide hangar doors. They had been in the air for ninety seconds when Major Simmons demanded their attention.
The squad leader was a tall, broad man in his forties, whose demeanour could not have been more different to Danny’s; his forehead was creased into a permanent frown and a thick black moustache bristled above a mouth which appeared to deal only in expletive-splattered growls. He was apparently notorious within NS9 for being a hard, borderline vicious taskmaster, but he was also held in enormous esteem; the Operational success rating of squads under his command was second to none, and his record was full of incidents of exceptional, almost foolhardy bravery.
“Listen up,” he said. “This is GARDEN OF EDEN. You know where we’re going and you know why. What you may not know is that Intelligence has actually pulled its thumb out of its ass and come up with something useful for a change. Andrews?”
Simmons turned to the Operator sitting beside him, a woman in her twenties named Abby Andrews. She regarded the Major with a look of obvious distaste, then faced the rest of the squad and cleared her throat.
“The intelligence that Major Simmons is referring to,” she said, “suggests that our Operational target, the allegedly cured vampire known as Adam, was born in Bakersfield, California, in either 1940 or 1941. There were one thousand, two hundred and thirty-four boys born in Bakersfield County in those two years, including twenty-seven named Adam. Working on the assumption that Adam is not the target’s real name, we assessed the list in its entirety and found registered death certificates for seven hundred and twenty-one of the men on the list, leaving a potential pool of five hundred and thirteen. This was cross-referenced against marriage records, as the intelligence provided to my division claimed that the target married a woman named Emily, born at a similar time somewhere in the Midwest. This search returned two possible results, one of which was flagged as promising. John Allen Bell, born February 3rd 1940 in Bakersfield, California, married Emily Sarah Anderson, born September 9th 1941 in Wichita, Kansas, in Portland, Oregon on April 23rd 1965.
“We checked property records and found a series of leases in San Francisco throughout the 1970s and 80s, along with a record from the mid-nineteenth century that showed the purchase of a tract of land near Caliente, California, by an Alfred Bell, John Bell’s great-grandfather. This land matches the coordinates of the cabin where our source claims to have met with the target, and where three NS9 Operators were killed last month. Finally, we found an agreement dated 21st March 1963 for the purchase of 3338 Twen
ty-First Street in San Francisco, California, in the name of Emily Bell. The property remains in her name, and is now the primary geographical target of this operation.”
For a long moment, there was silence. It was Helen Landsman, the fifth member of the squad, who eventually broke it.
“So if Adam was ever actually real,” she said, slowly, “and you’ve managed to find him, you’ve got the right Emily, and for some reason he’s gone back to a house she bought some fifty years ago, then this op should be plain sailing.”
“I’ve told you what I know,” said Andrews. “I can hold your hand when we get there, if you like?”
Landsman smiled. “That won’t be necessary. But thanks.”
“Any time,” said Andrews.
“All right, enough,” said Major Simmons. “We’ve got a location and a target, and that’ll do for now. Now shut up, all of you. I don’t want to hear another word until we’re on the ground.”
“Fifteen blocks,” said Major Simmons. “Get your shit together.”
Danny looked round at Matt and rolled his eyes. Matt did his best not to laugh; he did not think Simmons would appreciate it in the slightest.
“So Larissa and Jamie,” said Danny, his voice low. “It’s a real thing, right?”
“Really?” whispered Matt. “You want to talk about this now?”
“Why not?” said Danny. “Fifteen blocks might take an hour in this city.”
“Yes,” Matt said. “It’s a real thing. Despite what Tim Albertsson might have thought.”
Danny frowned. “You know about all that? What did Larissa say?”
“Nothing,” said Matt. “She’s never mentioned him. Kara told me, when I got here this morning.”
“Jesus,” said Danny, and smiled. “That must have been quite a welcome.”
“It was. Not really what I was expecting.”
“Tim was such a dick about her,” said Danny. “We tried to get him to see sense, did Kara tell you that?”
“She did,” replied Matt. “It didn’t sound like he wanted to hear it.”
Danny shook his head. “He really didn’t. And so he freaked her out and we all got screwed because of it.”