Department 19: Zero Hour

by Will Hill

  He stepped into his quarters and locked the door behind him. He unzipped his uniform down to his waist and shrugged it clear of his arms and torso; there was a moment of glorious relief before the itching returned, relentless and utterly maddening. The strange nature of his birth had denied him a childhood, and his recycled anatomy had left him largely immune to disease; as a result, he had never experienced chickenpox, or measles, and had no frame of reference for the incessant discomfort that accompanied the final hours before each full moon. It would eventually reach the point where he became desperate for the change to come; for all its bone-cracking agony, it was over in less than two minutes, and then he was something else for a little while, something that felt no pain, that ran and hunted and killed.

  He had told Cal Holmwood the truth when last they spoke; he had absolutely no control over what happened to him when the full moon rose, and could no more stop the change than he could prevent night following day.

  But his condition was evolving. He had initially returned to his human form with a black hole in his mind, with little more than the memory of pain. Now that was no longer the case.

  The first time he had managed to retain any awareness of himself in his animal state had been in the theatre of La Fraternité de la Nuit, where the combination of his lycanthropy and the reckless bravery of Jamie Carpenter and his friends had saved his life. Through yellow eyes that saw in monochrome and the dizzying, overpowering colours and shapes of his altered nasal spectrum, he had been able to not only recognise Jamie, but also resist the urge to tear out his throat and drink his blood with gusto.

  Now his sense of self during the change was pronounced; he didn’t have full control, as his animal urges and instincts were often so powerful that they simply could not be ignored, but he was able to remain himself to a far greater extent than previously.

  Frankenstein filled his small kettle, and considered Cal Holmwood’s instructions as it began to boil.

  Spend some time talking to the people you love. Remind yourself what we’re fighting for.

  The number of people to whom the monster would apply that description was extremely small. He had loved, on many occasions, throughout the centuries of his life, but those objects of his affection were almost all gone, lost in the mists of time. Now the list would consist of Jamie Carpenter, whom he would definitely see before either or both of them departed for France, Henry Seward, whom he had assumed he would never see again, and the man he was about to try to contact.

  The kettle screeched to the boil, billowing steam. Frankenstein made himself a mug of coffee, then opened his locker and looked at the radio handset he had resisted the urge to turn on two days earlier. He lifted it out, held it in his hand for a long time, then pressed its power button. Its screen lit up and a low hum confirmed that it was tuned, sending a flutter of nervous tension dancing up his spine.

  You heard what Cal said, he told himself. This might be the last chance you ever get.

  He took a deep breath and held it, trying to shut out the fire burning beneath his skin, trying to slow his racing heart.

  “Julian,” he said, eventually. “Come in, Julian. Over.”

  Silence.

  Frankenstein released his breath in a low rush. He had sent two heavily encrypted emails to Julian within the last year, despite the obvious risk to them both. The first had informed him of the rescue of his son and disappearance of his wife, the second had detailed Jamie’s triumph over Alexandru Rusmanov and the sad fate that had befallen Marie. He had no idea where Julian had been when he sent them, or even whether he was still alive, but he had been unable to live with the thought of not letting his oldest friend know what had happened to his family.

  He had not spoken to Julian, however, since the day after his friend had died.

  “Come in,” he repeated. “Come in, over.”

  A burst of static sent a spike of pain through his head. In the last hours before the change, his senses became extremely sensitive, and the noise was piercingly unpleasant to his rapidly sharpening ears. Then a voice from the past emerged from the tiny plastic speaker, and Frankenstein felt a lump rise instantly into his throat.

  “Frank? Are you there?”

  “Yes,” he managed. “I’m here, Julian.”

  “Christ, mate, you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice,” said Julian, his own trembling with emotion. “Absolutely no idea.”

  “You too,” said Frankenstein. “I knew you’d be on this frequency. It’s like old times.”

  Julian grunted with laughter. “I tuned on to it yesterday afternoon,” he said. “It was pretty much the first thing I did after they left me here. I checked in a few times, but I wasn’t holding out much hope, to be honest.”

  “Cal came to see me,” said Frankenstein. “I promised him I would tell him if you tried to contact me, and I meant it when I said it. But after this morning, I’m not sure that promise means very much.”

  “What happened this morning?” asked Julian.

  This was the first of two questions Frankenstein had anticipated, the one that he knew how he was going to answer. For all his iconoclasm, he genuinely believed in Blacklight and what it stood for, and he didn’t disobey orders or break rules lightly, regardless of how he knew it must have often seemed. But he also saw little point in hiding from Julian the reality of what was happening, given that there was nothing his old friend could do about it. He wondered, in fact, whether it would be crueller to tell Julian, given his position of impotence. Or was it simply always better to know the truth?

  “How much do you know?” he asked.

  “Bob Allen told me most of it,” said Julian. “Or at least I think he did. He told me about Dracula, and about Zero Hour. Cal wouldn’t tell me anything, but it was clear that he was scared half to death. Is there something even worse going on that I don’t know about?”

  Frankenstein smiled. “No,” he said. “That’s broadly it.”

  “So what happened this morning?” repeated Julian.

  “We’ve known Dracula was back for several months,” said Frankenstein. “We’ve known Valeri Rusmanov has been protecting him while he recovers, and that they’ve been holding Henry Seward captive. We just haven’t known where. Now we do.”

  “How?” asked Julian.

  “Valentin Rusmanov, of all people,” said Frankenstein. “He defected when Dracula was revived, and it was him who found them. He returned last night and gave us the location.”

  “Valentin defected?” asked Julian, his voice full of incredulity. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m serious,” said Frankenstein. “I didn’t believe it for a long time, and I still don’t trust him in the slightest, but his information appears to be genuine. The satellites show the location is crawling with vamps.”

  “A trap?”

  “Possibly,” said Frankenstein. “But this is Dracula. If there’s even a chance of stopping him, we have to take it, regardless of the risk.”

  “So that’s what happened this morning,” said Julian. “Cal gave the order was given to go and get him, right?”

  “Right,” said Frankenstein.

  “Who’s going?” asked Julian.

  Frankenstein laughed. “Everyone,” he said. “All of Blacklight, NS9, the SPC, the FTB, the South Africans. Everyone we can get together in time.”

  “Christ,” said Julian. “I wish I could come with you, Frank. I wish that more than anything.”

  “I wish you could too,” said Frankenstein.

  “Is Jamie going?” asked Julian. “Don’t lie.”

  “Of course he is,” said Frankenstein. “He’s an Operator, Julian.”

  There was a long silence, in which the monster waited for his friend to ask the question he didn’t know how he was going to answer; the one that was absolutely inevitable, and had the potential to cause the most harm.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Is he all right?” asked Julian, his voice suddenly hoarse
. “My son. Is he OK? This is going to sound crazy, but I saw a vision of him, Frank. When I was in California. I saw something bad. And last night I had a nightmare about him.”

  Frankenstein made his decision. It was suddenly clear; no good could come from telling Julian what had happened to his son in Romania. Moreover, he simply didn’t want to have to be the one to tell him; he had barely begun to process the news himself.

  And in my defence, he thought, there’s no predicting what Julian would do if he found out, except that it would be extremely unlikely to be considered, or rational. In which case, not telling him could be justified as protecting Jamie.

  “He’s fine, Julian,” he said. “He’s doing well.”

  There was a long pause.

  “He was a vampire, Frank,” said Julian, eventually. “In the vision, and in the nightmare. I saw Jamie as a vampire.”

  A chill barrelled through Frankenstein’s body. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “Did you ever hear the rumours about a vampire who was cured?” asked Julian. “The one people called Adam?”

  “I heard them,” said Frankenstein.

  “Well, I found him,” said Julian. “I spent almost a year searching for him, after you told me what had happened to Marie, and I found him. He was living in this cabin in the middle of the California desert. We talked, but he drugged me and I had a vision. I saw Jamie, with red eyes and fangs. He looked at me and told me I was too late. It’s why I handed myself in to NS9, Frank. I had to know whether what I’d seen was the truth. And honestly, every minute I spent in a cell was worth it to know he was all right. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yes,” said Frankenstein, trying not to let his relief appear in his voice. “I understand.”

  “Then last night I had a nightmare. The worst I’ve ever had. I woke up screaming, if you can believe that. I was in our old house, and I could hear Marie singing to Jamie when he was little. And then he was on the ceiling, covered in blood, and his eyes were red.”

  “It was a dream, Julian,” said Frankenstein.

  “He told me I was too late,” said Julian. “In the dream. He told me again.”

  “Coincidence,” said Frankenstein, hoping he sounded surer than he felt. “Your brain digging for the worst thing it could find.”

  “Maybe,” said Julian. He didn’t sound remotely convinced. “You’ll look after him for me, won’t you? When you go after Dracula. You’ll remember what you swore?”

  “Of course I will,” said Frankenstein, his voice catching. “I have never forgotten.”

  “It makes it easier, you know?” said Julian. “Knowing that you’re looking out for him. I know how much you care about him.”

  “I do,” said Frankenstein. “And I’ll do my best to protect him, like I always have.”

  “I know you will,” said Julian. “That’s why you have to promise me something. One last favour, for old times’ sake.”

  Frankenstein drained his coffee and frowned in his empty quarters. “What is it?”

  “If you don’t stop Dracula,” said Julian. “If Zero Hour comes, and the two of you survive, I want you to promise that you’ll bring Jamie to see me.”

  “Julian …”

  “I know, Frank, just don’t say anything now, OK? Just think about it. Please? We both know what happens if Zero Hour isn’t stopped, so what harm could it do? Think about what it really means to protect him, to do what’s best for him.”

  “I am thinking about that,” said Frankenstein, his voice sharper than he intended. “I always do.”

  “Promise me,” said Julian.

  “No,” said Frankenstein. “I will not promise. If we fail to stop Zero Hour, I’ll consider it. But I’m not giving you any guarantees, Julian. And I suggest you ask yourself whether you genuinely have his best interests at heart, or your own.”

  “Fine,” said Julian, his voice suddenly as cold and heavy as a glacier. “I’ll do that.”

  “All right,” said Frankenstein. He felt guilty for refusing to promise Julian what he had asked for, and angry with his old friend for putting him in a position where he had to. “I have to go, Julian. It was good to hear your voice.”

  “Yours too,” said Julian, his voice now low and empty. “Good luck out there. Take care of my boy. Out.”

  Frankenstein turned off the radio. He was overcome with a sudden desire to smash it to pieces against the wall, and found himself gripping it so tightly that the plastic began to creak. When the urge to destroy had passed, he put the radio back into the locker where it had lain dormant for so many months, and got up to make himself more coffee with trembling hands.

  Jamie Carpenter nodded to the Operator behind the desk in the security station and walked quickly down the cellblock on Level H.

  He knew from experience that his mother would already be able to hear his footsteps, and would most likely already have identified the smell of him; it was the aspect of vampirism, one that Larissa shared, that had always made him feel most uneasy. Knowing he was coming before they should have been able to felt weirdly like being able to see into the future.

  Now, with his head pounding as he struggled to adjust to the sensory overload that came with being a vampire, he was mostly full of admiration at their ability to handle it without going completely crazy. It was as though a two-dimensional world had suddenly been opened up around him; he could hear the breathing of the Operator he had just passed, even though he could no longer see her, could read the printed letters on the notice at the end of the cellblock, even though it was still more than a hundred metres away, and could smell the mingled scents emanating from his mother’s cell with a clarity that was disarming.

  There was the warm, bitter smell of old tea, the luxurious, pungent aroma of flowers, and the complicated, ethereal aroma of her living, breathing self. Much of it was a mystery to his newly transformed sense of smell, individual scents that seemed redolent of fear and trepidation, of determination and compassion. But shining out of the core of her, filling his nose and head and heart, was a pure, bright pillar of a single unmistakable emotion.

  Love.

  For him.

  It bloomed out of the cell in a cloud so thick it ought to have been visible; it brought tears to Jamie’s eyes as he approached the cell, and a hot ball of shame into his chest.

  I always took it for granted that she loved me, he thought. I knew, but I never really knew. I never really saw, until now.

  Jamie’s heart suddenly blazed with fiery pride at the memory of rescuing his mother from the clutches of Alexandru Rusmanov. But in the same instant, a familiar voice in the back of his head, the one which had been so loud and insistent during the terrible days when she was missing, began to whisper its usual poisonous refrain.

  You don’t deserve her love. You never have. You’re a bad son.

  Jamie pushed the thought away, as far back and as deep as he could. There was truth in what it said, he knew there was, but he could not afford to dwell on it, not now. The orders for the Château Dauncy operation had beeped on to the screen of his console two minutes earlier, barely ten minutes after he had filed out of the Ops Room. He had read them and walked straight to the lift, even though he was desperate to know which of his friends would be going to France, and to find Frankenstein and explain what had happened to him in Romania.

  He wanted his mother to be the first to know what he was about to be part of.

  He owed her that much, and more.

  Jamie took a deep breath, forced a smile, and stepped out in front of the cell. His mother was standing in the middle of the square room, staring at him with eyes that were wide and damp with tears, her hands over her mouth.

  His first thought was, She knows.

  His second was, Of course she knows, you idiot. Did you think she wouldn’t be able to tell you’d changed?

  “Oh no,” said Marie, her voice tiny. “Oh, Jamie. What happened?”

  “It’s all right, Mum,
” he said, his voice wavering wildly, then ran his ID card down the sensor on the barrier. The UV wall disappeared and he stepped into the cell. “I’m all right.”

  “Was it her?” asked Marie. “Did Larissa do this to you?”

  Jamie’s eyes widened with surprise. “No,” he said. “God, no. Of course not. She wouldn’t—”

  “Tell me the truth, Jamie,” said Marie, her eyes narrowing and flickering red.

  “I am, Mum,” he said. “This is the last thing she ever wanted, honestly it is. She’s heartbroken.”

  He felt tears rise into the corners of his eyes and blinked them away, furiously. But his mother saw them, and the red glow died instantly in her own; she swept forward, her feet above the ground, and wrapped him in a hug so tight he could barely breathe.

  “What a mess,” she whispered. “What an awful mess this is. What are we going to do?”

  Jamie gently prised her arms from around him, and smiled with as much conviction as he could muster. “It’ll be OK,” he said. “For us, and for everyone else like us. Matt found something in America that’s going to make it all OK.”

  “A cure?” asked Marie, her eyes lighting up with hope.

  Jamie shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “But he’s hopeful that it will be soon. Then this will all just be a bad memory, Mum.”

  Marie nodded. He could see in her eyes that she was trying her hardest to believe him.

  “Have you thought this through, Jamie?” she asked. “Have you really thought about what it means?”

  “I haven’t really had a chance to think about anything,” he said. “It only happened last night. But I’ve been dating a vampire for six months, Mum. I know all about it.”

  “No,” said Marie, and shook her head. “You don’t. And if Larissa was here she’d tell you the same thing. You can’t know unless it happens to you.”

  “It has happened to me,” he said, softly.

  “You’ll never see the sun again,” she said, her voice quiet and full of sorrow. “Never again. Never feel it on your skin. Never watch a sunrise, or a sunset.”