by Will Hill
No one raised their hand, but Larissa felt nine pairs of eyes settle on her. She knew part of it was the mention of Department 19; Blacklight was the original supernatural Department and was still revered by the operators of its global counterparts. But mostly it was the word “vampire”—she knew that she was the first member of her species that these men and women had ever seen and that they were curious to see exactly what she was capable of. She could tell from their expressions that several of them were afraid of her. She took no pleasure in it, although she was glad, for their sakes—being scared of vampires was, as far as she was concerned, the only rational response.
“All right,” said Tim. “Larissa has very kindly offered to help with today’s combat training. I don’t like your chances, I’ll tell you that now, but maybe one or two of you will surprise me. Larissa?”
“Thank you,” she said, stepping forward. “Get your T-Bones.”
The recruits glanced at each other. They were wearing their training uniforms but carrying no weapons.
“This is an unarmed session, Larissa,” said Tim. “Nonlethal.”
“Don’t worry,” she replied, glancing over at him. “Tell them to get their weapons. It’ll be okay.”
Tim shrugged and gave her an I-hope-you-know-what-you’re-doing look. Then he turned back to the recruits, who were staring at each other uncertainly.
“You heard the operator!” he yelled. “Weapons and kit, on the double! Move!”
The recruits scattered away to the far end of the training room and began attaching belts and weapons to their training uniforms. It took a long time, Larissa noted; it was not yet a process that had become second nature. Eventually, they reformed their line, T-Bones resting awkwardly in their gloved hands.
“That’s my first lesson to you,” said Larissa, walking down the line. “Never, ever get into physical proximity with a vampire unless you don’t have a single weapon left. T-Bones, guns, beams, grenades: Use them all before you even think about going hand to hand. Is that understood?” The recruits nodded. “Okay,” she said, smiling encouragingly at them. “Try to shoot me.”
The trainees looked uncertainly at each other. “Who are you talking to?” asked a courageous female recruit at one end of the line.
“All of you,” replied Larissa. Then she flexed a muscle that, of all the people in the room, only she possessed. Her fangs slid down from her gums, and her eyes flooded a deep, glowing crimson. The recruits took a communal half step backward, their eyes widening and shifting as one to Tim. The special operator shrugged, trying not to let his emotions show on his face. He was worried, as this was far from an authorized training session, but part of him knew he didn’t need to be. The recruits nervously raised their T-Bones and pointed them at Larissa.
“Do it,” she growled, and they opened fire.
Nine stakes screamed through the air. Larissa leaped from the ground, quicker than human eyes could clearly follow, and pirouetted backward, spinning through the air as a black blur and two trailing lines of red. As she shot toward the wall, her hands flew out and caught the T-Bone wires. She gave them a sharp yank, and the weapons flew out of the recruits’ hands, sending several of them crashing to the floor. Larissa stopped spinning and floated in the air above their heads, looking down at them with red eyes and an expression of disappointment.
“Guns,” she growled. “UV. Come on, for God’s sake.”
The trainees redoubled their efforts, pulling beam guns and assault rifles and opening up in the enclosed space, the reports of the guns deafeningly loud. Larissa moved again, darting elegantly around the room at far below her top speed, and easily avoided everything. Nothing got close to her: neither a bullet nor the purple beam of a UV gun. She danced through the air until the guns were empty and the batteries of the beam guns were exhausted.
Finally, the trainee who had spoken up raised a UV grenade and pitched it toward her. Larissa twisted in the air, batted it down toward the floor, then rocketed after it. She slid to the ground and brought her foot down on the glass-and-metal ball an instant before it fired. It burst with a fizz and a shower of sparks.
“So,” she grunted. “No more weapons. Who’s first?”
A hulking male recruit shouldered his way forward. On his face was an expression of great contentment; this was clearly a form of combat with which he felt far more comfortable. He cracked his knuckles and moved toward her, light on the balls of his feet, arms loose at his sides. When he was almost in range, he threw a sharp decoy left, then skipped forward and launched a sweeping overhand right. The punch got closer than Larissa had been expecting, but nowhere near close enough. She slid to her left, bending at the waist, then reached up and grabbed the man’s wrist. His expression of contentment faltered, then disappeared entirely as she spun him easily around and clenched her fingers. Larissa felt bones creak beneath her grip. The recruit turned shockingly pale, tipped back his head, and screamed at the ceiling.
She lifted him into the air with one slender arm, his wrist bent halfway up his back, then threw him back to the ground an instant before it broke. He hit the floor hard and stayed down, grunting in pain. The other recruits looked at her with absolute terror. This was exactly what Tim had wanted: for his vampire colleague to throw open the doors and show the recruits exactly what their new world was really like. But Larissa knew deep down that she’d held back considerably—she didn’t want them to get too discouraged.
“Take a knee,” she said. The words sounded weird coming out of her mouth; the phrase was an Americanism she had heard Tim use several times. But it had the desired effect: The trainees slowly hunkered down, even the one had tried to hit her, who rolled to a sitting position, holding his rapidly swelling wrist.
“I’m not normal,” she said, and smiled at them. “I’ve had military training, and I use my powers every day. I’m faster and stronger than almost any vampire you’ll ever encounter. Most of the ones you’ll come across will be quick and savage, but they don’t know how to fight, to use their environment, or repel your weapons. Listen to Tim, listen to your instructors, watch each other’s backs once you’re out there, and you’ll be fine. Okay?”
A collection of very small smiles emerged on the faces of the recruits, and several of them nodded.
“Cool,” said Larissa. “Come and find me in the bar later. The first round’s on me. Dismissed.”
The smiles widened into grins. As the recruits began to chatter animatedly among themselves, she walked over to Tim Albertsson.
“How’d I do?” she asked.
“Terrifyingly well,” replied Tim, smiling at her. “They’re not going to forget that in a hurry, I can promise you that much.”
* * *
“Brits are vicious,” said Aaron, still holding Danny’s shoulders. “Don’t you know that?”
“I know,” Danny said, then grinned at Larissa. “I’ve seen her fangs, man, trust me, I know.”
The table burst out laughing again, and Larissa joined in, happily. She attacked her salad, listening contentedly as Kara lamented the recent collapse of her relationship with a US Navy Air Corps pilot called Bobby that she had begun to tentatively believe might have a chance of turning serious.
“How do you manage it, Larissa?” she asked. “I know you and Jamie are normally in the same place, but still. It must be hard.”
“Sometimes it is,” she replied, putting down her knife and fork. “To be honest with you, there have been times when it felt impossible. When things got really bad a couple of months ago, before the attack on the Loop, when everything was happening with Valentin and Frankenstein, I didn’t think we were going to survive it. I really didn’t. It’s weird, you know, I only met him six months ago, so we don’t have that history behind us that makes you work hard when things get rough. But we got through it. And if there’s ever an end to all this, if that day ever comes, I think we’ll be fine. Because I dou
bt any two people have waded through as much shit in the first few months of being together as we have.”
“I think it’s awesome,” said Kara, with a broad smile. Out of the corner of her eye, Larissa noted the absence of a similar smile on Tim Albertsson’s face. “You know how lucky you are to fall for someone who does what we do? Someone you never have to lie to about your life?”
“I do,” replied Larissa. “I really, really do. I spent the first two years after I was turned lying every single day, just trying to stay alive. I don’t want to go back to that.”
“Don’t you worry about him, though?” asked Tim. “It’s all very well not having to lie to each other, and I see how great that must be, but the flipside is that you know exactly how dangerous it is every time he leaves the Loop. Isn’t that hard?”
“Of course it is,” replied Larissa, turning to face the special operator. “I know that every time he goes out might be the last time I ever see him. But he can handle himself. He’s already survived situations no one would have given him a hope of surviving, and we both knew the risks when we signed up. What it comes down to is this. I know that if he can come back to me, he will.”
Tim nodded, and said no more on the subject.
“Anyway,” said Kara, casting a sideways glance at him. “What’s the deal with Dominique Saint-Jacques? Larissa, you know him, right? I saw his picture in the report on the Paris mission, and I feel like he could be just the thing to help me get over Bobby.”
“I’ve met Dominique,” said Tim, breaking into a smile. “We did a thing in Somalia a couple of years ago. You should probably take a number.”
“What are you saying?” demanded Kara. “He’s out of my league?”
“Did I say that?” asked Tim, his smile widening. “You said that, not me. I just said you should take a number. He’s a very popular young man.”
Larissa let her attention drift as Kara and Tim descended into bickering about a man who was five thousand miles away. On the other side of the table, Kelly, Danny, and Aaron had huddled together and were talking to each other in low voices, but as far as Larissa, with her supernatural hearing, was concerned, there were no such things. She could hear whispering as loudly as most normal humans could hear shouting. And what she had heard was Aaron saying, “If I knew, I’d tell you. But I don’t. No one knows who he is.”
“What’s the gossip?” asked Larissa, abandoning the analysis of Kara’s attractiveness and leaning forward. “No one knows who who is?”
“The man in the cell,” said Aaron, his expression of mild surprise making it clear to Larissa that he thought she should have known that. “The one that no one is allowed to see. You haven’t heard about him?”
“I guess not,” said Larissa. “Who is he?”
“We don’t know,” said Danny. He spoke very slowly, as if to a child, then grinned at her. “That’s sort of the point.”
“Screw you,” said Larissa, smiling back at him. “What’s the story?”
“No one knows much of that either,” replied Kelly. “About a month ago there was a general alarm for a breach of the perimeter that got overridden about ten seconds after it started. Nothing got announced, nobody got called out, and then—”
“And then my department issued a memo,” continued Aaron, “listing the entire cellblock as ‘Do Not Handle’ and making entry without direct authorization from General Allen a punishable offense. The story got around that there’s a man in one of the cells, but nobody knows who he is, or if there’s actually anyone in there at all. It’s a black hole.”
“It’s weird,” said Danny. “Really weird.”
Larissa considered this. “It’s a regular cell though, right?” she asked. “Not a supernatural?”
“Regular,” replied Aaron. “Just a standard concrete box.”
“That is weird,” said Larissa. “What are the theories?”
“I heard it’s Allen’s brother,” said Kelly. “Someone in the mess was saying he got compromised and the general brought him in until things calmed down.”
“Why would he put his own brother in a cell?” asked Aaron. “What would be the harm in letting him live in quarters?”
“Who knows?” said Danny. “Maybe it’s some human informant, someone the director doesn’t want the rest of us to know about.”
“Why wouldn’t he want the rest of us to know?” asked Kelly.
Aaron looked over at Larissa, who nodded her head. “Because even places like this have unfriendly eyes and ears,” Larissa said, softly. “I know. Believe me, I know.”
The four of them sat in silence for a moment, allowing the implication of Larissa’s words to wash over them. The betrayals of Blacklight by two of its own members had caused great disquiet throughout the other supernatural Departments of the world. The idea that there could be traitors within their own ranks, on top of all the dangers they faced in the outside world, was a deeply unsettling one that no operator liked to dwell on for too long.
“Thanks for that, Larissa,” said Danny, pushing his half-eaten burger away. “I just lost my appetite.”
“That’s not the worst thing that could happen,” said Kelly, eyeing her friend’s stomach theatrically. “You’re going to need a bigger uniform any day now.”
“You absolute—”
Whatever colorful insult Danny had been about to throw at Kelly was lost in the bellows of laughter that burst from Larissa and Aaron. Tim and Kara immediately stopped sparring and demanded to be let in on the joke. As Aaron brought them up to speed, Larissa smiled as she looked at her friends. But at the back of her mind, she was still thinking about the anonymous man in the cell, and wondering how she might find out who he was.
FIFTY-ONE DAYS
TILL ZERO HOUR
15
ONE OF OUR OWN
Jamie fell in beside Jack Williams as the Zero Hour Task Force followed Jacob Scott along the Level B corridor.
“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked.
Jack shook his head. “I know as much as you, mate. Jacob’s got something he wants to tell us. I don’t think anyone knows what it is.”
“Is it a Dracula thing?”
“I don’t think so,” said Jack. “I think it’s something else.”
The two operators walked on in silence for a few moments until Jamie spoke again. “How’d you get on today?”
“Okay,” replied Jack. “Got the first two on our list. Tried to press for the third, but he was moving so I called it a night. What about you?”
“Got the first,” replied Jamie.
“Your rookies make out all right?”
“Kind of,” said Jamie. “Ellison’s going to be great, I can already tell. She’s ice-cold. Morton sort of freaked out, to be honest with you. I think coming face to face with an actual vamp scared him more than he was expecting it to. But considering they should still be in training, they did all right. Yours?”
“Better than I expected,” said Jack. “Didn’t panic, didn’t freeze, did what I told them. Did you hear about Angela?”
“I got in and went straight to bed,” replied Jamie. “What’s she done?”
“She told Holmwood she wanted a new squad,” smiled Jack. “Both of hers are in the infirmary, but all she wants to do is get back out there. Cal had to give her a direct order to go to bed.”
Jamie grinned. Nothing about Angela Darcy, the beautiful, terrifying former spy, could ever surprise him. He had seen her at work in Paris, after she volunteered to help him rescue Frankenstein, and had been impressed and intimidated at the same time. The only other person he had ever seen who was so casually, elegantly lethal was Larissa, who had being a vampire as an excuse. That Angela was as friendly and flirtatious as she was dangerous only added to her appeal, and it was a well-known fact that at least a dozen of the Department’s men were in love w
ith her.
“I’m not even surprised,” he replied.
“Me neither,” said Jack. “I’m amazed Cal had the balls to tell her no.”
Jack laughed and Jamie joined in, enjoying the easy friendship that had bloomed since the first time the two men had met. They had fought side by side many times in the six months since Jamie had arrived at the Loop, and Jack had been one of the operators who volunteered for the Paris rescue mission. Jamie had been delighted to have him; he was a fine operator and leader, as well as a good friend.
The group paused at the end of the corridor as they waited for an elevator to arrive, then piled into the metal box and ascended to Level A. Jacob Scott led them along the central corridor and stopped outside the suite of rooms that made up the interim director’s quarters. He rapped on the door, then waited. After a minute or so, it swung open and a bleary-eyed Cal Holmwood peered out at them.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Jacob? What is this?”
“I need to show you something, sir,” replied Colonel Scott. “Can we come in?”
A flicker of obvious annoyance passed across Holmwood’s face. “This needs to happen now, Jacob? It can’t wait till morning?”
“No, sir,” replied Scott. “I’m afraid it can’t.”
The interim director sighed. “Fine. Come in then, the lot of you.” He pulled the door to his quarters open. Jacob Scott stepped inside, and the Zero Hour Task Force followed him. Once the last man was in, Holmwood pushed the door closed and demanded to know what the hell was going on.
“It’ll be easier if I show you, sir,” said Jacob. “Can you call up the security footage of the Broadmoor escape?”
“Why?” asked Holmwood. “It’s still being analyzed. We don’t even have a preliminary report yet.”
“Like I said, sir,” said Colonel Scott, “it’ll be easier if I show you.”
Holmwood looked at the rest of the men standing silently in his quarters. “Paul,” he said, his gaze coming to rest on Major Turner. “Do you know what this is about?”