by Will Hill
“Alastair Dempsey,” shouted Morton. “Come forward with your hands up.”
Dempsey was still more than thirty feet away, but Jamie saw his eyes instantly flood a deep, glowing red as a dreadful smile burst across his face.
“You—” began Ellison, but the insult she had been about to level at Morton was lost forever, as everything turned to chaos.
* * *
Jamie raised his T-Bone, his eyes fixed on Dempsey, determined not to let the vampire out of his sight while simultaneously trying to ignore the fury that had rushed through him as Morton gave away their element of surprise, but saw instantly that he had no shot.
People were running blindly, crashing into and over each other, sending huge showers of sparks into the air as they trampled through the fires. Men and women stumbled to the ground, and Jamie heard the terrified screams of children beneath the roar emerging from the adults. Aggie turned and looked at him with terrible reproach, but he forced himself to ignore her; he was trying to focus on Dempsey, trying to keep their target in front of him, but realized with rising horror that he could no longer see the vampire.
“Sir?”
“What is it, Ellison?” he snapped, scanning the writhing mass before him.
“He’s got me, sir.”
Jamie felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. Slowly, he turned to face Ellison, who was standing as still as a statue. Looming over her right shoulder was the face of a middle-aged man, his mouth wide and grinning, his eyes smoldering red.
“Don’t move,” he growled. “I’ll kill this one if you move.”
Jamie let his T-Bone fall from his hands, drew his Glock, and leveled it at the vampire. There was a blur of movement as Dempsey pulled Ellison’s head back and pressed his fingernails against her throat. He shook his head in gentle warning. Jamie didn’t move, but nor did he lower his gun; he kept it trained directly on the visible portion of Dempsey’s face.
“Stay calm,” he said, over the comms link. “You’re okay, stay calm.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Ellison, her words silent to everyone apart from her squad mates. “What’s the plan?”
“Give me a second,” he replied. “Morton, where the hell are you?”
There was no reply.
Cursing inwardly, he risked a glance to his right. Morton was facing the vampire, his weapon resting uselessly in his hands. Men and women were streaming around him, but he appeared not to even notice—he seemed to be frozen to the spot.
“Morton!” Jamie bellowed. His words burst directly into Morton’s ears, and the rookie yelled in pain, shoving his visor up as he stumbled backward, his eyes squeezed tightly together. When they opened again, they were clear, and he turned toward his squad leader, his face flushing the deep red of shame.
“Go and cover the door,” said Jamie, trying to control the anger that was filling him. “Don’t say a word without your visor down. Just do it. Now.”
Morton nodded and circled toward the wall, his eyes wide, his T-Bone locked against his shoulder.
Alastair Dempsey frowned. He was breathing heavily, his eyes flicking right and left, the eyes of a cornered animal.
Jamie looked quickly around the wide space and saw there were perhaps forty people still there, watching with open terror on their faces. He twisted the dial on his belt.
“Nobody move!” he shouted. “This has nothing to do with any of you. None of you are in any danger, unless you move now that I’ve told you not to.” He refocused his attention on the vampire. “Alastair Dempsey,” he said, “surrender yourself to our custody. There’s nowhere for you to go.”
An expression of surprise flickered across the escapee’s face, then he grunted with laughter. “Not a chance,” he spat. “I’m not going back there. Not a chance in hell.”
“Just give yourself up,” said Jamie. “There’s no way out of here.”
The vampire shook his head. “Who are you?” he growled. “Special branch?”
“It doesn’t matter who we are,” said Jamie.
“It does to me,” he said, dragging Ellison backward. “Do the doctors want me back this badly? Or are you just here to kill me?”
“We’re here to kill you,” said Morton, from his position in front of the door.
“SHUT THE HELL UP!” shouted Jamie, his voice echoing through the wide tunnel as his frustration with his squad mate finally got the better of him.
“Why?” asked Dempsey, glancing at Morton with an expression of apparently genuine curiosity. “What have I done that I haven’t already paid for?”
“You’re a vampire,” replied Morton.
Dempsey laughed. “And that gives you the right to kill me?”
Morton didn’t respond.
Jamie twisted the dial on his belt again and spoke to Ellison in a voice that only his squad mates could hear. “When I say go, whip your head to the left as hard as you can. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Ellison.
Dempsey took another step backward, dragging Ellison with him, his gaze flicking between the two dark figures. Jamie tracked him with the Glock, silent and unmoving.
“Go,” he said.
Ellison jerked her head to the left with all her strength. Dempsey was taken completely by surprise; his grip on her neck slipped, his fingers sliding across her uniform as she threw herself away from him. As Ellison hit the floor, her shoulder crunching into the ground, Dempsey’s head became fully visible, and Jamie emptied his Glock into it.
The reports were deafening in the confined space of the tunnel. The men and women he had ordered to stay still screamed in terror, clapping their hands to their ears and diving for the ground. Dempsey, who had an instinct for survival that far predated his being turned, flung himself back through the air, twisting as he did so. The first two bullets slammed into his face, tearing off his left ear and destroying his left eye in a shower of yellow fluid. The rest thudded into his shoulder and arm, sending the vampire crashing to the ground as the Glock’s hammer closed on an empty chamber with a dry click.
Jamie ran forward, scooping his T-Bone up from the ground as he did so, but Dempsey leaped to his feet before he could take aim. With a screeching howl of anger and pain, his blood spraying in high-pressure jets from at least a dozen bullet holes, he hurled himself toward the door set into the far wall.
“Incoming!” Jamie yelled, racing after him. “Morton!”
Morton stepped forward, his finger tightening on the trigger of his T-Bone. The blood-soaked monstrosity shambled toward him, screaming and bleeding and howling, its remaining eye glowing red, its mouth wide and full of fangs. He took an involuntary half step backward and pulled the trigger. The metal stake erupted from the weapon’s barrel with a burst of exploding gas and rocketed across the cavernous space.
But the half step had been just enough to disrupt his aim; the stake ploughed through Dempsey’s shoulder, causing a fresh bellow of agony to issue forth from the vampire’s mouth. Morton grabbed for his stake, but was too slow; Dempsey thundered past him, sending him crashing into the wall before the weapon was even free of its belt loop.
Jamie sprinted across the wide tunnel and leaped through the doorway, his T-Bone pointing up the stairs that lay beyond it. He screamed an appalling torrent of abuse after the escaping vampire and stuck his head back through the door.
“I have to call this in,” he yelled. “Follow me up.” He disappeared back through the door, his footsteps clattering away up the stairs.
* * *
Ellison watched him go, then turned and looked for her squad mate.
Morton was sitting on the ground, staring across the echoing tunnel. He was perfectly still, his eyes wide, almost uncomprehending. She hauled herself to her feet, wincing at the pain pulsing through her shoulder, and looked in the direction of his stare.
Her breath stopped in her chest.
/> “Oh shit,” she said.
Lying on the floor, Morton’s T-Bone stake sticking out of her throat, was Jackie, the girl who Aggie had asked about Alastair Dempsey. The orange glow of the fires lit her pale face. Her eyes stared up at the ceiling, and her mouth worked silently. Blood poured out of her neck, spilling across her fur coat, staining it black. Her hands clenched and unclenched weakly at her sides as a crimson pool spread steadily beneath her.
Ellison ran across the chamber, forgetting about Morton entirely. She slid to the ground beside the stricken girl, pushing her helmet from her head, and examined the damage. The wound was deep and wide; the metal stake had been slowed by Dempsey’s shoulder, but had still torn almost all the way through her neck, stopping only when it hit her spine. Ellison stared helplessly, knowing there was no help she could offer. If they had been within a minute’s run of a hospital with a world-class trauma center, then maybe—maybe—something could have been done. But down here, in the tunnels below the city, there was nothing.
Jackie’s eyes met hers. Ellison stared at the dying girl, forcing herself not to look away, not to fail at the only thing she could do: let the girl know that she was not alone. She took Jackie’s hand, held her gaze, and watched her breathe her last. Her chest fluttered once, twice, then was still. A bubble of blood formed on her lower lip. After a second or two, it burst, and Ellison felt tears spill from her eyes.
“Leave her,” said a voice.
Ellison turned and saw a man standing over her. His hands were tightly clasped in front of his chest, as if in prayer, and he was looking down at Jackie’s body with disbelieving horror.
“Leave her,” he repeated, his voice quavering. “Please. I’ll take her.”
Ellison stared up at him, then nodded. She turned back to the dead girl, pulled the metal stake gently out of her throat, then moved aside. The man knelt down, laid his head on Jackie’s chest, and began to weep. She watched him for a long moment, then forced herself to her feet and staggered back toward her squad mate.
Morton hadn’t moved; he was still staring blankly at the horror unfolding before him. Ellison crouched down and took hold of his shoulders.
“Look at me,” she said, as firmly as she was able. “Look at me, John. It was an accident. An accident. It could have happened to any of us. Do you hear me?”
Morton stared at her, uncomprehending. She hooked her hands under his armpits and tried to lift him to his feet, but nothing happened. He was immovable, a dead weight.
“John,” she said. “Get up. Come on, John.”
She was suddenly aware of movement behind her, and looked around. The inhabitants of the tunnel were slowly approaching, looks of abject misery on most of their faces. Aggie was at the front, her eyes narrow.
“Get out of our place,” she spat. “Leave us our dead. Don’t come here again.”
Ellison looked at Aggie, trying to convey without words even a fraction of the sorrow she was feeling. Jackie had not deserved the fate that had befallen her; she had simply been caught up in the tornado of blood and death that seemed to follow Blacklight around. Aggie stared back at her, her expression not moving so much as a millimeter, until Ellison nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s time to go, John. Get the hell up. Right now.”
Morton said nothing. He climbed slowly to his feet and looked at Ellison with a broken expression on his pale face.
* * *
“This is the second time we’ve talked about John Morton, sir,” said Jamie. He was standing in front of Cal Holmwood’s desk, his helmet under his arm. He had messaged the interim director before their van was even out of London, telling him he needed to see him the moment they got back to the Loop. “And this time a civilian girl died. It was an accident, but it happened because he panicked. I’m telling you for the second time, sir, that he can’t handle this. Not yet, anyway.”
Holmwood closed his eyes for a long moment, then regarded Jamie with a weary expression. “Did Surveillance pick Dempsey up when you called it in?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “They’ve still got him.”
“Good,” said Holmwood. “That’s something, at least.”
“It’s something,” agreed Jamie. “What about Morton, sir?”
The interim director sighed. “You still want him placed on the inactive roster?”
“Yes, sir. More than ever.”
Holmwood said nothing for a long moment. He looked barely awake, like a man running on empty. “Okay,” he said, eventually. “Do what you think is best. If that means making him inactive, then you have my authorization.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Jamie, feeling relief wash over him.
“That’s okay. Is there anything else?”
“No, sir. There’s nothing else.”
“Thank God for that,” Holmwood said, and produced the thinnest smile Jamie had ever seen. “Go and get some sleep.”
38
CONNECTING
THE DOTS
Lindisfarne, Northumberland
Pete Randall walked along the edge of the cliffs at the northern edge of the island that he had called home his entire life, lost in a world of his own.
In the distance, rising up against the afternoon sky, stood the stone buildings of the Lindisfarne monastery. The ancient seat of religious learning had withstood two Viking invasions, but had been destroyed in a single night by monsters that Pete Randall was forbidden from ever talking about, that he had been told repeatedly that he had never seen, despite the evidence of his own eyes.
The small number of monks who had survived the night his daughter was lost had left the island in the days that followed. Now the ancient building stood empty; it would probably still be standing long after the last of the houses built above the harbor had fallen into ruin. Pete inched his way to the cliff top and sat down, his legs dangling over the edge. Below him, the North Sea crashed against the cliffs. Spray, cold and salty and sharp, was thrown up in great explosions, dampening the legs of his jeans. He barely noticed.
His mind was lost in the past.
When Kate had been six, he had brought her up here on a cold January night to watch the plumes of fire that rose from the distant oil rigs. The Lesters had recently moved to the island, and Kate had immediately become best friends with their daughter Julie, a friendship that would last until Julie was left lying on Lindisfarne’s dock with her mouth full of blood and her head twisted almost all the way around.
Andy Lester worked the rigs. Every three months or so he flew by helicopter to Aberdeen and made his way down to Lindisfarne to spend two precious weeks with his family before heading back out to sea again. This lifestyle, which Pete knew was a hard, dangerous way to make a living, had seemed almost unthinkably glamorous to Kate, a girl who, at that point, had only left Lindisfarne a handful of times. When he had told her that on a clear day you could see the rigs themselves, that on a clear night you could see great pillars of fire as the waste gas was burned away, she had refused to believe him, demanding to see for herself. He had waited for a clear night, the kind of night where the dark water seemed to go on forever, got permission from his wife, who was unwell again with what would eventually turn out to be the cancer that killed her, wrapped his daughter in warm clothes, and led her across the island.
They had sat roughly where he was sitting now, drinking hot chocolate out of plastic cups he filled from a flask, and watched the horizon. For ten minutes or so, nothing had happened. Then a pillar of orange burst up from the horizon, a flare of crackling fire that seemed impossibly huge, even across the miles of freezing water. Kate had screamed with delight; he had taken a tight grip on the back of her jacket, in case her excitement took her too close to the treacherous, crumbling edge. They had stayed for more than an hour, Pete waiting for the novelty to wear off, before gradually realizing it wasn’t going to
—Kate greeted each flare with the kind of joy that he had only seen from her on Christmas morning.
He had never known why the distant fires had filled her with such pleasure, and now he would never get the chance to ask her. He had come to believe that she saw them as proof of things happening beyond their small island, things that were different and bigger and brighter than those happening around her. There was something in her bones, a wanderlust that he had been proud to see grow and flourish, but which had nonetheless filled his heart with sadness.
He had always known that his daughter would eventually leave, that Lindisfarne would never be big enough for her. He and his wife had reconciled themselves to that awful prospect: Kate would visit, and they would still have each other. But then Annie had died, and he and Kate had been left alone, and he had come to realize that her plans, her desire for a bigger, wider life, had been put on hold, possibly indefinitely. He knew she would not leave him on his own, and that realization had filled him with a sadness far greater than he had felt at the prospect of her doing so.
But now she was gone, and he was alone.
His cell phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket. The screen showed a text message from South, and he felt a small tingle of excitement flutter up his spine. They’d been e-mailing all week, several times a day, and had finally plucked up the courage to exchange numbers.
He thumbed open the message.
LOOK AT THIS ASAP. http://www.kevinmckenna.wordpress.com/blog/news/032154
Pete read the text twice, searching for any hidden meaning, then pocketed the phone and headed for home. He didn’t hurry; he doubted the link would contain anything life-changing.
He had no way of knowing exactly how wrong he was.
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RED EYES AND BLACK UNIFORMS
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