by Will Hill
In five days’ time, it would be Christmas.
Even inside the Loop, surrounded by men and women utterly committed to the secret mission they had undertaken, it was impossible to avoid the festive season. The Operators who had families, who lived off-base as Jamie’s father had once done, filled the officers’ mess with tales of trees and decorations, of presents that had been bought or still needed buying, while the younger men and women who lived in quarters at the Loop juggled days off and swapped shifts in the hope of seeing their loved ones at some point over the holiday. For Jamie and Larissa, it was nothing more than a continual reminder of the differences between them and everyone else, even Kate.
The two teenagers were unique, in that Blacklight’s Intelligence Division had taken them off the grid; they no longer existed in the outside world, on paper or in the eyes of the law. Although she didn’t know it, had Larissa’s mother walked into any governmental office and attempted to prove that she had ever had a daughter, it would have been impossible for her to do so; there were no longer any official records of her child having been born, or having lived, and her copy of Larissa’s birth certificate would have been dismissed as a forgery.
It was the same situation for Jamie; in his case because he was now the son of a creature that did not officially exist, in Larissa’s because she was a creature that did not officially exist. Kate still had a presence in the world; she was officially listed as missing after the Lindisfarne attack, and her father knew that she was still alive, even though he was sworn to secrecy on the subject.
Jamie and Larissa were voluntary prisoners inside Department 19, unable to live anywhere else, because they did not exist anywhere else. Jamie had asked Admiral Seward about it once, asked him what would happen if the time came that he wanted to get married and have a family, have some semblance of a normal life. Seward had told him that it might, might, be possible to reintroduce him into the world under an assumed identity. As far as Jamie was concerned, he had not sounded very confident about it.
Jamie would readily concede, however, that it was far harder for Larissa than for him. All that remained of his family lived in a cell in the base of the Loop, and there had been a small Christmas tree standing in Marie Carpenter’s cell for over a week. Larissa’s family, and in particular her little brother, were still out there, living their lives without her, making preparations for what had always been her favourite time of the year. They had talked about it several times, both of them trying hard not to make the other feel worse, but it had been clear to them both that they were united in a single wish: for Christmas to be over as soon as possible, so their lives could get back to what they had come to consider normal.
They reached the lift and pressed the button marked 0. The message that had appeared on their consoles had been sent to every single Operator, both the active and inactive lists, summoning them all to a briefing in the Ops Room. Admiral Seward had debriefed Jamie less than three hours earlier, after Squad G-17 had returned from a routine call on a housing estate south of Birmingham, and the Director had not mentioned anything about an imminent meeting. Seward had been so phenomenally busy in the weeks since Lindisfarne that Jamie was not surprised, although he was, privately, slightly hurt; he liked to believe that he had the Director’s ear in a way that the vast majority of rookie Operators did not.
Jamie and Larissa emerged on to Level 0 and made their way to the Ops Room. The wide, oval room was already almost full, and they found standing room against the curved wall at the back of the sea of black-clad figures. Jamie caught Kate’s eye as they made their way through the throng, and he nodded at her. She smiled back at them from her seat near the far wall, before returning her attention to the platform at the front of the room, beneath the giant wall screen that was currently lying dormant.
Admiral Seward was standing on the platform, talking in a low voice to Cal Holmwood, the Deputy Director. The expressions on the two men’s faces were sombre, and Jamie felt a pang of nervousness rise into his chest. Everything had been so chaotic since Lindisfarne, as the Department attempted to adjust to the revelations that had been uncovered by the successful rescue of Jamie’s mother: the unmasking of Thomas Morris as the traitor to the Department, the destruction of Alexandru Rusmanov and the tragic loss of Colonel Frankenstein, which Jamie could still barely bring himself to think about.
“Seward looks serious,” said Larissa, as though she could read Jamie’s mind. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” replied Jamie, softly, as Cal Holmwood stepped down from the platform and took a seat in the front row. “Looks like we’re about to find out.”
Admiral Seward stepped up to the lectern that stood in the middle of the platform, and gripped its edges with his hands. He looked out over the massed ranks of Operators, his expression unreadable. Then he cleared his throat, and began to speak.
“Operators of Department 19,” he began. “The time has come to put our cards on the table. Some of what I’m about to say is going to be hard for you to hear, but I believe it’s necessary that you hear it. I know many of you have had questions regarding the events of October 26th, questions that many of you have brought to me in person. I’m sorry that until now I have been unable to provide you with answers. There have been investigations and inquiries under way, and the full picture has only become clear extremely recently. That picture is what I’m here to describe to you today.”
Seward glanced around at his audience, and appeared to find what he was looking for on the faces of his colleagues. He nodded briefly, before carrying on.
“I’m sure the majority of you are familiar with the events that took place on Lindisfarne during the night in question; for those of you who are not, I have declassified report 6723/F, which provides a comprehensive account. What very few of you know is that despite the fact that the mission on Lindisfarne led to the destruction of Alexandru Rusmanov, to the uncovering of the treachery of Thomas Morris and to the loss of Colonel Frankenstein, the crucial event of that night took place more than two thousand miles away, at the SPC base in Polyarny.”
Standing at the back of the room, Jamie bristled.
And we rescued my mother. But I guess that doesn’t deserve a mention.
“On the lower levels of the SPC base,” continued Seward, taking a deep breath, “there is a vault numbered 31. Until the 26th of October it contained the most highly classified artefact held by any of the supernatural Departments of the world. It contained the remains of Vlad Tepes, the man who became known as Count Dracula.”
The room exploded.
Half the seated Operators leapt to their feet en masse, and the air was suddenly filled with hundreds of voices, many of them shouting and yelling. Admiral Seward raised his hands in a placatory gesture, then bellowed for quiet. The noise subsided, leaving behind it an uneasy, almost hostile atmosphere. The standing Operators retook their seats, but did so slowly, the looks on their faces shot through with fear and confusion, and more than a little anger.
“I know this must come as a shock,” said Seward. “The fact of the matter is that the confrontation with Count Dracula in 1892, the confrontation that led directly to the foundation of this Department, did not end with his destruction. This is a matter of open public record, since the account in Stoker’s novel is accurate. Any one of you could have corroborated his account with the documents in the archive, but it appears that none of you felt inclined to do so.
“Dracula was dangerously weak after his journey across Europe, and the knives wielded by Jonathan Harker and Quincey Morris spilled the last of his blood, causing his body to collapse. They, along with John Seward, Arthur Holmwood and Abraham Van Helsing, believed him dead; they were the first men ever to challenge, let alone defeat, a vampire, and they had no reason not to. The realisation that Dracula had been rendered dormant rather than destroyed outright wasn’t made until several years later, when Professor Van Helsing was able to begin his study of the supernatural and discovere
d that a vampire could be brought back to life by introducing a sufficient quantity of blood to the dormant remains.
“When Professor Van Helsing realised the implication of this work, he returned to Transylvania with an envoy of the Russian Tsar, to recover the remains and see them properly secured. The envoy betrayed him, however, and the remains were taken to Moscow. They remained in Russian hands ever since, until the 26th of October, when they were taken from the SPC base by Valeri Rusmanov.”
Seward paused, clearly bracing himself for a second eruption, but none came. A deep shock appeared to have settled over the men and women of Department 19; what they were being told raised a prospect almost too terrifying to contemplate.
“An investigation into the theft by the Intelligence Division has returned some preliminary conclusions. Firstly, it appears that Valeri had been searching for his master’s remains since the early twentieth century, since very shortly after they disappeared into Russia. Secondly, it is clear that he was able to locate and extract them using information provided to him by Thomas Morris, whose treachery appears not to have been limited to assisting Alexandru Rusmanov in settling their mutual grudge against the Carpenter family.”
Jamie felt his face redden as a number of Operators turned slowly in his direction. He stared up at the lectern, refusing to meet their eyes, and silently urged Admiral Seward to carry on.
“The whereabouts of Valeri Rusmanov,” said the Director, “are presently unknown. Surveillance of all Valeri’s known properties and associates has yielded negative results. Interrogation of well-connected vampires has proved equally fruitless. Simply put, we have no idea where he is. In addition, we have—”
“He’s going to try to bring him back, isn’t he?” interrupted an Operator, whose name Jamie didn’t know. “Valeri, I mean. He’s going to try to bring Dracula back.”
“Operator Carlisle,” replied Seward, a grave expression on his face, “I am sorry to say that the Intelligence Division reports an overwhelming probability that he has already done so.”
This time the eruption was punctuated by a series of what seemed to Jamie’s ears to be horribly close to screams. He felt a tight ball of panic close round his heart; he had never seen such a reaction to anything from the men and women of Blacklight, men and women whom he had come to believe could not be shaken by anything, and who were certainly never scared. But the fear in the Ops Room was now palpable, thick and cloying. What the Director was announcing, in his calm, straightforward manner, was something that no one in the room had ever considered, let alone made any preparation for.
It was quite literally the worst thing he could be telling them.
“Enough!” shouted Admiral Seward. “Don’t you think I know how serious this is? I’m telling you because I believe that all of you have the right to know what we are facing. Don’t make me regret that decision!”
There was a gradual shuffling of feet, an embarrassed dropping of eyes and voices, and an extremely uneasy calm settled precariously over the Ops Room. Most of the Operators remained on their feet, and when Seward realised that they had no intention of sitting back down, he carried on.
“Although there is a tiny chance that Valeri has either chosen not to resurrect his master or has failed in attempting to do so, the official position of the Department from this point forward is that Dracula is once more alive on this planet. We have no way of knowing precisely how long this has been the case, but since the resurrection process requires little more than a sufficiently large quantity of fresh blood in which to immerse the remains, we are assuming that it took place within twenty-four hours of the theft of the ashes, some time on or around the 27th of October.”
“Why haven’t we seen him?” asked Operator Carlisle, his voice trembling. “Why hasn’t he come in here and killed us all?”
“He’ll be weak,” Jamie heard himself say, and blinked as the entire room turned to look at him. “After the resurrection. He’ll be weak.”
“That’s correct, Lieutenant Carpenter,” said Seward, and the sea of heads swung back to face the lectern.
“Professor Van Helsing wrote at length about the recovery time of resurrected vampires, in the aftermath of the loss of the remains to the Russians. The Science Division has expanded upon this research in recent days, and has come up with some rough conclusions. There are several factors that affect the recovery time of a vampire, principally the creature’s age before it was rendered dormant, and the period of time since it was reduced to ash. It’s far from an exact science, but we have been able to create a workable timeline, leading towards a point that has been given the code name Zero Hour, the point at which we believe a properly tended Dracula will regain his full strength. That point, Operators, lies one hundred and twenty days from now, on the 19th of April.”
“Christ,” growled Jacob Scott. The grizzled Australian Colonel had not risen from his seat in the second row during any of the outbursts that had taken place around him, and even now his face wore an expression containing significantly more determination than fear. “Four months. If we don’t get him in the next four months, we won’t get him at all. That’s the deal, right?”
Admiral Seward nodded. “That’s our hypothesis, Jacob. Dracula restored to full strength presents a threat that none of our strategic simulations can accurately model. He is the first vampire who ever lived, the oldest and most powerful; we simply cannot predict what will happen if he is allowed to rise. So our strategy from this point onwards is to make sure that doesn’t happen. We have four months to find Valeri and Dracula, and to destroy them both. After that, it may not be possible to do so. As a result, I have three further announcements to make.” A series of dazed-sounding groans emerged from the black-clad ranks, but Seward ignored them.
“Firstly, I will be creating and chairing a task force with the specific remit of devising and deploying the Department’s strategy where Dracula and Valeri are concerned. Those of you who are selected for this group will be notified in due course. Secondly, I’m announcing the formation of a classified sub-department of the Science Division, code-named the Lazarus Project. Access to all information relating to this sub-department will be restricted on a strictly need-to-know basis, but it relates to the third thing I want to make you aware of. Until further notice the Standard Operating Procedure will no longer be to destroy vampires: it will be to contain them wherever possible, return them to the Loop and submit them into the custody of the Lazarus Project.”
There was a half-hearted outburst of objection from the dazed ranks of the Operators, but Seward had reached the end of his patience.
“Shut up!” he bellowed. “Any Operator who feels unable to implement this new procedure, or who feels unable to handle the situation that I have just outlined, should feel absolutely free to place themselves on the inactive roster. The rest of you I will expect to carry out your responsibilities to the same standards as always. If you have questions, come and see me or ask your senior commander. In the meantime, you are all dismissed.”
Seward stepped down from the platform and strode out of the Ops Room, closely followed by Cal Holmwood and Paul Turner. The reeling Operators began to talk among themselves, their voices low, their eyes wide. Larissa looked at Jamie, and gave her head a tiny shake.
“Holy shit,” she said, quietly.
“That’s a bit of an understatement,” replied Jamie.
4
GROWING PAINS
CHTEAU DAUNCY AQUITAINE, SOUTH-WESTERN FRANCE
On a chaise longue the colour of blood, in Valeri Rusmanov’s study overlooking the vast Landes Forest, lay the first vampire ever to walk the earth.
Three months after his resurrection, Count Dracula was finally beginning to look like himself; like the man he had briefly been, like the vampire who had lived for more than four hundred years before he had been condemned to a limbo that had lasted for more than a century. A mane of black hair spilled across the vampire’s shoulders, swept back from a forehead
that was high and wide. Thick, unruly black eyebrows perched above pale blue eyes which flanked a nose that was sharp and narrow, like the blade of a scalpel. A black moustache covered the entirety of his upper lip, framing a mouth that was thin and cruel. The Count was dressed in a plain black robe, and he stared at the door of the study, waiting for Valeri to return with his supper.
He was weak. Maddeningly, pitifully weak.
Each intake of fresh blood, which Valeri dutifully brought him every evening, saw a tiny fraction of his power return, but he was still little more than a shadow of his former self. For several weeks after his resurrection, he had been unable to move, his body soft and malleable, as though made of wet clay, waiting to be fired. In time it had hardened into solid flesh and dense bone, but the terrible power he had once wielded, power that could lay waste to cities and obliterate men and women with little more than a glance, was still only a memory.
In time, I will be all that I was. In time. And then this world will pay.
But for the time being, the Lord of Darkness, the Impaler, the Cruel Prince, who had been feared from sea to sea by his own people and his enemies alike, was as weak as a sickly child.
Dracula lifted his head, grunting at the effort it took, and stared out of the window of his most loyal subject’s study, past the manicured grounds of the chateau to the dark expanse of the pine forest beyond. His mind throbbed with two ancient, primitive desires: for food, and for revenge on the men who had stolen a century of his life from him, the men who had reduced him to this pathetic state.
After the resurrection, as the ancient vampire began the slow, painful process of recovery, Valeri had started to carefully recount what had happened while Dracula had been lying dormant. The story of the twentieth century, in which humankind had advanced far beyond the imagination of even the most optimistic Victorian futurist, was long, confusing and, as far as Dracula was concerned, almost fatally tedious. It was not in his nature, the nature of either the man he had been or the monster he had become, to spend his time considering the achievements of others; his world view was fundamentally extremely simple.