by Will Hill
Jamie and Matt stood in one of the lifts as it descended towards Level G, where the dining hall was located. An Operator had joined them on Level C, taken a long look at Matt in his T-shirt and jeans, opened his mouth, then clearly decided that he just didn’t want to know and closed it again.
The two boys were trying hard not to laugh, the natural response of teenagers everywhere who are placed in a situation where they know they are supposed to behave. The lift doors opened on Level G, and the Operator strode off down the corridor without a backward glance. Jamie and Matt waited for a few seconds, and then followed him.
Matt walked alongside Jamie, stealing glances at the black uniform his – friend? Can I call him my friend? We’ve only met twice – was wearing, at the array of weapons and gadgets that hung from the belt around Jamie’s waist. Jamie noticed Matt looking, but said nothing. He remembered how utterly bewildering his arrival at the Loop had been, even though the circumstances had been somewhat different, and he knew how many questions must be jostling for position inside the teenager’s brain. Eventually, the first of them wrestled its way to the front.
“So how does it work?” Matt blurted out. “What you do. Are you like the police, just out there looking for vampires?”
Jamie laughed, saw a look of embarrassment bloom on Matt’s face and moved quickly to reassure him. “Not really,” he said. “You have to understand what vampires are like. They don’t advertise themselves, or at least the vast majority of them don’t. They live in towns and villages, in houses and flats, just like everyone else. You can’t just go out there and look for them.”
“Oh,” said Matt. “Sorry. That was stupid of me.”
“Not at all,” said Jamie. “Think about it this way: how many vampires have you seen in your life?”
“One,” replied Matt. “The girl in our garden.”
“Larissa,” Jamie reminded him. “Right. Which makes you one of the tiny percentage of people who know they exist at all. But there are thousands of them out there, in every country in the world, in every town and city. You don’t see them because most of them don’t want to be seen, and they’re very good at hiding. And because in most cases, if you do see one, it’s the last thing you ever do.”
A chill raced up Matt’s spine.
“We have sixty-five Operational Squads here at Blacklight,” said Jamie. “Three Operators per squad. About half of them are on active duty at any one time, the rest are either on rotation here in the Loop, or overseas, or on leave. The system you used to get back here is called Echelon, a monitoring system that scans all electronic communication for certain key words – phone calls, emails, internet posts, everything. When something happens like the 999 call you made, the system flags it, and one of the active squads is immediately sent out in response. So in that way we’re not unlike the police; we respond to emergencies that appear to involve the supernatural.”
Jamie checked to see whether he was losing Matt’s attention, but saw only excitement and curiosity in the teenager’s eyes.
“Also, here in the base, we have an Intelligence Division,” he continued. “They investigate patterns of vampire activity, maintain surveillance on Priority Level vampires, and work to infiltrate the vampire community. Like the SIS investigating a terrorist cell, understand?”
Matt nodded.
“Right. From their work come the strategic operations, missions designed to actively disrupt the vampire world: destroying safe houses, interrupting the black-market supply of blood, that kind of thing. There are less of them than the emergency ops, but they’re almost more important, in the long run. They’re how we take the fight to them, rather than just responding to what they do.”
“Got it,” said Matt. “So you’re like the police and MI5 rolled into one. For vampires.”
“Pretty much,” laughed Jamie, and was heartened to see Matt smile, shyly. “That’s pretty much it exactly.”
“It’s crazy,” said Matt. “Doesn’t it feel crazy?”
“The weird thing is, it doesn’t,” said Jamie, honestly. “It feels completely normal to me now. I just get up every day and go to work.”
The two teenagers reached the door to the dining hall. The large, bustling room always reminded Jamie of the first time he had eaten there, during a break in the training he had begun the day after his mother had been abducted. He had been battered and bruised, bleeding and more tired than he would have ever thought it was possible to be, but Terry, the instructor, had told him something that had given him the resolve to keep going.
What your dad did, I don’t blame you for. I’ll judge you on your actions, not his.
With those words, Terry had been the first member of Blacklight apart from Frankenstein, who had reasons of his own to be loyal to Jamie, to show any faith in him.
At the time – before Lindisfarne, before the revelations Thomas Morris had unleashed before he died – Julian Carpenter had been believed to be the greatest traitor in Blacklight’s long, blood-soaked history. His father’s actions had hung round Jamie’s neck like a millstone, tainting almost everyone in the Loop’s opinion of him. But not Terry’s; the instructor had made it clear that he didn’t give a damn what Jamie’s father had done or, as was eventually revealed, hadn’t done. It was something Jamie had never let Terry forget, much to the gruff, battle-hardened instructor’s embarrassment.
Operators milled around the dining hall, chatting casually to one another, or to the doctors, scientists, engineers and administrators who kept the Loop functioning. Jamie led Matt to the back of the queue, where they each took a plastic tray and shuffled their way along the counter. Matt’s eyes widened as he approached the seemingly endless trays of food, and he realised it had been a long time since he had last eaten. His stomach growled, loudly, and the female Operator in front of him cast him a look of surprise.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Sounds like you need to eat something quick,” said Jamie, grinning. “It’s not going to help our case with Admiral Seward if he hears you fainted in the dining hall.”
“I suppose not,” said Matt, an embarrassed smile on his face. Then he turned towards the long metal counters and began piling his plate high with food from what seemed to be every tray within reach. Jamie watched, helping himself to a large plate of pasta, then carried it over to an empty table near the corner of the room. Matt followed behind him, already picking at his plate with his fingers, and they sat down to eat.
“So,” said Matt, around a huge mouthful of mashed potatoes. “How did you end up here? I mean, I remember what you told me that night in the infirmary, about descendants of the founders, but it didn’t make a lot of sense, to be totally honest with you.”
Jamie considered the sheer enormity of Matt’s question; the chain of events that had brought him into Department 19 had begun more than a hundred years ago, when his great-grandfather had been employed as the valet to Abraham Van Helsing. Even the more immediate reasons, which involved his father and a vampire he had killed in Budapest almost a decade earlier, were still tortuously complicated.
“That story’s going to have to wait a bit,” Jamie replied. “Let’s save it for when we’ve got more time, OK?”
A lot more time.
Matt nodded, then attacked his plate anew. Over Matt’s shoulder Jamie saw Larissa and Kate enter the dining hall, and waved them over. A look passed between them that Jamie didn’t like in the slightest, but when they had filled their trays, they picked them up and headed in his direction.
At least they’re still acknowledging my existence, thought Jamie. That’s something, I suppose.
He finished his food, pushed the plate aside and watched the two girls pick their way through the tables and chairs. They stopped behind Matt, who was still demolishing his plate, completely oblivious to their presence, and looked down at the teenager in the civilian clothes with curiosity on their faces.
“Who’s your friend?” asked Larissa.
Matt spluttered,
almost choked on a mouthful of food, swallowed, then turned round to see who had spoken. He saw Larissa smiling down at him, and all colour drained from his face. Larissa watched it happen, frowned and then her eyes widened with terrible recognition.
“What—” she began, but then Matt was moving, leaping up out of his seat, sending it crashing to the floor with a clatter that drew the attention of everyone in the room, and running to Jamie’s side, putting the table between himself and Larissa.
“Oh Christ,” breathed Jamie.
He leapt to his feet, and grabbed Matt’s shoulders. The boy was physically shaking, his body trembling in Jamie’s grasp, his eyes wide with terror.
“Matt!” he shouted, not caring that the rest of the Operators in the dining room had now fallen silent as they watched him and his friends. “Matt, it’s OK! Calm down, OK?”
“What the hell is going on?” demanded Kate. “Who’s he?”
“That’s him,” said Larissa, distantly. “The boy from the garden. The one I hurt.”
“What?” snapped Kate. “I thought they sent him home weeks ago? What’s he doing here?”
“He risked his life to come back here because he wants to help us,” said Jamie, rounding on her. “I’d call that pretty admirable, wouldn’t you?”
Kate looked at him for a moment, then dropped her eyes. Jamie turned back to Matt. The boy was still staring at Larissa, his eyes wide; Jamie stepped in front of him, and shook his shoulders hard.
“Matt!” said Jamie. “Larissa is on our side, OK? She defected from the vampires, and they almost killed her because she did. She’s one of the good guys, OK? Matt?”
Slowly, Matt’s eyes began to focus, and his shoulders, which had felt like iron bars when Jamie grabbed them, began to relax. Then Matt blinked, and looked at Jamie.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded as though he was on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, Jamie. It was just a shock. I’m sorry, OK?”
“Stop apologising,” said Jamie, and grinned at Matt. “You’re fine, everyone’s fine. But you’ve got to try and relax, because I want you to meet my friends. All right?”
Matt nodded. Jamie stepped aside and the four teenagers faced each other across the table. Around them, the other Operators returned to their food, satisfied that there was going to be no more excitement.
“Matt, this is Kate,” said Jamie. “Kate lived on Lindisfarne when… well, it’s another long story.”
Kate smiled. “It’s a pretty good one, though,” she said, then laughed as Matt extended his hand towards her, in a peculiarly formal manner. “It’s nice to meet you, Matt,” she said, taking the offered hand and shaking it gently.
“You too,” said Matt, and a shy smile crept across his face.
“And you’ve already met Larissa,” said Jamie. It was a risky joke, but he knew that if this was going to work, he had to defuse the tension between his new friend and his girlfriend, and do it quickly.
Larissa smiled guiltily, then frowned, as though she wasn’t sure how to respond. But mercifully, Matt broke into a broad grin, and extended his hand towards her, which she gratefully took.
“It’s nice to see you again,” said Matt, and Jamie laughed. Larissa still looked slightly unsteady, but she smiled.
“You too,” she said. “I guess there’s probably a conversation we need to have at some point, but for what it’s worth, I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I really didn’t mean to do it.”
“It’s OK,” replied Matt, his hand fluttering instinctively to the scar that ran across his throat. “No harm done.”
There was a chilly moment of silence before Jamie, who had no intention of letting his good work be undone, pulled his chair loudly across the floor and flopped down into it. The noise and the movement broke the spell, and the other three followed suit. There was another, warmer, silence, until Kate asked Matt how come he was back here, in the Loop, and Larissa asked Jamie how his day had been, and then all four of them were talking, as though they were old friends, the stress and heartache of the previous day seemingly put aside, at least momentarily.
This is right, thought Jamie. The four of us, like this. I don’t know why, it just feels right.
Then a powerful sense of guilt washed through him, as he realised something he should have realised far, far earlier; that it wasn’t Larissa or Kate that had changed the dynamic between the three of them.
It was him. He had done it.
Well, no more, he thought. I’m putting an end to all of it. Today.
27
THE ILLUMINATED CITY, PART II
PARIS, FRANCE 23RD AUGUST 1923
The private dining room of Lord Dante, the vampire king of Paris, was the colour of blood.
The walls were thickly lined with crimson velvet, the floor covered in a dark red carpet of such thickness that a visitor’s shoes would sink up to the laces. The domed ceiling was painted red and decorated with patterns in similar hues, whirls and spirals that hurt the eyes. The grand circular dining table that dominated the square room was covered in a scarlet cloth; the armchairs that surrounded it were upholstered in crimson leather. The only elements of the room that did not follow this gruesome colour scheme were Lord Dante himself, and the small number of companions he had chosen to share his evening with.
Dante was dressed, as always, in evening wear. The black of his tuxedo was so deep that it appeared to absorb light, creating the illusion of a vacuum, of an absence that the eye could not discern. The starched white shirt was flawless, as was the black bow tie that perched beneath its winged collars. The vampire king’s cape, an affectation that he proclaimed allowed him to feel closer to days long gone, to the youth he had spent in centuries now consigned to the history books, was the shiny black of oil on the outside, the thick, dark red of arterial blood on the inside.
The vampire king looked no older than twenty-five, but had been turned by Valeri Rusmanov himself more than three hundred years earlier, as he so delighted in telling the endless gaggles of vampires who flocked adoringly to his table. It made him, to his understanding, the fourth oldest vampire in the world, the oldest who was not a Rusmanov, and significantly older and more powerful than any other vampire in Paris, or indeed the whole of France. His belief in his superiority over younger vampires was unshakeable, and he would not tolerate any suggestion to the contrary.
Less than two weeks earlier Frankenstein had watched, his eyes wide, his mind twisted by opium, as Dante tortured a vampire for the crime of merely suggesting that perhaps there should be more to a vampire than merely the time elapsed since they had been turned.
The vampire king’s response had been to push his hand into the treasonous vampire’s head, through his lying mouth, so deeply that his fingers could be seen moving beneath the man’s scalp. He had demanded that the vampire take back his comment, even though he was fully aware that such a retraction was impossible while his fingers danced inside the stricken man. Eventually, tiring of the sport, he had torn the head from the shoulders, cast it aside with the same disdain that a child discards a toy they have become bored with, and pierced the insubordinate man’s heart with a silver fork. The explosion of blood soaked Dante and his guests, but the vampire king appeared not to notice, and his fellow diners pretended to do the same, for fear of similar treatment if they objected.
Lord Dante looked up as Frankenstein and Latour entered the room, and smiled widely in their direction.
“Gentlemen!” he cried. “You honour me with your presence! Join me at my table, do!”
The vampire king was sitting at the rear of the room, his armchair facing the door. There was no head to the round table, but Dante’s position made it somehow feel as though he was sitting at it anyway. Three of the seven remaining seats were occupied, although the chairs directly to Dante’s left and right had been left respectfully empty.
A middle-aged woman in a painfully narrow corset, her face powdered bright white, her lon
g limbs slender and delicate, sat opposite the vampire king. To her left sat a nervous-looking vampire in a drab suit. The regularity with which he glanced at the woman, and the henpecked expression on his face, marked him out immediately as her husband.
Sitting alone on the other side of the table, equidistant between Dante and the white-faced woman, was a vampire of indeterminate age, his long hair hiding his face as he slumped in his seat, wrapped in a thick black overcoat. In the corner of the room lay the body of a young girl, her clothes soaked with the blood that had spilled from the wide tear in her throat. She was slumped over, as though drunk, or asleep, but she was neither.
Latour bowed theatrically towards Lord Dante, his eyes closed, a beatific look on his face. Frankenstein dipped his head briefly, his eyes never leaving those of the vampire king. They took the two seats either side of Dante, provoking a look of profound jealousy from the woman at the opposite end of the table.
“Do not be envious,” said Dante, noticing. “All seats at my table are of equal worth. The distance between us, dear Agathe, does not correspond to the depth of my feelings for you.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” whispered Agathe, the woman with the white face, but her eyes burned red, and she stared at Frankenstein and Latour with open loathing.
“Jacques!” cried Dante, throwing his arms in the air. A door, set subtly into the wall of the dining room, opened immediately, and a vampire waiter appeared beside the vampire king’s chair.
“Yes, Your Majesty?” asked the servant, and Dante favoured him with a broad smile.
“A libation, Jacques, for my guests,” he said.
The waiter bowed, then disappeared through the door. A moment later he returned, holding an ornate crystal bottle, full of a dark red liquid.
“Less than an hour out of the vein,” said Dante, nodding in the direction of the slumped, lifeless girl. “As sweet a drop as you will ever have tasted.”