by Will Hill
The fire in Latour’s eyes darkened for a moment, then died, as the vampire took a step back and regarded the bound monster.
“No,” he said, softly. “It is unlikely that they would.”
Frankenstein saw the look on the vampire’s face, the pain and sadness that were written clearly upon it, and seized upon what he believed might be his last, and only, chance.
“Let me go, old friend,” he said, quietly. “Let me leave this place, this city, and never return. You could come with me.”
Latour’s eyes widened, and Frankenstein knew that he had never considered the possibility that had just been suggested to him. He pushed ahead.
“If you leave me here, Dante is going to kill me,” he said. “For sport. For the entertainment of his friends, of which he counts you among the number. You will have to watch me die, Latour, and know the role you played in it. Can you do that?”
The vampire said nothing; he merely stared at Frankenstein.
“Beyond even that,” he continued, “there is something coming, something that I cannot explain to you. But if it is allowed to happen, then I cannot guarantee your safety. Unless you let me down from here, and we leave this place.”
Latour recoiled, as if he had been slapped. Then he laughed, shortly.
“Your words are pretty, old friend,” he said. “As they always were. But I would not cross Lord Dante for you, or anyone else; I will not make the mistake you made. I confess that handing you over to him was hard, far harder than I had imagined it would be, but I do not regret it. My place here is secure, for all eternity. I will watch you die, my friend, and while I will take no pleasure in it, I will shed no tears either. The man I called my friend is gone; all that remains is a monster, whose end is overdue.”
Frankenstein’s heart sank. He had not believed that he could persuade Latour to free him, not really, but there had been a brief moment when it had appeared that his words were getting through to the vampire. Now that moment had passed, and with it the last of his hope.
“We all have to live with the decisions we make,” he said, his voice cracking. “I hope you can live with yours. Truly I do. Goodbye, Latour.”
Latour smiled. “There is no need for goodbyes,” he said. “I will see you in a matter of hours. See you very clearly, from my seat in the front row.”
His smile widened into a grin of pure malice, and then he was gone, disappearing back into the shadows at the rear of the theatre. Frankenstein watched him go, then let his head slump down to his chest.
Less than a mile away, Jamie Carpenter raised his pistol for the second time, and then found his arm gripped from behind. He spun round, fury written all over his face, and found Jack Williams staring at him with obvious concern.
“He doesn’t know anything, Jamie,” said Jack. “He really doesn’t.”
Jamie wrenched his hand out of his friend’s grasp, and turned back to the figure that was cowering on the ground before him.
“S’il vous plaît,” it whispered, from behind trembling, blood-soaked hands. “S’il vous plaît, monsieur.”
Dominique had navigated Jack round the Périphérique and through the maze of one-way systems and side streets until they had arrived at Rue de Bretagne, where Jamie had ordered his team out of the car. The sun was less than forty minutes below the horizon, but the Marais was, as always, full of people; the bars and restaurants heaved with men and women, music and laughter and snatches of conversation filled the air, as street vendors hustled and the earliest casualties of the night’s excesses staggered.
It was not, Jamie realised immediately, a place where five figures in black uniforms and purple visors would find it easy to be inconspicuous. On the other hand, the photosensitive filters in their visors made identifying vampires easy, and Jamie found himself, as he often did, torn between caution and recklessness.
He had attempted to compromise, at least initially. His team had stuck to the labyrinthine backstreets and alleys of this old part of Paris, their black forms blending effortlessly into the shadows, and peered out at the passing throngs, looking for the telltale bloom of red that would indicate a vampire.
After fifteen minutes, they had got lucky. A middle-aged vampire was walking briskly down the middle of Rue Debellyme, his hands in the pockets of his coat, his lips pursed together as he whistled a gentle ragtime melody. Angela Darcy had been the first to spot him, and had whispered as much to the rest of the team. Jamie had ordered them to follow him, and they had done so, looping through the dark alleyways that Dominique appeared to know like the back of his hand.
The vampire gave no sign of being aware of their presence; he strolled through the Parisian evening as though he was without a care in the world. At the intersection of Rue de Saintonge and Rue de Turenne, Jamie watched as the man made a left, and saw his chance. As the man passed a dark alleyway, the shadows at the entrance appeared to suddenly come to life, and he found himself pinned against the cold brick wall with stakes pressed against his throat and chest before he had time to even register what was happening.
The vampire, whose name was Alain Devaux, and who had never hurt so much as a fly in the century he had been alive, had been strolling home from a pleasant day in the company of his daughter, Beatrice, who lived on the Rive Gauche in an apartment she had tailored to suit the peculiar needs of her father. The windows were covered in blackout blinds and in the fridge, beside her brie, and her chorizo, and her Pouilly-Fumé, stood a neat row of bottles of blood, procured without any questions asked from her butcher in Saint Germain-des-Prés who, she had come to realise, believed that she made her own black puddings from the thick crimson liquid she ordered so regularly.
Beatrice was Alain’s third daughter; he had outlived the first and second, with whom his relationship had ceased at the moment of his turning; he had decided when Beatrice was born that he was not going to make the same mistake again. He was a gentle man, who had spent long years ashamed of what he had become, who had never been able to fully accept that what had been done to him was not his fault.
He kept no company with other vampires, and he had no interest in their affairs; as a result, he was blissfully unaware of the existence of Department 19. So when one of the black figures peered at him from behind a mask of bright purple, fear had overwhelmed him, and he forgot the supernatural strength that lay in his muscles, strength that would have given him a reasonable chance of escape, even against the five shapes that melted out of the shadows.
“Do you know Jean-Luc Latour?” the figure demanded, its voice metallic and emotionless through its helmet filters.
“W-what?” asked Alain, trembling with terror.
The stake at his neck was jabbed hard into his throat, breaking the skin. Alain smelt the rich copper scent of his own blood, and his eyes flared red, involuntarily.
“Eyes!” shouted one of the other figures.
“I can’t help it,” said Alain, looking pleadingly at the dark shapes. “I can’t—”
There was a blur of movement, as the figure that had been peering at him drew a black pistol from its belt. Alain had no time to beg for his life, which he was sure was about to come to an end, before the dark figure raised the gun above its shoulder and brought it crashing down in the centre of his forehead, splitting the skin to the bone.
Blood gushed out, and Alain slid to his knees. His mind was blank, wiped by the enormity of the pain, and his hands gripped involuntarily at the legs of Jamie’s uniform, as though he was about to pray to the dark shape in front of him.
“Latour!” bellowed the figure that had hit him. “One of your kind! Jean-Luc Latour!” Alain stared up at him, noticing with absent horror that he could see the steady arc of blood spraying from his forehead and pattering to the cold cobbles of the alleyway. “Don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about! Have you seen him?”
“Je ne comprends pas,” whispered Alain. He felt nauseous, and light-headed, as though he was drunk. “Je suis désolé, je ne
comprends pas. Je suis désolé.”
“Jesus,” whispered Claire Lock.
She was watching the awful scene play out from the middle of the alleyway, with the rest of the team; she made no movement to intervene, but the disapproval in her voice was plain to hear, and it served only to enrage Jamie further.
He shoved the vampire, hard, and Alain fell back against the wall, instinctively covering what was left of his face with his pale, shaking hands, as blood pumped out between his fingers and on to his chest, and his wide eyes stared up at Jamie with utter horror.
“Where is Latour?” Jamie roared. “Tell me where he is!”
He raised the gun again, and that was when Jack Williams moved, stepping forward and grabbing his friend’s wrist. “He doesn’t know anything, Jamie,” he said. “He really doesn’t.”
Jamie wrenched his hand out of Jack’s grasp, and turned back to the figure that was cowering on the ground before him.
“S’il vous plaît,” it whispered, from behind trembling, blood-soaked hands. “S’il vous plaît, monsieur.”
“Fine,” said Jamie, his chest heaving with exertion and burning with rage. “Let’s find someone who does. Leave him here, and let’s move.”
“Hold on,” said Angela. “He might know where we should go. Let me talk to him.”
“Be quick,” said Jamie, and stepped back from the bleeding, terrified vampire.
“Yes, sir,” Angela replied, watching him move away. Then she walked over, crouched down and raised her visor, so Alain could see her dizzying, dazzling smile.
“Bonsoir, monsieur,” she said, gently. “Vous parlez Anglais, oui?”
The vampire nodded, slowly.
“OK then,” she said. “My name is Angela. What’s yours?”
“A-Alain,” the vampire replied, hesitantly. “Alain Devaux.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Alain,” said Angela, brightly. “I’m very sorry for what my friend did to you, but it will heal next time you feed. So no harm done, really. Don’t you agree?”
Confusion swept across Alain’s face, but he nodded again, even more slowly.
“Good,” breathed Angela, her voice full of relief. “That’s great. Now, Alain, my friend is very worried about a friend of his. That’s why he hit you, because he’s worried that we might be running out of time, and we need to find him; it’s no excuse, mind you, but that’s why. I hope you can forgive him, and think about helping me?”
“I don’t know about what he asked,” said Alain, worry rising in his face once more. “I was telling the truth. I wish I could be more help. I’m sorry.”
“I believe you, Alain,” said Angela, honestly. “I don’t think you know where Latour is. I don’t think you’d ever heard of him until a minute ago, had you?”
Alain shook his head eagerly.
“I thought not,” she continued. “But we think that somewhere in Paris is someone who does know about him, and knows where he is. So I need you to think, Alain, and tell me anywhere you know where large numbers of vampires gather. Can you do that for me?”
“I do not associate with vampires,” said Alain, spitting the last word as though it was poison. “I keep to myself. I never hurt anyone.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” Angela replied, softly. “This doesn’t need to be a place that you go to yourself, just anywhere you might have been told about, or heard other vampires discussing. Is there anywhere like that you can think of?”
Alain was silent for a moment, then his brow furrowed, and Angela knew he had an answer for her.
“There is a place,” he said, slowly. “I have never been there, but my daughter asks about it. It’s for vampires only, down by the river.”
“What is it called, Alain?” asked Angela, smiling at the bleeding vampire.
“Spinal Cord,” read Jamie. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The five Operators were standing outside a squat concrete building on Port de la Rapée, having followed the directions that Alain had given to Angela. They had left the frightened, injured vampire in the alleyway; he had watched them depart with a relief on his face so great that it made Jamie feel momentarily ashamed.
Normally, he did not see it as Blacklight’s duty to terrorise or destroy every single vampire in the world; one of the first lessons that Frankenstein had taught him were that there were good and bad vampires, just as there were good and bad humans. But the mission they were on was different; nothing could be allowed to derail their chances of finding Frankenstein, not even Jamie’s own usually strong moral code.
I told them all before we left, Jamie thought, trying to justify his own behaviour to himself. Frankenstein is the priority; everything else is secondary. And that’s how it stays, until I get him back or someone shows me his body.
He lowered his visor, and checked the weapons on his belt.
“Follow my lead,” he said, and started towards the building.
The door that led into Spinal Cord was heavy industrial metal, covered in a layer of flaked and rusting red paint, beneath the neon sign announcing its name. There was a single button set into the alcove wall; Jamie pressed it, and stepped back.
“We’re full,” said a voice, from behind the door. “Go away.”
Jamie pressed the button again, and kept his finger on it. He could hear the bell ringing through the door, and after a few seconds, he heard bolts being withdrawn. He readied himself.
The door was pulled open with a scream of metal on concrete, and a huge vampire loomed out of the darkness within. The doorman was wearing a battered leather vest over a black T-shirt, and black leather trousers. His eyes were glowing red, and he peered out at the five black-clad figures with anger on his face.
“What the hell are you five supposed to be?” he asked. “Some kind of—”
The comparison the vampire was about to make was lost forever, as Jamie pulled the stake from his belt and shoved it into his chest, hard. The vampire’s eyes bulged with surprise, and then he burst like a giant balloon, showering Jamie with steaming blood.
Jamie replaced the stake on his belt, and turned to his team.
“Follow me,” he said.
Beyond the door lay a concrete passage, plastered on all sides with lurid posters for gigs and club nights. They had been pasted across the floor and ceiling as well as the walls, and Jamie had a strange sensation of dizziness as he led them down the corridor; it was as though he wasn’t absolutely sure which way was up. They rounded a corner, and the relentless thud of bass, which had been barely audible as the door opened, intensified. At the end of the corridor before them stood a second door. Jamie didn’t even slow down as he approached it; he pushed the rusting sheet of metal with one gloved hand.
It swung open without protest, and suddenly the music was deafening, even through the protection offered by his helmet. The club was a large concrete box, square-sided but with a high ceiling from which sweat was dripping like salty rain; the heat emanating from the room was overpowering. One side of the club was a long bar made from concrete breeze blocks topped with old wooden doors from behind which three bartenders were serving drinks: bottles of beer, shots of whisky and vodka, and glasses full of dark red liquid.
At the rear of the room, a makeshift DJ booth had been erected from three concrete slabs on which a pair of turntables sat precariously; the DJ moved between them faster than the eye could follow, his glowing eyes leaving trails of red light in the neon-soaked darkness of the club.
The rest of the room was dance floor, upon which hundreds of men, women and vampires were grinding and thrusting and groping. Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention to their arrival, so Jamie watched for a few moments; he saw a vampire man sucking hungrily at a wound on the inside of a girl’s elbow, saw the pain on her face and the unbridled pleasure on his. He saw a vampire girl lean in and snort a line of red powder from the cleavage of another vampire girl; they looked so similar that they could have been twins.
A thick fug of
smoke hung over the dance floor, and Jamie smelt the bitter, telltale scent of Bliss, the vampire drug that he had once helped to make. Strobe lights pounded from the high corners of the room, the music thumped and thudded and thumped again, while sweat and blood and lust mingled in the boiling, smoky air.
Jamie had seen enough. He lifted an ultraviolet grenade from his belt, and nodded to Angela Darcy. She disappeared into the crowd, then appeared seconds later behind the DJ. Jamie watched her press the tip of her T-Bone into the vampire’s back, then whisper in his ear. A moment later the deafening music cut out.
The vampires and humans swirling and pounding across the dance floor screeched their displeasure, then spun, as one, in Jamie’s direction when he bellowed for their attention. He held the grenade above his head, and smiled at the crowd.
“You all know what this is, right?” he shouted. “Who feels like answering some questions?”
44
BEHIND EVERY GOOD MAN
ONE HOUR LATER
Larissa Kinley stood in the open doors of the Loop’s hangar, watching the last of the sunlight crawl across the grass to the west. Once it had climbed over the double fences and rippled away into the thick forest that surrounded the Department 19 base, she stepped out on to the tarmac, and breathed fresh air.
There were many bad things about being a vampire, but the worst of them, the very worst, was the simple fact that for the better part of each day, she could not go outside. Being a Blacklight Operator helped, as the vast majority of their work was done under cover of darkness, and it was not unusual for her to fulfil the oldest vampire cliché, of sleeping all day and emerging after the sun had gone down.
But there were moments, a great many of them in the years since she had been turned, when she longed for the feel of the sun on her skin, for the scents and smells of the day, so different to those of the night, to fill her nostrils and transport her, away from the darkness and the shadows. She had come to terms with the fact that she was never going to experience those things again, but that did not stop her yearning for them.