Department 19, The Rising, and Battle Lines

by Will Hill

“All right then,” said Tim. “Let’s move out.”

  Larissa followed her squad mates round the corner at the end of the wooden corridor, bracing herself for the rattle of gunfire, her MP5 resting easily in her hands.

  Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound.

  The room they found themselves at the edge of was long and wide, as Flaherty had suggested; wood panelling covered the walls, polished floorboards the ground. Pillars that presumably held the basement ceiling up stood at wide intervals, with tables, sofas and chairs arranged between them. All the surfaces had a dull dusting of white powder; beer bottles and wine glasses were everywhere, beside ashtrays overflowing with the discarded ends of cigarettes and cigars. The smell of tobacco and whisky mingled in the air with something acidic, something that smelt almost like petrol. At the far end of the room, where Flaherty had told them General Rejon and his soldiers would be waiting for them, there was a long wooden bar full of glass bottles, and a semicircle of empty sofas facing a huge wall-screen TV. A small fridge stood on top of the bar, which Larissa was willing to bet was full of blood.

  “What the hell?” asked Tim. “Flaherty?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” she replied. “The satellite’s showing eleven subterranean vampire heat signatures. They should be right in front of us.”

  “Can you see any vamps?” asked Tim. “Because I can’t.”

  “No, sir,” replied Flaherty. Her tone was ice-cold.

  “Good,” said Tim. “I’m glad it’s not just me. Move up.”

  The Special Operations Squad stepped silently into the wide-open area at the end of the room. A large rug covered much of the floor, woven with an intricate pattern of loops and zigzag stripes. On the wooden surface of the bar, three glasses sat half full of clear liquid, beads of condensation rolling slowly down their sides. Smoke rose lazily from an ashtray, the crushed remnants of a cigar still glowing inside it.

  “They were here,” said Larissa. “Recently.”

  Tim pushed back his visor and glared at her. “That’s helpful,” he said, colour rising in his cheeks. “Do you have any other observations?”

  Larissa didn’t reply; she merely lifted her visor and fixed the squad leader with a long, flat stare. After a second or two, he looked away.

  “All right,” said Flaherty, pushing back her own visor. “Let’s just try to—”

  The deafening clatter of automatic gunfire filled the air, thundering against the wooden walls and crashing into the Operators’ ears. The wide rug bucked and twisted as a hail of bullets pounded through it, filling the air with flying pieces of hot, deadly lead. One slammed against the side of Larissa’s helmet, sending her stumbling backwards as her squad mates dived for cover. She shoved her visor down, feeling her fangs sliding down from her gums, her eyes filling with blazing heat.

  “Back against the walls,” yelled Tim.

  Larissa flung herself up into the air, the smell of gunpowder threatening to overwhelm her, then swooped forward, ignoring Tim’s order completely. She skimmed the ground, moving at dizzying speed, and dragged the rug up and away. Beneath it, now almost obliterated by gunfire, was a wide trapdoor.

  “They’re under the floor,” she yelled, her voice booming directly into the ears of her squad mates. She spun upwards, hovering in the thick, smoky air, and threw the rug aside. Then she drew her MP5 from her belt and emptied the submachine gun into what was left of the wooden floor. The rest of the squad followed suit; the gunfire howled and bellowed for what felt like an eternity, then stopped, leaving only silence in the acrid, smoke-filled room.

  “Hello, my friends,” shouted a deep, distant voice. “I am General Garcia Rejon, and you are most welcome in my home. Why don’t you come down here and introduce yourselves?”

  Larissa growled, the noise rumbling up through her throat. “Why the hell didn’t we know there was a sub-basement down here?” she asked.

  “It’s not on the plans,” said Flaherty. “I’m sorry.”

  “I can see you, my friends,” shouted General Rejon. “But I cannot hear you. Don’t you want to talk to me? Is that not why you are here?”

  Tim twisted the dial on his belt. “I’ll talk to you, General,” he said, his voice echoing through the basement. “What do you want to talk about?” As he spoke, he pulled a pair of UV grenades from his belt.

  “How about trespassing?” shouted General Rejon. “Or unlawful entry? Or murder?”

  “You want to talk about murder?” asked Tim. “Fine. Let’s talk about that.”

  He crouched down and pitched the two UV grenades towards the trapdoor; they rattled across the uneven, shattered surface, then dropped out of sight. There was a moment of absolute stillness, before the grenades exploded in a silent, blinding burst of purple light that blazed up through hundreds of jagged bullet holes.

  A chorus of deafening agony immediately filled the air, as the basement floor erupted upwards in an explosion of flying wood and burning, screaming vampires. The purple light died away and a smile burst across Larissa’s face as she threw herself into the battle.

  General Rejon and his men fled in every direction, purple flames billowing from their bodies, their faces twisted in expressions of pain and surprise.

  Didn’t expect that, did you? thought Larissa, savagely.

  Two of the burning shapes made for the exit, weaving through the basement in shambling, stumbling steps. Larissa slipped easily through the smoke and carnage as her squad mates engaged the reeling, terrified vampires, drawing her T-Bone as she flew through the thick, bitter air. She sighted down the barrel of the weapon and fired it into the back of one of the fleeing vampires. The metal stake struck him between his shoulder blades and exited through his breastplate, whistling away towards the far wall. The vampire staggered, clutching at his chest, then exploded in a burst of black and crimson.

  The second escaping figure cried out as blood sprayed across his face; Larissa saw panic in the man’s eyes, saw his tongue flick out involuntarily and lick his friend’s blood from his lips; he turned to face her, his face a mask of utter terror. She swooped lazily down towards him, drawing her stake from her belt. The vampire raised a burning, ruined arm in a futile gesture of resistance; she knocked it aside and buried the stake in his heart. The vampire’s eyes bulged momentarily, before he burst across her helmet and uniform.

  Larissa felt the satisfying thud as her T-Bone’s stake wound back into the barrel and turned back towards the bar. Her squad mates were engaging the rest of the vampires, keeping their distance and picking them apart with bullets and T-Bone stakes. Her smile widened; the escapee vampires might well be stronger and faster than most of the newly-turned, but with their bodies burnt and ravaged by ultraviolet fire, they were no match for the Special Operations Squad.

  As she flew back to help, Flaherty staked a vampire that had been driven back against the wall by a careful volley of fire from Tim’s HK416; he exploded, leaving a huge dripping splash of blood on the wall. The scent of burning flesh and boiling blood filled Larissa’s nostrils, intoxicating her, calling her forward. She was about to join the fight when water exploded from the ceiling of the room, spraying out of the building’s sprinkler system. The last of the purple flames disappeared, and great clouds of steam rose from the roasted flesh of the vampires.

  “Hold,” said Tim, his voice appearing in her ear. “This is over.”

  The steam cleared, billowing away to reveal a scene of horror, as the seven remaining vampires hauled their devastated bodies across the shattered wood of the floorboards. Their bodies were burnt black and they seemed to crawl aimlessly, their eyes gone, their limbs continuing to move on instinct alone. Some were on their hands and knees, the rest dragging themselves along with their elbows. They swivelled their heads at the sound of the approaching Operators, but made no noise apart from the occasional guttural grunt.

  Larissa could not bring herself to feel any sympathy for them; if anything, she felt that they had got off lightly. She floated to the
ground beside Tim Albertsson, who drew his stake and plunged it quickly in and out of the chests of the two nearest vampires; they exploded with pitifully small sprays of blood. Larissa watched, feeling nothing. Rios staked two on the far side of the room, then joined the rest of the squad in the centre, where the trapdoor had been. On the floor, the last three vampires crawled in aimless circles.

  “Clear,” said Flaherty. “Good job, everyone.”

  “Finish them,” said Tim, nodding down at the vampires. Rushton darted forward and staked them in quick succession. They burst, splattering the shredded floorboards with gore. Larissa let out a deep breath, then removed her helmet and checked it as her squad mates looked at each other, smiles rising on their faces; there was a long groove where the bullet had hit it.

  Lucky, she thought.

  Then, as Tim opened his mouth to speak, Larissa heard a soft click beneath them.

  She moved in the same moment that Garcia Rejon burst up through what was left of the floor, a huge black shotgun in his hands. His eyes glowed a furious red and his mouth was twisted into a terrible grin as he pulled the trigger. There was a deafening blast and Larissa felt a bolt of white-hot fire stream past the side of her head. Pain bloomed there instantly and she twisted away, grabbing for the site of the agony with her hand. Her fingers touched the side of her head and she recoiled; her ear was missing. She brought her gloved hand in front of her face; it was slick with blood.

  A guttural roar burst from Larissa’s mouth as her squad mates opened up on the General with their rifles, driving him across the basement, the shotgun spilling from his hands. She ran forward, reached down, and picked up the shotgun as Rejon hurled himself upwards and disappeared through the ceiling of the basement with a loud, splintering crunch. She growled again, her vampire side in almost total control, and gave chase, ignoring Tim Albertsson’s shouted demands for her to stop.

  Larissa burst through the hole the General had made, like a corpse rising from the grave.

  The air around her was thick and hot, and a mixture of scents filled her nostrils: blood, sweat, burnt flesh, electricity. She was floating above a wide lawn at the back of the sprawling house, walled on three sides; in front of her stood a dark grove of trees, the trunks widely spaced, the darkness between them absolute. From somewhere among them, a warm, friendly voice floated on the warm air.

  “Where are your friends, bitch? Scared to face me in the open?”

  Larissa laughed, despite the pain radiating from the side of her head. “They’re scared,” she said. “But not of you.”

  Rejon laughed. “What then? Some little girl in a uniform?”

  “That’s right. And I don’t think they’re the only ones.”

  A growl reverberated through the trees. “You watch your mouth, bitch.”

  “I’ll watch nothing,” growled Larissa. “I don’t take orders from someone who sends unarmed girls up to face soldiers while he hides underground.”

  “Whores come and go,” said Rejon. The friendly tone was back. “Sometimes they die, and I go out the next day and get new ones. They beg me for jobs. They do anything. Just like you would.”

  “You’re scum,” spat Larissa, her eyes flaring. “You’re an animal, hiding from a little girl. You’re pathetic.”

  “You think I’m hiding, bitch? I see you where you stand. Do you see me?”

  She peered into the darkness. Even with her supernatural eyesight, she saw nothing but columns of wood and dense patches of dark green.

  “I’m right here,” said the General, his tone almost gleeful. “Come closer.”

  Larissa knew that she should be careful; Garcia Rejon was far more powerful than a new vampire should have been, and had been a violent, sadistic man long before he had been turned. But she simply didn’t care; her vampire side was pleading for violence, and what remained of rational, human Larissa was desperate to make Rejon pay for what had happened in the house, to a girl whose life had been considered literally worthless. She floated forward to the treeline, waiting for the attack, ready for it, relishing the prospect.

  Garcia Rejon didn’t make her wait.

  A fist blurred out from behind one of the thick tree trunks and crashed into Larissa’s chin, sending pain bursting through her skull, driving her backwards. The smile on her face didn’t falter, even as blood began to pour from her bottom lip, but a cold shiver fluttered up her spine.

  Strong, she thought. So strong. I’ve only been hit harder than that twice, by Alexandru and Valeri Rusmanov. Jesus.

  Larissa wasn’t scared; she was confident she was more than a match for the General. The raw power the vampire possessed had taken her by surprise, and the thought that there were hundreds like him out there in the world chilled her. But there would be time to worry about that later. The General swooped out from behind the tree and smiled at her; his military tunic was covered in blood, but his arms hung easily at his sides, his boots floated above the lawn, and his eyes blazed dark and bright.

  “Looks like you’re missing an ear,” said Rejon, his tone friendly and conversational. “That must hurt.”

  “It’s nothing,” said Larissa. “Like you.”

  Rejon tilted his head to one side. “Maybe,” he said. “What I’m going to do to you, though? That won’t be nothing.”

  Larissa stared at him, the smile on her face broadening, then threw the shotgun down to the grass. She raised a pale, delicate hand, extended a finger, and beckoned him forward.

  Rejon grinned, then flung himself towards her, his arms wide. Larissa leapt backwards into the air, feeling the air rush around her, and rammed a booted foot into the approaching vampire’s face. His nose crunched, the dry snap echoing round the garden, and his smile disappeared. He tumbled to the ground, his hands cupping his nose, and howled into the night air.

  “You broke my nose, you BITCH!”

  “That must hurt,” said Larissa, dropping gracefully to the lawn. She doubted it really did, certainly not in comparison to the injuries the General had sustained both as a soldier and a cartel boss, but she had a sense that the physical pain wasn’t the issue; the fact that a teenage girl had injured him was the problem.

  That does hurt, she thought. I’m sure of it.

  Rejon let go of his squirting nose and glared at her with burning hatred. He growled and came for her again, swinging his fists in two arcing blurs. Larissa danced backwards, but he was faster than she expected, faster than almost any vampire she had encountered. One of his fists swooped through the air and crashed against the wet hole where her ear had been, and she screamed, the electric bolt of agony driving her down to one knee. The scream was still rising from her mouth when Rejon’s other fist thundered through the darkening air and connected with her throat, knocking her backwards across the lawn. The pain was overwhelming, and a terrible realisation flooded through her as she tried to drag air into her lungs.

  I can’t breathe.

  She lay on her back, her chest convulsing, her eyes widening, fighting back the panic that was threatening to explode through her. Garcia Rejon walked towards her, an awful smile on his face, and looked down at her with an expression that seemed close to pity. She opened her mouth, but only a barely audible wheeze emerged; her head was pounding as her lungs screamed for oxygen; her hands gripped her damaged throat, trying to massage it back into working order.

  The General stepped over her, then dropped to his knees, straddling her thighs and pinning her to the lawn.

  “Pathetic, am I?” he said. “An animal? I’ll show you what an animal does.”

  He reached for her face, his hands huge and dark in the night air; she watched in slow motion, saw the calluses on his thumbs as they moved towards her eyes. Larissa opened her mouth, hauled in possibly her last breath, and felt something shift in her throat; air whistled down into her constricted lungs and she felt strength burst through her as her panic evaporated. Her hand shot out, sliding down her body, and grabbed the General between his legs. There was just
enough time for Rejon’s eyes to widen before she squeezed with all her might, feeling something burst beneath her grip.

  The noise that erupted from Garcia Rejon’s mouth was otherworldly, an ear-splitting howl rising from the deepest, darkest corner of his soul. He tried to pull away, but she held her grip tight, and winced as she heard something tear. Rejon’s scream reached a terrible new pitch, then cut out, replaced by a low scratching noise as his vocal cords ripped apart. Larissa released her grip as she swung her other hand, crunching her fist into the General’s broken nose, spreading it across his twisted, agonised face and knocking him into the air. He thudded to the ground as Larissa got to her feet, hatred boiling through her mind, and walked towards him.

  Rejon stared at her, and Larissa saw fear in his eyes, bright and shining. He pushed himself back across the grass, his face covered in blood, his body shaking with pain. She moved towards him, not hurrying, letting him experience every second of his terror, his powerlessness; she wanted him to feel it all. Then the General stopped, and his eyes narrowed as a smile began to rise on to his face.

  Larissa threw herself through the air, determined to end him before whatever had caused that smile could be brought to bear. She was barely a metre away, her eyes blazing in the darkness, when the General swung the shotgun up from the grass where she had dropped it and pulled the trigger.

  The noise of the shot was deafening, even in the open air of the garden. Something punched Larissa in the stomach, something vast and made of fire, and pain pounded through her as she landed on Garcia Rejon’s chest and yanked the gun from his hands. She swung it through the warm air on a low, flat arc that ended on the side of the General’s head. The wooden stock of the shotgun shattered, and blood gushed out of the hole it had made; Rejon’s eyes rolled backwards in his head and his limbs began to spasm. Larissa rolled on to the grass, pushed herself away from the stricken vampire with her legs, and dragged herself to her feet, her eyes blazing with righteous fire.

  She racked the shotgun, her mind empty of everything but violence.