Department 19, The Rising, and Battle Lines

by Will Hill

  “I’m not sure,” said Larissa. “I picked up the scent of another vampire, but I don’t know how I knew it was you. I could just see it.”

  “You could smell me?” asked the woman, her smile fading. “What are you saying?”

  “It’s not a bad smell,” said Larissa, quickly. “It’s just… well. Can’t you smell it? When there’s another vampire around?”

  The woman tipped back her head and breathed in sharply. “There is something,” she said, eventually. “Sort of at the edges, if that makes sense? Is it you?” She nodded. “That’s weird. How come I’ve never smelt that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Larissa. “Maybe you’ve never been around another vampire before?” The idea seemed ludicrous even as she said it; she could not conceive of a world in which other vampires were not a constant feature.

  “I used to date one,” said the woman. “A guy in LA. But he’s the only one I’ve met, as far as I know.”

  “Wow,” said Larissa. It was all she could think of to say.

  “Why?” asked the woman. “Have you known a lot of vampires?”

  Larissa smiled. “That’s a bit of an understatement.”

  “Really?” said the woman. “I’m Chloe. Do you want to get a drink? I feel like we might have some stuff to talk about.”

  “I think you might be right. I’m Larissa. And I could definitely do with a beer.”

  Chloe smiled, and took Larissa’s hand; the sensation was odd, but she let the woman lead her towards the bar on the gambling island, where she ordered a beer and a refill of her own enormous cocktail. When the drinks arrived, Larissa followed her between the craps tables to the edge of the island, where Chloe sat down and dangled her feet in the water. After a moment, Larissa pulled off her shoes and sat down, putting her coat on the ground beside her.

  “So how long have you been turned?” she asked.

  “Turned,” said Chloe, rolling the word round her mouth. “Is that what it’s called? Like, the official term?”

  “There aren’t any official terms,” said Larissa. “Turned is what some people call it.”

  “About a year,” said Chloe. “Someone bit me in a club in New Orleans, on Super Bowl weekend. I didn’t think much of it until the next morning when I opened the curtains and my arm caught on fire.” She smiled, and Larissa returned it with one of her own.

  “How did you get through the hunger the first time?” she asked.

  “I killed a dog,” said Chloe, matter-of-factly. “It belonged to this gay couple who were in the bungalow next to ours. It was a small dog, a yapping little thing, but it was enough. What about you? When were you turned?”

  “Nearly three years ago,” replied Larissa. “An old man bit me at a funfair in England, where I’m from. I think he meant for me to die, but I’m not really sure. One of his associates took pity on me, gave me some blood, and told me there was a place I could go, but I turned it down. I thought my parents would help me.”

  “They didn’t?”

  “No,” said Larissa, a small smile on her face. “I lived on the streets for six months.”

  “It’s weird,” said Chloe. “Until I met Derek – he was the guy I mentioned – I just kind of had to work it out for myself, you know? The blood, the sunlight, the floating. But I got through it.”

  Floating, thought Larissa. She said floating. Not flying.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s hard being on your own.”

  They sat in easy silence for a minute or so, Larissa swinging her feet gently in the water, feeling the ripples move against her skin.

  “Have you ever had any trouble?” she asked, eventually. “Since you were turned, I mean.”

  “What kind of trouble?” asked Chloe.

  “People trying to kill you. That kind of trouble.”

  Chloe laughed. “I don’t hurt anyone, so why would anybody have a problem with me? And anyway, who would they be? The cops?”

  “Sort of,” said Larissa. “There are people that destroy vampires. Military organisations, secret ones. You’ve never heard about them?”

  “Nope,” said Chloe. “Never heard about anything like that. How come you know about them?”

  I assumed all vampires did, thought Larissa.

  “Someone told me,” she lied. “A man I knew in Rome. Like us.”

  Chloe smiled. “Sounds to me like maybe he was trying to impress you a little bit. Tell you a far-fetched story, make it all seem hot and scary and dangerous.”

  “You’re probably right,” said Larissa, smiling. “He told me Dracula was real too.”

  Chloe burst out laughing. “Dracula?” she asked. “The old guy from the movies? With the cape?”

  “That’s the one. I think he could turn into a bat.”

  “I wish I could,” giggled Chloe. “That could be super-useful.”

  Larissa laughed, and drained the last of her beer. She set down the empty bottle and looked at the woman beside her. “It’s been nice talking to you, Chloe,” she said. “I’d better go and find my friends.”

  “That’s cool,” said Chloe. “I’m going to stay here for a while. You take care of yourself.”

  Easier said than done, Larissa thought. But I’ll certainly try.

  She left Chloe with her feet in the water and headed back towards the main room of the club. She squeezed her way through the open doors and walked straight into Tim Albertsson, who was carrying two beers in his hands. He smiled, shouted her name just about loud enough for her to hear it, and handed her one of the bottles. She shouted her thanks, and didn’t protest as he took her arm and led her back outside.

  “Sorry,” he said, once they were clear of the doors. “I couldn’t hear a damn thing in there. About half the Air Force just turned up, rolling drunk. Took me about half an hour to get through them. Have you seen the others?”

  “Danny and Kara were heading for the dance floor the last time I saw them,” replied Larissa. “I thought Kelly was with you.”

  “I lost her before I even got to the bar,” he said. “Looks like it’s just you and me.” He smiled, and Larissa took a long pull from her beer, leaning back so her eyes stared up at the ceiling. When she lowered her head, Tim had closed the distance between them; his face was barely five centimetres from her own, his eyes locked on hers, and Larissa felt a shiver hurtle up her spine.

  “Don’t,” she warned, staring into his eyes. “You promised.”

  “I’m not going to kiss you again,” he breathed. “But I want to. And I know part of you wants me to.”

  They stood motionless, locked in suspended animation; time appeared not to be passing, each second stretching out for an eternity. Then Larissa’s phone burst into life in her coat pocket, breaking the spell of the deadly, dangerous moment. She blushed deeply and fumbled the phone out of her pocket, taking a step backwards, a step away from Tim, as she did so. The screen glowed with a single word.

  JAMIE

  Shame, hot and bitter, flooded through her as she stared at her boyfriend’s name.

  I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.

  She pressed the REJECT button on the phone’s screen and stuffed it back into her coat. Then she stepped forward, feeling familiar heat in the corners of her eyes.

  “Enough,” she said, trying not to let her voice turn into a growl. “That’s enough now.”

  Tim stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s go find the others, OK?”

  Larissa made him wait. “OK,” she said, eventually. “Let’s do that.”

  Tim set off towards the club’s dance floor. She followed him, looking round at the garish opulence of the club with fierce disgust, as though she was suddenly seeing the place, really seeing it, for the first time. Her phone rang again and she fought the urge to scream with frustration. She pulled it out, saw Jamie’s name on the screen, and pressed REJECT again.

  What’s wrong with me? she thought, the words hot and sharp. Why am I
in this awful place while my friends are trying to save the world? What the hell am I doing?

  She pushed through the crowd, not caring when her elbows and shoulders thudded into the people around her, relishing the cries of pain and shouted insults that followed her. Occupying half a dozen tables at the edge of the dance floor were the group of Air Force men Tim had mentioned; there seemed to be dozens of them, most in their dress uniforms, yelling and shouting and doing shot after shot after shot. They had attracted a huge crowd of gawking girls, who were clambering on and over the tables to join them, their exposed stomachs and thighs gleaming under the spinning lights of the club. Larissa stopped and watched, disgust rising through her. Then the sea of navy-blue uniforms parted and she gasped.

  In the middle of one of the red sofas, holding a half-empty vodka bottle in one hand and a pretty brunette who looked barely old enough to drink in the other, was Lee Ashworth. The Senior Airman was chatting happily to one of his friends as the girl kissed his neck, taking the occasional swig from the bottle, completely oblivious to his surroundings.

  An image appeared in Larissa’s mind: a photo of a blonde woman and two smiling children, sitting on the Senior Airman’s desk.

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket, pressed the camera icon, zoomed in on Lee Ashworth, and snapped a quick series of pictures.

  Got you, she thought.

  Larissa turned away and closed the gap on Tim, who was still wrestling his way down towards the dance floor, her mind pulsing with a single thought, one that she knew had not crossed her mind as often as it should have in the last few weeks.

  I miss you, Jamie. I wish you were here.

  37

  BY A THREAD

  Jamie Carpenter skidded to a halt between his two squad mates, pulling his MP5 from his belt and snapping his visor into place as he did so. The two rookies looked at him with wide eyes.

  “What the—” began Morton, but Jamie cut across him.

  “Shut up,” he hissed. “Visors. Weapons. We’re not alone down here.”

  Morton’s eyes widened even further, then training and instinct took over. He lowered his visor, swept his MP5 out of the loop on his belt, raised it to his shoulder, and pressed his torch tight against the submachine gun’s barrel. Ellison did the same; the three Operators moved in close together, back to back in a tight triangle, three piercing beams of light scanning the darkness.

  Jamie swung his torch slowly left and right, illuminating nothing but the graffiti-covered wall of the tunnel. Movement seemed to flicker at the edges of the beam, but when he swung his light towards it, whatever had moved was gone.

  “There’s nothing here,” whispered Morton. “You’re seeing things.”

  “I know what I saw,” said Jamie, staring intently into the pitch darkness. “Something moved.”

  “It’s not moving now,” said Morton.

  Jamie ignored him. He had seen something move, he was sure of it; more than one thing in fact. And they hadn’t been rats, or stray dogs, or urban foxes; they had been far too big for that.

  “What do we do, sir?” whispered Ellison. “We can’t just stand here.”

  Jamie swore heartily. “I know that,” he said. “Just let me think.”

  I did see something, he thought. I know I did.

  From somewhere ahead of them – it was impossible to accurately judge distance in the deep darkness of the tunnel – there came the heavy clang of metal and a low fizzing noise. Then the tunnel’s maintenance lights flickered into life and Jamie saw that he had been right.

  Surrounding his squad was a crowd of men and women, perhaps thirty in total. Several were carrying weapons – lumps of wood, metal bars, in one case what looked like the skeleton of an umbrella – but they were not what Jamie noticed as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brilliance of the lights. What caught his attention was a simple, undeniable truth: the men and women who had appeared out of the darkness were, by some distance, the strangest-looking collection of humanity he had ever seen.

  Most of them were filthy, their faces and hands black with dust and dirt, their clothing little more than rags, but bright paint shone from their skin and their ragged clothes, loops and swirls that looked as though they had been carefully applied. Their hair, which in most cases was long, had been twisted up into spikes and waves, and accented with flowers and feathers and pieces of foil that looked like sweet wrappers. Half a dozen of the crowd were naked, their entire bodies painted. One man, whose face was painted bright red and green, wore a dark blue suit and carried a tan briefcase. His hair was wild and colourful, but his eyes were distant; he looked lost, as though he had gone for lunch one day in 1986 and woken up underground a quarter of a century later.

  “Lower your weapons,” said Jamie, speaking via the comms system that only his squad could hear. “Don’t do anything unless I tell you.” Ellison and Morton made no response, but did as they were ordered, letting their guns hang at their sides, the barrels pointing at the floor.

  A woman stepped forward, holding a wooden stick in her hand. Her face had once been pretty, that much was obvious, even through the layers of grime and flaking paint. She wore a short, floaty dress that might once have been yellow, but was now a deep, dirty grey, streaked with brown and black. One of her feet was bare, the other clad in an old sandal. She looked at the three Operators with open suspicion.

  “Are you police?” she asked. “Don’t lie, mind. I know liars.”

  “No,” said Jamie, twisting the dial on his belt so his voice was audible. “We’re not police.”

  “Soldiers?”

  “Of a sort,” said Jamie.

  “You got a face under there?”

  Jamie hesitated, then reached up and raised his visor. After a second or two, he heard Morton and Ellison do the same.

  “Young,” said the woman. “What you doing down here?”

  “We’re looking for someone,” said Jamie. “He probably came in last night.”

  The woman shrugged. “Lots of people come down here at night.”

  “You wouldn’t have seen this one before. And he’d have probably stood out. Moved faster than most people, maybe had something wrong with his eyes?”

  “Vampire, is he?” asked the woman. “We get them down here, from time to time. They ain’t allowed to stay, though. Can’t be trusted to control themselves.” The look on Jamie’s face made her cackle with laughter. “There’s plenty that knows about the vamps, young soldier man. Live in the shadows long enough, you get to know things.”

  “You live down here?” asked Ellison.

  “Something wrong with that?” asked the woman.

  “No,” said Ellison, quickly. “I was just curious.”

  “Curiosity did something nasty to the cat, young miss. Remember that.”

  “We’re not here to cause trouble,” said Jamie, shooting a sharp glance at Ellison. “The vampire we’re looking for is a convicted criminal. If you take us to him, we’ll be on our way.”

  “I don’t care what he did,” spat the woman. “Most of us that’s down here done things they wish they hadn’t. Why should we let you take this man? If he’s even here, that is.”

  Because the three of us could kill you all without breaking a sweat, Jamie thought. And there isn’t a damn thing you could do to stop us.

  “Because he’s dangerous,” said Jamie. “You don’t want him in your home, believe me. How many women do you have down here?”

  “Some,” she replied, narrowing her eyes. “What of it?”

  Jamie said nothing; he let her put two and two together, and was gratified to see a ripple of unease cross her face as she made the connection.

  “Could be that I can help you,” she said, slowly. “What’s your name, mister soldier?”

  “Jamie.”

  “Jamie what?”

  “Jamie’s going to have to do, I’m afraid.”

  “Aye, I thought as much. Mine’s Aggie. If you was to say I was in charge down here, well, you
wouldn’t be right, but you wouldn’t be all wrong neither. Jackie?”

  A girl who looked to be in her late teens or very early twenties stepped forward. She was wearing battered blue jeans and a giant fox fur coat, into which had been twisted hundreds of thin pieces of metal.

  “You seen him that came in early this morning, didn’t you?” said Aggie.

  “I saw,” said Jackie.

  “He still here?”

  “I ain’t seen him leave,” she replied. “He was down with the others, last I saw.”

  “How many of you are there down here?” asked Jamie.

  “Depends on the day, mister soldier man,” said Aggie. “Some days there might be a hundred, some days five. We don’t take no registers.”

  “You all come in and out through the station?” asked Ellison. “How come no one notices that?”

  Aggie laughed. “Ain’t no one comes in that way. That’s the last way out, in case we get trouble. There’s ways all over the city, more than even I can remember.”

  “Why are you dressed like that?” asked Morton, suddenly. “Does everyone down here have to?”

  “Dressed like what, soldier man?”

  “The paint and the feathers and the bits of foil.”

  Aggie looked down at herself, then laughed. “That black’s your uniform, right? Well, this is ours. We’re the protectors of this place. They call us the Guardians.”

  “The Guardians of what?” asked Jamie.

  “Of whatever needs guarding,” said Aggie. “What else?”

  Jamie fought back the urge to laugh; these people were the strangest thing he had seen since joining Blacklight, which was genuinely saying something. And he was already starting to like Aggie; she was blunt to the point of rudeness, but there was a wicked intelligence beneath her grimy exterior and he found himself beginning to enjoy it.

  “Will you take us to where he is?” he asked. “Please?”

  Aggie cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes, clearly considering his request. Eventually, she nodded. “We’ll take you, soldier man. I don’t know if I believe he’s as bad as you say, but if you’re here for him, he has to answer for that. Anyone brings the law down here puts it on themselves. You walk with me, and tell your friends to keep them guns pointing down. I don’t want no shooting.”