Department 19: The Rising

by Will Hill

  “Kill him!” shrieked Dante. “Kill them both, and bring me their lying tongues on—”

  Thunk.

  Dante’s eyes widened. He looked at Frankenstein, then followed his gaze down to the monster’s outstretched arm. The pale grey-green hand at the end of it was gripping the handle of the heavy kukri knife the monster always wore on his belt. The thick, heavy silver blade was buried up to the hilt in the vampire king’s chest, pinning him solid to the wall behind him. Frankenstein had moved so quickly that nobody had realised what was happening until it was already done.

  Dante reached out a trembling hand towards the monster, then watched with uncomprehending horror as it began to dissolve before his eyes, falling apart into wet chunks of scarlet flesh that pattered on to the table. Then, just as quickly, it began to regrow, new muscle knitting, new skin bursting into place. As it did so, his neck began to slide apart, then stopped, and repaired as his arm had done. A thick gout of blood exploded from the vampire king’s chest, then was stilled. Dante’s face began to melt into blood, then solidified, then melted, then solidified, as he stared down at the blade that had crunched through the centre of his heart.

  For a moment, the dining room was utterly still. Then the white-faced woman shrieked, and the vampire guests leapt back from their chairs, their eyes flooding red, their fangs bursting into view. Latour stood, frozen to the spot, staring at the stricken vampire king.

  Frankenstein didn’t wait.

  He leapt over the table towards the long-haired man, his vast size driving the vampire back against the wall. Without looking, he reached out, grabbed the white face of the woman and smashed her head against the wall. She went to the floor, blood spraying from the holes her fangs had punched in her own lips. Frankenstein kicked out to his right, connecting solidly with the woman’s partner and sending him sprawling. Before either had a chance to get back to their feet, he pulled a short dagger from inside his waistcoat and plunged it into the long-haired vampire’s chest.

  The vampire exploded, soaking Frankenstein from head to toe in steaming gore. He turned away, appearing not to notice. The side door to the dining room crashed open, and Jacques stepped through it, his eyes blazing, drawn by the pungent scent of fresh blood. He stopped dead in his tracks, staring at his master; it gave Frankenstein all the time he needed. He thrust the dagger into the waiter’s back, and was moving again as the servant exploded, showering his gaping master with blood.

  He advanced on the white-faced woman, who was hauling herself to her feet. She raised her hands to protect herself as Frankenstein, a giant blood-soaked nightmare, bore down on her. The dagger went clean through her left palm, pushing the hand backwards as it thudded into her chest, cleaving her heart in two. She burst like a balloon, but Frankenstein was already moving again, and the blood splashed across his broad back. The woman’s husband was backing away, an apologetic look on his face, his hands out in placation.

  “Please,” he said. “Please don’t. I’ll leave, I’ll—”

  What he was offering to do, Frankenstein would never know. The dagger flashed out for a fourth time, and a millisecond later a final eruption of blood soaked the dining room. The four vampires had been destroyed in less than ten seconds, and their destroyer whirled to face the head of the table, where Dante was still gasping incredulously at the injury that had been done to him, where both the girl and Latour were staring at him with frozen horror.

  “We must go, Latour,” said Frankenstein. “Right now.”

  Latour glanced at Lord Dante. The fraudulent vampire king was staring in horror, as his body threatened to dissolve then healed, over and over again.

  “What have you done to him?” whispered Latour. “What dark magic is this?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Frankenstein. “Nor do I care. Take hold of the girl, and let us leave, while we are able to do so.”

  Latour’s gaze flicked between the girl, Dante and Frankenstein. His face was a mask of torment.

  “Last chance, my friend,” said Frankenstein. “Are you coming or not?”

  Latour said nothing, but a look of terrible shame passed across his face.

  It was all Frankenstein needed to see. He stepped forward quickly and grabbed the blonde girl. She cried out as his mottled fingers closed round her forearm, but when he hauled her towards the door, she went willingly. He paused for a moment, placing his ear to the door, then pushed it open. He cast a final look back into the blood-soaked room, and saw Dante staring at him, a wide-eyed expression of utter outrage on his face. Then he was gone, pulling the girl behind him.

  The following morning, Frankenstein stood outside an elegant stone building on Rue Scribe, and took a deep breath.

  He had dragged the unprotesting girl, whose name he eventually discovered was Daphne, through the theatre of La Fraternité de la Nuit, without attracting so much as a glance from the assembled vampires; the destruction of Babineaux had thinned the crowd, and those that remained were focused on the stage, where two female vampires were deflowering an adolescent boy.

  Frankenstein had pushed through the foyer, abandoning his overcoat, and out into the Paris night. Only once they were clear of the theatre, and had attained some measure of safety, did Daphne begin to cry. Tears spilled from her eyes, and her legs gave way beneath her; she would have fallen had Frankenstein not caught her by the waist. He had taken her to a small hotel on Rue Saint-Claude, and coaxed her gently on to the bed. She had lain awake for a long time, staring at him, but thankfully she had been unwilling, or unable, to ask any questions.

  He had no answers for her.

  Eventually, she slept. Frankenstein stared out of the hotel room’s window, and as he watched the sun rising to the east, he made a decision.

  For as long as he could remember, he had considered himself worthless. The circumstances of his birth, the recycled nature of his very body, had made it an easy conclusion to reach, and what he had done to Victor Frankenstein, the man whom he had eventually come to recognise as his father in every way apart from the biological, whose name he had ultimately taken in a belated attempt to honour the dead man, had confirmed it.

  He had intended to die in the Arctic, had believed he deserved to, was looking forward to welcoming the end. But a Norwegian explorer vessel had denied him even that most fundamental of rights, the right to end one’s own life. He had been suffering from advanced hypothermia when they found him, and had been unable to articulate that he did not want, or deserve, their assistance. Instead, they had nursed him back to health, and several months later, his recuperation complete, he had arrived in Paris.

  The pleasures of the night came easily to him because he believed, deep inside his tortured soul, that he was less than human, and therefore that human morals and human decency need not apply to him. He had done terrible things in the decade he had spent in the French capital, under the cover of darkness, and the long shadow of war. In Latour he had found someone similarly unburdened by guilt, or by conscience, and they had indulged the very worst of themselves, together. And when the doubts came, as they occasionally did in the dead of the night, as he was washing blood from his hands or shivering through an opiate haze, he pushed them away. He would not listen; doubts were for the good, for the human.

  He did not deserve them.

  But something had happened in the Fraternité’s dining room; he had felt something change within himself. He did not know if it was the brazen, pathetic nature of Dante’s deception, or the revulsion he felt towards the pathetic, cloying sycophants the fraudulent king surrounded himself with, but when Daphne had been brought into the room, he had felt something more clearly and powerfully than anything he could remember.

  He had felt guilt.

  Guilt that he was a part of the dark underbelly of Paris in which girls like this were tortured and murdered, guilt that he was standing of his own free will in a club where torture and evisceration were viewed as entertainment, night after night, victim after victim. Guilt tha
t he had let weakness and self-pity determine the path his life had taken, when he could have used the curiosities of his condition, his incredible strength and stamina, his immortality, for the good of others, rather than in the service of his own worst desires. And guilt over the things he had done, with his own two hands, things he now resolved to never speak of again, providing he survived the next night.

  He knew Dante’s men would come looking for him as soon as the sun set, but felt no fear. Saving one girl did not begin to atone for the hundreds he had failed to save, for the ones he himself had helped on their way to the next life, for the harm he had done and the pleasure he had taken in it. But if it was the last thing he did, if it turned out to be the final deed of his long life, he believed he could be content.

  But as he stared towards the east, he realised that he was lying to himself.

  He wasn’t content for this to be his end; moreover, he would not permit it to be. He was suddenly full of a fire he had not felt in many decades, as if his soul had been pulled from his body and held up to the sun, cleansing it and filling him with a righteousness he would not have believed he was capable of.

  He would atone for the evil he had done.

  Even if it took him until the end of eternity.

  28

  THINK BUT THIS AND ALL IS MENDED

  When everyone had finished eating, in Matt’s case so much that he was leaning back in his chair, holding his stomach with both hands and letting out the occasional groan, Jamie spoke to the two girls sitting opposite him.

  “Can you meet me in my quarters in fifteen minutes?” he asked. “There are some things I need to say, to both of you.”

  The girls glanced at each other, and despite the realisation that had flooded through him only moments earlier, that he was the source of the problems that had grown up around and between them, the gesture still annoyed him.

  Ignore it. Just let it go. It’s not their fault, it’s yours.

  “I can,” said Kate, and looked over at Larissa, who nodded.

  “Me too,” said the vampire. “I’ll see you both there.”

  With that, she was up and away from the table, her tray in her hands, heading for the exit. Kate waited a few extra seconds, then stood up, said goodbye to Matt and disappeared in the same direction, leaving the two boys alone.

  “Oh wow,” said Matt, distantly. “I’m so, so full. I haven’t eaten that much in years.”

  “Feeling better?” asked Jamie, smiling.

  “Not at this precise moment, to be fair,” grinned Matt. “But generally speaking, a lot better, thanks.”

  “You feel like you can walk?” Jamie asked. “I need to show you how to get back to the dormitory before I take care of something.”

  “No problem,” replied Matt, and then groaned as he levered himself to his feet. He stood unsteadily for a moment, then smiled at Jamie. “Let’s go,” he said. “I don’t think it would be wise for you to keep those two waiting.”

  “You’ve no idea,” replied Jamie with a smile.

  The two boys walked out of the dining hall and along the long central corridor of Level G. As they walked, Jamie began to explain to Matt the rough layout of the Loop, the spherical base that was the heart of Department 19. The vast majority of the facility was beneath the ground; only the huge hangar, the Ops and Briefing Rooms, and the Communications and Surveillance Divisions were located in the wide metal bubble that rose from the grass and tarmac.

  “Think of it like a ball,” said Jamie. “There’s a reinforced concrete wall that runs all the way through the base, from top to bottom; in there are the main corridors, the lift shafts, the seismic dampeners, the steel struts, everything you would expect. So really, it’s like two semi-circular bases separated by long, straight corridors along the middle of each level, like this one. So at the top, one whole side to the west of the central corridor is the hangar, then the other side is offices. The same shape applies all the way down; Operator quarters, dormitories, labs, gyms, shops, everything you need to run a facility this size, arranged either side of the central corridors. Right down to the bottom.”

  “What’s down there?” asked Matt, fascinated. “At the very bottom, I mean.”

  “The power plant, water purification, seismic monitoring equipment,” replied Jamie. “Or so I’m told at least; I’ve never been down there.”

  “Is it restricted?” asked Matt.

  “Not that I know of,” replied Jamie, noting the curious expression on the teenager’s face. “Why d’you ask?”

  “I just think it would be fascinating,” said Matt, eagerly. “I can’t believe you haven’t explored every inch of this place.”

  Jamie laughed. “I see the Ops Room, the Briefing Rooms, the officers’ mess, the dining hall, the hangar and, when I’m lucky, my quarters. I don’t really have time for much else.”

  “I guess not,” said Matt. His face fell for a moment, then brightened once more. “Do you think Mr Seward would let me have a look down there? If he decides to let me stay, that is.”

  “Admiral Seward,” corrected Jamie, gently. “Or Director Seward. And I don’t see why not. Although I reckon we should just concentrate on persuading him to let you stay for now, OK?”

  “Absolutely,” enthused Matt. “No problem.”

  “Cool,” said Jamie, stepping in front of the lift and pressing the CALL button. “I’ll take you through all the levels and the rest of the base when we’ve got more time, I promise, but for now, let’s get you back to the dormitory.”

  The lift arrived and the two boys stepped inside. Jamie hit the button for Level B, and the lift car rose quickly through the levels. The doors slid open and the two boys stepped out. Matt fidgeted nervously, a look of mild anxiety on his face.

  “Here we are,” said Jamie, pointing to his left. “Last corridor at the end, then the second door. Got it?”

  “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “My quarters are this way,” he replied, pointing in the other direction.

  Matt nodded, and Jamie gave him a wide grin.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said. “There’ll be an Operator outside the dormitory door to let you in. There’s nothing you need to be doing right now, so just try and get some rest. I’ll come and get you as soon as I hear anything.”

  Jamie was very familiar with the secure dormitory where Matt had been placed; it was the same room that Frankenstein had taken him to when he first arrived at the Loop, months earlier.

  “All right,” said Matt. “Thanks, Jamie. And good luck with Kate and Larissa.”

  “Cheers,” he replied, and laughed. “I think I’m going to need it.”

  Jamie made his way along Level B towards his quarters, trying to work out in his head what he was going to say to Kate and Larissa. As he approached his room, he saw the two girls standing outside the door, leaning against the wall.

  Not a good sign, he thought.

  Both the girls knew the code to open his door, had let themselves in hundreds of times. But this was not one of those times; they were waiting silently for him to arrive, eyeing him steadily as he approached them.

  “All right?” he asked, his voice full of forced levity.

  Neither girl replied. Larissa raised her eyebrows a fraction, in what he hoped might be a gesture of encouragement, but Kate remained impassive.

  “OK,” he said, and held his ID against the panel beside the door. It unlocked with a heavy thud, and he pushed it open. He held it wide, and the two girls stepped silently inside the room. Jamie took a deep breath and followed them, closing the door behind him.

  For a long, painfully awkward moment, the three of them stood in the small room, unsure of how to proceed; the dimensions of the room forced them into a proximity that was clearly uncomfortable for all.

  Jamie hesitated, then pulled the chair out from beneath his desk and turned it into the room. He waited to see if there would be a response, and when one failed to materialise, he sat down in the chair.
The two girls remained standing for a few remarkably uncomfortable seconds, then sat down on the edge of his narrow bed, facing him. Their faces wore expressions of expectation.

  Just do this, he told himself. Get on with it already.

  “I’ve been an idiot,” said Jamie, and was heartened to see the sudden widening in both girls’ eyes. “I’ve been stupid, and unfair, and I let you both down. There are lots of things I want to say, but the most important one is simply this: I’m really, really sorry. Kate, it was my idea that Larissa and me should lie to you about us, and Larissa, I know I’ve been putting the Department first, that I’ve been pulling away from you. I’m really, really sorry.”

  “Jamie,” said Kate, gently. “It’s not all your fault. I kept secrets too.”

  “About you and Shaun,” said Jamie. “I know. But you wouldn’t have felt you had to if Larissa and I hadn’t kept you in the dark about what was happening between us. And like I said, that was my idea.”

  “Hey,” protested Larissa. “I went along with it. It’s my fault too.”

  “That’s right,” said Jamie. “You went along with it, because I told you it was the best thing to do. I know you never agreed with me, I know how much you hated lying to Kate; you only did it because you trusted me, and I was wrong. We should have been honest from the start, like we told each other we would be.”

  The two girls looked at each other, and something passed between them: a moment of unexpected peace, in which Jamie hoped lay the shoots of recovery.

  “We understand, Jamie,” said Larissa, softly. “Both of us understand what it’s been like for you since Lindisfarne, how much your life has changed. We get it, we really do, and neither of us has ever wanted to make it any harder for you than it already is. We see how happy being here makes you, how you get to feel like you belong to something for the first time, how you can be proud of your name and what it stands for. That was never the problem; the problem was it started to feel like you were turning your back on us, like we were losing you, losing each other, over nothing. Does that make any sense at all?”