by Will Hill
Jamie stared desperately around; he couldn’t see Larissa, or Admiral Seward, and he could feel panic rising in his chest, even as he tried to comfort Kate. He saw Jack Williams talking to his brother Patrick, and when Patrick walked away, Jamie called Jack’s name. He made his way over to Jamie, as Angela Darcy appeared at his side, her eyes wide with distress.
“What happened?” he asked, quietly. “What the hell happened, Jack?”
His friend’s face was a ghostly mask as he replied. “Valeri attacked us,” he said, softly. “Brought an army, at least two hundred of them, and attacked the Loop.”
“Let me take her,” said Angela, nodding towards Kate. “You two need to talk.”
For a second, Jamie resisted; he didn’t want to let go of his friend. But Angela was right; even in the midst of all the horror surrounding them, there were things that needed to be said, and done. He gently eased Kate away from his chest, and let Angela slip her arms round her; she went unprotestingly, and as Angela began to stroke her hair, Jamie led Jack out of earshot.
“Why wasn’t there a warning?” he asked, looking around at the carnage that had taken place on the very doorstep of the Blacklight base. “How did they get so close before we fought back?”
“Someone gave them a route through the sensors,” said Jack. “Or that’s what people are saying anyway. I’m not sure anyone really knows.”
“Where’s Admiral Seward? He’ll know.”
Jack looked at his friend, and pain broke across his face.
“Jamie…”
Oh no, thought Jamie, cold running up his spine. Oh, please no. Not him too.
“Don’t tell me he’s dead, Jack,” warned Jamie, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. “Don’t tell me that, OK? Please?”
“He’s not dead,” said Jack. “At least, as far as we know. Valeri took him. Alive.”
“Took him where?” asked Jamie. “Have they run his chip?”
The locator chip that was embedded in the arm of every Operator could mark their position anywhere in the world, to within less than a metre. Each one had a unique frequency, and a battery that would last a century. Jamie had been implanted with one when he was young, so young he didn’t remember it happening; his father had done it as a way of protecting him, and it had worked; it had been what led Frankenstein to him, the night his mother was taken.
“It stopped transmitting halfway across the North Sea,” said Jack. “It’s gone.”
Jamie stared at Jack, horrified. The chips were located beneath the muscle of the forearm; a surgical procedure would be required to remove it, and that didn’t even allow for the fact that the locator chips’ very existence was one of Blacklight’s most closely guarded secrets. The implications of the Director’s chip ceasing to transmit were unavoidable, and deeply unsettling.
“Have you seen Larissa?” asked Jamie, his voice thick with emotion.
Admiral Seward was in the hands of a monster, and his closest friend, his girlfriend, was nowhere to be seen; he felt as though he was standing on quicksand.
“I haven’t, Jamie,” said Jack, softly.
Jamie’s stomach lurched. Larissa was a vampire, with superhuman strength and healing, so her being injured was, unfortunately, the least likely outcome. If he couldn’t find her, if she was nowhere to be seen, it was far more likely that she was dead, especially as whatever had happened before they landed had decimated what he assumed had once been Valeri’s army; he couldn’t see a living vampire anywhere.
At the edge of the long runway that split the middle of the Loop’s grounds, where the tarmac gave way to the wide expanse of grass, three figures climbed slowly to their feet, and began to walk towards the burning landing area.
Cal Holmwood walked in the middle, ready to offer support to either of the two vampires that walked at his sides. Valentin Rusmanov walked with slow determination; the blood that Holmwood had fed him, tipping it into his mouth like a mother feeding a newborn baby, had revived his body, but he was still far from fully recovered. He was bleeding from a number of places: from his ears, from beneath his fingernails and from the back of his throat. Every few paces he spat a thick wad of dark blood on to the ground. His body was screaming with pain, but it was holding together, and that was enough, for now at least.
His memory of what had happened ended only seconds after the ultraviolet bombs had detonated. He had been feeding Larissa, his mind screaming at him to chase his brother, to put an end to Valeri once and for all, but he had found himself unable to leave the wounded vampire girl. His blood had been flowing into her mouth when the ground began to shake.
Valentin had watched as a wide hole opened in the ground, less than twenty metres from where he was kneeling beside Larissa, and a huge transparent ball had risen from the darkness. Then a high-pitched whine, louder and more painful than any sound he had ever heard, had split his head open, and the world had turned purple. He had remained conscious just long enough to realise that the foul smell permeating his nostrils was his own burning flesh, and then there had been nothing but deep, empty darkness.
Larissa remembered even less; she had not seen the huge bombs emerge from beneath the grounds of the Loop, had not seen the flash that had burned her eyes from their sockets. She remembered the terrible feeling of Valeri laying her throat open to the cool evening air, and the soothing feeling of Valentin’s arm beneath her fangs, and then there was nothing.
She was in less pain than the ancient vampire; Holmwood had given more of his supply of blood to her than to Valentin, but every step still sent rivers of agony coursing up her spine. The skin at her throat was pink, and tender, and she knew she was still weak; she had tried to fly, tried to step into the air and go looking for Jamie, but had folded back to the ground, bleeding from her eyes and ears.
After she had told Cal Holmwood to help Valentin, after she had told him that the vampire had tried to help her, Jamie’s name had been the first word she uttered when the Colonel returned to her side.
Holmwood had told her that his helicopter had returned, had landed only minutes earlier, and that was what had prompted her ill-fated attempt to fly, an attempt that had seen Holmwood bellow angrily at her, telling her to take it easy. She had acquiesced, forcing herself to remain still as he finished tending to Valentin; but now she was on her feet, and they were making their way back towards the survivors of Valeri’s attack, and Jamie was all she could think about.
“What happened?” asked Larissa, as they crossed the runway and walked on to the landing area. Patches of fire still burned where the vampires of Valeri’s army had fallen, even though almost all the bodies had now been staked. Three Operators were diligently destroying the last of them, a small cluster who had burned together by the entrance to the hangar. “What did this?”
“Bombs,” said Valentin, shakily. “Ultraviolet bombs. They came up out of the ground.”
“Did you know about them?” asked Larissa, looking over at Cal Holmwood, who shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think anyone did, apart from the Director. He threw me the trigger as Valeri took him.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“You fired them?” asked Larissa, stopping in her tracks. “When you knew we were out here too?”
“What did you want me to do?” asked Holmwood, fiercely. “Operators were dying all around me; we were on the verge of being overrun. I didn’t know what was going to happen, didn’t know what the trigger was for. Admiral Seward threw it to me, the last thing he did before that monster carried him away, so I pressed it. He would have, if he’d had the chance, and that was good enough for me.”
“Promise me you didn’t know what the weapon was,” said Larissa. “Promise me.”
Holmwood sighed. “I promise,” he said. “I can’t promise you that if I had known, I would have done anything differently. But I didn’t know; you have my word.”
Larissa opened her mouth to reply, completely unsure of what sh
e was going to say, when she saw something that stopped the words in her throat.
Running across the dark grass towards her was Jamie Carpenter.
She shrugged Cal Holmwood’s arm away, and stumbled towards him. Her supernaturally sharp eyes, which worked every bit as well in the dark as in the daylight, saw his eyes widen as they settled on her, and he accelerated into a flat sprint. She braced herself, her eyes flaring red with overwhelming joy, and a second later he crashed into her, driving her backwards, his arms, wrapped tightly round her, the only things that stopped her falling to the ground.
She clamped her arms round him, and felt his face bury itself in her neck, felt the heat from his skin and the damp that was gathering around his eyes, and felt her heart swell with happiness and relief.
“You’re alive,” Jamie whispered. “Oh, thank God, you’re alive.”
“So are you,” she said, then laughed, despite herself.
“Are you OK?” he asked, pulling back and looking closely at her.
“I’ve been better,” she replied. “But I’m all right. What about you? What happened in Paris?”
“We found him,” said Jamie. “We brought him home, but…”
His voice trailed away.
“What’s wrong?” asked Larissa.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Jamie. “I’ll tell you later. Where’s Matt? Have you seen him?”
“I haven’t,” said Larissa, her brow furrowing. “I haven’t seen Kate either. Not since all this started.”
“I saw her,” said Jamie, and Larissa felt relief flood through her. “She’s on the landing area. She’s not hurt.”
“Is she OK?”
“No,” said Jamie, and dropped his eyes to the ground. “Not even close. But she’s safe.”
“What happened to her?”
“We have to find Matt,” said Jamie, as though he either hadn’t heard her, or couldn’t bear to answer her. “He might be hurt.”
“Matt?” asked a voice from beside them. “The civilian boy? Is that who you’re looking for?”
Jamie and Larissa turned to see a doctor in a white coat standing next to them. The front of the coat was smeared with blood, and his face was pale.
“Have you seen him?” asked Jamie.
The doctor nodded. “About twenty minutes ago,” he said. “Downstairs. He was with Professor Talbot, heading towards the lift.”
“While the base was being attacked?” asked Jack.
The doctor nodded.
Larissa looked at Jamie, whose brow had furrowed into a frown.
Why wouldn’t Talbot have tried to help up here? he thought. If the base fell, then it would have been the end of the Lazarus Project. Why didn’t he come and fight?
“Let’s go,” said Larissa, and stepped in the air. She hung there for a second, then slumped back to the ground, her arms wrapped round herself. The doctor stepped forward, concern on his face, but she pushed him away. “I’m all right,” she said, angrily. “Jamie, go and find him. I’ll come after you as soon as I can.”
“Are you sure you’re OK?” asked Jamie.
“Just go,” said Larissa. “Right now.”
Jamie looked at her, his face full of open, obvious love. She held his gaze for a long, pregnant moment, then he turned away and sprinted towards the open doors of the hangar. He was accelerating across the tarmac, when he heard a voice say his name, a voice he knew better than any in the world. He skidded to a halt, his heart lurching in his chest, and turned towards it.
Standing in front of him, her hands clasped tightly together in front of her chest, was Marie Carpenter. She was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms, both of which were splattered with blood, and she was looking at her son with an expression of utter wonder on her face.
“Mum?” said Jamie, his voice choking in his throat. “Mum, what are you—”
He didn’t get the chance to finish the question. His mother closed the gap between them in a millisecond, and lifted him off the ground in a crushing hug. He wrapped his arms round her, felt her lower her face against his shoulder. He could barely breathe, so tightly was she holding him, but he managed to force himself to speak.
“Are you OK?” he gasped. “Mum, are you hurt?”
“I’m OK,” she replied, without lifting her head. “I’m OK. Oh, Jamie, I was so worried about you. Are you all right?”
“I’m all right,” he managed. “Mum, you’re crushing me; you have to put me down.”
Marie loosened her grip, and lowered him back to the tarmac. Her eyes were wide and brimming with tears, but he didn’t notice; he was staring at the thick splashes of crimson on his mother’s torso and legs.
“Mum,” he said. “You’re bleeding, Mum. We have to get you to the infirmary.”
“It’s not mine,” said Marie, her voice trembling. “The blood. It’s not mine.”
Jamie raised his head and stared incredulously at his mother.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Mum, what are you doing out here?”
Marie looked at her son. She had clasped her hands back together and was wringing them nervously, without realising it.
“The vampire in the cells,” she said. “Valentin. He told me what was happening up here, and I told him I wanted to help, and he took me out of my cell and brought me with him. I was looking for you, Jamie, looking for you and Kate, and I couldn’t find you, and then I saw vampires hurting your friends, and I…”
Her voice trailed off. She suddenly looked profoundly miserable, and Jamie felt his heart break. He reached out and took her gently by the shoulders.
“Did you fight them?” he asked, softly. “Did you fight the vampires, Mum?”
Marie nodded, slowly. Jamie felt tears rise in the corners of his eyes, and he stepped forward and hugged his mother tightly. Slowly, she raised her arms and placed them round him, as though she hadn’t been sure how he might respond.
“People are saying that bombs went off,” she said, her voice shaking. “I was in one of the corridors when it happened. I think I was lucky.”
That’s an understatement, thought Jamie.
“I love you, Mum,” he whispered, fiercely. “Thank you.”
Jamie gently pulled away from her, and after a moment’s resistance, she let him go. He looked at her with fiery pride burning on his face.
“I have to go and find my friends,” he said. “They might be in trouble. But I’ll come and find you as soon as I’m done. OK?”
“OK,” said Marie, a smile creeping on to her face. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Jamie shook his head.
“I have to do this myself,” he said.
49
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Jamie ran through the grey corridors of the Loop, his heart pounding with adrenaline. The enormity of what had happened on the wide-open grounds of the base above him kept threatening to burst into his mind, but he pushed it away each time.
Can’t think about that now. Too big. Just find Matt, and then you can worry about everything else.
He pressed the CALL button on the wall beside the lift, and kept pressing it until he heard the whirring of metal cables. The doors slid open and he stepped into the lift, pressed the button marked F and tried to catch his breath as he descended into the depths of the base.
The lift slid smoothly to a halt, and he was moving before the doors had even fully opened, sliding out between the narrow gap, and sprinting along the corridor. Around him, the alarms continued to scream, but he barely heard them. His feet pounded the concrete floor as he approached the door that led into the Lazarus Project.
Jamie skidded to a halt in front of it, and gripped the keypad on the wall.
I hope this works, he thought, then keyed in Admiral Seward’s override code. For a long second nothing happened, and his heart sank. Then the red light on the panel turned green, and he heard the heavy locks begin to disengage.
Come on. Come on.
Th
e door clunked open, and he shoved it aside and stepped into the wide room; he took one look around, and his heart froze in his chest.
Scattered around the white floor, or slumped at their desks and counters, were the men and women of the Lazarus Project.
They were all dead.
Their eyes bulged from their heads, staring up at the ceiling with fear and terrible surprise. The stench in the room was appalling, from where the men and women’s bodies had betrayed them at the last; blood and body fluids ran across the floor, bright against the uniform white of the Lazarus Project nerve centre.
On the table in the middle of the room, beside the hologram of the double helix which was still revolving slowly in the midst of the foulness that had erupted all around it, was a square metal box that was folded open. Inside it stood an aerosol canister, stamped with black lettering. Jamie stood, staring at the carnage that had befallen the doctors and scientists that had called this room home, and then panic burst through him, and he fumbled the gas mask from its pouch on his belt and fastened it over his nose and mouth.
Too late, he thought, wildly. It’s too late if it hasn’t dispersed, whatever it is.
Then a second thought occurred to him.
If it killed them all this quickly, you’re going to know in the next minute or so.
The realisation broke the paralysis that gripped him, and he ran to the centre of the room. With his gloved hands, he lifted the canister out of the box and read the lettering on the side.
SARIN (CH3)2CHO]CH3P(O)F
Nerve gas. Jesus, what happened down here?
Jamie took a deep breath, and waited to see if he was going to die.
If there were Sarin residue in the room, if he had ingested it, he would know when his nose began to run. After that, his chest would tighten, his pupils would constrict and he would begin to drool, before he lost control of his body, began to spasm and suffocated. The upside was that at high concentrations, such as would be caused by releasing it in an enclosed room, the whole process would take less than a minute. The downside was that, by all accounts, it was a horrendous, agonising way to die.