by Will Hill
“Hey.”
Matt jumped, and whirled round. Jamie was standing in front of him, his face tight with worry, his skin pale.
“Jesus,” said Matt. “Do you forget how quiet you are or do you just like sneaking up on people?”
“Sorry,” said Jamie. “Can we talk?”
Matt nodded. “I was looking for you to suggest the same thing,” he said. “Let’s go to my quarters.”
“All right,” said Jamie, and forced a tiny smile. “Lead the way.”
Matt closed the door of his quarters as Jamie sat down in the chair beside his desk. He opened his mouth to speak, but his friend beat him to it.
“I’m so sorry, Matt,” he said. “About what happened in the lab. I should have known you would never do anything to hurt my mother. I just wasn’t thinking straight.”
Matt smiled. “It’s all right,” he said. “No harm done.”
“It’s not all right,” said Jamie, fiercely. “Stop being so good about this. Shout at me, or call me a dick, or something. I deserve it.”
Matt shrugged. “What good would that do?”
“It might make you feel better.”
“Would it?” he asked. “Or would it just make you feel better?”
Jamie stared at him for a long moment, then grunted with laughter and looked down at the floor. “You’re so bloody clever,” he said. “You can see right through me, can’t you?”
“What I can see is that you’re having a hard time and you made a mistake and you want to beat yourself up for it,” said Matt. “I can’t stop you if that’s what you want to do, but I don’t think it’s healthy, and I don’t think it’ll help. So I’m sorry if you need me to be angry with you, because I’m not. I don’t have time to be.”
Jamie raised his head. “There are people inside this Department who think I’m arrogant,” he said, and smiled. “That I think I belong at the centre of everything. Were you aware of that?”
Matt smiled. “I may have heard a comment or two along those lines.”
“Just one or two?”
“Maybe half a dozen,” he said. “At the very most.”
“Right,” said Jamie, his smile widening. “I can see their point, in all honesty. The last couple of years have been defining ones for the Department, and for better or worse, whether by design or blind luck, I’ve been in the middle of most of it. Would you say that was fair?”
“I would,” said Matt. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that, for a while, I started to think I was the hero. It’s embarrassing to say out loud, but I really thought everything depended on me, that whether or not we won or lost was always going to come down to me. But I was wrong. You’re the hero, Matt.”
He frowned. “What are you talking about, Jamie?”
“All the vampires that me and the other Operators have destroyed, all the fighting and chasing and all the people who’ve died. What has any of it really achieved? Valeri and Alexandru are dead, and that’s good, that’s genuinely, objectively good. But we didn’t stop Dracula rising and now we can’t even find him. We can’t stop the country tearing itself apart, can’t stop the awful things people are doing to each other. But a cure? This bloody miracle that you and Natalia and Karlsson and the rest of Lazarus have come up with? It saves lives, and it gives people back what they lost. It might even give us a chance to stop Dracula. It changes everything, and I’m so proud of you I barely know where to start.”
Matt stared at his friend. A lump had risen suddenly in his throat, and he found himself incapable of forming a reply.
“My mother got what she wanted more than anything because of you,” continued Jamie. “She hated being a vampire, so much more than I ever wanted to hear, and now she doesn’t have to be one any more. The same goes for the couple I brought in last week, for everyone recovering in the infirmary right now, and for thousands of people around the world. Every single one of them gets a second chance. Do you understand what you’ve done, mate? I mean, do you really, truly understand the magnitude of it?”
“I get it,” said Matt, his voice low. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
His friend fixed him with a fierce smile. “You deserve it. You all do.”
Matt leant back against his door; if the lump in his throat grew any larger, he feared he would not be able to breathe.
“Are we OK?” said Jamie. “I know you said you’re not angry with me, but you need to know that it’s all right if you are. What I did was unforgivable.”
“We’re OK,” he said. “Honestly. Do I wish you hadn’t done what you did? Yeah. I do. Was I angry with you afterwards? I was furious, and I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t. But I knew, even while it was happening, that it wasn’t really you, that you weren’t in control of yourself. You hurt me, and you scared me, and it’s important to me that you understand that. But it’s done. Let’s move on, all right?”
Jamie nodded. “All right.”
Matt paused as a thought occurred to him, one that had been driven from his mind by his friend’s outpouring; he walked across his quarters and dug through the piles of files and boxes that covered both the surface of his desk and a significant amount of the surrounding floor. He found what he was looking for, a white plastic box, and carried it over to his bed.
“What’s that?” asked Jamie.
“This is why I was looking for you,” he said. “It’s a swab kit. I need to take a sample from you.”
Jamie frowned. “A sample of what? Blood?”
Matt shook his head. “We’re moving into a new research phase, and it’s really hard to get reliable histories from vampires. Most don’t know who turned them, and even if they do, they don’t tend to know anything more about them. But your vampire history is clear, and it involves probably only the second vampire that ever existed. I need a sample of the plasma on your fangs, so we can start trying to draw some conclusions. Is that all right?”
Jamie nodded. “Of course,” he said. “Whatever you need.”
Matt smiled, outwardly at least. He didn’t like lying to his friend, especially given the exceptionally kind things that Jamie had just said about him, but it was the only option; there was simply no way he could tell his friend the truth. He opened the kit, took out a small glass jar and a plastic scraper, and looked at Jamie.
“Thank you,” he said. “This is probably going to feel a bit weird, but it’ll be over quickly. Can you open your mouth and bring your fangs out?”
“OK,” said Jamie. “Be careful, though. They’re sharp, and a single drop is all it takes. I know we’ve got a cure now, but take it from me, you don’t want to go through the turn unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Believe me, thought Matt. I understand that all too well.
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
Jamie nodded. He didn’t look completely convinced, but he tilted his head back and opened his mouth. As Matt leant in, fangs slid down from his friend’s gums; they gleamed under the fluorescent ceiling light, as a faint flicker of red appeared in the corners of Jamie’s eyes.
Working very slowly, Matt raised the glass jar and positioned it underneath the left fang, resting it against Jamie’s lower lip. He drew the scraper gently down the tooth, pushing clear plasma towards the point until it dripped into the glass jar. He moved across to the other fang, and thirty seconds later, it was done; he withdrew the jar, dropped the scraper into it, and screwed its lid on tight as Jamie closed his mouth and rubbed his jaw.
“All done?”
“Done,” said Matt. “Thanks. Sorry if that was unpleasant.”
“You were right, it felt a bit weird,” said Jamie. “But it’s fine.”
“I appreciate it,” he said. “It should be very helpful.”
Jamie smiled, and got to his feet. “Cool,” he said. “What are you up to for the rest of the day? I assume you’re going back to work?”
“I’m heading down to the labs now,” lied Matt. “What about you?”<
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“Nothing for a few hours,” said Jamie. “Then Patrol Respond.”
“Good,” he said. “Keep those test subjects coming.”
Jamie smiled. “We’ll do our best. It’s been good to see you, Matt. I know we always say it, but we really don’t see each other often enough. We need to try harder.”
“I know,” he said. “We really do.”
Jamie stepped forward and gave him a brief, tight hug. Matt hugged him back, a smile rising on to his face, until his friend released his grip and walked out of the room. Matt waited two slow minutes, then followed him through the door and headed down the corridor towards the lift.
As he stepped through the open metal doors, his hand moved automatically towards the button marked F, the floor that was home to the Lazarus Project and where he had told Jamie he would be going. He paused, then pressed H and leant against the wall, his momentary good mood drifting rapidly away, replaced by an uneasiness that made his stomach squirm.
“Mr Browning,” said Valentin, a broad smile on his face. “How lovely. Do come in.”
Matt nodded, and walked slowly through the ultraviolet barrier. He did not like voluntarily entering Valentin’s cell; he would happily admit, to anyone who asked, that the ancient vampire scared him, cure or no cure.
After all, he thought, as he crossed the cell and sat down in one of the plastic chairs. There’s no cure for having my head ripped off.
“Tea?” asked Valentin. The vampire was floating a few centimetres off the ground, his mouth curved into a smile that Matt thought looked more hungry than friendly.
“No thanks,” he said.
Valentin nodded. “No time for pleasantries,” he said. “Understood. Let’s get down to business then. What can I do for you?”
Matt took a deep breath. “You know that we’ve developed a cure for vampirism,” he said. “For the second phase of the research, we need to analyse samples from older vampires, those that are the most powerful, so that we can try to reduce the formula’s physical effects. I’m here on behalf of the Director to ask you to give us a sample of the plasma from your fangs, so that we can include it in the research. I’ve been ordered to tell you that it would be highly appreciated.”
Valentin stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing; he rocked back and forth in the air, his hands holding his stomach, as pink light spilled into his eyes. Matt felt embarrassed heat rise into his face, as anger bloomed in his gut.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Oh, my dear Mr Browning,” said Valentin, smiling gently at him. “I am sorry. That was unforgivably rude of me. But you just looked so very earnest and your little speech is so well practised that I’m afraid I could not help but laugh, despite the insult.”
Matt frowned. “What insult?”
“The fact that you clearly believe I am extremely stupid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your story is eminently plausible, Mr Browning,” said Valentin. “And were we not having this conversation inside a secret military installation, I might have been inclined to believe it. But I have been waiting for somebody to come to me with this request since I first heard about the discovery of a cure. I know exactly what you are doing, Mr Browning, because, in all honesty, it would be ridiculous if you weren’t.”
“What am I doing?” asked Matt. “Since you apparently know everything?”
“You are planning to turn your Operator colleagues into vampires,” said Valentin. “You have a cure, which means you can return them to normal after the battle with Dracula is fought, and an army of vampires will help you even the odds. But you want them to be as powerful as possible, and Miss Kinley’s departure leaves you only two realistic options. So you intend to test Mr Carpenter and myself, to see whose version of the vampire virus will be more effective in terms of creating supernatural Operators. Am I broadly correct?”
Matt stared, his eyes wide. “Did someone talk to you?” he said. “You have to tell me if they did. This is beyond classified.”
Valentin frowned, then shook his head. “Nobody talked to me, Mr Browning,” he said. “I worked it out all on my own, remarkably enough.”
“Then how did you know?” asked Matt. He could hear something close to panic in his voice. “How?”
“Because I would do exactly the same thing in your position,” said Valentin. “I was a General for a great many years, Mr Browning. I led thousands of men into more battles than you can imagine, and I have forgotten more about military strategy and tactics than anyone in this building will ever know. It would be irresponsible for you not to at least try and use the discovery of a cure to your advantage.”
“So you’ll help us?” asked Matt.
Valentin smiled. “I will help you by saving you a great deal of time huddled over test tubes and computers. Jamie is powerful, remarkably so for one so young, and his strength and speed will only increase as the years pass, but I was turned more than five hundred years ago. There are only two men left on earth who could produce vampires more powerful than me, and I doubt either of them will be inclined to help you.”
Dracula and the first victim, thought Matt. He’s right about that.
“So that answers your question, Mr Browning,” continued Valentin. “And leads us to another, which is far more important. The question of whether I am inclined to assist you.”
Matt frowned. “Why wouldn’t you?” he asked. “You clearly see the strategic value of what we’re doing, and I know you don’t want to see Dracula victorious. So what would it gain you not to help us?”
“What will it gain me if I do?” asked Valentin, his smile wide and shark-like.
“I don’t have the authority to offer you anything,” said Matt. “I’ll have to talk to the Director.”
“Of course you will,” said the vampire. “And I am sure he will give you a list of trinkets and favours to tempt me with, so let me spare your legs the back and forth. I will help you, but my conditions for doing so are not open for negotiation. This is a take-it-or-leave-it offer, Mr Browning. Is that clear?”
Matt nodded. “I understand,” he said. “Tell me what you want.”
“I will not let you scrape the liquid from my fangs like a snake being milked for its venom,” said Valentin. “I can think of nothing less dignified. I will turn as many of your Operators as you wish, but only if I am allowed to bite them myself. It has been far too long since I tasted human blood, so this will work out well for everyone.”
Ice crackled up Matt’s spine. The vampire’s voice had deepened and thickened, and his easy-going charm was gone, replaced by a cruel, animal hunger.
“There’s no way,” he said, his voice trembling, “that the Director is going to agree to that.”
Valentin smiled. “Then nothing will have been lost, Mr Browning,” he said, his voice once again warm and friendly. “But I believe Major Turner possesses a far greater capacity to surprise than you might think.”
Jamie stared down at the bloody puddle, cold fury burning in his chest. The white paint that had been sprayed over the remains had bled pink at its edges, but was still wet; he guessed it was no more than five minutes old.
“It is the same,” said Qiang. “Night Stalkers.”
Jamie nodded, his mind pulsing with a single thought.
Too late.
The Surveillance alert that had brought them to this bleak industrial estate on the outskirts of Nottingham had been the first of their Patrol Respond; it had appeared on their van’s screen when they were twenty miles away, barely inside their allocated grid, and despite the heroic efforts of their driver, they had evidently not managed to cover the distance quickly enough.
A 999 call had been made by a security guard patrolling the roof of the warehouse that now rose above them, a giant red-brick cube plastered with signs warning would-be intruders of 24-HOUR CCTV MONITORING and GUARD DOGS ON PATROL. The man had seen a dark van pull into the vacant lot below, and three black
-clad figures drag the limp shape of an elderly man out on to the cracked tarmac; he had rung the police as soon as he realised what he was witnessing.
Jamie looked around. There was no sign of the security guard, despite the amplified requests they had made for him to show himself; he had likely fled what had now become a murder scene. Ellison and Qiang were beside him, their visors raised, their faces pale; the three Operators had seen more horror than most, but there was something about the Night Stalker attacks that turned their stomachs. Jamie believed it was the calculated viciousness of the killings; traces of a powerful veterinary sedative had been found in the remains of every Night Stalker victim, and he had seen with his own eyes how the vampires met their end, executed in cold blood, on their knees and utterly helpless.
Five minutes, he thought. Five miles if they were doing sixty. Probably half that, at most.
Ellison looked at him. “What do you want—”
“Stay here,” interrupted Jamie. “I need to check something.”
She frowned. “Stay here? Where are you going?”
Jamie didn’t answer; his feet left the ground and he rocketed directly upwards, leaving his squad mates far below. A bank of grey cloud hung above him, filling the sky for dozens of miles in every direction; he stopped before he reached it, and floated easily in the cold night air. The urban sprawl of Nottingham stretched out below, taller and brighter in the town centre to the west, but dark and quiet directly beneath him; the men and women who worked in the warehouses and factories that filled this corner of the city were long gone.
He scanned the dark landscape, searching for the rumble of a van engine or the red pinpricks of brake lights. He could hear the distant hissing and screeching as a pair of cats faced off, and the steady bass percussion rising from an underground nightclub. He stretched his senses to their limits, feeling the pressure build in his head, and heard something.
It was faint, and getting fainter, but it was there.
An engine.
He squinted in the direction of the sound, scanning the maze of narrow streets for movement. For long, painful seconds, he saw nothing; then, at the furthest reach of his supernatural eyesight, a black shape moved across an intersection, little more than a mobile section of darkness.