by Will Hill
“She’s not—”
“She’s fine, sir,” said Angela. “The extraction team neutralised the threat.”
“Good,” he said. “Have cells prepped for them.”
“Both men are dead, sir,” said Angela. “They were about to execute Kate and a civilian nurse. Dominique authorised Ready One.”
Turner sighed. “Night Stalkers?”
“We don’t know, sir,” said Angela. “But presumably so. Kate said her father told her he wasn’t safe. She thinks they came to finish him off.”
“Has he identified anyone?”
“No, sir. He’s stable but unconscious.”
“All right,” said Turner. “Send Kate to me as soon as she arrives. And get a Security squad to Lincoln General for clean-up.”
“Already done, sir.”
“Fine. Let me know if anything else comes up.” He cut the connection and looked up at Frankenstein. “Tell me something, Victor. Do you think there’ll ever be a time when—”
The radio buzzed again.
Turner swore, and pressed SEND. “What is it now, Angela?”
“It’s not Darcy, sir,” said a familiar voice. “It’s Captain Williams. I need you to come to the hangar.”
He took a deep breath. “Now, Jack?”
“Right away, sir.”
“Why?” he asked. “What’s so damn important?”
“It’s going to be easier just to show you, sir …”
Larissa Kinley pulled on her Blacklight uniform as a loud voice in her head urged her to think again.
They don’t need you! it insisted. They can handle this without you! Why are you so arrogant that you don’t think so? The people here need you! Why can’t that be enough?
She ignored the voice’s increasingly frantic entreaties, clipped her console into the loop on her belt where it had hung so often, and felt a shiver of revulsion at how familiar its weight felt on her hip. She didn’t turn the console on – she could not bring herself to do so, not yet – but she loaded her Glock before she slid it into its holster, and was glad she had left her MP5 and T-Bone behind when she left.
In the part of her mind that was committed to the decision she had made, a fantasy vision of her future stubbornly persisted; she would help Blacklight destroy Dracula, then return to Haven to quietly live out her days. In one version, she brought Jamie and Matt and Kate back with her. In another, she returned alone to find Callum waiting with that small, gentle smile on his face.
The first vampire’s attack on Carcassonne had sent shock waves through Haven, which had already been reeling from the revelation that the condition that had brought its residents together could now be cured. The first forty-eight hours of the amnesty had seen almost half the community make the journey to New York or Boston to receive the bright blue liquid that had filled the front page of every newspaper around the world. But despite the potent effectiveness of the cure, which had stripped the vampire virus from their bodies in a chaotic, violent delirium that none of them could truly remember, barely a dozen of those who had taken it had actually left the community. They had come to Haven because they had nowhere else to go, nowhere they felt safe or accepted, and it had become their home; they had no intention of leaving it simply because they could now go out in the sun.
But the relief that followed the return of the majority of the cured had been diminished by the devastating attacks that had taken place on planes and subways around the world and by the news from France, the revelation that Dracula had finally, at long last, made his move. The prospect of terrible bloodshed, of outright war between the humans and the supernatural, now seemed depressingly possible, if not wholly inevitable.
Larissa’s first instinct had been the same as most of her friends: to keep her head down and hope for the best. But she had quickly realised that she would not be able to live with herself if she did, no matter how much she might want to.
She had no idea what her friends in Blacklight now thought of her. It was more than possible that Jamie hated her, and she would not blame him if he did, Matt would likely be disappointed, if he had even looked up from his work long enough to notice she was gone, but she liked to believe that Kate would have stood up for her, would have understood her reasons and forgiven her.
If she was honest, Larissa knew there was a very good chance that nobody at the Loop would be pleased to see her return, and that was fine. In a way, it would be better; it would make it far easier to leave again once the issue of Dracula was settled. She was sure that Paul Turner would immediately reinstate her – she was far too powerful a weapon not to use – but part of her was hoping she was wrong, and that he would tell her the Department didn’t need her; it would mean she could come home with a clear conscience.
She stood up straight, smoothed down her uniform, and looked at her reflection in the mirror inside her wardrobe door. The uniform fitted her like a glove, and looked so natural on her, so horribly right. Her eyes flared red and she closed them, suddenly full of an overwhelming desire to break the mirror, to smash the wardrobe into splinters, to overturn her bed and tear down the walls and burn the entire house to the ground. She took a deep breath, let it out, took another, and opened her eyes. She stared at the black-clad Operator she had flown halfway around the world to get away from, and felt a lump rise in her throat.
It’s not fair, she thought. I was happy here. I really was.
So stay, whispered her vampire side, its tone unusually soft, almost kind. Nobody will blame you. Stay here, where you belong.
I can’t, she thought. I can’t let them face this on their own.
Her vampire side fell silent. Larissa took a long look in the mirror, then walked out of her bedroom and closed the door behind her.
She flew slowly along the corridor and down the stairs, savouring every last moment inside the house she had come to love, then turned towards the front door and found Callum standing in front of it.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No,” she said, and gave him a tiny smile. “Not in the slightest.”
He took a step towards her. “I know why you’re doing this,” he said. “And I understand. But I’m going to ask you one more time. Do you have to go?”
Larissa felt tears rise in her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
He grimaced, but nodded. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you too,” she said. “Look after everyone. Do that for me, OK?”
“Of course,” said Callum. “You started something here, Larissa. I’ll make sure it carries on.”
“I’m coming back,” she said, her voice suddenly full of fierce passion. “When this is all over, I’m coming back. I’m—”
Callum stepped forward, raised his hands, and gently took hold of her face; she could feel the calluses and rough ridges of his fingertips on her skin. He dipped his head, and planted the briefest, most chaste kiss of her entire life on her lips. She stared into his wide brown eyes, and smiled as he released her and stepped back.
“For luck,” he said.
Larissa didn’t respond; there was nothing left to say, nothing to do but carry out the decision she had made as quickly as possible, before her heart broke. She opened the front door of the big house, stepped through it, and froze.
The veranda blazed with light; its wooden boards and walls had been covered in candles, their yellow flames flickering in the late evening breeze. And out on the wide lawn, surrounded by what must have been thousands more candles, stood what looked like every single resident of Haven; they smiled at her as she stared, her eyes wide, a lump in her throat so huge that she could barely breathe around it.
Emily Belmont stepped out of the crowd, her lined face creased by a broad smile.
“You didn’t think we were going to let you leave without saying goodbye, did you?” said the old vampire. “This is our home, the first that a great many of us have ever known, and we have you to thank for it. Haven has become a place where w
e can feel safe, a place that all of us have come to love, and you will never, ever know how grateful we are for everything you’ve done. I speak for all of us when I say we understand why you have to go, so we won’t ask you to change your mind, even though we wish you would. Instead, we just ask that you stay safe, and that you come back to us if you can. We love you, Larissa.”
Tears broke loose and spilled down Larissa’s face. She made no attempt to wipe them away; instead, she forced herself to walk on legs that felt incapable of holding her up, trying to withstand the pain in her chest and the unbearable wave of desperate love rolling through it. She reached Emily Belmont and pulled her close; the old vampire came willingly, wrapping her arms round Larissa and shushing her softly, like a mother urging their child not to cry.
She broke the embrace, and walked into the crowd, her bag hanging forgotten at her side. Faces smiled at her from all sides as arms reached out to hug her and hands clapped her gently on the back. A low chorus of thank yous and goodbyes and good lucks echoed around her as she walked among the men and women with whom she had built a place she could still not really believe she was about to voluntarily leave. The emotion of the moment threatened to overwhelm her; the outpouring of love and gratitude from all sides was too much: it was impossible and wonderful and painful all at once.
She reached the edge of the crowd, and turned back.
I don’t know if I can do this, she thought, as she looked at the smiling, tear-streaked faces of her friends. Oh God, I didn’t know it would be this hard. Maybe it’s too hard.
But then she thought about her other friends. She thought about Matt working day and night to develop the cure that had brought hope to a world that had seemed to be on the verge of tearing itself apart, she thought about Kate and Jamie putting on their uniforms and flying into the darkness to confront the greatest threat humanity had ever faced, and she knew she couldn’t stay. She would stand with them at the last, or she would never be able to forgive herself.
“Thank you all so much,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “Look after each other. Be safe.”
Larissa rose into the air and accelerated east without another word, the lights of Haven shrinking away below her.
She didn’t stop crying until she was almost halfway across the Atlantic.
Her sides ached from wracking sobs, her face was red-raw from a combination of salty tears and punishing wind, and her heart felt like a lead weight. Haven had been a place – perhaps the only place she had ever known – where she could really, truly be herself, a place full of light and noise and laughter, and she was already dreading the grey functionality of the Loop, the stares and whispered comments and crushing, debilitating monotony.
She soared over the Irish Sea, still heading east. Her supernaturally sharp eyes picked out the lights of ships ploughing through the wide grey body of water below, as transatlantic airliners rumbled above her towards the airports of London, the running lights on their wings blinding, the air swirling in their wake.
Larissa flew lower as the landscape flattened out into seemingly endless fields of grey and brown. She accelerated, descending all the time, and then, in the distance, she saw it: the holographic canopy that hid the Loop from prying eyes.
It was a remarkable illusion, and it had fooled surveillance planes and spy satellites alike for many years. But to Larissa, who knew exactly what she was looking for, it was as clear as a neon WELCOME sign; from her low angle of approach, she saw the telltale shimmer where the projected trees met the real ones, saw the ridges and peaks that were merely a suspension of reflective particles, and headed directly towards it. As she sped over the trees and dropped through the hologram, she heard a cacophony of distant alarms burst into life, and smiled; her arrival constituted an unidentified breach of Blacklight’s airspace, but she knew she would be standing in the hangar before the Security Operators that had been scrambled from the levels below appeared.
Larissa glided over the ultraviolet bombs that stood, armed and ready, at intervals across the wide grounds, dropped to the tarmac outside the low rise of the Loop’s surface level, and walked towards the huge open doors. Her stomach was churning, and her vampire side was still trying, even at this late stage in the proceedings, to persuade her that this was stupid, it was a terrible mistake, and she should just turn round now and fly home, before it was too late.
She walked into the hangar, which appeared not to have changed at all in the months she had been gone, and stopped atop the wide panel that slid aside to allow the Mina II, the Department’s supersonic jet, to rise up from below. She stood with her arms out from her sides, making sure it was clear that her hands were empty; she knew Security would be coming, and she didn’t want to create a panic by making it seem as though the Loop was under attack. She felt heat rise behind her eyes as the scream of the general alarm pounded into her ears, and pushed it back; her eyes blazing with supernatural red would certainly not help her create a good first impression.
The doors at the rear of the hangar slammed open and six Operators rushed through, their T-Bones raised to their shoulders, their faces hidden behind visors.
“Don’t move!” bellowed the figure at the front of the squad. “Hands in the air! Don’t you—”
The Operator stopped dead, then reached up and slowly raised its visor. Larissa saw the pale face of Jack Williams, a frown of profound confusion contorting it, and smiled.
“Larissa?” asked Jack. “Is that you?”
“Hey, Jack,” she replied. “It’s good to see you.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Jack. “You can’t just show up like this. Nobody’s seen you for months.”
“Sorry,” she said. “You probably need to alert the Director, right?”
“Damn right I need to alert the Director,” said Jack, his frown deepening.
“In which case, I should probably stay here,” she said, her smile widening into a grin. “And not move a muscle unless someone tells me to.”
Jack shook his head; for the briefest of moments, she saw the ghost of a smile flicker across his face.
“You do that,” he said. “Stay right there while I call this in.”
Larissa nodded as Jack twisted a dial on his belt, his gaze never leaving her.
“It’s not Darcy, sir,” he said, eventually. “It’s Captain Williams. I need you to come to the hangar.” There was a pause, in which she could hear the faint murmur of the voice on the other end of the line. “Right away, sir.” Another pause. “It’s going to be easier just to show you, sir. Yes, sir, I’ll stay here. Out.”
Larissa waited in silence as Jack put his radio back on his belt, an easy smile on her face despite the five T-Bones aimed at her heart. She did not like having weapons pointed at her, but she also had no wish to provoke the situation; if it was her intention to cause trouble, she knew – and knew that Jack knew – there would be very little they could do to stop her, but there was nothing to be gained by making that point clear.
Three minutes later the doors swung open again, but this time only a single figure strode through them.
Paul Turner was not wearing a helmet, and Larissa felt her heart lurch at the sight of him; he looked utterly exhausted, as though he could barely stand. Then his eyes settled on her; they widened hugely, and he took a step backwards, like he had seen a ghost.
“Hello, sir,” she said. “You’re looking well.”
Turner rallied magnificently; she would have expected no less of the man. His face regained its usual impassive expression, and he walked towards her with an air of something close to nonchalance.
“Lieutenant Kinley,” he said, stopping in front of her. “Welcome home.”
Larissa smiled. “This isn’t my home, sir,” she said. “Not any more.”
“Fair enough,” said the Director, and returned her smile with a narrow one of his own. “How about welcome back?”
“That’s fine, sir,” she said. “Thank you.”
“For a while, sir,” she said. “If that’s all right with you?”
“That’s fine,” said Turner. “Your old quarters are still empty. I presume you remember the way?”
Her smile widened. “I think so, sir.”
“Good,” he said. “Go and get settled in. I’ll tell the Security Officer to bring you up to speed.”
Larissa nodded. “Can I make a request, sir?”
“Already?” asked Turner.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Please don’t tell anyone I’m back. There are some conversations I’m not ready to have just yet.”
“You have my word,” said Turner. “But you won’t be able to hide for very long. You’re quite recognisable.”
She nodded. “I’m very aware of that, sir,” she said. “Believe me.”
Paul Turner sat at his desk, watching news footage of the huge cloud of smoke that was now hanging over Carcassonne, trying to take in the magnitude of what he was seeing and somehow fit it into his increasingly overstretched mind.
The smoke was too thick for the cameras to penetrate, but it was clear that the devastation unleashed on the French city was going to be revealed to be vast; the fires had lit up the sky overnight for hundreds of miles and even though the flames had now been extinguished, the damage they had caused was surely going to be horrendous, the loss of life huge.
I need to tell Larissa and Matt about Danny Lawrence, he realised, and added it to the many other unpleasant tasks that filled his mental to-do list. They both worked with him in America. Great news for them to wake up to.
He continued to stare at the screen, but he was no longer watching it. It felt like his mind was being pulled in a thousand different directions – Carcassonne, the cure, Dracula, Kate, the Night Stalkers, Larissa – and he was struggling to decide what required his attention first.
His radio buzzed into life. He pressed the SEND button on the handset, and sat back in his chair.
“Turner,” he said.
“Morning, sir,” said Angela Darcy. “I know it’s early, but Pete Randall is awake in the infirmary. I thought you’d want to know.”