Darkest Night

by Will Hill

  The lift doors slid open to reveal the Level C corridor, its grey walls indistinguishable from the rest of the Loop. Paul Turner walked until he reached the white double doors of the infirmary, and pushed them open.

  The white room was full of beds surrounded by curtains, behind which Operators who had already taken part in PROMETHEUS were recovering. One bed was uncovered, halfway down the right-hand wall; lying in it, propped up against a mountain of pillows, was Pete Randall. He was connected by a maze of wires to a bank of machines, but his eyes were open; he looked up as the Director entered the room and gave him a small, nervous smile.

  Turner walked over and stopped beside the bed.

  “Mr Randall,” he said, returning his smile. “I’m very pleased to see you looking so well. Welcome back to the Loop.”

  “Thank you, Major Turner,” said Pete, his voice hoarse. “Where’s my daughter?”

  “She’s safe,” said Turner. “She was attacked in the process of extracting you from Lincoln General, but she’s safe.”

  “Attacked?” said Pete, his eyes widening. “By who?”

  “Two men posing as policemen.”

  “Night Stalkers?”

  He nodded. “We’re assuming so. I have photos, if you feel up to looking at them? I warn you, they’re not pleasant.”

  “Show me,” said Pete.

  Turner nodded, drew his console from his belt, and loaded the photos of the men Dominique Saint-Jacques’ squad had killed. They had been cleaned up for examination, but the neat black holes in their foreheads were clearly visible. He held the console out towards Pete, whose face paled as he looked.

  “Jesus,” he whispered.

  “Do you recognise them, Mr Randall?” asked Turner.

  Pete shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “We should have identification soon, regardless. And as I said, Kate is perfectly safe.”

  Pete nodded, but he didn’t look remotely convinced.

  “I need to ask you about last night, Mr Randall,” said Turner. “I’m sorry, but it’s important. Did you recognise the men who shot you?”

  Pete nodded. “Yes,” he whispered. “It was Greg Browning.”

  Turner inhaled sharply. “Matt’s father?”

  “Yes,” said Pete, tears appearing in the corners of his eyes. “He’s the Night Stalker. Or one of them, at least. Did you know there’s more than one?”

  Turner nodded. “We knew.”

  “I knew something was going on,” continued Pete. “Just little things, you know. Security guards I didn’t recognise, coincidences, unnecessary lies. And Greg was adamant that we shouldn’t help you distribute the cure. So last night I followed him after work. He met up with some other men, some of them from SSL, some of them I didn’t recognise, and they split up and drove off in black vans. Greg and his partner abducted a vampire from a house on the edge of Lincoln, and were going to execute him on wasteland by the canal. I confronted him, until he raised a gun. Then I ran.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Turner.

  Pete nodded. “I ran down the canal,” he said, his face creased with pain at the memory. “Until … you know …”

  Turner nodded. “The bullet went through your shoulder.”

  “I suppose I was lucky then,” said Pete. “I lost my balance and fell into the canal. To be honest, I don’t really remember anything after that until I woke up in hospital and saw Kate.”

  “How many men did you see last night, Mr Randall?” he asked.

  “Eight,” said Pete. “There are four Night Stalker teams, at least. They use the SSL helpline to identify vampire targets, vampires who confess to violence. Then they kill them.”

  “Can you give me the names of the men you recognised?”

  Pete nodded. “Greg Browning. John Bolton. Ben Maddox. Dan Bellamy. They all work at SSL. And a man who told me his name was Phil Baker. He works as a security guard, and he said he used to be a Marine.”

  “Thank you,” said Turner. He pulled his radio from his belt, keyed in a frequency and held the handset to his ear. “Angela?” he said, after a tiny pause.

  “Yes, sir?” said the Security Officer.

  “I have five men I want brought in for immediate questioning. Greg Browning, John Bolton, Ben Maddox, Dan Bellamy, who are all employees of the SSL charity in Lincoln, and Phil Baker, who may be a former Royal Marine. Priority Level 1 for all of them. Is that clear?”

  “Of course, sir,” said Angela. “I’ll let you know as soon as we have them.”

  “Thank you,” he said. He pressed END, and kept the radio in his hand.

  “Are you going to hurt them?” asked Pete.

  He looked down at the man lying in the bed. “Do you want me to?”

  “Yes,” said Pete, then grimaced. “No.”

  “I’m not going to hurt them, Mr Randall,” said Turner. “But I do need to make sure they don’t hurt anyone else. That’s my priority. This room is currently off-limits to everyone but the medical staff and myself, but I’ll have you moved as soon as the doctors tell me it’s safe, so Kate can come and see you. You have my word. In the meantime, focus on getting better. I’ll let you know when we have any news about your colleagues.”

  Pete nodded. “Thank you.”

  “All right,” he said. “Goodbye, Mr Randall.”

  He turned and walked back towards the infirmary doors, typing into the handset again as he pushed through them into the corridor. He raised it to his ear, waiting for the Intelligence Director’s voice to come on the line.

  “Yes, sir?” said Major Bennett.

  “I want to know everything there is to know about SSL,” said Turner. “Priority Level 1.”

  “We investigated them when they first appeared, sir,” said Bennett. “What do you want to know?”

  “Who finances them?”

  “Private donors, in theory,” said Bennett. “There’s a limited company behind their charity number, but the trail goes offshore immediately. There’s a holding company underneath about a dozen layers of shell companies and dummy LLCs.”

  “Based where?” asked Turner.

  “Two guesses, sir.”

  “Bermuda?”

  “No.”

  “Grand Cayman?”

  “Bingo.”

  Turner grimaced. “Have you seen any other charities with a structure like that?”

  “No, sir,” said Bennett. “I haven’t.”

  “I want the details of the holding company,” said Turner. “I want to know who’s been paying for all of this.”

  “I can request the information, sir. The Cayman finance ministry will tell me exactly where to go, but I can do it if you want me to.”

  “Is there any other way?” asked Turner.

  “I can ask GCHQ to investigate.”

  “Anything else?”

  “My division can hack into the Cayman register of companies in about five minutes, sir,” said Bennett. “Although I never said so, and it goes without saying that you never asked me to.”

  Turner grinned. “Of course not.”

  Dracula looked out over the ruined sprawl of Carcassonne, a sense of profound satisfaction filling him.

  The night had gone perfectly to plan; the fires had burned with beautiful fury until the first purple light had appeared below the eastern horizon, and his followers had descended the hill to put them out, drowning the flames with water that boiled into plumes of white steam and choking grey smoke.

  The destruction of the city had served as a fine display of his power; now he needed his enemies to react to it as he was expecting them to. He needed them to come for him with everything they had, with every man and woman at their disposal and all guns blazing, so their defeat would be both total and undeniable, and the whole world would see that he, and he alone, was now the dominant force on the planet.

  Dracula had not yet decided how many people would need to die once his rule was established. Some of the killing would ha
ppen naturally; once his enemies were ground beneath his feet, he expected that vampires who even now remained hidden would unleash a genocidal retribution against the humans who had forced them into the shadows. But that would not be sufficient; an uncoordinated wave of revenge killings would be hugely effective at terrorising the majority of the human population into submission, but would also, he knew from experience, fan the flames of rebellion, and killing those who stood up against him, as publicly and graphically as possible, would be his highest priority. Their deaths would undoubtedly make them martyrs, but with each example that was made, the subsequent resistance would shrink, until it was nothing more dangerous than muttered words of dissent in private homes.

  It would be the one absolutely inviolate rule: anyone who publicly opposed Dracula, in any way, would die, and die badly.

  Turning new vampires without explicit permission would again be forbidden, as he remade the world. He would allow a certain number of politicians to remain in their posts, for the purposes of administrating day-to-day matters, but he would place vampires he could trust above them all; his new empire would run on fear, which had always been the greatest motivator he knew. It would be hard at first, and brutal, but in the end a combination of terror and desperate relief would make those who had survived the early purges grateful for their lives.

  Eventually, they would come to love him.

  The eastern sky was lightening, but Dracula was not yet ready to go back inside; he wanted to watch the dying city breathe its last. The majority of his followers had fled gratefully for their beds when he dismissed them, but he had never felt more awake, more alive; he was standing on the precipice of something unprecedented, something he had always known was his destiny.

  Footsteps echoed across the cobblestones behind him, and he smiled. There had never been any doubt that Osvaldo would remind him to take shelter from the rising sun; the Spanish vampire was unfailingly conscientious. Dracula turned to face him as he approached, his smile still in place.

  “Osvaldo,” he said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “It is, my lord,” said the vampire. “But it is time.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I am reluctant to leave such a view.”

  “There will be finer sights than this, my lord.”

  Dracula’s smile widened. “How right you are,” he said. “Accompany me to the Basilica.”

  “Of course, my lord,” said Osvaldo.

  Dracula strode across the cobbled square, the Spanish vampire falling in beside him. Before him stood the Hôtel de la Cité, where the hostages were being kept in relative good health until their inevitable deaths, either at the hands of his enemies or of Dracula himself. Rising above its rooftops was the spire of the Basilique Saint-Nazaire, the ornate church that he had taken as his private quarters, and which few of his army were willing to enter: he had seen otherwise fearless vampires hiss and screech and spit at the mere thought of setting foot on its consecrated ground.

  Children, he thought. Heathens. They do not even understand themselves. The church can do them no harm.

  Unlike his followers, Dracula loved the Basilica. It was the grandest building in the medieval city, and therefore only fitting that he take it as his residence, but there was more to it than that; the interior of the old church was beautiful, with high walls and carved stone pillars interspersed with stained-glass windows, and it was cold, and empty. He had already decided that once the upcoming battle was won, and his dominion over the planet was absolute, it would be his throne room.

  “What if they don’t come, my lord?” asked Osvaldo, as they rounded the corner and walked up into the wide plaza in front of the Basilica.

  “Then we will burn another city,” said Dracula. “And another, and another, until they do. But that won’t be necessary. They will come.”

  “If you say so, my lord,” said Osvaldo. “I do not doubt you.”

  Dracula nodded.

  Nor should you, he thought. Not if you value your life.

  “Tell me of our new arrivals,” he said. “I trust you are handling them?”

  “I am, my lord,” said Osvaldo. “Almost a thousand now since you spoke on the walls, and more arriving with each hour that passes. Many are cowards, seeking nothing more than your favour, but some are proving useful. There are true believers among them, my lord, men and women who will die at your command without a second thought.”

  “Excellent,” said Dracula. “See that they are made good use of.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Osvaldo. “The only problem I can foresee is one of space. It will not be long until there is no more room in the city for your army.”

  Dracula smiled narrowly. “That problem will resolve itself,” he said. “Providing that all goes to plan, a great many of them will soon be dead.”

  Osvaldo frowned. “You believe so, my lord?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Only a fool would believe that a battle could be won without casualties on both sides, and our enemies are fast, and strong, and resourceful. They are a worthy foe, and must be taken seriously. Those who fight with us and survive will live like kings for the rest of their days, while the rest will die with honour and glory. What finer possible fate could there be?”

  “None, my lord,” said Osvaldo, his voice thick with devoted fervour. “It is exactly as you say.”

  “Your agreement is unnecessary,” said Dracula, as they reached the door of the Basilica. “What of the hostages?”

  “Physically, they are fine, my lord,” said Osvaldo. “They are scared, and they want to go home. Their fear keeps them well behaved.”

  Dracula pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the church, relishing the cold air and the scent of long-extinguished candles. The wooden pews had been piled against the walls, creating a wide empty space; he walked down the long aisle at the centre of the nave, his footsteps loud on the tiled floor, Osvaldo following a deferential distance behind him. A large wooden cross stood in an alcove on the left and an elevated stone chancel rose at the far end, beneath panels of bright multicoloured glass. A large chair had been placed at its centre; it faced down the cavernous building, and it was from where Dracula issued orders and dispensed judgements.

  “Of course they want to go home,” he said. “Make sure they continue to believe it is a possibility.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Osvaldo.

  Dracula nodded, and floated up on to the chancel. “Leave me,” he said.

  The vampire bowed, and walked quickly towards the door.

  “Osvaldo,” said Dracula, just before he reached it.

  “Yes, my lord?” said the vampire, turning instantly back to face his master.

  “Have Emery torture one of the hostages when you return to the hotel. I do not want them becoming too comfortable.”

  Osvaldo nodded. “Of course, my lord. Any one in particular?”

  “It makes not the slightest bit of difference to me,” said Dracula. “Let Emery choose, but do not let him kill them. I want their suffering to serve as a warning.”

  Osvaldo nodded, and exited the Basilica, closing the door behind him. Dracula settled himself into his chair and allowed his mind to return to its most constant topic: exactly when his enemies would make their inevitable move against him.

  Surely no more than two days, he thought. Three at the very most. Any longer and I will have to give them fresh motivation.

  There were few things in the world that Matt had less wanted to see when his console beeped in his pocket than a message summoning him to see the Director.

  The influx of data from PROMETHEUS was overwhelming the Lazarus Project, and he was trying to find more than a stolen moment to spend with his girlfriend while also trying to ignore the part of his brain that was constantly telling him that he was a bad person, and a worse friend for what he had done to Jamie; he was stretched as thin as he thought he ever had been, and felt like he had no more capacity to absorb surprises or bad news, both of which were
the likely result of a summons to see Major Turner.

  He walked down the short corridor on Level A, pushed open the door, and froze.

  The Director was in his usual position, in the chair behind his desk. But standing in front of him, her head turned to look at Matt with an expression that was entirely unreadable, was Larissa Kinley.

  He merely stared at her; a jumble of emotions were jostling for position, momentarily paralysing him.

  What else? he managed to wonder. What else is there left to go wrong?

  “Shut the door and come in, Browning,” said the Director. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, for heaven’s sake.”

  It feels like I have, thought Matt.

  He forced his body into action, closed the door, and walked slowly across the room, his gaze fixed on Larissa.

  “Hello, Matt,” she said, and gave him a tiny smile.

  “Hello, Larissa,” he said, his voice unsteady. “So you’re back?”

  “I’m back,” she said. “I got in last night and—”

  “I’m sorry,” interrupted Turner. “I know you probably have a lot of catching up to do, but I have to leave for France in thirty minutes and I have something I need to tell you both. I’m afraid it’s bad news, but I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.”

  “I’ve been back twelve hours and you’ve already got bad news for me,” said Larissa, her smile disappearing. “Nothing changes around here, does it?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Turner. “You are both aware of what has taken place in Carcassonne over the last twelve hours?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Matt, as Larissa nodded her head.

  “When the fires were started, a Red Cross team was trapped inside the city,” said Turner. “General Allen sent a squad in to get them out, but they were ambushed by vampires and both the volunteers and the Operators were killed. The NS9 squad was led by Danny Lawrence.”

  For a long moment, neither Matt nor Larissa responded; they simply stared at the Director.

  “Danny’s dead?” said Larissa, eventually.

  Turner nodded. “I’m truly sorry. I know you both knew him.”

  “Yeah,” said Larissa. “He was my friend.”