by Will Hill
Below him, a door banged open, followed by the thunder of running footsteps.
Five seconds, he thought, pride flooding through him, as he ran towards the staircase. Three targets down. Not bad for an old man.
At the centre of the raging, relentless battle, Bob Allen surveyed the scene, and could no longer reject the truth that had been racing through him since the helicopters had burst into flames.
We’re going to lose.
Around him, Operators were fighting with everything they had, with astonishing dedication to a visibly fading hope. The ground was soaked with the remains of dead vampires, reducing wide areas to swamps of ash and blood, but there was no denying the reality. They were killing at a prodigious rate, but the Multinational Force was losing too many of their own; it was only a matter of time until simple mathematics decided the outcome, and, with each minute that passed without word from the strike team, that time was becoming increasingly short.
Allen raised his T-Bone and skewered a vampire soaring above the battlefield like a vulture. As the woman was dragged screaming to the ground, Allen ran towards her, drawing his stake as he did so, a silent plea tumbling through his mind.
Please. Don’t let it end like this. Give us a miracle. Please.
Foster sprinted down the stairs as two of the hostages picked up the vampires’ guns from where they had fallen. He met them at the bottom as the two large windows at the front of the hotel exploded in a blizzard of flying glass, and vampires poured through them.
“Drive them back!” he yelled.
He dropped to one knee, and started firing. The SIG’s bullets sliced through a vampire as she leapt through one of the windows; she crashed against the frame, stuck in a dozen places by broken glass, and hung there. Vampires piled up behind her, and Foster sent bullets into their heads and necks. Behind him, the other two guns roared into life, and although he saw a number of holes appear in the walls and ceiling, plenty of bullets hit home. Blood flew in the air as screams echoed through the lobby and the vampires scrambled backwards, trying to escape the killing zone.
“Cynthia!” he shouted. His wife appeared at his side, and he pointed towards the offices at the rear of the lobby. “Check them! Look for more weapons!”
She ran towards the doors as Foster returned his attention to the wide front of the hotel. The flood of vampires had slowed to a trickle; he shot a woman peering through a window in the head, and heard a gratifying chorus of hisses and growls from outside in the square.
They’re nervous, he thought. They’re not sure what to do now.
“Come out,” shouted a voice. “There’s no need for any of this. Come out and you can all just leave.”
Foster stood up, the SIG still trained on the windows.
“Nothing,” said Cynthia, arriving back at his side. “No weapons.”
“OK,” he said.
“What do we do?” asked one of the hostages. “Do we go?”
“Don’t be stupid,” said another. “There’s no way we can trust them. We should stay here.”
“And do what?” asked Foster. “We’ve got three guns between us. When whatever is happening outside the city is over, the vampires will all come back here and there’ll be no way to hold them off. If we stay, we’re dead.”
“We should have stayed in our rooms,” said a woman, staring at him accusingly. “We were safe there.”
“For how long?” asked Foster, his voice rising with anger. “If you really believe that they were going to let us go when whatever this is is done, then go back to your room. You can tell them you had nothing to do with it.”
“It’s too late,” hissed the woman. “They’ll kill us all now as punishment.”
“Then we don’t have much of a choice, do we?” he said. “We have to keep going.”
“And do what?” she asked.
“Fight,” said Foster, simply. “It’s our only chance. Maybe some of us will get away.”
“Some of us?” said the woman. “What about the rest?”
Foster stared at her, and didn’t respond.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “We’re dead. We’re all dead.”
“That’s enough,” said Cynthia. “Nobody made you leave your room.”
The woman narrowed her eyes in the direction of Foster’s wife, but fell silent. The American Colonel nodded, and faced the rest of the hostages.
“We go straight out the front door, fire our guns empty, and scatter,” he said. “Keep running, no matter what you hear, or what happens to anyone else. Is everybody totally clear on that?”
There was a low murmur of agreement.
“All right,” said Foster. “Follow me.”
He walked across the lobby, his gaze fixed on the windows, alert to a second assault if it came. On the floor near the reception desk, beside the body of the vampire he had shot in the mouth, lay a snub-nosed Uzi machine pistol; he picked it up and held it out to Cynthia, who took it without a word.
Foster reached the door, took a deep breath, and stepped through it. Part of him was expecting to be killed instantly, his throat torn out by a vampire hiding in the shadows outside the entrance, but nothing happened; he stepped on to the cobblestones, his wife beside him, the rest of the hostages behind, and looked at what was waiting for them.
The square was full of vampires.
There had to be at least a hundred of them; they were standing silently in the darkness, with glowing eyes and smiles on their faces. At their centre, regarding him with an expression of open loathing, was the vampire who had caught him and Cynthia as they tried to escape from the carnage that had been unleashed in the city.
“You,” growled the man. “Of course it’s you. I should have killed you when I set eyes on you.”
“You’re right,” said Foster. “You probably should have.”
“At least I get the chance to put that mistake right,” said the vampire, his eyes blazing. “Any final words?”
“Go to hell,” said Foster.
“You first,” said the vampire. “I’ll see you there.”
Here it comes, he told himself. This is it. This is the end.
The crowd of vampires swayed and pulsed in the darkness. Foster silently gave thanks for the life he had lived, for the woman he had been privileged to share it with. Then he wrapped his finger round the SIG’s trigger, and prepared to die.
“They are overrun,” said the President. “It is time. Order the launch.”
Vallens felt ice crawl up his spine. The President’s conclusion was inarguable, given the images being relayed from the satellites over Carcassonne and Captain Guérin’s description of the situation, but he still could not truly believe what was about to happen.
“Sir, I …” began Ducroix, but the President spoke over him.
“That is a direct order, General. Order the launch.”
“Yes, sir,” said Ducroix, his voice low and hoarse.
Here we go, thought Vallens. God help us. And may our children forgive us.
When Angela swam back into consciousness, she was once again alone inside the church.
The pain seemed less; whether that was because her body had gone into shock, or because she was now so dangerously low on blood that signals were no longer being effectively transmitted to her brain, she didn’t know. All she knew was that she could think slightly more clearly, and that if she was going to do anything about her situation, she was going to have to do it now.
She focused all her concentration on her right hand, trying to make it move, even just a millimetre. She gritted her teeth, her head pounding with rising pressure, and pressed as hard as she could; after a long, agonising moment in which nothing happened, her hand began to tremble. She bore down with every bit of strength she had left, her body screaming with pain, and saw her palm slide along the nail that had been pounded through it. Her hand had moved less than a centimetre, but it had moved; she relaxed her muscles, and tried her hardest not to burst into tears of reli
ef.
Angela took a deep breath and focused again, working her hand back and forth, faster and faster.
Larissa flew round the curve in the road and stopped dead beside Jamie.
Before them was a beautiful cobbled square, with small, neat shops and cafés on three sides and the façade of a grand hotel on the fourth, its pale stone carved and rising to soaring roofs and ramparts. Standing in front of it, filling the square with a pulsating red glow, were vampires.
Dozens and dozens of vampires.
Their attention was fixed on the stone archway of the hotel entrance, where Larissa could see a small cluster of men and women, several of whom were holding guns.
Who the hell are they? she thought. The hostages?
But as she wondered, her heart racing in her chest, the vampires turned, seemingly as one, and looked at the strike team.
A hundred of them, she thought. At least. And four of us.
She had been in fights with worse odds, although none of them were experiences she was keen to relive. But there was nothing to be done; there was no backup they could call, no strategy or surprise they could deploy. All they could do was fight, until they could do so no more.
A low growl rose from Jamie’s throat. She glanced round, saw the crimson glow below his raised visor and complete absence of fear on her ex-boyfriend’s face, and felt her heart surge. It was not in Jamie’s nature to back down from anything, a quality that was often maddeningly frustrating, but which, in circumstances like these, was also one of his greatest strengths.
The air crackled with tension, with the prospect of imminent violence, as the vampires stared at them, and Larissa felt the heat in her eyes rise to a temperature that was almost unbearable.
Come on then! she silently screamed. Come on!
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. Up by the highest towers of the ancient church, she saw a black silhouette floating in the darkness and two glowing pinpricks of red light as Dracula stared down at them.
You’re next, you old monster, she thought. As soon as we’re done here, we’re coming for you.
The tension in the square became unbearable, as though the air itself was alive with electricity. A vampire near the centre of the crowd opened his mouth, his fangs gleaming, presumably to give the order to attack, and Larissa took a deep breath. But before the vampire was able to form the first syllable, a silver-haired man at the front of the small crowd in the hotel entrance raised a submachine gun in hands that were visibly steady, and pulled its trigger.
The gunfire was deafening in the enclosed square. The bullets ripped into the crowd, who had all made the mistake of turning their backs on the man. Screams rang out and blood flew as three more of the – hostages? – men and women opened fire; bodies crashed to the ground, blood pouring from them, as the rest of the vampires leapt into the air; panic overwhelmed them as they dodged the deadly streams of lead, all thoughts of attack forgotten, their only focus suddenly on defending themselves.
Jamie saw their chance, as Larissa knew he would.
“Go!” he bellowed, and raced towards the crowd, his MP7 raised. She followed him, a huge smile on her face, her mind blazing with violence.
Floating beside the Basilique Saint-Nazaire, Dracula watched as the four soldiers joined the fight in the square below.
They had fought their way up through the medieval city, which deserved a modicum of his respect. If they made it past the remainder of his guard, it would increase, right up until the moment he killed them himself.
We are entering the final act, he thought. Now we’ll see whether I will be required to bloody my hands.
The command screen on the bridge of the Terrible glowed into life again. Commander Masson grabbed the order as it emerged from the printer, and felt his chest tighten.
“What is it, sir?” asked Clément.
Masson passed the page to his executive officer, and watched the man’s face pale as he read it.
“I do not understand,” said Clément. “How can this be necessary, sir?”
“This order means the battle at Carcassonne is lost,” said Masson. “That is the only explanation. Would you have Dracula and his army sweep across the entire country unopposed?”
The executive officer stared at him, but didn’t respond.
“Give me weapons control,” he said.
Clément grimaced, but opened the comms line. Masson lifted the handset, and waited for the voice on the other end of the line to speak.
“Weapons control.”
“This is the Captain,” said Masson. “The President of the Republic has ordered the launch of missile six on target package 0193/3475. Please confirm that you understand your order.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Carry it out immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Confirm the launch,” said Masson.
There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch out forever, until the entire submarine rumbled beneath his feet and the steady beep of an alarm rang out across the bridge.
“Missile away, sir,” said weapons control. “Altitude seven hundred metres, speed two hundred kilometres, both rising. Time to target six point one minutes.”
“Very good,” said Masson. “Give me thirty-second updates.”
“Yes, sir.”
Clément stared at him. “What do we do now, sir?” he asked.
“Pray,” said Masson. “We pray.”
“For them or for us?”
“Both.”
Frankenstein raised his M4 to his shoulder and fired the assault rifle point-blank into a panicking group of vampires.
The heavy bullets punched gaping holes in their bodies, shattered bones and severed limbs, and sent them screaming to the ground. The monster checked behind him, and backed up to the edge of the square; he looked to his right, and saw the men and women in the hotel entrance driving back a wave of vampires, kicking and punching and firing guns they had taken from the vampires that were falling all around them. A number of them were lying still on the cobblestones, but the older man, the one with the silver hair who had unleashed the chaos that had quickly engulfed the square, was calmly directing the survivors with quick, clear gestures that left Frankenstein in no doubt whatsoever as to what the man was.
A soldier, he thought, as he laid down a burst of suppressing fire and moved along the front of the hotel. A soldier if ever I’ve seen one.
The square was a frenzy of movement, as the remaining vampires desperately attacked both the Operators who had appeared behind them and the hostages who were now fighting back with such determination; howls and hisses rang out above the constant thunder of gunfire. Vampires were strewn across the ground, bleeding and screaming. The strike team were disabling as many of them as possible as quickly as possible; there would be time to stake them all once the fight was won. Frankenstein could see his squad mates darting back and forth through the crowd in a series of black blurs; despite the thousands of fights he had survived in his long life, they moved with such incredible speed and precision that watching them made him feel like a ham-fisted amateur. Jamie’s helmet was gone, and blood was running freely from Larissa’s nose, but that appeared to be the extent of the setbacks they had sustained.
The monster sidestepped along the front of the hotel, reloading the M4 as he moved, and arrived at the entrance. The silver-haired man glanced round at him, and nodded; if he was surprised to see such a huge figure dressed all in black, he gave no sign of it.
“NS9?”
“Blacklight,” said Frankenstein. “Is this all of you?”
The man fired his SIG, and shook his head. “There’s more inside,” he said. “They didn’t want to come.”
Cowards, thought Frankenstein, then silently chastised himself. Fear and torture were incredibly powerful weapons, and he had no idea what the other hostages might have been through since Dracula had taken the old city.
“Thanks for the assist,” said the ma
n. “Thought we were done for till you guys showed up.”
“No problem,” said Frankenstein. He sighted down the M4’s barrel and sent a bullet through the ear of a vampire on the other side of the square. “Military?”
“Army,” said the man. “Retired. Alan Foster.”
“Good to meet you.”
“Don’t you have a name?”
“Not one I can tell you,” said Frankenstein.
Foster grunted with laughter. “Fair enough,” he said. “On your left, stranger.”
The monster spun, and saw a vampire dragging himself across the cobblestones towards him. His left leg was gone below the knee, his right arm missing entirely, but his face was alive with hate, and his eyes still burned red. Frankenstein shot the vampire between the eyes, and turned back to Alan Foster’s side. He raised the M4, and was about to pull its trigger again when Bob Allen’s voice burst into his ear.
Captain Guérin watched the missile appear on the radar screen inside the command centre, his eyes wide and staring.
The red dot appeared off the coast of Perpignan and began to move steadily north-west as alarms and alerts and a hundred incredulous conversations burst into life; the radio surveillance screen was instantly overwhelmed as seemingly the entire global intelligence community asked what the hell was happening at the same time. A dozen calls appeared on the comms screens, all of them marked urgent, but Guérin ignored them. There was nothing he could do to stop what was happening; all he could do was watch, along with everyone else.
The noise had increased to a relentless scream around him and the muffled voices of the vampires trying to get to him were much closer; he knew it was only a matter of time before they got in, but as he watched the red dot move across the radar map, he was strangely comforted by the realisation that it would soon not matter in the slightest. He stared at the screen for a long moment, then reached out and opened a comms line to General Allen.
He deserves to know what’s coming, thought Gúerin. Even if there’s nothing he can do about it. I owe him that much.