by William Hill
The elevator doors opened, and Morris stepped inside. Jamie followed him, and they descended in silence, the excitement seeming to have either worn the Blacklight officer out or taken him over so completely that he could no longer speak at all.
They emerged on Level F, into a corridor as gray as all the rest, but mercifully Morris stopped at the first pair of doors on the left, tall smoked glass with the word ARCHIVES printed across them in black type.
There was a rush of air as the doors were pushed open, and Jamie’s arms broke out into goose bumps as the temperature dropped appreciably. The room was long and extremely wide, and looked like a cross between a library and a meat locker. Tendrils of cold air snaked around his ankles as he walked forward between two long metal sets of shelving. Racks of studded metal and clear plastic extended away on both sides to the distant walls. There were at least forty of them, and each one was loaded with books, folders and manuscripts, hidden behind clear plastic doors that each featured a small nine-digit keypad next to them.
At the other end of the room, the end that Morris was leading him toward, a glass partition separated the climate-controlled racks from a comfortable-looking study area; blond-wood tables and padded chairs, rows of computer terminals, and a wall of black filing cabinets. Morris slid open a glass door, and as they entered this area, Jamie felt warmth creep back into his skin. In the middle of the wall at the back of this second area was a large stone arch, beneath which was a heavy-looking wooden door. There was no keypad here, just an ornate brass handle, which Morris turned and, with an audible grunt, pushed the door open.
The atmosphere inside this final room was like that of a church. It was almost silent; the only noises that could be heard were their breathing and the clatter of their boots on the hardwood floor beneath them. The room was a narrow gallery, with dark red walls and ceiling. It was at least a hundred feet long, and the walls on both sides were covered in painted portraits. Jamie looked at the first one on his right and saw a young man looking down at him, his body at a quarter turn, his uniform identical to the one Jamie was now wearing, a small smile of what looked like pride creeping into the corners of his mouth. He looked at the gold plaque below the portrait and read what was engraved there. GEORGE HARKER, JR. 1981-2007
“What is this place?” he whispered.
“It’s the Fallen Gallery,” Morris replied, also lowering his voice as he did so.
“These are all the Blacklight operators who’ve died?”
Morris laughed, then put a hand over his mouth for a second, as if afraid he was about to be chastised for such levity. He withdrew it and replied.
“Not quite. You would need a bigger room than this to hang a portrait of every member of Blacklight who has been lost. An awful lot bigger. No, this is for the elite of Department 19, the best and the brightest, or those who died before their time. This is where our ancestors live on, Jamie. Every member of both of our families is in this room.”
Jamie was awestruck by Morris’s words and by the sights around him.
He walked slowly forward, looking at the men and women who stared down at him from the red walls, reading the plaques, seeing the same names over and over again as he made his way down the gallery: Benjamin Seward, Stephen Holmwood, Albert Harker, David Harker, Quincey Morris II, Peter Seward, Arthur Holmwood II, John Carpenter, David Morris, Albert Holmwood.
Three-quarters of the way down the gallery, a single bust of a man’s head stood atop a marble pillar in the middle of the wooden floor. It was carved from dark gray stone and stared down the gallery toward the door, as if challenging anyone who might enter. The face was rugged, had probably been handsome in its youth, and wore a thick mustache above a thin mouth and angular jaw. Jamie stopped to read the inscription on the marble, and Morris, who had been walking quietly six feet behind the teenager, did likewise. QUINCEY HARKER
ALL THAT WE ARE, WE OWE TO HIM
1894-1982
“Jonathan Harker’s son,” breathed Jamie, and Morris nodded.
Jamie walked around the bust, and continued through the gallery. The portraits were getting older now, the paint fading in some, cracked in others, the frames duller and more beaten down by the years. He reached the end of the gallery and looked up at the six paintings that faced him from the wall, their eyes full of pride, the men who had sat for the portraits all long dead.
ABRAHAM VAN HELSING
1827-1904
JONATHAN HARKER
1861-1917
QUINCEY MORRIS
1860-1891
JOHN SEWARD
1861-1924
HON. ARTHUR HOLMWOOD
1858-1940
HENRY CARPENTER
1870-1922
On a low shelf beneath the portraits, a number of small items had been placed; a stethoscope, a small gold pin with an ornate family crest engraved on it, a battered cowboy hat, and a kukri knife in a leather scabbard.
“My God,” breathed Jamie. “They were real. I don’t think I realized until now. They really lived.”
“Lived-and died,” said Morris. “Some before their time.” He turned to Jamie, tears in the corners of his eyes, and when he spoke again, his voice was charged with passion. “You and I are very similar,” he said, his eyes bright. “Descendants of founders. Members of the six great families of Blacklight. But we’re both black sheep. Both weighed down by the actions of our ancestors.”
“How so?” asked Jamie.
“The trouble your father has caused for you must be obvious by now. Mine began over a century ago.”
“Why?”
Morris looked at him for a long moment, as if weighing a decision in his mind.
“I’m not going to tell you it all now,” he said, eventually. “It’s late, and it’s a tale that deserves telling well. But it boils down to one essential truth; you or I could save the world a hundred times over, but we’ll never be a Harker, a Holmwood, a Seward, or a Van Helsing. The inner circle will always be closed to our families.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jamie.
“Follow me,” Morris replied, gesturing down the gallery. They walked most of the way back to the arched doorway and then stopped in front of a portrait. Jamie looked at the plaque below the frame.
DANIEL MORRIS
1953-2004
“Is that?…”
“My father? Yes. He was the director of Department 19.”
Jamie frowned. “No Carpenter has ever been director. Admiral Seward told me.”
“My father barely was,” replied Morris. “He was removed from office almost before he got started. Too aggressive, too reckless, or so they told him. Yet Quincey Harker, whose bust stands in the middle of this gallery, who was named after my great-great-grandfather, turned the Department into an army and was deified for doing so.”
Fire had risen briefly in Tom’s eyes as he spoke, but now it faded again. His hand fluttered to the bowie knife on his belt and touched the handle.
“Was that his?” asked Jamie softly, gesturing toward the weapon.
Morris looked down at his belt, then back at Jamie, surprise on his face.
He didn’t know he was touching it.
“It was my great-great-grandfather’s,” Morris replied. “It’s the knife that he pierced Dracula’s heart with, the last thing he ever did. It was given to my grandfather when he joined Blacklight. He passed it on to my father, and it was left to me when he died.”
Jamie was speechless.
The knife that killed Dracula. My God.
He forced himself to speak. “What happened to him?” he asked.
Morris laughed bitterly. “My father? I think he just had the wrong name. Our name. Not one of the four that matter around here.”
“Why are you telling me this, Tom?”
Morris sighed. “Because I like you, Jamie. And I want you to understand what you’ve got yourself into. You can believe in this place too much, buy into it too completely. It’ll take everything from you tha
t you’re prepared to give-and more. But you’ll only ever be the descendant of a valet and the son of a traitor, just like I’ll always be the son of the only director to be removed from office. I’m telling you this because you need to stay focused on the two things that matter: finding your mother and bringing her home.”
18
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS
“ Wake up.” The voice was low and smooth, but there was kindness in it, as well as the hint of an eastern European accent, and Marie Carpenter rose slowly from unconsciousness.
She opened her eyes a fraction, and screamed.
In front of her was a face she had seen before, a thin, pale face topped by dark waves of shoulder-length hair, with sharp features and sunken eye sockets, from which blazed two dreadful crimson orbs. The thing’s mouth was twisted into a wide snarl, and two razor-sharp white fangs were pointing directly at her.
It screamed right back at her, its foul breath blowing the hair away from her face. She screamed again, and it matched her, an awful high-pitched howl that hurt her ears. Then the thing smiled at her, and terror overwhelmed her. She had time to see that they were in a long, low room, with stone walls and a concrete floor, had time to think it looked like a cellar or a basement, then her vision turned white, and she slipped back into darkness.
Some time later, she drifted awake into a world of pain.
The cuts on her face and arms were lines of throbbing heat, and her stomach churned with nausea. She opened her eyes and looked around her.
She was lying on a cold concrete floor in a low, bare room. The walls were exposed brick, and the only concessions to domesticity in the room were a pair of armchairs facing an incongruously ornate fireplace. The chairs were empty; she was alone.
At the far end of the room, a rough wooden staircase rose to a trapdoor in the low ceiling. She knew with absolute certainty that the trapdoor would be locked from above, knew that there was no point in even checking, but she got to her feet nonetheless. She could not just lie on the ground and wait for something to happen; she was a proactive woman, as she had been an energetic and stubborn girl, and it was not in her nature. Not while her son was out there; not while Jamie needed her. She would not even entertain the idea that he could be dead. But he might be hurt, he was almost certainly scared and confused and lost, and the thought broke her heart. She took a deep breath and started across the room, treading as softly as she was able on the balls of her feet.
The bottom step was barely six feet away when she heard a bolt slide back and saw the trapdoor at the top of the staircase elevator open. Marie stared in horror as a pair of scuffed black boots descended onto the top step and realized that she was caught. She watched helplessly, frozen to the spot with fear, as the hemline of a gray coat flapped gently through the trapdoor, a pale white hand gently slid down the rough banister, and the man who had dragged her from her home dropped into view. There was a gentle smile on his face, a smile that widened into a grin of pure joy when he stepped off the bottom stair, looked around the room, and saw Marie standing in front of him.
He stepped forward so quickly she didn’t even see him move, and gripped a handful of her hair. She screamed in pain, grabbing his wrist with both her hands, but it was immovable. The thing in the gray coat hauled her back across the room without any apparent effort, and she howled as her heels tore across the concrete. She twisted and thrashed in the thing’s grip, she yelled and screamed for it to let her go, but it was useless; she slid relentlessly across the floor, away from the staircase.
The man deposited her in a heap in the corner. She shoved herself back against the cold exposed brick of the wall, looked up at the smiling face peering down at her, and burst into tears. It made her furious with herself, but she couldn’t help it. The helplessness of her situation sank into her; she thought of her son, her brave, fragile son, somewhere out in the darkness without her.
Eventually, the thing squatted down next to her and spoke in a gentle, friendly voice. “I’d stop that if I were you,” he said. “You’re exciting my friend.”
She forced herself to stop sobbing and looked over the man’s shoulder. Standing behind him, ten feet away for her, was a second man, this one a huge, hulking creature, lumpy and misshapen like a sack of coal. He had a tiny round head atop his enormous shoulders, and the wide, open face of a child. His red eyes were staring at her, unblinking, and his child’s face wore an expression of open lust. Marie shuddered and wiped her eyes and nose on the backs of her hands.
“That’s better,” said the thing in the gray coat, then flopped down against the wall next to her as though they were old friends, drawing his knees up and wrapping his long arms around them.
“We haven’t been introduced,” it said, favoring her with a dazzling smile of sharp white teeth. “My name is Alexandru Rusmanov. And you, of course, are Marie Carpenter, wife of Julian and mother of Jamie. Now we know each other. Now we can talk as friends.”
At the mention of her son’s name, Marie’s eyes, which had been half-lidded by tears and downcast with fear, flew open. “Where’s my son?” she asked. “What have you done with him?”
“Your son,” replied Alexandru, with obvious relish, “your precious son. Tell me, does he look like his father?”
Marie didn’t respond. She was disorientated by the smooth, velvety voice issuing from the hateful thing’s mouth.
Alexandru’s eyes flared red, and his arm unwrapped from his knees with the speed of a striking cobra. The long, pale hand at the end of it grabbed her by the forehead, pulled her forward, then sent her crashing back into the wall. Her head hit the bricks with a meaty thump, and she saw stars. She felt something warm and wet slide down the back of her head and onto her neck, and she stared blankly at Alexandru, lost in a nightmare she could not wake up from.
“I asked you a question!” he roared, and slammed her head into the wall a second time. “Does he look like his father?”
The back of her head collided with the wall a third time and panic overcame her terror.
He’s going to beat my brains out against this wall unless I answer him. Oh God, what is this creature?
“Yes, yes, he does! Please stop hurting me!” she shrieked.
Alexandru let go of her forehead, his eyes reverting back to their usual dark green, and he sighed, as though mildly inconvenienced.
“I know he does,” he said. “I should have killed him myself. It might have been satisfying.”
A great vacuum opened in the middle of Marie’s chest, a hole where her heart should be.
“He’s dead?”
Alexandru stared at her with great solemnity, then burst into peals of giddy, childlike laughter. Above them, the second man broke into a slow, plodding laugh of his own, a sound like a braying donkey.
“No, he’s alive,” Alexandru replied. “He shouldn’t be, but he is. But that’s what you get for delegating. It’s like I’ve always said-if you want someone murdered right, do it yourself. Haven’t I always said that, Anderson?”
He looked up, pointedly. Hesitation flashed across the small round face of the man standing above them, who was still laughing his metronomic laugh. He stopped, and appeared to disappear deep into thought.
“Yes,” he eventually said, carefully.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, that’s what you always say,” replied Anderson, a small smile of satisfaction playing across the childish features.
“What do I always say?”
This time the look on the swollen figure’s face was pure panic. “I don’t know,” he said.
Alexandru gave Marie an embarrassed roll of his eyes, the kind of look one gives when their child has misbehaved, or their pet has soiled a carpet. Then he was on his feet, so quickly that Marie gasped out loud. He crossed the distance between himself and Anderson in a couple of milliseconds, and then his fingers were dancing across the terrified, infantile face. Marie squeezed her eyes shut as Anderson let out a scream, a high-pitched howl tha
t vibrated through her teeth, a scream that was suddenly cut off by a wet tearing noise that caused her stomach to lurch.
With a thud, Alexandru flopped back down next to her, and she opened her eyes. She didn’t want to, but she wanted to provoke this monstrous creature even less. He was smiling at her, then he flicked his left hand and something red flew away into the shadows.
His tongue, she thought. He pulled out his tongue. My God.
She looked up at Anderson. Blood was pouring out of the man’s mouth, and running freely down the front of the black jacket he was wearing. His eyes were wide, and his whole body was visibly trembling, in pain, or fear, or both, but he was standing where he had been before the attack, looking straight ahead, at the wall above her.
He didn’t run. Or try to defend himself. He didn’t do anything.
For a moment, she felt pity for this pathetic, downtrodden creature, but then the image of his expression as he watched her cry appeared in her head, and she shoved it quickly away.
“Don’t worry,” said Alexandru. “It’ll grow back.”
Marie’s gut twisted with disgust.
“What do you want from me?” she snarled, and Alexandru jerked his head back, an expression of admiration on his pale, feminine face. “What do you want with my family?”
The vampire threw back his head and laughed, the wavering howl of a wolf, deafeningly loud in the basement.
“You don’t know, do you?” he said. “You really don’t. Oh, how wonderful. I have so much to tell you.”
He sprang to his feet, dusted himself down, and looked at her with immense enjoyment. “There are many things that require my attention,” he said, gravely. “But I will make sure that you and I speak again soon. I will be genuinely looking forward to it.”
Then he turned and strode away from her. He barked at Anderson to follow him as he passed the huge man, who tore his gaze away from Marie with obvious difficulty, and did as his master ordered. They clattered up the wooden staircase and threw open the trapdoor, letting in a brief square of tantalisingly warm light, then the wooden hatch slammed shut, she heard the blot slide into place, and she was alone in the basement again.