by William Hill
“I don’t know,” replied Jamie. “All I know for certain is that it wasn’t her.”
Morris swallowed hard, then looked at Jamie, his face solemn, his eyes wide. “I think there’s something you should know,” he said. “But it’s not my place to tell you.”
Frankenstein stiffened in his chair. “Shut the hell up, Morris,” he said, his voice laced with threat.
Jamie looked at his two companions. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Morris lowered his eyes. “Ask him,” he said, pointing at Frankenstein. “Ask him where he was when your father died.”
Jamie stared at the monster, who was looking at Morris with open fury. Then the teenager’s head seemed to split open, and the memory of that night flooded into his mind.
Eight policemen wearing black body armor and carrying submachine guns were arranged across the driveway, the barrels of their weapons pointing toward the door that Julian was walking through.
“Put your hands above your head!” one of the policemen shouted. He was a huge man, wearing a full balaclava and a riot helmet that looked comically small atop his enormous shoulders. Jamie stared at the giant figure, blind terror coursing through him, and saw that the man’s tree-trunk arms were different lengths. “Do it now!”
Horror beyond anything Jamie had ever felt ripped through him, dumping ice-cold water down the length of his spine and turning his legs to jelly. He looked at Frankenstein.
Nonononononononononononononononononononononono nononononono.
His throat closed, and he gasped for air, bending over and placing his head between his legs, his hands gripping the thick pads on his knees, as he tried not to collapse.
Think of your mother. Don’t let her down now. Think of your mother.
He forced himself back upright and looked at Frankenstein. The monster was staring at him with a look of utter anguish on his face, and he had extended his hands across the table, as though he was reaching for Jamie.
The sight of the gray-green hands at the end of the monster’s uneven arms broke Jamie’s paralysis, and he recoiled, backpedaling away from the table.
“Jamie-” the monster began, but he was cut off.
“You were there,” said Jamie. “I remember now. You were there when they shot my dad.”
“Jamie, I-”
“Were you there or not?” screamed Jamie. “Don’t lie to me anymore! Were you there?”
Frankenstein shot a look of pure murder at Morris, who was looking at his hands, then returned his gaze to the teenager in front of him.
“I was there,” he said.
Jamie felt numb; as if he might never be able to feel again.
“Don’t you ever come near me again,” he said, his voice trembling. “I swear to God, I’ll kill you if you do.”
He turned his attention to Morris, who stared at him with the look of a man who has just committed a crime he knows he can never atone for.
“Tom,” Jamie said, “if you were willing to come to Lindisfarne with me and Larissa, I’d be very grateful. If you don’t want to, I understand. But I need the code to her cell, either way.”
Morris stood slowly up from the table. He avoided the gaze of Frankenstein, who was staring silently at him with hatred burning in his eyes.
“The code is 908141739,” he said, in a low voice. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll meet you in the hangar.”
“Thank you,” said Jamie. “Thank you very much.”
Then he turned and ran out of the Ops Room, toward the elevator at the end of the corridor.
Larissa was lying on her back in the middle of the floor when he ran down the cellblock. She sat up and smiled at him when he skidded to a halt in front of her cell.
“Back so soon?” she asked.
“I told you I would be,” he replied between deep breaths. He composed himself and looked at her.
“I know where my mother is,” he said. “I’m going to finish this, one way or the other, and I could use your help.”
She stood up slowly and stretched her arms above her head.
“There’s not much I can do from here,” she said.
Jamie reached over and pressed the buttons on the keypad beside her cell. The UV field disappeared.
Larissa walked out of her cell and kissed him quickly on the cheek. “Let’s go,” she said.
41
THE EASTERN FRONT
SPC Central Command
Kola Peninsula, Russia
The two Blacklight helicopters descended toward the SPC base, their engines roaring in the freezing air, their rotors churning the falling snow into spinning flurries. Their wheels skidded across the icy surface as they touched down, then the doors were flung open and Admiral Seward led the rescue team toward the SPC control room.
Twenty Blacklight operators ran across the snow, dark shapes moving quickly through a landscape of pure white. The men shivered as the Arctic wind whipped through the mesh of their uniforms; snow slid in torrents down their purple visors, obscuring their view.
They reached the entrance to the base, skidding and sliding to a halt in front of a ragged metal hole where the heavy airlock door should have been.
“Christ,” muttered one of the operators.
The door had been ripped out of its frame; it lay to one side, buckled and twisted like an empty drink can. The hinges that had held it in place were eight-inch cylinders of solid steel, more than two inches in diameter, and the vacuum seal that connected it to its housing should have been able to withstand an earthquake almost twice as strong as the Richter scale was able to measure.
“Alert One from here onward,” said Seward, and stepped through the hole.
Snow was piled high on every surface in the control room and lay in deep drifts against the sides of the desks and tables that had until very recently been the work stations of the SPC duty staff. In places it had turned a bright pink, as blood soaked up from beneath it.
Admiral Seward almost tripped over the first corpse.
It lay in front of the empty doorway, the body of a man who could have been no more than nineteen or twenty. He was covered in snow, and Seward ordered the men to clear the man’s body. They knelt and brushed the snow away with their gloved hands, uncovering the dark gray SPC uniform inch by inch.
There was a gagging sound from one of the men working at the man’s waist, and Seward stepped up next to him. The man turned away, his hand over his mouth, and the admiral felt his gorge rise.
The soldier had been pulled in half.
Below his waist there was nothing but an enormous quantity of blood, covering the floor in a thick pool.
Admiral Seward split the rescue team into two groups and addressed the first.
“Clear this room,” he told them. “I want these men taken out of here. The rest of you, come with me.”
He left Major Turner overseeing the recovery of the bodies in the control room and led the rest of the men deeper into the base. They walked slowly along a wide gray corridor and into an elevator that stood open at the end of it. Seward pressed the button for the first underground level.
“Search this building floor by floor for survivors,” he said. “I don’t want anyone left behind.”
There was a ringing noise, and the doors slid open. The operators filed out, split into two-man teams, and started checking the doors that ran along both sides of the corridor. Seward watched them until the elevator doors closed in front of him, and he began to descend again.
The director of Blacklight pulled a triangular key identical to the one General Petrov had used little more than two hours earlier from a chain on his belt and inserted it into the slot below the numbered buttons. The elevator swept past the -7 floor and slowed to a halt. The doors opened, and the long rows of heavy vault doors stopped him momentarily in his tracks. Seward had only been here once before, shortly after he was appointed to the position of director. Yuri Petrov, a man he had fought side by side with on several occasions, in some of t
he darkest corners of the globe, had escorted him down and taken him through the vaults one by one, a personal guided tour of the most secret artifacts the Russian nation had collected over the course of its long history. For a moment, he was overcome by the loss of the SPC men who had died in the control room, the latest casualties in a long, bloody war that the public could never know was being fought. Then he shook his head to clear it and hurried onward.
The corridor was slick with gore and splattered with chunks of scarlet meat, and Seward held his breath as he stepped around the carnage; the air was thick with the scent of blood and the foul stench of the vampires who had spilled it. He forced himself onward until he was at the door marked 31, where he found General Petrov staring at him from the empty table inside the small metal room.
His severed head had been placed upright, his dead eyes pointing toward the door. Blood had run down the metal pillar and pooled at the base, drying black. The face itself was almost unrecognizable; long ridges of purple bruising crisscrossed the skin, the nose and jaw were broken in several places, and the mouth was swollen to huge proportions. But the eyes were clear and full of defiance.
Petrov was Spetsnaz when it meant something. I bet they tired before he did.
Seward walked round the pillar, checking every corner of the vault. He knew it was futile, but he did it anyway; he would not dishonor Petrov’s memory by missing something obvious. But there was nothing in the vault apart from the Russian general’s head.
He walked back out into the steel corridor, stepping carefully around the remains, and pulled his phone from his pocket. He dialed a number and held it to his ear. “It’s gone,” he said, when the phone was answered. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m standing in the empty vault right now.”
There was a long silence.
“I understand that,” he said, eventually. “I need a list of anyone who accessed encrypted SPC content on the Blacklight mainframe in the last forty-eight hours. Yes, I’ll wait.”
He paced up and down the corridor, waiting for the information he had requested. After almost a minute, the voice told him there were no records of anyone accessing the information he had requested.
“Rerun the search, overriding the security protocols. Use my access code, 69347X. Do it quickly.”
Almost instantly a single name was read to him.
Seward swore. “I need an immediate current position,” he said. “Run his chip.”
Agonizing seconds passed. Seward had stopped in the middle of the corridor and was holding the phone to his ear with knuckles that were gradually turning white.
Not him. Please not him.
The voice on the end of the line reappeared and described a location.
“Any other operators with him?” asked Seward.
The voice answered.
“Thank you,” said Seward, and hung up. He swore heavily under his breath, dialed a second number, and waited for Cal Holmwood to answer. The operator picked up after the third ring.
“Cal?” Seward said. “It’s Henry. I need you to bring Mina to Russia, immediately. To SPC Central Command. Apologize to the Americans and take off, right away. We’ve got trouble.”
Holmwood sounded surprised, but immediately told the director that he would do as he was ordered. Seward thanked him, hung up, and dialed a third number. He was about to punch the CALL button when the phone rang, vibrating in his hand. He looked at the screen and saw the same number he had been dialing. He pressed ANSWER and put the phone to his ear.
“Listen to me,” he said, interrupting the voice on the other end. “I need you to tell me where Jamie Carpenter is. His life may be in danger.”
There was a pause, and then the voice answered him. The color drained from Seward’s face.
“He’s walking into a trap,” he said. “Call-”
But the person on the other end of the line was gone.
42
UNHOLY ISLAND
The picnic area at the end of the causeway that linked the island of Lindisfarne to the mainland was deserted. The last tourists had packed up their blankets and hampers the previous evening, climbed into their cars and caravans, and left, leaving behind overflowing rubbish bins and drifts of litter, floating lazily in the damp mist that covered the ground like a funereal wreath. The wooden tables and benches were empty, and the children’s playground was dark, the swings creaking back and forth, the carousel revolving gently.
A low rumbling noise punctured the silence.
Anyone standing in the picnic area would have felt it before they heard it, a trembling beneath the ground, gathering strength as it approached from the southwest. Then it became audible; a steady thump, regular as clockwork, that grew louder and louder until it would have sounded like they were standing beneath a hurricane. The wind picked up, and the litter sped around the picnic area in rapid circles. One of the bins toppled over, depositing its collection of polystyrene containers, drink cans and empty potato chip bags onto the grass, where it was sucked into the spiraling air, creating a miniature tornado of rubbish.
Two blinding white lights pierced the night sky, illuminating the picnic area. The beams were wide and bright, and they grew as something descended from above, their circular fields spreading until they merged into one, until, with a bone-shuddering roar, an EC725 helicopter emerged from the mist, sending the wet air spinning into columns and tunnels as it was displaced by the aircraft’s rotors.
The black helicopter descended quickly, its huge wheels bouncing hard on the worn grass of the picnic area as it touched down. Then a door slid open in the side of the aircraft; five figures jumped down and ran across the grass until they were out of range of the blades.
Jamie Carpenter looked around at his companions, dust and litter thumping against the purple plastic of his visor. Thomas Morris’s face was visible beneath his raised visor; he was looking at Jamie with worry creasing his face, but there was a determination in his eyes that Jamie was heartened to see. Two more operators stood in black and purple, their hands hanging loosely at their sides. Their names were Stevenson and McBride; they had been waiting in the Loop’s hangar with Morris when Jamie arrived with Larissa, and the boy was glad to have them. The vampire girl was staring steadily at Jamie, encouragement on her face. He smiled at her, and she returned it instantly.
“I don’t know what we’re going to find on the island,” Jamie said, raising his voice above the howl of the rotors. “I’m going to assume that Alexandru knows we’re coming, and you should, too. He told me he had killed a lot of people, so you should also expect bodies, lots of them. You’ve seen the layout of the island; it’s one small village rising up a hill, with a dock at the bottom. The rest of the island is wilderness, except for the monastery at the north end. I think that’s where we’ll find my mother, but I could be wrong. So we’re going to go through the village first and look for survivors.” Jamie looked around at his team. The faces that looked back at him were calm.
They’re looking to me to lead them. How did this happen?
“Any questions?” he asked. It was something he had heard army officers in films say before they led their troops into battle, and it seemed appropriate.
Everyone shook their heads, and he nodded. “Then let’s go,” he said.
They walked steadily across the causeway that led to Lindisfarne. The mist had closed in, and it was impossible to see more than ten feet in any direction. Jamie heard invisible water lapping on both sides of him, and he shivered.
If they come for us in this mist, we won’t even see them until it’s too late.
They followed the white line in the middle of the road, walking single file. Jamie was in the lead, followed by Larissa, the two operators, and Morris, who was bringing up the rear, his T-Bone wedged hard against his shoulder. Every few minutes, Larissa reached out and brushed the back of his neck with her cool fingers, and his stomach fluttered.
The mist began to thin, and the island appeared in front of them, a dark looming s
hape that rose into the dark night sky. They walked on, the sharp clatter of their boots on the asphalt the only sound, until two tall, thin shapes emerged at the sides of the road, and Jamie stopped, holding a hand out behind him.
“Oh my God,” said Stevenson. His voice was low and tight, as though a hand was gripping his throat.
On each side of the road was a flagpole, a white metal tube rising from the sediment at the edge of the water to a height of twenty feet. The flags that had fluttered in the sea breeze were lying on the ground, torn to ribbons; one was a Union Jack, the other the yellow-and-blue flag of the European Union.
In their place, impaled on the sharp points of the flagpoles, were two of the residents of Lindisfarne, their teeth scraping on the flagpoles as they twisted in the air.
“I don’t understand,” said Jamie, his voice thick with horror. “Why would he do this?”
“Dracula used to do it,” said McBride. “When he was still a man. He would impale prisoners of war and stand them where opposing armies could see them. It’s a warning not to go any further.”
“It’s not a warning,” said Larissa. “It’s a welcome. He knows we aren’t going to turn back, so he wants Jamie to see what he’s capable of. He wants him to be scared.”
Jamie stared up at the impaled bodies.
Were they alive when he did that to them? I hope they were already dead.
“Come on,” he said, with more conviction than he felt. “Let’s keep moving.”
There were three more pairs of flagpoles, all decorated in the same terrible fashion, but Jamie kept his eyes focused on the island, which was now taking shape in front of him. He could see streetlamps rising up the hill and squares of yellow light that were the windows of houses. At the foot of the hill, to the right of the causeway, he saw waves breaking on the gray concrete of the dock, and a small fleet of fishing boats bobbing up and down on the tide.
The team walked on, and after five minutes or so, the water that surrounded them receded, and they were standing on solid ground. The road wound to the right, and they followed it, their weapons drawn. They reached the bottom of the hill, and Jamie looked around him, up the two narrow roads that led up the hill to his left, along the dock to their right. The team stood still at the dark junction, and he listened for any signs of life.