by William Hill
The island was silent.
Dead. It’s dead.
“Check the dock,” he said. Morris and Stevenson set off toward the fishing fleet. He looked over at Larissa, who returned his glance with a nauseous expression on her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s this place,” she replied. “It stinks of death. Can’t you smell it?”
Jamie sniffed the air. He could smell the salty residue left behind by the seawater, and the oily stench of gutted fish, but that was all. “No,” he told her. “I can’t smell it.”
She looked at him with resignation in her eyes. “Just wait,” she said.
They watched Morris and Stevenson make their way back to them, their weapons hanging by their sides, their heads lowered as they examined the ground. They stepped off the dock and walked over to the rest of their team.
“Anything?” asked Jamie.
“A teenage girl,” Morris replied. “Dead about three hours, by the look of it. And blood. Lots of blood. No sign of any survivors.”
Jamie looked up the hill.
Two roads. Maybe forty houses.
“Let’s split up,” he said. “McBride, you come with me. We’ll take the road to the left. Morris, Stevenson, take the one to the right.” He looked at Larissa. “Will you take a look from the air?” he asked. “You can see things we can’t.”
She nodded.
“OK,” he said. “We’ll meet at the top in fifteen minutes. Leave the bodies where they are. Survivors are all we’re interested in.”
The team went their separate ways. Morris and Stevenson jogged quickly across the junction and made their way up the right-hand road. Larissa rose gracefully into the air, smiling at Jamie as she did so and disappeared into the darkness, leaving him and McBride alone.
They found the first bodies immediately.
Blood ran thickly between the uneven cobblestones, pooling in the drain entrances and against the wheels of the cars that were parked outside the large, neat houses. They followed the river of crimson to the second house on the right and found a couple lying facedown in their driveway. The woman’s long blonde hair was matted with blood, the man missing the fingers on his left hand and one of his ears. Behind them, electric light blazed out of broken windows, and the front door of their home hung limply from its upper hinges. The wood panels had been splintered, and the lock was lying on the front step.
“There’s nothing we can do for them,” said McBride, pulling gently on Jamie’s arm.
Jamie was standing at the open gate that led into the driveway, staring at the corpses. He was sickened by the casual brutality displayed by Alexandru and his followers, unable to comprehend the violence that had been unleashed for no reason.
Those poor people. Oh God, those poor, unlucky people.
“Come on,” urged McBride, hauling on the teenager’s arm. “They’re dead. There might be someone up there who isn’t.”
The thought of survivors broke Jamie’s paralysis, and he started up the hill again. He took the left-hand side, McBride the right; they checked the bodies that were strewn across the cobblestoned streets, shouted into houses, and listened for any response, followed trails of red that led to atrocity after atrocity. Jamie felt light-headed, as though he might faint, but he persevered; door after door, victim after victim.
Near the top of the hill, he heard music emanating from a house, a classical piano piece he was sure he recognized, and followed it to a house set back from the road. He checked the woman who was lying on the path outside the front door and moved on, past a house that stood open to the night, a rectangle of warm yellow light glowing out onto the street.
At the top of the hill, where the houses curved around to meet the top of the street that Morris and Stevenson were making their way up, he stood with McBride in the middle of the road.
“Nothing?” asked Jamie.
“Nothing,” confirmed McBride, pushing his visor up. His face was pale and drawn tightly, as though it had been stretched. “You?”
“Nothing.”
Then they heard a high wavering cry behind them, where the road ended and the thick woods that covered the heart of the island began, and Jamie and McBride turned and ran toward it.
They crashed through the undergrowth, snapping twigs beneath their heavy boots as branches whipped against their visors, running between dark trunks and over banks of earth and ridges of shrubs. They got turned around; the trees were dense, and the darkness was thick. The cry came again, but it sounded like it was all around them, like a hundred voices crying in unison. Then suddenly Larissa was next to them, grabbing their hands and lifting them into the air.
She soared between the trees, banking effortlessly left and right, holding Jamie and McBride beneath her as though they were weightless. They came to a clearing, and she swooped down and released them; they hit the ground rolling and came up pointing their T-Bones into the middle of the clearing, where a man in his twenties was squirming in the grip of a vampire woman who could have been no more than twenty herself. She had the man’s arms pinned behind his back and was stroking his throat with the long fingernails of her right hand; she either didn’t notice the appearance of the two black-clad figures, or didn’t care.
Jamie leveled his T-Bone, and shouted, “Hey!” at the same moment as he pulled the trigger. The vampire dropped the man and reared up, snarling to her feet. The projectile took her in the middle of the chest, punching a hole through the white vest she was wearing, sending blood gushing into the air. A second later, she exploded, sending a spiral column of crimson into the sky. It pattered to the ground, coating the grass.
Jamie and McBride stood up and walked over to the man, who was cowering on the ground, soaked with blood. He looked up at the two men as they approached him, his eyes wide with terror, and backed away, pushing himself backward with his hands, his feet digging long furrows in the grass. A thick trail of something dark covered the ground where he had been sitting, and McBride swore loudly.
“He’s bleeding,” he said. “Grab him, Jamie.”
Jamie strode forward and scooped the man up from the damp grass. His hands slid into something wet; the man screamed, and Jamie almost dropped him. He stumbled, threw the man’s arm around his shoulders, and ran with him back to where McBride was standing. He lay him down; the operator flipped him gently over, then recoiled.
There was a wide hole high on the man’s back, a deep conical wound covered in dirt and flecked with tiny chips of wood.
“Probably a branch,” said McBride. “Turn him over.”
Jamie did as he was told, rolling the injured man onto his back as carefully as he was able. McBride laid his head on the narrow chest, listened for several seconds, then pushed himself back up to his knees, a helpless look on his face.
“There’s blood in his lungs,” he said, in a low voice. “There’s nothing I can do for him. He needs a hospital, right away.”
A terrible sensation of being trapped swept through Jamie.
It’s this man or your mother. You know that’s the truth. If you take him to the mainland, your mother will be dead by the time you get back here.
The wounded man spared him the decision.
He looked up at the two men with terrified eyes, his chest rattling up and down as he took shallow panic breaths. Then his heart gave out, and he died of shock in Jamie’s arms.
“Jesus,” whispered McBride, then lowered his head and crossed himself.
Jamie just stared at the man. His last moments on earth had been full of pain and fear, and he had done nothing to deserve it, except be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You did this. Alexandru did this because you tried to find him.
A great wracking sob escaped from Jamie’s mouth. Behind the purple visor, tears spilled down his cheeks and dripped on to his Blacklight uniform.
It’s your fault. It’s all your fault.
He slumped onto the grass and lowered his head to his chest. It felt he
avy, too heavy for him to go on. He was suddenly more tired than he had ever been in his life, and he fell backward into the cool grass.
He didn’t get there. Two hands caught him lightly under his shoulders, pulled him up to his feet, and turned him around. Larissa was looking at him with an expression of absolute anguish. Then she reached up, lifted the helmet from his head, and kissed him, tenderly.
Jamie kissed her back, acting on pure instinct. The dead man lay behind him, McBride was weeping gently on his knees beside him, and Jamie kissed her, sure that he would go mad if he didn’t find a way to feel something.
She gently pulled away and looked at him. “You won’t give up,” she said. “I won’t let you.”
Jamie looked inside himself and saw that she was right. He would not give up; he would see this nightmare through to its conclusion, even if it meant his death. He owed it to everyone whose lives Alexandru had ended before their time.
He gave her a weak smile, and she returned it. Then he reached down, pulled McBride up by his shoulders, and looked the operator in the eyes. “We go on,” he said, as firmly as he was able, then gestured to the man lying on the grass. “We finish this. For him, and for all the others.”
McBride looked at him, his eyes red.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Larissa floated back into the air, promising to keep watch. Jamie and McBride were about to make their way back to the road, where Morris and Stevenson would be waiting for them, when McBride suddenly stiffened.
“Someone’s watching us,” he whispered. “Don’t look. Your three o’clock. Behind the tree.”
Jamie waited five seconds, then slowly, ever so slowly, turned his head in the direction McBride had indicated. At first he saw nothing, just the black outlines of the trees. Then as his eyes focused on the spot, he saw the pale face of a girl staring at them. He turned back to McBride, just as slowly.
“It’s a girl,” he whispered.
The operator nodded.
“What do we do?” Jamie asked.
McBride said nothing. Then he shouted across the clearing, in a calm, even voice. “We are not going to hurt you,” he said. “Come out. I repeat. We are not going to hurt you.”
There was no movement from the edge of the clearing. The girl didn’t appear, but nor did they hear the burst of noise that meant she had run.
McBride turned to face the spot where the girl was hiding and motioned for Jamie to do the same. He placed his T-Bone on the ground and held his empty hands out for her to see. Jamie followed his companion’s lead, placing his weapon carefully on the ground and reaching toward the darkness at the edge of the clearing. They stood still and waited. Eventually, there was a rustling noise from where she was standing and the snap of a branch. Then the girl emerged from the undergrowth and took a hesitant step toward them.
She was a teenager, roughly Jamie’s age. She had blonde hair, cut short and angular so it fell across her forehead, and was wearing jeans and a dark T-shirt. She stared at them with an expression that was not fear; rather it was caution. She took another small step forward, her eyes flicking constantly to her right and left, then there was a blur of movement above her as Larissa dropped from the sky like an eagle and effortlessly lifted the girl into the air.
She screamed as her feet left the ground, then she was moving through the air and into the clearing. Larissa dropped her from a couple of feet up, and she landed in a heap in front of McBride, who leapt forward and pinned her to the ground. The vampire floated down to the ground next to Jamie and watched as the operator wrapped his arms around her waist and held the struggling, squirming teenage girl still.
“Let me go!” she yelled.
She whipped her head backward, and it connected squarely with the bridge of McBride’s nose, breaking it. He grunted, pain shooting through his head, and his grip loosened. The girl shoved his arms down and pushed herself loose. She leapt to her feet, looking wildly around for an escape route, and then Larissa stepped forward, pulled her arms behind her back with one hand, and lifted her casually off the ground by the nape of her neck with the other.
“Hold still,” she said. “I’m not going to hurt you if you hold still.”
McBride got unsteadily to his feet. Blood was streaming from his nose and dripping steadily onto his uniform. He walked over to where the girl hung, suspended in the air by Larissa, and Jamie joined him.
“What’s your name?” asked Jamie.
The girl grimaced and didn’t answer.
“This will be easier if I know your name,” he said, calmly.
“It’s Kate,” she spat. “Kate Randall.”
“I’m Jamie,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”
She glared at him, and didn’t respond.
“In a few seconds, I’m going to ask my friend to put you down,” Jamie said. “Please don’t run, or attack any of us. We really do mean you no harm, but we’ll protect ourselves if we have to. OK?”
No response.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” he said, and nodded to Larissa. She smiled at him and released her grip on the girl. Kate fell to the floor in a heap, but her head came up immediately, her eyes flashing with anger.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Are you with them?”
“No,” said Jamie. “We’re not with them. We’re here to stop them.”
Kate laughed. It was a dry, brittle sound, with no humor in it. “You’re a little bit late,” she said.
Then she burst into tears.
As McBride knelt down and tried to comfort the crying girl, the sound of footsteps crashed through the undergrowth, and Jamie heard his name called through the darkness. It was Morris’s voice, and he shouted in response.
“Over here!”
The crashing and thudding increased, then Morris and Stevenson burst into the clearing, their weapons drawn. They skidded to a halt, taking in the scene before them; Jamie standing next to Larissa, McBride kneeling beside the weeping teenage girl, the pale body of the man lying on the ground.
“What happened?” demanded Morris, striding over to Jamie.
Jamie explained.
“Jesus,” said Morris, and shook his head. “What a mess.”
Stevenson went to McBride and knelt down beside him. Kate was starting to compose herself, the tears drying up, her weeping diminishing to small gulps of air. She looked at the two men in their black uniforms crouching beside her, then over at Jamie.
“What’s happening?” she asked, simply.
Morris strode over and stood in front of her. “Have you read Dracula?” he asked.
She nodded.
“It’s not a story; it’s a history lesson.”
Kate looked up at him, then burst out laughing. “Wow,” she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “How many times have you practiced that one?”
Morris flushed red and looked over at Jamie for help. A big grin had crept over the teenager’s face, and he walked over and hunkered down in front of Kate.
“Vampires are real,” he said, softly. “They’re what attacked your island tonight. Their leader is one of the oldest vampires in the world, and he’s holding my mother captive. This had nothing to do with you, or anyone else who lived here. But you need to understand what we’re dealing with. OK?”
Kate nodded. Her eyes were clear, and her face was remarkably calm. “Do you know if anyone made it off the island?” she asked. “My father…”
She stopped and gazed into the distance, lost for a moment in the memory of what had happened to her sleepy little village.
“There are survivors,” Jamie said, and her eyes snapped back into focus. “I don’t know how many, and I don’t know if your father was among them. But there are definitely survivors; they ran a fishing boat aground on a beach near Fenwick.”
Relief spilled through Kate like a warm wave.
I’ll see him soon. I’ll see him once the sun comes up.
“What happens now?” she asked. “The
re’s no one else alive here. Ben was the last.” She motioned to the body lying on the grass. Its wide eyes stared lifelessly up at the night sky.
“We have a job to do,” said Morris. “I want you to go down into the village, lock yourself in your house, and wait for morning. When the sun-”
Kate and Jamie interrupted him at the same time.
“You can’t leave me here!”
“We’re not leaving her here!”
Morris pulled off his helmet and threw it to the ground. It thudded to the wet grass, and the rest of the team jumped.
“For Christ’s sake,” he shouted. “This is not a youth-club hike or an Outward Bound trip. This is a classified military operation, I am the senior officer here, and you will do as I tell you. Is that understood?”
There was silence in the clearing; five faces were turned toward Morris, who had gone a deep shade of angry red.
“That was very impressive, Tom,” said Larissa. “Really. Very forceful.”
Kate giggled, and Jamie felt a smirk creep involuntarily across his face. Even McBride and Stevenson smiled, despite themselves, and after a moment, Morris himself broke into a grin.
“Sorry,” he said. “Got a bit carried away there for a minute.”
Jamie stood up and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “We can’t leave her, Tom,” he said. “You know we can’t.”
“I know,” replied Morris, then turned his attention to Kate. “Can you take us to the monastery from here?”
Kate stood up.
“What are we waiting for?” she asked.
43
THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES
The Blacklight team, now one member larger than it had been when it landed, walked through the woods. In the distance, the ramparts of the ancient monastery could be seen above the trees, lit by orange light flickering off the pale stone.