Department 19: Zero Hour (5 page)

“My lord,” he said, glancing briefly in Seward’s direction. “I am sorry to disturb you.”

“And yet you have done so,” said Dracula. “So be quick about the reason.”

Valeri’s eyes narrowed a fraction. Seward didn’t think Dracula saw; the first vampire’s treatment of his oldest ally was so casually dismissive that the Blacklight Director didn’t really believe that he thought of him as an actual person, in possession of a mind of his own. But Seward saw it; he saw it very clearly.

“It is Mellor,” said Valeri. “The vampire who came to us from California. You have seen him, my lord, he is tall, strongly built, with blond—”

“Must I listen to you describe him like some breathless teenager?” asked Dracula. “Tell me what this man has done.”

“He took a boy from a village at the edge of the forest, my lord. Less than ten miles from here. The population of the village is barely a hundred, so the boy’s disappearance has caused uproar.”

Dracula looked down the table and rolled his eyes in a gesture of disarming familiarity.

Like we’re two old friends listening to how one of our kids screwed up,
thought Seward.

“What has been done?” asked Dracula.

“I have taken care of it, my lord,” said Valeri. “I arranged the boy’s body in the forest and made it appear as though he was killed by a boar. The villagers are out searching as I speak, and will doubtless find him shortly.”

“You still have not provided a compelling reason for disturbing my dinner, Valeri,” said Dracula. “I suggest you do so quickly.”

There was a pause, also noted by Seward, and, when Valeri replied, his voice contained the faintest of tremors, as though he was working hard to keep his temper. “I wanted to know what you would have me do with Mellor, my lord. He knowingly broke one of the rules you set in place.”

Dracula rolled his eyes again and reached for his wine. “Impale him,” he said. “Place him on a pole in the courtyard as a warning to the others. It disappoints me that I should have to give you such obvious instruction, Valeri. Are you of any actual use to me, or do I keep you here for nothing more than nostalgia?”

Valeri didn’t respond. Dracula took a long sip of his wine, then regarded his servant with narrowing eyes.

“Is there anything else?” he asked, his tone making it clear that it would be best for Valeri if there wasn’t.

“No, my lord,” replied the eldest Rusmanov, and turned towards the door, his face as impassive as ever.

“Valeri?” said Seward, politely, and felt adrenaline shudder through him as the old vampire turned to face him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dracula set his glass down and lean back in his chair, an expression of curiosity on his face.

“You have something to say to me?” asked Valeri, his voice low and full of menace.

“I do,” said Seward. “I was wondering why you let him speak to you like that?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s very simple,” said Seward, smiling thinly. “Your master talks to you like a child, and treats you like the lowest of his servants. I just wondered why you let him.”

Valeri’s eyes narrowed. He took a half-step towards Seward, then glanced over at his master.

Like a dog checking whether it’s allowed to chase a ball,
thought Seward.

Dracula was still wearing the curious expression on his face as he met Valeri’s gaze. Then he smiled, and turned to the waitress standing beside the door. “Leave us,” he said, his tone even and pleasant.

“Yes, my lord,” said Ekaterina, her eyes wide with obvious unease. She dipped a hurried half-curtsy and exited the dining room, closing the door behind her. Once she was gone, Dracula returned his attention to his oldest friend.

“Answer him, Valeri,” he said. “And speak truthfully when you do.”

Valeri fixed Seward with a look of utter contempt. “I have lived half a dozen lifetimes, Mr Seward, and in that time I have learnt what is important and what is not. Morality, decency, generosity, selflessness: all are vain and worth nothing. Only two things matter: honour and loyalty. I pledged loyalty to my lord when the world was a different place, pledged it to him for as long as I lived, and I still live. I would not dishonour myself by changing my mind now, like some fickle schoolgirl.”

“What about love?” asked Seward. “You were married, Valeri, I know you were.”

“Love is a lie,” said Valeri, his eyes flaring. “It does nothing but weaken you.”

“So you do not love your master?”

Valeri glanced over at Dracula, who was watching the exchange with the faintest hint of a smile on his face, and said nothing.

“You could kill him,” said Seward, his voice low and urgent. “You could destroy him without breaking a sweat and it could be you who rules the world. Why the hell don’t you?”

Dracula’s smile disappeared. “Yes, Valeri,” he said. “Why don’t you?”

The eldest Rusmanov looked at his master, then back at Seward, his usually unreadable face full of a single clear emotion.

Fury.

And suddenly Seward understood. Despite his claims, Valeri’s obedience owed nothing to loyalty, or honour. He was afraid of Dracula,
still
afraid, despite his master’s weakness. And he was furious that Henry was provoking him towards having to admit that fear.

Long, pregnant seconds ticked by, in which nobody in the dining room moved. Then Valeri turned on his heels, strode through the door, and slammed it shut behind him, hard enough that the wood of the frame cracked along its entire length.

Seward leant forward and filled a glass from the neighbouring place setting with Château Angelus. He took a long sip, sat back in his chair, and smiled.

“It seems I touched a nerve,” he said, pleasantly.

Dracula smiled widely. “Indeed it does, my dear Admiral,” he said, reaching for his own glass. “And in the spirit of honest discourse, it seems only fair to inform you that, when we are finished with dinner, I am going to take out one of your eyes and eat it. I suggest you begin giving some thought to which one you will prefer to be without.”

After stepping out of the lift on Level A Matt Browning took a moment to compose himself.

Before he rounded the corner and presented himself to the Security Division Operator stationed outside Cal Holmwood’s quarters, he leant his back against the wall and took a slow series of deep breaths, his eyes closed, his hands at his sides, focusing entirely on the air flowing through his body. It was a ritual he used whenever he was summoned to speak to the Interim Director, one that had been required far more often than he would have liked over the previous ten days. Professor Robert Karlsson, the Director of the Lazarus Project, was in China on an information-sharing mission to PBS6, the People’s Bureau of the Supernatural, and his absence, combined with Cal Holmwood’s assertion that he had no time to deal with new people, had seen Matt become the project’s de facto spokesman.

It was not just that talking to the Interim Director made him nervous, although he would be the first to admit that it did; it was the fact that he knew exactly what Holmwood was going to ask him, and exactly what his reply would have to be.

Matt took a final deep breath and stepped round the corner. The Security Operator raised his MP7 by a few degrees and told him to identify himself.

“Browning, Matt, NS303, 83-C.”

“Go ahead,” said the Operator, and stepped aside.

“Cheers,” said Matt, then immediately felt foolish for having done so. He walked down the short corridor and pushed open the heavy door at the end of it. Cal Holmwood, for once, was not seated behind his long desk; instead, he was sitting stiffly in one of two armchairs that stood round a now empty fireplace, a remnant, Matt assumed, of less formal, more opulent times. The Interim Director held a glass of water in one hand and gestured towards the second armchair with the other. Matt crossed the small room and took a seat.

“Drink?” asked Holmwood.

“No thank you, sir.”

Holmwood narrowed his eyes. “Are you all right, Matt? You look like you’re about to faint.”

Matt swallowed. “I’m fine, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir. Honestly.”

“All right,” said Holmwood, regarding him carefully. “I have to update the Directors on the progress of Lazarus. What should I tell them?”

This was the moment Matt dreaded, the moment he
always
dreaded.

“Tell them there’s nothing new to report, sir,” he said, and felt embarrassment warm his cheeks. “I’m afraid that’s the truth.”

“That’s what I told them last time,” said Holmwood. “And the three times before that.”

“Like I said, sir,” said Matt, “it’s the truth.”

The Interim Director sighed deeply and set his glass down on a small table beside his chair. As he fixed his gaze on Matt’s, he looked far older than his thirty-nine years.

“The finest minds on the planet,” he said, his voice low and tired. “Cutting-edge equipment, an essentially unlimited budget, and you have nothing I can take to the others? No progress of any kind? None whatsoever?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” repeated Matt. “We
are
making progress, every day, and everybody is working as hard as they can, harder than is healthy in most cases. But we’re nowhere near a meaningful breakthrough.”

“Why not?” asked Holmwood. “Layman’s terms, Lieutenant.”

Matt nodded. “Sir, the scale of what we’re attempting is monumental. We’re trying to map DNA that is at least sixty-five per cent unique in the entire natural world, reverse engineer a protein activation that
is
unique in the entire natural world, then synthesise a serum that will physically alter an individual on a genetic level. It’s like being asked to make a century’s worth of discovery in a fortnight, sir.”

“Will we have a cure in the next decade?” asked Holmwood.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Guess.”

Matt wracked his brains, trying to settle on a number within a margin of error that didn’t exist.

“It’s possible, sir,” he said. “Fifty-fifty chance.”

“In five years?”

“Eighty-twenty against, sir.”

Holmwood sat forward in his chair. “And what would you need to have a cure ready a year from now?”

Matt laughed: a short, sharp sound with no humour in it whatsoever.

“Honestly, sir?” he asked. “A miracle.”

Matt’s words rang in Cal’s ears as the lift slowed to a halt on Level H.

He had moderated the bleakness of his report to the other Directors; he saw no sense in burdening them with the whole truth, especially when there was nothing any of them could do. But the reality was simple.

The Lazarus Project needs a miracle.

We need a miracle.

Holmwood was angry with himself for showing his disappointment in front of Matt; it was not fair to take bad news out on its bearer. He knew that the young Lieutenant spoke the truth, that the Lazarus Project team were working themselves into early graves in pursuit of a cure, and he was certain they would find one as quickly as it was humanly possible to do so.

But five years? A decade?

Part of him, a part he was now forced to accept had been almost hopelessly naive, had believed they would be administering vampire vaccines before the Zero Hour countdown was complete, vaccines that would render it irrelevant. Instead, he was forced to face a bleak reality. There was simply no chance of a cure arriving in time to stop Dracula’s rise; all that was left to do was hope it was found before there was nobody left for it to help.

Inside the entrance to the non-supernatural containment facility, Holmwood nodded to the Security Operator, then walked quickly down the cell block. He tapped a nine-digit code into a wall panel beside a heavy metal door; it unlocked with a series of heavy thuds and the whir of spinning gears, and opened with a loud hiss. Cal took a deep breath, and pushed it.

Julian Carpenter looked up at him with eyes that were deep-set and sunken, pushed back by months spent alternating between darkness and fluorescent light. His face was covered by a thick beard, and his hair hung down across his forehead; his razor was long gone, one of the many privileges that had been removed following his refusal to cooperate over Adam. His cell was now almost bare; his own clothes were gone, replaced by a grey T-shirt and trousers, the personal effects he had carried with him on his long quest across America, including his only photos of his family, now stored in a locker behind the guard post. It had hurt Cal’s heart to take them, but he had not hesitated; as far as he was concerned, Julian’s refusal to cooperate was tantamount to treason, a selfish betrayal of everything he had once professed to hold dear.

“Cal,” said Julian. He was sitting on the bed with his back against the wall, his arms wrapped round his knees. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

“Julian,” replied Holmwood, pushing the cell door shut behind him.

“Taking my stuff I can understand,” said Julian. “But did you really have to put me on prison food? That was just cruel.”

Cal fought back a smile; his old friend had not lost his ability to make him laugh in even the direst of circumstances, but he could not allow himself to be charmed. He needed to see the man curled up before him not as his friend, but as what he had become.