Department 19: Zero Hour (51 page)

Valentin narrowed his eyes. “You would let me go? Even though I know your location?”

“It matters not,” said Dracula. “Fly to your friends in black and tell them where I am. Bring them here, if you would. They will be welcome, and they will see that it is already too late.”

I don’t believe that,
thought Valentin.
I can’t.

There was a sudden commotion in the courtyard, and the low roar of hissing and growling intensified as someone made their way through the vampire ranks. The crowd slowly parted, spitting and clawing instinctively at one another as they moved, to reveal Valeri Rusmanov striding across the wet cobblestones. Valentin’s eyes darkened to a glowing crimson, as hatred rushed into his stomach and began to churn, as hot and bitter as acid. Then they widened in shock, as he saw what his older brother was dragging along behind him.

Henry Seward looked like he had been run over by a train. His body was pitifully thin, his skin loose on his bones, his hair white, his face ravaged by pain and suffering. One of his eyes was missing, leaving a raw red crater, while the other swivelled manically in its socket, seeing everything and nothing. Valeri hauled him forward by his upper arm like a father dragging a disobedient child home to be disciplined, and pushed him out before the crowd of vampires. Seward staggered unsteadily, his feet sliding across the wet stones, looking as though the wind might blow him over at any second, but righted himself. His remaining eye focused, and he stared out at the dark vineyard.

“Valentin?” he called, his voice little more than a croak. “Are you there?”

Dracula nodded at his prisoner, giving him a wide, condescending smile. “He’s there, my dear Admiral,” said the first vampire. “He can hear you. Do you have something you would say to him?”

Seward nodded, his face a miserable mask of defeat. Valentin stared helplessly across the rows of vines, his heart aching at what the Director of Blacklight had been reduced to. Then Seward’s face changed; the pain left it, his swollen, broken mouth twisted into a snarl of belligerence, and the voice that emerged from it was a voice that had commanded men, that had inspired trust and demanded obedience.

“Run!” bellowed Henry Seward. “Bring everyone and kill them all! Kill them all, Valentin! Kill them—”

Dracula raised a pale hand. Valeri wrapped his arm round the prisoner’s throat, cutting off his furious exhortations, and pressed it there until Seward went limp. Then he released his hold, letting the unconscious Blacklight Director drop heavily to the ground. Seward’s head hit the concrete, and Valentin smelt the blood before he saw it squirt out across the cobblestones and mix with the rain.

“You heard your new master,” shouted Dracula, smiling widely. “Run along, Valentin. Run along.”

Valentin took a final look at his brother and his former master, then rocketed into the air without a backward glance. His heart pounded in his chest as he flew north-west, towards the distant speck of land that was England and the men and women to whom he was bringing news that was both good and awfully, terribly bad. As he accelerated, the wind rising around him to a shrieking howl of resistance, the rain soaking him to the skin, Henry Seward’s words echoed in his head.

Kill them all. Kill them all. Kill them all.

Jamie Carpenter awoke shivering from sleep that appeared to have utterly failed to refresh him. His head felt fuzzy, his thoughts slow and laboured; the pale gloom of the forest morning hurt his eyes, and his back cracked and creaked as he sat up and looked over to where Larissa had arranged her sleeping bag.

His girlfriend was wrapped in the thick green material, her chest rising and falling steadily. On the other side of the camp, he could see the sleeping shape of Tim Albertsson in the deep shadow cast by one of the thousands of towering trees.

They came back then,
he thought, bitterly.
That’s something, at least.

It had taken Jamie a long time to get to sleep after Larissa and the American had left the camp together; his mind had been racing with horrible possibilities, his imagination torturing him with images of Tim and his girlfriend kissing, of them writhing on the forest floor, their uniforms cast aside, the glow from her eyes illuminating them both. Eventually, sheer exhaustion had overwhelmed him, and he had fallen into a rough approximation of sleep, full of bad dreams.

Jamie stretched his arms above his head, feeling the muscles in his shoulders protest, and relished the morning silence. The absence of sound in a place that should have been full of life remained unsettling, but right now, as he sat shivering inside his sleeping bag in the slowly paling dawn, it was a relief.

“Morning,” said Van Orel, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

Of course,
thought Jamie, and smiled.
Of course you’d choose this second to wake up.

“Morning,” he said. “Sleep well?”

Van Orel shrugged. “I slept,” he said. “Technically, at least. You?”

“The same.”

The South African rotated his head, sending an alarmingly loud series of cracks echoing through the campsite, then spat a thick wad of phlegm on to the remains of the fire.

“Up and at it, sir,” he said, in the direction of Albertsson. “Today’s our day, right?”

There was no response from the Special Operator.

Beside Van Orel, Engel raised her head, took a look around, and groaned. “We’re still here,” she said. “I thought it was a nightmare.”

“We are here,” said Petrov, sitting up and squinting at her through narrowed eyes. “It is real.”

“Thank you, Arkady,” said Engel, and smiled at him. “For a moment there, I wasn’t sure.”

“I’ll tell you what
I’m
sure of,” said Van Orel, getting unsteadily to his feet, and rubbing furiously at his limbs. “Our squad leader seems to have decided that one of the perks of leadership is a lie-in whenever he wants one.”

“Why do you all hate quiet so much?” asked Larissa, her voice emerging from somewhere deep inside her sleeping bag.

Engel and Jamie laughed, and even Petrov couldn’t resist cracking a thin smile.

“Come on, sir,” said Van Orel, staggering across the camp to where Tim Albertsson was lying. “If we have to be awake, then so do you. Only fair.” He prodded the Special Operator with the toe of his boot. “Rise and shine.”

Albertsson didn’t move.

The South African frowned, and pushed again, harder. Albertsson rolled over, his sleeping bag flopping open.

“Oh shit,” said Van Orel.

There was something in the South African’s voice that instantly cleared Jamie’s mind, as though he had just drunk a double espresso or stepped into a cold shower. He got to his feet and crossed the camp, stepping over the remains of the fire as Petrov and Engel moved as well, unzipping their sleeping bags and pushing themselves up on unsteady legs.

“What is it?” he asked, as he arrived beside Van Orel, and looked down.

The breath froze in his lungs.

Tim Albertsson gazed up at them with blank, staring eyes on which the morning dew had collected, giving them the impression of being full of tears. His face was ghostly white, his lips purple, his forehead as smooth as a baby’s. One side of his neck was a ragged mass of pale pink flesh and milky-white bone. Jamie stared at it, uncomprehending, as the rest of the squad arrived.

Nobody screamed.

Whenever he thought back to this moment, which would prove to be often, it would be one of the two things Jamie would always remember: the silence, as Tim Albertsson’s death sank slowly into each of them, and the first response any of them actually made.

Without a word, Petrov pulled his ultraviolet beam gun from his belt, flicked it on, and shone purple light directly into Tim Albertsson’s face. Engel cried out, slapped the Russian’s hand aside, and rounded on him.

“What on earth are you doing?” she demanded.

Petrov frowned. “Being sure,” he said. “That is a vampire bite.”

“You don’t know that,” said Engel, her eyes blazing. “I told you that bears live in this forest, and wolves, and wild boar. It could have been any of them.”

“Then why did we hear nothing?” asked Petrov. “And where is the blood?”

Engel blinked, then knelt down and pressed her fingers against the undamaged side of the Special Operator’s neck. After a long, empty moment, she closed his eyes, sending water spilling down the sides of his head.

“Look at his skin,” said Van Orel, his voice low. “He’s been bled white.”

“It must have been so strong,” said Engel, her gaze locked on Albertsson’s face. “To make no sound, to stop him from making any. All while we were sleeping next to him.”

“I didn’t do it,” said Larissa.

Every member of the squad turned slowly towards her, Jamie included. She was standing apart from them, her feet centimetres above the ground, her eyes flickering red in their corners.

“Nobody said you did,” said Van Orel.

“I know,” said Larissa. “But some of you were thinking it, or starting to, at least. Because it makes sense. But I didn’t kill him.”

“Hey,” said Jamie, frowning at her. “Nobody’s accusing you of anything, Larissa. This isn’t helping.”

She looked over at him, her expression neutral, then gave him a curt nod.

“So what the hell is this?” asked Van Orel, his voice unsteady. “Is it
him
? Is it another warning?”

Petrov shrugged. “We still do not even know if the first victim is real,” he said. “Larissa is the only vampire we have seen in this forest.”

Jamie winced, and turned towards his girlfriend, trying to silently convey with his eyes how much he needed her to stay calm, to stay rational while they worked this out. But if she noticed, she clearly decided not to take his advice on board.

“That’s right,” she said, staring at Petrov with narrow, glowing eyes. “I am. And Tim and I have been arguing since this operation began, to say nothing of how he was treating Jamie.”

“Larissa,” said Jamie, his heart pounding. “Don’t—”

“Shut up,” she interrupted. “Say whatever you have to say, Arkady. Let’s get it out in the open.”

Petrov returned her gaze, then shrugged. “I am not saying anything.”

The five remaining members of the DARKWOODS squad looked at each other, the tension between them so thick it was almost palpable. Jamie was staring at Petrov; even though his insides were crawling with horror at the sight of Tim Albertsson’s pale, empty face, he was furious at the Russian’s obvious implication, and with his own mind for having immediately turned to what he had seen while the majority of his squad mates were asleep.

No,
he told himself.
Don’t even think that, no matter what was between her and Albertsson. You need to get on her side, right now. She needs you.

But he couldn’t forget the way Tim had behaved throughout the previous day, how embarrassingly obvious the tension between him and Larissa had become, and what the American had said when Jamie’s girlfriend woke him up and told him they needed to talk.

He said it was overdue,
he thought.
Like it’s been brewing since Larissa was in Nevada, at least.

“What now?” asked Van Orel. “Just what the hell do we do now?”

“We go on,” said Larissa.

“Just like that?” asked Van Orel, and let out a laugh that Jamie thought sounded worryingly close to hysterical. “Just carry on like nothing happened? Like our squad leader wasn’t bled dry while we were asleep two metres away?”

“Get a hold of yourself,” said Larissa, her eyes flashing red.

“Get a hold of myself?” said Van Orel, his eyes wide. “Something came in here while we were asleep and tore out Tim’s throat and drank his blood until he was empty. And none of us heard a thing, not a bloody thing. What’s to stop it coming back tonight, huh? What if it’s just going to pick us off, one at a time, until there’s nobody left? What if—”

“That is enough,” said Petrov, his voice loud and firm. “It does no good to think like that.”

“I can’t help it!” shouted Van Orel. “I don’t want to die in this bloody forest!”

“I will not tell you again,” said Petrov. “That is enough.”

Van Orel stared at the Russian Operator, then lowered his eyes.