Department 19: Zero Hour (11 page)

“I’m bored,” said Ellison, for the fifth time in as many minutes.

“I heard you,” said Jamie. “But short of magicking up a horde of vampires for you to stake, there really isn’t very much I can do about it. So just sit tight.”

“Yes, sir,” said Ellison, smiling widely at her squad leader.

Qiang Li said nothing, but then he rarely did. The Chinese Operator Second Class simply nodded at his two squad mates and rechecked the magazine on his Glock.

Operational Squad J-5 had departed the Loop at 1800 hours, right on schedule. Their driver had headed west, guiding her powerful van to the border of grid reference 67-87, where Jamie ordered Ready One, the Operational state that permitted the use of force when necessary.

Patrol Responds were eight hours long, including an hour at either end for transportation; under ideal conditions, this meant six hours of sitting and waiting for something to happen, rather than eight. Conditions, both inside the Department and in the outside world, were currently far from ideal, however; it had been a long time since Jamie had been on a Patrol Respond that hadn’t turned hot within the first hour, often before the target grid had even been reached.

Operational Squad J-5 were now slowly approaching hour three.

“I’m bored,” said Ellison, and this time Jamie ignored her.

In truth, he was bored too. He knew most Operators would kill for an evening as quiet as this one seemed to be proving, but he had been off the active roster for more than a month and was itching to get back to work.

After the inquest into Morton’s death, which had taken two weeks and found no wrongdoing on the part of either himself or Ellison, Jamie had pleaded with Cal Holmwood to fill their squad with an Operator from the active roster, so that they could get straight back into the field. The Interim Director had refused point blank, and three days later Jamie had been disappointed to see that one of the newly arrived intake of Operators from PBS6 in Beijing had been assigned to fill his squad.

It wasn’t that he didn’t rate Qiang Li; on the contrary, the young man from Xinjiang Province had immediately impressed with his skill, temperament, and clear and obvious devotion to duty. Jamie’s disappointment arose from his finally complete squad being sent for two long, soul-crushing weeks of training, to better acquaint themselves with one another. He had gone back to Cal Holmwood and tried to persuade him that this was an obvious waste of time and resources, but had got nowhere.

“All new squads are going through the same thing,” Holmwood had said. “You need to stop expecting special treatment.”

Jamie had protested, but had known it was an argument he wasn’t going to win; instead, he had dedicated his time and energy to pushing his squad to their limits, so that when their day came they would be ready.

Now, at last, it was time; they were armed, equipped, willing and eager to destroy vampires. And their secure connection to the Surveillance Division, which would alert them instantly to any even potentially supernatural incident in their small corner of the country, was as silent as a church congregation on Sunday morning. Jamie stared accusingly at the van’s fold-down screen, trying to will it into life; the green bar at the bottom, the one that showed the connection was active, glowed steadily, as though it was mocking him.

“This doing nothing is normal?” asked Qiang, slotting the magazine back into the butt of his Glock and replacing the pistol in its holster.

“No,” said Jamie, a little too quickly. It sounded defensive, as though he was afraid his new squad mate was suggesting that being an Operator in PBS6 was more taxing than being one in Blacklight. “This is
not
normal. Especially not recently.”

Qiang nodded. “Unlucky then,” he said, and drew his pistol again.

It’s more than unlucky,
thought Jamie, his eyes still fixed on the screen.
It’s bloody unheard of.

One of the first things Frankenstein had told Jamie, during his earliest days in the Department, was that it was no use thinking in terms of a vampire society, some hidden community where every vampire knows each other and they all work together towards some dastardly goal. The reality was far more banal; there were vampires who were dedicated to violence and murder, just as there were vampires who abhorred such things; some vampires lived in Gothic castles, others in suburban houses and blocks of flats; some were predatory loners, while others were family men and women, their lives indistinguishable from the vast majority of the population, providing you excepted their need to drink blood. During her time with NS9, Larissa had talked to a vampire girl called Chloe in a Las Vegas nightclub; Chloe had never heard of Blacklight, or NS9, and believed that Dracula was nothing more than a character from old horror films.

Nonetheless, there was unquestionably
something
stirring up the vampire population. The news of Dracula’s resurrection seemed to have reached even the most isolated of vampire ears and had caused an explosion of brazen activity; attacks had risen sharply, as had encounters between the public and the supernatural, and many of the incidents were punctuated with two words every Operator had come to truly hate.

They were found sprayed on walls, daubed on front doors, and carved into the flesh of victims, their meaning abundantly clear: he’s coming, and nothing can stop him.

The screen on the van’s wall burst into life, hauling Jamie from his thoughts. He read the message as it scrolled on to the screen, his heart racing suddenly in his chest.

ECHELON INTERCEPT REF. 52312/6B

SOURCE. Emergency call (landline telephone 01572 232973)

TIME OF INTERCEPT. 20:53

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS.

OPERATOR: Emergency, which service do you require?

CALLER: Police.

OPERATOR: What is the nature of your emergency?

CALLER: There’s a bunch of kids in the graveyard behind Our Sister of Grace in Oakham. My husband just walked our dog through there and they threw blood at him.

OPERATOR: Can you repeat that, please?

CALLER: They threw blood at him, the little sods. He’s covered in it, all over the shirt I got him for Christmas.

OPERATOR: Is your husband injured?

CALLER: No, he’s just shook up. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? Take the dog out and find a bunch of kids lighting candles and chucking blood about. Bring back national service, that’s what I reckon. In my day we—

OPERATOR: The police are on their way, ma’am.

TRANSCRIPT ENDS.

INTERCEPT REFERENCE LOCATION. Our Sister of Grace Anglican Church, Oakham, Rutland. 52.6705°N, 0.7295°W

RISK ASSESSMENT. Priority Level 3

“Level 3?” groaned Ellison. “Jesus. Surveillance might as well have us getting cats out of trees.”

“I thought you were bored,” said Jamie.

“I am,” she replied.

“Shut up then.” He smiled at his squad mate, and pressed the button on the wall that connected the van’s passengers to their driver. “Have you got the coordinates?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the driver, her voice slightly metallic over the intercom.

“What’s our ETA?”

“Eleven minutes, sir.”

“All right then,” said Jamie, strapping himself into his seat. “Let’s go.”

Their driver’s estimate had been slightly optimistic; almost thirteen minutes had passed when the van pulled to a halt outside the gate of the graveyard that sprawled behind the small, neat church of Our Sister of Grace. Jamie activated the cameras on the left side of the vehicle and observed their destination on the van’s screen.

The headstones and mausoleums beyond the gates were well tended, adorned with bright sprays of flowers and surrounded by neatly mown grass. Stone angels loomed over the path that ran through the middle of the cemetery, peering down from slanted roofs and the weathered crossbeams of crucifixes. Further away from the gates, the graveyard was less neat, less well kept; trees huddled together, their shadows intertwining beneath the light of a moon that was three-quarters full, and the paths winding between the headstones were wilder, more overgrown. In the distance, an orange glow flickered in the darkness.

“See it?” he asked.

“Uh-huh,” said Ellison. “Looks pretty big, sir. Maybe we should call the fire brigade?”

Jamie smiled. “Feel free to stay in the van, Operator.”

“No, sir,” said Ellison, smiling back at him. “I wouldn’t miss something this exciting for the world.”

Qiang pulled his helmet on to his head and clicked its visor into place. He reached down and twisted a dial on his belt, setting his helmet’s microphone to external.

“We go?” he asked.

“We go,” said Jamie, pulling on his own helmet as Ellison did the same. “Ready One as soon as we’re through the gate. Internal comms.”

“Yes, sir,” said Qiang.

“Yes, sir,” said Ellison.

“All right,” said Jamie. “We all know this is probably nothing, but we play the cards we’re dealt. So do your jobs.”

He pushed open the back of the van, leapt on to the tarmac, and held the door wide. Ellison and Qiang stepped down beside him, their black-clad shapes seeming to absorb the pale moonlight. Jamie swung the door shut and hammered twice on it with his gloved fist. The van pulled away, leaving them standing in the road; their driver would maintain a holding pattern until she was summoned to extract them.

Jamie stepped up on to the pavement and faced the graveyard. The wrought-iron gate loomed above him, a relic of a grander, more dignified era. It was standing slightly ajar. Jamie pushed it open, grimacing behind his visor as the metal gave out a shrill, echoing shriek, and stepped through it. His squad mates followed, their gloved hands dangling within reach of the weapons that hung from their belts, their faces hidden entirely by their purple visors.

The central thoroughfare of the graveyard was long and wide, curving gently to the right. Jamie led Operational Squad J-5 along it until they reached a narrower, more overgrown path that branched off to the left. He twisted a dial on his belt, switching his visor’s filter to infrared. The fire stood out as a glowing ball of yellow and red in the centre of a landscape of black and dark blue; it was perhaps fifty metres away, straight ahead.

“Follow me,” said Jamie, his voice sounding directly in the ears of his squad mates, but inaudible to anyone standing beside him.

“Yes, sir,” chorused Ellison and Qiang.

Jamie twisted his visor back to normal and headed towards the flickering orange light. As he stepped carefully over tumbled headstones and fallen statues, he quickly saw that Ellison had been right; it really wasn’t much of a fire. But someone in the graveyard had thrown blood at an old man doing nothing more provocative than taking his dog for a walk, and that was worth checking out, no matter whether his squad mates agreed or not.

The path turned sharply away to the left, setting off on a long curve that Jamie guessed took it back to the main gates. He stepped off it, enjoying the silence that came from grass underfoot, and picked his way between the graves. Thirty seconds later he stopped in the deep shadows of a towering sycamore, and took his first look at what they had been sent to investigate.

Four teenagers, wearing jet-black clothes and dark make-up around their eyes and lips, were sitting in a circle on top of a fallen gravestone. A pentagram had been marked on it with chalk, and a fire had been built beside it, from piled sticks and fallen tree branches. The teenagers were giggling and whispering to one another; Jamie saw open cans of cheap cider standing between them, alongside two plastic bottles full of dark red liquid.

Probably got it at the butcher’s,
he thought.
Just kids, playing vampires.

Then he remembered that they were, at most, a year or two younger than him, and smiled behind his visor.

“This is nothing,” he said. “I’m going to scare them and send them home. Circle round in case they try to run.”

His squad mates voiced their assent. There was an almost inaudible rustle as they did as they were ordered.

In the clearing, the teenagers took hold of each other’s hands, and one of them, a boy with neat blond hair above his heavily made-up face, began to speak in a deep tone of voice that he doubtless believed sounded ominous.

“Dark Lords of the Night, hear us. We bring fire and blood, and we call to you in supplication, in the hope of your eternal favour. We call you, Lords, and we offer our souls to you, that we might see the everlasting night. Hear us, oh Lords, hear us, we beg.”

This is too perfect,
thought Jamie. He set his microphone to external, twisted the volume up to full, and stepped silently out of the shadows.

“Don’t move,” he bellowed. “Stay right where you are.”

The screams that pierced the quiet of the graveyard were satisfyingly loud and high-pitched.

Two of the teenagers tipped backwards on to the grass, their eyes and mouths wide, and began to crawl frantically, digging at the dirt with their fingers, dragging themselves away from the dark shape that had roared at them with a voice like something from the depths of Hell. One slumped to the ground in a dead faint, her eyes rolling back in her head, her mouth hanging open, while the last, the blond boy who had spoken, leapt to his feet and fled, his face a wide, gasping picture of unadulterated terror.