Department 19: Zero Hour (64 page)

I hope he knows why I had to tell them,
he thought.
I hope he understands that they need to hear anything that gives them the slightest hope that I’m not sending them all to their deaths.

Jamie gave a tiny nod, as though he could read the Interim Director’s mind, and kept his gaze steadily focused on the screen, studiously ignoring the many pairs of eyes that had turned towards him. Holmwood nodded in silent thanks, and continued.

“There are almost seven hours until the Operational force assembles in the hangar,” he said. “Each and every one of you will know whether you are going to France within the hour. If you are, study the briefing and prepare yourselves. After which, I suggest that all of you, whether you are going or staying, spend some time talking to the people you love, and reminding yourself of exactly what we are fighting for. This is not a fight with a single life at stake, or a hundred, or even a thousand. This is a fight that will define the very future of the world for every innocent human being and every vampire who means no harm, whether we will live in peace or cower in terror.

“Every one of you knew what you were signing up for when you accepted your invitation to join this Department, and whether or not you ever thought it would come to this, I have absolute faith that you will rise above your own fears and do what needs to be done. We receive no parades, no medals that we could ever wear, no outpouring of thanks from a grateful public, and that is as it should be. We do not need such things, because they have never been why we do what we do. We do it because we are the only ones who can, and we will show that yet again today. We will join our colleagues and we will march together into the darkness. We will destroy Dracula, and Valeri, and every vampire who has allied themselves with them, and we will bring Henry Seward home. Or we will die in the attempt, safe in the knowledge that nobody could have done more, or given more, than the men and women in this room.”

The clapping began somewhere near the back of the room, then rolled forward like a tsunami. By the time it reached the front row, most of the Operators were on their feet, cheering and applauding. Paul Turner stood up, clapping steadily, his gaze locked on Holmwood’s, the faintest glimmer of a smile on his face.

Cal stared out at the men and women whose lives he had assumed responsibility for; he knew full well that whether or not the attack on Château Dauncy was successful, a significant number of them, perhaps even the majority, would never stand in this room again. The thought hurt his heart, but he pushed the pain away; he knew that the Operators were aware of the risks, and would be going to France with their eyes open. He would tip the odds as far in their favour as he could, and the rest would be up to them.

This is it,
thought Cal, as the noise reached a deafening crescendo.
One way or the other, it all ends tonight.

God help us.

Victor Frankenstein walked quickly down the Level B corridor, eager to return to the sanctuary of his quarters. His stomach was churning at the revelation that Jamie had been turned into a vampire, and his heart was throbbing with a sense of hurt that he knew was absolutely unjustifiable, but which was painful nonetheless; the bitter disappointment that Jamie had not come and told him in person.

Don’t be so damn self-pitying,
he told himself.
Don’t you think he had anything more important to do? You don’t even know when it happened.

Cal Holmwood had sent him a message giving him permission not to attend the meeting in the Ops Room – the Interim Director was well aware of what was starting to happen inside Frankenstein’s misshapen body, and was entirely sympathetic – but he had thanked his friend and refused. His insides felt like they were on fire, his nerve endings sparking and smouldering, and his skin was so itchy that it was taking all of his resolve not to scratch it away in long, bloody strips. Despite all that, he would not have missed Cal Holmwood’s speech for anything. The Interim Director had done a frankly admirable job in Henry Seward’s absence, in circumstances as trying as any leader of the Department had ever faced, and he deserved to know that his efforts were appreciated; forcing himself to sit through fifteen minutes of torment had been the very least Frankenstein could do.

He stepped into his quarters and locked the door behind him. He unzipped his uniform down to his waist and shrugged it clear of his arms and torso; there was a moment of glorious relief before the itching returned, relentless and utterly maddening. The strange nature of his birth had denied him a childhood, and his recycled anatomy had left him largely immune to disease; as a result, he had never experienced chickenpox, or measles, and had no frame of reference for the incessant discomfort that accompanied the final hours before each full moon. It would eventually reach the point where he became desperate for the change to come; for all its bone-cracking agony, it was over in less than two minutes, and then he was something else for a little while, something that felt no pain, that ran and hunted and killed.

He had told Cal Holmwood the truth when last they spoke; he had absolutely no control over what happened to him when the full moon rose, and could no more stop the change than he could prevent night following day.

But his condition
was
evolving. He had initially returned to his human form with a black hole in his mind, with little more than the memory of pain. Now that was no longer the case.

The first time he had managed to retain any awareness of himself in his animal state had been in the theatre of La Fraternité de la Nuit, where the combination of his lycanthropy and the reckless bravery of Jamie Carpenter and his friends had saved his life. Through yellow eyes that saw in monochrome and the dizzying, overpowering colours and shapes of his altered nasal spectrum, he had been able to not only recognise Jamie, but also resist the urge to tear out his throat and drink his blood with gusto.

Now his sense of self during the change was pronounced; he didn’t have full control, as his animal urges and instincts were often so powerful that they simply could not be ignored, but he was able to remain himself to a far greater extent than previously.

Frankenstein filled his small kettle, and considered Cal Holmwood’s instructions as it began to boil.

Spend some time talking to the people you love. Remind yourself what we’re fighting for.

The number of people to whom the monster would apply that description was extremely small. He
had
loved, on many occasions, throughout the centuries of his life, but those objects of his affection were almost all gone, lost in the mists of time. Now the list would consist of Jamie Carpenter, whom he would definitely see before either or both of them departed for France, Henry Seward, whom he had assumed he would never see again, and the man he was about to try to contact.

The kettle screeched to the boil, billowing steam. Frankenstein made himself a mug of coffee, then opened his locker and looked at the radio handset he had resisted the urge to turn on two days earlier. He lifted it out, held it in his hand for a long time, then pressed its power button. Its screen lit up and a low hum confirmed that it was tuned, sending a flutter of nervous tension dancing up his spine.

You heard what Cal said,
he told himself.
This might be the last chance you ever get.

He took a deep breath and held it, trying to shut out the fire burning beneath his skin, trying to slow his racing heart.

“Julian,” he said, eventually. “Come in, Julian. Over.”

Silence.

Frankenstein released his breath in a low rush. He had sent two heavily encrypted emails to Julian within the last year, despite the obvious risk to them both. The first had informed him of the rescue of his son and disappearance of his wife, the second had detailed Jamie’s triumph over Alexandru Rusmanov and the sad fate that had befallen Marie. He had no idea where Julian had been when he sent them, or even whether he was still alive, but he had been unable to live with the thought of not letting his oldest friend know what had happened to his family.

He had not spoken to Julian, however, since the day after his friend had died.

“Come in,” he repeated. “Come in, over.”

A burst of static sent a spike of pain through his head. In the last hours before the change, his senses became extremely sensitive, and the noise was piercingly unpleasant to his rapidly sharpening ears. Then a voice from the past emerged from the tiny plastic speaker, and Frankenstein felt a lump rise instantly into his throat.

“Frank? Are you there?”

“Yes,” he managed. “I’m here, Julian.”

“Christ, mate, you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice,” said Julian, his own trembling with emotion. “Absolutely no idea.”

“You too,” said Frankenstein. “I knew you’d be on this frequency. It’s like old times.”

Julian grunted with laughter. “I tuned on to it yesterday afternoon,” he said. “It was pretty much the first thing I did after they left me here. I checked in a few times, but I wasn’t holding out much hope, to be honest.”

“Cal came to see me,” said Frankenstein. “I promised him I would tell him if you tried to contact me, and I meant it when I said it. But after this morning, I’m not sure that promise means very much.”

“What happened this morning?” asked Julian.

This was the first of two questions Frankenstein had anticipated, the one that he knew how he was going to answer. For all his iconoclasm, he genuinely believed in Blacklight and what it stood for, and he didn’t disobey orders or break rules lightly, regardless of how he knew it must have often seemed. But he also saw little point in hiding from Julian the reality of what was happening, given that there was nothing his old friend could do about it. He wondered, in fact, whether it would be crueller to
tell
Julian, given his position of impotence. Or was it simply always better to know the truth?

“How much do you know?” he asked.

“Bob Allen told me most of it,” said Julian. “Or at least I think he did. He told me about Dracula, and about Zero Hour. Cal wouldn’t tell me anything, but it was clear that he was scared half to death. Is there something even worse going on that I don’t know about?”

Frankenstein smiled. “No,” he said. “That’s broadly it.”

“So what happened this morning?” repeated Julian.

“We’ve known Dracula was back for several months,” said Frankenstein. “We’ve known Valeri Rusmanov has been protecting him while he recovers, and that they’ve been holding Henry Seward captive. We just haven’t known where. Now we do.”

“How?” asked Julian.

“Valentin Rusmanov, of all people,” said Frankenstein. “He defected when Dracula was revived, and it was him who found them. He returned last night and gave us the location.”

“Valentin
defected
?” asked Julian, his voice full of incredulity. “Are you serious?”

“I’m serious,” said Frankenstein. “I didn’t believe it for a long time, and I still don’t trust him in the slightest, but his information appears to be genuine. The satellites show the location is crawling with vamps.”

“A trap?”

“Possibly,” said Frankenstein. “But this is Dracula. If there’s even a chance of stopping him, we have to take it, regardless of the risk.”

“So that’s what happened this morning,” said Julian. “Cal gave the order was given to go and get him, right?”

“Right,” said Frankenstein.

“Who’s going?” asked Julian.

Frankenstein laughed. “Everyone,” he said. “All of Blacklight, NS9, the SPC, the FTB, the South Africans. Everyone we can get together in time.”

“Christ,” said Julian. “I wish I could come with you, Frank. I wish that more than anything.”

“I wish you could too,” said Frankenstein.

“Is Jamie going?” asked Julian. “Don’t lie.”

“Of course he is,” said Frankenstein. “He’s an Operator, Julian.”

There was a long silence, in which the monster waited for his friend to ask the question he didn’t know how he was going to answer; the one that was absolutely inevitable, and had the potential to cause the most harm.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“Is he all right?” asked Julian, his voice suddenly hoarse. “My son. Is he OK? This is going to sound crazy, but I saw a vision of him, Frank. When I was in California. I saw something bad. And last night I had a nightmare about him.”

Frankenstein made his decision. It was suddenly clear; no good could come from telling Julian what had happened to his son in Romania. Moreover, he simply didn’t want to have to be the one to tell him; he had barely begun to process the news himself.

And in my defence,
he thought,
there’s no predicting what Julian would do if he found out, except that it would be extremely unlikely to be considered, or rational. In which case, not telling him could be justified as protecting Jamie.

“He’s fine, Julian,” he said. “He’s doing well.”

There was a long pause.

“He was a vampire, Frank,” said Julian, eventually. “In the vision, and in the nightmare. I saw Jamie as a vampire.”