With rising snarls of anger, the vampire crowd threw themselves towards the tight huddle of Department 19 Operators. Jamie didn’t move; he stood absolutely still, the grenade resting loosely in his hand, a narrow smile on his face, as his team went to work around him.
Jack Williams raised his T-Bone to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. The metal stake erupted from the end of the wide barrel and screamed through the hot, sticky air. It crunched through the chest of an approaching vampire wearing a fluorescent green T-shirt and shot into the mass of vampires who hadn’t moved. It tore the nose off a girl in a pink minidress, who screamed and clasped her hands to her face.
The vampire in the green T-shirt was still moving, his teeth grinding through the Bliss high that was coursing through him, the thick metal wire twanging through the hole in his body. His face was contorted with pain and adrenaline, his eyes blazing; he was less than a metre away from Jack when his body finally realised what had been done to it, and he exploded into a pillar of steaming blood.
Screams echoed through the crowd, and several of the vampires ran to the far corners of the nightclub, desperately searching for a way out. A vampire wearing head-to-toe black leapt for Jamie, her hands twisted into claws, her eyes wide and fixed on the grenade in his hand. Claire Lock stepped sharply forward and plunged her stake into the airborne woman’s heart; she splashed to the concrete floor as a dark smear of blood.
The ring of vampires who had approached the Operators paused. The expressions on their faces, which had been anger mingled with bloodlust, now slid slowly to fear. The communal will to attack left them, and they scuttled back into the crowd, staring at the dark huddle of figures, waiting to see what they would do next.
“It’s very simple, ladies and gentlemen,” said Jamie, smiling at the swaying, trembling crowd. “If one of you tells me where I can find Jean-Luc Latour, then I walk out of here with this grenade in my hand, and you all get to live. If no one tells me what I want to know, then I press the trigger.”
He stood waiting, the UV grenade resting in his hand.
“No takers?” he asked, his voice light and friendly. “Well, that’s disappointing. But I suppose I have to respect your decision.”
Jamie twisted the grenade, and it sprang open, exposing the purple bulb at its core. He raised it into the air, let his thumb rest over its trigger, and was about to press it when a voice emerged from the crowd.
“Don’t,” it said. “I’ll tell you.”
Jamie removed his thumb from the trigger, but did not close the grenade.
“Tell me what?” he asked. “What are you going to tell me?”
“Latour. He’s at his club, not far from here.”
“Tell me where,” said Jamie, sharply.
“On Rue de Sévigné. It’s a building with no windows.”
“Why is he there?” demanded Jamie. “Who lives in the building?”
“The king of Paris lives there.”
“I know where that is,” said Dominique Saint-Jacques. “We can be there in ten minutes. Let’s go.”
“OK,” agreed Jamie. “Destroy them all, and let’s get out of here.”
There was a chorus of screams and terrified moans from the crowd. Jamie placed his thumb back on the grenade’s trigger and was about to press it when he felt hands grip his shoulders, and then he was spun round towards his team.
The four Operators of his team surrounded him, their visors raised, expressions of hostility on their faces.
“Don’t, Jamie,” said Claire Lock. “I won’t be part of this.”
Jamie stared at her, incredulous. “Part of what?” he barked. “Part of destroying a room full of vampires?”
“That’s not what this is,” said Angela. “This is murder, pure and simple. Trust me, I know the difference.”
“She’s right, Jamie,” said Jack Williams. “This isn’t what we do. And it’s not what Colonel Frankenstein would want.”
Jamie stared at his friend. “Don’t bring him into this, Jack,” he warned. “You didn’t know him. Don’t tell me what he would want.”
“You’re right,” said Jack. “I didn’t know him. None of us did apart from you. But I knew him, Jamie. He was a legend in Blacklight before any of us were even born; my grandfather has been telling me stories about him since the day I turned twenty-one. And I won’t stand by and let you dishonour his name by committing murder in the supposed service of it.”
Jamie felt something give inside him, and lowered the grenade. Shame, hot and sharp, spilled through him, as he pictured the look on the monster’s face if he could see what he had been about to do. Frankenstein detested vampires, he felt they were unnatural, but he believed that they were not inherently evil; he would not have stood idly by and let Jamie murder a roomful of them for no other reason than because he was angry.
“You’re right,” he said, his voice low. “I’m sorry. I just can’t explain to you…” He stopped, and tried again. “I need to get him back,” he said, simply. “I have to. Will you help me?”
“We’re here, aren’t we?” asked Angela, smiling at him.
Jamie smiled back. “Jack,” he said, “I think you should assume command of this mission. I’m too close to this.”
“No way,” replied Jack, instantly. “This is your Operation, Jamie, and I’ve got nothing but faith in you. Just calm down, and stop pushing so hard. We’re nearly there.”
“What about the rest of you?” Jamie asked.
“No, sir,” said Claire. “We’re with you.”
“Agreed,” said Angela.
“Me too,” said Dominique.
Jamie grinned. “Thank you,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “Really. Let’s go and find him.”
Frankenstein watched with morbid curiosity as the audience for his death filed into the theatre of the Fraternité de la Nuit.
The pain in his arms and legs had become so constant that he no longer even felt it, which was the smallest of mercies. It had enabled him to raise his head as the first chattering voices became audible through the door at the back of the theatre, and watch as a vampire couple, dressed in beautiful evening wear, had floated through the door and down to a pair of seats in the second row.
Every one of the red velvet seats in the theatre was topped with a small RESERVATION card, with names written on them in flamboyant handwriting; Lord Dante was clearly expecting a full house.
The couple watched him intently, and whispered to each other as they made their way down the central aisle, their red eyes burning with curiosity; their expressions were similar to those of children in a zoo, children who found themselves facing a wild animal and were unable to fully convince themselves that they were safe. He stared back at them, until they took their seats and returned their attention to each other.
Frankenstein no longer felt any fear. He was exhausted, and miserable, and if this was to be his moment to die, then he was ready to embrace it. But he had no intention of dying without a fight, and he had an ace up his sleeve that no one else knew about; he knew what his body was readying itself to do, could feel his bones creaking, hear his flesh screaming for transformation.
Please, he thought. Please let it come before he kills me.
More vampires filed into the theatre in ones and twos, holding champagne flutes or heavy crystal-bottomed glasses in their pale fingers. All were dressed immaculately, and all peered up at him with expressions of naked surprise on their faces, as though they could not believe what their eyes were seeing. Several shouted greetings at him, and he supposed that these were men and women, like Latour, who he had once socialised with, most likely in this very building. Not for the first time, Frankenstein was glad that he could remember nothing of the life he had lived.
When every seat was taken, when every name card had been removed and stowed away in pockets and purses as keepsakes, the house lights suddenly dimmed, and an expectant hush fell over the audience.
Silently, the door to Lord Dante’s dining room slid open. Frankenstein saw it happen, but the audience’s gaze was focused on the stage, and on him. The vampire king floated silently out of his dining room, and along the rear of the curved theatre; when he reached the back of the central aisle, a spotlight burst into life, illuminating him. Lord Dante was resplendent in a gleaming black tuxedo that all but hid the bulging line of metal on his chest. His skin was lush and vibrant, his hair glossy and slicked back with oil, and his face wore an expression of utter delight, as though he had been waiting his entire life for this moment.
I suppose he has, thought Frankenstein. Almost a century of it anyway.
Lord Dante floated silently down the aisle of the theatre as his audience erupted with applause around him. Several vampire women threw themselves prostrate before him, clawing at his feet. He swept past without so much as a glance in their direction; his eyes, his burning, smouldering, crimson eyes, were locked on Frankenstein.
As he reached the stage, he pirouetted gracefully in the air and faced his audience, raising his arms wide. The applause grew to a standing ovation, a deafening chorus of cheers and shouts of “Bravo” filling the small space. The vampire king basked in his own glory, reborn by the adulation of his subjects, and by the realisation of a quest for revenge that was almost a hundred years old.
“Thank you,” he said, and the cheers intensified anew. “Thank you, my loyal friends. Thank you.”
He lowered his arms, and the noise began to subside. When it was quiet once more, Lord Dante floated up on to the stage, and faced his adoring public.
“This is an auspicious night,” he said. “A night that I had begun to doubt I would ever see. But here it is, delivered to me by one of your number. Take a bow, my most faithful friend.”
Latour rose from his seat in the front row to a fresh outpouring of applause. Frankenstein watched as the vampire’s face broke into a huge smile of pure pleasure, and realised that there had never been any chance of persuading Latour to change his mind. Nothing would have robbed the old vampire of this moment of superiority, of praise from lesser beings.
“Thank you,” said Lord Dante, favouring Latour with a beaming smile of approval. “Your actions will not be forgotten, not by anyone in this Fraternité. And most certainly not by me.”
Latour sat back down in his seat. Frankenstein watched as a number of the tuxedo-clad vampires reached over and thumped him on the back, or offered their hands to be shaken, and felt his stomach twist. Then, suddenly, he felt a burning sensation along the length of his spine, as though white-hot needles were being pushed into his back.
The change was coming and, for the first time, Frankenstein relished the prospect.
Soon, he thought, through the pain. So soon. Please be soon enough.
“This creature you see before you,” continued Lord Dante, casting a vengeful glance in Frankenstein’s direction, “was the perpetrator of a great wrong, done to me a long time ago. For almost a century he has avoided being held to account for his actions, but no more. Now he will learn, as will you all, what it is to cross the vampire king of Paris.”
Lord Dante’s butler floated silently on stage from the wings. In his hands he held a simple wooden table, and a large roll of black cloth. He placed the table beside his master, set the cloth on its surface and departed as silently as he had arrived.
“Thank you,” said the vampire king. He took the roll of cloth carefully in his pale hands, and gripped one end. Then he lifted it sharply into the air, allowing it to roll theatrically open. There was a murmur of excitement from the crowd, and the number of pairs of glowing red eyes increased dramatically. Frankenstein was pleased he couldn’t see what they were looking at, but Lord Dante had no intention of sparing him the knowledge of what was coming; he turned in the air, holding the cloth at his side like a bullfighter, and showed his prisoner the contents.
The cloth was full of knives.
In dozens of loops and pockets, gleaming in the spotlight that still engulfed Lord Dante, lay blades of every shape and size: heavy, dull-looking hatchets and saws, long triangular carving knives and daggers, curved filleting blades and hunting weapons, tiny wicked-looking scalpels and stilettos. They tinkled gently as the cloth moved in the air, their reflections swimming against the domed ceiling of the theatre.
Frankenstein felt an icicle of fear stab at him as he looked more closely and saw the items that were at the very bottom of the cloth, almost appearing as an afterthought. There was a jar of white powder, which he knew for certain would be salt, and five small vials of clear liquid, about which he had no desire to speculate. Finally, and most appallingly, a small plastic tub sat in the very corner of the cloth. It was full of maggots, fat and yellow and writhing softly in the heat of the theatre.
The cloth was a sadist’s dream come true; a collection of items that had no purpose other than to torture, to maim and, eventually, to kill.
“I considered adding other entertainment to this evening’s bill,” said Lord Dante, grinning wickedly. “Aperitifs, if you will, to warm your palates for the main course. But I reconsidered; after all, we know what we’re here to see.”
The vampire king laid the cloth gently on the table and leant over it, studying the blades carefully. After a few seconds, he plucked a shiny silver scalpel from its loop and held it up to the light. It flickered and gleamed, reflecting both the white light of the spotlight and the red glow of the ancient vampire’s eyes.
“Let us begin,” he said, softly, and turned towards Frankenstein.
“Where are we?” demanded Jamie, as Jack Williams pointed their black vehicle between rows of parked cars, gunning the engine as he did so. “Where the hell is this place?”
“This is Rue de Sévigné,” replied Dominique Saint-Jacques. “It should be right here.”
“I see it!” shouted Claire Lock from the back seat, where she was peering out of her window. “Back up!”
Jack hit the brakes, throwing his four passengers forward in their seats. He shoved the car into reverse, and accelerated backwards.
“Tell me where!” he shouted, peering over his shoulder and out through the rear window.
“Right here!” shouted Claire.
Jack pumped the brakes, and the five members of Jamie’s team piled out of the car. In front of them, just as Claire had said, was a beautiful grey stone building, identical to its neighbours to the left and right in every way but one.
Where the windows should have been were slabs of grey stone.
“This is it,” breathed Jamie. “This is where he meant.”
They stepped up on to the kerb, and examined the building. It had only a single door, a large, imposing block of old, varnished wood that stood in the precise centre of the building. Between it and them was a high metal fence, beautifully ornate but also clearly difficult to scale. In the middle of the fence, directly in front of the door, was an equally elegant gate, with a large, rectangular lock, and a single keyhole.
“Open it,” said Jamie.
Dominique Saint-Jacques stepped forward, pulling a thin metal barrel from his belt. He inserted it into the lock, and hit a button on the side. Fluid carbon flowed into the lock, pushing the tumblers into place. A second press of the button sent an electrical pulse through the material, hardening it instantly. Dominique turned the barrel, and the lock, which was designed to deter casual visitors and petty criminals, slid easily open. Dominique pushed open the gate, and withdrew his device.
Jamie walked up to the door, waited until the rest of his team were arrayed behind him, then raised the heavy knocker and let it fall back against its brass plate. There was a high, ringing thud, and almost immediately, the door slid open to reveal an elderly vampire in an immaculate white tie.
“You’re late,” he said. His voice was full of professional disappointment. “The evening’s entertainment is already—” He paused, appearing to notice the five Operators for the first time. His eyes flooded red, but he had no time to say anything more.
There was a thunderclap of noise, and a deafening rush of air, and then a metal stake flew past Jamie’s head; it was moving so fast it was merely a blur, and it missed him by no more than a few centimetres, but he didn’t so much as flinch.
The stake burst through the vampire’s chest, exiting out through a hole in his back the size of a dinner plate. There was a moment’s silence, in which the butler had just enough time to cast his eyes down at his ruined chest, before he erupted in a steaming explosion of gore, splattering Jamie’s uniform with warm, dripping blood. He turned his head ever so slightly to see who had fired the shot, and saw Angela Darcy smiling at him, her T-Bone locked against her shoulder.
“Good shot,” he said, calmly.
“Thanks, sir,” she replied.
He nodded, and strode quickly up the stairs into the building, his team following behind him. They found themselves standing in a small lobby the colour of blood; Jamie was taking in the red velvet carpet and walls, the dark crimson of the ceiling, when a roar of pain so loud that it shook the floor beneath them thundered through the building.
Jamie froze.
He knew that voice; it was the one he had spent the last three months believing he was never going to hear again. It was mangled by pain, but it was unmistakable.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “It’s him. It’s really him.”
He turned to the four members of his team, his eyes wide.
“Whatever it takes,” he said. “Whatever the cost. We bring him home. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said the four Operators, in unison.
“OK then,” said Jamie, lowering his visor, watching as his team did likewise. “This ends here.”
Frankenstein roared with pain as the scalpel dug into his stomach.
He didn’t want to give Lord Dante the pleasure of hearing him scream, but he failed. There was a palpable gasp of enjoyment from the crowd as he howled; the vampires were staring up at him, transfixed, their faces contorted into grimaces of sadistic lust. Several of the audience were furtively groping the people in the seats next to them, their hands disappearing beneath skirts and dresses, and below belts. Their almost boundless depravity sickened him and the roar, when it came, was as full of fury and disgust as it was of pain.
Blood was running freely down his chest, where Lord Dante had sliced away the shirt he had been wearing. The vampire king’s touch on his skin had been gentle, almost comforting, until he had drawn the scalpel down the centre of his mottled grey-green torso, cutting him open from chest to stomach button. His flesh had slid apart like butter, and blood had welled instantly in a straight, neat line.
The cut wasn’t deep, the pain manageable, but Frankenstein knew it was only the beginning. Lord Dante quickly drew the blade across his skin again, eight short horizontal lines crossing the long vertical one. It was a neat pattern, one that immediately began to bleed, and it made Frankenstein grit his teeth.
Lord Dante looked at him enquiringly, as if wondering when he was going to stop pretending that what was happening didn’t hurt, but Frankenstein simply stared back at him, his jaw clenched. The vampire king nodded slightly, as though in admiration, then shoved the scalpel into the monster’s stomach and twisted it.
The pain that flared from Frankenstein’s midsection was huge and hot, and he screamed, a vast roar of damnation.
Too late, he thought, resignation spreading through him. Too late. I’m going to die in this theatre, with this void inside my head.
But then his body began to tremble, and savage elation burst through him. Pain exploded through every particle of his being, but he welcomed it, drawing back his lips into a snarling grin that made Lord Dante widen his eyes with surprise. As he felt himself begin to slip, as he felt the change begin, at last, to overwhelm him, the last thing he saw before his eyes turned yellow and everything faded to black and white, were five dark figures emerging into the rear of the theatre.
Jamie slipped silently through the door at the rear of the lobby. He found himself in sudden darkness, and stepped to the right as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The rest of his team filed in and took positions beside him, their backs against a curving, red velvet wall.
They were standing at the back of a theatre with its house lights lowered, and Jamie’s eyes were immediately drawn to the dark red glow emanating from the sixty or so seats that faced the stage.
Vampires, he realised. Lots and lots of vampires.
Then he followed their gaze, and forgot all about the creatures in the audience.
In the middle of the stage, bound to a thick wooden pole, was Frankenstein’s monster. His head was back, the tendons in his neck standing out, his teeth clenched against whatever had caused him to issue the deafening scream. There was a dark figure leaning in close to the monster’s chest, but Jamie barely saw him; his mind was temporarily overwhelmed.
He’s alive. I didn’t want to let myself believe it. But he’s really alive.
The figure on the stage stepped aside and Jamie felt a surge of almost uncontrollable rage burst through him as he saw the tattered remains of his friend’s chest. Blood was running from what looked like a hundred cuts, pooling at his waist and dripping steadily to the wooden floor. He felt words starting to form in his throat; he didn’t know what they were going to be, he only knew that he was going to scream them as loudly as his vocal cords would allow, and used every ounce of his strength to push them back down.
Giving yourself away won’t help him, he told himself. You need a distraction.
Jamie felt something press against his gloved hand, and looked round. Jack Williams was holding an ultraviolet light grenade, and was nodding pointedly at the aisle that ran the length of the theatre; it began less than two metres from where Jamie was standing. Jamie grinned behind his visor, then nodded.
Jack stepped silently round Jamie, and slid sideways along the wall until he was facing down the aisle. The matt-black of his uniform made him invisible in the shadows, and the material that clung to his body prevented any scent escaping that might have attracted the attention of the vampire audience. It didn’t matter, though, as none of the vampires were looking anywhere other than at the stage; they were absolutely focused on the bleeding, howling monster.
Jack twisted the grenade open, crouched and rolled it slowly down the aisle, a remote trigger resting in his hand.
“This is it,” whispered Jamie over the comms link in his helmet. “Ready One when Jack pulls the trigger.”
He heard the faintest rustling as his team unsheathed their T-Bones and MP5s. Jamie left his where they were; he was watching Jack.
The grenade rolled silently down the aisle, between the throngs of watching vampires. As it reached the halfway point, a woman in a dark green dress turned to look at it, a curious expression on her face. She opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment, Jack Williams pressed his trigger, and before she got the chance her mouth was full of flames.
The UV grenade burst into life without the slightest noise; one second there was only the darkened throng of vampires, the next the theatre was full of blinding purple light. A millisecond later the screaming began.
Jamie, whose attention had returned to the stage, saw something strange in the split second before the grenade pulsed into life. He saw what was left of Frankenstein’s shirt ripple, as though something was running under the grey-green skin beneath it. Then the grenade exploded, and all he saw was fire.
There was a sudden, enormous bloom of heat, as half the vampires in the audience burst into flames. They leapt into the air, screaming, beating at their clothes and skin, trying to extinguish the purple fire. On the stage, Lord Dante recoiled in horror, more at the usurping of his moment of triumph than out of any genuine concern for his burning guests.
The vampires at the edges of the crowd, who had been shielded from the ultraviolet light by their wives and husbands, their friends and lovers, jumped up from their seats, their eyes blazing red, searching for the source of the carnage.
Screams filled the theatre, as the most badly burned vampires fell from the air and crashed down on to the seats. Jamie pulled the T-Bone from his belt, set it against his shoulder, sighted down the barrel and pulled the trigger. His stake rocketed across the auditorium, smashing clean through the chest of a vampire in a dark grey suit, who was desperately attempting to beat out the flames that were consuming a vampire woman in a cocktail dress. He was driven backwards half a step, then burst like a balloon, coating the burning woman in gore.
The stake whistled back into the barrel of Jamie’s weapon, as he heard a series of loud bangs from his right and left. Stakes flew through the air, their metal wires trailing behind them, and four more vampires erupted in columns of steaming blood. Finally, eventually, the vampires at the edges of the crowd, the ones whose burns were minimal, followed the flight of the weapons, and saw the five figures lurking in the shadows.
There was a deafening howl of rage from one of them, who pointed with a skeletal finger. The vampires who were still able to stand, perhaps thirty of them, turned en masse, and regarded the dark shapes. Then, with a chorus of snarls and howls, they leapt towards the intruders.
Frankenstein’s body shook as though an electric current was being passed through it.
He could see the flames that were sweeping through the theatre, the burning seats, the screaming, roasting vampires, but what was far, far worse, was that he could smell them. His nostrils flared as the scents, complicated, swirling things, almost physical objects, floated through the air; he could smell fear, and pain, and the anger of the panicking vampires, could smell charring bones and cooking flesh, could smell, with enormous satisfaction, the fury rising from Lord Dante, who was staring out over his audience with a look of helpless rage on his face. Then the change began in earnest, and all he was aware of was his own agony.
His legs snapped back on themselves, the bones splintering and knitting back together in a completely different shape. He felt thick hair burst from every pore on his body, felt his arms crack, bend and eventually break. The pain was so huge he couldn’t even scream; he had known what was coming, had been through it twice before, but there was simply no way to prepare for the feeling of your body being broken and rebuilt.
Frankenstein felt the ropes that had bound him tightly to the post give way as his limbs changed shape beneath them, and then his mind, what little of it remained in his possession, slipped away, as the animal overcame him.
“Spread!” yelled Jamie, as the vampires came for him and his team. “Move!”
He threw himself to the ground, beneath the flying lunge of a vampire who had to have been in at least his sixties. The man crashed into the wall where Jamie had been standing against it, and crumpled to the floor. Jamie leapt forward, as quick as a striking cobra, and buried his stake in the vampire’s chest.
He didn’t wait for the explosion of blood that he knew would follow; he was moving before it came, crouched low, running along the wall towards the corner of the stage. He threw one backward glance as he did so, and felt a surge of pride as he saw his team fan out through the theatre, Claire and Dominique heading to the right, Jack and Angela moving down the aisle, into the heart of the vampire audience.
As he ran, Jamie pulled his MP5 from his belt, and flicked the safety off. When he reached the corner of the theatre, from where he knew he could not be ambushed from the rear, he dropped to one knee and aimed into the burning hell of the theatre. Angela and Jack had cut a swathe through the flaming, screaming vampires, staking them as they moved forward; blood boomed into the air in a series of thunderclaps left in the wake of the two Operators.
Five or six vampires had floated up to the highest point of the ceiling, either to avoid the carnage beneath them or to get a better vantage point from which to attack. Jamie didn’t wait to find out which; he pointed his MP5 into the group of dark, floating figures, and pulled the trigger. The submachine gun was deafeningly loud in the small theatre, and Jamie saw a number of vampires howl, and cover their ears.
Must be so painful with their super-hearing, he thought, and smiled grimly behind his visor. Good.
The stream of bullets tore through the floating vampires, and they tumbled back down to the seats like falling leaves. A fresh bout of screaming erupted, before Angela and Jack were on top of them, their stakes flashing up and down in the purple light of the fire.
Jamie felt motion to his right, and spun round; a door was opening, a door that he had not noticed as he made his way along the curved wall. He fumbled for his T-Bone, and had it to his shoulder just before a vampire in a spotless tuxedo emerged, his red eyes blazing. Jamie pulled the trigger; the shot was high, as he had been forced to rush, but it made no difference. The stake tore the vampire’s head clean away from his shoulders, and carried it on its flight.
The headless torso staggered, its hands groping at its neck, before Jamie’s weapon reached the end of its wire, and began to rewind. The stake jerked to a halt, and the head was thrown clear; as it bounced and rolled away into the shadows, Jamie saw a look of outrage on what remained of its face. He ran forward, plunged his stake into the headless body’s heart, and returned to his position.
He watched Claire and Dominique T-Bone two vampires that were attempting to flank them, watched Angela fire her Glock 17 empty, the bullets thudding unerringly into the heads of a dozen smouldering vampires, and then he saw movement in the corner of his eye, and turned to look up at the stage.
What he saw stopped his heart cold.
Oh God, no, he thought. Oh Jesus, no. Why didn’t I think of this? Why didn’t I realise?
On the stage, the vampire who had been torturing Frankenstein was standing motionless with his back to Jamie. Beyond him, where Jamie’s friend had been bound to the post, was something from the deepest circles of hell, a mewling, howling monstrosity.
Frankenstein’s face was still recognisable, atop the grey body of a swollen, grotesquely misshapen wolf. Its legs kicked savagely against the post that it was still loosely tied to, and as Jamie watched, the heavy wood shattered under the impact. The wolf fell forward, landing heavily on three of its legs; it shook the fourth one until the last of the ropes that had held it were gone, and stood shakily on all fours. Jamie saw the last of his friend’s humanity ebb away, saw his face twist and lengthen, saw the jaw break and reset in less than a second. Then Frankenstein was gone, and the enormous wolf that had replaced him threw back its giant head and howled.
The noise was otherworldly, so huge and so full of dancing, running misery that every living thing in the theatre stopped and turned towards the stage. Angela Darcy, ever the professional, took the chance to survey the situation.
“Fourteen vamps still alive, Jamie,” she said.
“We’ve got a bigger problem,” replied Jamie, his voice low and full of shock. “Much, much bigger.”
“Why didn’t we see this coming?” asked Jack Williams. “Why didn’t Intelligence flag this up?”
“There was no time for an Intelligence evaluation,” said Jamie, distantly. “I was told to get wheels up ASAP. I never thought… I never…”
“What do we do about it?” demanded Angela. “We can worry about who should have seen it coming later. Bringing him home just got a hell of a lot more difficult.”
The wolf was peering around the theatre, its breath blasting out of its nostrils, its tongue hanging from its vast mouth; it appeared to be trying to make sense of its surroundings. The huge head swung slowly to the left, and then to the right, where its yellow eyes landed on the vampire who had been torturing it. With a deafening snarl, it hurled itself towards him.
Lord Dante flung himself up and back, evading the crunching jaws by mere millimetres.
This can’t be happening, he thought. This is not fair.
The vampire king swooped up to the ceiling of his theatre, desperately trying to think of a way to salvage the situation or, if that proved impossible, to guarantee that he made it out of the building with his life. The wolf was back on its feet below him, howling up at him, but he knew he was beyond its reach. He looked down at the five black-clad figures as they began to move again, plunging their stakes into the burning bodies of his audience.
You’ll pay for this, whoever you are, he thought. You will rue the day you crossed Lord Dante, the vampire king of Paris.
Jamie backed away from the wolf, his heart screaming with pain as he saw what had become of his friend. It was almost too much for him to bear. He had no idea what to do now; in none of the scenarios he had run in his head on the flight across the Channel had he even allowed for the possibility that was now unfolding before him.
He was furious with himself for not having made the connection; he had seen the rising full moon from the helicopter as they made their way to Paris, and he had seen Alexandru’s werewolf close its mouth over Frankenstein’s hand before the two of them fell over the cliffs. He had replayed that memory, one of the most painful he possessed, a thousand times since it had happened, but his focus had always been on the terrible final moment when his friend disappeared from view; the injury done to him before he fell had seemed irrelevant, in light of what had followed. Now his mind was racing as he tried to think of a way, any way, that he could still save his friend.
He circled round to the back of the theatre, away from the wolf, which was staring up at the vampire floating high above, its jaws hanging open, its yellow eyes narrow.
“Regroup!” he shouted, and watched as his team peeled away from the remaining vampires and backed quickly towards him. They met at the top of the aisle; below them the theatre burned, the purple ultraviolet flames that had burst from the vampires’ bodies now replaced with flickering yellow and orange as the seats and the carpets were engulfed.
The remaining vampires, twelve by Jamie’s count, not including the one floating above them, were huddled together in the middle of the theatre. They looked lost, and disoriented, as though they were unable to believe what was happening. One woman was holding the charred body of a man in her arms, and appeared to be whispering softly to it, her face close to the smouldering ruin.
“Let’s end this,” said Jamie, softly, and led his team down the aisle.
Destroying the last twelve vampires was the work of less than a minute; none of them put up any resistance at all, and the looks on their faces, as they stared around at the rivers of spilled blood, at the roaring flames that licked round their ankles, suggested that many considered their destruction to be a kindness.
“You devils!” bellowed the vampire who was floating near the ceiling. “How dare you? Don’t you know who I am?”
Angela drew her T-Bone to her shoulder and fired. She was so quick that Jamie gasped, but the floating vampire knocked the projectile aside with a derisory sneer.
“I am Lord Dante!” it screamed. “The vampire king of Paris. This is my home!”
At the sound of the vampire’s voice, the enormous wolf howled anew, shaking the theatre. Then the howl was cut short, replaced by a low, guttural growl. Jamie turned to see what had prompted it, and saw a lone vampire had floated up on to the stage and was slowly approaching the wolf, his hands out before him in a gesture of placation.
“What the hell is this?” asked Dominique.
“I’ve no idea,” replied Jamie.
The vampire stopped a couple of metres away from the wolf, which had lowered its head towards the ground, its weight back on its rear legs. It was still growling, and from this side view Jamie saw with horror the metal bolts sticking out of the thick grey fur at its neck.
“Henry,” said the vampire, slowly. “That’s your name. Henry. Don’t you recognise me? It’s me, Latour. What has become of—”
He got no further.
At the mention of the vampire’s name, the wolf’s growl exploded into a snarl of rage. In one huge, lightning-fast step it closed the distance between them, and clamped its huge jaws round the vampire’s head, cutting off his words. The vampire began to scream from inside the giant maw, his fists thumping uselessly against the wolf’s snout. Then, with a terrible crunching sound that would haunt Jamie for the rest of his life, the wolf closed its jaws. Blood squirted out between its yellow teeth and splattered to the floor, before the wolf tore Latour’s head from his body with a shake of its giant snout that seemed almost casual, and swallowed it whole.
There was a scream of rage from the ceiling, and Jamie looked up at the vampire who called himself the king of Paris. His hands were clawing at his face, his eyes wide and blazing.
“You foul monster!” he shrieked. “I will hunt you to the ends of the earth! I will pursue you with every breath I have left! You will die a thousand deaths for what you have done!”
“T-Bones,” said Jamie, suddenly, looking up at the raving vampire. “Everyone. Right now.”
He raised his weapon to his shoulder, waited a split second for the rest of his team to do the same, then fired. The combined bang of exploding gas was incredibly loud, and Lord Dante, whose attention had been focused entirely on Frankenstein, looked round in time to see the projectiles coming, but not in time to avoid them.
The five metal stakes tore through his body from all sides. Two crunched through his thighs before burying themselves in his stomach, one ploughed through his armpit before crashing into the red plaster of the ceiling, one thudded deep into the heavy bone at his shoulder and the last one tore through his throat, obliterating it.
A huge spray of blood burst from Lord Dante’s neck, and fell the long distance to the floor of the theatre. For a moment, the vampire king twisted in the air, as the heavy metal wires hung from his body; he seemed to be trying to speak, but all that emerged from his gaping mouth was a series of bloody gurgles.
Then the winches of the five T-Bones fired, and he was pulled to pieces.
The five stakes whirred back into the barrels of the weapons with heavy thunks. A second later the vampire king of Paris fell into the aisle of his theatre, landing with a series of wet thuds. His legs were severed, as was one of his arms; they landed on the sloping floor, and rolled away towards the stage. His midsection was ruined, but his chest and his head were intact; blood was still gushing from his throat, and as Jamie watched, his bile rising despite the things he had seen in the last three months, the vampire began to age.
His hair turned bright white, and great tufts of it fell to the red carpet. His skin greyed, and wrinkled, and suddenly his face was that of an old man. His chest rose and fell so slightly it was barely noticeable. His eyes stared up at Jamie’s visor, a look of desperate pain etched into them.
Jamie was about to give the order for the vampire king to be staked, when a shadow fell across him, and he felt a blast of hot air on the back of his neck. He turned his head, ever so slowly, and found himself staring into the huge yellow eyes of the wolf that had been his friend. The blood-soaked snout was only centimetres away from his visor.
More slowly than he had ever moved in his life, Jamie twisted his body round so that he was crouching in front of the huge animal. It tilted its head to one side as he did so, its eyes never leaving his purple visor, its mouth hanging open. He backed away, lifting his feet and placing them down as carefully as he could; he did not want to make a sound, or a sudden movement.
The gap between himself and the wolf slowly increased, and then he was at the top of the aisle, standing with the rest of his team. They stared as the wolf padded forward, and stood over what remained of Lord Dante.
The vampire king’s mouth worked silently as the great wolf’s breath blasted against his face, blowing the long strands of white hair back against the blood-soaked floor. With great effort, Lord Dante lifted his one remaining hand, and placed it gently against the thick fur of the wolf’s snout. The wolf closed its huge yellow eyes for a moment, seeming to enjoy the vampire’s touch. Then it lowered its head, and began to eat the vampire king’s chest.
Lord Dante didn’t scream, but Jamie was sure that was only because he was incapable of doing so. His eyes stared up at the ceiling, his hand gripping the wolf’s fur, his mouth forming a perfect circle, as the thick, razor-sharp yellow teeth chewed through his flesh; he was still alive as Frankenstein broke through his ribcage, and tore his beating heart from his body. The wolf mashed it between his teeth, growling with pleasure, then swallowed the raw meat.
As the remains of Lord Dante exploded around it, showering its grey fur with crimson, it threw back its head and howled a deafening roar of unmistakable triumph.