William Hill - Department 19

“I don’t understand,” said Jamie, his voice thick with horror. “Why would he do this?”

“Dracula used to do it,” said McBride. “When he was still a man. He would impale prisoners of war and stand them where opposing armies could see them. It’s a warning not to go any further.”

“It’s not a warning,” said Larissa. “It’s a welcome. He knows we aren’t going to turn back, so he wants Jamie to see what he’s capable of. He wants him to be scared.”

Jamie stared up at the impaled bodies.

Were they alive when he did that to them? I hope they were already dead.

“Come on,” he said, with more conviction than he felt. “Let’s keep moving.”

There were three more pairs of flagpoles, all decorated in the same terrible fashion, but Jamie kept his eyes focused on the island, which was now taking shape in front of him. He could see streetlamps rising up the hill and squares of yellow light that were the windows of houses. At the foot of the hill, to the right of the causeway, he saw waves breaking on the gray concrete of the dock, and a small fleet of fishing boats bobbing up and down on the tide.

The team walked on, and after five minutes or so, the water that surrounded them receded, and they were standing on solid ground. The road wound to the right, and they followed it, their weapons drawn. They reached the bottom of the hill, and Jamie looked around him, up the two narrow roads that led up the hill to his left, along the dock to their right. The team stood still at the dark junction, and he listened for any signs of life.

The island was silent.

Dead. It’s dead.

“Check the dock,” he said. Morris and Stevenson set off toward the fishing fleet. He looked over at Larissa, who returned his glance with a nauseous expression on her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It’s this place,” she replied. “It stinks of death. Can’t you smell it?”

Jamie sniffed the air. He could smell the salty residue left behind by the seawater, and the oily stench of gutted fish, but that was all. “No,” he told her. “I can’t smell it.”

She looked at him with resignation in her eyes. “Just wait,” she said.

They watched Morris and Stevenson make their way back to them, their weapons hanging by their sides, their heads lowered as they examined the ground. They stepped off the dock and walked over to the rest of their team.

“Anything?” asked Jamie.

“A teenage girl,” Morris replied. “Dead about three hours, by the look of it. And blood. Lots of blood. No sign of any survivors.”

Jamie looked up the hill.

Two roads. Maybe forty houses.

“Let’s split up,” he said. “McBride, you come with me. We’ll take the road to the left. Morris, Stevenson, take the one to the right.” He looked at Larissa. “Will you take a look from the air?” he asked. “You can see things we can’t.”

She nodded.

“OK,” he said. “We’ll meet at the top in fifteen minutes. Leave the bodies where they are. Survivors are all we’re interested in.”

The team went their separate ways. Morris and Stevenson jogged quickly across the junction and made their way up the right-hand road. Larissa rose gracefully into the air, smiling at Jamie as she did so and disappeared into the darkness, leaving him and McBride alone.

They found the first bodies immediately.

Blood ran thickly between the uneven cobblestones, pooling in the drain entrances and against the wheels of the cars that were parked outside the large, neat houses. They followed the river of crimson to the second house on the right and found a couple lying facedown in their driveway. The woman’s long blonde hair was matted with blood, the man missing the fingers on his left hand and one of his ears. Behind them, electric light blazed out of broken windows, and the front door of their home hung limply from its upper hinges. The wood panels had been splintered, and the lock was lying on the front step.

“There’s nothing we can do for them,” said McBride, pulling gently on Jamie’s arm.

Jamie was standing at the open gate that led into the driveway, staring at the corpses. He was sickened by the casual brutality displayed by Alexandru and his followers, unable to comprehend the violence that had been unleashed for no reason.

Those poor people. Oh God, those poor, unlucky people.

“Come on,” urged McBride, hauling on the teenager’s arm. “They’re dead. There might be someone up there who isn’t.”

The thought of survivors broke Jamie’s paralysis, and he started up the hill again. He took the left-hand side, McBride the right; they checked the bodies that were strewn across the cobblestoned streets, shouted into houses, and listened for any response, followed trails of red that led to atrocity after atrocity. Jamie felt light-headed, as though he might faint, but he persevered; door after door, victim after victim.

Near the top of the hill, he heard music emanating from a house, a classical piano piece he was sure he recognized, and followed it to a house set back from the road. He checked the woman who was lying on the path outside the front door and moved on, past a house that stood open to the night, a rectangle of warm yellow light glowing out onto the street.

At the top of the hill, where the houses curved around to meet the top of the street that Morris and Stevenson were making their way up, he stood with McBride in the middle of the road.

“Nothing?” asked Jamie.

“Nothing,” confirmed McBride, pushing his visor up. His face was pale and drawn tightly, as though it had been stretched. “You?”

“Nothing.”

Then they heard a high wavering cry behind them, where the road ended and the thick woods that covered the heart of the island began, and Jamie and McBride turned and ran toward it.

They crashed through the undergrowth, snapping twigs beneath their heavy boots as branches whipped against their visors, running between dark trunks and over banks of earth and ridges of shrubs. They got turned around; the trees were dense, and the darkness was thick. The cry came again, but it sounded like it was all around them, like a hundred voices crying in unison. Then suddenly Larissa was next to them, grabbing their hands and lifting them into the air.

She soared between the trees, banking effortlessly left and right, holding Jamie and McBride beneath her as though they were weightless. They came to a clearing, and she swooped down and released them; they hit the ground rolling and came up pointing their T-Bones into the middle of the clearing, where a man in his twenties was squirming in the grip of a vampire woman who could have been no more than twenty herself. She had the man’s arms pinned behind his back and was stroking his throat with the long fingernails of her right hand; she either didn’t notice the appearance of the two black-clad figures, or didn’t care.

Jamie leveled his T-Bone, and shouted, “Hey!” at the same moment as he pulled the trigger. The vampire dropped the man and reared up, snarling to her feet. The projectile took her in the middle of the chest, punching a hole through the white vest she was wearing, sending blood gushing into the air. A second later, she exploded, sending a spiral column of crimson into the sky. It pattered to the ground, coating the grass.

Jamie and McBride stood up and walked over to the man, who was cowering on the ground, soaked with blood. He looked up at the two men as they approached him, his eyes wide with terror, and backed away, pushing himself backward with his hands, his feet digging long furrows in the grass. A thick trail of something dark covered the ground where he had been sitting, and McBride swore loudly.

“He’s bleeding,” he said. “Grab him, Jamie.”