Will Hill - Darkest Night

“That’s my grandmother’s cottage,” he said.

“Correct,” said Turner. “This is the surveillance web that Julian agreed to as a condition of his release. This is how I know.”

Jamie examined the wide screen. The windows showed the front of the cottage, high angles of seemingly every room, the driveway at the front, and the garden at the rear. As he watched, the door of the shed opened and his father emerged, brushed off his hands, and walked down the garden towards the cottage. Jamie felt his chest constrict momentarily with a sharp jab of grief, before it was burned away by the anger that flooded him whenever he even thought about his father; seeing him live on camera only intensified the emotion.

“We chipped him again before he was released,” said Turner. “It’s moving now, while we’re watching him, and it didn’t move last night, not once in seven hours. After he turned out the lights, the audio sensors picked up the sound of his breathing, and thermal showed a constant heat source in his bed. Surveillance checked on him at 3.12am and saw nothing unusual. He was there all night, Jamie.”

“Do you record this footage?” he asked, his eyes still locked on the screen. “Can you show me last night?”

“No,” said Turner. “We don’t record everything. We do live checks at least four times a day.”

Jamie turned back to face his Director. “This doesn’t prove anything, sir,” he said. “My dad’s an expert at faking things.”

Turner frowned. “If you don’t want to listen to me, Jamie, then there’s very little point in us continuing this conversation. I’m sorry about what you found out, what Cal and Colonel Frankenstein kept from you, but I’m afraid—”

“I’m not talking about that, sir,” interrupted Jamie. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m talking about what I saw last night.”

“And I’m telling you you’re wrong,” said Turner. “Your father has been in your grandmother’s cottage in Norfolk, exactly where he’s supposed to be, every time there’s been a Night Stalker attack. But you’re right about one thing. There’s a lot more to them than meets the eye. You saw two men, and on the twelfth of last month there were two attacks on the same night, sixty miles apart. Which means there are four of them, at least. Intelligence believes there may be as many as eight or even ten. But your father isn’t one of them.”

Jamie stared, his mind racing.

Four Night Stalkers? Maybe eight, or ten? What the hell?

“Why hasn’t any of this come up in the Zero Hour briefings, sir?” he asked.

“Because the Night Stalkers aren’t Blacklight business, Jamie,” said Turner. “We’re sharing any relevant information with the police, but this is for them to deal with. If you cross paths with them again, by all means bring them into custody if you can. God knows, it might help our standing with the local forces. But unless that eventuality arises, I want you to focus on your own job.”

Jamie tried one last time. “How are they finding the vampires they kill, sir? Haven’t you wondered about that?”

“Of course I have,” said Turner. “What’s your point?”

“The Surveillance Division keeps a vampire watch list,” said Jamie. “What if my dad has a copy of it, an old one from when he was still an Operator? What if that’s what the Night Stalkers are using to pick their targets?”

“Impossible,” said Turner.

“Why?” asked Jamie. “Why is that impossible?”

“Because none of the Night Stalker victims so far have been known to this Department,” said Turner. “That was the second thing I checked, right after whether or not your father was involved.”

Of course he thought of it all before you did. You idiot.

“Right,” Jamie said, his voice low and crestfallen. “Would anybody else have a list of vampires?”

“No,” said Turner. “And that’s more than enough on this subject. Put the Night Stalkers out of your mind unless you’re looking at one of them down the sights of your weapon. Clear?”

Jamie nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Fine. Your squad is off rotation tonight, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” said Turner. “Go and get a drink in the mess.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re eighteen now, right?”

Jamie smiled. “Yes, sir,” he said. “It was my birthday two months ago.”

“All right,” said Turner, the corners of his mouth threatening to curl upwards into a small smile of his own. “Go and get a drink. Take Kate with you.”

Jamie frowned. “Why Kate, sir?”

The Director shrugged. “She’s your friend, isn’t she?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “But why her specifically?”

“No reason, Lieutenant,” said Turner, his face once again entirely impassive. “Do whatever you want.”

“OK, sir,” said Jamie. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Dismissed.”

Frankenstein walked down the cellblock and stopped outside the fourth cell on the right. He knew from long experience that the room’s occupant would have been aware of his presence since the moment the inner airlock door opened, but he still paused outside the ultraviolet barrier and announced himself; despite the life he had led, the horrors and violence that he had both witnessed and committed, he still set great store on good manners.

“Good afternoon, Valentin,” he said. “May I come in?”

The ancient vampire looked up from his chair, set down the book he had been reading, and smiled.

“Of course, my dear Colonel,” said Valentin. “I do so look forward to your visits. I don’t know how I would cope without the petty insults and unfounded accusations you are kind enough to level at me. I would be so very bored.”

Frankenstein rolled his eyes, and stepped through the wall of purple light. He walked across the cell, his huge frame seeming to fill much of the available space, and settled into a plastic chair that groaned audibly beneath him.

“I’m glad to be of service,” he said. “How are you, Valentin?”

“What a ridiculous question,” replied the vampire, but his smile remained. “I am exactly the same as I was yesterday, and the day before, and every day since I was put back together after our adventure in France. Very little changes inside a cell.”

“Courtesy would dictate that you enquire how I am in return,” said Frankenstein.

“Courtesy presumably believes that I am even the slightest bit interested,” said Valentin. “Tea?”

“Thank you,” he said. “You should know how I take it by now.”

This opening exchange of insults was by now a well-practised routine between the two men, performed at least once a week, despite an inauspicious start to their relationship; Frankenstein’s first visit to the cell he was now sitting in, more than six months earlier, had ended with him threatening to kill Valentin if he didn’t stop the private conversations he had been having with Jamie Carpenter, a threat that Valentin had very politely informed him he was in absolutely no position to make good on. But in the aftermath of the dreadful, catastrophic reunion between Jamie and his father, Frankenstein had, for the first time in more than a century, found himself without purpose. Julian was beyond his protection, Marie was safe in her cell, and Jamie, the last Carpenter, no longer wanted anything to do with him.

For a number of weeks, he had drifted through the Loop like a ghost, passing silently among men and women who were risking their lives every night to keep the country from descending into chaos, alone and seemingly useless. His condition, which still required him to be locked into one of the human containment cells for three days of every month, limited his ability to help. Paul Turner had offered him command of an Operational Squad, but he knew it was merely a gesture, albeit one he appreciated. He had thanked the Director as he refused his offer, then resumed his aimless existence. Until one sleepless night, when he had found himself standing outside the cellblock, without really knowing how he had come to be there. He had passed through the airlock and walked down the wide corridor, uncertain of what he was doing, but desperate to talk to someone, anyone who might have even the slightest idea of what he was going through.