Will Hill - Darkest Night

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015

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Copyright © Will Hill 2015

Cover illustration © Bose Collins; logo images © Shutterstock.com

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Source ISBN: 9780007505890

Ebook Edition © MAY 2015 ISBN: 9780007505883

Version: 2019-01-17

For everyone who has come this far.

Just a little further …

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

We have learned to believe, all of us – is it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do we not promise to go on to the bitter end?

Abraham Van Helsing

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Six Months Earlier: Zero Hour Plus 2 Days

Chapter 1: Home Truths

Chapter 2: Diminished Responsibility

Chapter 3: Running on Empty

Zero Hour Plus 11 Days

Chapter 4: The Definition of Insanity

Chapter 5: Fallout

Chapter 6: Acceleration

Zero Hour Plus 13 Days

Zero Hour Plus 41 Days

Zero Hour Plus 67 Days

Zero Hour Plus 91 Days

Zero Hour Plus 109 Days

Zero Hour Plus 140 Days

Zero Hour Plus 163 Days

Zero Hour Plus 191 Days

Chapter 7: Redundant

Chapter 8: Not for Profit

Chapter 9: The Faintest Glimmer

Chapter 10: Collateral Damage (I)

Chapter 11: The Enemy of my Enemy

Chapter 12: Haven

Zero Hour Plus 192 Days

Chapter 13: Sleight of Hand

Chapter 14: Strange Bedfellows

Chapter 15: At Ease

Zero Hour Plus 193 Days

Chapter 16: A Butterfly Flaps its Wings

Chapter 17: The Weight of The World

Chapter 18: Huddled Masses, Yearning to Breathe Free

Chapter 19: Ratcatchers

Chapter 20: Human Trial

Zero Hour Plus 194 Days

Chapter 21: No going Back

Chapter 22: Quicksand

One Week Later: Zero Hour Plus 201 Days

Chapter 23: Empirical Evidence

Chapter 24: Collateral Damage (ii)

Three Days Later: Zero Hour Plus 204 Days

Chapter 25: A new Day

Chapter 26: Rapid Reactions

Chapter 27: Prometheus

Chapter 28: Close Enough To Touch

Chapter 29: Death From Above, Part One

Chapter 30: The Art of War

Chapter 31: Death From Above, Part Two

Zero Hour Plus 205 Days

Chapter 32: The Morning After

Chapter 33: The Elephant in The Room

Chapter 34: A Vision of the Future

Chapter 35: International Aid

Chapter 36: Willing Victims

Chapter 37: Down the Rabbit Hole

Chapter 38: The Hottest Ticket in Town

Zero Hour Plus 206 Days

Chapter 39: Collateral Damage (III)

Chapter 40: Jurisdiction

Chapter 41: The Scouring of Carcassonne

Chapter 42: All Good Things …

Zero Hour Plus 207 Days

Chapter 43: The Morning After

Chapter 44: Scorched Earth

Chapter 45: Sins of the Father

Chapter 46: The Waiting Game

Chapter 47: Aftershocks

Chapter 48: Directors’ Guild

Chapter 49: Enemy at the Gates

Zero Hour Plus 208 Days

Chapter 50: Just when you Think …

Chapter 51: … It can’t get any Worse

Chapter 52: Insertion Point

Chapter 53: Come Together

Chapter 54: Some Corner of a Foreign Field

Chapter 55: The Tip of the Spear

Zero Hour Plus 209 Days

Chapter 56: A Promise is a Promise

Chapter 57: Clean Slates

Chapter 58: Dulce Et Decorum Est

Chapter 59: In Fading Light

Chapter 60: Death’s Grey Land, Part One

Prologue, Redux

Chapter 61: Death’s Grey Land, Part Two

Chapter 62: Death’s Grey Land, Part Three

Chapter 63: Death’s Grey Land, Part Four

Chapter 64: Death’s Grey Land, Part Five

Chapter 65: Death’s Grey Land, Part Six

Chapter 66: Death’s Grey Land, Part Seven

Chapter 67: Death’s Grey Land, Part Eight

Chapter 68: Death’s Grey Land, Part Nine

Chapter 69: Death’s Grey Land, Part Ten

Chapter 70: Death’s Grey Land, Part Eleven

Chapter 71: After the Fire

Zero Hour Plus 210 Days

Chapter 72: The End (I)

Zero Hour Plus 211 Days

Chapter 73: The End (II)

Zero Hour Plus 213 Days

Chapter 74: The Beginning

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Will Hill

About the Publisher

Jamie Carpenter soared over the battlefield, carrying Frankenstein effortlessly beneath him, marvelling at the scale of the fighting taking place below.

His view of it was fleeting, such was the speed he and the rest of the strike team were travelling, but it was enough to make quite an impression; the battle was already spread out across more than a mile of blasted landscape, the air full of movement and gunfire and screaming, the ground littered with black-clad bodies and soaked with vampire remains. Jamie tore his gaze away and focused on the looming shape of the medieval city, its pale stone darkening in the fading light, and, as he rose over the outer walls, his squad mates close behind him, he saw a distant figure floating near the summit of the hill, high above the raging battle.

Dracula, he thought, his heart leaping in his chest. Right where they said he would be.

This is going to be too easy.

Jamie swooped over the walls, rising above the wide cobbled street that led up through the city. He accelerated, the evening air cool as it rushed over his uniformed body, the rooftops passing below him in a blur, and allowed a smile to rise on to his face. As he soared over a wide square, he heard something above him, something that sounded like a flock of birds, and rolled to the side so he could look up and see what it was.