Will Hill - Battle Lines

“Lieutenant Carpenter,” said Cal Holmwood. “How are your recruits coming along?”

“Pretty well, sir,” replied Jamie. “Terry’s making sure they realise what they’ve signed up for.”

Cal Holmwood smiled grimly. “I’m glad to hear it. They’re going to see for themselves in a few hours.”

Jamie frowned. The Blacklight training programme had once taken thirteen months to complete, on top of the elite-level training that the majority of recruits had already undertaken before they were even made aware of the Department’s existence. But circumstances had made this impossible, and what was being carried out in the Playground now was the very definition of a crash course. It was far from ideal, from anyone’s perspective, but it was unavoidable: the Department had been hurt, and hurt badly.

There were rooms on the residential levels that had been occupied by Operators who were never going to return to them, unused desks in the Surveillance, Security and Intelligence Divisions, Operational Squads that had lost one, two, or in some awful cases, all three of their members. These empty spaces, these holes in the fabric of the Department, would not be filled easily, even by the new men and women who were being recruited specifically to do so. Friends, colleagues, even family members had been lost, and rookies would not take their places, even though they were vital: restoring the Department to something approaching full strength was of paramount importance.

The countdown to Zero Hour would not wait for them to be ready.

Nonetheless, Jamie did not believe the members of his new squad were; he had not been intending to take them out for another week, at least.

“Why, sir?” he asked, looking at the Interim Director. “What’s happened?”

Holmwood glanced over at Jack Williams. “Jack?”

Jamie’s friend nodded. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “In the Security Officer’s absence, I’ve been asked to brief you all on the events of last night.” He tapped a series of commands into the console in front of him, and the Operators turned their attention to the screen set high on the wall. A window opened and grainy CCTV images filled the screen: running figures in white coats, leaping, grasping shapes moving among them, tearing and rending. Blood sprayed on to walls and ceilings, and the panicked, pleading eyes of the victims were wide, even in the low-resolution footage.

“This,” said Jack, “is D ward of Broadmoor Hospital, one of three secure hospitals that house the most dangerously ill men and women in the country. At 1:47 this morning, a group of vampires broke into the facility, killing every member of staff and releasing every patient from their rooms. We’ve confronted twenty-nine of them so far and managed to bring two into custody. Every single one has been turned.”

There was a sharp communal intake of breath.

“All of them?” asked Patrick Williams, his voice low.

“That’s correct,” replied his brother.

“This was an attack on us, not on the patients,” said Dominique Saint-Jacques. “They turned them all and let them out, didn’t they?”

“That appears to be the case,” replied Jack. “However, this was not the only incident of its type to take place last night. Vampires also attacked the Florence Supermax facility in Colorado, the Black Dolphin prison in Sol-Iletsk, the C Max in Pretoria, al-Ha’ir prison in Riyadh, Kamunting Detention Centre in Malaysia, Goulburn Correctional Centre in New South Wales, and the Penitenciária Federal de Catanduvas in southern Brazil. There are now more than four thousand maximum-security prisoners unaccounted for, and in every country, those who have been recovered have all been turned. This appears to have been nothing less than a deliberate, coordinated attack on the supernatural Departments of the world.”

There was silence as the Operators attempted to absorb the scale of what they were hearing. Jamie looked round the table; Patrick Williams and Dominique Saint-Jacques were staring steadily at Jack, their expressions calm and neutral, and he felt admiration rise through his chest.

Nothing fazes them , he thought. Absolutely nothing.

He was about to return his attention to Jack when he caught sight of Jacob Scott; the Australian Colonel was staring down at the desk, his eyes wide, his face deathly pale. The outspoken veteran Operator looked, to Jamie’s untrained eye, as though he was about to have a heart attack; his fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned bright white.

“This is now this Department’s number-one priority,” said Cal Holmwood. Jamie dragged his gaze away from Colonel Scott, a frown furrowing his brow, and turned back to the Interim Director. “I’m sure you can see that the potential for public exposure and loss of life is extremely significant. I’m calling back the Field Teams—”

“All of them?” interrupted Jamie. “Even the ones that are looking for Admiral Seward? And Dracula?”

“Major Landis’s team will continue to search for Admiral Seward,” replied Holmwood, fixing him with a glacial stare. “The rest are coming home until this situation is resolved.”

“Dracula is gathering strength,” said Jamie. “Right now, while we’re sitting here. Surely he’s the priority.”

“This is about Dracula,” said Holmwood. “Jack, bring up the gatehouse.”

The CCTV footage changed to a view of the arched entry to Broadmoor. Jamie winced. Daubed across the arch, in dripping blood, were two words.

HE RISES

“Even so,” he persisted. “If Dracula and Valeri released the prisoners, then we’re playing right into their hands.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Carpenter,” said Holmwood drily. “We hadn’t been able to figure that out for ourselves.”

“So why are you doing it then?”

Holmwood looked over at Jack. “Lieutenant Williams? Play the Crowthorne footage, please.”

Jack nodded and pressed a series of keys. A new window opened on the wall screen, filled with a stationary image of a picturesque village street. He pressed PLAY and the image began to move, the black and white footage scrolling smoothly. A row of terraced houses was visible, the gardens neat, the pavement beyond the low walls clean and tidy. A small car was parked in the middle of the frame; its windscreen reflected the light of the street lamp that stood above it.

After a few seconds, there was movement. A middle-aged man ran down the centre of the street, his arms flailing, his feet pounding the tarmac. He reached the car and slid into a crouch beside its radiator, facing the way he had come. Moments later a second man strolled into the shot; he wore a long white hospital gown, his feet were bare, and his eyes glowed ferociously. As he approached the parked car, he appeared to be smiling.

The vampire stopped, and for a long moment nothing happened; the two men seemed to be in conversation, regarding each other from opposite ends of the vehicle. Then the vampire reached down and casually flipped the car across the road. It skidded over the tarmac, sending up showers of sparks, before crashing into a garden wall on the other side and coming to a halt.

Gasps filled the air of the Ops Room; Jamie glanced round the table and saw expressions of shock on the faces of his colleagues. On the screen, the helpless man stood up, entirely exposed, and raised his hands in a futile plea for mercy. The vampire took half a step forward, then blurred across the screen, lifting the man into the air and carrying him out of the frame.

Jack pressed a button and the footage paused, freezing the upturned car where it now lay. The Interim Director turned back to face the Zero Hour Task Force.

“The vampire in that footage had been turned for a maximum of forty-five minutes,” he said. “Does anyone want to tell me what’s wrong with that picture?”