Darkest Night

Kate Randall took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the Security Division, trying to slow her racing heart.

It was ridiculous, she tried to tell herself, to be nervous about entering the wide suite of desks and offices that had essentially become her home in the months since she had accepted the offer to join Blacklight; her office had come to feel like a sanctuary, as chaos and darkness raged around the Department, and the Division contained men and women she would have readily trusted with her life.

But now the Division had changed.

Major Paul Turner, who had for a number of years been the Blacklight Security Officer and Kate’s immediate boss, was now Director of the entire Department, having been promoted following the loss of Cal Holmwood on the gravel surrounding Château Dauncy. Paul was unquestionably the right choice and, as a serving Operator, Kate was delighted; she had no doubt that he would lead the Department with the same bravery and dedication that had characterised his entire Blacklight career. But on a personal level, she was far less thrilled; she and Turner had become close over the preceding months, tied together by an unswerving commitment to the Security Division, by the punishing ordeal that had been ISAT, and by red-raw grief over the death of Shaun, who had been both Major Turner’s son and Kate’s boyfriend.

Inside Blacklight, Kate had found friends, Larissa Kinley, Jamie Carpenter and Matt Browning foremost among them, and she was grateful; she trusted them implicitly. But if she was completely honest with herself, which she always tried to be, it had been Paul Turner she had come to rely on most heavily, and her heart was racing because she was no longer sure that would be possible.

Kate stepped into the familiar hum of voices and activity that always filled the Security Division and made her way through the clusters of desks, nodding to colleagues as she passed, her eyes focused on the door of the office that belonged to the Security Officer. It was next to her own, a proximity that had given rise to a number of unkind comments in the early days of her transfer to Security, in the aftermath of ISAT. She knew that there had been plenty of whispered insults, accusations that she was Paul Turner’s pet, that she was given special treatment because she had been his dead son’s girlfriend. She had never confronted the charges, and done her best never to show how much they hurt her; she knew that Turner had treated her favourably, that she had become his most trusted Lieutenant in the Division – perhaps even the entire Department – but she did not believe that it had all been about Shaun. She was, all arrogance aside, a damn good Operator, and damn good at her job.

The new Security Officer was Angela Darcy, and Kate would never, even for a moment, have disagreed with her selection – not only was she personally one of Kate’s favourite people in the Loop, she was a genuinely outstanding Operator, one whose record more than justified her promotion, and Kate was looking forward to working with her. They had been scheduled to meet the following morning, as part of Angela’s first official day as Security Officer, but Kate was eager to get the formalities over with. She reached the door, took a deep breath, and knocked sharply on it.

“Come in,” called a familiar voice from inside the office. Kate turned the handle, opened the door, and stepped through it.

The office was no more colourful or full of life than it had been when Paul Turner had occupied it; the walls were the same bare grey, the shelves full only of folders and box files. Behind the desk at the rear of the room, Angela Darcy was leaning back in her chair, a welcoming smile on her face.

“Lieutenant Randall,” she said, her voice dripping with fake formality. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Captain Darcy,” said Kate, smiling back at her.

“This feels weird,” said Angela. “Does it feel weird to you?”

“A bit,” said Kate. “Should I call you sir from now on?”

“God, no,” said the Security Officer, her face reddening. “Call me Angela, please. Captain, if you absolutely have to.”

Kate nodded, her smile still in place. “All right. I’ll do that.”

“Good,” said Angela. “How’s everything looking?”

“Fine,” said Kate. “There was nothing unusual in the overnight logs, and today’s been pretty peaceful so far, all things considered.”

“That’s good,” said Angela. “That’s great, to be honest with you. I could really do with a quiet day or two while I get to grips with everything. I’m going to be relying on you a lot in the next few weeks, Kate. Is that all right with you?”

“Of course,” said Kate. “Whatever I can do to help.”

“Thanks,” said Angela, and grinned at her. “I know you think you should be sitting in this chair, so I appreciate you getting on my side.”

Kate frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“Come on, Kate,” said Angela. “This is me. You don’t have to play dumb. I know you wanted to be Security Officer. I know at least part of you thinks you should be, and I’d honestly think less of you if you didn’t. But this is the situation we find ourselves in, and I really, really want you on my team, so I hope it’s not going to be something we can’t get past?”

“No,” said Kate, instantly. “It really isn’t. You have my word.”

Angela nodded. “Good news,” she said. “Tell yourself I’m just keeping the seat warm for you, if it helps.”

Kate’s smile returned. “All right, Captain,” she said. “I’ll do that.”

“Fantastic. In which case, I’ve got about a million reports to read, and every one of them is apparently the most important thing in the world. So is there anything else right now?”

“Just one thing,” said Kate. “Major Turner and I used to meet first thing every morning to go over anything important that had come up overnight. I don’t know whether you want to continue with that arrangement?”

“Yes,” said Angela. “I do. I think that will be extremely useful. Let’s start tomorrow. Nine o’clock?”

Kate nodded. “Nine o’clock.”

“Great,” said Angela. “Thank you. For now, dismissed.”

Kate walked back through the Security Division, a warm wave of relief flowing through her.

She knew it had been stupid to be nervous about meeting Angela Darcy, a woman who was already almost a friend, but she had not been able to help it, for the reason her new Commanding Officer had immediately identified.

Although she would never have admitted it to anyone, Kate had been jealous when the new Security Officer had been announced. She knew – objectively, at least – that it could never have been her; she was far too junior, still only a Lieutenant, and her Blacklight experience even now consisted of less than a year’s service.

But objective knowledge hadn’t stopped it hurting when the decision had been announced.

Now she could feel the pain ebbing away. Angela had instantly seen through her and brought the issue out into the open, which meant they could move past it. And in truth, Kate had to admit that not being the new Security Officer would make her life inside the Loop a lot easier; there were plenty of Operators and staff who already muttered about how quickly she and her friends had been promoted.

That’s not our fault, though, she thought. None of us ever asked for any of it. And seriously, I don’t know why people are so surprised. Jamie is a descendant of the Founders and a natural Operator. Larissa was the first vampire Operator the Department had ever had. And Matt is an honest-to-God genius. How stupid would it have been for Blacklight not to use them? Honestly, how could they not have ended up as important as they are?

And what about you? whispered an oily voice in the back of her head. What makes you so special? What have you done? Nothing …

Bullshit, thought Kate, firmly. I was on the team that took down Albert Harker. I volunteered for ISAT when nobody else would, even though I knew it would make me unpopular, and I saw it through even after Richard Brennan tried to kill me over it. I’ve earned everything that’s come to me. The people who matter understand that. And Angela Darcy is one of them.

I’m sure of it.

Kate strode towards the lift at the end of the Level A corridor. She stepped through the metal doors when it arrived, and pressed the button marked 0. Barely ten seconds later the doors opened again, and she walked straight into the dark, floating shape of Larissa Kinley.

“Kate!” exclaimed the vampire Operator. “I was just about to come looking for you. Have you got a minute?”

Kate smiled. “Evening, Larissa,” she said. “Of course I have. What’s going on?”

“Have you seen Jamie? In the last few hours, I mean?”

She frowned. “Isn’t he on Patrol Respond?”

Larissa shook her head. “His squad’s off tonight.”

“I haven’t seen him,” said Kate. “Not since yesterday. What’s so urgent?”

“He went somewhere with Colonel Frankenstein,” said Larissa. “Hours ago. But I’ve just seen Frankenstein come back through the hangar, and he didn’t look very happy. Jamie wasn’t with him.”

“Maybe he flew back on his own?”

“Maybe,” said Larissa, although she didn’t sound convinced. Kate took a closer look at her friend and saw the downward curves at the corners of her mouth, the eyes that were slightly wider than usual.

Something’s wrong, thought Kate. She looks worried half to death.

“Talk to me, Larissa,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing,” said Larissa, a little too quickly. “I just really need to find him, Kate. Can you help me?”

“Have you run his chip?”

“I tried,” said Larissa. “The function has been locked. Apparently, only Security can access it.”

Kate frowned. “That’s news to me,” she said. “Do you want me to try?”

Larissa nodded. “Please.”

Kate pulled her console from her belt, unlocked it, and scrolled to the chip location programme. She searched for Jamie’s name, and pressed his ID number with her thumb. The console vibrated in her hand as it worked, then fell still as the results appeared.

“He’s somewhere in Kent,” said Kate. “A village called Brenchley.”

“Shit,” said Larissa, and grimaced. “That can’t be good.”

“Why?” asked Kate. “What’s in Brenchley?”

Larissa shook her head. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Thank you, Kate. I’ll see you later.”

“Larissa, wait—”

But the vampire girl had already turned and flown through the hangar doors at the end of the corridor. Kate momentarily considered following her, but she knew how fast her friend was; Larissa would likely be several miles away already, and accelerating. Instead, she stared at the yellow and black striped doors, her heart suddenly full of worry.

Larissa flew south-east, the wind whipping her hair back, her stomach churning with nervousness that felt increasingly close to panic.

It had been wrong to leave Kate standing in the Level 0 corridor without an explanation, but she had not been able to help it; the news that Jamie was in Brenchley, the location of his childhood home, had sent an awful chill running up her spine. That her boyfriend had left the Loop with Frankenstein without telling her was cause enough for concern; it was clearly a private matter, and private matters involving the monster and the Carpenter family were rarely sources of light and happiness. The fact that Frankenstein had returned home alone had deepened her unease, especially after she had seen the thunderous look on the monster’s face as he strode through the hangar, and the results of Kate’s chip search had been the final straw; she needed to see her boyfriend immediately. Not least because a voice in the back of her head, the one she hated and tried her hardest to ignore, was whispering that whatever was happening with Jamie was very likely related to the secret that she had made the decision to keep from him.

It’s not fair, she thought, as she urged herself ever faster through the night air. I was going to tell him. I was literally on my way to tell him.

But the voice in her head was unsympathetic.

You could have told him a hundred times, it whispered. That you didn’t is nobody’s fault but your own.

The dark countryside swept past below, dotted with yellow lights from roads and buildings, from which Larissa’s supernaturally powerful ears made out snatches of conversation and the occasional bar of music. Her console was in her hand, and she was following its GPS reader towards the small village where Jamie and his parents had lived before the supernatural had intruded on their lives. Although the truth was that Julian Carpenter had opened the door to it, unbeknownst to his family.

Eighteen miles. Should be there in a couple of minutes.

She shivered. Her altitude and speed were making the climate-control system of her uniform work overtime to keep her warm, but she knew the shudder had nothing to do with the temperature; it was the result of her growing certainty that, no matter how fast she pushed herself towards her boyfriend, it was already too late.

Larissa swooped down until she was barely clearing the tops of the trees, and headed straight towards the red dot at the centre of her console’s screen. An empty country road stretched out beneath her and she followed its slowly winding curves, slowing her speed as she banked left and right. Up ahead, a small cluster of houses appeared, set back from the road and surrounded by a dark landscape of fields and woods. The red dot stopped moving, but she would have known she was close to Jamie without its assistance; she had picked up his unmistakable scent floating on the gentle night breeze.

She zeroed in on it, a potent combination of both her boyfriend’s distinctive smell and something that bloomed from the centre of her being: familiarity, connection, and love, as clear and bright as a beacon. The road swept away to the right, and just before the bend stood a house, a large, slightly rambling pile of old bricks with an angular tiled roof, a long garden at the back and a front lawn leading down to a towering oak tree that extended far out over the road.

Sitting on one of its highest branches, staring down at the old house, was Jamie.

She brought herself to a halt, floating easily in the air, and stared at her boyfriend. He was pale, which was not unusual, but his skin looked almost grey, apart from around his eyes, where it was red. She felt her heart thump in her chest; she wanted to go to him, to cross the space between them and wrap him in her arms, but she didn’t dare.

She was not yet sure exactly what she was dealing with.

“Hey,” she said, cautiously.

Jamie forced the tiniest smile she had ever seen him produce. “Hey,” he said. “How did you find me?”

“Kate ran your chip for me,” said Larissa. “I was worried about you, Jamie.”

He nodded his head, and returned his gaze to the house. She floated where she was, unsure of what to do and hating the feeling.

“This was where he was,” said Jamie, eventually, his voice low. “Alexandru. The night it happened, he was in this tree with his followers. I heard him laugh, but I couldn’t see anything. It was dark and everything was covered in shadows.”

“There wasn’t anything you could have done,” said Larissa. “He’d have killed you without a second thought.”

Jamie stretched out an arm and pointed down at the house. “You see that window? The big one?” Larissa followed the path of his finger and nodded. “That’s where I was,” he continued. “I was looking through that window because I heard Dad’s car pull into the drive and I was so excited that he was home. I was always so pleased to see him.”

“Of course,” she said. “You were just a kid.”

Jamie nodded again, and fell silent. After a seemingly endless moment, Larissa forced herself to speak.

“What’s going on, Jamie?” she asked. “Where did you and Frankenstein go this afternoon?”

He raised his head, and Larissa felt her stomach lurch at the sight of the empty expression on his face.

“He took me to see my dad,” he said, his voice low and halting. “He’s still alive. After everything that’s happened, after all this shit, he’s still alive. There’s a cottage in Norfolk, where we used to go and visit my nan. That’s where Frankenstein took me. That’s where he is.”

Larissa stared helplessly at her boyfriend. “Jamie …”

“He hugged me. Can you believe that? Just hugged me, like nothing had happened. I was nearly sick.”

“What happened to him? Where has he been?”

Jamie shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I told him I never want to see him again. Told Frankenstein the same thing.”

Larissa grimaced. This was exactly what she had dreaded, every time she closed her eyes at the end of another day in which she had failed to tell her boyfriend what she had overheard.

“Why?” she asked. “What did Frankenstein do?”

“He knew, Larissa,” said Jamie. “He knew Dad didn’t die, that he was still alive the whole time. He was sending him emails, for Christ’s sake, giving him updates on me and Mum. How could he do that?”

“I don’t know,” said Larissa, her voice low. “I presume he thought it was for the best. He would never hurt you, Jamie, not on purpose. You must know that.”

“I don’t know anything any more,” said Jamie. “I can’t trust anyone apart from you and Kate and Matt. And my mum. My poor mum, Larissa. What am I supposed to tell her about all this?”

Larissa stared at him. She had no answer to his question.

“She thinks he’s dead too,” said Jamie. “She mourned him. We mourned him. It’ll destroy her if I tell her.”

“So don’t,” said Larissa, “if you don’t think it’ll do any good. Let her be.”

“I don’t have the right to keep it from her. I can’t make that decision on her behalf.”

“You can,” she said. “If you think it’s the right thing to do, if you think you’re sparing her pain. Or you just don’t know how to tell her.”

Jamie stared at her for a long moment, then frowned. His eyes narrowed, and Larissa saw red light flicker into their corners.

“Why aren’t you more surprised?” he asked, his voice suddenly low.

“What are you talking about?”

“I just told you that my dad faked his death, that he’s been alive this whole time, and that Frankenstein knew about it. So why do you look like I just told you tomorrow’s weather forecast?”

“Jamie …”

His face fell, and Larissa felt a shard of ice pierce her heart.

“Oh no,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper, his eyes huge and staring. “Not you too, Larissa. Please. I can’t bear it.”

“I didn’t know,” she said, her voice high and unsteady. “Not for certain. You have to believe me, Jamie, I didn’t know. I just overheard something I wasn’t supposed to.”

“What?” he asked. “What did you hear?”

“When I came back from Nevada,” she said. “There was a prisoner on the same flight, in handcuffs and a hood. We weren’t allowed to even speak to him. When they brought him off the plane at the Loop, Cal Holmwood was waiting in the hangar and I heard him say, ‘Welcome back, Julian.’ That’s all, I swear.”

“That’s all?” said Jamie. “That’s all? How many prisoners called Julian do you think the Director would have made a point of personally welcoming?”

“I see that now, Jamie.” She was on the verge of tears, but she ordered herself to stay strong, to get through this without breaking down. “But I didn’t know if it would do any good to tell you. What if it wasn’t him? Or Cal refused to tell you either way? It would just have made things worse.”

“Worse?” said Jamie, his voice rising as his eyes narrowed. “It would’ve made things worse? Are you kidding me?”

Here it comes, thought Larissa. Here comes the explosion.

But she was wrong. Jamie stared at her, his face reddening, then let out a long, weary sigh and dropped his eyes.

“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?” he asked, his voice barely audible.

“I was going to tell you this afternoon,” said Larissa, realising how pitiful the words sounded. “I was coming to find you when I found out you and Frankenstein had left the Loop.”

Jamie let out a grunt of laughter with absolutely no humour in it. “That’s convenient,” he said.

“It’s the truth,” she said. “I hope you can believe it.”

“No more secrets,” he said, and grimaced. “Right? That’s what we promised each other.”

Larissa didn’t respond. There was nothing she could say. She stared silently at her boyfriend, profoundly aware of the chasm that seemed to have yawned open between them. Jamie kept his gaze on the ground, his shoulders hunched, his arms wrapped tightly round himself. He looked so small, as though a strong breeze could have blown him off the branch and sent him tumbling to the lawn below. When he finally spoke again, he didn’t look at her.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “About everything that’s happened since Alexandru arrived in this tree. Blacklight, Dracula, vampires, all of it. And I’ve realised something. Nothing good has come of any of it.”

Larissa felt her heart break in her chest. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

She tried to ignore the pain his words had sent coursing through her body, and forced her vocal cords into action. “You can trust me,” she said, hearing the unsteadiness in her voice. “I know it probably doesn’t feel like it right now, and I understand if you find it hard to believe. But you can trust me, Jamie. You really can.”

He raised his head and looked directly into her eyes. “I’ve heard that before,” he said. “More than once.”

Anger burst through Larissa as her vampire side rushed to the fore. She knew she was in the wrong, that Jamie had every right to feel disappointed and let down, but she could not simply float in the cold air and allow herself to be tortured indefinitely.

“What are you saying, Jamie?” she demanded. “No more bullshit. Talk to me.”

“I need to think.”

“About what?”

“About everything,” said Jamie. “About what happens next. It’s all coming to an end, Larissa. Everything. Can’t you feel it?”

She shook her head, and felt red heat boil into her eyes. She was suddenly furious with him for wallowing in self-pity when there was so much at stake.

My family won’t even talk to me, she thought. They might as well be dead. At least your mum is safe, and your dad still wants you, even if he did lie to you. At least he cares that you’re alive.

“I don’t recognise this version of you,” she said, her voice little more than a growl. “The Jamie I know, the one that I fell for? That Jamie fights to the very end, even when everything seems hopeless. Where the hell is he?”

Jamie stared at her. “I’m tired of fighting,” he said.

“So what do we do now? Tell me.”

“Go back to the Loop,” he said. “I just need some time. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Larissa floated in the air, her glowing eyes fixed on his. He held her gaze for a moment, then shifted it to the gravel drive below, where everything had been set in motion by the thunder of machine-gun fire and the apparent death of a man who had been desperate for a way out. She wanted to shake her boyfriend, to scream at him to snap out of it, then wrap her arms round him and tell him that she loved him, couldn’t he see that, wasn’t that enough for him?

Instead, she turned away without a word and flew back towards the Loop as fast as she could force her body to move. The cold air made her eyes water, hiding tears that she would never have let anybody see, not least the boy she was leaving behind.