Department 19: Battle Lines (45 page)

Because the three of us could kill you all without breaking a sweat
, Jamie thought.
And there isn’t a damn thing you could do to stop us.

“Because he’s dangerous,” said Jamie. “You don’t want him in your home, believe me. How many women do you have down here?”

“Some,” she replied, narrowing her eyes. “What of it?”

Jamie said nothing; he let her put two and two together, and was gratified to see a ripple of unease cross her face as she made the connection.

“Could be that I can help you,” she said, slowly. “What’s your name, mister soldier?”

“Jamie.”

“Jamie what?”

“Jamie’s going to have to do, I’m afraid.”

“Aye, I thought as much. Mine’s Aggie. If you was to say I was in charge down here, well, you wouldn’t be right, but you wouldn’t be all wrong neither. Jackie?”

A girl who looked to be in her late teens or very early twenties stepped forward. She was wearing battered blue jeans and a giant fox fur coat, into which had been twisted hundreds of thin pieces of metal.

“You seen him that came in early this morning, didn’t you?” said Aggie.

“I saw,” said Jackie.

“He still here?”

“I ain’t seen him leave,” she replied. “He was down with the others, last I saw.”

“How many of you are there down here?” asked Jamie.

“Depends on the day, mister soldier man,” said Aggie. “Some days there might be a hundred, some days five. We don’t take no registers.”

“You all come in and out through the station?” asked Ellison. “How come no one notices that?”

Aggie laughed. “Ain’t no one comes in that way. That’s the last way
out
, in case we get trouble. There’s ways all over the city, more than even I can remember.”

“Why are you dressed like that?” asked Morton, suddenly. “Does everyone down here have to?”

“Dressed like what, soldier man?”

“The paint and the feathers and the bits of foil.”

Aggie looked down at herself, then laughed. “That black’s your uniform, right? Well, this is ours. We’re the protectors of this place. They call us the Guardians.”

“The Guardians of what?” asked Jamie.

“Of whatever needs guarding,” said Aggie. “What else?”

Jamie fought back the urge to laugh; these people were the strangest thing he had seen since joining Blacklight, which was genuinely saying something. And he was already starting to like Aggie; she was blunt to the point of rudeness, but there was a wicked intelligence beneath her grimy exterior and he found himself beginning to enjoy it.

“Will you take us to where he is?” he asked. “Please?”

Aggie cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes, clearly considering his request. Eventually, she nodded. “We’ll take you, soldier man. I don’t know if I believe he’s as bad as you say, but if you’re here for him, he has to answer for that. Anyone brings the law down here puts it on themselves. You walk with me, and tell your friends to keep them guns pointing down. I don’t want no shooting.”

“Neither do I,” said Jamie.

The procession making its way along the abandoned tunnel beneath the heart of Central London would have looked ridiculous to anyone who witnessed it.

Aggie and Jamie were at the front, walking steadily side by side. Behind them came Ellison and Morton, looking utterly bemused as they followed their squad leader through the darkness. After the two rookie Operators came the rest of Aggie’s Guardians: two wide lines of remarkable-looking men and women who strolled easily across the uneven surface, their twists of foil and slivers of metal sparkling as they passed beneath the tunnel’s maintenance lights.

Jamie kept his eyes peeled as they made their way forward. The mission had turned from what he had expected into something very different, and he was determined to stay focused on what had become an evolving situation. He thought there was very little chance that Alastair Dempsey would go down without a fight, but he hoped that, by arriving with Aggie and her odd band of painted Guardians, they might be able to take him by surprise and destroy him before he had either the chance to flee or to hurt anyone who lived down here.

He had asked Aggie about the lights, but she had just grunted that a big boy like him ought to know what made lights work, so he had dropped it. He assumed someone had run cable up to an electricity source on the surface, a feat that must have taken a huge amount of daring and a significant amount of technical expertise. He wanted to know about this strange place, but didn’t want to annoy Aggie any more than he already had by bringing his squad into her home.

I don’t blame her for not wanting to tell me
, he thought.
She probably already thinks I’m going to bring a hundred Met officers back here and chase them all out.

If she did think that, however, she was wrong; Jamie had already made up his mind that he would not be including this place in his report. It did not need bringing to anyone’s attention; it wasn’t a haven for vampires, or any other kind of supernatural, and therefore not his Department’s concern. It was merely home to a group of people who presumably had nowhere else to go.

“How much further?” he asked. The tunnel seemed endless, the yellow lights illuminating little more than the ten metres directly in front of them.

“Ain’t far,” grunted Aggie. “Soon enough we’ll be there. Then you can take your vampire man and leave us in peace.”

I don’t think it’s going to be that simple
,
thought Jamie.
Although I hope I’m wrong. I really do.

“It might be for the best,” he said, carefully, “if you let the three of us confront him on our own. If you tell us when we’re nearly there, then the rest of you can stay back.”

“Piss on that,” said Aggie, mildly. “We’re the Guardians of this place, not you and your little friends. You do what we say, not the other way around.”

Have it your way
, he thought.
For a little bit longer, at least.

After a period of time that Jamie could not have accurately estimated, but which he thought had to have been less than fifteen minutes, perhaps no more than ten, the tunnel suddenly expanded to twice its width, and Aggie stopped.

“This here’s the junction,” she said. “Two lines used to cross here, although both of them are gone now. Straight ahead, where those fires are, that’s where we’ll find your vampire.”

Jamie stared into the darkness. After a few seconds, his eyes were able to pick out the faintest orange glow, what seemed like miles away.

Her eyes are incredible
, he thought.
I doubt even Larissa can see that well.

“What’s over there?” he asked.

“It’s a dead end,” said Aggie. “Kind of a circle, although it ain’t really, not any more. There’s some shelters been built, and other bits and pieces.”

“How many ways out?”

“If he runs before we cross the junction, then too many,” she said. “If he don’t, then two. There’s a door on the left-hand wall, leads up to an old power exchange. It’s one of the main ways in and out. Once we cross, the rest’ll all be behind you. If you don’t let him get past, and you don’t let him get out the door, there ain’t going to be nowhere for him to go.”

A dead en
d
,
thought Jamie.
Excellent.

“Did you get all that?” he asked, turning to face his squad mates, who both nodded. “Ellison, I want you to get in front of that door as soon as we’re across. Morton, you stay with me. We finish this down here. Clear?”

“Clear,” said Ellison. Morton merely nodded, staring directly at Jamie.

“OK,” he said. “Aggie, do you want to lead us in? If we mix in with your people, then he’s less likely to see us.”

“Aye,” said Aggie. “That seems like sense.”

Jamie nodded and stepped back into the brightly painted crowd. Ellison and Morton did the same, holstering their MP5s and drawing their T-Bones. The three Operators kept their weapons low, where they would be less obvious to anyone watching the crowd approach.

“Let’s do this,” said Jamie. Aggie nodded and led them out across the junction.

The space was huge; the tracks were long gone, but the places where they had once intersected were still clearly marked by patches of the tunnel floor that were paler than their surroundings. Jamie found himself standing at the nexus, with four tunnel openings surrounding him. To the rear was the one they had just walked down, to the front their destination, where he hoped Alastair Dempsey was relaxing, unaware of their presence. To the left and right the tunnels disappeared into darkness, their destinations unknown.

Aggie’s righ
t
, thought Jamie.
If he gets past us, he’s gone.

His heart was starting to beat more rapidly in his chest; he made no attempt to slow it, preferring to let its steady thud focus his mind on what was about to happen. If all went to plan, it would be over in a matter of seconds, but experience had taught him that things rarely did where vampires were concerned, particularly vampires as dangerous as Alastair Dempsey.

Jamie looked round and saw his squad mates walking steadily among the colourful throng of the Guardians. Both of them appeared calm, their eyes clear, their shoulders low, their progress quiet and steady.

Good
, he thought.
Morton’s got himself under control
.
About time too.

He looked back just in time to see them pass beneath the entrance of the tunnel they were heading into. He could now see the fires clearly; there were two, built on opposite sides of the wide space. Figures huddled round them or wandered between them; he was just starting to be able to make out individuals when a voice echoed through the tunnel.

“Who’s that?” it shouted. “That you, Aggie?”

“Aye,” she shouted. “Me and mine.”

“Find anything?”

“Nothing,” she shouted. “Looks like someone did come through, but they ain’t there no more.”

“That ain’t good, Aggie.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

The other voice fell silent.

“Visors,” Jamie whispered over the comms link, and flipped his down. He glanced over his shoulder, saw that both his squad mates had done as they were told, and turned back as they approached the fires. The flames cast a beautiful orange glow, and his eyes widened as he saw the number of people the dead-end tunnel contained: there had to be a hundred and fifty men and women, maybe more. He was starting to wonder how they were going to go about finding their target without giving themselves away, when he saw the man they were looking for.

Alastair Dempsey was leaning against the wall on the other side of the fires. He was wearing a dark shirt and a pair of black jeans, and was standing on his own, his attention fixed firmly on the approaching group of men and women; there was an expression on his face that Jamie didn’t like.

This one’s a wild animal
,
he thought.
He can sense something is wrong, even though he doesn’t know what yet.

He was about to whisper their target’s location to his squad mates, when Morton’s voice boomed out, amplified by the microphone in his helmet, deafeningly loud in the enclosed space of the tunnel.

“Alastair Dempsey,” shouted Morton. “Come forward with your hands up.”

Dempsey was still more than ten metres away, but Jamie saw his eyes instantly flood a deep, glowing red, as a dreadful smile burst across his face.

“You—” began Ellison, but the insult she had been about to level at Morton was lost forever, as everything turned to chaos.

Jamie raised his T-Bone, his eyes fixed on Dempsey, determined not to let the vampire out of his sight while simultaneously trying to ignore the fury that had rushed through him as Morton gave away their element of surprise, but saw instantly that he had no shot.

People were running blindly, crashing into and over each other, sending huge showers of sparks into the air as they trampled through the fires. Men and women stumbled to the ground and Jamie heard the terrified screams of children beneath the roar emerging from the adults. Aggie turned and looked at him with terrible reproach, but he forced himself to ignore her; he was trying to focus on Dempsey, trying to keep their target in front of him, but realised with rising horror that he could no longer see the vampire.

“Sir?”

“What is it, Ellison?” he snapped, scanning the writhing mass before him.

“He’s got me, sir.”

Jamie felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. Slowly, he turned to face Ellison, who was standing as still as a statue. Looming over her right shoulder was the face of a middle-aged man, his mouth wide and grinning, his eyes smouldering red.

“Don’t move,” he growled. “I’ll kill this one if you move.”

Jamie let his T-Bone fall from his hands, drew his Glock, and levelled it at the vampire; there was a blur of movement as Dempsey pulled Ellison’s head back and pressed his fingernails against her throat. He shook his head in gentle warning. Jamie didn’t move, but nor did he lower his gun; he kept it trained directly on the visible portion of Dempsey’s face.

“Stay calm,” he said, over the comms link. “You’re OK, stay calm.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Ellison, her words silent to everyone apart from her squad mates. “What’s the plan?”

“Give me a second,” he replied. “Morton, where the hell are you?”

There was no reply.

Cursing inwardly, he risked a glance to his right. Morton was facing the vampire, his weapon resting uselessly in his hands. Men and women were streaming around him, but he appeared not to even notice; he seemed to be frozen to the spot.

“Morton!” Jamie bellowed. His words burst directly into Morton’s ears and the rookie yelled in pain, shoving his visor up as he stumbled backwards, his eyes squeezed tightly together. When they opened again, they were clear, and he turned towards his squad leader, his face flushing the deep red of shame.

“Go and cover the door,” said Jamie, trying to control the anger that was filling him. “Don’t say a word without your visor down. Just do it. Now.”

Morton nodded and circled towards the wall, his eyes wide, his T-Bone locked against his shoulder.