Department 19: The Rising (6 page)

CENTRAL PARK WEST AND WEST EIGHTY-FIFTH STREET NEW YORK, USA

Valentin Rusmanov stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of his study, on the top floor of the Upper West Side mansion he had lived in since its completion in 1895. His ownership of the grand, stately building was, like most aspects of his life, a closely guarded secret.

Throughout the twentieth century, his long existence had required him to take certain steps to avoid attention, including the formation of a number of shell companies to administer his assets. His name appeared nowhere on any document relating to the building and, from the outside, it seemed little different to the other grand apartment buildings that faced Central Park from the west.

It was most similar in design to the Dakota, thirteen blocks to the south, but whereas that famous landmark had been originally designed as sixty-five individual residences, Valentin’s building was a single, almost obscenely spacious residence, arranged over seven vast floors, the majority of which were filled with the accumulated
spoils of more than four centuries of wealth and influence. The seventh floor contained the suite of rooms in which Valentin slept, to which entrance was expressly forbidden without invitation. The study he was now standing in occupied the north-east corner of the seventh floor, from which the view of the park was nothing short of spectacular.

Valentin looked down at the wide-open space, an oasis of dark corners and shadows amid the blinding lights of Manhattan. The last of the joggers were making their way to the exits, leaving behind them the teenage couples, junkies, muggers and homeless men and women that made up the park’s nocturnal population. He watched them, observing their small lives from high above without objection or condemnation. He had never felt disgust, or anger, when he looked at ordinary humans; he had always left such sentiments to his brothers, and to his former master.

Valentin’s nose twitched, and a second later his face curdled into a grimace of disgust. He turned away from the window, flew swiftly across his study and landed gracefully in the blue leather armchair that sat behind his wide, dark wood desk. He leant back in the chair, staring expectantly at the door on the other side of the room. A moment later there was a polite knock, and the door slid open just wide enough for Valentin’s butler, a skeletal figure in exquisite evening wear, to slip through the gap and into the study.

Lamberton had entered service in the vampire’s house in 1901 and immediately demonstrated both impeccable professional ability, and an admirable willingness to ignore the horrors that routinely took place beneath his master’s roof; he had served Valentin for forty years as a human, and almost seventy more as a vampire.

His turning had been Lamberton’s idea; although Valentin had promised the butler that no harm would come to him while in his
employ, a promise the ancient vampire had kept with great dedication, Lamberton had eventually been forced to confront his master with the problem of his advancing years.

After discussing the matter over half a case of 1921 Château Latour, Valentin had reluctantly agreed that no other solution seemed acceptable and, after checking for a final time whether the butler was sure, had bitten Lamberton’s throat with the tenderness of a lover, allowing the barest minimum of blood to escape. He had then flown out into the New York night and found a young nurse from Oklahoma who was about to ship out to the battlefields of Europe. He had brought her home and given her to Lamberton, when the turn was complete and the hunger gripped him for the first time. Once the girl was spent, the butler thanked his master, and returned immediately to his duties, duties he had continued to discharge admirably ever since.

Lamberton was now standing silently by the study door, waiting to be acknowledged before he spoke. When Valentin nodded in his direction, he spoke five words that his master had hoped never to hear.

“Your brother is here, sir.”

Valentin swore in Wallachian, his eyes flashing momentarily red. Then he regarded Lamberton, and sighed deeply.

“Show him in,” he said.

The door was flung wide, and Valeri Rusmanov strode into the study, as Lamberton exited silently. The oldest of the three Rusmanov brothers was wearing simple clothing: a black tunic, heavy woollen trousers and leather boots, and his grey greatcoat. He stopped halfway across the room, and looked around, taking in the opulence of his surroundings with obvious distaste.

Ridiculous old fool
, thought Valentin, from behind his desk.
He thinks he’s still a general, commanding troops on a battlefield. Pathetic.

Valentin opened a beautifully carved wooden box and withdrew a red cigarette from the velvet-lined interior. The cigarette contained Turkish tobacco laced liberally with Bliss, the heady mixture of heroin and blood to which he had become mildly addicted over the last three decades. He applied the flame from a wooden match to the tip of the cigarette, then leant back in his chair as Valeri, who had still not spoken since entering the study, paused in front of a shelf containing a glass tank in which three basketballs were floating in a clear solution.

“What do you call this?” asked Valeri, his tone gruff and unfriendly.

“
I
don’t call it anything,” replied Valentin, forcing himself to remain polite. “The artist called it
Three Ball 50/50 Tank
. It’s Jeff Koons.”

“And this is art, is it?”

“I would say so.”

Valeri turned away from the shelf, waving a hand dismissively at its contents. He crossed the study in three long strides and stood before Valentin’s desk, his nose wrinkling at the smell of the smoke from the cigarette in his brother’s hand.

“Is that Bliss?” he asked, spitting out the last word.

“Why, yes it is,” replied Valentin, opening the box again. “Would you care for one?”

Valeri stared coldly at him.

“Do you have no shame whatsoever?” he asked.

Valentin smiled, drew deeply on his cigarette and exhaled. The smoke floated up into the air in a thick cloud, enveloping Valeri’s head as it dispersed.

“Apparently not,” he said, lightly.

The two brothers faced each other for a long moment, until eventually Valeri spoke again.

“Our brother is dead,” he said. There was no emotion in his voice.

“I know,” replied Valentin. “He has been dead for more than three months.”

“You don’t seem upset by the news.”

“Are you?”

Valeri drew himself up, and glared at his brother.

“Alexandru and I differed on a great number of matters,” he said, slowly. “But he was still blood, still
our
blood. And now he’s gone.”

“That’s right, he’s gone. But we’re still here. Isn’t life marvellous?”

Valeri grunted, a deep, throaty sound that Valentin thought might be what passed for his brother laughing.

“You call this living?” Valeri asked. “Surrounded by lackeys and boot-lickers, in this castle of decadence?”

“Yes,” replied Valentin, and for the first time he failed to keep the steel from his tone. “I do. I also remember the size of your domestic staff in Wallachia, Valeri. There were times when I believe it numbered in the hundreds.”

Valeri stiffened.

“I was a different man in those days,” he replied.

You were actually a man,
thought Valentin.
That was certainly different.

Valentin got up from behind his desk and walked back to the window that overlooked the park. He motioned for Valeri to join him, and after a long pause, with a look of great reluctance on his lined face, the elder Rusmanov did so. Valeri stood beside his younger brother, and looked out at the towering lights of Manhattan.

“Have you ever been to New York before?” asked Valentin.

“Never,” replied Valeri, grimacing. “Until fifteen minutes ago I had never set foot in this sordid place, and I would have preferred for that to remain the case.”

“Of course you would. Yours are the dark open spaces, the wilderness of our youth. You are a creature of tradition, Valeri. I don’t criticise you for it; I’m merely stating the facts. But mine? Mine are the bright lights, the crowded streets, the noise and the bustle and the life of the city. An American writer once wrote that, ‘One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.’ Well, I’ve been here for more than a century.”

“Why are you telling me this, Valentin?”

The younger vampire sighed, and regarded his brother with a pitying look.

“You always were so literal. Never mind. I assume you have come with word from your master?”

“Our master,” said Valeri, his voice like ice.

“Of course. Our master. I apologise.”

But Valentin didn’t look sorry, not in the slightest. A half-smile played across his lips, causing anger to surge through his older brother. Valeri pushed it down as far as he was able, and focused on the order he had been given.

“He calls you home, Valentin. Your life belongs to him, as it always has, and he calls you home.”

Valentin bared his teeth.

“My life is my own,” he hissed. “Do you hear me?”

Red spilled into the corners of Valeri’s eyes. He took his hands from where they had been crossed behind his back, and let them dangle loosely at his sides.

“I disagree,” he said. “As I am confident our master will too.”

The two brothers stared at each other, violence pregnant in the still air of the study. Then Valeri smiled broadly, raising his hands in mock placation.

“Enough, brother,” he said. “I have no time for posturing, or children’s games. I must leave, with or without you. Will you refuse the call of our master, to whom you owe this gilded cage you call a life? Or will you honour him, as you swore you always would, and do your duty now he has returned to us?”

Valentin looked at his brother, and favoured him with a smile of his own.

“Of course I will,” he replied. “I will need two days to set my affairs in order, then I’ll return home like the dutiful lapdog.”

“Your affairs are trivia,” replied Valeri. “You are to accompany me tonight.”

“In which case, I would remind you of two things,” said Valentin, his smile still in place. “Firstly, that you are a guest in my home. And secondly, that I have not been afraid of you for more than five hundred years now.”

Valeri took half a step forward, a dangerous look on his face.

“Is that a fact, brother?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.

“It is,” replied Valentin. “A fact that leaves you with two options. You can allow me to conclude my
trivia
as I see fit, after which I will return home, as I promised. Or you can try to remove me from this house by force, which will result in one of us explaining to your master why we have destroyed the other. So what’s it going to be,
brother
?”

Jamie swung his legs out from under his bedding and sat on the edge of his mattress, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

He had headed straight to his quarters after leaving the detention level, his mind full of relief and his heart heavy with guilt. He always felt bad after seeing his mother; the sight of her in her cell was painful, and filled him with feelings of impotence. But his visits were the only things that she looked forward to, and he would not dream of denying her them. When Alexandru had taken her, he had feared, in his darkest moments, that he was never going to see her again, never going to get the chance to make it up to her, to make amends for being such a bad son. He was not going to fall back into his old pattern of complacency, of taking her for granted, even if the sight of her in her cell made his heart ache and his skin tingle with helpless anger.

She needs me. That’s all that matters. And I’m not going to let her down.

The electric clock on his bedside table read 8:55. Jamie hauled himself to his feet and raised his arms above his head, feeling the muscles creak and tremble as they stretched. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but thoughts of his mother refused to leave him.
He grabbed his towel, walked to the shower block at the centre of Level B and climbed into one of the stalls, hoping that the relentless drumming of the water would empty his mind, giving him a few minutes of peace.

Dried and dressed, Jamie sat down at his desk and attempted to review the minutes of the first Zero Hour Task Force meeting. He read the dry, colourless text of the report from start to finish, but realised he was looking at the shapes of the letters rather than taking any sense from the words, and pushed the folder aside. He looked at his watch, and saw that it was time to make his way to the Ops Room.

The prospect filled him with little excitement; the pride he had felt when Admiral Seward summoned him to his office and told him that he was being appointed to the Department’s most highly classified Task Force had been short-lived. The Director had immediately made it clear to him that he was only being involved because of his first-hand experience with Alexandru Rusmanov, and that he would be largely expected to speak when he was spoken to. Seward had also warned him that his presence on the Task Force was likely to be unpopular with the more experienced Operators, and this had proven to be an understatement.

Jamie was the second person to arrive for the meeting.

Major Paul Turner glanced up at him as he stepped through the door, then returned his attention to a sheaf of papers splayed across the table before him. Jamie considered saying hello, then decided against it. The Security Officer, who had succeeded the late Thomas Morris in the post, had been among the small group of Operators who had arrived on Lindisfarne after Jamie had destroyed Alexandru Rusmanov. Although they had been too late to help, to prevent the loss of Frankenstein or the turning of his mother, Jamie would
always be grateful that they had tried. The reason he held his tongue was very simple: Paul Turner scared the hell out of him.

There never seemed to be anything behind the Major’s eyes, no emotion, or empathy. Since Lindisfarne, Jamie had been astonished to learn that Turner was married to Caroline Seward, a union that made him Admiral Seward’s brother-in-law. They had a son called Shaun, who was himself a Blacklight Operator, and this Jamie found almost impossible to believe; Turner appeared to him more like a robot than a loving husband and a father.

I can’t picture him having dinner with his wife and asking her about her day, or taking his son aside and giving him advice
, he thought.
I just can’t see it.

Jamie took the seat opposite Turner, and silently waited for the rest of the Zero Hour Task Force to arrive. Less than a minute later the door to the Ops Room opened, and Operators began to file in and sit down.

Henry Seward took the seat at the head of the table, the Director of Department 19 nodding briefly in Jamie’s direction as he did so, then leaning over and engaging in conversation with Paul Turner at a volume too low for Jamie to hear.

Two Operators that Jamie had met for the first time at the previous meeting, men in their early thirties who represented the Science and Intelligence Divisions of Blacklight, walked through the door, deep in conversation, and sat down across from him. Neither so much as glanced in his direction; both had made it abundantly clear that they opposed his presence on the Task Force, and had clearly not changed their minds since the first meeting. Jamie was trying to make sure that the anger he could feel bubbling up in his chest didn’t show on his face, when the door opened again, and Jack Williams walked in.

Jamie smiled gratefully at the sight of his friend, who strode across the room and flopped down in the seat beside him.

“All right?” whispered Jack.

“All right,” replied Jamie. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going,” smiled Jack. “Yourself?”

“Fine,” replied Jamie, feeling his mood lift.

Jack Williams was a descendant of the founders of Blacklight, just like Jamie, and although he was eight years older and had been an Operator for almost four years, he had become one of Jamie’s closest friends in the Department. He was widely regarded as the finest young Operator in the Department and a man destined for great things, a viewpoint reinforced by his membership of the Zero Hour Task Force, but he also had an uncanny ability to make Jamie laugh, to make him feel like there could still be light in the middle of all the darkness that surrounded them.

Jack’s father was Robert Williams, a veteran Operator who had served Blacklight since the 1970s, and the grandson-in-law of Quincey Harker, the greatest legend of the Department, whose tenure as Director had transformed the organisation into the hi-tech, highly classified unit it was today. Jack’s younger brother Patrick was also an Operator, but where Jack was loud and confident, the life of the party and the biggest personality in any room, Patrick was quiet and appeared to be almost pathologically shy.

Jamie had spent a lot of time with the two brothers in the officers’ mess, and the differences between them were like night and day. What was even more striking, though, was the fierce love that so clearly existed between them, the loyalty that was utterly beyond question, to which Jamie, an only child, responded with deep admiration, and more than a little jealousy.

Jamie was about to tell Jack that he still appeared to be the
unpopular kid in the room when the door opened for the final time, and the last two members of the Zero Hour Task Force arrived.

Colonel Cal Holmwood, Blacklight’s Deputy Director and one of its most senior and decorated Operators, was the man who had piloted the
Mina II
, the supersonic Department 19 jet, to Lindisfarne on the night that Frankenstein had been lost, dragged over the steep cliffs by a werewolf whose intention had been to kill Jamie. He had flown survivors back to the Loop after that terrible night was over, and now entered the Ops Room deep in conversation with the man who fascinated Jamie more than any other in the entire Department.

Professor Richard Talbot, the director of the Lazarus Project, was remarkably tall and thin, like a giant stick insect wrapped in a spotless white lab coat. He was in his sixties, his face lined and weathered, his bald head perfectly round, flanked by two strips of grey hair that rested above his ears. The Professor was smiling gently at whatever Cal Holmwood was saying to him; then, as they made their way to opposite sides of the long table, he locked eyes with Jamie, smiling broadly at him. Jamie smiled back, involuntarily; the Professor made him feel something close to star-struck, even though they had only spoken to each other once, as the first meeting of the Zero Hour Task Force had come to its conclusion.

The Lazarus Project was an enigma, even within an organisation as secretive as Department 19.

It had only been officially mentioned once, during Admiral Seward’s speech about Dracula; its purpose was unknown, and its laboratories, located on Level F of the Loop, were off-limits to all but the tiny number of senior Operators who possessed the necessary clearance. The Project’s staff were rarely seen; their quarters were
inside the security perimeter, and they made only occasional appearances in the dining hall or the mess. Nobody even knew how many of them there were. Doctors, scientists, administrative staff: all were hidden away behind an Iron Curtain of secrecy.

So when Professor Talbot had strolled into the inaugural Zero Hour meeting and introduced himself to the rest of the group, there had been a sudden sense of excitement in the room. Talbot was a mystery, whose work was classified far beyond Top Secret, yet the man himself was utterly disarming, friendly and charming to a fault. After the meeting ended, he had fallen into stride beside Jamie as they walked to the lift at the end of the Level 0 corridor.

“Mr Carpenter,” he said, his voice deep and warm. “I read the Lindisfarne report. I’m very sorry.”

Jamie looked up at him, completely thrown by the fact that this man was talking to him, this man who answered only to Admiral Seward himself.

“Thanks,” he managed. “It was a bad night.”

Understatement of the bloody year.

“I can’t imagine,” Talbot replied. “But you should take heart from what you did. The destruction of Alexandru will save hundreds of lives. I’m sure that doesn’t feel like any consolation at the moment, but hopefully in time you’ll be able to understand that you did something remarkable. And if there’s anything I can do to help, please do let me know.”

“I will,” Jamie replied, his voice thick with confusion. “Thank you.”

Talbot smiled, then accelerated away down the corridor, leaving Jamie standing as still as a statue, his face wearing the look of someone who is not completely sure that what has just happened to them was actually real.

Since that one brief conversation, Jamie had been fascinated by Professor Talbot; so much so that Larissa, the only person to whom he had described the conversation, had started to use a different word.

Obsessed
, thought Jamie.
She says I’m obsessed with him.

He could understand why she might think so. In the week that had passed since the first Zero Hour meeting, Jamie had asked almost every Operator he had spoken to what they knew about Professor Talbot and the Lazarus Project. The answers he had received had ranged from incredulous demands that he not ask such questions, to wild theories about what was taking place in the Project’s sealed laboratories on Level F.

“They’re cloning Operators,” one earnest civilian contractor had insisted. “They’re going to bring back Van Helsing, and Quincey Harker, and all the others. They’re going to declare war on the vamps.”

Jamie had scoffed, but continued to ask the question, undeterred. Some Operators claimed that it was a weapons project, devising new ways of destroying vampires, while one member of the Science Division swore blind that the Lazarus Project was building a microwave emitter tuned to an electromagnetic frequency that only existed inside the brains of vampires. When it was complete, the scientist promised, all that would be required was the push of a single button, and every vampire in the world would be destroyed, instantly. Jamie asked tens of men and women, and got tens of different replies, leading him to the only conclusion that could be rationally drawn.

Nobody has a clue what they’re doing down there. Not a clue.

“Zero Hour Task Force convened, January 19th,” said Admiral Seward. His personal secretary, a small, plump man named Marlow, had
positioned himself a deferential distance behind the Director and now began to take minutes, his chubby fingers flying silently across the keys of a portable console. “Second meeting. All members present.”

The Director looked at the seven men gathered round the table. “Gentlemen,” he continued. “Operational data since the last meeting is as follows. Vampire activity remains heightened, but stable, as do sightings and incidents involving the public that require our involvement. Patrol logs indicate that incidents of the graffiti that was discussed last week continue to occur, in increasing numbers.”

Seward nodded to Marlow, who punched a series of keys on his console. The huge high-definition screen that covered the entire wall behind the Director powered up. A series of photographs filled the frame; the same two words, in tens of different colours and handwritings, printed and sprayed on walls and roads and bridges.

HE RISES

Jamie felt a chill run through him as he looked at the photos. The two words represented the Department’s greatest fear, the moment the Task Force had been created to prevent.

Zero Hour.

The vampires knew what was coming, just as surely as Blacklight did; the graffiti was proof of that. But more than that, it seemed to be directly addressed to them, left at the scenes of crimes that only they would be called to.

It seemed to be a challenge.

No, that’s not it
, thought Jamie.
They’re not challenging us. They’re mocking us. They don’t think we can stop Dracula from rising. And they might well be right.

“What are our vamp contacts saying?” asked Cal Holmwood.

“Nothing,” replied Paul Turner. “Less than that in fact. Most of them have disappeared, and the ones that haven’t won’t talk. They know what’s coming.”

“We should stake them all,” said the Operator from the Intelligence Division. “What use are they if they won’t talk?”

“Absolutely none, Mr Brennan,” agreed Turner. “But still more than they would be dead. Circumstances change.”

“I don’t get it,” pressed Brennan. “If Dracula rises, if it’s as bad as everyone thinks, they’re going to lose everything too. Why don’t they help us stop it?”

“Because they don’t think we can,” replied Turner, evenly. “Stop it, I mean. And whatever may happen if Dracula rises, the one thing they can be sure of is that helping us is not going to make them popular.”