“Sorry,” he said.
“Sounds like you need to eat something quick,” said Jamie, grinning. “It’s not going to help our case with Admiral Seward if he hears you fainted in the dining hall.”
“I suppose not,” said Matt, an embarrassed smile on his face. Then he turned towards the long metal counters and began piling his plate high with food from what seemed to be every tray within reach. Jamie watched, helping himself to a large plate of pasta, then carried it over to an empty table near the corner of the room. Matt followed behind him, already picking at his plate with his fingers, and they sat down to eat.
“So,” said Matt, around a huge mouthful of mashed potatoes. “How did you end up here? I mean, I remember what you told
me that night in the infirmary, about descendants of the founders, but it didn’t make a lot of sense, to be totally honest with you.”
Jamie considered the sheer enormity of Matt’s question; the chain of events that had brought him into Department 19 had begun more than a hundred years ago, when his great-grandfather had been employed as the valet to Abraham Van Helsing. Even the more immediate reasons, which involved his father and a vampire he had killed in Budapest almost a decade earlier, were still tortuously complicated.
“That story’s going to have to wait a bit,” Jamie replied. “Let’s save it for when we’ve got more time, OK?”
A lot more time.
Matt nodded, then attacked his plate anew. Over Matt’s shoulder Jamie saw Larissa and Kate enter the dining hall, and waved them over. A look passed between them that Jamie didn’t like in the slightest, but when they had filled their trays, they picked them up and headed in his direction.
At least they’re still acknowledging my existence,
thought Jamie.
That’s something, I suppose.
He finished his food, pushed the plate aside and watched the two girls pick their way through the tables and chairs. They stopped behind Matt, who was still demolishing his plate, completely oblivious to their presence, and looked down at the teenager in the civilian clothes with curiosity on their faces.
“Who’s your friend?” asked Larissa.
Matt spluttered, almost choked on a mouthful of food, swallowed, then turned round to see who had spoken. He saw Larissa smiling down at him, and all colour drained from his face. Larissa watched it happen, frowned and then her eyes widened with terrible recognition.
“What—” she began, but then Matt was moving, leaping up out of his seat, sending it crashing to the floor with a clatter that drew the attention of everyone in the room, and running to Jamie’s side, putting the table between himself and Larissa.
“Oh Christ,” breathed Jamie.
He leapt to his feet, and grabbed Matt’s shoulders. The boy was physically shaking, his body trembling in Jamie’s grasp, his eyes wide with terror.
“Matt!” he shouted, not caring that the rest of the Operators in the dining room had now fallen silent as they watched him and his friends. “Matt, it’s OK! Calm down, OK?”
“What the hell is going on?” demanded Kate. “Who’s he?”
“That’s him,” said Larissa, distantly. “The boy from the garden. The one I hurt.”
“What?” snapped Kate. “I thought they sent him home weeks ago? What’s he doing here?”
“He risked his life to come back here because he wants to help us,” said Jamie, rounding on her. “I’d call that pretty admirable, wouldn’t you?”
Kate looked at him for a moment, then dropped her eyes. Jamie turned back to Matt. The boy was still staring at Larissa, his eyes wide; Jamie stepped in front of him, and shook his shoulders hard.
“Matt!” said Jamie. “Larissa is on our side, OK? She defected from the vampires, and they almost killed her because she did. She’s one of the good guys, OK? Matt?”
Slowly, Matt’s eyes began to focus, and his shoulders, which had felt like iron bars when Jamie grabbed them, began to relax. Then Matt blinked, and looked at Jamie.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded as though he was on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, Jamie. It was just a shock. I’m sorry, OK?”
“Stop apologising,” said Jamie, and grinned at Matt. “You’re fine, everyone’s fine. But you’ve got to try and relax, because I want you to meet my friends. All right?”
Matt nodded. Jamie stepped aside and the four teenagers faced each other across the table. Around them, the other Operators returned to their food, satisfied that there was going to be no more excitement.
“Matt, this is Kate,” said Jamie. “Kate lived on Lindisfarne when… well, it’s another long story.”
Kate smiled. “It’s a pretty good one, though,” she said, then laughed as Matt extended his hand towards her, in a peculiarly formal manner. “It’s nice to meet you, Matt,” she said, taking the offered hand and shaking it gently.
“You too,” said Matt, and a shy smile crept across his face.
“And you’ve already met Larissa,” said Jamie. It was a risky joke, but he knew that if this was going to work, he had to defuse the tension between his new friend and his girlfriend, and do it quickly.
Larissa smiled guiltily, then frowned, as though she wasn’t sure how to respond. But mercifully, Matt broke into a broad grin, and extended his hand towards her, which she gratefully took.
“It’s nice to see you again,” said Matt, and Jamie laughed. Larissa still looked slightly unsteady, but she smiled.
“You too,” she said. “I guess there’s probably a conversation we need to have at some point, but for what it’s worth, I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I really didn’t mean to do it.”
“It’s OK,” replied Matt, his hand fluttering instinctively to the scar that ran across his throat. “No harm done.”
There was a chilly moment of silence before Jamie, who had no intention of letting his good work be undone, pulled his chair
loudly across the floor and flopped down into it. The noise and the movement broke the spell, and the other three followed suit. There was another, warmer, silence, until Kate asked Matt how come he was back here, in the Loop, and Larissa asked Jamie how his day had been, and then all four of them were talking, as though they were old friends, the stress and heartache of the previous day seemingly put aside, at least momentarily.
This is right,
thought Jamie.
The four of us, like this. I don’t know why, it just feels right.
Then a powerful sense of guilt washed through him, as he realised something he should have realised far, far earlier; that it wasn’t Larissa or Kate that had changed the dynamic between the three of them.
It was him.
He
had done it.
Well, no more
, he thought.
I’m putting an end to all of it. Today.
PARIS, FRANCE 23RD AUGUST 1923
The private dining room of Lord Dante, the vampire king of Paris, was the colour of blood.
The walls were thickly lined with crimson velvet, the floor covered in a dark red carpet of such thickness that a visitor’s shoes would sink up to the laces. The domed ceiling was painted red and decorated with patterns in similar hues, whirls and spirals that hurt the eyes. The grand circular dining table that dominated the square room was covered in a scarlet cloth; the armchairs that surrounded it were upholstered in crimson leather. The only elements of the room that did not follow this gruesome colour scheme were Lord Dante himself, and the small number of companions he had chosen to share his evening with.
Dante was dressed, as always, in evening wear. The black of his tuxedo was so deep that it appeared to absorb light, creating the illusion of a vacuum, of an absence that the eye could not discern.
The starched white shirt was flawless, as was the black bow tie that perched beneath its winged collars. The vampire king’s cape, an affectation that he proclaimed allowed him to feel closer to days long gone, to the youth he had spent in centuries now consigned to the history books, was the shiny black of oil on the outside, the thick, dark red of arterial blood on the inside.
The vampire king looked no older than twenty-five, but had been turned by Valeri Rusmanov himself more than three hundred years earlier, as he so delighted in telling the endless gaggles of vampires who flocked adoringly to his table. It made him, to his understanding, the fourth oldest vampire in the world, the oldest who was not a Rusmanov, and significantly older and more powerful than any other vampire in Paris, or indeed the whole of France. His belief in his superiority over younger vampires was unshakeable, and he would not tolerate any suggestion to the contrary.
Less than two weeks earlier Frankenstein had watched, his eyes wide, his mind twisted by opium, as Dante tortured a vampire for the crime of merely suggesting that perhaps there should be more to a vampire than merely the time elapsed since they had been turned.
The vampire king’s response had been to push his hand into the treasonous vampire’s head, through his lying mouth, so deeply that his fingers could be seen moving beneath the man’s scalp. He had demanded that the vampire take back his comment, even though he was fully aware that such a retraction was impossible while his fingers danced inside the stricken man. Eventually, tiring of the sport, he had torn the head from the shoulders, cast it aside with the same disdain that a child discards a toy they have become bored with, and pierced the insubordinate man’s heart with a silver fork. The explosion of blood soaked Dante and his guests, but the vampire
king appeared not to notice, and his fellow diners pretended to do the same, for fear of similar treatment if they objected.
Lord Dante looked up as Frankenstein and Latour entered the room, and smiled widely in their direction.
“Gentlemen!” he cried. “You honour me with your presence! Join me at my table, do!”
The vampire king was sitting at the rear of the room, his armchair facing the door. There was no head to the round table, but Dante’s position made it somehow feel as though he was sitting at it anyway. Three of the seven remaining seats were occupied, although the chairs directly to Dante’s left and right had been left respectfully empty.
A middle-aged woman in a painfully narrow corset, her face powdered bright white, her long limbs slender and delicate, sat opposite the vampire king. To her left sat a nervous-looking vampire in a drab suit. The regularity with which he glanced at the woman, and the henpecked expression on his face, marked him out immediately as her husband.
Sitting alone on the other side of the table, equidistant between Dante and the white-faced woman, was a vampire of indeterminate age, his long hair hiding his face as he slumped in his seat, wrapped in a thick black overcoat. In the corner of the room lay the body of a young girl, her clothes soaked with the blood that had spilled from the wide tear in her throat. She was slumped over, as though drunk, or asleep, but she was neither.
Latour bowed theatrically towards Lord Dante, his eyes closed, a beatific look on his face. Frankenstein dipped his head briefly, his eyes never leaving those of the vampire king. They took the two seats either side of Dante, provoking a look of profound jealousy from the woman at the opposite end of the table.
“Do not be envious,” said Dante, noticing. “All seats at my table are of equal worth. The distance between us, dear Agathe, does not correspond to the depth of my feelings for you.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” whispered Agathe, the woman with the white face, but her eyes burned red, and she stared at Frankenstein and Latour with open loathing.
“Jacques!” cried Dante, throwing his arms in the air. A door, set subtly into the wall of the dining room, opened immediately, and a vampire waiter appeared beside the vampire king’s chair.
“Yes, Your Majesty?” asked the servant, and Dante favoured him with a broad smile.
“A libation, Jacques, for my guests,” he said.
The waiter bowed, then disappeared through the door. A moment later he returned, holding an ornate crystal bottle, full of a dark red liquid.
“Less than an hour out of the vein,” said Dante, nodding in the direction of the slumped, lifeless girl. “As sweet a drop as you will ever have tasted.”
There was a murmur of approval from the table, as the waiter poured blood into the delicate crystal glasses that stood in front of each of the guests. When the glasses were full, Dante raised his towards his guests, who lifted theirs in kind.
“Long life,” he said, solemnly. “Lived to its fullest.”
The diners repeated the toast, then drank deeply from their glasses. Frankenstein winced at first, as he always did; the blood had thickened since it had been collected, and was unpleasantly lukewarm. But he persevered; the metallic taste of the blood, and the sense of uncompromising, self-loathing decadence that accompanied it, soon overcame his initial distaste.
The table descended into conversation, and Frankenstein again
found himself stranded between two streams of chatter. The woman with the white face was talking to Lord Dante and Latour, leaning so far towards the vampire king that she was in danger of overbalancing in her chair. Latour was unable to complete a sentence; the woman interrupted him every single time, her eyes fixed on Dante, desperate for his attention, and his approval.
Latour, for his part, appeared amused by her naked hunger, and allowed himself to be overridden. The woman’s husband was attempting to engage the long-haired vampire, who was refusing to offer more to the fledgling conversation than a series of brief, deep grunts. As a result, it was Frankenstein who first heard the commotion in the theatre’s auditorium.
The sounds coming through the door were muffled by the thick wood, but were nonetheless unmistakable; the grunts and growls of excited vampires, the thunder of running feet and then, clear above the racket, a solitary female scream. The sound, high and full of abject terror, drew the attention of the diners, who turned their gazes to the door.
“Who disturbs our evening?” asked Lord Dante, his voice full of affront. “Jacques! To me!”
The door slid open again and the vampire waiter instantly appeared, as though he had been standing on the other side of the door, waiting in case he was needed.
Probably exactly what he has been doing,
thought Frankenstein.
Pathetic, subservient creature.
“Go and learn the nature of this commotion,” ordered Dante. “They all know full well that I expect revelry kept to a minimum when I am entertaining guests.”
Jacques bowed deeply, crossed the dining room and disappeared through the door.
“Intolerable,” muttered Dante, shaking his head. “A king should be able to dine in peace, should he not? I ask so little of them, and they treat me thus. Perhaps I need to remind them of their places in the order of things.”
“Quite right, my lord,” said the woman, enthusiastically. “You should destroy them all.”
“Perhaps I should,” replied Dante, fixing his dark red eyes on her. “Perhaps I will start with you, if you don’t curb your impertinent tongue. How would that be?”
The woman shrank back in her chair, a look of fear on her brilliant white features.
“Your Majesty,” she spluttered. “I must apologise. I-I meant no disres—”
“Hush your pleading,” said Dante. He was no longer looking at the woman; his attention was firmly fixed on the door. The noise in the auditorium had ceased, and the vampire king and his guests waited for the waiter to return.
The door slammed open and Jacques backed into the room, hissing and snarling, his red eyes blazing. Held tightly in one of his arms was a blonde girl, no older than twenty-five, her eyes blank with fear. She was struggling in his grip, half-heartedly grabbing and slapping at the arm, but the waiter paid no attention to her in the slightest. Jacques kicked the door violently shut, a low growl dying in his throat as he turned to face the vampire king. The red disappeared from his eyes, and he smoothed himself down with his free hand. The savagery that had been emanating from him as he backed into the room was gone; the servile, neatly groomed waiter had returned.
“My apologies, Your Majesty,” he said, smoothly. “I would not have had you see me like that.”
“There is no need to apologise,” replied Lord Dante, although he was not looking at his servant. He was staring with open desire at the girl who had been dragged into the room. “It is not healthy for men such as us to hide our natures at all times. The beast that dwells within us requires release, does it not?”
“As you say, Your Majesty,” replied Jacques, bowing once more, his grip on the girl remaining tight.
“Who is this girl that you have brought to join us?”
“A gift, Your Highness,” said Jacques. “Girard believed she might be to your tastes, and brought her here, as a token of his loyalty and his love for you. Babineaux objected, and tried to take her for himself. The dispute was in full swing when I entered.”
“Did you resolve it?” asked Dante.
“I did, Your Majesty.”
“Satisfactorily?”
“Not from Babineaux’s perspective, Your Majesty,” replied the butler. “He will make no further attempts to deny the king of Paris what is rightfully his. Or further attempts at anything else, my lord.”
“Excellent,” said Dante, a cruel smile on his face. “Let me inspect this gift, Jacques. And be sure to send Girard to me before the night ends, so I might make him aware of my gratitude.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” replied Jacques, and held the girl out towards his master. Her head was slumped, her chin resting on her chest. She appeared to be barely conscious. Jacques shook her by the shoulders, and when she failed to respond, reached a gnarled hand around and slapped her pale cheek.
The sound was like a rifle shot in the small dining room, and the girl’s eyes instantly flared open, rolling around in their sockets before settling on the lustful face of Lord Dante. When she faced him, her eyes widened even further, but Frankenstein, who was
watching intently, didn’t believe it was from fear. He felt his muscles tighten involuntarily; to his old eyes, the expression looked like something else.
It looked like recognition.
“Pierre?” said the girl, her voice little more than a whisper. “Oh, thank God. Please don’t let them hurt me, Pierre. Please.”
The smile on Lord Dante’s face didn’t so much as flicker, but something in his eyes changed. Frankenstein, who had turned his attention to his host, saw it happen, and realised with a rush of savage pleasure that it was fear.
The vampire king was afraid.
Why, though?
he wondered.
Why does this girl frighten him?
“Leave us, Jacques,” said Dante, his smile rigid.
The waiter released the girl, who didn’t move; she was staring at the vampire king with a look of salvation on her face, her hands clasped between her breasts. Jacques bowed, and backed out of the dining room, leaving Dante alone with his guests, and the gift that had been given to him.
The atmosphere in the room had suddenly become charged, to the obvious bafflement of the vampire king’s guests. Latour, who was looking at the girl with outrage written all over his face, was the first to speak.
“Wench,” he hissed. “You dare speak to Lord Dante in such a familiar manner? You are addressing a being to whom you are less than nothing, who has lived for four centuries and more. You will bow your head before you speak to him again, and you will refer to him as Your Majesty. If you do not, I will tear the tongue from your head.”
The girl looked at him, tears brimming in the corners of her eyes.
“B-but,” she replied, her voice quavering, “I… I know him. He lived in Saint-Denis, when I, when I was growing up. His name is Pierre Depuis. Or it w-was. He disappeared when I was just a little girl, more than t-twenty years ago. Everyone thought… everyone thought he was dead.”
“Kill her, Latour,” said Dante, his face colouring a red so deep it was almost purple. “I would hear no more of her ravings.”
Latour leapt from his chair, his eyes colouring red. The white-faced woman did likewise, and grabbed the girl by her shoulders, causing her to shriek with fear.
“Wait!” boomed Frankenstein. He had not taken his eyes from Dante’s face, nor had he moved in his seat. The volume of his voice and obvious severity in the tone made both Latour and the woman hesitate.
“You contradict me, monster?” hissed Lord Dante. “In this place, you would do so? You would dare?”
Frankenstein looked evenly at his host. “Do you know what she is talking about, Dante?” he asked.
“Of course not,” blustered the vampire king. “She has clearly mistaken me for some peasant boy.”
Frankenstein glanced at the girl, who was openly trembling.
“She seems quite sure,” he said. “Why do you suppose that might be?”
“I have no idea,” replied Lord Dante. “Are you asking me to attempt to understand the thinking of this girl? I cannot begin to perceive the primitive way her mind works. Now kill her, Latour, while the mood of the evening might still be salvaged.”