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Battle Lines. Will Hill
Читать онлайн.Название Battle Lines
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007354528
Автор произведения Will Hill
Жанр Детская проза
Издательство HarperCollins
It surged across the concrete floor and seized his left hand, pushing it up and back. His finger convulsed against the T-Bone’s trigger, sending the metal stake slamming into the ceiling before it bounced back down and skittered away. The vampire’s grip was impossibly strong, and Jacobs screamed as he felt the bones in his wrist grind together; he beat at the monster with his free hand, but nothing happened. The vampire’s face rose up before his own, glowing red and twisted with madness, and Jacobs felt terror explode through him as his hands were gathered together in the crushing, vice-like grip and pulled forward, his body bending involuntarily at the waist as his feet scrabbled against the ground.
Angela Darcy fought back a momentary wave of panic and forced herself to stay calm, to do her job. Her squad had been decimated in what seemed like the blink of an eye; John Carlisle was twitching on the ground, blood pouring from his ruined face, while Alex Jacobs was being manhandled by the vampire like a squirming, protesting puppet.
This isn’t right, she had time to think. Not right at all.
Too strong.
Too fast.
She raised her T-Bone and saw immediately that she had no clear shot; there was no way to fire the metal stake into the vampire’s body without hitting Jacobs. She slammed the T-Bone back into its holster, drew her UV beam gun, aimed it at the vampire and thumbed the button in one fluid motion. A beam of bright purple light burst across the car park and engulfed him; he had no time to react before his body erupted into flames.
Purple fire licked across the vampire’s skin, scouring it black, and blood began to spill from a spider’s web of cracks. He howled in agony, but did not release his grip on Jacobs’s hands; the Operator was protected from the flames by his uniform, but they billowed over and around him, and his screams matched the monster’s. Angela watched, her eyes wide with horror beneath her visor, as the burning, howling vampire dragged Jacobs forward until his body was at a right angle, then brought his burning arm down across both of the Operator’s. Jacobs’s arms broke with a terrible crunch; his screams reached an inhuman pitch as the vampire threw him aside and turned to face her.
Angela risked a glance at her fallen squad mate; his arms were both snapped mid-forearm, his hands pointing uselessly upwards at a grotesque angle. Then she returned her attention to the flaming monstrosity that was shambling towards her. Burning lumps of the vampire’s body were falling to the concrete floor as he moved, hissing and steaming, on the cold ground. Angela backed slowly away, keeping a wide distance between them; she had seen the vampire’s speed twice now, and would not take any chances. Without taking her eyes from the disintegrating face, she drew her MP5 and emptied it into the vampire’s legs, blowing out his knees and shattering the long, thick bones. He slumped to the ground, no longer making any sound, and swayed on his ravaged knees, his arms wide, his mouth open and full of fire.
Jesus Christ, she thought. Oh Jesus Christ.
Angela Darcy had seen a great many terrible things in the course of her highly classified career, but this was one of the very worst. She took a deep breath, dropped the MP5, and drew her T-Bone again. The vampire appeared to look at her, but there were purple flames where his eyes had been, so she couldn’t be sure. Her T-Bone felt heavy as she aimed it at the heart of the twitching, burning thing and pulled the trigger.
What was left of the vampire exploded in a thud of boiling blood, splattering across the dirty concrete floor. Angela was already moving, sprinting across the car park and yelling into her helmet microphone, demanding emergency medical evacuation for her fallen squad mates.
10
IN CONVERSATION
Jamie Carpenter stood outside a door on Level C and took a deep breath, trying to slow his racing heart.
He had left Ellison and Morton absorbing the detail of their briefing, what little there was. Of the five vampire targets they had been given, only one had so far been identified: Eric Bingham, a paranoid schizophrenic who had been caught attempting to strangle his infant niece, had wandered past a police station in Peterborough and been captured on CCTV. The Surveillance Division’s facial recognition system had instantly identified him, logged his location into their system, and tracked him as he moved slowly south. The other four targets were mysteries, nothing more than heat blooms on satellite screens. Every effort would continue to be made to identify them before Jamie’s squad moved against them; knowing whether they had been violent men before their turnings could prove vital.
They were scheduled to depart in just over an hour and a half, so Jamie had ordered his squad mates to meet him in the hangar in seventy-five minutes. He had been about to head down to the dining hall to grab a late breakfast when Jack Williams called and told him the news.
Angela Darcy’s squad mates were both in the infirmary, being tended to by the Blacklight medical staff; Jacobs’s arms had been set and splinted, and Carlisle’s wounds had been treated and stitched. They were both going to recover, but Jacobs was going to be inactive for several months, and Carlisle had required surgery to remove a shard of plastic that had stopped a millimetre short of his left eyeball.
“One vamp put them both down,” said Jack. “Angela said she’d never seen anything like it.”
Jamie thanked him for passing on the news, and warned him to be careful out there. Jack told him to do the same and cut their connection.
The door in front of him was no different from any of the hundreds of others on B and C, the residential levels of the Loop; what lay behind it was why his heart was accelerating so sharply. He reached out a gloved hand, noted with anger its visible tremble, and knocked heavily on the door.
Silence.
Jamie knocked again, and was about to turn and walk away when he heard a deep voice emerge from inside the room.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” he replied. “Jamie.”
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the door unlocked with a series of smooth clicks and swung open a fraction. Jamie reached out and pushed it inwards, revealing a spacious room, far larger than his own quarters. It was sparse and scrupulously neat; the surface of the desk was clear, the bed was neatly made, the floor was clean and polished. A pair of armchairs sat opposite the desk. One was empty; the other was straining under the weight of its occupant.
The monster, now once again going by the name Victor Frankenstein, looked up as Jamie walked into his room. He was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck, and black trousers and boots; a thick multi-coloured beard sprouted from his cheeks and chin, and his hair fell carelessly across his forehead and below his ears. His appearance was not against regulations – Blacklight operated a far looser dress code than the regular military, just as the special forces did – but it worried Jamie nonetheless. On a small table beside the armchair stood a glass, a bottle of whisky and a bowl of ice, and these items worried him too, given that it was barely noon.
“Hey,” said Jamie, settling into the empty armchair.
“Good evening,” replied Frankenstein.
“It’s afternoon,” said Jamie, forcing a smile. “Early afternoon.”
“I don’t care,” replied Frankenstein. He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. “How are you, Jamie? Looking after yourself?”
“I’m trying,” he replied. “It was easier with you looking after me as well.” He smiled again, trying to encourage the monster, to flatter him. “A lot easier.”
“I’m sure it was,” said Frankenstein. “It’s a shame you’ve had to grow up so fast. You didn’t deserve it.”
“I know,” said Jamie. “But that’s the world, isn’t it? Bad things happen.”
Frankenstein nodded. “Bad things happen.”
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