LITMIR.BIZ

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Jamie Carpenter and Larissa Kinley – the descendant of the Founders and the vampire girl – was an endless source of whispered curiosity throughout the Loop. Turner had stood in the infirmary barely two weeks earlier as Larissa threatened to murder every Operator in the Department if the medical staff didn’t give her boyfriend the transfusion that would stop his turn taking place. Only Jamie’s intervention had calmed her down, and Turner knew that her disappearance was going to hit the teenager like a ton of bricks. They had been through so much together that he believed it would be hard, if not impossible, for Jamie to move on if she simply didn’t come back.

      He wasn’t sure the same would go for Jamie’s best friend. Matt Browning was buried deeply in the endless grind of the Lazarus Project – too deeply in the opinion of most neutral observers – and Turner doubted that even the unexplained absence of his friend would prove anything more than a momentary distraction. It wasn’t that he believed that Matt wouldn’t care about Larissa being gone, or wouldn’t be worried about Jamie, but rather that he was so completely engrossed in his work that his remarkable brain would not be able to justify expending any of its prodigious capacity on something that he could do nothing about.

      Kate Randall, on the other hand? On that score, Turner was far from certain. She had first-hand experience in dealing with loss, awful, dreadful experience that had first pushed the two of them together, and he knew how tough she was, how resilient and capable. But she was also devoted to her friends. He was sure there would be a part of her, the part she hid from almost everyone, that would wonder whether there had been anything she could have done, whether there had been signs and signals that she had missed, whether she had somehow failed Larissa when she needed her.

      Turner found himself smiling as he thought about Kate, then felt a sharp pang of guilt stab at him. After he became Director, he had made the decision to allow some distance between himself and the teenage girl he had come to rely on. It was for her own good; her rapid rise to a position of influence within the Security Division had caused resentment, and he knew full well that there were many people inside the Loop who believed she had intentionally cultivated a close relationship with him or, even more unkindly, that he had given her special treatment because she had been in a relationship with his son when he died. If he kept her close now that he was Director, as he would have preferred to, the accusations, the belief that she was a teacher’s pet, that she was nothing more than his favourite would become ever more insistent.

      Accusations which were complete bullshit.

      In an ideal world, he would have made her Security Officer, and done so without the slightest hesitation; his job was to ensure that the vital roles inside Blacklight were filled by the best people, and Kate was simply that good. But the world was far from ideal, and it would have been an endless distraction that he, and Kate, did not need.

      Especially not now, he thought. Not if Larissa really is gone.

      The wall screen opposite his desk lit up as a loud tone rang out of the speakers, displaying an INCOMING CALL message. He read Angela Darcy’s name in the window and clicked ACCEPT.

      “Sir?” asked the Security Officer.

      “I’m here, Captain Darcy,” he replied. “What is it?”

      “I need you to go online, sir. Right now.”

      Turner frowned, and opened a browser window. “What site?” he asked.

      “Any of them, sir,” said Angela.

      The Director’s frown deepened. “Stay on the line,” he said, and typed the address for BBC News into the search bar. The site loaded, and a thick black BREAKING NEWS headline filled the screen, twelve words that stopped the breath in his lungs.

       VIDEO MESSAGE SHOWS VAMPIRE CLAIMING TO BE DRACULA, ISSUES WARNING TO HUMANITY

      Turner clicked on the headline. The page shifted to an article that was only two paragraphs long, with More to follow beneath them, but he paid the words no attention; his eye was drawn instantly to the video embedded at the top of the page. The rectangular box was black, with the words A MESSAGE at its centre. With a hand that had begun to almost imperceptibly tremble, Turner clicked PLAY.

      The words faded away, replaced by a dimly lit shot of a seated figure. Turner felt his stomach lurch. Little more than the figure’s face was visible, but that was more than enough; the pale skin, the narrow features, the piercing eyes, the moustache and the long hair were instantly, awfully recognisable.

       Dracula.

      “Citizens of the world,” said the first vampire, his voice low and smooth. “I am Dracula, and I bring glad tidings for you all. You shall have the privilege of witnessing my rise, which is now at hand. It cannot be stopped, nor given pause. It is certain. It is as inevitable as the setting of the sun. Those of you who kneel may find me merciful. Those of you who oppose me will die. In time, I will speak again.”

      The footage returned to black, before two words appeared that chilled Turner to his core; he had seen them so many times, in photographs and grainy phone footage, on walls and pavements across the country.

      

      Turner let out a long, deep breath.

      “Are you still there, Angela?” he asked.

      “Yes, sir,” said the Security Officer.

      “Get the Intelligence Division on this immediately,” he said. “Every single frame. I want them to find something that tells us where Dracula is. Is that clear?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Where did it first appear? The video?”

      “Everywhere, sir,” said Angela. “It was posted from hundreds of different accounts on hundreds of sites at exactly the same time, twelve minutes ago, and it’s spreading faster than Surveillance can track it.”

      “Assume I don’t understand the mechanics of online distribution,” said Turner. “Could that have been one person scheduling the release under aliases, or is it hundreds of people acting at the same time?”

      “It could have been either, sir,” said the Security Officer. “It was highly organised, whichever it was.”

      “Clearly,” he said. “Which makes me wonder what else is being planned that we don’t know about.”

      “Yes, sir,” said Angela. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

      “In terms of the Department, nothing yet,” he replied. “I don’t want to issue new orders or change the SOPs until we have more information. But I want you to stay in close contact with the police and the Intelligence Services. The public are already scared and paranoid, and this is only going to make things worse.”

      “Understood, sir.”

      “All right,” said Turner. “Message everyone in the Loop, then play the video on every screen. Let’s make sure everyone sees it and try to move past it as quickly as possible. Out.”

      He reached out and clicked END CALL. There was a low beep as the connection was severed, then silence.

      Jamie heard Kate shout for him to wait as he rocketed along the Level B corridor, but ignored her.

      He banked to the right, past the metal doors of the lift, and crashed through the door that accessed the emergency staircase, a shaft of concrete and metal that descended all the way to the very bottom of the Loop. The door was ripped off its hinges and clattered to the ground, but Jamie didn’t pause; he spun up over the metal banister and shot down the shaft between the spiralling stairs like a bullet from

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