Department 19: Battle Lines (69 page)

Frankenstein felt one of his ribs break as Albert Harker slipped beneath a long, looping haymaker and slammed his fist into his side. He clenched his jaw as the vampire circled away, trying not to show how much the blow had taken out of him.

He’s strong
.
Really strong.

Harker moved in on him again, a dark, bleeding blur, and Frankenstein feigned left then right. The vampire’s fingers sliced through the air where his face had been; he reached out, lightning fast, and gripped one of Harker’s wrists. He squeezed and twisted at the same time, and felt a surge of satisfaction as bones broke inside his fist.

Harker bellowed in pain, wrenched his shattered wrist free, and backed away. Frankenstein hauled in a deep breath, then felt it freeze in his chest as Harker leapt forward again, so fast, far too fast, and landed a catastrophic punch on the centre of his chin. Pain tore through his skull and darkness exploded around him as he fell backwards towards the floor. His last thought, as the ground rushed up to meet him, was a simple one.

Too slow.

Matt watched in horror as the monster fell to the concrete floor.

The groaning in his ears was becoming louder and more insistent, but he wasn’t listening; his mind was reeling from the sight of the defeated Frankenstein. Albert Harker staggered, clutching at his chest; it looked as though the punch had taken almost as much out of him as it had its target. Then he spat a dark wad of blood on to the ground, stood up straight, and turned to Matt.

The vampire walked slowly towards him, a smile of inevitability on his damaged face. The noise in his ears had become louder and its rhythm had changed; as Matt stared desperately at the terrible figure approaching him, he realised it had become two words, spoken by a croaking, battered version of Kate’s familiar voice. He focused his reeling mind, and heard them.

“Beam… gun.”

Matt’s eyes widened; he reached down and grabbed the heavy cylinder from its loop on his belt. A small frown crossed Albert Harker’s face a millisecond before Matt pushed his beam gun’s button and pointed the wide ultraviolet beam directly at it.

Purple fire burst from the vampire’s features and he screamed in high-pitched agony. Harker beat at his face with his hands, stumbling to his knees as he did so; the fire licked across his fingers, burning them red, as smoke began to plume from his body. Matt stared, his stomach churning, as Harker beat out the roaring purple flames and raised his head.

What looked at him was little more than a skull.

One of the eyes was gone; the other swivelled madly. The skin of Harker’s face had dissolved, revealing thick muscle and gleaming white bone. His teeth were visible through ragged holes in his cheeks, and his scalp was burnt black where his hair had caught fire.

Then slowly, almost unbelievably, the vampire climbed to his feet.

The pain was beyond excruciating; Albert Harker felt as though he was being sliced to ribbons with a thousand razor blades.

His face burned with an agony he would not have thought possible, and his nostrils were full of the smell of his own roasted flesh. His mind was reeling with shock; he tried to form a single coherent thought and felt it slip away, over and over. Acting on nothing more than instinct, he lurched to his feet and looked around the loading bay with half of his vision dark. The printing press workers were staring at him with stricken expressions of horror on their faces. One of the Blacklight soldiers was still squirming beneath the fallen door, one was still backed against the conveyor belt, and the big one, the monster, was lying still on the floor. Pete Randall and Greg Browning were looking at him with disgust on their pale faces. And McKenna? Kevin McKenna was dead, his throat torn out by Albert’s own hands; the journalist’s blood had coated his skin until the purple fire had burned it away.

Clarity swept through his damaged, broken mind, carrying with it the voices of his father and brother.

Failure. Disappointment. Embarrassment.

Harker threw back his head and howled, a harsh, jagged noise that sounded far from human. He had controlled the pain of what had been done to him for so long, using it as fuel to keep his desire for revenge burning, but now it ran freely through him, threatening to drive him to his knees.

Useless. Black sheep. Second-best.

He looked at the conveyor belt, at hundreds of copies of the newspaper he had killed to produce, and felt something tear open inside him. It was as though the flames had scoured his soul, leaving behind an empty husk that had brought damnation upon itself when it had spilled innocent blood.

Godforsaken. Waste. Disgrace.

Harker howled again, as the voices of his father and brother screamed at him, telling him that he had done nothing less than prove them right, that he had deserved everything that had happened to him. Kevin McKenna rose into his mind, his nervous, open face now harsh and accusing, his ruined throat gushing blood as he asked the question that he had asked so many times, the question that Harker had answered every time with lies.

No one gets hurt, right?

The vampire staggered towards him, smoke rising from his head and neck. Matt dropped the spent beam gun and pulled his stake from his belt; he held it out before him in a shaking hand, his reason wiped away by the unrelenting horror that had unfolded around him.

Albert Harker stopped before him, his breath coming in ragged whistles, his one remaining eye spinning in its socket, the distance between himself and the stake in the terrified teenager’s hand no more than a few centimetres.

“Make them proud,” said the vampire, the words wet and strangled. “Tell my father and brother what you did. They’ll be so proud of you.”

Matt couldn’t move. He was transfixed by the smoking, devastated chaos that had been Albert Harker’s face; he could not tear his gaze away from it.

The vampire growled, then moved, his hands rising towards Matt’s neck. His mind unfroze and he pushed the stake forward, but was too slow, much too—

Crunch.

Matt stared in amazement as his stake disappeared into Albert Harker’s chest. Blood began to pour from the wound, running down the metal barrel and soaking his gloved hand, but the vampire seemed not to notice. He looked down, the white of his remaining eye now red, the iris black. Then he looked back up at Matt, his mouth twitching at the corners.

Smiling
, thought Matt.
It looks like he’s smiling.

Then Albert Harker exploded, in a thunderclap of steaming blood that soaked Matt from head to toe.

Matt Browning looked round the silent loading bay. The spreading pool of blood that had been Albert Harker glistened beneath the fluorescent lights. Kate was still trapped beneath the fallen door, but was croaking an incoherent stream of cheers and congratulations into his ears. Frankenstein was flat on the ground, his chest rising and falling steadily. The printing press workers were gathered round the forklift, alongside—

His breath caught in his chest.

In the midst of all the screaming, the violence and the spilled blood, he had forgotten what had brought him and Kate on their headlong quest to confront Albert Harker. Now, as he looked at his father’s pale, drawn face, he remembered.

Greg Browning was standing beside Pete Randall, identical looks of shock standing out on both of their faces. The urge to run over and hug his dad returned, hotter and stronger than ever, but he forced himself to slow down, to think clearly. He took a deep breath, then ran across to where Kate was wrestling with the fallen door; he gripped the edge, heaved with all his strength, and held it up as she wriggled free. She clambered to her feet, then grabbed him in a long, fierce hug.

“Amazing,” she said, her voice inaudible to the other men gathered in the loading bay. “You’re completely amazing. You got him, Matt. You got him.”

“I don’t know if I did,” said Matt. “I think… I don’t know.”

Kate pulled away from him, holding his shoulders in her gloved hands. “What do you mean?”

“He said something to me,” said Matt. “He said I should make his father and his brother proud. And then he lunged, and I…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “He could easily have avoided my stake if he’d wanted to. I mean, I barely even moved it. It was more like… I don’t know.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would he do that, Matt?”

“I have no idea. But just before he died, I could swear…”

“What? You could swear what?”

“I could swear he smiled, Kate.”

“Jesus,” she said, her voice still little more than a croak. “That’s awful.”

“I know,” said Matt.

“But still,” she said. “You’re the Operator who destroyed Albert Harker. No one’s going to care about the details. You’re going to be a hero.”

“I don’t feel like a hero,” he said.

There was silence between them for a long moment. Eventually, it was Matt who broke it.

“What do we do now?” he asked, then nodded at their fathers. “What do we do about them?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But there’s someone else we need to deal with first.”

She took his arm and led him across the loading bay to where Frankenstein was lying. They crouched down on either side of him, as Kate took hold of his upper arm and shook him gently. The monster’s eyes flickered and a low groan emerged from his uneven mouth.

“Colonel?” said Kate. “Colonel Frankenstein? Can you hear me?”

The monster’s eyes opened slowly. They revolved unnervingly, then fixed on the purple visors leaning over him.

“I hear you,” he rumbled. “Where’s Harker?”

“Dead,” said Matt.

“Who got him?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Matt. “He’s gone.”

Frankenstein pushed himself up to a sitting position and looked round the carnage of the loading bay. “Forgive me,” he said. His voice was like distant thunder. “I let you down.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Kate. “We’re all still here, aren’t we?”

“Just about,” said Frankenstein. He raised a hand to his chin and winced.

“Can you call this in?” asked Matt. “There’s something we need to do.”

Frankenstein frowned. Then he noticed the stationary shapes of Pete Randall and Greg Browning, and grunted with understanding.

“I’m not going to stop you,” he said. “Go. I’ll call it in.”

Kate nodded, then reached out and took Matt’s hand; she lifted him to his feet and led him slowly back across to where their fathers were standing. He saw his dad’s eyes widen as they approached, saw him take an involuntary half-step backwards, and felt shame rise through him.

He’s scared of me
, he realised.
They both are.

Beside him, Kate reached up and lifted off her helmet. She shook her head and her blonde hair fell down around her ears. She took a deep breath, and looked at her father.

The colour drained from Pete Randall’s face, as though he had suddenly been switched to monochrome.

He clutched at his chest and, for a terrible second, Matt thought he was having a heart attack. His friend stepped forward, her eyes widening in alarm.

“Kate?” gasped Pete Randall.

She nodded. “It’s me,” she managed, her voice cracking. “How are—”

She got no further. Her father rushed forward and lifted her off the ground in an embrace that crushed her tightly against his chest.

Matt watched, tears rising in the corners of his eyes, as Kate’s dad began to sob uncontrollably against her shoulder. Then he turned to face his dad, who was looking at his friend and his daughter with an expression full of more warmth and empathy than Matt had seen in the sixteen years they had lived under the same roof. He took a deep breath and lifted his helmet from his head. His father glanced in his direction, before returning his attention to Pete and Kate. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he turned back towards his son.

“Matt?” he asked. “My God. Is it really you?”

“It’s me,” replied Matt. “Hi, Dad.”

Greg stared for a long moment, his eyes wide and unblinking. Then he stepped forward very slowly and wrapped his arms round his son.

Jack Williams led his squad through the blood-soaked reception and into the huge main room of the printing press.

“Two dead here, sir,” said Todd McLean, pausing beside the bound and gagged bodies of the two in blue overalls.

“Leave them,” said Jack, without even looking. “Harker is the priority. Ready One.” He strode down the space between the silent machines, his T-Bone set steadily against his shoulder. Angela Darcy followed him and McLean brought up the rear, casting a final backward glance at the two corpses.

Jack was fuming as he made his way down the long room. Their pilot had pushed his helicopter to its limits, extracting every last bit of speed from its rumbling, protesting frame, but he was depressingly sure it had not been enough. He had been an Operator for a long time, and he trusted his instincts without question; those instincts were telling him that he was too late.

He rounded a corner at the end of the long, stationary conveyor belt and instantly saw that he was right. Colonel Frankenstein was standing off to one side of the wide loading bay that had opened up before him, while five men in blue overalls huddled round a forklift truck at the opposite end. In the centre, beside a huge spray of spilled blood, Matt Browning and Kate Randall were embracing two men he didn’t recognise. There was no sign of Albert Harker.

“What the hell is all this?” shouted Jack, striding out towards them. “Browning, Randall. I want a report this instant.”

Matt and Kate pulled away from the strangers and turned to face him.

“Jack,” said Kate, frowning. “What’s the—”

“I asked you for a report, Lieutenant Randall,” said Jack, his voice seething with anger. “Start with the whereabouts of Albert Harker, then follow that with a damn good explanation for why you decided to go after this particular Priority Level 1 target without informing your superiors.”

“Calm down, Jack,” said Frankenstein, his voice low.