Darkest Night Read online

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Follow Will Hill on twitter @willhillauthor

  www.department19exists.com

  www.facebook.com/department19exists

  Copyright © Will Hill 2015

  Cover illustration © Bose Collins; logo images © Shutterstock.com

  Will Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780007505890

  Ebook Edition © MAY 2015 ISBN: 9780007505883

  Version: 2015-05-09

  For everyone who has come this far.

  Just a little further …

  The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

  But I have promises to keep,

  And miles to go before I sleep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.

  Robert Frost

  We have learned to believe, all of us – is it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do we not promise to go on to the bitter end?

  Abraham Van Helsing

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Six Months Earlier: Zero Hour Plus 2 Days

  Chapter 1: Home Truths

  Chapter 2: Diminished Responsibility

  Chapter 3: Running on Empty

  Zero Hour Plus 11 Days

  Chapter 4: The Definition of Insanity

  Chapter 5: Fallout

  Chapter 6: Acceleration

  Zero Hour Plus 13 Days

  Zero Hour Plus 41 Days

  Zero Hour Plus 67 Days

  Zero Hour Plus 91 Days

  Zero Hour Plus 109 Days

  Zero Hour Plus 140 Days

  Zero Hour Plus 163 Days

  Zero Hour Plus 191 Days

  Chapter 7: Redundant

  Chapter 8: Not for Profit

  Chapter 9: The Faintest Glimmer

  Chapter 10: Collateral Damage (I)

  Chapter 11: The Enemy of my Enemy

  Chapter 12: Haven

  Zero Hour Plus 192 Days

  Chapter 13: Sleight of Hand

  Chapter 14: Strange Bedfellows

  Chapter 15: At Ease

  Zero Hour Plus 193 Days

  Chapter 16: A Butterfly Flaps its Wings

  Chapter 17: The Weight of The World

  Chapter 18: Huddled Masses, Yearning to Breathe Free

  Chapter 19: Ratcatchers

  Chapter 20: Human Trial

  Zero Hour Plus 194 Days

  Chapter 21: No going Back

  Chapter 22: Quicksand

  One Week Later: Zero Hour Plus 201 Days

  Chapter 23: Empirical Evidence

  Chapter 24: Collateral Damage (ii)

  Three Days Later: Zero Hour Plus 204 Days

  Chapter 25: A new Day

  Chapter 26: Rapid Reactions

  Chapter 27: Prometheus

  Chapter 28: Close Enough To Touch

  Chapter 29: Death From Above, Part One

  Chapter 30: The Art of War

  Chapter 31: Death From Above, Part Two

  Zero Hour Plus 205 Days

  Chapter 32: The Morning After

  Chapter 33: The Elephant in The Room

  Chapter 34: A Vision of the Future

  Chapter 35: International Aid

  Chapter 36: Willing Victims

  Chapter 37: Down the Rabbit Hole

  Chapter 38: The Hottest Ticket in Town

  Zero Hour Plus 206 Days

  Chapter 39: Collateral Damage (III)

  Chapter 40: Jurisdiction

  Chapter 41: The Scouring of Carcassonne

  Chapter 42: All Good Things …

  Zero Hour Plus 207 Days

  Chapter 43: The Morning After

  Chapter 44: Scorched Earth

  Chapter 45: Sins of the Father

  Chapter 46: The Waiting Game

  Chapter 47: Aftershocks

  Chapter 48: Directors’ Guild

  Chapter 49: Enemy at the Gates

  Zero Hour Plus 208 Days

  Chapter 50: Just when you Think …

  Chapter 51: … It can’t get any Worse

  Chapter 52: Insertion Point

  Chapter 53: Come Together

  Chapter 54: Some Corner of a Foreign Field

  Chapter 55: The Tip of the Spear

  Zero Hour Plus 209 Days

  Chapter 56: A Promise is a Promise

  Chapter 57: Clean Slates

  Chapter 58: Dulce Et Decorum Est

  Chapter 59: In Fading Light

  Chapter 60: Death’s Grey Land, Part One

  Prologue, Redux

  Chapter 61: Death’s Grey Land, Part Two

  Chapter 62: Death’s Grey Land, Part Three

  Chapter 63: Death’s Grey Land, Part Four

  Chapter 64: Death’s Grey Land, Part Five

  Chapter 65: Death’s Grey Land, Part Six

  Chapter 66: Death’s Grey Land, Part Seven

  Chapter 67: Death’s Grey Land, Part Eight

  Chapter 68: Death’s Grey Land, Part Nine

  Chapter 69: Death’s Grey Land, Part Ten

  Chapter 70: Death’s Grey Land, Part Eleven

  Chapter 71: After the Fire

  Zero Hour Plus 210 Days

  Chapter 72: The End (I)

  Zero Hour Plus 211 Days

  Chapter 73: The End (II)

  Zero Hour Plus 213 Days

  Chapter 74: The Beginning

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Will Hill

  About the Publisher

  Jamie Carpenter soared over the battlefield, carrying Frankenstein effortlessly beneath him, marvelling at the scale of the fighting taking place below.

  His view of it was fleeting, such was the speed he and the rest of the strike team were travelling, but it was enough to make quite an impression; the battle was already spread out across more than a mile of blasted landscape, the air full of movement and gunfire and screaming, the ground littered with black-clad bodies and soaked with vampire remains. Jamie tore his gaze away and focused on the looming shape of the medieval city, its pale stone darkening in the fading light, and, as he rose over the outer walls, his squad mates close behind him, he saw a distant figure floating near the summit of the hill, high above the raging battle.

  Dracula, he thought, his heart leaping in his chest. Right where they said he would be.

  This is going to be too easy.

  Jamie swooped over the walls, rising above the wide cobbled street that led up through the city. He accelerated, the evening air cool as it rushed over his uniformed body, the rooftops passing below him in a blur, and allowed a smile to rise on to his face. As he soared over a wide square, he heard something above him, something that sounded like a flock of birds, and rolled to the side so he could look up and see what it was.

  The
sky above him was full of vampires.

  They dropped silently out of the clouds, a vast dark swarm, and ripped into the strike team like a bolt of lightning, sending them spinning towards the ground. Something connected with the side of his helmet and he saw stars, his vision greying at the edges as his grip on Frankenstein loosened and gave way; the monster slipped from his grasp and fell towards the ancient city. Jamie lunged after him, but was hammered from all sides by heavy blows that drove him back and forth, bellowing with pain. He fought back furiously, but might as well have been trying to punch the wind; there seemed to be vampires all around him, as insubstantial as smoke, apart from when they struck. He ducked under a swinging fist and looked desperately around for his squad mates, but it was like trying to see through a colony of bats that had taken wing at the same time; all around him was darkness and churning movement.

  A boot slammed into his stomach. Jamie folded in the air, the breath driven out of him, and sank towards the ground, barely able to even slow his fall. Cobblestones rose up to meet him, and he hit them hard enough to drive his teeth together on his tongue, spilling warm coppery liquid into his mouth. Pain raced through him, before being driven away by the heady taste of his own blood.

  He leapt to his feet and scanned the narrow street he had landed in. There was no sign of his squad mates, or the vampires that had attacked them. He looked up, expecting to see them hurtling down towards him, but the sky was clear and empty; it was as though they had never been there at all.

  Stupid, he told himself, and felt his eyes blaze with heat. Arrogant. Stupid.

  Jamie leapt into the air, determined to locate the rest of the strike team and get their mission back on track.

  A hand closed round his ankle and whipped him downwards.

  Surprise filled him so completely that he didn’t get his hands up until it was too late; his helmet thudded against the ground, and everything went black.

  Jamie Carpenter stared at his father.

  Time seemed to have stopped; there was utter silence, as though even the wind that had been gently rustling the trees around the cottage had paused. Jamie’s heart was a solid lump of ice, his limbs frozen in place, his eyes unblinking, his mind stuck on a perpetual loop.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

  His father looked different than the last time Jamie had seen him; he looked old. His face was deeply lined, and pale, as though he had not seen the sun in a long time. There were streaks of grey in his still-thick hair, and he looked worn out, like he was stretched too thin. But his eyes, the bright blue eyes that his son had inherited, still danced in the yellow glow of the light bulb above the door, and it was into them that Jamie found himself staring as his mind tried to process what he was seeing.

  The still, silent moment lasted an unknowable length of time. The two men – one young, one old – stood motionless, a distance between them that was far more than merely physical; it contained an ocean of history, of grief and loss and wasted time. Then a noise emerged from Jamie’s father’s throat, a thick, involuntary sound like a gasp for air, and the spell was broken. The inertia in Jamie’s mind spun loose, replaced by outright horror, by disgust so strong it was almost physical. He was suddenly full of the desire to run, to turn and flee from this place, from this apparition from the past, but, before he could force his reeling body to move, his father swept forward and lifted him into a hug so tight the air was trapped in his chest, and the disgust was replaced by a shuddering wave of relief, of something utterly, essentially right.

  His eyes closed of their own accord, and his face fell against his father’s shoulder, his hands dangling at his sides. He could feel his dad’s heart pounding, feel the tremble in his arms as they held him tight. Jamie gave himself over to the emotions flooding through him, powerless to resist them; grief, pain, relief and desperate, sharp-edged happiness combining into a sensation he could barely endure.

  Then his mind conjured up a single memory: his mother, standing beside him at the funeral of her husband. She was dressed all in black, and her beautiful, dignified face was etched with pain and covered in the shiny tracks of her tears. She was gripping his hand as though it was the only thing keeping her from collapsing to the floor, and she looked utterly lost, as if she had been thrust unwillingly into a world that no longer made sense, that was full only of pain and grief. The memory cleared Jamie’s mind in an instant, wiping away the bittersweet cocktail that had momentarily overwhelmed him and replacing it with a single, burning emotion.

  Fury.

  He raised his arms and pushed his father backwards, breaking the embrace. Julian stumbled, a frown of confusion on his face, then regained his balance and stared at Jamie.

  “What’s wrong, son?” he asked, his voice low and thick.

  “What’s wrong?” growled Jamie, fury boiling and raging inside him, the sensation familiar and entirely welcome. “You actually have the nerve to ask me that? Everything’s wrong! Everything! And all of it’s your fault!”

  His father’s eyes widened with shock. “Jamie, I—”

  “Shut up,” said Jamie, his voice trembling with anger. “Just shut up. I went to your funeral. I stood next to Mum, next to your wife, and watched them bury you. Do you have any idea what that did to her?”

  “No,” said Julian. “I can’t possibly—”

  “I’m not done,” interrupted Jamie. “Not even close. You let us think you were dead. I watched you die, and that memory has lived with me every single day since. Our entire lives turned to shit after you were dead. You couldn’t let us know? Couldn’t even get a message to us? Something?”

  “It wasn’t safe,” said Julian. “I was trying to protect you both.”

  Jamie heard a growl rise from his throat, and felt a momentary surge of savage satisfaction as he saw his father take a frightened half-step backwards.

  “That’s all right then, is it?” he said. “Everything’s cool, because you were trying to protect us. How well do you think that went?”

  “I know,” said Julian. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Jamie. I made a mistake, I understand that now. But I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Ask your friends for help?” suggested Jamie. “The ones who’d fought alongside you dozens of times, and who would have done everything they could if you’d just asked them.”

  Julian nodded, and held his hands up. “You’re right, Jamie. You are. And I don’t blame you for being angry with me. I’m just trying to explain.”

  “You can’t,” said Jamie. “There’s nothing you can say to make this OK. Don’t you get that? Mum cried herself to sleep every night after you died, and we had to move house every few months because the whole country believed you were a traitor. We had to leave our home, and our friends, and we just barely survived the chaos you left behind. And now you’re back, and what? You want me to tell you that I forgive you, that we can just put it all behind us and be a family again? Not a chance. Not a chance in hell.”

  “I’m sorry,” repeated Julian. His face was ashen. “There’s nothing else I can say, Jamie. I’m truly sorry.”

  “I believe you,” said Jamie. “But I don’t have time to give a shit about how sorry you are. Where did you go?”

  “What?”

  “When you pretended to die,” said Jamie. “Where did you go?”

  “America,” said Julian. “There was a rumour about a vampire who’d been cured. When I heard about what happened to your mum, I went looking for him.”

  The fury boiling through Jamie turned as cold as ice.

  “You knew?” he asked, his voice low and full of menace. “You knew about Lindisfarne?”

  Julian nodded. “I knew,” he said. “I heard about what you did. I was so proud, son, so proud of—”

  “You knew your wife had been turned and your son had joined Blacklight, and still you didn’t come in? Even then, you couldn’t do the right thing?”

  Julian winced, and said nothing.

  “How did you k
now?” asked Jamie. “Who told you?”

  “I can’t say,” said Julian. “I swore.”

  The answer burst into Jamie’s mind like a bolt of lightning, filling him with white-hot clarity. He felt his stomach churn and his legs turn to jelly beneath him.

  Oh no. Oh please, no.

  He sought another answer, one that wasn’t so terrible, but knew instantly that he was wasting his time; there was only one person it could have been.

  The one person he wished it wasn’t.

  “I have to go,” he said, and turned towards the door.

  “Hey!” shouted Julian. He stepped forward and took hold of his son’s arm. Jamie turned his head and stared down at the hand until his father released his grip and stepped back.

  “What?” he asked. “What do you want from me?”

  “This isn’t how I wanted this to go, son,” said Julian. “This isn’t what I wanted at all.”

  Jamie laughed, incredulous. “Even now?” he said. “Even now, what you want is all you care about.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” said Julian, his face reddening. “You know it isn’t. Why are you making this so hard?”

  “And now you’re blaming me?” asked Jamie, his voice a low hiss. “You actually have the balls to stand there and blame me for this? You did this, Dad. You did it all on your own. I don’t know why you’ve decided to reappear now, and I don’t know what you want from me, but I have to go. Now.”

  Julian stared at him. “Don’t you even want to know how I did it?” he asked. “How I faked my death?”

  “I couldn’t give less of a shit,” said Jamie. “And I’ll tell you something else, something that you can think about when I’m gone and you’re on your own again. I’m ashamed to be your son. Do you hear me? Ashamed.”

  The red in Julian’s face darkened. “That’s enough, Jamie,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t care what’s happened, or how angry you’re feeling right now. I am still your father and you will not speak to me like that.”

  Jamie laughed again, a sharp grunt of derision, and turned to the door. Again, his father stepped forward and took hold of his arm, and Jamie felt heat burst into his eyes as his self-control finally failed him. He spun, eyes blazing, fangs gleaming, and shoved his father away, hard. Julian was thrown across the room, slammed against the wall, and landed in a heap on the floor. He stared up at his son with a face full of terror, the expression of a man who is watching his worst nightmare come true before him. Jamie stepped into the air and floated above the carpet, fixing his father with his terrible crimson gaze.