69: Death’s Grey Land, Part Ten
Chapter 70: Death’s Grey Land, Part Eleven
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