And Allen had. Oh God, he had.

Men had died, and women had died, and he carried on, his heart accumulating layer after layer of scar tissue. He carried on because that was what was needed; there was no time to stop the clocks, no time for parades and medals and eulogies. He absorbed the pain, and then he gave new orders, sending Operators on missions every bit as dangerous as those that had cost their colleagues their lives, because that was what had to happen.

That was his burden, and it had never felt heavier than it did right now.

Allen pushed the image of Danny’s smiling face aside, and checked his watch.

Forty-five minutes till Paul gets here, he thought. Forty-five minutes until we’re ready. Then God help us.

High above the English Channel, Falcon 2 roared south-east. In its hold, the fifth vampire that had ever existed smiled to himself.

It had been more than a year since Valentin Rusmanov had surrendered to Jamie Carpenter and become a voluntary prisoner inside the Loop, so he was heartened by the looks of nervousness that still crossed the faces of the Operators sitting around him when they glanced in his direction; he had assumed that time and familiarity would have dulled his ability to inspire fear, but it did not appear so.

Most of them are still expecting me to betray them, he thought. They’re wondering how far I’m going to take this before I show my true colours.

The thought was delicious; there were few things that had pleased Valentin more over the long course of his life than generating unease and whispered gossip. It had sustained him through much of the seemingly endless twentieth century, as he had gradually been forced to accept that there was little left in the world that he had not experienced: nowhere he hadn’t been, nothing he hadn’t done. As technology and science had accelerated forward, the only thing that had kept his interest was the apparently unchanging nature of people. No matter the circumstances, human desires and emotions were constant; people wanted proximity to power and glamour, fought jealously for position, and would do awful, unthinkable things if properly motivated.

And motivation had been Valentin’s speciality.

The ancient vampire sat back and gave a friendly nod to an Operator who was staring at him with a furrowed brow and narrowed eyes. Valentin knew that some inside the Department would never accept that he was genuinely on their side, and he had never made any secret of the fact that all they could truly rely on was for him to do exactly what was in his own best interests. But those interests were currently firmly aligned with Blacklight’s, and, although he enjoyed the trepidation of his temporary colleagues, he had no intention of turning on them, at least for now.

His original impetus to side with the Department had been a desire to prevent the rise of his former master. Valentin had known that Dracula would seek him out and demand a return to his service, and that was something he had no intention of doing, under any circumstances; it was no exaggeration to say that he would rather die.

But now, after the Battle of Château Dauncy, Valentin had a more personal motivation; he wanted revenge for what Dracula had done to him in that field in southern France, for injuries that were by far the closest any had ever come to proving fatal. Had it not been for Larissa Kinley, the darkness that had enveloped him as Dracula’s sword sliced him in half would have been permanent, and for that, he was in debt to them both; he owed the vampire girl his eternal gratitude, and he owed his former master an agonising death.

The helicopter rumbled towards Carcassonne, as Valentin allowed his head to fill with the bitter prospect of vengeance, and the sickly sweet promise of spilled blood.

In the Basilique Saint-Nazaire, Dracula sat with his legs stretched out before him, his head lowered in silent contemplation.

In the old days, when he had still been only a man, he had taken private time before battle in a tent surrounded by the dark silhouettes of his Wallachian Guards; the grand, ornate interior of the Basilica was far more to his liking.

He had sent Osvaldo away ten minutes earlier to make final checks of his army and hostages, but the Spanish vampire was as efficient as he was loyal, and it would not be long before he returned with his report; in the meantime, Dracula savoured the silence and stillness of the old church, and allowed his thoughts to drift towards the battle that was now imminent. The first vampire had no intention of joining the fight unless it was absolutely necessary – it would not be fitting for the world that was soon to belong to him to witness him brawling like a common soldier – but an ever-growing part of him was hoping that became the case; he had scores that he would greatly prefer to settle in person.

The traitor Valentin, for one.

The vampire girl who had almost beaten him, for another.

The door to the Basilica swung open, and Dracula sighed inwardly as Osvaldo stepped through it and bowed his head. He could not chastise his most fervent follower for being too efficient, but he would have preferred to be alone for as much time as possible between now and when the battle began.

“Deliver your report,” he said, when the vampire was barely halfway down the aisle at the centre of the nave. “Do it quickly.”

“My lord,” said Osvaldo. “Eight more helicopters have arrived, but everything is exactly as you have commanded. We are ready.”

“Good,” said Dracula. “Find Emery and send him to me. If all goes well, there will be work for him. Then return when you see movement from our enemies.”

Osvaldo bowed again, and backed out of the church without a word. Dracula waited until the door thudded shut behind the vampire, then closed his eyes.

We are ready, he told himself. It is almost time.

There was silence throughout the displaced persons camp as the sun dropped below the western horizon.

Electricity crackled through the wide fields. Men and women whose homes had been destroyed by Dracula’s savage assault on their city stopped what they were doing; many crossed themselves as they stared at the darkening sky. Charity volunteers came out of their tents, support staff exited the temporary buildings, as, beyond the exclusion perimeter, journalists and camera operators fell silent.

The Operators that made up the Multinational Force did not see the sun set; they had already boarded the helicopters that would transport them the short distance to the battlefield, and were checking their weapons and equipment as they came to terms with the reality that was about to envelop them.

For long moments, nothing and nobody moved. The tension was palpable, causing hearts to race and skin to break out in gooseflesh. Rotor blades spun in blurs, engines rumbling beneath them. A column of trucks and armour sat motionless at the camp’s main gate, their exhausts belching blue smoke into the sky. Paul Turner sat beside Bob Allen in the back of an open-topped jeep, his skin tingling with anticipation as he surveyed the suddenly still camp. Eventually, after what felt like hours, the NS9 Director raised his radio to his lips and spoke two simple words.

“Move out.”

They rolled into Carcassonne in silence.

The trucks and armoured vehicles led the convoy between the shells of cars and fallen rubble that littered the roads. Around them, on every flat surface that remained – every fragment of standing wall and expanse of unbroken road and pavement – three words had been painted over and over, in every imaginable size and colour; three words that made the skin of every Operator crawl.