Not deaf. Thank God.

He climbed back to his feet, and was relieved to see Bob Allen standing unsteadily beside the jeep before he checked their army. The Multinational Force’s line was ragged and broken, and he could see blood running down the necks of a number of the Operators, but, as he watched, the ones who had fallen to the ground dragged themselves up and started to regroup.

Movement.

It started near the summit of the hill, by the tall towers of the Basilique Saint-Nazaire, and gathered pace as it descended. By the time it reached the battlements and spilled through the gate and over the walls, it had become a flood, a vast torrent of vampires, thousands of them, maybe as many as there were Operators waiting for them. They stopped barely half a mile away and formed an uneven line, jostling and clawing and snarling at each other, their eyes casting a thick crimson glow in the gathering darkness. Turner magnified the view through his visor – which, mercifully, was made of plastic, and had survived – and scanned the old city of Carcassonne. In the distance, floating above the highest walls, he saw the dark silhouette of a single figure.

This is it, he thought.

“Darcy?” he said, his voice low.

“Yes, sir?” said his Security Officer.

“Are you OK?”

“We’re OK, sir,” she said. “What the hell was that?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” said Turner. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go.”

There was no further reply; he knew the strike team would be gathering their equipment and preparing to carry out their part in what was about to unfold.

Bob Allen climbed back into the jeep and glanced in his direction. The American’s face was white with pain, but his gaze was solid and determined; Turner met it with his own, and nodded.

The NS9 Director raised his radio.

“Go.”

Immediately, as though operated by remote control, the wide line of Operators moved forward; several of them staggered their first few steps, but not a single one hesitated. The howling din from Dracula’s followers increased as a number of them rose into the air, their burning eyes fixed on the approaching army. In the jeeps either side of the one Turner and Allen were standing in, the other Directors watched their men and women march away. Out of the corner of his eye, Turner saw Aleksandr Ovechkin cross himself and momentarily lower his head; when he raised it again, the Russian’s eyes were cold and clear.

The crunching rhythm of footsteps across the broken ground increased as the Operators quickened their pace. The vampires began to move forward, darting and snapping and hissing; through his visor, Turner could see savage grins, and the fervent anticipation of violence.

“Ready One!” bellowed Allen. “Kill them! Kill them all!”

Larissa followed the rest of the strike team out of the command centre, her spine tingling with excitement.

The waiting had been almost unbearable; now the battle was actually beginning, they would finally know whether they were going to savour victory or suffer defeat. In the distance, the first crackle of gunfire and the first screams of pain reached her supernatural ears. She shivered with a mixture of unease and anticipation, and looked at her squad mates.

“Shall we?” asked Valentin, a smile on his pale, handsome face.

“By all means,” said Angela. “Let’s do it.”

Jamie nodded, took hold of Frankenstein beneath his arms, and rose into the air. The monster grimaced at the indignity, but said nothing. Larissa followed suit, relishing – as she always did – the moment when her feet left the ground. Valentin and Angela joined them, and for a silent moment, the five men and women floated in the air, staring at each other. Larissa’s heart was pounding in her chest, but her mind was clear; she enjoyed the sensation of clarity, knowing from long experience that it would soon be replaced by the rampaging bloodlust of her vampire side.

“Follow me,” said Angela.

Ellison felt power surge through her as she stepped into the air and, for the briefest of moments, found herself completely overwhelmed.

She had been using her supernatural abilities constantly for the three days since she had been turned, and had believed she was starting to understand them; she could control her eyes and her fangs, was managing to cope with the sensory overload of her dramatically improved sight and hearing, and was able to fly in a straight line, more or less. But nothing she had experienced in the Playground had remotely prepared her for what she was feeling now; her vampire side had sent fire coursing through her nerve endings, coating her skin with electricity and bulldozing everything from her conscious mind beyond the need to fight and kill and drown in blood.

Ahead of her, the vampire army spread out for what seemed like miles, but Ellison didn’t care; she accelerated through the air with her eyes blazing and a wide grin on her face, and as she drew the stake from her belt, her mind was full of an urgent question.

How can I go back from this? How can I possibly let this power go?

There was an explosion of noise as she and her vampire colleagues thundered into Dracula’s followers, sending them flying in all directions. Behind her, the unturned Operators charged in, the noise of their guns deafening. The scent of blood filled her nostrils as screams and crunching thuds rang out from all sides, and Ellison felt savage satisfaction as she buried her stake into the chest of a vampire who looked like he was suddenly, belatedly unsure exactly what he had got himself into. The man burst with a thunderclap of blood, but she was already past him, pushing on into the blurred, screeching line of the enemy. She plunged her stake between the shoulders of a vampire whose face she never saw, felt its point puncture the heart, and leapt forward without even wasting time to look back and see the woman explode.

A vampire dropped out of a sky that was suddenly full of blood and movement, an expression of desperate hunger on his face, and swung an axe at her head. Ellison moved without thinking, sliding beneath the axe’s wicked arc, her knees skidding through the black ash of the battlefield. The swing dragged the vampire off balance; she rose like a shark from the depths and slammed her stake up through the soft flesh beneath his chin. The metal point burst out of the vampire’s mouth, shattering his teeth into enamel splinters, and his eyes widened comically as he screamed around the metal filling his mouth. She wrenched the stake out, and drove it into his chest. The man stared at her with a momentary expression of disbelief before he exploded, his blood drenching her uniform and splattering to the burnt ground like crimson rain.

Ellison shook liquid and flesh off the stake, and threw herself into the battle, her head full of the urge to commit violence, her vampire side in total, gleeful control.

High above the burnt, bloody ground, in the still air around the Basilique Saint-Nazaire, Dracula watched the opening moments of the battle unfold.

His eyes had flared red-black as the smell of blood floated up into his supernaturally sharp nostrils, and it had taken every bit of his self-control not to dive through the air and hurl himself into the fray, to merely watch and wait instead. He did not believe the battle would be lost; he was sure his enemies would not have anticipated the surprises he had in store for them, or be able to counter them when they were sprung. But a growing part of him hoped that he was wrong, that the men and women in black would somehow overcome the odds stacked against them, and that the fighting would reach the point where it required his personal intervention.

Until then, he would restrain himself.