“Holy shit,” said Jamie, the glow in his eyes darkening.

“Do we go back?” asked Larissa.

“No,” said Valentin, instantly. “Absolutely not. Helicopters don’t matter.”

“What about the people in them?” asked Jamie.

“Valentin is right,” said Frankenstein, the words tasting foul in his mouth. “We can’t do anything for them. The only way we can help is by doing what we were sent to do.”

Silence descended over the strike team.

They know I’m right, thought the monster. If we fail, burning helicopters and dead pilots and Operators will mean less than nothing.

“All right,” said Jamie, tearing his gaze away from the fires and looking at his squad mates. “We go on.”

The young Lieutenant strode up the steep, cobbled road. Frankenstein followed him with Valentin and Larissa at his sides, their footsteps echoing in the warm evening air. They passed empty cafés and looted shops, their stock scattered across the pavements outside broken windows and missing doors; chocolates and wine and tiny plastic reproductions of the city itself lay discarded on the ground.

The road curved to the right as it rose. Jamie led the strike team round the bend, his T-Bone drawn and raised, then stopped dead in his tracks.

On the eastern side of the battlefield, fighting resumed with even greater ferocity. Ellison had stopped along with everybody else to watch the destruction of the helicopters, but had quickly realised there was nothing she could do and decided instead to take advantage of the situation; she had staked three distracted vampires before any of them had time to realise what was happening.

General Allen had bellowed into her ear as the chaos burst back into life, ordering three Battalions towards the new vampires approaching from the north; instantly, hundreds of Operators disengaged from the battle and sprinted back the way they had come. The order didn’t apply to her – she, along with the rest of the vampire Operators, was part of Battalion One – so she watched them go, cursing silently at how easily their force had been split, even though she had been expecting something similar; she had never really believed that Dracula would simply put his entire army front and centre and let the Multinational Force take them on.

A chorus of low growls rang out, and Ellison grimaced behind her visor; by letting her focus drift for just a split second, she had allowed herself to become surrounded by vampires. There were four of them, three women and a man, all of them soaked with blood and staring at her with hungry crimson eyes. She took a deep breath, formulating what she was going to do in her mind, then moved, a black blur in the deepening gloom.

She leapt at the closest vampire, taking her by surprise, and plunged her stake into the woman’s heart before she had time to so much as raise her hands in defence. The vampire exploded in Ellison’s face, soaking her uniform and coating her visor with gore. She kept moving forward, creating separation as she flipped the visor up; there was no time to clear it.

A hand clawed the air, missing her eyes by millimetres. She leant backwards and jabbed the stake at the trailing arm; it found the inside of an elbow, tore through the skin and split the joint entirely. The arm folded back the wrong way and its owner, a woman with dark hair and bright, burning eyes, screamed in sudden agony. Ellison yanked the stake out and swung it into the side of the woman’s head, sending her sprawling, then turned to face the two remaining vampires.

The third woman growled, and took a step backwards. Her eyes were blazing with hatred, but Ellison was pleased to see a flicker of fear in them too; the speed and savagery with which her comrades had been despatched had clearly left her uncertain. The male vampire leapt forward, his arms outstretched, his fingers curled into claws, but Ellison easily sidestepped his lunge and punched her stake into his neck as he careered past. Blood sprayed out in a shocking, high-pressure torrent as the man crashed to the ground, clutching at his gushing throat. With two lightning-quick movements, she staked both the man and the unconscious woman; they exploded as she turned back to face the final vampire, a smile on her blood-splattered face.

The woman stared at her for a long moment, her skin ghostly pale, then leapt into the air and fled. Ellison watched her go, satisfaction coursing through her, then turned back to the battle, her bloody stake in her hand, her visor still up, and saw a vampire with a long knife in its hand swooping towards the back of an Operator. Acting on pure instinct, she drew back her arm and threw the stake as hard as she possibly could.

It streaked through the air, glinting wickedly in the light of the burning helicopters, and struck the vampire just below its ribcage. The man tumbled screaming to the ground, as the Operator who had been about to receive a knife between the shoulder blades spun round. The dark figure staked the screeching man, then turned towards Ellison and raised its visor.

“Thanks,” said Jack Williams. “I owe you one.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said. “Are you OK?”

“Surviving,” said Jack, and smiled. “For now, at least. Do you want to kill some vampires with me?”

Ellison smiled at him. “I’d be delighted.”

Emery stared up at the crucified woman, trying to decide whether to wake her up so he could hurt her again.

He knew – had always known – that the way he saw the world wasn’t how everyone else saw it, and, although he had always refused to do so for the many psychiatrists and psychologists who had asked him over the years, he was quite capable of explaining the difference; he was simply unable to attach any importance to other people, to their feelings, their wants and desires, and – ultimately – their lives. He knew they were real, in the sense that they physically existed, but beyond that, they meant nothing to him; they were like ghosts, like grey shadows moving through the world. There was no reason to respect them, or consider them.

No reason not to hurt them.

No reason at all.

The woman groaned as her eyelids fluttered. Emery understood enough to know she would be considered attarctive by the other ghosts, but such things were of no interest to him. To him, she was merely a plaything.

Soft, fragile meat, and nothing more.

“Wake up,” he whispered.

The woman stirred again, and opened one eye. Emery held up a screwdriver, let her see it, and felt familiar warmth in his stomach as the eye widened with fear.

“I’m sorry,” he lied. “This is really going to hurt.”

“Be straight with me,” said the French President. “Is the battle lost?”

“No, sir,” said Minister Desjardins. “But the situation is precarious. That cannot be denied.”

“Do the rest of you agree with that assessment?” asked the President.

“Yes, sir,” said Chief of Staff Ducroix.

“Yes, sir,” said Vallens, in his empty office. “I agree.”

“So be it,” said the President. “General Ducroix, I want you to release my Presidential launch codes. Transmit them to Mont Verdun and tell them to order the Terrible to arm their missiles and load the target package. There is to be no launch unless I personally give the order. Is that clear?”

“It is clear, sir,” said Ducroix. “Although I urge you to give the Multinational Force more time.”

“As do I,” said Vallens.

“I will give them every chance to complete their mission,” said the President. “But if they fail, I will not hesitate to do what is necessary. If that is a problem for any of you, let me know now so I can relieve you of duty.”

Jesus, thought Vallens. This is real. This is actually happening.

“That won’t be necessary, sir,” said Ducroix. “I will transmit the codes and your order to Mont Verdun.”