Less than fifteen minutes later, however, the bulletin had been updated, and Admiral Seward’s retirement announcement removed. Why? Why would the Royal Navy remove a tribute to such a highly decorated member of their ranks? Was it a premature announcement? Was it removed at the request of the man himself? Or was it because Admiral Henry Seward has been named by multiple witnesses, both human and vampire, as a former Director of Department 19?

Let us consider the facts: firstly, the name. One of the most popular theories to have emerged since V-Day is the belief that the contents of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, notably its main characters, were real. This has proven problematic as, with the exception of the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, who was a notable public figure of the time, no records have ever been found of Jonathan Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, or any of the other men and women described in the novel. Those inclined towards the conspiratorial insist that all such records were destroyed when Blacklight was founded, although this correspondent finds that explanation somewhat hard to swallow. Nonetheless, if one is inclined to believe, as has been widely claimed, that Blacklight has evolved over the decades and centuries under the stewardship of the descendants of a small group of founding fathers, then the name Seward is clearly of significance.

Secondly, the Admiral’s record. The decorations listed include three of the highest honours that this country bestows – the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Bath, the Order of Merit, and the Distinguished Service Order. These honours make Henry Seward one of the most highly decorated Royal Navy officers of the last half a century. But nobody that I have spoken to today, either in Whitehall or at Portsmouth, has been able to provide me with a single detail of the Admiral’s career – not a posting, a ship, or even a personal anecdote. To put it bluntly, nobody has ever heard of him.

Could that be because the Admiral spent his career in the shadowy, highly classified world of Blacklight? It’s likely that we, the public, will never know, at least not with any certainty. But one thing is clear – as Department 19 is dragged, slowly and unwillingly, into the light, Henry Seward’s will not be the last name subjected to close scrutiny in relation to this country’s defence against the supernatural. In the meantime, all that remains is for this correspondent to wish the Admiral a happy and peaceful retirement, hopefully with nary a vampire to be seen …

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CIVILIAN MEDIA EXTRACT

Ref: 418905/F

Source: The South Yorkshire Herald

Date: 29th September

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NEW ‘NIGHT STALKER’ ATTACK INCREASES TENSION IN MIDLANDS

Robert Viner, Senior Correspondent, Sheffield

A vampire was killed last night on the outskirts of Nottingham in an attack that bears similarities to the so-called ‘Night Stalker’ killings that have blighted the Midlands over the last month.

The victim was killed in a warehouse in the Trent Bridge area of Nottingham, his remains marked in the same way as the nine previous victims – a wolf’s head sprayed on to them with white paint. Previous vampire victims attributed to the ‘Night Stalker’ have had the front doors of their homes vandalised in the same way, in what has been interpreted by many as a reference to symbols painted on medieval dwellings to mark the presence of plague.

The identity of only a single one of the ‘Night Stalker’ victims has been released to the public – Albert Matheson, a convicted child molester who had been living in the Kimberley area under an assumed name. Nottinghamshire Police have confirmed that they believe they are looking for a single individual, although they have not ruled out the possibility of copycat attacks. They have appealed for anyone with information regarding last night’s incident to contact them immediately.

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Jamie Carpenter walked along the corridor of Level 0 towards a meeting he no longer saw any point in.

The Zero Hour Task Force had been created specifically to deal with Dracula, and to attempt to prevent the passing of the Intelligence Division’s best estimate of when the first vampire would regain his full strength, the implication being that unless he was stopped before then, it would be unlikely he could be stopped at all.

Zero Hour had been six months ago.

Jamie reached the Ops Room, laid a hand on its door, and took a deep breath, steeling himself against the next thirty minutes or so. There had been a time when he had been proud to be a member of the Task Force, working on matters of the very highest priority alongside people he had respected. But Henry Seward was gone, Cal Holmwood was dead, he no longer spoke to Frankenstein, and Richard Brennan had turned out to be a spy who had tried to assassinate Kate and Paul Turner before he too had died. The Zero Hour briefings, once so full of purpose, had become meetings of misery, of decline and failure.

The release of Dracula’s video had initially shocked them, then given them momentary hope that it might provide clues to the first vampire’s location. But it had led nowhere, despite painstaking analysis of every frame; there had been nothing in the video to suggest where he was or what he might do next, and every other line of enquiry had turned as cold as ice. As a result, Jamie no longer believed there was any chance of finding Dracula before he wanted to be found, and was far from alone in that opinion. And with no updates on the vampire the Task Force had been created to stop, the Zero Hour briefings were now usually full of the terrible things that the public were routinely doing to vampires, and to each other.

The revelation of the existence of the supernatural had unleashed a wave of chaos and violence, one that showed no signs of abating. Patrol Responds, the routine missions that had once seen Operational Squads hunting down and destroying vampires, had become exercises in policing the human population as they hacked and clawed at each other, fear and paranoia hijacking their reason. On a seemingly daily basis, the government called for calm, the supernatural integration groups called for harmony, and those vampires who had been brave enough to put their heads above the parapet tried to explain to the frightened populace that the overwhelming majority of their kind were not dangerous.

But more than six months after V-Day, as the date of Gideon’s explosive appearance on Coffee Break had become known, the violence continued to escalate, and nobody seemed to have a clue how to stop it.

Jamie pushed open the door and nodded at the men and women already sitting around the Ops Room table. He spotted an empty seat next to Kate, avoided Frankenstein’s uneven gaze, and sat down at the same moment as Paul Turner got to his feet and walked to the lectern at the front of the room.

“Zero Hour Task Force now in session,” said the Director. “Apologies from Lieutenant Browning and Major Van Thal, good morning to the rest of you.”

There was a chorus of muttered greetings and a ripple of nodded heads.

“There’s nothing major that needs covering this morning, so I’ll keep it quick,” continued Turner. “Firstly, I’m—”

“You’re pleased to report that Dracula was successfully located and destroyed overnight?” suggested Angela Darcy.

Turner gave her a cold stare, then smiled and shook his head as the rest of the Task Force burst out laughing. And for a brief moment, the dull pain that had taken up residence inside Jamie’s chest was replaced by a bittersweet feeling of nostalgia. This was how it had been at the beginning, when he was first introduced into a world full of the fantastic and the terrifying, when the camaraderie of the Department had filled a hole in him that he had believed unfillable. The darkness had always lurked outside, but inside there had been laughter, and light.