“You’re talking about our colleagues, Matt,” said Kate, her eyes wide with shock. “About our friends.”

Matt glanced at her, and said nothing.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Frankenstein, his voice a low rumble. “Jack’s right. Nobody is going to agree to this.”

“That’s irrelevant, Colonel,” said Paul Turner.

“What do you mean?” asked Jack.

“We will not be asking anyone to take part,” said the Director. “We will be ordering them to. Participation in PROMETHEUS is mandatory.”

The cold working its way up Jamie’s spine spread through his body as he stared at the Director.

Everything’s changed, he thought. I don’t know when it happened, or why I didn’t notice, but it has. Whatever happens, whatever’s to come, I don’t know if there’s any way back from this.

We’re at the end of the line.

Marie Carpenter stepped out of the airlock for the first time since she had volunteered to take the cure, and felt something other than the sense of desperation that usually filled her when she looked at the grey surroundings of the cellblock.

She could normally read the words on the warning sign at the far end of the corridor, more than a hundred metres away, and feel the tingling warmth of the purple walls of ultraviolet light. Now, all she could see in the distance were the white lines painted along the floor, the border that visitors to the cellblock were not supposed to cross, so as not to get too close to the prisoners.

Her arm throbbed with pain inside its cast, despite the painkillers she had taken before she left the infirmary, her eyes were still swollen almost shut, and she felt exhausted, felt mentally and physically worn out. All that notwithstanding, Marie was as happy as she could remember being; she felt like herself, for the first time since Alexandru Rusmanov had sunk his fangs into her neck, and arguably much longer than that.

She walked slowly down the corridor, relishing the aches in her back and the mild headache lurking at the back of her skull. For more than a year, she had felt almost nothing physical; her vampire side had masked all discomfort, and a sensation of overwhelming power and euphoria had been only the flex of a muscle away.

What she wanted now, more than anything, was to see her son. She knew he had visited her in the infirmary the morning after her arm had been repaired, when she had been sleeping off the surgery, and that a change in the rules had prevented him from returning; the doctors had explained it all to her when she had wondered aloud if he was ever going to come and see her. She had a suspicion that Jamie would be angry with her for not having told him what she was going to do before she did it, but she was confident she could make him see why she had not been able to wait.

“Hello, Marie.”

She jumped, and spun round to see Valentin Rusmanov smiling at her. She had been so deep in thought that she had not realised she had reached his cell and, as ever in this type of situation, her first response was to be embarrassed; how rude it must have seemed as she just walked past without bothering to say hello.

“Hello, Valentin,” she said. “Sorry, I was in a world of my own.”

“That’s quite all right,” said the vampire. “I would imagine you have a good deal on your mind.”

“You would imagine correctly,” she said, and smiled. “How are you?”

“Unchanging,” said Valentin, returning her smile. “Come on in, why don’t you? I was about to make tea.”

“Thank you,” she said, and walked towards the cell. She paused at the ultraviolet barrier, even though she knew she no longer needed to worry about such things; the habit had become deeply ingrained. She took a deep breath and stepped through the purple light, feeling a warm tingle on her skin, and took a seat on the sofa as Valentin boiled the kettle and prepared two mugs; the look of disdain on his face as he placed teabags into them never failed to amuse her.

“So you did it?” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. “You took the cure?”

She nodded. “I did it.”

“Were you the first?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I think so.”

He looked at the cast on her arm, and smiled. “Risky.”

“I suppose it was,” she said. “One worth taking, though.”

Valentin carried the steaming mugs across the cell, handed one to her, and sat down at the other end of the sofa.

“Did you really hate being a vampire that much?” he asked.

“I did,” she said, and sipped her tea. “I really did.”

“Why, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I don’t mind at all,” she said. “I didn’t feel like myself. I saw the same face in the mirror, but I felt like I had become someone else. Or something else, at least. Don’t you ever feel like that?”

Valentin smiled. “I was turned more than five hundred years ago,” he said. “If I ever felt that way, I’m afraid I no longer remember it.”

“So it’s safe to say you won’t be taking the cure then?”

“No,” said Valentin. “I don’t see that happening.”

Marie nodded. “You love it, don’t you?”

The old vampire narrowed his eyes, and smiled. “Love what?”

“Being powerful,” said Marie. “Being older and wiser and stronger and faster than everyone else. It’s what you live for.”

Valentin’s smile widened into a grin. “It was,” he said. “It certainly was, for a long time. For more than a century, men and women flocked to my house in New York for the express purpose of showering me with their adoration. They would literally kill to spend time in my presence, and I’m afraid to say that I permitted them to do so. In truth, I encouraged them to.”

Marie grimaced. “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” she said. “I don’t like to think of you in such a way.”

The vampire nodded. “I appreciate that,” he said. “And I agree that it is hardly appropriate afternoon tea conversation. But I can no more change the past than you can. Mine lives inside me, as yours lives inside you. Although the reality of mine is far less blood-soaked than you have likely been led to believe.”

“Really?” she asked. Despite his reputation, Valentin had only ever been polite to her, and kind, and she could hear the hope in her voice.

“Really,” said the old vampire. “I know all too well the stories that circulate about me, the legends and myths, because I started many of them myself. If you ask Paul Turner, or any other man or woman inside this base, they will tell you that I have been something of a one-man genocide, an evil creature of extravagant cruelty and viciousness who has ended thousands of lives. The truth, my dear Marie, is markedly different. I doubt I have personally killed more than a hundred people in the last five centuries, which, when you are as notorious as I have been, when you are an endless target for vampires desperate to prove themselves, is really not very many. It is certainly far fewer than Valeri, and orders of magnitude fewer than Alexandru, who fitted the descriptions whispered about me far better than I ever have. I would never claim to be innocent. I have done terrible things, and been party to many more. But I am not the monster they would have you believe.”

Marie realised she had been holding her breath as the ancient vampire spoke, and let it out in a long sigh. “Why haven’t you told anyone this?” she asked.

Valentin smiled. “Because I take great satisfaction from people being scared of me,” he said. “Getting what you want without having to use violence is true power. I was taught that many centuries ago, and it still holds true.”

“By Dracula?” she asked.

“Indeed. He was a brilliant man, in many ways. A perfect creation of his time, possessed of endless determination and absolute ruthlessness, willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure victory. His time has long passed, however. He does not fit the world as it is.”