Through the comms plug in his ear, he heard disembodied shouts of pain and protest as Qiang and O’Malley joined the fight. A vampire lurched towards him, his eyes blazing with fury, a sign in his hand that he had presumably taken from one of the protesters – it read VAMPIRES ARE A PLAGUE FROM GOD – and swung the wooden board at Jamie. He ducked beneath it, took hold of the incredulous, off-balance vampire by his collar, and threw him up and out of the crowd; the man spun end over end, and tumbled from view on the other side of the wide road. Another man took the vampire’s place, but made no move towards him; he was bleeding heavily from a wound in his forehead, and one of his eyes had been glued shut with blood. Jamie shoved the man in the direction of the hospital, then pushed forward again, scanning the crowd for the vampire who had been hit by the bottle.

There.

He lunged through the crowd, and reached her at the same moment as she grabbed the man that had thrown the bottle by the throat and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. The man’s face was bright red, his eyes bulging with fear, his legs kicking uselessly above the pavement as she drew him close to her blood-splattered face. Jamie skidded to a halt, drawing his MP7 from his belt and raising it as he did so.

“Put him down!” he yelled.

The woman gave no indication of having heard him; her attention was entirely focused on the face she was holding in front of her own.

Jamie hesitated. He could shoot the vampire in the legs, without killing her or harming anyone else, but was surprised to realise how strongly he didn’t want to; the woman had blood pouring out of her head, despite the fact that she had done absolutely nothing wrong, and he couldn’t remotely blame her for being furious. Instead, he raised the MP7 towards the sky and let out a deafening burst of automatic gunfire.

The fighting stopped instantly, as men and women hurled themselves flat on the ground, their hands over their ears. The vampire woman looked round at him, surprise filling her glowing eyes.

“Put him down,” repeated Jamie, and pointed the gun at her. “He isn’t worth dying for.”

“What would you know about it?” she growled. “You don’t know what it’s like to be hated for something that isn’t your fault.”

Jamie raised his visor. Boiling heat was filling his eyes and she recoiled, but did not let go of the struggling, spluttering man.

“I know,” he said. “Believe me, I do. I get why you’re here, why you wanted to be cured. And you still can be. Put him down and this can be over for you tonight.”

She looked at the man, then back at Jamie, the light in her eyes fading, ever so slightly.

“Are you going to arrest him for throwing that bottle at me?” she asked. “Or doesn’t it count, because I’m a vampire?”

“Put him down and I’ll see to it that he spends at least tonight in jail,” said Jamie. “I promise you.”

The woman growled, but it sounded more full of uncertainty than anger.

“Fine,” she said.

She lifted the man as high as she could reach, then released her grip. He fell like a dead weight to the pavement, and Jamie felt a savage surge of pleasure as his ankle broke with a loud, dry snap. The man’s face turned bright white, before he threw back his head and screamed, the sound echoing over the crowd.

“Thank you,” said Jamie. “Go and take your place inside.”

The woman fixed him with a long stare, then nodded and walked slowly towards the hospital.

“Hang on a minute,” said one of the police officers. “She just broke that bloke’s ankle. You can’t just let her go.”

Jamie turned on the man, his eyes blazing, a thick growl bursting from his throat. The policeman took a step back, his eyes wide with fear.

“Get this piece of shit inside and arrest him the very second the doctors have splinted his ankle,” said Jamie. “And if you so much as speak to that woman I will end your career. Is that absolutely clear?”

The policeman nodded vigorously.

“Good,” said Jamie. He looked around at the still, silent crowd. “Those of you who are not vampires,” he continued, raising his voice to a shout. “If you don’t want to be arrested, you have thirty seconds to get out of my sight. Vampires, stay right where you are.”

Nobody moved.

“Now!” he yelled. “Twenty-nine! Twenty-eight! Twenty-seven!”

The crowd scattered, leaving broken signs and empty bottles and pools of spilled blood behind it. Jamie waited until the running footsteps had faded from even his hearing, then turned to face the vampires that remained. There were at least sixty or seventy of them, men and women who had used the eruption of violence as a chance to either stand up for one of their own or gain some measure of release against people who openly hated them. Jamie could not condone their behaviour, but nor could he condemn it.

“We’re finished for tonight,” he said, “but we’ll be back tomorrow. We probably shouldn’t be, given what a bloody mess this turned into, but this is more important than a few broken bones and a bit of hurt pride. So I want you all to come back tomorrow evening, and queue up and wait your turn. Don’t let anyone stop you from making this choice. Don’t let them win. All right?”

There was a low murmur of agreement.

“Good,” he said. “Get out of here.”

The vampires dispersed, some through the air, some trudging across the ground. Jamie watched them go, as Jack Williams appeared beside him.

“It’s going to be like this every time,” said Jack. “Isn’t it?”

“I hope not,” he said. “But yeah. Probably.”

Jack raised his visor and smiled. “It’s a strange feeling,” he said. “Protecting vampires from humans. They never really covered it in Blacklight training.”

“I know,” said Jamie. “Everything’s changing. We just have to try and keep up.”

“Deep,” said Jack.

“Piss off,” said Jamie, and grinned at his friend.

Kate Randall frowned as she read the message on her screen, and started pulling her uniform back on.

Her console had beeped when she walked back into her quarters from the shower block, as her brain was attempting to process a long, chaotic day in the Security Division. So far, there had been no official reports from inside PROMETHEUS, but word was spreading through the Loop like wildfire. Everyone now knew that at least one Operator had been imprisoned for refusing to take part, and everyone was aware that Angela Darcy had been the first person bitten by Valentin Rusmanov. Kate had known before everyone else: the Security Officer had sent her a message telling her that she was in charge until her commanding officer was discharged from the infirmary. And, although it was exactly what Kate wanted, it had proven a bad day to have her ambitions realised.

The first dispensation of the cure had descended into violent chaos, and the process was being expanded to three more hospitals tonight, all of which needed Operators to secure them, and all of whom had watched the footage from London and voiced their concerns. On top of that, the preparations were continuing in France as the clock ticked down towards Dracula’s deadline, and Kate was trying to deal with the personal fallout of the previous day’s Zero Hour Task Force briefing. She had sent a number of messages to both Matt and Jamie, but had received no reply from either of them.

As a result, she groaned when she saw that the message was from the Director of the Department.

Come and see me immediately.

Kate tied her wet hair back and zipped up her uniform. She pulled on her boots, and a minute later she was exiting the lift on Level A and treading the well-worn path towards the Director’s quarters.