The fireballs had illuminated the countryside for miles around; what they left in their wake were more than a hundred burning buildings, flames roaring up from their roofs and walls. They were scattered around the city sprawl, blocks – even miles – apart, but, as he watched his vampire army fan out through the dark streets, Dracula knew they were about to spread.

Osvaldo led his master’s followers along Carcassonne’s main street, a snarling mass of glowing eyes and growls and wide smiles of excitement. Their orders were clear and unambiguous, and the Spanish vampire was determined to see them carried out as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Burn it down. Burn it all down.

He spun in the air and flew backwards, facing the army of vampires.

“Teams of three,” he shouted. “Spread out and do as our lord has ordered.”

A roar rose from the crowd, a huge noise that was somewhere between a cheer and a growl, before it scattered in every direction, a dark shadow rippling out across the city. The two vampires Osvaldo had selected – Carina, the young Italian girl who had turned up at the farmhouse when Dracula was still in seclusion, and Richie, the quiet, solid American who had arrived in Carcassonne barely two hours after they had sacked the old city – flew to his side, and followed him along the suddenly empty street. He dropped to the ground outside a mini-supermarket nestled between a clothes shop and a cinema and pointed towards the former. Carina and Richie flew across to it, ripped its metal security shutter up, and smashed their way inside.

A deafening alarm rang out, but Osvaldo paid it no attention; he knew there was nobody coming. Instead, he floated towards the supermarket, and kicked its shuttered door off its hinges. A second alarm blared as he flew through the broken doorway and towards the shelves of alcohol at the back of the store, carrying a shopping trolley easily in one hand.

Moving quickly, he filled the trolley with bottles of vodka and carried it back out to the street. Carina and Richie were already there, and had torn a pile of T-shirts into long strips. The three vampires got to work, twisting off the caps of the bottles, shoving rags into their necks, and soaking the trailing wicks with alcohol.

“First pitch is yours,” said Richie.

Osvaldo nodded, a smile on his face. He lifted one of the bottles, took a cigarette lighter from his pocket, and applied its flame to the soaked strip of cloth. It flared blue and he hurled the bottle into the supermarket. It hit a shelf full of paperback books and exploded, spraying burning liquid in every direction. The books and shelves of produce caught immediately, and as the vampires moved away, the supermarket roared into an inferno.

Osvaldo threw another flaming bottle through the upstairs window of a tourist shop; its inventory of cheap T-shirts and flags and plastic souvenirs burst into flame like it had been soaked with petrol in advance. He led Carina and Richie down the street, setting fire to every second or third building, then ordered them away in opposite directions as they reached a wide junction; Carina flew in the direction of the train station as Richie carried an armful of bottles towards a tall office building, both vampires smiling savagely. Osvaldo carried on towards the edge of the commercial centre, then looked back, and felt a rush of pleasure at what he saw.

Carcassonne’s main street was already burning wildly out of control, fire billowing from the shops and offices and sending great clouds of sparks up into the dark night sky.

Bob Allen stared incredulously at the monitor.

The fires were spreading quickly, and from the news helicopter’s high vantage point it was clear that new ones were constantly bursting into life, so rapidly and across such a wide area that there was no doubt they were being started intentionally. A thick pall was spreading over Carcassonne, choking the air with acrid smoke that he could smell inside the command centre, more than ten miles away.

The door behind him swung open, and Jason Neves, the Red Cross site director, stepped into the room. His eyes were wide, his face tight and pale.

“Are you seeing this?” he asked. “It’s crazy.”

“I’m watching,” said Allen. “Are all your people out?”

Neves shook his head. “I’m sorry, General,” he said. “We’ve still got a team inside.”

Allen narrowed his eyes. “You told me the city was clear.”

“I thought it was,” said Neves. “The last team stopped to check a social housing block. They were almost out when the petrol stations went up.”

Allen groaned. “For Christ’s sake,” he said. “You knew the deadline. Everyone in the world knew it. Why didn’t you make them leave?”

“What was I supposed to do?” asked Neves. “I told them to ignore the block and return to camp, but they refused. If I’d sent a team back in to get them, we’d just have more people stuck inside.”

“Are there still residents in there?” asked Allen.

“I’m afraid that’s a certainty,” said Neves. “We evacuated as many as we could, but we couldn’t check every single building in Carcassonne in forty-eight hours. We estimate we got ninety-five per cent.”

“Goddamnit,” said Allen. He sighed, forcing himself to stay calm. “Where are they? Your team?”

“They were coming out on the N113,” said Neves. “We lost contact with them somewhere around Rue Claude Debussy.”

Allen unfolded a map of the city of Carcassonne, spread it out on the table in the middle of the command centre, and traced a finger across it.

“Four miles from here,” he said. “How many people?”

“Six,” said Neves. “The team leader is Francisco Rodriguez.”

“Tell me right now if there’s anything else I need to know, Jason.”

“There’s nothing else, General,” he said.

“All right,” said Allen. “Get out and let me deal with this.”

Neves nodded and backed out of the command centre. As the door swung shut, Bob Allen tipped his head back and squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth to prevent the scream of frustration building inside him from gaining release.

How much clearer could I have been about the deadline? How many times did I tell the goddamn Red Cross and goddamn UNICEF to be out of there at least an hour before? At least!

He took a long, deep breath, opened his eyes, and stared at the map; the location Neves had given was a residential neighbourhood straddling one of the main roads in and out of Carcassonne, and the ease of a rescue mission was going to depend on exactly where the Red Cross team were. If they had been able to stay on the N113, then it might, just might, be a straightforward extraction. But if the fires that were now burning wildly out of control had forced them into the suburban streets, there was no telling how tight the situation might have become.

Allen pulled his radio from his belt, typed a code into the keypad, and hit SEND. There was a burst of static, then Danny Lawrence spoke.

“Sir?”

“Priority Level 1, Danny,” he said. “I need your squad in the air in ninety seconds. There’s a Red Cross team inside the city.”

“How many?”

Allen smiled with pride. Danny hadn’t wasted time asking why there were still civilians inside Carcassonne; his only interest was in acquiring the intelligence he needed.

“Six,” he said. “I’m sending the coordinates to you now, and I want you to keep a comms channel open throughout. You can expect to meet resistance.”

“I’m on it, sir,” said Danny.

“Good boy,” said Allen. “Out.”

He pressed END and clipped the radio back to his belt. He walked back to the bench, opened a comms window on one of the monitors, and clicked CALL.

“Paul?” he asked. “Are you there?”

“I’m here, Bob,” said Paul Turner, sitting forward in the chair behind his desk as the NS9 Director’s voice emerged from the speakers in the walls of his quarters. “Do you know what the final evacuation figures are?”