“We don’t have exact numbers,” said Allen. “The Red Cross think we got ninety-five per cent out.”

“That’s good,” said Turner. “It’s miraculous, to be honest with you.”

“Thanks,” said Allen. “I don’t think anyone who’s still in there would agree with you, but we did the best we could.”

“I’m guessing most of those that are still there decided not to go?”

“Or couldn’t. Like I said, we don’t really know.”

“Did you get all your people clear?” asked Turner.

“We did,” said Allen. “Though I’ve just had to send a squad back in to extract a Red Cross team that got caught inside.”

“What are the emergency services doing?”

“Absolutely nothing,” said Allen, with a grunt of laughter. “You can see the pictures, Paul. The whole damn city is on fire. Even if I believed for a second that Dracula would let anyone try to put the fires out, which I don’t, there’s nothing they could do. It’s completely out of control.”

Turner looked at the footage playing on his wall screen; the individual fires had merged into a vast, rapidly spreading inferno. He glanced over at Victor Frankenstein, who was standing beside his desk, an unreadable expression on his face as he watched the screen. Turner had always suspected that Dracula’s move, when it finally came, would be terrible, but he had never even entertained the prospect of the first vampire burning a major European city to ash.

“Why is he doing this?” he asked. “Why claim a city then destroy it?”

“I have no idea,” said Allen.

“He never wanted the whole city,” said Frankenstein. “He wants the old city, the medieval city. You aren’t thinking about this like he is.”

“What do you mean, Colonel?” asked Allen.

“Dracula is a medieval General,” said the monster. “I don’t care what he’s learnt about the modern world, or from the battle outside Château Dauncy. Carcassonne is a walled medieval city, high and easily defendable. It is exactly the kind of place he would have taken as his base five hundred years ago. It is his new castle.”

“So what does burning down the rest of the city get him?” asked Allen.

“Apart from acting as a show of strength and scaring the hell out of everyone watching?” asked Frankenstein. “It will give him a perimeter, a ring of scorched earth that means nobody can get close without being seen. It’s a no-man’s-land, General. It’s a battlefield.”

The helicopter descended into the choking grey smoke, its running lights blazing, its engines howling.

Danny Lawrence sat in the hold, his visor down, his T-Bone resting on his lap, and stared at his squad mates. He had only been working with Anna Clement and José Arias since V-Day, when NS9 had reorganised its entire roster to spread its Operational experience as widely as possible, but he was already entirely comfortable with them. Clement had come from the Office of Naval Intelligence, and was every bit as calm and analytical as Danny would have expected, and Arias had been a Navy SEAL, the elite Special Forces regiment that had sent more men and women to NS9 than any other.

“Got them,” shouted one of the pilots, over the intercom. “Directly below. Taking us down.”

The helicopter lurched, sending Danny’s stomach leaping into his throat as it descended rapidly. He raised his visor, and looked at his squad mates.

“In and out,” he said. “Weapons free the second I open the door. We get them to the LZ and get the hell out of there. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” chorused Clement and Arias.

Danny nodded, and lowered his visor. He felt no nerves, no doubt, just the calm desire to carry out the orders he had been given and get his squad mates safely back to the camp.

The Black Hawk touched down with a heavy jolt. Danny was out of his seat instantly, unlocking the heavy access door and hauling it open. Smoke billowed into the hold, and he felt the heat of the fires through his climate-controlled uniform as he leapt down on to the tarmac. He checked his surroundings as his squad mates followed him out of the helicopter; the street was a long curve, with tightly packed rows of houses running parallel on either side. To the west, towards the N113, he could see nothing but fire, a thick wall of orange that had already engulfed the first half a dozen houses on both sides of the road. To the east, smoke filled the sky, lit from within by ominous flares of red.

There were still cars on the road, presumably abandoned by the former residents of the street as they fled; they were parked haphazardly, blocking driveways and paths. There was a tangle of crashed vehicles fifty metres east; the Red Cross Land Rover they were looking for was parked in front of this barricade of metal. Through the smoke, Danny could make out the dark shapes of six figures; they were standing beside the jeep, their arms waving frantically in his direction.

He twisted the comms dial on his belt and spoke directly into the ears of his squad mates.

“Target to the east,” he shouted. “Fifty metres. All six visible. Arias, lead us in. Clement, with me.”

Arias immediately crouched and ran forward, T-Bone in his hands, as Clement and Danny followed their colleague, keeping their eyes peeled for movement. The smoke swirled at head height, reducing visibility to a few metres, and the heat and noise of the burning city were overpowering; it was like trying to conduct an Operation in Hell. They reached the Land Rover, and Arias and Clement took up positions facing down the long road as Danny went to the men and women huddled beside it.

The volunteers had wrapped strips of clothing round their noses and mouths, but their eyes were red and streaming. One of them pointed to the helicopter.

“We go?” he asked, his voice a rasping croak.

“Is anyone hurt?” asked Danny.

The man shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We didn’t mean to—”

“Save it for when we’re back at camp,” interrupted Danny. “Follow me.”

He raised a hand towards his squad mates, pointed at the helicopter, and clenched his fist. They dropped in behind the six coughing, wheezing volunteers as he led them forward, counting down the metres in his head.

Forty-five.

Forty.

Thirty-five.

Thirty.

Twenty-fi—

A dark shape burst out of the shadows on the south side of the street and streaked towards them, low and fast. Danny skidded to a halt, raised his T-Bone, and pulled the trigger. The stake rocketed out of the barrel, the bang of exploding gas silent amid the roaring cacophony of the burning city, and tore through the gloom.

The onrushing vampire raised its head at the worst possible moment. The stake plunged through its left eye and out the back of its skull, trailing blood and brain and metal wire; it fell to the ground in a thrashing heap, and Danny hit the button to wind his weapon back in as he sprinted across the road, drawing a stake from his belt as he ran. The T-Bone’s projectile thudded back into the barrel at the same moment he reached the stricken vampire; its remaining eye was rolling wildly, its limbs drumming the concrete, and he thought it was almost a mercy to drive his stake into its chest. As the vampire exploded in a cloud of blood, gunfire rang out behind him and he spun round, searching for his squad mates through the smoke.

Fresh adrenaline burst through Danny as he saw Arias helping the Red Cross volunteers into the hold and Clement firing her MP7 at something he couldn’t see on the other side of the road. He raised his T-Bone to his shoulder as he ran to her side.

“Where is it?” he shouted.

Clement shook her head. “Lost it,” she said. “Definitely tagged it, though.”

He scanned the empty street. The smoke was darkening and thickening, and visibility was almost down to zero. He twisted another dial on his belt, switching his visor’s filter to infrared, but saw instantly that it was no use; the air around him was so hot that all he saw was a landscape of flat, featureless yellow.