“Load up!” he shouted, reverting to his normal view. “Let’s get out of here.”

Clement nodded and ran towards the Black Hawk. He backed up alongside her, his T-Bone at his shoulder, scanning the street for movement, until she leapt up into the hold and extended a gloved hand towards him. Danny grabbed it and climbed up into the helicopter.

“Everyone in?” he shouted.

“Yes, sir,” said Arias.

The volunteers stared up at him; they looked terrified, exhausted by the heat and the smoke.

“Let’s go!” shouted Danny.

The engines cycled up, the noise deafening, even over the noise of the inferno, as the Black Hawk hauled itself into the air. Danny leant over to slide the door shut, but as he took hold of the handle he looked down and saw something that froze his heart in his chest.

A vampire was rising through the smoke, a wild-eyed look on its face as it sped directly towards them. Danny released the handle and reached for his MP7, but there was no time; the vampire rocketed past the open door and slammed into the rotors above. There was an explosion of blood as it disintegrated, followed by a deafening bang as at least one of the rotor blades shattered and the helicopter lurched violently to the left. Danny saw the open doorway leap towards him, and flung his hands out, hoping to feel the metal edges of the frame beneath his gloves. His fingers closed on nothing, and he tumbled out of the helicopter, falling down towards the road.

He hit the tarmac at an angle and felt his left leg break. The pain was huge, red and full of teeth, and he screamed, the sound lost in the roar of the nightmare unfolding around him. The Black Hawk spun across his view, its stability compromised, its engines howling, its descent wildly out of control. He watched helplessly as it came down on one of the houses, destroying the roof and sinking into the building with a screech of shearing metal and a hail of shattered tiles and glass. There was a moment of stillness that seemed to last forever, until the helicopter’s fuel tanks ignited, and the entire house exploded from within.

The noise struck Danny momentarily deaf as fire belched up into the sky and the front of the house blew up and out. He managed to get his arms over his head and roll on to his side as chunks of brick and metal hammered down all around him and fuel sprayed out of the remnants of the helicopter in flaming yellow plumes.

He pushed himself up on to his elbows, and looked at the devastated remains of the house. His ears were ringing with an agonising, high-pitched whine, but he ignored it; his mind was entirely full of the ten lives he knew had just been lost. There was simply no way anybody could have survived such a crash.

They’re gone! shouted the part of his brain that had kept him alive through countless Operations. You can’t do anything for them now! Focus!

Danny took a deep breath and surveyed the carnage, forcing himself to think analytically, despite the pain roaring through him. He knew there was no way he could stand on his leg; it was badly broken, the snapped bone visible through his uniform. But if he could drag himself to the Red Cross vehicle, maybe he could manage to drive it using only one leg.

Maybe.

The ringing in his ears faded, and was replaced by General Allen shouting for an update.

“Helicopter down,” said Danny, his voice hoarse with smoke. “I’m the only one that made it out.”

“Stay right where you are,” shouted Allen. “Don’t move. I’m sending help.”

Danny looked down the street, to where the vast fire was burning unchecked, and felt a small smile rise on to his face as the tiny flicker of his hope was extinguished. Walking towards him, little more than black silhouettes against the orange inferno, were at least a dozen figures, their eyes glowing bright red.

“Negative,” he said. “Do not send anyone. The situation is completely compromised.”

“Cancel that shit!” roared General Allen. “Backup will be there in three minutes! Don’t you give up on me, Danny!”

“I repeat, sir,” he said, gritting his teeth against the pain, “do not send anyone. There’s going to be nothing left for them to find.”

The Director shouted something else, but Danny didn’t hear it; he took his helmet off, put it down beside his shattered leg, and lifted his MP7 to his shoulder.

“Come on then!” he screamed at the advancing line of vampires. “Come on if you’re coming!”

He squeezed the trigger, sending a volley of fire towards them. They parted like liquid, almost dancing round the bullets, then surged forward at supernatural speed, and Danny had time for one final thought before they were upon him.

Don’t scream. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

Three miles away, atop the walls of the medieval city of Carcassonne, Dracula watched the distant helicopter fall from the sky and smiled.

Welcome to the new world, he thought.

Paul Turner sat helplessly behind his desk, staring at Frankenstein’s impassive face.

The two men had listened in impotent horror to Danny Lawrence’s final transmission and Bob Allen’s desperate demands for him to wait, to damn well wait for backup to arrive. Neither had spoken; they had both lost more colleagues than they cared to remember over the years, and they knew that there was nothing they could say that would mean anything to the American Director.

So much death, thought Turner. So many lives lost already, and the worst is surely still to come.

His radio buzzed, breaking the silence in the room. He left it lying on his desk and pressed SEND.

“Yes?” he asked.

“It’s Darcy, sir,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

“What is it, Captain?”

“We’ve confirmed extraction of Pete and Kate Randall from Lincoln General,” said Angela. “They’re on their way back now.”

“Good,” said Turner. “Let me know when they land.”

“I will, sir,” said Angela. “But there’s something else.”

“Yes?”

“Kate Randall was attacked by two men posing as police officers, sir. In her father’s room.”

“She’s not—”

“She’s fine, sir,” said Angela. “The extraction team neutralised the threat.”

“Good,” he said. “Have cells prepped for them.”

“Both men are dead, sir,” said Angela. “They were about to execute Kate and a civilian nurse. Dominique authorised Ready One.”

Turner sighed. “Night Stalkers?”

“We don’t know, sir,” said Angela. “But presumably so. Kate said her father told her he wasn’t safe. She thinks they came to finish him off.”

“Has he identified anyone?”

“No, sir. He’s stable but unconscious.”

“All right,” said Turner. “Send Kate to me as soon as she arrives. And get a Security squad to Lincoln General for clean-up.”

“Already done, sir.”

“Fine. Let me know if anything else comes up.” He cut the connection and looked up at Frankenstein. “Tell me something, Victor. Do you think there’ll ever be a time when—”

The radio buzzed again.

Turner swore, and pressed SEND. “What is it now, Angela?”

“It’s not Darcy, sir,” said a familiar voice. “It’s Captain Williams. I need you to come to the hangar.”

He took a deep breath. “Now, Jack?”

“Right away, sir.”

“Why?” he asked. “What’s so damn important?”

“It’s going to be easier just to show you, sir …”

Larissa Kinley pulled on her Blacklight uniform as a loud voice in her head urged her to think again.

They don’t need you! it insisted. They can handle this without you! Why are you so arrogant that you don’t think so? The people here need you! Why can’t that be enough?

She ignored the voice’s increasingly frantic entreaties, clipped her console into the loop on her belt where it had hung so often, and felt a shiver of revulsion at how familiar its weight felt on her hip. She didn’t turn the console on – she could not bring herself to do so, not yet – but she loaded her Glock before she slid it into its holster, and was glad she had left her MP5 and T-Bone behind when she left.