Department 19 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1 - TEENACE WASTELAND

  Chapter 2 - SINS OF THE FATHER

  Chapter 3 - ATTACK ON SUBURBIA

  Chapter 4 - SEARCH AND RESCUE

  Chapter 5 - INTO THE DARKNESS

  Chapter 6 - THE LYCEUM INCIDENT, PART I

  Chapter 7 - IT’S HARD TO BREATHE WITH A HAND AROUND YOUR THROAT

  Chapter 8 - THE LYCEUM INCIDENT, PART II

  Chapter 9 - A HARD DAY’S NIGHT

  Chapter 10 - THE LYCEUM INCIDENT, PART III

  Chapter 11 - THE MORNING AFTER

  Chapter 12 - A CRIMSON KINDNESS

  Chapter 13 - FIRST DATE

  Chapter 14 - SPLINTER CELL

  Chapter 15 - THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

  Chapter 16 - EVERY BOY’S DREAM

  Chapter 17 - THE BLACK SHEEP

  Chapter 18 - IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS

  Chapter 19 - BLOOD AND LETTERS

  Chapter 20 - THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS, PART I

  Chapter 21 - THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS

  Chapter 22 - THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS, PART II

  Chapter 23 - ROUND TWO

  Chapter 24 - THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS, PART III

  Chapter 25 - HE WAS MY FRIEND AND I LOVED HIM

  Chapter 26 - THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  Chapter 27 - THREE’S A CROWD

  Chapter 28 - ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR

  Chapter 29 - A CALCULATED RISK

  Chapter 30 - VALHALLA

  Chapter 31 - ONE RULE FOR EVERYONE

  Chapter 32 - WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?

  Chapter 33 - ON THE WAY TO THE GALLOWS

  Chapter 34 - THE HUNTING PARTY

  Chapter 35 - YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW

  Chapter 36 - THE SECOND INVASION OF LINDISFARNE

  Chapter 37 - AT THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

  Chapter 38 - LOVE BURNS

  Chapter 39 - A FORMAL INVITATION

  Chapter 40 - BREAKING POINT

  Chapter 41 - THE EASTERN FRONT

  Chapter 42 - UNHOLY ISLAND

  Chapter 43 - THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES

  Chapter 44 - IN THE HOUSE OF GOD

  Chapter 45 - THE TRUTH HURTS

  Chapter 46 - STAND, AND BE TRUE

  Chapter 47 - THE HUMAN HEART IS A FRAGILE THING

  Chapter 48 - THE END OF THE TUNNEL

  FIRST EPILOGUE

  SECOND EPILOGUE

  Department 19

  RAZORBILL

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-51350-7

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  I have been one acquainted with the night.

  I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

  I have outwalked the furthest city light.

  —Robert Frost

  “We want no proofs. We ask none to believe us!”

  —Abraham Van Helsing

  MEMORANDUM

  From: Office of the Director of the Joint Intelligence Committee

  Subject: Revised classifications of the British Governmental departments

  Security: TOP SECRET

  DEPARTMENT 1 Office of the Prime Minister

  DEPARTMENT 2 Cabinet Office

  DEPARTMENT 3 Home Office

  DEPARTMENT 4 Foreign and Commonwealth Office

  DEPARTMENT 5 Ministry of Defense

  DEPARTMENT 6 British Army

  DEPARTMENT 7 Royal Navy

  DEPARTMENT 8 Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service

  DEPARTMENT 9 Her Majesty’s Treasury

  DEPARTMENT 10 Department for Transport

  DEPARTMENT 11 Attorney General’s Office

  DEPARTMENT 12 Ministry of Justice

  DEPARTMENT 13 Military Intelligence, Section 5 (MI5)

  DEPARTMENT 14 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)

  DEPARTMENT 15 Royal Air Force

  DEPARTMENT 16 Northern Ireland Office

  DEPARTMENT 17 Scotland Office

  DEPARTMENT 18 Wales Office

  DEPARTMENT 19 CLASSIFIED

  DEPARTMENT 20 Territorial Police Forces

  DEPARTMENT 21 Department of Health

  DEPARTMENT 22 Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ)

  DEPARTMENT 23 Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)

  PROLOGUE

  Brenchley, Kent

  November 3, 2007

  Jamie Carpenter was watching TV in the living room when he heard the tires of his dad’s car crunch across the gravel driveway much, much earlier than usual. Jamie looked at the clock on the wall above the TV and frowned. It was a quarter past six. Julian Carpenter had never, to the best of Jamie’s memory, arrived home from work before seven o’clock, and even that was only on special occasions like his mom’s birthday or when Arsenal were playing in the Champions League.

  He hauled himself off the sofa, a tall, slightly awkward fourteen-year-old with a skinny frame and unruly brown hair, and went to the window. His dad’s silver Mercedes was parked where it always was, in front of the garage that stood apart from their house. Jamie could see his father in the glow of the car’s brake lights, pulling something out of the trunk.

  Maybe he’s sick, Jamie thought. But as he looked closely at his dad, he didn’t think he looked ill; his eyes were bright and wide in the red light, and he was moving quickly, putting things from the trunk into his pockets. And Jamie noticed something else; he kept looking over his shoulder toward the road, as if he thought—

  Something moved in the corner of Jamie’s eye, near the oak tree at the bottom of the garden. He turned his head, goose bumps breaking out suddenly along his arms and back, and he realized he was scared. Something is wrong here, he thought. Very wrong.

  The tree looked the same as it always did, its gnarled trunk tilted to the left, its huge roots rippling the lawn and bending the garden wall out toward the road.

  Whatever Jamie had seen, his father had seen it, too. He was standing very still behind the car, staring up into the branches of the tree. Jamie looked closely at the tree and the long black sh
adows the moonlight cast across the grass. Whatever had moved wasn’t moving anymore. But as he stared, he realized that there was something different.

  There were more shadows than there should be.

  The tree’s leaves were gone for the winter, and the shadows should have been the straight lines of empty branches. But the dark patterns covering the lawn were thick and bulky, as though the branches were full of—

  What? Full of what?

  Jamie looked back to his dad. He suddenly wanted him in the house, right now. His father was still staring at the tree, holding something in his hand, something that Jamie couldn’t quite make out.

  Movement, again, by the tree.

  Fear rose into Jamie’s throat.

  Come inside, Dad. Come inside now. There’s something bad out there.

  The shadows on the lawn began to move.

  Jamie stared, too scared to scream, as the dark patterns began to unfold. He looked up into the tree, and now he could see the branches shifting as whatever was in there began to move, could hear the rustling of the bark as something—lots of things, it sounds like there’s lots of them—started to move through the boughs of the oak.

  He looked desperately at his father who was still staring into the tree, lit by the red lights from the car.

  Why are you just standing there? Come inside, please, please. Jamie turned his head to look at the tree. On the other side of the window, a girl’s face, pale, with dark red eyes and lips drawn into a snarl, stared through the glass, and he screamed so loudly he thought he would tear his vocal chords.

  The face disappeared into the darkness, and now there was movement as Jamie’s father ran up the drive toward the house. The front door slammed open and Julian Carpenter burst into the living room at the same time his wife ran in from the kitchen.

  “Get away from the windows, Jamie!” he shouted.

  “Dad, what’s—”

  “Just do what I tell you and don’t argue! There isn’t time.”

  “Time for what, Julian?” asked Jamie’s mom, her voice tight and high-pitched. “What’s going on?”

  Julian ignored her, taking out a cell phone that Jamie didn’t recognize. He punched numbers into the handset and held it to his ear. “Frank? Yeah, I know. I know. What’s the ETA? And that’s accurate? OK. Take care of yourself.”

  He hung up the phone and grabbed Jamie’s mom’s hand.

  “Julian, you’re scaring me,” she said, softly. “Please tell me what’s happening.”

  He looked into his wife’s pale, confused face. “I can’t,” he replied. “I’m sorry.”

  Jamie watched in a daze. He didn’t understand what was happening here, didn’t understand it at all. What was moving through the darkness outside their house? Who was Frank? His dad didn’t have any friends called Frank, he was sure of it.

  The window behind Jamie exploded as a branch from the oak tree came through it like a missile and smashed their coffee table into splinters. This time his mom screamed as well.

  “Get away from the windows!” bellowed Julian again. “Come over here next to me!”

  Jamie scrambled up from the floor, grabbed his mom’s hand and ran across the room toward his father. They backed up against the wall opposite the window, his dad placing an arm across him and his mother, before putting his right hand into his coat pocket and taking out a black pistol.

  His mother squeezed his hand so tightly that he thought the bones would break. “Julian!” she screamed. “What are you doing with that gun?”

  “Quiet, Marie,” his father said, in a low voice.

  In the distance, Jamie heard sirens approaching.

  Thankyouthankyouthankyou. We’re going to be all right.

  Outside in the garden a grotesque high-pitched laugh floated through the night air.

  “Hurry,” Julian whispered. “Please hurry.”

  Jamie didn’t know who his father was talking to, but it wasn’t to him or his mom. Then suddenly the garden was full of light and noise as two black vans, sirens blaring and lights spinning on their roofs, screeched into the driveway. Jamie looked out at the oak tree, now lit bright red and blue. It was empty.

  “They’ve gone!” he shouted. “Dad, they’ve gone!”

  He looked up at his father, and the look on his face scared Jamie more than everything else that had happened so far.

  Julian stepped away from his family and stood facing them. “I have to go,” he said, his voice cracking. “Remember that I love you both more than anything in the world. Jamie, look after your mother. OK?”

  He turned and headed toward the door.

  Jamie’s mom ran forward and grabbed his arm, spinning him round. “Where are you going?” she cried, tears running down her face. “What do you mean, look after me? What’s happening?”

  “I can’t tell you,” he replied, softly. “I have to protect you.”

  “From what?” his wife screamed.

  “From me,” he answered, his head lowered. Then he looked up at her and, with a speed Jamie had never seen before, twisted his arm free from her grip and pushed her backward across the living room. She tripped over one of the smashed legs of the coffee table and Jamie ran forward and caught her, lowering her to the ground. She let out a horrible wailing cry and pushed his hands away, and he looked up in time to see his father walk out of the front door.

  He shoved himself up off the floor, cutting his hand on the broken table glass, and ran to the window. Eight men wearing black body armor and carrying submachine guns stood in the driveway, the barrels of their weapons pointed at Julian.

  “Put your hands above your head!” one of the men shouted. “Do it now!”

  Jamie’s dad took a few steps and stopped. He looked up into the tree for a long moment before glancing quickly over his shoulder at the window and smiling at his son. Then he walked forward, pulled the pistol from his pocket and pointed it at the nearest man.

  The world exploded into deafening noise, and Jamie clamped his hands over his ears and screamed and screamed and screamed as the submachine guns spit fire and metal and shot his father dead.

  TWO YEARS LATER

  1

  TEENACE WASTELAND

  The Strand, London

  June 3, 1892

  Jamie Carpenter tasted blood and dirt and swore into the wet mud of the playing field.

  “Get off me!” he gurgled.

  A shrieking laugh rang out behind his head, and his left arm was pushed further up his back, sending a fresh thunderclap of pain through his shoulder.

  “Break it, Danny,” someone shouted. “Snap it off!”

  “I just might,” replied Danny Mitchell, between gales of laughter. Then his voice was low and right next to Jamie’s ear. “I could, you know,” he whispered. “Easy.”

  “Get off me, you fat—”

  A huge hand, its fingers like sausages, gripped his hair and pushed his face back into the dirt. Jamie squeezed his eyes shut and flailed around with his right hand, trying to push himself up from the sucking mud.

  “Someone grab his arm,” Danny shouted. “Hold it down.” A second later, Jamie’s right arm was gripped at the wrist and pressed to the ground.

  Jamie’s head started to ache as his body begged for oxygen. He couldn’t breathe, his nostrils full of sticky, foul-smelling mud, and he couldn’t move, his arms pinned and 210 pounds of Danny Mitchell sitting astride his back.

  “That’s enough!”

  Jamie recognized the voice of Mr. Jacobs, the English teacher.

  My knight in shining armor. A fifty-year-old man with sweat patches and bad breath. Perfect.

  “Mitchell, get off him. Don’t make me tell you again!” the teacher shouted, and suddenly the pressure on Jamie’s arm and the weight on his back were gone. He lifted his face from the mud and took a huge breath, his chest convulsing.

  “We were just playing a game, sir,” he heard Danny Mitchell say.

  Great game. Really fun.

  Jamie
rolled over onto his back and looked around at the faces of the crowd who had gathered to watch his humiliation. They looked down at him with a mixture of excitement and disgust.

  They don’t even like Danny Mitchell. They just hate me more than they hate him.

  Mr. Jacobs hunkered down next to him.

  “Are you all right, Carpenter?”

  “I’m fine, sir.”

  “Mitchell tells me this was some kind of game. Is that true?”

  Over the teacher’s shoulder, Jamie saw Danny looking at him, the warning clear in his face.

  “Yes, sir. I think I lost, sir.”

  Mr. Jacobs looked down at Jamie’s mud-splattered clothes. “It certainly looks like it.” The teacher held his hand out, and Jamie took it and pulled himself up out of the mud with a loud sucking noise. A couple of people in the crowd giggled, and Mr. Jacobs whirled round, his face red with anger.

  “Get out of here, you vultures!” he shouted. “Get to your next lesson right now or I’ll see you all for detention at the end of the day!”

  The crowd dispersed, leaving Jamie and Mr. Jacobs standing alone on the field.

  “Jamie,” the teacher began, “if you ever want to talk about anything, you know where my office is.”

  “Talk about what, sir?” Jamie asked.