nervous, excited voice came through an intercom every few minutes, updating their progress.
Frankenstein said something, and Jamie tore himself away from thoughts of his mother and looked at the huge man. “Sorry?” he said.
“I asked if you were ready for this. I think I just got my answer.”
Jamie felt a warm blush rise in his cheeks. “I am ready,” he said. “I am. Tell me what I need to know.”
Frankenstein gave him a long look, then began to talk.
“Most vampires in the world are not like Alexandru, or Dracula, or any of the others you may have seen on TV. The idea of an elegant, mysterious race of civilized monsters makes for good drama, but it’s not the reality. The reality is that there is a vampire society out there that mirrors human society, with every type of lifestyle represented. There really are vampires who live in stately homes and wear suits and dinner jackets and drink from crystal glasses, just as there are humans who live that way. But there are also vampires who live in cul de sacs and on council estates, who live in family units and avoid attention at all cost, who live the same anonymous lives that millions of humans do. There are vampires who live on the edges of society, on the borders, the same dark places that many humans find themselves. There are vampires who have sworn never to take a human life, or taste human blood, just as there are vampires who will feed on nothing else, who will kill and torture for the sheer pleasure of it. Some have been driven mad by the hunger, others hate themselves for what the hunger compels them to do but aren’t strong enough to stop themselves.” On the screen, the English countryside flew past, but Jamie didn’t notice; he was focused on the man in front of him.
“The point I’m trying to make to you is that every vampire is different, and every single one needs to be approached with extreme caution. Do you understand me?”
“I think so,” replied Jamie.
“Make sure you do. The vast majority of them will kill you without a second thought. They are still monsters, no matter how harmless or pathetic they might appear.”
“You hate them, don’t you?” said Jamie quietly. “The vampires.”
“Most of them,” Frankenstein replied. “They are an aberration, a violent, dangerous aberration. They don’t belong in the world.”
Jamie eyes widened, involuntarily, and the monster saw them. He leaned nearer to Jamie’s face. “Do you want to say something to me?” he asked.
Jamie shook his head, and Frankenstein sat back in his seat. “I know what you were thinking,” he said. “But I was created with free will. The things I’ve done-some of them terrible, unforgivable things-I did because I chose to. Vampires have a compulsion to feed that makes violence and suffering inevitable, and most of them are not strong enough to resist it. Many of them don’t even try.”
Jamie said nothing. He looked at the molded locker standing beside Frankenstein’s seat and saw that it contained the weapons he had been forbidden to touch in the Playground, the small black cylinder and the black metal spheres.
“What are those things?” he asked, pointing. “Terry wouldn’t tell me.”
Frankenstein followed his finger. “Why wouldn’t he tell you?”
“He said I didn’t need to know.”
The monster laughed, shortly. “He’s right. You don’t.”
Jamie stared at Frankenstein, without expression, until the monster rolled his eyes and lifted the cylinder and one of the spheres out of their housings.
“All right then, if you must know absolutely everything. This is an ultraviolet beam gun. It fires a concentrated beam of UV light, like a powerful torch. It will ignite any vampire skin it touches. This is a UV grenade. It fires a high-powered UV beam in every direction at once, for five seconds. Happy now?”
“Why wouldn’t Terry just tell me that?”
“Because he probably thought it was more important to teach you about the things that might actually keep you alive. Neither of these weapons is lethal, all they do is buy you time. Stick to your guns and your T-Bone, and try to remember what he did teach you, instead of focusing on what he didn’t. Now, no more questions. We’ll be there soon.”
“Where are we actually going?” asked Jamie.
“We’re going to see a vampire called the Chemist. He produces something called Bliss,” replied Frankenstein.
“Bliss?”
“A drug for vampires-very addictive, very powerful. The Chemist has a supply network that covers the entire country. If he hasn’t heard anything about Alexandru, it’s because there has been nothing to hear.”
“So you know where he lives?” asked Jamie.
“That’s right.”
“So why don’t you stop him?”
Frankenstein looked at him.
“Because Bliss is useful,” he replied. “It keeps a large section of the vampire population docile. When they’re worrying about where their next fix is coming from, they’re not thinking about hurting people. But of course, from an official standpoint, Blacklight is unaware of where Bliss comes from, or who makes it. Do you understand?”
“It sounds like you’re saying you look the other way,” said Jamie.
“Good. Now be quiet.”
An hour later, the van drew to a halt outside a farmhouse on the edge of an expanse of moorland. The rear doors slid open, and the smell of wood smoke drifted in from the clear night sky.
Jamie stepped down from the vehicle. They were on a narrow country road, lined on one side by a row of trees, on the other by the open expanse of Dartmoor. The farmhouse, a rambling two-story building made of pale stone, sat behind a rock wall, the forest quickly thickening into a solid mass of black beyond it.
Frankenstein was waiting for him at the side of the road. When Jamie reached him, he pushed open a wooden gate. They walked up the neat path together, a pair of mismatched silhouettes in the dark. Before they reached the red front door to the farmhouse, it opened, and a tall man, with the gray hair and lined face of late middle age, smiled at them.
“Please,” he said, “follow the path to the back garden. I’ll meet you there.”
Jamie smiled a bemused smile as they made their way around to the garden: The warm, friendly welcome was not what he would have expected from either a vampire or a manufacturer of illegal drugs-and certainly not from a creature that was both. The scent of fallen blossom filled the air as they stepped carefully along a narrow path that ran along the side of house, and when they emerged into a wide, beautiful night garden, the gray-haired vampire was waiting for them beneath an apple tree.
A wooden path ran down the center of the garden to a sturdy-looking gate at the far end, splitting halfway along to pass round the wide trunk of the tree, then joining back together. Two wide semicircles of lawn stood on either side of the path, and the rest of the garden was filled with a series of overwhelmingly beautiful flowerbeds.
Great sprays of angel’s trumpets and moonflowers bloomed in the darkness, as the scents of lavenders and hyacinths mingled in the air. Creeping clusters of Jacob’s ladder and Adam’s needle shone in the pale moonlight, the white lines standing out brightly, the gray leaves shimmering silver. Jamie looked around, overcome, as Frankenstein watched him, a smile threatening to emerge on his lips.
“Do you like the garden?” asked the Chemist, as Frankenstein steered the gawking teenager toward the tree.
“It’s… magnificent,” Jamie said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“That’s because you sleep through the most beautiful part of the day,” said the Chemist, a smile of pride on his face. “The darkness hides flaws and sins; the moon illuminates only the delicate and the elegant.”
“Who said that?” asked Jamie.
“I did,” the Chemist said with a grin. “Colonel Frankenstein, always a pleasure. Follow me, please, we’ll talk in the lab.”
The vampire floated down the garden, and the two men followed. They walked through the gate, which the Chemist opened using a small touchpad concealed behind a curtain of ivy, and stepped onto a concrete path as smooth as a bowling lane. Orange lamps hung in the lower branches of trees, illuminating their destination.
At the end of the path was a long metal building, with flat ends and a rounded canopy that emerged from
