Beyond it lay a small classroom. Three rows of plastic and metal chairs stood in front of a pull-down white screen and a blond wood lectern. A projector hung from the ceiling and a low shelf at the rear of the room was covered in neat piles of notebooks, pencils and pens. Professor Harris walked briskly to the front of the room and took a remote control from the top of the lectern.
“Get some paper and a pen and sit down,” he said, as he adjusted the screen. Jamie did as he was told while Harris walked back to the door. The Professor flicked off the lights, plunging the classroom into darkness, then pointed the remote at the projector and clicked a button.
“Watch, concentrate, try to understand,” said Harris, then stepped out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The screen flickered into life, and Jamie settled into one of the chairs.
An hour later the screen returned to white and Jamie flopped back in his seat. He could not remember ever having felt so excited; his stomach was churning like he had just ridden a roller coaster, his arms and spine were tingling, and his heart was pounding at what felt like double its normal rate.
The first film that had played had been called The Foundation and History of Department 19. It looked to Jamie like every dull Channel 4 documentary his mother had made him watch on Sunday evenings when he was growing up, made even worse by the fact that the voice narrating over the film was clearly that of Professor Harris. So when the Professor began the film by speaking about Dracula, Jamie found his concentration wandering.
The idea of Dracula was just too ingrained in his consciousness, too deeply linked to Christopher Lee and tuxedos and red-lined capes. And so, as Professor Harris retold the familiar story, he found himself doodling in one of the notebooks. But when the story shifted back to London and Harris began to describe something called the Lyceum Incident, Jamie glanced up at the screen, and froze. Flickering on the wide canvas was a sepia photo from the turn of the century, a photo of a man he recognised instantly, even though he had never seen him before. When the Professor’s voice confirmed that this was his great-grandfather, Henry Carpenter, he pushed the notebook aside and gave the screen his undivided attention.
For the next twenty minutes he was rapt, and by the time the credits rolled on the film it was abundantly clear to him why Admiral Seward spoke about Blacklight with such obvious pride. Jamie was astonished by the things that the men and women of Department 19 had done over the last hundred years, by their bravery and resourcefulness, by the horrors and dangers they had faced.
He listened, barely breathing, as Professor Harris described Quincey Harker’s mission into the village of Passchendaele, had felt like cheering when the courageous captain had returned from the front in 1918 and taken over as Director of the Department. A lump had risen in his throat when Stephen Holmwood, perhaps the finest Blacklight Operator of them all, was taken long before his time, and he had found his chest inadvertently swelling with pride every time one of his ancestors played a role in the event that was being described, most notably a mission his grandfather John had undertaken at the very end of 1928. The description of the mission was frustratingly light on detail, as the film attempted to cover more than a century of Blacklight history in just less than half an hour, but it appeared to have been significant, and Jamie resolved to ask Frankenstein if he knew anything about it.
The second film, again narrated in Professor Harris’s dry, slightly pompous tones, was called The History and Biology of the Vampire. Medical diagrams filled the screen as the Professor theorised that the vampiric condition was passed from one person to another via saliva, usually in the act of biting, how the available evidence suggested that the condition accelerated the infected person’s metabolism and heart rate to incredible levels, stimulated a dormant area of the brain the Professor referred to as the V gland, which caused the incredible strength and agility that most vampires demonstrated, and how a constant supply of fresh blood was required to maintain this elevated state. The film stated in blunt terms that vampires were neither dead, nor undead, nor demonic, but a form of mutation: they were, in the truest sense of the phrase, supernatural.
Jamie, remembering the hopeless, pitiless terror of falling, utterly lost, into Larissa’s crimson eyes, remembering the way Alexandru had thundered into the night sky after Frankenstein had confronted him, was not entirely convinced; he believed he had encountered evil, had been exposed to something that was far from human.
The screen cut to white as the second film reached its end and Jamie heard the classroom door open. Professor Harris flicked on the lights, strode to the lectern at the front of the room and looked impatiently at Jamie.
“Any questions?” he asked. “No? Good, then let’s get on. I’m sure Terry is itching to get his hands on you.”
For almost an hour the Professor quizzed Jamie on what he had just been shown, on the strengths and weaknesses of vampires, on the various ways in which they might be killed. He laughed when Jamie slyly suggested garlic and holy water, and struggled to keep his temper when asked in all seriousness whether a crucifix would work. With the final question answered to the Professor’s grudging satisfaction, Harris raised the screen, revealing a door that he pushed open. He instructed Jamie to follow the corridor and go through the door at the end.
Jamie walked into a huge circular room, lit from all sides by strips of fluorescent light. A series of long wooden benches split the room in half; the floor in front of him was covered by a large blue mat. At the other end of the room was a raised platform facing a curved screen. He was wondering what it was for when a voice spoke from behind him, and he turned.
The source of the voice was a squat, wide man, his arms and shoulders rippling with muscles beneath a grey tracksuit top. His head was closely shaven and his face wore a calm, inquisitive expression.
“Mr Carpenter?” he asked, and Jamie nodded. “My name is Terry. Welcome to the Playground.”
He crossed the space between them so quickly that Jamie had no time to prepare himself. The instructor grabbed his head and lunged his mouth towards the teenager’s neck. Jamie dangled in the man’s grip, taken completely by surprise, and when the pressure was released he fell to the floor, hard.
“You’re dead,” said the man. “Or worse. Get up.”
And so it began.
Jamie adopted the stance that Terry showed him, and tried to defend himself from the man’s attacks. The instructor wove in towards him, knees bent, hands moving gently from side to side, then he struck. Without making a sound, Terry danced inside Jamie’s defences and slammed a fist into his stomach. Jamie doubled over, the air rushing out of him with a sound like a bursting balloon, and folded to the floor. Terry backed away, waited for him to catch his breath, then ordered him back to his feet. Jamie hauled himself upright, trembling, then was floored again by a clipped right cross to his chin, a punch that the instructor mercifully pulled at the last second. He spun on his heels and sank back to the floor, his eyes rolling up into his head. He heard Terry order him to get up again, and somehow managed to do so, his eyes struggling to focus, his limbs as heavy as lead. When Terry came for him the third time he made no attempt whatsoever to resist, and the instructor placed a foot behind his legs and casually swept him over it.
And so it went, for a length of time that Jamie could not have begun to guess at. He was knocked down, hauled himself up, and was flattened again. Some time later, he was sent through one of the doors into a small dormitory and told to get some sleep. He lay down gratefully on the cool sheets of one of the beds, and sank into deep, dreamless oblivion. Forty-five minutes later, Terry shook him awake, and it took the last of Jamie’s strength not to cry.
Down he went, again and again.
Blood was running freely from a cut above his eyebrow, his stomach was bruised black and blue, and he was permanently winded, his lungs screaming as they tried to drag enough oxygen in through his battered, swollen mouth.
They carried on this way through the night, Terry displaying not even the slightest hint of tiredness, and by the time they reached morning, Jamie was a zombie, operating on a combination of instinct and the most basic of motor functions. When Terry told him