“Can you walk?” he asked, in a low voice.
Frankenstein nodded.
“All right,” said Carpenter. “Follow me. Slowly.”
He turned round and walked carefully towards the crowd of vampires, who stepped out of his way, reluctance painted openly on their faces. The two men walked between the silent, red-eyed guests, towards the wide double door that they had come through, only an hour earlier. Carpenter took the carved wooden handle in his hand and was about to turn it when Valentin’s voice echoed across the ballroom, and he turned to face the pale vampire.
“Our paths will cross again, Mr Carpenter,” he said, happily. “Of that, I have no doubt. Happy New Year.”
Carpenter almost replied, but forced himself not to. Instead, he opened the door, walked down the hallway, and led Frankenstein out into the night.
The two men staggered down the steps of the townhouse. They had gone no more than ten yards from the building when a familiar voice hailed them, and the sound of running footsteps echoed in the still night air.
“Good God, John,” said Willis, skidding to a halt in front of them, his eyes taking in the gelignite belt around Carpenter’s waist and the dazed look on Frankenstein’s face. “Are you injured? Do you need me to call the uniforms? Are you—”
Carpenter cut him off.
“I’m fine,” he said. “We’re fine. The mission was a success.”
“Well, that’s splendid,” exclaimed Willis, but his face still wore a mask of concern. “I shall need to speak to you before I prepare my report, but perhaps tomorrow would be more agreeable?” Carpenter told him that he was sure it would, and thanked the American. Willis took a final look at the two men in their now dishevelled dinner suits, and then turned and disappeared along West Eighty-Fifth Street.
Carpenter and Frankenstein walked slowly down Central Park West, looking for a carriage. After two blocks Frankenstein stumbled to his knees and vomited into the icy gutter, but when he stood up his eyes were clearer, and he looked at John Carpenter.
“I let you down,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“We both still live,” Carpenter replied. “That is all that matters.”
“Thanks entirely to you.”
Carpenter regarded the huge man. His voice was low and trembling, but his face twitched with anger; he was obviously deeply ashamed.
“You saved my life,” Frankenstein said. “When you could have left me, you didn’t. Why didn’t you?”
Carpenter shrugged. “The thought never occurred to me,” he answered.
Frankenstein studied him carefully, looking into the Englishman’s open, honest face. He saw nothing but the truth, and in the sluggish opium-addled depths of the monster’s mind, a decision was made.
“I owe you my life,” Frankenstein said, slowly. “I don’t say that lightly.” Carpenter opened his mouth to protest, but Frankenstein waved a hand at him, and continued. “If there’s anything I can do to help you, you only have to ask. Whatever it is, wherever you are.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Carpenter replied. “But I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Given the last thing Valentin said to you,” Frankenstein replied, “I’m not sure that’s entirely true.”
Chapter 25
HE WAS MY FRIEND, AND I LOVED HIM
Jamie and Frankenstein sat in one of the offices on Level A. The base was quiet; soldiers made their way through the halls, heading for patrol duties as their comrades slept on the lower levels. Frankenstein was nursing an enormous mug of black coffee that he had stopped to collect from the officers’ mess as they made their way up through the base. Jamie had poured a plastic cup of water from the dispenser in the corner of the office, and was looking expectantly at the monster.
Frankenstein tipped the coffee to his lips, eyeing the teenager over the rim of the mug. Eventually, he spoke.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he said. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you, so if you’ve got questions just ask them.”
“OK,” replied Jamie, settling himself into his chair. “When did you first meet my dad?”
Frankenstein tilted his head, stared at the ceiling, and cast his mind back.
“I met him the day he joined us,” he said, eventually. “1979, that was. We knew he was coming; the birthdays of descendants always get around. It’s a big moment. You’ve seen how seriously Blacklight takes its history; a new descendant is that history, in the flesh. And Julian was something special, we knew that before he even arrived.”
“What was special about him?” asked Jamie. He had leant forward on to his elbows as the monster talked.
“He was famous, inside the military and out. When he passed his Admiralty Interview Board—”
“What’s that?” interrupted Jamie.
“It’s what you have to pass if you’re going to be an officer in the Marines.”
“Hold on. The Marines? As in, the Royal Marines?”
Frankenstein sighed. “Yes, Jamie, the Royal Marines. Your father scored off the scale at the Interview Board, and word got around the military about it. Then he broke three Commando course records, and people started to really pay attention to him. And by then he was playing rugby for England, so he was already—”
“He was doing what?” exclaimed Jamie.
“This will be much easier,” said Frankenstein, levelling his eyes at the teenager. “If you don’t interrupt me every thirty seconds.”
“Sorry,” said Jamie.
“It’s all right. Julian was a top-class rugby player. He played for England schools, for the under-eighteens, then broke through into the full national team when he was nineteen, his first full year in the Marines. He was capped seven or eight times.”
“Why only seven or eight?”
“He stopped playing when he joined Blacklight. But when he turned up here on his twenty-first birthday, he was already well known. There was no internet in those days, but his name had been in the papers, and everyone was excited to meet him. He arrived with your grandfather, John, and he was met by Peter Seward, who was the Director at the time. I’ve never seen those old men so proud, so excited about a new recruit.”
Frankenstein looked at Jamie, a pained smile on his face.
“Tell me,” said Jamie, quietly. “Don’t stop now.”
“It was an incredible time,” Frankenstein said, after a pause, and a deep gulp of coffee. “Quincey Harker had stepped down as Director a decade earlier, and Peter Seward had taken over. He didn’t really want the job, but he was Quincey’s closest friend, and when Harker retired to look after his wife, Seward saw it as his duty to carry on his friend’s work. And he did a good job of it, a damn good job, even though he would never believe it. He oversaw the changing of the guard, from the generation that dragged Blacklight up after World War Two, to the new generation who would take it forward again.”
He smiled, a genuine smile full of nostalgia.
“Legends walked these corridors: Albert and Arthur Holmwood, David Harker, who was Quincey’s oldest son, Ben Seward, who was the Director’s son, Leandro Gonzalez, David Morris, your friend Tom’s grandfather, and your own grandfather, of course. John Carpenter was Peter Seward’s closest friend in the Department after Quincey left; they retired at the same time, in 1982, convinced that Blacklight was in safe hands.”
“Was