Darkest Night

Chapter 49: Enemy at the Gates (#litres_trial_promo)

Zero Hour Plus 208 Days (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 50: Just when you Think … (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 51: … It can’t get any Worse (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 52: Insertion Point (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 53: Come Together (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 54: Some Corner of a Foreign Field (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 55: The Tip of the Spear (#litres_trial_promo)

Zero Hour Plus 209 Days (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 56: A Promise is a Promise (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 57: Clean Slates (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 58: Dulce Et Decorum Est (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 59: In Fading Light (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 60: Death’s Grey Land, Part One (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue, Redux (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 61: Death’s Grey Land, Part Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 62: Death’s Grey Land, Part Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 63: Death’s Grey Land, Part Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 64: Death’s Grey Land, Part Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 65: Death’s Grey Land, Part Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 66: Death’s Grey Land, Part Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 67: Death’s Grey Land, Part Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 68: Death’s Grey Land, Part Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 69: Death’s Grey Land, Part Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 70: Death’s Grey Land, Part Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 71: After the Fire (#litres_trial_promo)

Zero Hour Plus 210 Days (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 72: The End (I) (#litres_trial_promo)

Zero Hour Plus 211 Days (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 73: The End (II) (#litres_trial_promo)

Zero Hour Plus 213 Days (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 74: The Beginning (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Will Hill (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

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Jamie Carpenter soared over the battlefield, carrying Frankenstein effortlessly beneath him, marvelling at the scale of the fighting taking place below.

His view of it was fleeting, such was the speed he and the rest of the strike team were travelling, but it was enough to make quite an impression; the battle was already spread out across more than a mile of blasted landscape, the air full of movement and gunfire and screaming, the ground littered with black-clad bodies and soaked with vampire remains. Jamie tore his gaze away and focused on the looming shape of the medieval city, its pale stone darkening in the fading light, and, as he rose over the outer walls, his squad mates close behind him, he saw a distant figure floating near the summit of the hill, high above the raging battle.

Dracula, he thought, his heart leaping in his chest. Right where they said he would be.

This is going to be too easy.

Jamie swooped over the walls, rising above the wide cobbled street that led up through the city. He accelerated, the evening air cool as it rushed over his uniformed body, the rooftops passing below him in a blur, and allowed a smile to rise on to his face. As he soared over a wide square, he heard something above him, something that sounded like a flock of birds, and rolled to the side so he could look up and see what it was.

The sky above him was full of vampires.

They dropped silently out of the clouds, a vast dark swarm, and ripped into the strike team like a bolt of lightning, sending them spinning towards the ground. Something connected with the side of his helmet and he saw stars, his vision greying at the edges as his grip on Frankenstein loosened and gave way; the monster slipped from his grasp and fell towards the ancient city. Jamie lunged after him, but was hammered from all sides by heavy blows that drove him back and forth, bellowing with pain. He fought back furiously, but might as well have been trying to punch the wind; there seemed to be vampires all around him, as insubstantial as smoke, apart from when they struck. He ducked under a swinging fist and looked desperately around for his squad mates, but it was like trying to see through a colony of bats that had taken wing at the same time; all around him was darkness and churning movement.

A boot slammed into his stomach. Jamie folded in the air, the breath driven out of him, and sank towards the ground, barely able to even slow his fall. Cobblestones rose up to meet him, and he hit them hard enough to drive his teeth together on his tongue, spilling warm coppery liquid into his mouth. Pain raced through him, before being driven away by the heady taste of his own blood.

He leapt to his feet and scanned the narrow street he had landed in. There was no sign of his squad mates, or the vampires that had attacked them. He looked up, expecting to see them hurtling down towards him, but the sky was clear and empty; it was as though they had never been there at all.

Stupid, he told himself, and felt his eyes blaze with heat. Arrogant. Stupid.

Jamie leapt into the air, determined to locate the rest of the strike team and get their mission back on track.

A hand closed round his ankle and whipped him downwards.

Surprise filled him so completely that he didn’t get his hands up until it was too late; his helmet thudded against the ground, and everything went black.