“It can wait,” she said. “You should go and get some sleep. We can talk after we see Kate.”

Jamie frowned, but nodded. “If you’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“All right,” he said. “Nine o’clock tomorrow?”

“Nine sounds good,” said Larissa. “See you in the morning.”

Kate Randall lay in her bed, watching the BBC news channel she had been glued to since she had woken up twenty-four hours earlier.

Details of what was already being referred to as ‘The Victory Over Dracula’ were still sketchy; most of what was being reported was anecdotal, second- and third-hand stories allegedly told by Operators who had taken part in the battle to residents of the displaced persons camp, which they had passed on to the reporters swarming in ever greater numbers outside the gates. There had been no official statement from any of the governments who had sent their supernatural Departments to Carcassonne, or from NATO, but there did seem to be a consensus of opinion on one thing, at least.

Dracula had been defeated, and humanity had won.

Kate had woken up the previous morning with a pounding headache and without the slightest clue where she was. She had looked around the sparse room, taking in the machinery beside her bed and the tubes and wires in her arms, and had locked eyes with one of the Loop’s medical staff, who had almost jumped out of his skin before rushing to her side and summoning an army of his colleagues. As he had examined her and asked her questions, what had happened to her had come flooding back: the hospital, her father, the smell of petrol, the gun trembling in Greg Browning’s hand.

“My dad …” she had said.

“He’s fine,” replied the doctor. “He’s recovering well. He’s going to be fine.”

Her waking up had clearly been a surprise to the Blacklight doctors; they had told her since that their intention had been to allow her body to recover enough strength for them to safely turn her, and let her new vampire side repair her injuries. For long hours, they examined printout after printout of test results, before concluding that what had happened was simple: while they waited, she had healed and woken up. Then most of the medical staff had left in a hurry, leaving just one doctor behind to monitor her, and she had asked where they were all going.

“They’re heading back this evening,” said the doctor. “We need to be ready.”

“Who’s heading back?”

“Everyone,” said the doctor, his eyes widening. “Oh God. Of course. You don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

He had turned a monitor towards her, and tuned it to BBC News.

“It’s over,” said the doctor. “They did it. We won.”

Less than ten minutes later – the exact amount of time, she suspected, that it had taken for the medical staff to tell him she had woken up – the doctor had passed her a message from Paul Turner, welcoming her back to life and telling her that Jamie had survived the Battle of Carcassonne, and she had closed her eyes for a long time as tears of relief rolled down her face. When the lump in her throat had subsided, she had started to watch the news coverage, and had done little else since. Matt and Natalia had kept her company for a few hours, but although it had been lovely to see them, and to see their clear relief at her recovery, they knew little more than she did about what had happened in France; they were all in the dark together.

The door of her room opened, making her jump. She turned towards it, and felt her heart swell in her chest as she saw Jamie standing in the doorway. Then he stepped into the room, and she froze as she saw who was with him.

“Hey, Kate,” said Larissa, a fierce smile on her face.

For a long moment, she could form no words; she merely stared at her friend.

“Hey, Larissa,” she managed, eventually, her voice little more than a whisper.

“How are you feeling?” asked Jamie.

She stared at them for a long moment, then smiled. “Close the door and get in here,” she said. “I want to know absolutely everything.”

“Are you going to take the cure, Jamie?” asked Larissa.

Jamie grimaced. They were standing in the corridor outside the Lazarus Project, having finally managed to persuade Kate that there was no detail of what had taken place in Carcassonne that she did not now know about, and that she should take her doctor’s repeated advice and get some rest. It had taken a cast-iron promise that they would come back and see her that afternoon before she let them leave.

“Is this what you wanted to see me about yesterday?” he asked.

Larissa nodded.

“I’m not sure about the cure,” he said. “Not yet, at least. I don’t know.”

She nodded. “Fair enough. You need to do what you think is best.”

“I’m not ruling it out,” he said. “I just … don’t know.”

“I get it, Jamie. It’s OK.”

He stared at her. She looked the same as she always had, but, even without his supernatural senses, he would have known that something was different; it was in the way she carried herself, in the set of her shoulders and the straightness of her neck. It looked like a great weight had been removed from her.

His console beeped on his belt. He swore silently, marvelling at the little plastic rectangle’s almost unfailing lack of tact, and checked the screen.

“What is it?” asked Larissa.

“It’s Paul,” he said. “He wants to see me.”

She nodded again. “You should go.”

“Yeah,” he said, and narrowed his eyes. “Do you actually feel better, Larissa? You know, now that you’ve done it?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t feel better. But that’s sort of the point.”

He nodded.

She stepped forward and kissed his cheek, a chaste brush of her lips. “I hope you work it out,” she said. “Come and find me when you do.”

Three hundred miles away, Bob Allen stood on the tarmac at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, watching his Department load itself back into the two huge cargo planes that had brought them from Nevada.

The clean-up at Carcassonne would likely continue for months, but he wasn’t sticking around for it; the French government was handling the aftermath of the battle, under the watchful eye of NATO, and Allen had been quite happy to be removed from command. He had handed over to General Ducroix of the French military and Central Director Vallens of the DGSI in the command centre the previous evening, and was confident the situation was in good hands.

He was just happy to be going home.

The huge hangars beside the runway were full of activity, as weapons and vehicles and equipment were broken down and packed and loaded. Hundreds of Operators and support staff were milling around, clearly as eager as he was to be on their way. Allen watched them, a mixture of emotions filling him. He was proud of what they had done, immensely proud, but also profoundly sad; a heartbreaking number of good men and women were going back to America, back on to the planes in bags, including Danny Lawrence.

He believed – would always believe – in what they had achieved in Carcassonne, in the battle they had fought with such bravery and determination, but oh God, the cost had been so high.

So very, very high.

Paul Turner was in his usual position behind his desk when his intercom buzzed into life and the Security Operator outside his quarters informed him that Lieutenant Carpenter was there to see him.

“Send him in,” he said, and sat back in his chair.

In an act of almost unprecedented self-interest, the Blacklight Director had left the Loop less than ten minutes after the helicopters touched down from France the previous evening, and gone home.