“Thank you all so much,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “Look after each other. Be safe.”

Larissa rose into the air and accelerated east without another word, the lights of Haven shrinking away below her.

She didn’t stop crying until she was almost halfway across the Atlantic.

Her sides ached from wracking sobs, her face was red-raw from a combination of salty tears and punishing wind, and her heart felt like a lead weight. Haven had been a place – perhaps the only place she had ever known – where she could really, truly be herself, a place full of light and noise and laughter, and she was already dreading the grey functionality of the Loop, the stares and whispered comments and crushing, debilitating monotony.

She soared over the Irish Sea, still heading east. Her supernaturally sharp eyes picked out the lights of ships ploughing through the wide grey body of water below, as transatlantic airliners rumbled above her towards the airports of London, the running lights on their wings blinding, the air swirling in their wake.

Larissa flew lower as the landscape flattened out into seemingly endless fields of grey and brown. She accelerated, descending all the time, and then, in the distance, she saw it: the holographic canopy that hid the Loop from prying eyes.

It was a remarkable illusion, and it had fooled surveillance planes and spy satellites alike for many years. But to Larissa, who knew exactly what she was looking for, it was as clear as a neon WELCOME sign; from her low angle of approach, she saw the telltale shimmer where the projected trees met the real ones, saw the ridges and peaks that were merely a suspension of reflective particles, and headed directly towards it. As she sped over the trees and dropped through the hologram, she heard a cacophony of distant alarms burst into life, and smiled; her arrival constituted an unidentified breach of Blacklight’s airspace, but she knew she would be standing in the hangar before the Security Operators that had been scrambled from the levels below appeared.

Larissa glided over the ultraviolet bombs that stood, armed and ready, at intervals across the wide grounds, dropped to the tarmac outside the low rise of the Loop’s surface level, and walked towards the huge open doors. Her stomach was churning, and her vampire side was still trying, even at this late stage in the proceedings, to persuade her that this was stupid, it was a terrible mistake, and she should just turn round now and fly home, before it was too late.

She walked into the hangar, which appeared not to have changed at all in the months she had been gone, and stopped atop the wide panel that slid aside to allow the Mina II, the Department’s supersonic jet, to rise up from below. She stood with her arms out from her sides, making sure it was clear that her hands were empty; she knew Security would be coming, and she didn’t want to create a panic by making it seem as though the Loop was under attack. She felt heat rise behind her eyes as the scream of the general alarm pounded into her ears, and pushed it back; her eyes blazing with supernatural red would certainly not help her create a good first impression.

The doors at the rear of the hangar slammed open and six Operators rushed through, their T-Bones raised to their shoulders, their faces hidden behind visors.

“Don’t move!” bellowed the figure at the front of the squad. “Hands in the air! Don’t you—”

The Operator stopped dead, then reached up and slowly raised its visor. Larissa saw the pale face of Jack Williams, a frown of profound confusion contorting it, and smiled.

“Larissa?” asked Jack. “Is that you?”

“Hey, Jack,” she replied. “It’s good to see you.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Jack. “You can’t just show up like this. Nobody’s seen you for months.”

“Sorry,” she said. “You probably need to alert the Director, right?”

“Damn right I need to alert the Director,” said Jack, his frown deepening.

“In which case, I should probably stay here,” she said, her smile widening into a grin. “And not move a muscle unless someone tells me to.”

Jack shook his head; for the briefest of moments, she saw the ghost of a smile flicker across his face.

“You do that,” he said. “Stay right there while I call this in.”

Larissa nodded as Jack twisted a dial on his belt, his gaze never leaving her.

“It’s not Darcy, sir,” he said, eventually. “It’s Captain Williams. I need you to come to the hangar.” There was a pause, in which she could hear the faint murmur of the voice on the other end of the line. “Right away, sir.” Another pause. “It’s going to be easier just to show you, sir. Yes, sir, I’ll stay here. Out.”

Larissa waited in silence as Jack put his radio back on his belt, an easy smile on her face despite the five T-Bones aimed at her heart. She did not like having weapons pointed at her, but she also had no wish to provoke the situation; if it was her intention to cause trouble, she knew – and knew that Jack knew – there would be very little they could do to stop her, but there was nothing to be gained by making that point clear.

Three minutes later the doors swung open again, but this time only a single figure strode through them.

Paul Turner was not wearing a helmet, and Larissa felt her heart lurch at the sight of him; he looked utterly exhausted, as though he could barely stand. Then his eyes settled on her; they widened hugely, and he took a step backwards, like he had seen a ghost.

“Hello, sir,” she said. “You’re looking well.”

Turner rallied magnificently; she would have expected no less of the man. His face regained its usual impassive expression, and he walked towards her with an air of something close to nonchalance.

“Lieutenant Kinley,” he said, stopping in front of her. “Welcome home.”

Larissa smiled. “This isn’t my home, sir,” she said. “Not any more.”

“Fair enough,” said the Director, and returned her smile with a narrow one of his own. “How about welcome back?”

“That’s fine, sir,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Are you staying?”

“For a while, sir,” she said. “If that’s all right with you?”

“That’s fine,” said Turner. “Your old quarters are still empty. I presume you remember the way?”

Her smile widened. “I think so, sir.”

“Good,” he said. “Go and get settled in. I’ll tell the Security Officer to bring you up to speed.”

Larissa nodded. “Can I make a request, sir?”

“Already?” asked Turner.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Please don’t tell anyone I’m back. There are some conversations I’m not ready to have just yet.”

“You have my word,” said Turner. “But you won’t be able to hide for very long. You’re quite recognisable.”

She nodded. “I’m very aware of that, sir,” she said. “Believe me.”

Paul Turner sat at his desk, watching news footage of the huge cloud of smoke that was now hanging over Carcassonne, trying to take in the magnitude of what he was seeing and somehow fit it into his increasingly overstretched mind.

The smoke was too thick for the cameras to penetrate, but it was clear that the devastation unleashed on the French city was going to be revealed to be vast; the fires had lit up the sky overnight for hundreds of miles and even though the flames had now been extinguished, the damage they had caused was surely going to be horrendous, the loss of life huge.

I need to tell Larissa and Matt about Danny Lawrence, he realised, and added it to the many other unpleasant tasks that filled his mental to-do list. They both worked with him in America. Great news for them to wake up to.