Battle Lines
Book 3 from the talent behind the bestselling hardback YA debut of 2011. Dracula is on the verge of coming into his full power. Department 19 is on the back foot. Ladies and gentlemen: welcome to war. The stakes? Mankind’s very survival…As the clock ticks remorselessly towards Zero Hour and the return of Dracula, the devastated remnants of Department 19 try to hold back the rising darkness.Jamie Carpenter is training new recruits, trying to prepare them for a fight that appears increasingly futile. Kate Randall is pouring her grief into trying to plug the Department's final leaks, as Matt Browning races against time to find a cure for vampirism. And on the other side of the world, Larissa Kinley has found a place she feels at home, yet where she makes a startling discovery.Uneasy truces are struck, new dangers emerge on all sides, and relationships are pushed to breaking point. And in the midst of it all, Department 19 faces a new and potentially deadly threat, born out of one of the darkest moments of its own long and bloody history.Zero Hour is coming. And the Battle Lines have been drawn.
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For Sarah,
who knew what writers were like, but managed to look past it
The earth had a single light afar,
A flickering, human pathetic light,
That was maintained against the night,
It seemed to me, by the people there,
With a Godforsaken brute despair.
Robert Frost
We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into a whole world of dark and dreadful things.
Jonathan Harker
Table of Contents
4. The Desert Should Be No Place for a Vampire
16. Classified Means Classified
18. The Most Important Meal of the Day
19. The War on Drugs, Part One
21. The War on Drugs, Part Two
24. The War on Drugs, Part Three
31. From Ancient Grudge Break to New Mutiny
40. Paved with Good Intentions
MEMORANDUM
From: Office of the Director of the Joint Intelligence Committee
Subject: Revised classifications of the British governmental departments
Security: TOP SECRET
| DEPARTMENT 1 | Office of the Prime Minister |
| DEPARTMENT 2 | Cabinet Office |
| DEPARTMENT 3 | Home Office |
| DEPARTMENT 4 | Foreign and Commonwealth Office |
| DEPARTMENT 5 | Ministry of Defence |
| DEPARTMENT 6 | British Army |
| DEPARTMENT 7 | Royal Navy |
| DEPARTMENT 8 | Her Majestyâs Diplomatic Service |
| DEPARTMENT 9 | Her Majestyâs Treasury |
| DEPARTMENT 10 | Department for Transport |
| DEPARTMENT 11 | Attorney Generalâs Office |
| DEPARTMENT 12 | Ministry of Justice |
| DEPARTMENT 13 | Military Intelligence, Section 5 (MI5) |
| DEPARTMENT 14 | Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) |
| DEPARTMENT 15 | Royal Air Force |
| DEPARTMENT 16 | Northern Ireland Office |
| DEPARTMENT 17 | Scotland Office |
| DEPARTMENT 18 | Wales Office |
| DEPARTMENT 19 | CLASSIFIED |
| DEPARTMENT 20 | Territorial Police Forces |
| DEPARTMENT 21 | Department of Health |
| DEPARTMENT 22 | Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) |
| DEPARTMENT 23 | Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) |
PROLOGUE
CROWTHORNE, BERKSHIRE
In the village of Crowthorne is an alarm.
A direct copy of a World War Two air-raid siren, it is bright red, and sits atop a pole two metres above the ground.
The alarm is connected by an underground network of wires to Broadmoor Hospital, the sprawling estate of red-brick buildings that sits above the village, and which is home to almost three hundred of the United Kingdomâs most dangerous, damaged citizens.
It is designed to alert anyone within a twenty-five-mile radius to an escape from the hospital, and has been sounded only five times in earnest in more than fifty years.
Ben Dawson had been asleep for about forty-five minutes when the siren burst into life. He jerked up from a dream about sleep, the kind of long, deep, uninterrupted sleep that had been impossible in the six weeks since Isla was born, and felt his wife raise her head slowly from her pillow.
âThe baby OK?â she slurred.
âItâs not Isla,â he replied. âItâs the siren.â
âSiren?â
âThe bloody Broadmoor siren,â he snapped. It was deafening, a two-tone scream that made his chest tighten with anger.
âWhat time is it?â asked Maggie, forcing her eyes open and looking at him.
