Dawn Of Fire

  The ground rose up and hit Kate in the face. She closed her eyes on impact, brain jiggling off her skull, then settled for a moment in the grass.

  There was a loud clang somewhere, and a shriek of female laughter. 

  Kate scrambled around and sat up. 

  Varjak was sliding slowly down a spoke of the Eiffel Tower. Camille and Tristan were trying hard not to laugh, and everyone watched him eventually slide to the bottom and plop face down in the grass.

  Kate was rolling around in fits of laughter. It was mean, as he was likely unconscious after banging into the Eiffel Tower of all things, but Kate couldn’t hold back.

  “Varjak?” Camille wheezed, before giving way to laughter in another shriek and clutching onto Tristan. She turned back to Varjak, holding her chest and releasing hard breaths. “Varjak? Are you even alive?”  

  There was no response. All traces of tension gone, Kate rolled her way over to Varjak, splatting out next to him and tapping his head.

  “Oh Varjak!” she bellowed. “Nice landing, honey. If you’re still alive it will be a funny one to tell the kids. ‘Your dad crashed into the Eiffel Tower and knocked himself out’.”

  Varjak made a few vague noises, stirring. 

  “What the Hell - ” he murmured, pushing himself up a moment later. He sat up, limbs dishevelled, and shook his head fiercely. 

  “Did I just crash into the Eiffel Tower?”

  “Yes, babe, you did,” grinned Kate, Camille still laughing behind her. 

  Varjak glowered at Camille. “That could have killed me!”

  “Well it didn’t. And anyway, it would have been a pretty good way to go,” snorted Camille. 

  “Legendary, even,” Tristan put in sardonically, rolling his eyes. “Come on. We’re meant to be saving the world, remember?”

  “Oh that,” muttered Varjak, as everyone’s faces fell from merriment. “Okay, Place-Le-Thingy next. We can flit together on rooftops, like proper ninja.”

  “What’s the actual name?” said Camille dryly.

  “Place Denfert-Rochereau,” answered Tristan. 

  “South, right?” said Varjak. “Anyone know where the crap south is?”

  “Er, that way,” said Camille, after sparing a moment to look around.

  “How do you figure?”

  “I’ve lived in Paris all my life, I just know. Besides, I know how to get to Place Denfert-Rochereau.”

  Varjak raised his brows. “You’ve known anyway? Why didn’t you say?”

  Camille shrugged. That seemed her selection of response.

  “Okay well, lead the way,” said Kate, wanting to be the one to get them moving for once.

  “Here here!” cried Varjak, and they all began to move. 

  Flitting alongside each other was strange. It wasn’t like running together, where you could see people clearly, but more like blurs of multi-colour in an equally blurry world. 

  Red and army green hazed in front, with yellow and green and brown and black behind that. 

  Kate barely felt herself leave the rooftop before ground met her foot again. She didn’t even recall getting up on a roof, merely following Camille. 

  Eventually they all ended up in a heap as Camille halted. 

  “Here!” she cried, bursting a fist from the pile-up of disgruntled bodies.

  “Warning would have been nice!” muttered Varjak. 

  “Oh shut up. See that black hut over there?” Camille pointed. “That’s the entrance. Now, do we have a plan, in case James and Ian have got there first?”

  Everyone had stood up at this point, exchanging glances. 

  “If things look bad, we retreat,” said Varjak. There was a point in this instruction, like he was making up for his earlier lack of leadership.

  Camille nodded. “Translation: if James and Ian show up we scarper.”

  “Correct,” said Varjak. “We’re undead, we can do that. Now, let’s go.”

  “Just like that?” Kate whined. “Varjak, what if they are there? They’ll be expecting us.”

  “A risk we’ll have to take, I think,” said Tristan. “But they may have other supplies of Ben and Arnaud’s chemicals, which means we’d be trapped.”

  “No, we could still reappear,” said Varjak. “Those chemicals stop invisibility and flitting, not reappearance as far as I know. So if s**t gets bad we’ll reappear at the Eiffel Tower, kay?”

  “Try not to give yourself a brain haemorrhage next time,” Camille said, sniggering. 

  “But Ben and Arnaud had a whole factory of undead defeating chemicals,” said Kate. “If they were smart they would have got some out of the abandoned mansion. Anything could be waiting for us.”

  “And if you were smart,” Camille put in. 

  Kate had decided back in Glastonbury to let Camille have her digs - it wasn’t like she and Varjak didn’t deserve it. She’d get it out of her system soon enough. 

  “We’ll have to stay invisible and feel the place out, then,” said Varjak. “Okay, no more chat, we know the drill, right? Let’s go.”

  “Now hang on,” said Kate, to which everyone sighed. “What happens if we find the stone and find it without hassle? Do we destroy it?”

  A silence fell.

  “We certainly need to try,” said Camille, patting the rifle on her back. “I’ll try and shoot it or hit it or something.”

  “But we’ll all die,” Kate whispered.

  Camille shrugged. “Better us than the whole world. Come on, talking about it won’t make it easier. Let’s actually go this time.”

  They shimmered into invisibility and walked over the road. 

  The hut was old, battered - a fitting entrance, considering the ancient secret they were hopefully about to discover.

  Tentatively, Camille opened the door - then she shut it again, causing everyone to jump.

  “What the f**k?” said Kate.

  “Why aren’t there any guards here?” Camille hissed. 

   Varjak gulped. “Good question.”

  “They’re here?” whispered Kate.

   Camille nodded. “More than likely. We could be walking right into a trap here.”

  “We’ve sorted this Camille - we have to just stay invisible and carry on,” said Tristan. “If they’ve found and guarded the stone then at some point we’re going to have fight them. We can’t run away now.”

  Camille was silent for a moment, then sighed. 

  “This is why I’m marrying you.”

  Varjak and Kate gasped in spite of themselves.

  “You’re engaged?” Varjak squawked gleefully.

  “Yes - shut up,” said Camille, although there was a smile in her voice. “Although whether we’ll actually get to wedding or not remains to be seen.”

  The door loomed in front of them again. 

  “Right, let’s go then,” said Kate, finding what she thought was Varjak’s hand and squeezing it hard. 

  It did turn out to be Varjak’s hand, as she felt a soft kiss on her cheek seconds later.

  Camille reopened the door, fully this time, revealing a stone archway with French scrawled overhead. 

  Entering the hut and letting the door close behind them, they squinted up at the inscription.

  “Translation?” whispered Kate dryly, being the only one who didn’t speak fluent French.

  “Stop. This is the empire of the dead,” said Camille, and someone gulped. 

  “Empire of the undead now,” muttered Varjak. 

  They began to move. The place wasn’t lit, which made it more daunting to be travelling to your enemies. 

  A strange empowerment began to build in Kate. In all of them, undoubtedly. This was the place, definitely. Kate felt like she could take on the whole world and win. 

  Fifteen minutes in, and a glow appeared from up ahead.

  Unthinkingly they came to a pause - Kate again found Varjak, and wound herself into his arms. 

  “What do we do?” came the barely there question of Camille.

  “Keep moving,” Varjak ordered quietly. “Stay invisible.”

  He gently released Kate and they kept going.

  The glow became brighter as they moved, defining the round edges of the stones in the walls. 

  “Come out of invisibility or we’ll kill you,” ordered a smooth English voice.

  They all stopped. There was no response - no one spoke and no one came out of invisibility.  

  Kate was almost in tears, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.

  “Varjak, Kate, and whoever else you’ve got with you,” sneered a familiar American voice. “Come out of invisibility. We have undead trained on you right now who are extremely accurate in their shots. If you remain invisible we’ll shoot up this whole tunnel. Understood?”

  “How rude we’re being, James. How about we come out of invisibility first and show them it’s alright?” said the unmistakable voice of Ian.

  James Stokes and Ian Miller promptly appeared in front of them. 

  Kate let out a choked sound without realizing.

  Varjak sighed. “Do as they say, everyone. We’re not any more protected invisible now.”

  Everyone appeared in front of Kate. She nudged her way through and stood staring at James and Ian.

  All the arrogance in James’ face was wiped clean off. Ian had been looking quietly confident, but he too faltered at Kate’s appearance.

  “Nice little reunion party, James! Right on!” said Varjak behind her. “Hey, is that fajitas I smell?”

  “Maybe that’s our victory you smell,” said James, lightly. “The stone’s surrounded, you haven’t got a cat’s chance in Hell of destroying it.”

  “That’s nice. We’ll come back later, then. See ya!”

  A bullet whistled through the air. Kate felt someone knock her to the floor.

  To her surprise, Camille was on top of her. 

  She looked up. The bullet hadn’t injured anyone, but had come dangerously close judging by the wide-eyed look of Varjak. 

  Tristan had hurtled himself into the wall. 

  “No no NO,” said James with deep irritation, waving someone away. “I didn’t order you to do that! You, piss off back to the stone!”

  No one appeared, but there was a scuffling of shoes before another silence.

  “Anyway,” said Ian, rolling his eyes. “Yes, the stone is surrounded. But that’s not all.”

  “No, it’s not,” muttered James, casting another glare around the place as though warning the others. “Anyway, as we know you’re aware because of little Julien Lambert’s meddling, our collective power as an undead reaches it’s peak over the course of this next week. It begins some time tomorrow. As a result, we are, at last, ordering the undead attack on the world.”

  Kate and Camille got up, dusting themselves off, and stared.

  “T-Tomorrow?” asked Varjak, paling behind them.

  “Yes,” said James, with no particular tone or expression. “Tomorrow. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. All undead across the world are mobilized to attack. Kill off the useless, convert the useful. You know how it is, Nazi style.”

  Kate wavered on the spot.

  “James,” she began, with the same tone of appeal she’d used on Ian a few years ago. “Call it off. I don’t know if the you I got to know was a fake or not, but if it wasn’t I’d like to believe this isn’t in your nature. Don’t do this.”

  James looked truly shell-shocked, but before he could respond Kate had a sudden thought.

  “And you,” she said, eyes narrowing at Ian. “How are you still even alive after letting me go?”

  Ian’s look was wild - his face seemed to expand with the shock and incredulity, and, behind that, a pleading to rectify her statement.

  James turned to imperiously regard his companion.

  “Let her go? I thought you said she flitted off after you stupidly turned her into an undead. And you were punished enough for that.”

  Kate winced.

  Judging by the start Varjak gave behind her, he had heard it. 

  Oh no.

  Ian hung his head. 

  “It seems I…altered events to avoid punishment,” he said quietly, and Kate wanted nothing more than to hold him. 

  “Then enlighten me,” James said thinly.

  Ian’s hollow rain eyes looked up. 

  “I transformed Kate so she could be one of us. The reason I wanted her to be one of us…I saw my opportunity to have someone in my life again.” Were those tears in his eyes? “I had a natural attraction to her the first time we met, despite the circumstances which it was in. I built on that, providing her a stable environment in the hope that she may grow to be just as attracted to me. 

  It worked, I think, although whether it was because I gave her a life again or not, I’m not sure. Either way, we were in a relationship for about a month. Then I got the heads up Varjak Swinton was on his way that very day, and got Kate and I out of his way while I made a plan to kill him.

  Varjak fought me, and in the end I decided to let them both live. I couldn’t fight Varjak properly, not when I saw Kate’s reaction to seeing him. So I let them both go.”

  James had started staring at the ground halfway through this explanation. 

  Kate had entered some state of shock and wasn’t able to respond to this revelation.

  There was silence for some time.

  Then James’ neck snapped up, and he stared at Ian, eyes glinting with a half-smile.

  “What an epic love story. Go and answer me this then, Ian - do you still have feelings for her?” James jerked his head at Kate, grinning wickedly. “Do you still have feelings for him?”

  Ian and Kate locked gazes then, each conveying the same expression.

  The enemy lines were blurred, just for that moment.

  No one seemed about to say anything, and rightly so - if Kate said anything, she could hurt Varjak. If Ian said anything, James could kill him.

  “I - ”

  “I’m in love with Varjak,” garbled Kate, cutting right across Ian. She didn’t want to hear his answer, in case it swayed her’s. “And that’s all.”

  Camille and Tristan looked stunned. Probably more at the time of the revelation than the revelation itself. 

  Ian looked thankful for a second, then resumed his mask of the dutiful right-hand man. 

  “You still haven’t answered,” snapped James, glaring at Ian.

  Oh great. Kate could identify the sneer in James’ voice - now HE still had feelings for her. Couldn’t they all just go away and give her a break?

  “I don’t know,” Ian warbled. “I’ve not seen her in a year. I don’t know. Now if you’re going to kill me I suggest you get on with it.”

  Varjak was notably silent at the back during this exchange.

  “Kill you? I still need you, whether I like it or not,” said James. He gestured back to the group. “You have the warning. Run before it’s too late. There’s nothing you can do to stop millions of undead. Just run.”

  Camille looked incredulous, and spoke to James. “That’s pathetic. You’re telling us just to run, after all this?”

  Tristan reeled her back. 

  “Well if you really liked I could shoot you in the head right now,” James retorted. “You’re all undead, you’re all valuable. There’s no reason to kill you, and when you eventually succumb to our empire like everyone else in the world will, you’ll be even more valuable.” He gestured again. “Get out of here. Do that and you’ll get to live, and live in a better world.”

  A hand was on Kate’s shoulder.

  “Come on,” said Varjak quietly. She looked up at him, and noticed there was a tired smile on his face. 

  A sign of forgiveness?

  Camille hissed at James for good measure before grabbing Tristan and dragging him down the tunnel. 

  Varjak and Kate turned too, guiding each other away. 

  There was nothing they could do. At least, not then.

  People would die tomorrow and there was no way they could stop it happening. 

  Kate glanced back at the dwindling silhouettes of James and Ian, wondering how she could have been so wildly wrong in the time she spent with each of them. 

  “Run!” called James, the gleeful contempt back in his voice. “Run and watch the world burn! Watch it wake and watch it burn!”

  They moved back into the din, out of the glow, and yet straight back into the fire.