Department 19: Zero Hour Read Online Free Page B

want to get old, with you. Why don’t you get that?”
    “I do,” said Jamie. “But I don’t know why
you
don’t get how much easier it would make things. Your vampire side is the only thing that stops me panicking every time you’re out there.”
    “I can handle myself,” said Larissa, sharply. “I don’t need you to worry about me.”
    “I know you don’t,” said Jamie. “Believe me, I know. I still do, though. Sorry.”
    Larissa looked at him. She knew that he trusted her, that he respected her abilities and her experience, and that his occasionally paternal attitude had everything to do with terror at the thought of losing her; she knew it came from a place of concern, not condescension.
    It still pissed her off.
    “Don’t apologise,” she said. “Just worry about yourself.”
    “I do,” said Jamie. “All I’m saying is—”
    “Jamie,” she interrupted. “You can never ask me to turn you, OK? Never, ever, ever. We’re done if you do. So you have to promise me.”
    He stared at her for a moment that seemed to have no end, in which she tried to decipher his expression. There was affection and an openness to his features that suggested honesty, but there was disappointment too, bright and shining and obvious. The silence was full of unsaid things; it dragged on and out, until simultaneous beeps from their consoles broke the spell.
    “OK,” said Jamie. “I promise.”
    “Thank you,” said Larissa, and lifted her console from her belt. The rectangular screen glowed white as the day’s orders appeared in a single line of black text.

    Close to home,
she thought.
Good news.
    Larissa had been immediately placed in charge of a new Operational Squad when she returned from America. G-21 was comprised of herself, Jess Nelson, a Security Division Operator who had been moved on to the active roster, and Lieutenant Tom Gregg, one of the NS9 Operators she had brought back to the Loop with her. So far, their Operational performance had been flawless, and she had every intention of keeping it that way; Zero Hour loomed over everything, approaching as slowly and implacably as a tidal wave, but until it arrived, or was stopped, all Larissa and the rest of Blacklight could do was carry on doing their jobs, and doing them well.
    What her screen showed was a routine operation: a section of the country that they would patrol and respond to any Echelon intercepts or Surveillance Division reports. It was the kind of mission that could turn into a series of pitched battles, or could involve six hours sitting bored in the back of a van, two outcomes that were highly appealing to the different sides of Larissa’s increasingly split personality.
    Jamie looked up from his console. “Training,” he said. “Still. You?”
    “Patrol Respond,” she replied. “Nottinghamshire Lincolnshire border.”
    “Nice,” said Jamie, and smiled. “I’ll be in bed before you’re even on your way back.”
    “I might come and wake you up,” said Larissa, returning his smile with one of her own. “What do you think?”
    “I think you should,” said Jamie, then closed the space between them and pressed his lips to hers. She kissed him back instantly, feeling heat boil into her stomach and the corners of her eyes, then stopped before her vampire side was able to fully assert itself.
    “Go,” she growled. “Time to go to work.”
    “You too,” said Jamie. “Stay alive.”
    “I’ll try,” said Larissa.

Admiral Henry Seward swallowed a mouthful of lobster and tried not to let how wonderful it tasted show on his ravaged face.
    His surroundings, and his view from the end of the grand dining table, had become so familiar that they had taken on the consistency of a nightmare, an endless purgatory from which there seemed to be no waking. He had lost count of his days spent imprisoned inside the château, and had long abandoned any belief in the possibility of rescue; all that remained, into which he poured the last of his