Department 19: Zero Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

said Seward. “I was wondering why you let him speak to you like that?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “It’s very simple,” said Seward, smiling thinly. “Your master talks to you like a child, and treats you like the lowest of his servants. I just wondered why you let him.”
    Valeri’s eyes narrowed. He took a half-step towards Seward, then glanced over at his master.
    Like a dog checking whether it’s allowed to chase a ball,
thought Seward.
    Dracula was still wearing the curious expression on his face as he met Valeri’s gaze. Then he smiled, and turned to the waitress standing beside the door. “Leave us,” he said, his tone even and pleasant.
    “Yes, my lord,” said Ekaterina, her eyes wide with obvious unease. She dipped a hurried half-curtsy and exited the dining room, closing the door behind her. Once she was gone, Dracula returned his attention to his oldest friend.
    “Answer him, Valeri,” he said. “And speak truthfully when you do.”
    Valeri fixed Seward with a look of utter contempt. “I have lived half a dozen lifetimes, Mr Seward, and in that time I have learnt what is important and what is not. Morality, decency, generosity, selflessness: all are vain and worth nothing. Only two things matter: honour and loyalty. I pledged loyalty to my lord when the world was a different place, pledged it to him for as long as I lived, and I still live. I would not dishonour myself by changing my mind now, like some fickle schoolgirl.”
    “What about love?” asked Seward. “You were married, Valeri, I know you were.”
    “Love is a lie,” said Valeri, his eyes flaring. “It does nothing but weaken you.”
    “So you do not love your master?”
    Valeri glanced over at Dracula, who was watching the exchange with the faintest hint of a smile on his face, and said nothing.
    “You could kill him,” said Seward, his voice low and urgent. “You could destroy him without breaking a sweat and it could be you who rules the world. Why the hell don’t you?”
    Dracula’s smile disappeared. “Yes, Valeri,” he said. “Why don’t you?”
    The eldest Rusmanov looked at his master, then back at Seward, his usually unreadable face full of a single clear emotion.
    Fury.
    And suddenly Seward understood. Despite his claims, Valeri’s obedience owed nothing to loyalty, or honour. He was afraid of Dracula,
still
afraid, despite his master’s weakness. And he was furious that Henry was provoking him towards having to admit that fear.
    Long, pregnant seconds ticked by, in which nobody in the dining room moved. Then Valeri turned on his heels, strode through the door, and slammed it shut behind him, hard enough that the wood of the frame cracked along its entire length.
    Seward leant forward and filled a glass from the neighbouring place setting with Château Angelus. He took a long sip, sat back in his chair, and smiled.
    “It seems I touched a nerve,” he said, pleasantly.
    Dracula smiled widely. “Indeed it does, my dear Admiral,” he said, reaching for his own glass. “And in the spirit of honest discourse, it seems only fair to inform you that, when we are finished with dinner, I am going to take out one of your eyes and eat it. I suggest you begin giving some thought to which one you will prefer to be without.”

After stepping out of the lift on Level A Matt Browning took a moment to compose himself.
    Before he rounded the corner and presented himself to the Security Division Operator stationed outside Cal Holmwood’s quarters, he leant his back against the wall and took a slow series of deep breaths, his eyes closed, his hands at his sides, focusing entirely on the air flowing through his body. It was a ritual he used whenever he was summoned to speak to the Interim Director, one that had been required far more often than he would have liked over the previous ten days. Professor Robert Karlsson, the Director of the Lazarus Project, was in China on an information-sharing mission to PBS6, the People’s