Darkest Night

The fifth and final installment of the Department 19 series opens with a prologue set during a climactic battle: Jamie Carpenter, a teenage vampire and Operator for Blacklight (the UK's secret anti-vampire military department), flies over a scorched battlefield outside a medieval French city, carrying his protector Frankenstein. He spots Dracula floating above the walls and believes their assassination mission will succeed. Then vampires swarm from the clouds, scatter the strike team, and knock Jamie unconscious. The novel jumps back six months to trace the events leading to this moment.

Two days after the catastrophic events at Château Dauncy, where the previous Blacklight Director was killed, Frankenstein drives Jamie to a cottage in Norfolk, where Jamie finds his father, Julian Carpenter, alive. Julian, a former Blacklight Operator, faked his death years earlier with Frankenstein's help and went to America searching for a cure for vampirism. Jamie is devastated: He attended his father's funeral and watched his mother grieve. When he realizes Frankenstein kept the secret, he tells both men he never wants to see them again. That night, his vampire girlfriend and fellow Operator, Larissa Kinley, finds him at his childhood home. Jamie discovers she too knew something about Julian's survival and kept it from him. They argue bitterly, and Larissa flies back to the Loop, Blacklight's underground headquarters.

Within hours, Larissa is gone. She visits the ancient vampire prisoner Valentin Rusmanov in his cell, then disappears, her tracking chip ceasing transmission over the Atlantic. Kate Randall, Jamie's close friend and a Lieutenant in the Security Division, adjusts to a new commanding officer, Captain Angela Darcy, while Director Paul Turner keeps the Department running. Matt Browning, Jamie's best friend and a scientist in the Lazarus Project (the team tasked with finding a cure for vampirism), deepens a relationship with his colleague Natalia Lenski while pursuing his research.

Over the following months, the world reels from the public revelation of vampires. The Prime Minister confirms Blacklight's existence, and vigilante violence erupts. A group called the Night Stalkers begins executing vampires across the Midlands, marking victims with a spray-painted wolf's head. Dracula releases a threatening video, but Intelligence finds no clues to his location. Jamie's squad intercepts a Night Stalker operation, and Jamie suspects his father, but Turner proves Julian was at his cottage during every attack.

Larissa, meanwhile, builds Haven, a peaceful vampire community on Valentin's estate along the Hudson River in New York, recruiting vampires who want no part of the coming war.

Back at the Loop, Matt's research yields an unprecedented result: the first sign that a genetically engineered protein can neutralize the vampire virus. Turner orders immediate testing. Marie Carpenter, Jamie's mother and a vampire held voluntarily in the cellblock, volunteers to be the first human subject. The process is violent: Marie screams, flies around the sealed room, and breaks her arm, but when she wakes, the virus is gone. Jamie, unaware she volunteered, storms the lab and attacks Matt before learning the truth. Turner bans him from the project.

The Prime Minister announces the cure publicly alongside a legal amnesty for vampires who take it. Pete Randall, Kate's father and co-founder of the Supernatural Survivors League (SSL), a charity for victims of the supernatural, urges the organization to help distribute the cure. His partner Greg Browning, Matt's father, refuses, and Pete grows suspicious of Greg's behavior.

Turner secretly assigns Matt to develop PROMETHEUS, a classified program to temporarily turn Blacklight's Operators into vampires using Valentin's bite, with the cure available to reverse the process after the battle. When PROMETHEUS is revealed, Jamie and others are furious at the deception. Turner declares participation mandatory; six Operators who refuse are imprisoned. Valentin bites 72 Operators in tense sessions.

Dracula finally strikes. Coordinated vampire attacks hit cities worldwide. He seizes the medieval city of Carcassonne in southern France, takes hostages, and orders the surrounding modern city burned to the ground. Bob Allen, Director General of the allied supernatural agency NS9, establishes a command center at a displaced persons camp outside the ruins.

Larissa leaves Haven and returns to the Loop. She and Jamie have an honest conversation: She explains her departure stemmed from long-building doubts about Blacklight, not solely their fight. Meanwhile, Pete follows Greg after work and discovers Greg is the Night Stalker leader, using SSL's helpline to identify targets. Greg shoots Pete when he tries to flee, but Pete survives. Kate rushes to the hospital to protect her father, where Night Stalkers posing as police officers nearly kill them before a Blacklight extraction team intervenes. Intelligence traces SSL's funding to a Cayman Islands company registered to the late Valeri Rusmanov, revealing that Dracula secretly financed the Night Stalkers to destabilize society.

Greg then arrives at the Loop's gate soaked in petrol, holding hostages and a gun. Kate tries to talk him down, and Greg shoots her in the neck before Turner wounds him. Kate is left in critical condition.

Supernatural Directors from around the world commit over three thousand Operators to a massive assault on Carcassonne. The French government refuses to rule out a nuclear strike if the battle fails. Julian Carpenter secretly travels to France in his old Blacklight uniform. Before deployment, Frankenstein tells Jamie he has pushed everyone away since learning his father was alive; Jamie acknowledges the truth, and they reconcile. Turner selects the strike team to kill Dracula: Jamie, Larissa, Frankenstein, Angela, and Valentin.

At sunset, a sonic weapon shatters the combined international force's ultraviolet equipment, and Dracula's army floods from the city. Dracula springs devastating surprises: A second vampire front emerges behind the Operators, rockets destroy the helicopter fleet, and vampires attack the civilian camp. The French President orders a nuclear missile launch, but Valentin intercepts it at extreme altitude, tearing out its guidance wires so it crashes without detonating. At the impact site, he finds Julian dying and accepts a letter addressed to Jamie's family.

The strike team, ambushed over the city walls, is scattered. Angela is captured and crucified inside the Basilica by one of Dracula's servants. She later frees herself by ripping her hand through the nail and kills her captor. The others regroup and fight through to the church. Frankenstein lands a devastating punch on Dracula but is impaled on the vampire's broadsword; he gouges Dracula's eye before dying. Jamie fights Dracula alone, beaten and broken, until he finds a small wooden crucifix on the floor and drives it through Dracula's throat. Larissa shoots Dracula's jaw off, and Jamie plunges the broken sword through his chest. An unearthly black liquid erupts from the wound, forms clawed hands, and drags Dracula beneath its surface. The liquid vanishes, and a shock wave rolls across the battlefield, sending every surviving enemy vampire fleeing.

In the aftermath, Jamie carries Frankenstein's body down the hill. Kate wakes from her injuries without needing to be turned into a vampire. Larissa returns to the Loop and takes the cure, becoming human. Matt, excused from the battle, continues improving the cure and plans for university with Natalia. Greg is imprisoned; Matt visits to express his fury and cut ties. Valentin delivers Julian's letter to Jamie and departs, refusing the cure. PROMETHEUS is reversed as Operators take the cure. Jamie takes it himself and meets Larissa outside the hangar the next morning at the line between shadow and sunlight. She tells him he could come with her to Haven. He hesitates, then she takes his hand and leads him forward into the light.