The Cross (18 page)
Authors: Scott G. Mariani
Oxford
Hours after the rest of the team, exhausted by a long, fruitless day of chasing up dead-end leads and blind alleys, had packed it in and gone home to their beds, Joel was still in the office. The last one to leave had been Cushley. Joel hadn’t been unaware of the way the female detective kept glancing at him across the office, the lowered eyelashes and the frequent darting of her fingers to touch her hair whenever they were talking alone. Even worse was the way she’d undone the top button of her blouse in the stifling heat of the room, making him blush and look away, stammering and blinking as terrible unwanted visions sprang out of his fevered imagination. It had been a huge relief when she’d finally left him alone and he no longer had to deal with the scent of her hot, fresh blood so close by, or the provocative pulse of her heartbeat pounding in his ears.
It was after 1 a.m. by the time Joel eventually wrenched himself away from his desk and left the building, feeling bitterly frustrated at making so little progress after so many hours’ work and mentally drained by the effort to appear normal in front of his colleagues. Just another normal cop chasing after just another bunch of normal criminals.
In truth, Joel hardly knew where to begin. His head was whirling with confusion as he walked home through the quiet night streets.
He was desperately worried, too. The blood bottle Tommy had given him was emptying fast. The drop in its level seemed to be accelerating as he became more and more accustomed to the taste, no longer taking furtive little sips purely for the sake of survival, but beginning to crave great gulps of the stuff – all that remained in the bottle, and much more besides. The part of his mind that recoiled and protested in disgust at the idea seemed to be weakening by the minute, and it frightened him deeply that the old Joel, the human Joel, might be slipping away from him.
Was it?
Not yet, he reasoned with himself – or else he wouldn’t be frozen with terror and horror at the inevitable prospect of having to refill his precious bottle when the last drop was finally used up. No, the old Joel was still alive somewhere inside him, still clinging resiliently on. But for how much longer?
With no need to sleep, he mooched restlessly about his flat. The more he worked himself up into a frenzy, the stronger the impulse became to grab the bottle from his pocket and feel the wonderful, dizzying, restorative energy of the blood feeding into his system. The constant internal struggle depressed him even more.
But this was no time for weakness or self-pity. If he chose to starve himself of blood and face the horrible fate Tommy had described, then whatever time he had left had to be devoted to his quest. If his resolve weakened, and he damned himself forever by taking some poor innocent as a victim, he could at least commit himself for all eternity to hunting down and ridding the world of this scourge. He’d annihilate all of them.
Joel thought of Tommy and felt a strange pang of guilt. Could he slaughter him so easily, just like that? Tommy, who’d given him sympathy and kindness when he’d been at his most vulnerable; Tommy, who attacked human beings and drank their blood. The moral compass was swinging all over the place. What was right? What was wrong?
And Alex Bishop. What about her? Could he destroy a woman he’d felt so close to? The idea made him shudder.
He balled his fists.
Joel, Alex is dead. She was dead long before you were born. She’s not a woman, she’s not a person. She’s a thing, a terrible thing, a monstrosity. Just like you.
Then she did have to be destroyed, and he had to be strong.
Alex. She was never far from his thoughts. He closed his eyes and saw her face vividly in his mind, her image so clear that it was almost as though he could speak to her and she’d hear him and reply. He suddenly felt oddly separate from himself, drifting, falling into a dreamlike state . . .
Alex
, he called out to her.
Why? How could you have done this to me?
But she didn’t reply. He stretched out harder with his feelings, yearning to touch her.
Where are you?
Still no reply. And yet, he could almost sense her presence, uncannily close, somehow even tangible. She
was
close. ‘Alex is in London,’ he heard himself say out loud, in a voice that was almost trancelike. The sound of it startled him out of his half-dreaming state and he opened his eyes. He remembered what Tommy had told him about the strange, psychic, almost telepathic bond that existed between a vampire and its victim.
‘Alex is back in London,’ he repeated, more loudly. Only a wild impulse, but it felt right. He believed it.
Joel grabbed his jacket, burst out of the flat and broke into a fast run that didn’t slacken until he’d raced all the way back through Jericho and the city centre to the bus station at Gloucester Green, from where Oxford Tube coaches ran all through the night to London. Boarding the near-empty 03.10 to Marble Arch, he sat in the back, as far away from people as he could get, and sat with his eyes half-closed, fingering the bottle in his pocket as the bus hummed and vibrated its way down the M40 towards London.
The night had become hard and starry by the time he stepped off at Marble Arch. Walking briskly, avoiding people and trying to stay calm, he flagged down a black cab and gave the driver Alex’s address in Canary Wharf. It seemed like so long ago since he’d turned up at her place, begging for her help, thinking he’d found an ally he could trust.
As the taxi cut across the city, the volume of traffic even at four in the morning made Joel feel acutely aware of the hick Oxfordshire cop he was. Finally, snarled up in a queue at a red light, he couldn’t stand it any more. He flicked a banknote at the driver and flung open the door to make the rest of the journey on foot.
He ran and ran, faster and faster, miles passing under his pounding feet. His energy seemed limitless as he sprinted through the streets, leaping over parked cars, feeling the exhilaration of the night.
My time
, he thought, and instantly felt ashamed. He covered the last few miles to Canary Wharf at a more sedate pace. Eventually, the twinkling river and Alex’s apartment building came into view.
To Joel’s amazement, his motorbike was still there, exactly where he’d parked it, apparently unmolested by thieves or vandals. He patted the seat of the Suzuki Hayabusa. The sleek supersports machine, which had once excited and frightened him so much with its speed and power, seemed to belong to a different life. The glass frontage of the apartment building towered up into the night sky, reflecting the stars and the lights on the water. Joel ran his eye up and across, trying to calculate which of its many windows were Alex’s; then he pushed through the revolving door into the reception area and walked up to the desk.
The attendant looked up sleepily. ‘Miss Bishop? Hold on, please.’ Joel waited as he clicked his keyboard a few times. ‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid it seems that Miss Bishop has moved out.’
‘Did she leave a forwarding address?’ Joel flashed out his police warrant card. The attendant eyed it, then checked on his screen again and shook his head. ‘No, sir, I’m sorry, I can’t help you.’
Joel looked flatly at him for a minute, then thanked him and walked back out through the revolving door. ‘Shit,’ he muttered, back outside. Was this some ruse Alex had set up, anticipating that he’d be bound to come looking for her?
He looked again at the front of the dark building. Yes, he was sure now which had been Alex’s windows. Like most of the others, they were in darkness. No sign of movement behind them, but he still wanted to try. He moved cautiously away from the doorway, out of view of the reception desk. Cameras watched from every angle. He slipped into the shadows at the very foot of the building, and looked straight up at the towering expanse of steel and glass.
The old Joel would have hesitated much longer before making a crazy decision like this. And the old Joel, skilled climber though he’d been, wouldn’t have been remotely capable of scaling the sheer building. The new Joel went up it like a spider, hand over fist, the wind tearing at his hair as he climbed higher and higher. He reached the jutting concrete lip of the first-floor balconies, pulled himself easily over, and moved upwards and onwards. A light came on; he ducked out of sight as a woman in a nightdress padded across her luxury bedroom. He waited until she’d disappeared into a bathroom, then climbed on. In less than a minute, he was peering through the dark window into Alex’s apartment.
Whoever had designed the security for the building hadn’t reckoned on an assault by a semi-suicidal, super-strong burglar coming in the hard way: when Joel cracked the thick reinforced glass with his fist it yielded like an eggshell without setting off any alarms. He reached through the jagged hole, undid the latch and let himself in.
He saw immediately that the receptionist hadn’t been lying. Alex had moved out, and judging by the marks that the furniture had compressed into the thick carpeting, the place hadn’t been vacated for very long. He spent almost thirty minutes combing the empty rooms for even the smallest trace of her, but the place had been stripped bare. She could be anywhere in London – and that was if his feeling was even right.
Joel heaved a sigh. What next? A sudden wave of despondency made him feel like staying here for a while. A long while. He didn’t want to have to go back to work when day came. He didn’t want to have to think, or breathe, or exist. He sank down to the bare carpet, curled up in darkness and prayed for the world to go away and leave him alone forever.
Lying there, he could feel the pressure against his thigh of the near-empty blood bottle in his pocket. And something else. An intense, gnawing, biting, electrifying, jangling, unbearable sensation building up inside him, working its way gradually through every part of his body from the marrow of his spine to the tips of his fingers.
The hunger was getting worse.
The Ridings
The two ghouls were waiting nervously as the chopper touched down on the helipad at The Ridings.
‘Master,’ Geoffrey Hopley croaked, scurrying beneath the spinning rotors to welcome Gabriel, ‘some friends of yours have arrived.’
Gabriel batted him aside. ‘Yes, yes, they were expected. Away with you, now. Lillith, Zachary, bring the human inside and prepare him. I will join you shortly.’
‘Gabriel!’ cried a chorus of familiar voices as he strode inside the hallway of the manor house. He turned, spread his arms in pleasure and greeted each of his trusted old allies in turn. Moustachioed Victor, silver-haired Yuri, the blond and handsome Rolando, the short, swarthy Petroc, fat Albrecht in the fedora hat and the shaven-headed Elspeth had all been part of the Trad assault team that had so effectively destroyed the Federation’s pharmaceutical plant in the Italian Alps. Tiberius, tall and muscular with an air of nobility, had been Gabriel’s comrade during his brief, and in retrospect ill-judged, stint with the Roman Praetorian Guard and they’d remained in contact ever since.
As for Kali, resplendent in the same exotic silks and jewels Gabriel remembered so well, seeing her again evoked many delicious memories from years past.
‘Gabriel, sweet, how long has it been?’ she asked, beaming, her diamond-studded gold bangles jinking as she tenderly stroked his face. ‘You haven’t changed a bit,’ she added, and they laughed. It was an old joke among vampires.
‘And you, my dear, are as magnificent as ever,’ Gabriel said, caressing her slender arm with real affection. The dusky, willowy, black-haired Asian she-vampire was, if anything, even more devastatingly beautiful than Lillith. The passionate liaison between her and Gabriel, which had lasted on and off for three centuries, had threatened for a time to cause a jealous rift between him and his sister and was a subject never discussed.
‘You have found a fine new home for yourself, I see,’ Tiberius grinned. ‘We should have expected no less from a vampire of such taste.’
‘Can’t say I think much of your ghouls, though,’ Elspeth said with a sniff. ‘The male one is slow-witted and the female one smells.’
Gabriel dismissed it with a wave. ‘Merely a temporary arrangement. More adequate replacements will be appointed soon.’
‘But tell us,’ said Yuri, looking concerned. ‘You are well? We heard you had been badly injured. Is it true about the cross?’
‘I am afraid it is true,’ Gabriel said. ‘And it grieves me to tell you of the loss of many of our comrades, including Anton and Anastasia. But all is not lost, as you will see. I have devised a plan that will presently turn the tide back in our favour. Ah, my friends, it gives me such pleasure to be reunited with you all, and to see our numbers replenished again.’
‘More than you think, Gabriel. You have a surprise visitor waiting for you in the library.’ Yuri opened a door, and a tanned, square-jawed vampire with a dazzling white smile and a rhinestone shirt came swaggering into the hallway.
‘Who is he?’ Gabriel said, his smile dropping, scrutinising the stranger with a look of faint distaste.
‘His name’s Baxter Burnett,’ Victor said. ‘He’s a film star, Gabriel.’
‘The name is familiar. But what is he doing here?’
‘Our spy at VIA in London put him in touch with us,’ said Rolando. ‘He wants to join the cause.’
‘Fuckin’ A,’ Baxter spat. ‘I’m sick of being bossed around by a bunch of goddamn fascists tellin’ me what to do. Heard about you guys, think you’re doin’ a great thing here, figured I oughtta hook up with you. Rolando here set up the RV. So here I am, m’man, ready to join the cause, just like he said. Baxter Burnett,
à votre service.
’ He held out his hand.
Gabriel ignored the hand. ‘I am
not
your man,’ he said.
The pearly smile widened even more. ‘Hey, if it’s security you’re worried about, no sweat. The guys here blindfolded me on the way over, so, abso-goddamn-lutely no idea where this little hideout of yours is. Not that I’d breathe a word to a soul. Say, you like movies, Gabe?’
‘You may address me as Mr Stone. I regret to say I have not had the pleasure of seeing one of yours.’ Gabriel paused, staring at him with some disgust. The California tan alone told Gabriel all he needed to know: the vulgar cretin hadn’t yet realised that his obvious heavy reliance on the Federation’s Solazal was something the Traditionalist revolution aimed to sweep away completely; and with it the freedom that too many vampires had enjoyed for too long to betray their sacred traditions and pursue such degenerate human activities as, for instance, film acting.
Gabriel was formulating the most crushing way to put this to Baxter, when a thought came to him and he changed tack. Laying a hand on Baxter’s shoulder, he led him off to the side, leaving the others to chatter among themselves. ‘The motion picture industry must surely be a fascinating world,’ he said in a suddenly far friendlier tone.
‘Sure is that,’ Baxter said proudly.
‘Tell me, Baxter – I
may
call you Baxter? – I suppose that performers of your stellar calibre must be very handsomely remunerated. Paid,’ he added in response to the blank stare.
Baxter gave a modest shrug. ‘If you call eighty million bucks in the bank well paid, I guess, then yeah. Not to mention real estate and a whole bunch of other investments, man.’
‘Wonderful, wonderful. Such wealth must allow you to enjoy the very best in material comforts. A fine home, no doubt . . . as well as your own personal aircraft, perhaps?’
‘Citation Bravo,’ Baxter replied, delighted to be asked about his pride and joy. ‘She’s small, only an eight-seater, but she’s got everything, Gabe. I use her all the time. She’s sitting at Heathrow right now, waiting to take me back to sunny LA.’
Gabriel smiled. ‘Please forgive my rudeness earlier, Baxter, and do call me Gabriel. Welcome to our little family.’ He turned to the others. ‘Now you must all come and meet our new acquisition.’
Gabriel led his growing little army of vampires outside into the grounds behind the house. Beyond the gazebo, the moonlight shone brightly down over the moss-covered ruins of what had once been a small Cistercian abbey.
‘Twelfth century,’ Gabriel murmured, running his hand down the craggy remains of a stone column.
‘Glory days for us, Gabriel,’ Kali smiled, and touched his arm. Across the other side of the ruins, Lillith shot her a furiously hostile look that Gabriel pretended not to notice as he walked over to where Lillith and Zachary were stand ing guarding the human. Ash was utterly still and silent, study ing his moonlit surroundings with a watchful eye. They’d dressed him in the black silk kimono that Gabriel had selected for him earlier.
‘We haven’t told him yet,’ Lillith said to Gabriel. ‘Thought we’d leave that bit to you.’
‘Human, you have been chosen,’ Gabriel said to Ash, his raised voice throwing a faint echo among the stone ruins. ‘You have seen something of our prowess tonight. You must know that we are not ordinary mortals like yourself. However, in order that you fully comprehend your situation, and to dispel any doubts that may still linger in your mind, allow me to make a further demonstration. Lillith, your sabre, please.’
Lillith drew it and passed it to him hilt-first. Without a word, Gabriel walked over to where Baxter Burnett stood next to the others and, before the actor could react, thrust the sword violently through his stomach; then wrenched it out again and tossed it back to Lillith.
‘Ohhh, that hurt like
fuck
,’ Baxter groaned, bending double with his hands to his belly, as the other vampires broke into a chorus of laughter. ‘That was a hell of a mean trick, Gabe.’
‘Now tell me, human,’ Gabriel said, turning back to Ash. ‘Have you any notion at all of who we are?’
‘Vampires,’ Ash said softly. ‘That’s what you are.’
More laughter.
‘That is one of the many names by which we have been known throughout the history of your race,’ Gabriel said. ‘We have walked this earth for centuries, for millennia, feasting on the blood of humans. Long has your abject species lived in dread of us. And yet, I sense little of that fear in you. I know of your fascination with our kind. Tell me, human, what is your greatest desire?’
Ash kneeled down in front of him. ‘I want to be like you. I want to be a vampire. I want it more than anything.’
‘Seems like everybody these days wants to be one of us,’ Kali chuckled.
‘Get up, get up,’ Gabriel said testily. ‘Who can blame a hapless, enfeebled mortal for aspiring to a state of total perfection? It is as I thought. We, and we alone in this world, can grant you this wish, and grant it we will. You shall have power, you shall have immortality, and wealth and comforts beyond your wildest imaginings. But this privilege is not bestowed unconditionally. You must earn it by completing a task for us. Succeed, and you have my solemn word of honour as a noble vampire that you will be inducted into our circle:
turned
, as you humans put it. But fail, and you will die the most terrible death any man has ever endured.’
‘I’ll do anything,’ Ash said, his whole body quivering with excitement. ‘Name it. I won’t let you down, I swear.’
Gabriel smiled. ‘Good. Very good. But before I can send you on your mission, I must be satisfied that you are equal to the task. Now, I understand you have a certain ability with the blade?’
‘I like killing people with swords,’ Ash said.
‘We approve. A weapon of distinction, belonging to a more chivalrous age.’ Gabriel moved across to where a red velvet drape lay across a flat section of the ruined wall. He whisked away the drape to reveal a long, broad sword in a battered brown leather scabbard. ‘I have selected this for you,’ he told Ash. ‘I believe it an apt choice.’
The corner of Ash’s mouth twitched. He walked over to where the sword lay, and at Gabriel’s nod he tentatively picked it up and slid the scabbard off the heavy, broad, engraved blade. Its double edges were still razor sharp, drawing a bead of blood from the finger he caressed along them. Standing the weapon on its tip, the heavy steel pommel reached almost to his chest.
He’d missed his cheap reproduction sword extremely while in prison. Not any more. This was the real thing, and he could tell it had been used to kill: moonlight shone on the patches of dark staining on the blade that blood could leave if the steel wasn’t cleaned soon afterwards.
Ash was in love. He swished the sword a couple of times, testing its weight and balance.
‘I thought it would appeal to you,’ Gabriel said, pleased by his rapt expression. ‘This is an eighteenth-century German executioner’s sword. The inscription reads “
Wenn ich das Richtschwerdt wohle Gott gnad der armen Seele, 1709
”. Roughly translated, “On whom I use this sword of justice God give grace to his poor soul”.’ Gabriel smiled. ‘I have no time for human superstitions. But God or no God, this will serve its purpose admirably.’
Lillith was getting impatient, slashing at the weeds with her sabre. ‘Get on with it, brother. We’re all waiting.’
‘You want me to fight,’ Ash said.
‘Single combat,’ Lillith purred. ‘With me.’
‘And may the best man win,’ Kali said. Lillith ignored her.
Baxter Burnett, fully recovered now from being run through and only slightly humiliated, let out a snort. ‘A human against a vampire? Give me a break. You’ve gotta be kidding, Gabe.’
‘He’s right,’ Lillith said to Ash as she cut the air with a couple more vicious practice slashes. ‘You don’t stand a chance, bloodbag.’
Ash hefted the executioner’s sword, spat on the ground and he and Lillith approached one another in the middle of the moonlit ruins as the rest of the vampires crowded around at a safe distance.
‘Slice him and dice him, Lillith,’ Elspeth called out, and licked her lips. ‘We all fancy a feed.’
‘Take off her head, Ash,’ Kali joked, drawing a jewelled finger across her throat. She flashed an alluring smile at Gabriel that Lillith noticed, and gave Kali a warning snarl.
‘
En garde
,’ Gabriel said. The fight had formally begun.
