Authors: Scott G. Mariani
The three vampires barely had time to whirl around in surprise before the landing and stairway lit up with a bright muzzle flash and filled with the blast of gunfire. The blond vampire was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall by the bullet that caught him in the chest. The second shot spun his swarthy companion like a top and he crunched down on his face. Elspeth froze as the big gun in the shooter’s hand swivelled across to take aim at her.
The three of them had been around for enough centuries to have all been shot plenty of times before: arrow, matchlock, flintlock, cap and ball, every pathetic missile the human race could fling at them in vain over the years.
But even as the shots blasted out across the landing and the .50 calibre hollowpoint rounds punched deep into their flesh, their instincts told them this time was going to be different. And the last.
A terrible howl burst from the blond vampire’s mouth when the Nosferol hit his bloodstream. His veins instantly began to distend and explode, his organs ruptured and his whole body was ravaged into a pulp. Within less than a second, the toxin had worked its effects on his companion and their gory remains lay spread across the landing at Elspeth’s feet.
‘Did I poop your party, Elspeth?’ said Alex Bishop as she climbed the last step. ‘It is Elspeth, isn’t it? We ran into each other back in ’87.’
Elspeth backed away with a snarl. She dropped her cutlass.
‘So we’re running around with Gabriel Stone now?’ Alex said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were his style.’
Elspeth gave her the finger. ‘Fuck . . . YOU!’
‘Bye,’ Alex said. The gun boomed. Alex stepped over her as the spatter hit the wall, and walked up the murky landing towards the figures she’d taken to be humans.
‘Is everyone all right?’ she was about to say. What would have happened next was the standard procedure. As witnesses to a vampire incident, the three humans would have had to be injected with a preventative 10cc dose of Vambloc. Alex would have taken the opportunity to snatch a quick feed or two while they were unconscious – what they’d never know couldn’t hurt them – and then she’d have had to start the messy work of disposing of the evidence.
But as she approached them, holstering the pistol, already reaching for the little pouch on her belt that contained the Vambloc vial and syringe and wondering which of the three was most likely to bolt or put up a fight, she suddenly stopped in her tracks. What she sensed was more than just the instinctive recognition of one vampire by another.
‘Joel?’ she gasped.
He took an uncertain step forward and the dim light from the open bedroom door shone across his face. Alex swallowed hard. For a long moment, the two of them could only stare at one another, neither able to speak.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she said hesitantly.
‘Alex . . .’ His voice was faint, barely more than a whisper. He staggered back and leaned against the wall, hidden by shadows. The blackness was rising. He could barely stand up straight any more. Feeling his foot splash down into something liquid, he looked down and saw that he was standing in the spreading dark pool of Knightly’s blood.
Alex had been about to step closer to him when Chloe, pale-faced and fighting back the sickness that was churning her guts, blocked her way and challenged her. ‘Who the hell
are
you, lady?’
Dec was crouched unhappily by the headless body of his former mentor. Straightening up, he looked at Alex with amazement and pointed. ‘I know who she is. She’s the agent from the Federation.’
Alex was stunned for a second, then remembered the video clip.
Great, just great
. Olympia Angelopolis would have relished this moment.
Dec stared at the gun in its holster. ‘What
is
that thing?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Alex said.
‘Bollocks it’s nothing. Silver doesn’t work. Garlic and all that other smelly shite doesn’t work. Holy water doesn’t work. But that does.’ He turned to Joel. ‘Joel, did you see—’
That was as far as Dec got. Because while a moment before, Joel had been standing there right beside him, now he was down on his knees with his palms splayed out in the pool of Knightly’s blood and his head lowered to the floor.
Bile shot up in Dec’s throat at the sound of the wet lapping and slurping sounds. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Joel was lapping frantically at the spilled blood before it all leaked away through the cracks between the floorboards.
‘Joel! What the frig are you doing!?’ Dec yelled, appalled.
‘I’m sorry,’ Joel gasped, tearing himself away and gazing up at his young friend. ‘I didn’t want you to find out – not this way,’ he said. His voice was thick with the blood that bubbled from the corners of his mouth and trickled freely down his chin. ‘But I couldn’t wait any longer. I was fading, Dec.’
Chloe let out a gasp of revulsion. ‘He’s . . .’
‘A vampire,’ Dec finished for her. Tears welled in his eyes. ‘No, Joel. Please. Not you. Tell me it’s not true.’
‘It’s true,’ Joel muttered.
Dec turned to Alex. ‘Don’t harm him, miss,’ he pleaded. ‘I know that’s what you do, kill vampires. But he’s my friend. You saw how he tried to save us. Didn’t you see it?’
Alex didn’t reply. She watched as the young lad visibly swallowed back his fear and disgust and rage, let out a groan of sorrow and went over to his friend to put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Stone,’ Dec whispered. ‘Stone did this to you.’
‘It wasn’t Gabriel Stone who turned him,’ Alex said. ‘I know, because I was there when it happened.’
Dec stared at her. ‘You were
there
—’
‘It was me who turned Joel into a vampire.’
Dec took Chloe’s arm and the two of them backed away. ‘I’m going crazy,’ Chloe mumbled to herself. ‘It’s a nightmare, that’s all it is. A nightmare. I’m going to wake up any second now.’
Smearing blood across his lips with the back of his hand, Joel rose slowly to his feet. Already he could feel the energising glow, that marvellous warmth that he loathed as much as he lusted for it, spreading through his whole being, tingling all the way to his fingertips. The dark mist was gone from his vision.
‘How are you, Joel?’ Alex said.
‘That’s one hell of a thing for you to ask me.’
‘I know you hate me,’ she said, stepping towards him. ‘I know how you must be feeling right now.’
‘Do you?’ he laughed bitterly. ‘Then you must know what I promised myself I’d do to you if we ever met again.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do know. I’m sorry you feel that way.’
‘Sorry? You think sorry makes it all okay again? That we can both just go back to the way things were?’
‘I know we can’t go back to the way it was between us,’ she said. ‘But I was hoping we could be friends again one day.’
He stared at her. ‘Why did you do it?
Why?
’
‘You’d have done the same for me.’
‘No. Never. Not this. Why couldn’t you just let me go?’
‘I couldn’t bear to,’ she said. ‘I did the only thing I could do to save you.’
‘
Save
me?’ He raised his bloody hands to show her. ‘Look what you did to me, Alex,’ he shouted. ‘Look what you’ve turned me into. I didn’t want to be
saved
! I didn’t ask for it that day in Romania, and I didn’t exactly ask for it tonight.’
‘I didn’t know you’d be here tonight,’ Alex shouted back at him, taking another step closer. She pointed at the vampire corpses on the floor. ‘But if I
had
known it, and known I could protect you from these, would I have still done it? Yes I would, Joel, yes I would. Because I . . . because I have to. Don’t you understand?’ She paused, looking deep into his eyes, seeing the agony there. What could she tell him? That she loved him? That even if he hated her now, she still could never regret what she’d done?
‘Why are you here, Alex?’
‘I was sent,’ she said. ‘For business.’
Dec blinked. Despite his terror he managed to croak out, ‘
Business?
’
‘The video clip,’ she told him, not taking her eyes off Joel. ‘I need to destroy it before it gets out.’
‘You’re too late,’ Chloe said.
‘I’m only glad I didn’t get here a moment later,’ Alex said.
There was a long silence.
‘You want your revenge on me, Joel?’ Alex unholstered her pistol and tossed it to him. ‘Then take it. Do it now.’
Joel looked down at the gun in his hand.
‘Three rounds left,’ she said. ‘It’s not a lot, but when you’re shooting vampires with Nosferol tips it only takes one hit. Doesn’t matter where. You can’t miss.’
Joel thumbed back the hammer of the pistol with a sharp
click-click
. He slowly raised it in one hand and pointed it at Alex, framing her in the sights.
‘Shoot her,’ Chloe said. ‘Then shoot yourself.’
‘No,’ Dec blurted. ‘He’ll be all right.’
‘I’ll never be all right, Dec,’ Joel said. He felt the smooth curve of the trigger against his fingertip. Alex was watching him steadily, waiting, not a flicker of expression on her face.
Just a tiny flick of a finger was all it would take for the hammer to drop. The firing pin slamming forward to punch the primer in the base of the cartridge lodged inside the breech. The charge igniting, gases welling up to propel the Nosferol-tipped bullet through the barrel and across the short distance between them and deep into Alex’s body, carrying the toxin into her system and destroying her forever.
Revenge.
The thought of it had sustained him all this time, and right now, right here, the moment had finally arrived.
Just a tiny flick of a finger . . . but the trigger felt like an immovable mountain. Joel’s arm began to waver and the gun wobbled in his fist.
Dec and Chloe jumped at the sudden noise that rang out . . .
The shrill ringtone of Alex’s phone in her pocket. It kept ringing persistently as they all stood there, silent and immobile.
‘You going to shoot me, or should I answer that?’ Alex said.
Joel let out a heavy sigh. The muzzle of the gun sank downwards, and his fingers loosened on the grip. The weapon fell from his hand, tumbled to the floor with a loud clunk.
Alex took out the phone to find that someone was making a video call to her from a laptop. The picture was grainy and badly-lit, but nonetheless she recognised the panic-stricken face that was filling the screen.
‘Utz?’
‘Bishop, is that you? I can’t see you very well.’ Utz McCarthy’s voice was as distressed as his expression.
Alex stepped into the light that was shining from the bedroom. ‘I’m here, Utz. What’s wrong?’
‘You made it out! Where are you?’
‘What are you talking about? Made it out of what?’
‘I only found out a few minutes ago. I’ve been calling every number in my database and hardly anyone’s answering. Nobody’s there, Bishop!’ He broke into a gasping sob. ‘I can’t believe it’s happened. I just can’t believe it!’
‘Calm down, Utz, you’re not making any sense. What’s going on?’
‘Destroyed,’ Utz wailed. ‘They’re all destroyed. Almost everyone we knew is gone.’ He shook his head in anguish. ‘It was a slaughter, Bishop. I’ve just spoken to Jen Minto. She’s in shock. We all are.’
‘Talk to me,’ Alex said. ‘Calm down.’
‘They were attacked one right after the other,’ Utz said, struggling to compose himself. ‘London, then Brussels – bang, bang, one after the other. Agents reported into work to find nothing left but dust. Like they’d all just been mown down, vaporised where they stood. Everyone’s saying that Supremo Angelopolis and all her staff were caught up in it. All gone.’
So much for having to destroy the video clip
, Alex thought to herself.
‘It was like the fucking H-bomb hit them, Bishop,’ Utz went on. ‘What could have done that?’
‘It was the cross,’ Joel told her. ‘Nothing else has that power.’
‘What was that?’ Utz asked. ‘Who else is there with you, Bishop?’
Alex ignored him. ‘But how can that be?’ she said to Joel. ‘We got rid of the cross in Romania.’
‘No, Alex, it’s been found,’ Joel said. ‘A human called Ash has it.’
‘Bishop? Talk to me!’ Utz’s voice was screaming from the phone.
‘Utz, I’ll talk to you another time. Take care.’ She ended the call and looked hard at Joel. ‘Ash? The sword killer? The massacre in Cornwall?’
‘He murdered my father for the cross, and I’m going after him,’ Chloe said.
Joel could see the stupefaction in Alex’s eyes as she struggled to understand. ‘Gabriel Stone found out that Chloe’s father had the cross,’ he said. ‘Stone and his gang broke Ash out of prison, so he could get it for him. And now we know what Stone wanted the cross for. To wipe out your whole Federation once and for all.’
Alex’s mind reeled as the implications began to hit home. ‘Then we have to find him. We have to do something.’
‘Why?’ Joel said with a grim smile. ‘For the protection of our fellow vampires?’
‘For the protection of the human race, Joel. Without them, we can’t exist, remember?’
‘That’s all we are, right? Your food source,’ Chloe said, deeply sceptical.
Alex looked at her. ‘That’s all the reason I need to want to protect you. I know what Gabriel Stone and his lot have in mind.’
‘We don’t need protecting,’ Dec said, defiantly jutting out his chin. ‘We can handle a few vampires, so we can.’
‘Yeah, you proved that tonight,’ Alex said. ‘But can you handle the Übervampyr? Because that’s who’s behind all this. They were backing Stone all along. And we’re not talking about your regular blood-sucker here, folks.’
‘The oober-what?’ Dec said.
‘You don’t want to know,’ Alex said. ‘But you’ll find out if we don’t act fast. With Stone in control, it’s not just the Federation that’ll be wiped out. The whole world will change. Humans will be enslaved for blood, farmed like animals. And I’d be very surprised if the Übervampyr would be keen to share with the likes of us. We have to stop this from happening, Joel. We
have
to get that damned cross back. And there’s only one way we can do that.’ Alex turned to Dec and Chloe. ‘You humans can’t fight Gabriel Stone. And Joel and I can’t touch the cross. But if we work together, the four of us, as a team . . . Then, maybe, just maybe, we have a chance.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Chloe burst out. ‘I won’t listen to this crazy talk.’
Alex gripped her arm tightly, willing her to believe. ‘We have a common purpose, Chloe. You want to avenge your father? If we waste no time finding Stone, there’s still a good chance Ash won’t be far away.’ She turned to Dec. ‘And you, Dec, you want to destroy Stone for Kate, don’t you?’
Dec looked down at his feet.
Lastly, Alex turned to Joel. ‘What about you, Joel? You still want to shoot me?’
Joel let out a long sigh. He shook his head.
‘Good. Because I can’t do this without you.’
‘All right,’ Joel said softly. ‘I’m in.’
‘Fuck it, so am I,’ Dec said, sticking out his chest.
Chloe stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.
‘Can’t you see she’s right?’ Dec said, seeing Chloe’s expression. ‘It’s our only chance, so it is.’ But as the look on her face only became more set, he sighed and added, ‘But if you want to stay out of it, I’ll understand.’
‘I still don’t buy a word of this,’ Chloe said. ‘But I won’t be left out. Not if you think you can help me get to Ash.’
‘Then we’re all agreed,’ Alex said. ‘We’re a team.’
‘More like a motley crew,’ Chloe muttered. ‘Two crazy kids and a couple of blood-sucking lunatics.’
‘So what happens now, like?’ Dec asked. ‘We go and get Stone?’
Joel shook his head. ‘Not just like that, we won’t. Stone doesn’t leave a trail for anyone to follow.’
‘I think I know how we can find him,’ Alex said.