Authors: Scott G. Mariani
A huge hand grabbed his arm and jerked him to a halt. A moment’s pause, then he heard the creak of a heavy door. Down more steps, and the echoes intensified. He could see patches of light through the material of the hood.
‘Take it off him,’ the deep voice said, and the hood was ripped away.
Greg blinked. They were standing at the bottom of a murky passage facing an ancient studded door. Burning torches flanked the arched stone entrance.
He glanced at his captors in the firelight and saw his guess had been right about the big guy. The giant had to keep his head bowed as he stepped forward and turned the iron handle. The door swung open and Greg was shoved through.
He looked around him at the shadowy, sumptuous room in which he found himself. The air was rich with the tang of candles, and their glow shone across gilt furnishings and red velvet. Snarling ebony tigers loomed out of the shadows from the ornate carved fireplace. The walls were covered with age-worn tapestries depicting battle scenes from a period of history that he could only guess was beyond ancient.
‘Second-century Carpathia,’ said a voice. Its tone was smooth, almost musical. Greg turned to see a man standing in the shadows behind the flickering candelabras. ‘Magnificent, aren’t they?’ the man said.
‘Who are you?’
The man stepped forward into the candlelight. He was tall, but not brutish like his men. He exuded an air of aristocratic grace, regal, utterly relaxed and self-assured.
‘My name is Stone. Gabriel Stone. Welcome to my little retreat.’ The smile on his lips was warm. ‘Do you like it? Speaking as one vampire to another.’
Greg didn’t reply. Glancing around him, he could see the items his captors had taken from him earlier laid out on a table a few feet away. His weapon, stripped and unloaded of its Nosferol rounds. His VIA ID, his phone. The pouch containing his Solazal pills and his blood surrogate food supply lay unzipped, its contents spilled across the table’s leather top.
Following Greg’s gaze, Stone walked over to the table. He picked up the VIA ID wallet and flipped it open, running his eye over the laminated card printed with Greg’s name, his turn date and the bold red letter ‘P’ that denoted his probationary status.
‘Just a baby,’ Stone chuckled. ‘So fresh I can still smell human on you.’ He flipped the wallet shut and tossed it down on the table. ‘I almost feel sympathy for you, Agent Shriver.’
Greg stared at him. ‘Why am I here?’
Stone smiled. ‘Have a seat, Greg. May I call you Greg?’
‘I prefer to stand.’
‘As you wish.’ Stone settled elegantly into a plush armchair before reaching for a decanter and pouring a measure of sparkling red juice into a crystal tumbler. ‘Care for a drink? Oh, I’m sorry. You’re still on the surrogate stuff they give you.’ He took a sip of the blood, then reclined in the armchair and looked long and hard at Greg. ‘You really have no idea of the kind of organisation you’ve joined, do you? All you know is what you’ve been told by your colleague, Agent Bishop.’
‘You know her?’ Greg said, surprised.
‘I know all about her,’ Stone replied. ‘She’s made quite a reputation for herself. Shame, because she’ll be destroyed. Every one of them will, and soon.’
‘Why do you hate the Federation so much, Stone?’
‘The Federation,’ Stone echoed with a shake of the head. ‘Even after all these years, it’s astounding to me that this obscene gang of despots had the temerity to call themselves a vampire
federation,
as though it truly had the collective interests of all our race at heart – as though it had been created by unanimous consensus. The truth is, your precious Federation is no more than a crude dictatorship that simply stormed in and took what it wanted by force. It never tried to win the hearts and minds of the vampire race. It doesn’t have our blessing. And it will be obliterated.’
‘By you?’
Stone gave a thin smile. ‘I’ve been a vampire for a very long time, Greg. I remember the way it once was. A time when humans lived in fear of us, a time when we truly ruled. Look at the vampire race now. A hunted minority, lurking in shadows like rats in holes. The price of four thousand years of apathy and complacency, during which time we allowed the tables slowly to turn on us. Before we knew it, the humans were out of control. They were too many, too powerful and too organised. It’s time for a change.’
‘The Federation is that change,’ Greg said.
‘The Federation is a craven betrayal of everything our race once stood for,’ Stone said angrily. ‘It imposes heresy under the guise of order. It wilfully denies vampires their heritage. It perverts tradition. Don’t be fooled by them, Greg. They are the cancer, not the cure. They are evil.’ He smiled, his anger fading as quickly as it had risen up. ‘You know, there are still options open to you. Your friends haven’t completely brainwashed you. Not yet.’
‘I get it. This is a recruitment drive. I should be honoured.’
‘You should certainly have a think about it. It’s very generous of me to be willing to overlook the fact that you and your associates murdered two of my brethren this evening. And I don’t open my door to just anyone.’
‘You want people inside VIA.’
‘I already have people inside VIA, and a host of operatives working across the globe to further our plans. But I could always use more.’
‘I wouldn’t come over to you, Stone. Not in a thousand years. Stick it up your ass.’
‘A thousand years is a long time,’ Stone said. ‘I ought to know.’ He shrugged. ‘Fine. Have it your way. You’re going to deliver a message for me.’
‘I think you’re getting old, Stone. Your hearing is gone. Didn’t I just say you could stick your offer up your ass?’
‘I heard you fine,’ Stone said. ‘Then it’s
adieu,
Agent Shriver.’
‘A-what?’
‘Adieu.
It’s French for “see you in hell”.’
‘I’ll be seeing
you
there, all right.’
Stone laughed. ‘You’ll be waiting a long time.’
Before Greg could say another word, he felt a presence coming up behind him and half-turned to see the big vampire stepping up fast. The fist lashed out of nowhere, and everything went dark.
The Last Bite Bar and Grill
1.41 a.m.
The party was in full swing, music thumping loudly as Alex walked up to the bar.
‘Is Rudi about?’ she shouted over the noise to one of the barmen.
‘Rudi’s got company right now.’ The barman raised his eyebrows suggestively. ‘They’re upstairs.’ He jerked his thumb at the ceiling. Rudi’s private suite of luxurious rooms occupied the top floor of the building.
‘A woman?’
The barman nodded with a sly chuckle. ‘We get some hot stuff in here, but this one…
hoo hoo.
And if I know Rudi, there’s a red leather jumpsuit lying on the floor up there as we speak. So I’d leave it a while before disturbing them.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Bout an hour. Hey. I said—’
Alex was through the STAFF ONLY door before the barman could stop her and running up the backstairs. A spiral staircase wound up from the second floor to the opulence of Rudi’s private domain.
Alex emerged onto a landing that was on the gaudy end of opulent – white satin on the walls and an oversized sparkling chandelier. A gilt-framed oil hung near the double doors of the apartment, depicting Rudi dressed as Napoleon Bonaparte; his chin was raised proudly and his hand was slipped inside his jacket as an epic battle raged in the background, complete with cavalry charges and artillery. But Alex wasn’t here to appreciate Rudi’s taste in art. She kicked in the door and stormed inside the huge marble-floored entrance hall. A Tom Jones CD was playing from hidden speakers.
She would never have taken Rudi for a traitor. That made her as furious with herself as she was with him. She drew the Desert Eagle.
Apart from the empty Krug bottle and the two crystal glasses, one with a smear of red lipstick, there was no sign of Rudi and his female companion in the mock Louis XV salon. She booted open one of the doors that radiated off the room, and found herself in a gigantic mirrored bathroom with steps leading down to a sunken Jacuzzi. She slammed the door shut, tried another and stepped into Rudi’s bedroom.
Rudi was alone on the super-kingsize leopardskin four-poster, dwarfed by the bed’s size. He lay propped up against satin pillows wearing a black bathrobe that had ‘R.B.’ in large gold letters over his heart. He gazed idly at Alex as she strode up to the foot of the bed and pointed the gun at him.
She was almost speechless with hurt. ‘Why?’ she asked simply.
Rudi said nothing.
She clicked off the Desert Eagle’s safety. ‘Answers. Now. I want to know why you betrayed me and who put you up to it.’
Still no reply. No movement.
Alex lowered the gun. ‘Rudi?’
He was staring past her, towards the door, as if in some kind of trance. She walked round the side of the bed. Not a flicker of reaction. Reaching a hand out to him, she shook his shoulder.
‘Rudi?’ she said again.
Only then did she spot the thin red line that ran across his throat and around his neck, oozing a tiny trickle of dark vampire blood.
She nudged him. Rudi’s head toppled slowly off his shoulders, bounced off the satin pillow and landed on the bedside rug with a hollow clunk, like a coconut. It rolled over the rug and came to a halt face-up, his sightless eyes staring up at her.
The decapitation had been executed with a razor-sharp blade, leaving his neck stump as smooth as a mirror. Barely any blood. One clean swing, administered by someone very strong and very expert.
Lillith.
It must have happened just minutes ago. Soon, Rudi’s body would start to decompose at a vastly accelerated rate as death, cheated first time round, finally caught up with him.
The other side of the large bedroom, a cool breeze fluttered the curtains. Alex ran over to the open window and peered out over the ledge at the backstreet below. A long way down, but no problem for a vampire.
The slayer was already far away.
Terzi Pharmaceuticals Fabrication Complex, the Italian Alps
3.12 a.m. local time
A chill wind was blowing down off the distant mountains. The sky was clear and the stars were out in their countless millions over the still landscape. Nestling in the foothills, the large modern steel and glass building was the hub of the two-acre site of the fabrication complex. Terzi was one of Europe’s smaller pharmaceutical companies, its manufacturing output almost entirely focused on one specialised type of diuretic drug for the medical industry. It had plants in three other locations across Europe, each chosen for its cleanliness of environment. But this particular facility was different from the others, for a very special reason that very few people knew about.
Enrico, the night security guard posted at the front gates, was numb with cold, and his mind had been drifting from tiredness until he’d spotted the faraway headlights winding their way towards the plant. Looked like two medium-sized trucks. As they came closer, lighting up the steel mesh fence and the concrete compound beyond, Enrico stepped out of his hut and walked towards the vehicles with a hand raised. The company took security pretty seriously, and the Heckler & Koch 9mm machine pistol slung across his body slapped against his side as he walked. It was loaded and he’d been trained to use it.
Not that there was anything necessarily unusual or sinister about the appearance of two trucks in the middle of the night. Enrico had been working at Terzi long enough to know two things: one, that even though there was usually a smattering of late-shift personnel about the fabrication plant and labs, the upper east wing in particular
never
went to sleep at night; and that two, you didn’t ask too many questions about went on in that part of the building. He’d often seen the labcoats walking about in the third-floor windows. Some of the girls were pretty hot too. But, just like everyone who worked there, they kept themselves to themselves. Word among the maintenance staff and the drivers was that they were involved in some kind of experimental research programme that Terzi was keeping under wraps pending patent. That seemed to explain the strange hours, and the secretive way that unmarked trucks would often turn up to collect unmarked crates of stuff from the delivery bay in the rear.
But Enrico still had to make sure the paperwork was all in order, secrecy or no secrecy. As the lead van pulled up at the gate and its window whirred down, he put out his hand and asked to be shown the documentation authorising him to open up.
‘Cold night,’ the driver said, and Enrico grunted in reply as he scanned the papers.
Wait, this was wrong.
‘This isn’t—’ he started.
But didn’t finish.
Enrico was a young man, fit and strong and at the peak of his physical shape. But he was still just a man, and none of his human senses were honed enough to have picked up the silent approach of the figure that had slipped out from behind the van and moved towards him through the shadows. Less than a second later, Enrico’s neck was broken.
The van driver watched impassively as the dead guard was dragged into the hut. His killer let the body slump to the floor, then turned to the computer console. A few clicks of the keys, and the gate was automatically unlatched and began to open. A few more clicks, and the security cameras throughout the facility were simultaneously deactivated.
The vans growled slowly through the gates and into the dark compound. Their back doors opened, and eight figures in black tactical clothing spilled out. They stole swiftly and silently into the facility, breaking up into pairs and working their way methodically from room to room, floor to floor. First clear the rest of the building, then move on to the east wing. Those were their instructions, and so far the operation was going perfectly according to plan.
Marta Tucci was sitting at her desk in her ground-floor office, the glare of the laptop shining off her glasses and the front of her labcoat. The screen was covered in technical data, but this late at night she couldn’t deal with it. Two years out of university and she already felt jaded with her biochemistry career. She hated working shifts. She should be at home, close to Franco and baby Renata. Sometimes she just wanted to—