Authors: Scott G. Mariani
‘I’m no slave of theirs,’ Alex said.
‘I can see that. Yet it astounds me that someone of your obviously high intelligence could have fallen for their shameless propaganda. Even today’s human dictatorships, for all their transparent crudeness, are more sophisticated. They at least make the effort to dress up their so-called democracies as something fair and egalitarian. Your rulers, by contrast, don’t even try to conceal their corruption.’
‘I see you’ve been studying human dictatorships up close,’ Alex replied. ‘Wasn’t that the politician Jeremy Lonsdale who brought that rag to my cell earlier?’
Stone laughed. ‘Currently pursuing a new career direction. His predecessor sadly passed away at the hands of your friend Solomon. You’re observant, Alexandra. A quality I admire in you, as well as your loyalty. I, too, serve a master.’ Her expression of surprise made him smile. ‘You didn’t know that, of course.’
‘I thought you were the leader of this revolt against the Federation.’
‘Merely its general. I take my commands from beings superior even to myself.’
Alex frowned in puzzlement. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘The original forebears of our race. The purest blood, the most ancient and hallowed line. The Übervampyr.’
Alex was stunned. It took a few moments before the steady look in Stone’s eye convinced her that he was serious.
‘The Über race is ancient history. Part of legend. Isn’t it?’
‘Rather like the cross of Ardaich. It would be unwise to confuse legend with myth.’
‘They exist? Still, to this day?’
‘Yes, they are here still,’ Stone replied. ‘Compared to them, I – we – are nothing. And I am proud to serve them and help bring about their long-dormant plans for this planet.’
‘Destroying the Federation was just the beginning,’ Alex said, understanding.
‘The very first step, of a very great many. But the first step is often the most important. With vampires freed from the shackles of oppression, they will begin to rediscover the taste of freedom. Just a tiny taste, in comparison to the exquisite liberty we will all enjoy once the Masters’ plans are brought to fruition.’
‘What are you talking about? A vampire takeover? Of the whole planet?’ Alex almost laughed.
Stone nodded earnestly. ‘Invasion, enslavement, complete control. That kind of thing.’
‘Killing humans indiscriminately?’
‘No worse than what they do to one another. In any case, their numbers are grossly excessive. Look what this parasitic race has done to its home planet in the mere blink of an eye since it achieved so-called civilisation. Tell me, Alexandra, what other of God’s creatures so wilfully and wantonly ravages its own habitat to the extent that, left unchecked, it must ultimately destroy itself?’
‘
You
talk of God?’
‘I am, after all, a vampire of philosophic joys.’
‘And an ecologist, too.’
He chuckled warmly. ‘I only want the best, Alexandra. And humans are simply not worthy to remain the stewards of this planet. They have lost their paradise. Yes, there will be some culling. Kill some, turn some, in the time-honoured way. The rest, we will farm, like the beasts of burden they are.’ He smiled. ‘You look shocked. Why be so coy? You’re a vampire. Take pride in yourself. Embrace it to the full.’
Alex shifted uncomfortably.
‘You haven’t touched your drink.’
‘I’m all right, thanks.’
‘Drink it. You know you want to.’
She reached out for the goblet. Drew her hand back hesitantly.
‘You see? You can’t fight what you are.’
‘Where are they? The Übervampyr?’
‘I’m afraid that’s one detail I cannot reveal to you. Unless of course,’ Stone twiddled the stem of his goblet ‘– and this was very much my purpose in wanting to spend this evening in your beautiful company – I’m able to persuade you to come and work for me.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘Not in the least. I will soon be disposing of your Federation colleagues. They are worthless to me. You, on the other hand, have amply displayed a range of talents that are far too valuable simply to snuff out.’
‘That’s just about the nicest threat I’ve ever heard.’
‘I hope you consider it carefully. It would be highly regrettable, criminal even, to have to send you to the same fate as awaits your loathsome former colleagues. I would be quite devastated.’
‘Do I detect a whiff of moral scruple, Gabriel?’
He moved a little closer to her. ‘I’m not the monster you take me for. In fact, I would surprise you, should you get to know me better. I think you and I would rub along very well.’ He paused. ‘What do you say, Alexandra? You and I, together. You at my side, helping me bring about the grandest plan in the long history of the vampire culture?’
‘What about Lillith? I have a feeling she wouldn’t be too pleased.’
‘Oh, Lillith.’ Stone waved his hand. ‘Never mind her.’ His eyes lit up. ‘Does that mean you’ll accept my proposal?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
Stone nodded thoughtfully, then rose from his chair. ‘I must leave you now. There are some matters I must see to before tonight’s proceedings can be completed. Please don’t think about trying to escape. You have exactly two hours to decide.’
As he rode, Joel refused to regret having turned down the offer of a hot plate of food and a bed for the night back at the village – though that wasn’t easy as the bumping, rutted road towards Vâlcanul worsened with every mile. He was grateful for a third wheel on the rugged terrain, but the thick leather gauntlets weren’t doing much to keep out the cold wind and his fingers were becoming numb on the bars. The old man had been right about the snow, too. The horizontal sleet that stung Joel’s face as he rode was turning to thickening flurries of white. He had to keep wiping the flakes from the glass of his goggles, and the rocky road was slowly disappearing in the feeble glow of the Dnepr’s headlamp as it merged with the snowy verge.
After another arduous hour, and just as his hands and feet were beginning to feel like lifeless lumps of meat, Joel caught a glimpse of stone buildings a few hundred yards ahead.
Vâlcanul. From the directions he’d managed to prise out of the teacher woman, he knew this had to be the place.
Not a single light was shining. Not a soul around, no vehicles anywhere to be seen apart from his own. The village was even smaller than the one he’d come from, and it seemed to be completely deserted. From the rotted doors and glassless windows, the collapsed roofs, the weeds growing through the paving stones, it was as if nobody had lived here for a hundred years.
Joel braked the bike to a slithering halt in the middle of the snowy street and dead silence filled his ears when he turned off the engine and climbed down from the saddle. The clouds had parted. Pale moonlight shone down through the wisping snowflakes. Joel removed his goggles, unstrapped his helmet and gazed around him at the scene of desolation.
Could this be the right place? It was hard to imagine Gabriel Stone abandoning his manor house in England for a remote ruined mountain village. Joel reached into the sidecar, opened the case and took out the cross, remembering the way it had seemed to thrum with its own life when he’d been near Kate Hawthorne. He gripped it tightly in his fist. It felt cold and inanimate.
There was nothing here.
Joel couldn’t do anything to repress the weight of bitterness that settled over him. He’d come all this way for nothing. And now he was going to have to stay the night in this dismal place. But where? Most of the houses were nothing more than roofless shells.
Then he noticed the old church. It overlooked the houses from the end of the street, standing at the top of a gently sloping rise. Sections of roof were still in decent order, enough to provide a bit of shelter. Joel left the bike where it stood – he didn’t think anyone was going to steal it.
There wasn’t much left inside the church except for its bare stone walls. Joel found a spot away from the icy wind that whistled through the broken stained glass windows, laid down the case and grimly started rooting around in his rucksack for his little Primus stove, a box of matches and a can of soup. As he struck a match with trembling fingers, he glanced out of the smashed window. From this slightly higher ground, he had a better view of the craggy mountain peaks rising out of the pine forests, like rows of jagged white teeth stretching from horizon to horizon under the pale moon.
Then he stopped, did a double take and stared. The match burned back and singed his fingers; he dropped it without taking his eyes off what he’d just seen.
Perched on the summit of a nearby mountain, bathed in a shaft of moonlight, was a castle.
The craggy battlements loomed high against the night sky. As Joel got closer, every rise of the Dnepr’s engine note as it lurched over the bumps made him cringe in case the noise reached listening ears. He didn’t dare use the headlight, and only the deep moon-shadows sloping away down the steep rocky banks either side of the road kept him from riding off course and tumbling a thousand feet down to the black depths of the valley below.
Fear had its icy fingers around Joel’s guts and was wringing them tight. A kind of madness was rising up inside him that almost made him want to laugh with terror. All that prevented his mind from cracking completely was the thought of the cross of Ardaich, nestling on the sidecar seat just a few inches from his right knee. He’d left the case behind in Vâlcanul. He no longer had any use for it. He was riding into war now – and whatever fate was lying in wait for him up there, there wasn’t a force on the planet that could have persuaded him to turn back.
Up ahead, the snowy road snaked all the way up to the castle gates. If he’d had any notions of storming right up to them like a conquering knight on his charger, they melted quickly away at the memory of the attack in Venice. Stone had humans working for him as well as vampires, and until the fangs came out, the only way to tell one enemy from another was to get close to them with the cross. One would shrivel up and die, but the other might easily just put a bullet in his head. He needed to approach by stealth.
He was still a quarter of a mile from the castle walls when he decided that the bike’s engine noise was too big a risk, and turned off the ignition. The machine coasted a few yards, and he jumped out of the saddle and used its momentum to roll it off the road and hide it behind a large rock on the verge.
Here we go, Solomon. This is it.
By the light of the moon he studied the lie of the land. The castle had been built to withstand sieges and wars, and its architects had known what they were doing. Except for where the raised roadway wound up to the gates, the base of the massive walls dropped away down a sheer cliff face. No ancient army could have scaled it successfully, weighed down as they would have been by shields and armour and weapons. Even if a few had made it to the top, archers in the battlements would have mown them down in the open killing field between the cliff edge and the foot of the wall.
But a single, skilled climber, armed with just a small stone cross, had a chance to get up there unseen. It had been a while since he’d done any rock climbing but, tracing his eye up the cliff face, Joel reckoned he could make it. It was a hell of a challenge, and he was mad even to think of attempting it, on his own, in the dark, without ropes or crampons or any kind of proper equipment.
But then, he reflected, he
was
mad. Had to be, to be here at all.
He zipped open his rucksack and shook all the contents – spare clothes, his stove and food supply, documents and passport, anything that was surplus weight – out into the footwell of the sidecar. He put the cross inside in their place and carefully closed the zippers and Velcro fastenings, before taking off his jacket and looping the rucksack straps around his shoulders and waist over the sweatshirt underneath. It cheered him immensely to think he was a walking anti-vampire weapon now, lethal just by his presence. The adrenalin was rushing through his veins so fast, he didn’t even feel the cold any more as he went scrambling down the snowy bank and traced a zigzagging path through the trees to the base of the cliff.
Exactly two hours after Gabriel Stone had left her alone to wander about the great hall, Alex was summoned again and Lonsdale escorted her through the winding passageways of the castle, the vampire guards close behind.
She could see the heaviness in Lonsdale’s step, the dullness in his eyes and the way his head hung low as he walked. The ancient practice of enslaving humans as ghouls had been one of the first things the Federation had abolished when it had seized power, and Alex had been there at the reading of the proclamation. Trust Gabriel Stone to have flouted the law with such audacity. Lonsdale gave off an air of complete pathos – she couldn’t help but feel just a little sorry for him.
The pale ghoul showed her through a tall doorway into a brightly lit room filled with state-of-the-art equipment. A large and expensive-looking digital film camera was mounted on a tripod, pointing at an empty carved oak throne. A rack-mounted DVD recorder was connected to a large screen.
Stone looked breezy and relaxed in an open-necked white shirt and silk necktie. Lillith had draped herself over a divan in the corner, while Zachary and the other two of his inner circle were watching over the prisoners. Rumble and the seven Federation Supremos were huddled together, surrounded by the sword-wielding guards. Olympia Angelopolis had completely lost her famous composure, but she still managed to look proud next to Gaston Lerouge. Hassan, Goldmund, Korentayer, Mushkavanhu and Borowczyk stood gazing down at their feet, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
‘Alexandra,’ Stone called with a bright smile, looking genuinely pleased to see her. Alex noticed the hot glower that Lillith shot at his back as he walked across to greet her. ‘Thank you, Jeremy,’ he said to Lonsdale. ‘That will be all for now. You may return to your hole until I call for you again.’ He took Alex’s elbow. ‘Let me show you what your friends and I have been up to for the last couple of hours,’ he said warmly. ‘I must say it’s all been going marvellously.’ He turned to Olympia. ‘We’ve been having rather a lot of fun down here, have we not?’