Stone turned to read the antique clock on the mantelpiece. A few minutes after five. ‘Is it dark yet?’
‘Beg your pardon, sir?’
‘I said, has night fallen?’
‘Ah, I understand,’ the stupid human said. ‘We appreciate how busy you are, sir.
No, the facility will be open until late. We can send the car for you any time.’
‘I will telephone you back,’ Stone said.
But he wouldn’t be doing it on that particular phone, because he slammed the receiver down so hard that it shattered into a thousand pieces. He raised his face to the ceiling and his scream of rage filled the flickering shadows and reverberated off the stone walls. He paced furiously up and down, grabbing anything that lay in his path and dashing it violently against the wall. He seized a priceless Ming vase from a pedestal and hurled it like a missile through the centre of the gilt-framed Florentine mirror that hung over the fireplace. A shower of broken glass rained down, snuffing out the flames of the silver candlesticks. He screamed again.
Lillith came rushing into the room, hearing the noise.
‘Gabriel—’ She stopped and looked at him. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he? Our servant?’
There was a tremor in her voice, and she was watching him with round eyes. He’d never lost his temper in her presence, not in all the centuries they’d roamed the earth together.
He stopped smashing things and turned to glare at her, reading her expression.
There was more than just fear and outrage in her eyes. There was a tinge of guilt there, too, that she was trying hard but failing to hide. He stepped towards her, and the way she backed off told him he was right.
‘What have you done?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing.’
‘What have you done, Lillith? Lie to me, and I’ll destroy you. I will end you.’
‘Don’t hurt me,’ she pleaded, cowering. ‘I only did it to help us.’
‘Explain yourself.’
‘Seymour found out who the policeman was. His name’s Solomon, Joel Solomon.
He’s an inspector. And he was bluffing you. He doesn’t have the cross.’ As she spoke, the fear in her eyes was changing shade to a spark of defiance. ‘You could have taken him that night, Gabriel, but you were too afraid.’
‘You’re telling me that this Solomon has murdered our most trusted of servants, because you ignored my specific commands? You sent Finch there to kill him, didn’t you?’
‘How was I to know the human would get the better of him?’
Stone drew back his hand to slap her. He could tear her head off with a single blow. But before he could deliver it, the door burst open and he spun round to see Zachary entering the dark study. He glared at him in fury at the interruption.
Zachary was clutching a small silver mobile phone in his giant fist. Through his rage, Gabriel recognised it as the one they used to communicate with their main contact within VIA.
‘A text message has arrived,’ Zachary said urgently. ‘The Federation leaders have called an emergency conference in Belgium. We have all the details. Venue, date, time, and who’ll be there. All of them in one place.’
‘Perfect,’ Gabriel said. His rage suddenly subsided. This was exactly what he’d hoped for.
‘There’s more,’ Zachary said. ‘And you won’t like it.’ He coughed nervously, glanced down at his boots. Not even a huge and powerful vampire wanted to be the bearer of bad tidings to someone like Gabriel Stone.
‘What?’
Zachary swallowed hard and came out with it. ‘Our informant says that the Federation agent Alex Bishop and a policeman called Joel Solomon are travelling to Venice to find the cross.’
Solomon and VIA working together. It was humiliating enough to have been duped by the human but to hear that he was conspiring with the hated enemy was unendurable. The enormity of it made Gabriel grind his teeth.
He ordered Zachary harshly out of the room, and began pacing again. His mind was working hard on a counter-strategy. With Finch gone, he would need a whole new plan.
Lillith came up to him and clasped his hands. ‘Let me go after them. I’ll destroy the VIA scum before she finds anything. I’ll tear the human apart and feast on him and bring you back his head on a platter.’
‘No, sister. It is my wish that they find the cross.’
She frowned. ‘You would allow this to be brought on us? Our kind has long wanted the cross to be suppressed. It’s too dangerous. This is madness.’
‘It’s precisely because the cross is dangerous that we cannot afford to ignore it,’
he told her. ‘The time has come to unearth it, so that it can be properly dealt with.’
‘But who can we rely on to take care of it, now that—’ Lillith stalled in mid-sentence, not wanting to say Finch’s name.
‘You’ve trusted me for many years,’ Gabriel replied softly as he stroked her hair.
He ran his hand down the contour of her neck, down her shoulder. His touch lingered on the curve of her breast. She half-closed her eyes, let out a small gasp.
‘Trust me now,’ he said.
Chapter Fifty-Six
The Private Members’ Library, Houses of Parliament, London 9.03 p.m.
Jeremy Lonsdale was so completely absorbed in the speech notes he was putting the finishing touches to that he hadn’t realised until now that he was the only one left working late in the library that night. He’d nearly finished his amendments; it would soon be time to go back to the luxury Kensington townhouse where he spent the two days a week that he wasn’t in Italy or at his country pile in Surrey.
He didn’t entirely relish the prospect of going home to an empty house. His work was now all that allowed him to take his mind off his troubles, and since his return from Tuscany he’d thrown himself back into it with renewed vigour. Home was where the terrifying reality of his predicament was never far enough from his thoughts.
He picked up his pencil and made another small annotation to the wording on one of the printed sheets under the light of the banker’s desk lamp. He reread it, and nodded with approval; it sounded much more sincere that way. Satisfied, he pushed the sheet of paper away from him, out of the glow of the lamp, and picked up another.
Then an afterthought occurred to him, and he reached again for the first sheet.
His fingers groped on the bare desktop. The sheet was gone. He angled the lamp, but all he saw was an empty expanse of dull green leather. Maybe it had fluttered down the other side and was lying on the floor? He scraped back his chair and began to rise to his feet.
The voice in the empty room stopped him short.
‘Fine speech, Jeremy.’
It was Stone. He was standing just beyond the light of the desk lamp, perfectly still and merged into the darkness. As he stepped towards the desk, his cape-like black leather coat glistened. In his hands was the missing sheet of paper.
‘I am sure this piece of masterly hypocrisy will earn you the faith of the gullible,’
Stone said.
Lonsdale glanced nervously around him. ‘How the hell did you get past security?’
he blustered.
Stone chuckled. ‘Do you not know me yet, Jeremy?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Simply to speak to you, Jeremy. And to charge you with a task.’
