Joel stood, swaying on his feet, blood running down his face, gaping down at the two corpses lying in front of him with their skulls virtually fused together. In that instant he was transported back eighteen years. He was a child again, cowering behind the banisters of his grandfather’s cottage, just a few feet from the bodies of his parents who had been murdered in just the same way.
Her strength. The speed. No human could move that way, kill with that kind of ease. Especially not after taking four bullets to the chest.
Alex finally broke the silence. ‘We need to get away from here.’ She stepped over the dead men and grasped Joel’s arm. He jerked away from her, still winded from the punches and kicks he’d taken. But it wasn’t the beating he’d taken that was making it hard to stay on his feet.
He knew now. He understood.
The way she’d dropped her cup that time at his mention of the cross. The way she’d seemed transfixed by his bleeding hand when he’d gashed himself on the broken table. This woman he’d trusted. This woman that he’d made love with.
‘You’re one…one of them. You’re a vampire.’
‘Listen to me, Joel. It’s not what you think. Not exactly.’
He raised his hands to his face, pinched the flesh of his cheeks. Wake up, Joel.
‘Tell me this isn’t happening,’ he muttered. ‘Tell me it isn’t true.’
‘Joel—’
‘Don’t come near me!’ He backed away from her. She took a step towards him, reaching out her hand towards him, and they circled one another on the bloody pavement.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘There are things you need to understand.’
‘Like how you manage to walk in daylight? Pass yourself off as a human?’
‘Things aren’t the way they used to be.’
‘I don’t care. You bite people and suck their blood.’
‘I don’t kill to do it. It’s different now.’
‘Vampires are the good guys now, is that it?’
‘Not all. Just my side.’
‘You’re a curse.’
‘I’m not your enemy, Joel. Gabriel Stone is. Yours, and mine. And he’s the worst enemy you can imagine. If you’d let me explain what’s happening—’
Joel felt his foot nudge something solid. He took his eyes off her just long enough to see that it was the lead- lined steel case. He made a lunge for it, grabbed it with both hands and wrenched it off the ground. He saw her pupils dilate as he clutched it to his chest.
‘What does it do to you?’
‘Joel—’
‘Answer me or I’ll open this lid and find out for myself.’
She sighed. ‘Your grandfather was right. The cross has the power to destroy us.’
‘Why this one? Why just this one cross?’
‘I can’t say. Nobody knows.’
‘You lied to me. All that bullshit about your sister. You used me. Then what –
once I’d helped you to find the cross, were you going to kill me, too? Was that the plan, Alex?’
‘No, Joel.’
‘There’s something you don’t know about me. I told you I believed in vampires –
but I didn’t tell you that I’d killed one once. It was a long time ago, but I can do it again. And believe me, if I could kill my own grandfather, I’m pretty sure I can kill you.’
‘One hour,’ she said. ‘That’s all the time I need to explain it all to you. Then you’ll understand why we need you, why it’s important that you work together with us.’
He frowned. ‘Us? You mean vampires?’
‘There’s a whole world you don’t know about, that no human knows about. I work for the Vampire Federation, and we’re under attack from an uprising led by Gabriel Stone and his people.’
‘Do you think I care about your politics? You’re a vampire, Alex.’
‘You will care, because it’s bad news for humans if Stone succeeds. You and I need to get this case back to London, and we’ll destroy Stone together.’
Joel shook his head violently. ‘Go,’ he yelled. ‘Get out of here. This is your one chance to get away from me. If I see you again, Alex, you’re just another vampire. God help me, I’ll finish you along with the rest.’
‘Give me the case, Joel. Don’t mess about.’
‘Come a step closer, I open the lid. I swear.’
‘You’d do that to me?’ she said softly. ‘After what happened between us?’
‘What happened between us was an obscenity,’ he heard himself say.
Police sirens cut through the night air, still far off but growing steadily louder.
Joel glanced across the canal and saw lights flashing in the mist. The bow wave of the approaching police launch was white against the dark water.
He turned back to Alex. She was gone.
He clutched the case tightly to his chest and began to run.
Chapter Sixty-Four
If there were any vampires on the evening flight home from Venice, they had no idea what the quiet passenger in the damp, rumpled clothes sitting alone near the back of the plane was carrying in the small metal case that seemed to be his only luggage.
Gazing numbly out of the window at the dark sky, Joel could see his own pale, bruised, haunted-looking reflection staring back at him. He was oblivious of the other passengers and ignored the small girl who kept pointing at him and asking her mother what had happened to that man’s face. He barely acknowledged the cheerful stewardess who came by offering food and drink. Didn’t even feel the pain from the split in his lip or the purple swelling around his left cheekbone. Anyone watching him would have been unable to detect the smallest flicker of expression on his face as he sat there immobile, almost catatonic. But inside he was screaming in turmoil as he contemplated the task that faced him now. Peaks and troughs of conflicting emotion flooded over him like the temperature extremes of a violent fever — elated and thrilling to the drumbeat of war one instant, crippled by terror the next and wanting to run and run and keep running and never look back.
But he knew it was no longer his decision to make. He was the bearer of the cross, and there was only one road he could travel. Come what may, he was far beyond recall.
The shakes didn’t begin for real until after landing, when he tried to insert the key of his rental Ford Mondeo into the ignition and found his hand trembling so badly it took him three attempts to start the engine. He leaned back against the head restraint.
Closed his eyes and took three deep breaths.
All right, Solomon. Here we go. This is it.
The night was starless and oppressive as he drove. He stopped at a motorway services to buy a plastic torch and a bar of chocolate that he didn’t have the stomach to eat. All through his journey, he tried to force his mind to stay blank. And failed.
Then, on the stroke of eleven p.m., his headlights swept across the tall iron gates of Crowmoor Hall. He put the car in neutral, letting it idle as he reached over to his left and rested his trembling hand on the metal box on the passenger seat next to him. He flipped the catches and opened the lid. The cross gleamed dully under the soft glow of the instrument lights. He lifted it carefully out from the foam padding and held it tight in both fists.
This is the end for you bastards, he thought. And it wouldn’t stop here. He was going to dedicate himself, the way his grandfather had: as long as it took, to take down as many of these monsters as he could. The politician,
