The executioner stepped back in disappointment and lowered his sabre. Lillith reached across her body and drew her own blade from its scabbard with a rattle of steel. She walked up to where Alex was still being held on her knees and swished the sabre through the air a couple of times, relishing the moment.
Alex looked down, refusing to make eye contact with her. Then she felt the cold steel of the weapon’s tip touch her face.
‘Look at me, Agent Bishop.’
The point of the blade ran down Alex’s cheek, stroked her lips, then Lillith pressed up hard under her chin and forced her head up.
‘I said, look at me, bitch.’
Alex glowered at her. Lillith smiled. ‘I wonder how your head would look on a silver platter. We could have delivered it to your Federation bosses. That is, if you still had any. Shame — me and Zachary here would have loved to slice that pretty little neck of yours.’
Zachary gave a low chuckle.
‘Don’t miss your chance,’ Alex said. ‘You might not get another.’
‘My brother’s looking forward to meeting you,’ Lillith said. ‘He’s got plans for you.’ She whipped the sabre away from Alex’s chin and slid it back into its scabbard.
Turning to the assault team vampires, she said, ‘Okay, load her up with the others.’
The assault leader pointed at Harry Rumble. ‘What about that one?’
Lillith surveyed Rumble with disdain. ‘Who is he?’
‘Just the VIA head in London.’
‘Really? How interesting. And you were about to give him the chop?’ She strolled casually over to Rumble, swaying her hips. He flinched away as she ran her fingers down his cheek. ‘Nice little bonus. Gabriel will be pleased. Fine, bring him along too.’
Alex and Rumble were hauled to their feet and dragged over to join the Supremos. The vampires in black prodded them with the swords towards the exit and marched them outside towards the Chinook. Its enormous rotors began to turn faster and the whine of its turbines rose to a roar as the pilot readied for lift-off.
‘Whatever you’re being paid to do this, I can triple it,’ Olympia Angelopolis pleaded with Lillith as she was bundled into the rear hatch of the helicopter.
‘I know you and your cronies have stashed away plenty during the last few years,’ Lillith said. ‘But we’re not interested in your money.’
‘I could rip her tongue out if you want,’ Zachary offered.
Lillith shook her head. ‘She’s going to need one for the little show we’re putting on.’
Alex and Rumble exchanged quizzical glances. Neither of them spoke. The vampires in black shoved the rest of the prisoners on board. Lillith gave them a mocking wave as the hatch was closing.
‘Bon voyage, Federation scumbags. Pretty soon you’re all going to wish you’d never been turned.’
The hatch clanged shut, the cargo hold went black. Moments later Alex felt a rising sensation as the big Chinook took off into the night.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Hours passed. Voices in the dark, vibrating space of the cargo hold.
‘Where are they taking us?’ Lerouge sounded agitated and fearful.
‘They must surely let us go,’ said Borowczyk.
‘It is an outrage.’ Goldmund’s voice. ‘An outrage, pure and simple.’
‘The question is, what do we do about it?’ Alex said. ‘We can’t just sit here.’
‘The field agent.’ Olympia Angelopolis’s voice muttered scornfully from the darkness. ‘And what exactly is it you propose to do? As you seem to have so many wonderful ideas as to how we should run our affairs.’
‘For a start, I wouldn’t waste my time trying to bribe these guys,’ Alex answered.
‘You can’t buy your way out of this one so easily.’
‘Then what, Alex?’ Rumble’s voice. He sounded subdued.
‘We have to fight.’
‘With what? They have swords. They might still have Nosferol bullets, too.’
Alex gave a snort. ‘Maybe Gabriel Stone’s right about us, Harry. Seems to me that with all this Federation bullshit, we’ve forgotten who we are. We’re vampires.
Vampires fight. They don’t plead and beg.’
Rumble drew a breath. ‘Alex—’
‘You will please to remember whom you are addressing,’ Hassan said indignantly in his thick accent. ‘You are in the presence of Supremo Angelopolis.’
‘I know exactly whose presence I’m in,’ Alex said, and the conversation settled into a brooding silence. She could feel Harry Rumble frowning at her in the darkness.
The Chinook flew on and on. The night ticked slowly by. There was a landing that Alex guessed was for fuel, and then the chopper took off again. None of the prisoners spoke. Alex began counting the hours since she’d taken her last Solazal. Just before two in the afternoon, she remembered, which meant that the effect would start to wear off sometime in the early hours of the morning. She’d have bet that none of the others had taken any much later than that. None of them would survive the sunrise.
Gabriel Stone was forcing them to remember what it was like to live as real vampires. The thought almost made Alex smile.
As the hours ticked by, she knew that Harry Rumble and the Supremos had the dawn on their mind, too. Gaston Lerouge seemed especially nervous. Then, with still time to spare before the first rays of the sun began to lighten the sky, they felt the chopper begin another descent and then settle on solid ground. The rotors slowed and the hatchway opened abruptly. The same black-clad vampire guards who’d loaded them on board hauled them out one by one into the cold night air.
Alex looked around her. Moonlight shone on distant mountains and the high stone walls around them.
‘We’re in a castle,’ she whispered to Rumble.
They didn’t have much chance to talk as the guards grabbed them and separated them. Alex was shoved at sword-point through a barred doorway and down a narrow arched passage to a cell.
She breathed a sigh of relief. No windows. At least Stone hadn’t devised a little barbecue session when the sun came up in a few hours’ time. He clearly had other plans. The cell walls were about four feet thick, solid rock, and the steel door was too tough even for a vampire to get through. There was little else to do except hang around to find out what Stone’s plans might be.
Alex curled up in the corner of the cell, and the long wait began.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Bucharest, Romania
1.32 p.m. local time
The freezing rain was turning to sleet and the pavements outside the airport were gleaming and slippery. Joel’s spirits were sagging as he waited in a huddled queue for a taxicab. A rattling, grime-streaked Peugeot lurched up and he loaded his rucksack and the metal case in the back seat. The dashboard was littered with junk and the smell of the sickly air blasting through the vents didn’t help Joel’s stomach much. He’d almost been sick twice on the plane, but he’d eaten so little in the last twenty-four hours that he had nothing to throw up.
