‘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 Ubervampyr?’
‘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.’
Chapter Seventy-Seven
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 Valcanul 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.
Valcanul. 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.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
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 Valcanul. 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
