The Cross

this from happening, Joel. We have to get that damned cross back. And there’s only one way we can do that.’ Alex turned to Dec and Chloe. ‘You humans can’t fight Gabriel Stone. And Joel and I can’t touch the cross. But if we work together, the four of us, as a team … Then, maybe, just maybe, we have a chance.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Chloe burst out. ‘I won’t listen to this crazy talk.’

Alex gripped her arm tightly, willing her to believe. ‘We have a common purpose, Chloe. You want to avenge your father? If we waste no time finding Stone, there’s still a good chance Ash won’t be far away.’ She turned to Dec. ‘And you, Dec, you want to destroy Stone for Kate, don’t you?’

Dec looked down at his feet.

Lastly, Alex turned to Joel. ‘What about you, Joel? You still want to shoot me?’

Joel let out a long sigh. He shook his head.

‘Good. Because I can’t do this without you.’

‘All right,’ Joel said softly. ‘I’m in.’

‘Fuck it, so am I,’ Dec said, sticking out his chest.

Chloe stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

‘Can’t you see she’s right?’ Dec said, seeing Chloe’s expression. ‘It’s our only chance, so it is.’ But as the look on her face only became more set, he sighed and added, ‘But if you want to stay out of it, I’ll understand.’

‘I still don’t buy a word of this,’ Chloe said. ‘But I won’t be left out. Not if you think you can help me get to Ash.’

‘Then we’re all agreed,’ Alex said. ‘We’re a team.’

‘More like a motley crew,’ Chloe muttered. ‘Two crazy kids and a couple of blood-sucking lunatics.’

‘So what happens now, like?’ Dec asked. ‘We go and get Stone?’

Joel shook his head. ‘Not just like that, we won’t. Stone doesn’t leave a trail for anyone to follow.’

‘I think I know how we can find him,’ Alex said.

Chapter Fifty-Two

The Ridings

‘He’ll want to see you right away,’ Zachary said to Ash when he stepped out into the night to greet the car on its return from the airfield. ‘Follow me.’

Ash said nothing as Zachary led him through the manor house, but he noticed that the place had filled up noticeably with visitors since his departure. Vampire visitors: they eyed him curiously as he passed by, some hungrily, licking their lips and nudging their companions with a chuckle.

He wasn’t afraid of them any more. When one of them got a touch too close and bared long white fangs at him, he held up the case and saw the sudden fear cloud the vampire’s face. That’s right. You know what’s in here, don’t you?

After that, nobody bothered Ash again. Even Zachary was nervous of the thing the human was carrying. He led Ash towards the sound of thundering piano music that was coming from the east wing. The playing ended abruptly in the middle of a crashing downward flurry of notes as Zachary knocked on the door and showed Ash inside the room.

Gabriel Stone was sitting at a gleaming black grand piano, glaring at the doorway, about to demand who could be so impertinent as to interrupt his virtuoso rendering of Franz Liszt’s Revolutionary etude (incorporating some of his own flourishes that the composer had been unable to get his fingers around) — then he saw Ash walk in, case in hand, and his expression changed.

‘It is done, then?’ he said.

Ash nodded. Gabriel leaped up from the piano stool and tentatively took the case from him. Grabbing a heavy chain from a nearby table, he triple-wrapped and padlocked it. Ash slipped the mini-camcorder from his pocket and offered it to him.

‘Let me be the first to witness the deeds of this historic day,’ Gabriel said, staring hungrily at the small, high- resolution screen. The annihilation of the VIA office, followed by Ash’s equally devastating tour of the Federation Headquarters in Brussels: Gabriel watched it all unfolding with a rapt expression. When it was over, he looked at Ash and nodded solemnly. ‘You have served me well, human. Come, now. Join our festivities. Everyone is waiting.’

With the hour of the party approaching, a hundred vampires assembled in the mansion’s huge dining room and their excited chatter filled the air as the confirmation of Gabriel’s victory spread. A glittering array of crystal decanters and carafes stood on the Chippendale sideboards, filled with blood: at last, and much to Lillith’s delight, Gabriel had given his consent for the human prisoners to be used for the purpose for which they’d been stored in the basement. The two ghouls, Sharon and Geoffrey Hopley, were limping squalidly around the room serving glasses from silver trays (the consensus among the vampires was that, for all Gabriel’s qualities, he was not the greatest judge of ghoul-flesh). Lillith had exchanged her favourite red leather jumpsuit for a beautiful black silk ball gown with a plunging neckline that drew dozens of admiring glances from around the room — but her glow of pride quickly turned to a scowl when Kali made her entrance wearing a shimmering white dress that wowed the crowd. Its magnificence upstaged Lillith’s in every way, the effect crowned by a glittering ruby necklace that had been a gift from a powerful Afghan warlord nine centuries earlier.

A murmur spread through the dining room as Gabriel strode in. He was immediately surrounded by vampires wanting to shake his hand and pat him on the back. He waved them all away graciously, pressed through the crowd and leaped up on a table clutching a crystal flute of blood, calling for silence. The room instantly fell to a hush.

‘My friends,’ he began, ‘words cannot express my joy in bringing you the news of this most momentous victory. The unspeakable filth that was the Federation need be spoken of no more, for it has been washed away. Save for a few scattered remnants, who will swiftly be rounded up and brought to justice, or persuaded to join us as we rebuild the glory that once was the vampire world, our enemy is finally … resoundingly … irreversibly … eternally obliterated: first the shameful spies and informants in London, swiftly followed by the tyrants in Brussels. Rejoice, one and all, and let us raise our glasses to this day when the shackles of oppression have at last been cast off!’

Wild applause ensued, a deafening chorus of cheers. Gabriel swallowed his blood in one gulp, dashed the empty glass in the fireplace and then waited for silence before continuing.

‘How curious that we should owe a large part of our victory to one who is not of our kind — that is to say, not yet. A toast, my friends, to Ash, soon to be graced with the highest honour we can bestow and inducted into our family circle. To Ash, our new brother in blood.’

More riotous applause as all eyes turned towards Ash, who was standing quietly at the back of the room, gazing down at his feet. Glasses clinked and were drained.

‘To Ash!’ a hundred voices clamoured in unison.

Gabriel paused to pluck a long Havana from his breast pocket, snatch a candlestick from the mantelpiece and light the cigar with its flame. He smiled through a cloud of smoke. ‘And now, my friends, as the modern saying goes … let’s party.’

The wild celebrations rocked the mansion, quickly spilling beyond the dining room to the gardens. Gallon after gallon of blood and wine and iced champagne were consumed, together with dainty finger-food prepared by the ghouls. Crowds gathered around the giant television screen that had been brought down from the master bedroom and set up at one end of the room to play, over and over again, the scenes of delicious destruction in London and Brussels.

Meanwhile, two of the human captives were set loose outside in the grounds and chased for sport. Lillith was the first to catch one — hiding in the gazebo — and gleefully slash its throat, splashing the front of her dress. One of the severed heads was tossed away across the moonlit lawn, where Baxter Burnett, having already overturned Jeremy Lonsdale’s golf buggy with a blood cocktail between his knees, was practising chipping balls into its open mouth.