The Cross

subterranean garden, the Ecliptic Portal.

The yells and footsteps of their pursuers weren’t far behind.

‘We can get out that way,’ Lillith said excitedly. ‘It’s a window to the outside. There’s a mechanism somewhere that can open the hatches. Look.’ An ice gangway spiralled around the base of the enormous telescope. Midway up its height was what looked like an observation platform, and attached to a strange and complex arrangement of mechanical arms was a huge lever. ‘Come on!’ she shouted to Zachary, leading him towards it.

But as the Portal came into view, her face fell in despair.

They were too late. The Portal’s dull mirrors were lighten ing with the glow of the rising sun.

‘We’re trapped!’ she screamed.

A whooshing pike-blade tore through Zachary’s shoulder and crashed into a pillar with a shower of splinters. He swore and clutched at the wound, turning to see the guards that were pouring into the garden, cutting off their exit. Five, six Ubervampyr were bounding along behind them. Their cries echoed up to the vast ceiling.

Lillith knew how it felt to face certain destruction. She’d felt it that day on the castle battlements in Romania when it had seemed all was lost for her and Gabriel — and she could taste the same grim certainty now. They weren’t getting out of here. She swallowed hard.

Zachary’s eyes suddenly brightened. ‘What are you doing?’ Lillith said as he dug something out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand. ‘What are these?’ she asked, staring at the little white pill.

‘Federation shit,’ Zachary said. ‘Solazal. Had them all along.’

‘Do they work?’

‘Only one way to find out,’ he said, and tossed one in his mouth. Lillith hesitated, then did the same.

By this time the guards and their Masters were past the ring of statues and rapidly approaching. Another flying spear crashed against the base of the telescope.

‘Let’s move!’ Zachary yelled, hauling Lillith up the ice gangway towards the observation platform. Lillith screamed as a jet of venom splashed off the hand rail right next to her. Zachary reached the lever and gripped it with both hands. ‘I sure hope that Solazal stuff works fast, ‘cause here goes.’

He gave the lever a yank.

It didn’t budge.

The Ubervampyr and their guards had reached the bottom of the gangway. The tall creatures parted their mandibles. The extended tongues came slithering out, fangs bared, poised to squirt the paralysing venom. They were well within range now.

Zachary threw all his weight and muscle against the lever. His face contorted with the strain, teeth clenched, tendons sticking out from his neck.

And the lever rotated on its axis with a grinding clunk that echoed all the way up to the Ecliptic Portal.

The hatches began to slide open.

And then something happened that hadn’t happened for more centuries than Lillith and Zachary could remember. Standing there on the observation platform, they were suddenly drenched in the golden rays of the early morning sunlight.

The shouts of rage from down below turned instantly to screams and then were silenced. Hit by the rays of light, the vampire guards disintegrated in flames. A terrified Ubervampyr burst alight and became a cloud of cinders before it could scurry into shadow.

Lillith screwed her eyes shut in terror and clung tightly to Zachary as the silent scream filled every cell of her being. This was it. The horrific nightmare end that all vampires dreaded.

But it wasn’t. Nothing happened. Lillith opened her eyes and held her trembling hands up in front of them. The sunlight shone brightly on her skin, and yet she wasn’t on fire. She wasn’t peeling or blackening or turning to cinders that floated away on the air.

‘Looks like we’re still here,’ Zachary grinned.

It took less than a minute for the two vampires to swarm up the towering shape of the telescope, feeling the sunlight on them more intensely with every yard they climbed. From the rim of its giant ice lens to the edge of the hatch was a long leap. Lillith went first, then Zachary, and suddenly they were standing on the surface looking down at the burning remains of their enemies far below.

All around them was the vast white desert — flat snow-covered tundra to the south, craggy mountain ranges to the north.

‘I never thought I could experience this again,’ Lillith said, closing her eyes for a second and feeling the long- forgotten glow of the sun’s warmth on her cheeks. It was an incredible sensation. ‘But don’t tell Gabriel I ever said that,’ she added in a warning tone. ‘And for the love of blood, whatever you do, don’t ever mention to him we took those pills.’

‘Believe me,’ Zachary said, ‘I’d be in a lot more trouble than you would. Say, how long you reckon the effects last?’

‘No idea. Give me another one, just in case.’ As she munched it and felt the strange fizzle on her tongue, she shielded her eyes from the sunlight and gauged their bearings.

‘Now let’s go and find that aeroplane,’ she said. ‘And pray that the humans are still there waiting for us.’

Chapter Fifty-Nine

It had taken far longer to get out of Britain than either Alex or Joel would have liked, but there was a price to pay for doing these things semi-legitimately. No matter how flagrantly Alex flouted the speed limits, the stop-offs at Wallingford, Oxford and Bedford to collect passports and personal effects had eaten a big chunk out of the day and it wasn’t until two in the afternoon that the Jaguar was finally stowed on board the cross-Channel ferry en route for Calais.

‘Alone at last,’ Alex said to Joel as she joined him at the rail, looking out across the grey sea and the disappearing cliffs of Dover. ‘Are you talking to me now?’

‘Of course I’m talking to you,’ he said glumly.

‘I’m glad, Joel.’

He sighed. ‘I really did miss you, you know. I’m not just saying that.’

‘I came looking for you,’ he said, staring down at the white foam that streamed alongside the hull of the boat. ‘At your place in Canary Wharf.’

‘I moved.’

‘I gathered.’

‘And if I hadn’t?’

‘I don’t know what I’d have done,’ he said. ‘I thought I did, at the time, but now …’ He looked at her and saw she was smiling.

‘And I meant it when I said I was sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’d never willingly do that.’

‘I know,’ he sighed. She touched his hand. He gave her fingers a squeeze.

‘Look at those two,’ she laughed, pointing towards the porthole behind them, through which a sharp vampire eye could make out the figures of Dec and Chloe sitting together at the bar in the ferry’s main lounge. ‘They seem to be getting on well.’

‘They have a lot in common,’ Joel said. ‘They’ve both lost someone thanks to a vampire. Thanks to things like us,’ he added darkly.

‘You can say “people like us”, you know,’ she said.

He looked at her. ‘I thought we’d stopped being “people”. Isn’t that the whole idea?’

‘Technically, yes. But I know I’d rather think of myself as a person than a thing, wouldn’t you?’

‘I’m sure your victims would be delighted to know that,’ he said.

Her eyes scanned his face with concern. ‘You’re pale, Joel.’