The Cross

Ash was suspended directly over the abyss now, his handless arm hooked over the cable, reaching out with the other towards the cross. Chloe grabbed the pistol to take another shot, but just as she got him in her sights another cloud passed over the moon and Ash was lost in shadows.

Dec was calling down to her. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m not hurt. Help me up.’

‘Hang on,’ Dec yelled back. ‘I’ve had an idea.’ If he could get the cable car to travel back downwards, he could scrape Ash off the wire and send him to his death, or else maybe mash him up in the pulleys. Seeing a big electrical switch lever that looked to him like a main fuse control, Dec yanked it. The lights went off.

‘Dec, what’s happening?’ Chloe called out.

‘Hold on, I’m coming.’ Working frantically, Dec groped about in the dark for a handful of the electrical wires he’d cut earlier and started tearing at the insulation so that he could twist them back together and feed juice back to the control box.

He scarcely had time to think Shit, wrong fusebox before the electric shock jolted through him from head to toe, making him almost bite his tongue off and flinging him unconscious against the wall.

The wires fell in a heap and instantly began to smoulder and sparkle. A flame leaped up from the control box and quickly gained a purchase on the wooden panel it was mounted on. In just moments, the fire was spreading in a pool a few feet from where Dec lay inert.

‘Dec!’ Chloe called up. ‘Dec, hurry!’

Ash had crawled down the swaying cable almost as far as the cross. One slip, one excessive movement, and it would fall, and so might he. He inched his way just a little further, gritting his teeth, the case dangling from the strap around his shoulders. He was almost there. He reached out. One more inch … and his fingers clamped tightly around the knuckles of his own severed hand.

He laughed in triumph. The cross was his once more.

Gripping Kali’s arm, Gabriel led the way, Lillith and Zachary stumbling along behind as the four of them burst out of the chalet and into the night. Every running step took them further from the source of the terrible agony. For the moment it seemed to have stopped advancing on them, but Gabriel was intent on taking them as far from the cross’s power as he could.

Dashing under cover of shadow as the gathering clouds obscured the moonlight, they found a twisting fissure in the rocks that led steeply away and up towards the eastern face of the mountain.

The only weapon they carried between them was the machete Lillith had taken from the goblin. The enemy were numerous and well-armed, and Gabriel knew he could ill afford to meet them head on. Cursing himself for having ever put his trust in the Masters, he considered the only strategy open to them: escape. Attempting the vertical cliff face to their right was perilous, even for a vampire — the risk of irreparable damage, whether dashed to pieces on the rocks or impaled on a tree far below in the valley, was enough to persuade Gabriel to skirt around the mountainside in the hope of finding a less risky descent.

‘This way,’ he called back over his shoulder. Kali had kicked off her shoes and was running barefoot over the snow. Lillith followed.

Zachary brought up the rear, glancing warily in all directions. A flitting movement caught his eye. Something scurrying behind a crevice above them. Then, almost immediately after, he heard the twang of the bowstring and the whistle of the flying arrow. ‘Incoming!’ he yelled. ‘Ten o’clock!’

The arrow cracked on the rocks inches from Gabriel and stained the snow with venom.

‘Everyone down!’ Lillith shouted.

An instant later, a rain of arrows and glass missiles was showering down on them from a dozen hidden vantage points in the crags above. Gabriel hauled Kali behind the shelter of a snowy boulder to the right of the path, shielding her as best he could with his own body and steeling himself to feel the bite of a poisoned barb in his flesh. Zachary had hurled himself away to the right, rolling through the snow to press his bulk tightly into the angle of two big rocks.

Gabriel ducked as a glass missile whizzed overhead, then risked a glance around him. Something was wrong.

‘Lillith?’ he called out. ‘Where are you?’

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Joel sprinted out of the chalet and hollered Alex’s name. The only reply was the echo of his own voice ringing off the mountainside. To his right, he could see the distant figures of Gabriel Stone and his three companions winding their way up the slope.

‘Alex!’ he shouted again. He was sure he could smell burning. Glancing back at the chalet, he saw thick smoke drifting in the wind.

Then, out of the darkness, a running figure streaked towards him. Joel’s first panicked thought was that it might be one of the goblins, and his grip tightened on his sword; but no, it was a tall female figure. With a mixture of extreme relief and bitter disappointment, he recognised her as one of the sexy she-vampires that had turned up with Baxter Burnett.

‘Quick!’ Sonia hissed, half-demented with terror. ‘We have to run! The cross … the man … he’s coming!‘ The fight-or-flight instinct had made her fangs extend — Joel could see them behind her lips as she spoke. He instinctively felt for his own, still holding on to some vain hope that they might not be there. They were. But there was no time for those kinds of concerns now.

‘Have you seen Alex?’ he asked as they ran.

‘Who?’

‘My friend who was with me before,’ he explained frantically.

‘I don’t know,’ Sonia babbled. ‘I don’t know. I think she was destroyed.’

Joel was still reeling from her words when the attack came out of nowhere. A leaping dark shape beat him down violently against the rocks, twisting the sword out of his grip, pinning him with its weight. He felt little clawed hands grasping at his ankles, stopping him from kicking out.

Sonia screamed as they took her down. For a moment she disappeared under a scrum of little bodies. When Joel caught sight of her again she was spread-eagled among the rocks, a goblin hanging tightly to each wrist and ankle. One reached into the folds of its habit and took out a little round glass ball, the size of a large marble. It jerked Sonia’s head back by the hair, forcing her mouth open with its thumbs. She bit savagely. The goblins twittered in mirth.

These things are just playing with us, Joel thought. He twisted and fought, but the goblin sitting on his chest was holding him tightly down. All he could do was watch as the creature with the hollow glass marble forced it very deliberately between Sonia’s fangs and shoved it down her throat with the handle of its knife. It watched intently as she swallowed it with a choking splutter, then lashed out with the knife handle, crushing the glass while it was still inside her throat.

Vampire blood and black poison bubbled out of her mouth and spilled down her cheeks. Sonia struggled wildly for a few seconds and then went limp as the paralysing agent took effect.

Then, tugging her in opposite directions, the goblins unhurriedly tore her apart. The left arm was first to rip from its shoulder joint, trailing sinews and muscle. Then the right leg. The goblin clutching the ankle hurled the limb away and it flopped across the rocks and landed next to Joel. The most horrific thing wasn’t seeing Sonia being torn apart — it was that she couldn’t make a sound or lift a finger in resistance.

And now, from the way the little bastards were turning towards him, Joel got the feeling it was going to be his turn next.

As he twisted his head from side to side in desperation, something caught his eye: the little silver dagger that Sonia wore in her garter belt, still attached to her severed thigh.

Finally, with a desperate heave, Joel managed to dislodge the dead weight of the goblin from off his chest.