The Cross Read online

  The Cross

  SCOTT G. MARIANI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  An extract from Vampire Federation series, Uprising

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Also by Scott G. Mariani

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  As ever, thanks to my intrepid and tireless editor at Avon, Keshini Naidoo, who luckily for me enjoys the blood and gore of a vampire story even more than I do . . .

  Thanks also to Nathan Shallcross at Armed Combat and Tactics UK for expert coaching in some particularly effective and nasty fighting techniques with the European longsword. Learning how to whip an opponent’s head off their shoulders with a four-foot blade is definitely the most fun I’ve ever had researching a novel.

  Nearly thirty years of domination ensured that the hallowed traditions of the vampire race were all but eradicated under the rule of the Vampire Federation. Gone were the days when vampires were free to claim the blood of human victims at will, leaving their exsanguinated remains for the crows or turning them into vampires like themselves. Strict laws were laid down by Federation rulers and enforced by VIA, the Vampire Intelligence Agency, with agents like Alex Bishop licensed to hunt down and destroy vampires who flouted the rules.

  It seemed as if the vampire way of life had changed forever. Until, that is, the uprising led by rebel vampire Gabriel Stone attempted to drive a stake into the very heart of its hated enemy the Federation. Only the chance intervention of a human, Joel Solomon, wielding an ancient and powerful anti-vampire weapon the legends call the Cross of Ardaich, prevented the complete annihilation of the Federation leaders and a resounding victory for the Traditionalist rebellion.

  In the wake of the battle on the ramparts of Gabriel Stone’s Romanian castle hideaway, the rebellion has been crushed, the Cross of Ardaich destroyed and the Federation left in tatters. Surviving Federation leaders like Supremo Olympia Angelopolis will declare a victory . . .

  But not everyone within the Federation is so sure . . .

  Prologue

  The village of St Elowen

  South-west Cornwall

  Where two quiet lanes crossed, just a stone’s throw from the edge of the village, the grey stone church had stood more or less unchanged since not long after Henry V had ascended to the throne of England. The glow from its leaded windows haloed out into the frosty November night. From behind its ancient iron-studded, ivy-framed door, the sound of singing drifted on the wind.

  Just another Thursday evening’s choir practice.

  Although that night would be remembered quite differently by those villagers who would survive the events soon to become infamous as ‘The St Elowen Massacre’.

  Inside the church, Reverend Keith Perry beamed with pride as the harmonies of his fourteen singers soared up to the vaulted ceiling. What many of them lacked in vocal ability, they more than made up for with their enthusiasm. Rick Souter, the village butcher, was the loudest, with a deep baritone voice that was only a little rough and almost in tune. Then there was young Lucy Blakely, just seventeen, giving it all she had. The most naturally talented of them all was little Sam Drinkwater, who in a few weeks’ time was set to audition for a place as boy soprano at King’s College, Cambridge. Sam’s parents, Liz and Brian, were there too, sharing a hymn book as they all belted out ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ to the strains of the electronic organ played by Mrs Hudson, the local music teacher.

  The only face missing was that of Charlie Fitch, the plumber. Charlie was normally punctual, but his elderly mother had been quite ill lately; Perry prayed that nothing awful had happened.

  That was when the church door banged behind them. A few heads turned to see the man standing at the entrance, watching them all. Mrs Hudson’s fingers faltered on the organ keys. Reverend Perry’s smile froze on his lips.

  The drifter had been sighted on the edge of the village a few days before. The first concerned whispers had been exchanged in the shop and post office, and it hadn’t been long before most of St Elowen’s population of three hundred or so had heard the talk. The general consensus was that the drifter’s presence was somewhat worrying, somewhat discomfiting; and everyone’s hope was that it would be temporary. He was unusually tall and broad, perhaps thirty years old. Nobody knew his name, or where he’d come from, or where he was staying. His appearance suggested that he might have been living rough, travelling on foot from place to place like an aimless vagrant. His boots were caked in dirt and the military-style greatcoat he wore was rumpled and torn. But he was no new-age traveller, the villagers agreed. His face was as clean-shaven as a soldier’s, and his scalp gleamed from the razor. There were no visible tattoos. No rings in his nose or ears.

  Just that look that anyone who saw him found deeply disconcerting. Cold. Indifferent. Somehow not quite right. Somehow – this was the account that had reached Reverend Perry’s ears – somehow not quite human.

  Mrs Hudson stopped playing altogether. The voices of the choir fell away to silence as all eyes turned towards the stranger.

  For a drawn-out moment, the man returned their gaze. Then, without taking his eyes off the assembly, he reached behind him and turned the heavy iron key. The door locked with a clunk that echoed around the silent church. The man drew the key out of the lock and dropped it into the pocket of that long greatc
oat of his.

  Little Sam Drinkwater took his mother’s hand. Lucy Blakely’s eyes were wide with worry as she glanced at the vicar.

  Reverend Perry swallowed back his nervousness, forced the smile back onto his lips and walked up the centre aisle towards the man. ‘Good evening,’ he said as brightly as he could. ‘Welcome to St Elowen’s. It’s always a pleasure to see—’

  As the stranger slowly reached down and swept back the hem of his long coat, Reverend Perry’s words died in his mouth. Around the man’s waist was a broad leather belt. Dangling from the belt, at his left hip, was an enormous sword. Its basket hilt was lined with scarlet cloth. Its polished scabbard glinted in the church lights.

  Reverend Perry was too shocked to utter a word more. The man said nothing either. In no hurry, he reached his right hand across his body. His fingers wrapped themselves around the sword’s hilt and drew out the weapon with a metallic swishing sound. Its blade was long and straight and broad and had been crudely etched with strange symbols.

  Reverend Perry gaped dumbly at the sight of the weapon in his church. He was only peripherally aware of the gasps and cries of horror that had started breaking out among the choir members.

  The drifter smiled for the first time. But it was no ordinary smile. Reverend Perry almost fainted at the sight.

  The man’s teeth were sharp and pointed. Like the fangs of a monster.

  And then, in a smooth and rapid motion that was over before anyone could react, the intruder swung the sword.

  The chopping impact of the blade was drowned out by Mrs Hudson’s scream. Keith Perry’s severed head bounced up the aisle and came to a rest between the pews. And the choir exploded into screaming panic.

  The drifter held the blade up lovingly in front of his face. He licked the running blood off the steel and swallowed. Began walking slowly up the aisle towards the terrified parishioners.

  ‘The vestry door!’ Lucy Blakely shrieked, pointing. Liz Drinkwater grabbed her son’s arm tightly as she and her husband fled for the exit at the right of the altar. The others quickly followed, tripping over each other and their own feet in their desperation to get away. Rick Souter snatched up a heavy candlestick. With a scowl of rage he ran at the intruder and raised his makeshift weapon to strike.

  The drifter swung the sword again. Rick Souter’s amputated arm fell to the floor still clutching the candlestick. The blade whooshed down and back up, slitting the butcher from groin to chin so that his innards spilled across the flagstones even before he’d collapsed on his face.

  The drifter crouched over the fallen body to dab his fingers into the pool of blood that was spreading rapidly over the church floor. With a look of passionate joy he smeared the blood over his lips, greedily sucked it from his fingers. Bubbles of it frothed out from the serrated gaps between his teeth and trickled down his chin and neck. Then he stood, raised his face to the vaulted ceiling and his laughter echoed through the whole church.

  ‘You think you’re safe in here? Think your God will protect you?’

  The vestry door was bolted from the outside. Lucy Blakely and the Drinkwaters were desperately trying to force it open, but even as the other choir members joined them, they knew the door wouldn’t give. Little Sam howled as his mother clutched him to her. Brian Drinkwater was looking around him in panic for some other way out.

  But there wasn’t one. They were all trapped in here with the monster.

  Charlie Fitch parked his van outside the little church. As he walked briskly down the stone path leading to the door, his mind was still full of his hospital visit to his mother earlier that evening. Thank God she was okay and would be home again soon.

  Then Charlie heard the sounds that froze the blood inside his veins. It wasn’t the singing of his friends in the choir he could hear from inside the church, nor the playing of the organ. They were screaming.

  Screaming in horror and terror. In agony.

  He rattled the door handle. The door was locked. He scrambled up the mossy bank behind him so he could peer in through the leaded panes of the stained-glass window.

  The sight he saw inside was one that would remain with him until his dying day. The church floor littered with corpses and severed body parts. Blood spattered across the altar, on the pews, on everything.

  In the middle of the nightmare stood a man in a long coat. Blood was spattered across his face and his shaven head and the blade of the sword he was swinging wildly at the fleeing, screeching figure of Lucy Blakely. It was surreal. Charlie watched as the girl’s head was separated from her shoulders by the gore-streaked blade. Then the madman turned to little Sam Drinkwater, who was kneeling by the bloody bodies of his parents, too frightened to scream.

  It wasn’t until he witnessed what the man did to the boy that Charlie was able to break out of his trance of horror and run. He ran until his heart was about to burst, fell to his knees and ripped his phone out of his pocket.

  Nineteen minutes later, the police armed response unit broke in the church door and burst onto the scene of the devastation. The first man inside nearly dropped his weapon when he took in the carnage in front of him.

  Nothing remained of the Reverend Keith Perry or his choir members. Nothing except the horrific gobbets of diced human flesh that were scattered across the entire inside of the church.

  The killer was still there. He stood calmly at the altar with his back to the door, stripped naked, bloodied from head to foot. His sword lay across the altar in front of him, gore still dripping from its blade. In his powerful hands he held a blood-filled chalice over his head.

  The squad leader yelled ‘Armed police! Step away from the weapon!’ The man ignored the command and the guns that were aimed at his back. Murmuring softly to himself, he slowly turned his face upwards and tipped the bloody contents of the chalice over his head, drinking and slurping greedily.

  ‘Who the fuck is this person?’ The squad leader hardly realised he’d spoken those words out loud.

  Not until the man at the altar turned round to face him.

  And said: ‘I am a vampire.’

  Chapter One

  Romania

  Five nights later

  Sometime in the dead of night, the whistling wind drove away the snow-clouds to unveil the stars. From among the shadows that the moonlight threw across the deep forested valley below, the towers of the ancient castle of Vâlcanul were a craggy silhouette against the distant mountain peaks. All was silent. All was still. A place of desolation and morbidity.

  The inert body among the trees, half-covered in snow, was that of a man. His clothes were tattered and bloody. Snowflakes clung to his hair and his eyelashes. His face was deathly pale. He had no pulse. Soon, he might be food for the wolves and other wild things in the forest.

  Except that the night creatures knew better than to approach.

  Inside the motionless body of the man, something was stirring. Something was awakening, resurfacing from the depths of a sleep so infinitely profound that only a very few could ever return from it. Gradually, his senses began to reanimate. As consciousness returned, he became dimly aware of the softness of the snow under him, of the weight of his body resting on it. A finger twitched. His frosted eyelids fluttered and then opened briefly to a stab of pain from the bright moon and starlight above him. Slowly, he reopened them, and could see again. A long sigh whistled from his lips.

  Memories flickered through his mind, weakly at first, gradually gaining strength and clarity. He recalled a name, and realised it was his own.

  Joel Solomon.

  Joel sat up slowly, snow falling away from his body, and gazed around him at the white-topped forest, at the craggy mountainside and the castle towers perched high above. The road running down through the valley was now invisible under a foot of fresh snow. A few steps from Joel, the wreck of a four-wheel-drive truck lay overturned and half-buried in a snowdrift. He blinked, staring at it. Had he been in a car accident? What had happened to him?

  H
e looked down at the thin sweatshirt he was wearing, and saw it was torn and bloody. Whose blood was this? Some of the holes had been made by bullets, another by a knife slash. He ripped the shirt open; why wasn’t he cold? The wounds in his flesh were livid and raw; why wasn’t he dead?

  The memories grew more vivid. He remembered being up on the castle battlements. A blinding blizzard. A man pointing a gun at him. The sound of the shot, the terrible impact of the bullet, the sensation of falling. Unconsciousness coming and going. Then, being carried. A woman’s voice in his ear. Alex speaking softly to him as she cradled him in her arms: ‘Don’t try to speak.’

  And his own voice, weak and faint: ‘Alex . . . I’m scared.’

  Then nothing.

  Joel strained his eyes at the snowy landscape all around him. He could see no trace of her. Had she just gone, left him here like this, all alone?

  Alex. He’d loved her. Or thought he had, until he’d realised who she really was. What she really was.

  He touched his fingers to his neck. Felt the holes there, and the sticky congealed blood. The realisation was like another gunshot punching through his body.

  She’d bitten him. Drunk from him. His life blood flowing into her, while her own filth flowed into his veins.

  He’d become . . .

  He’d become . . .

  No. No.

  Joel sprang to his feet. The scream burst out of him. It echoed across the snowy valley. Rolled around the mountains.

  NOOOOOO!!!

  He fell back into the snow. He arched his back and ground his eyes shut and pounded his fists on the ground and beat them against his head. There was no pain. He shoved his thumbs into his mouth, felt for his upper canine teeth and pressed hard against them. They didn’t feel any different. Absurd. Insane. Maybe it was all a bad dream.

  Except that it wasn’t. He’d destroyed enough of these things to know they were real. For centuries, for millennia, they’d been there, these parasites, living off the blood of human beings.

  And now he was one of them.

  Joel sat there in the snow, hugging himself and rocking slowly back and forth. His mind was numb, choked with indistinct thoughts, paralysed with cloying horror. An infinite expanse of time seemed to drift by before he eventually turned his head slowly to look at the blood-spattered watch on his wrist and then up at the sky. The stars were fading as the first blood-red glimmers of light tinged the eastern horizon.