‘Not any more,’ Darcey said, handing her the folder. ‘Not after this gets out.’
Silvana Lucenzi took it hesitantly. She flipped open the clear plastic cover, thumbed through a few of the pages and her eyes bugged. By the time she reached the last page, she was speechless.
‘It’s genuine,’ Ben said.
‘And if you want the original file,’ Darcey added, ‘you’ll have to come to London for it. Just name the place and the time.’
The reporter’s initial shock was already fading away rapidly. Ben could see the wheels turning. Possibilities spinning through her mind faster than news front pages through a printing press. Her eyes shone.
‘You just got yourself the hottest scoop in media history, Silvana,’ Ben said. ‘Now go and do what you do best.’
‘W-would the two of you like a coffee?’ Silvana asked. Ben and Darcey exchanged glances. ‘Some other time,’ Darcey told her.
They walked away through the crowds milling about the piazza, leaving Silvana rooted to the spot and still staring agape at the file in her hands.
‘Bombs away.’ Darcey laughed. She paused, looking at him as they walked. ‘So what next, Ben? You heading back to France?’
‘Thought I might stick around here for a couple of days,’ he said. ‘You?’
‘I’m kind of at a loose end now, aren’t I?’
‘Let me buy you lunch,’ he said.
She smiled at him. ‘Lunch would be a start.’
Epilogue
London
Less than an hour later
Mason Ferris was at his desk going through some papers when his phone rang. He calmly reached out and picked up the receiver. ‘Talk to me.’
The panicking, babbling voice on the other end was Brewster Blackmore’s. As Ferris listened, his jaw fell slowly open and the blood chugged to a halt in his veins.
‘They WHAT—!?’
Acknowledgements
For much of the historical background to this novel I am heavily indebted to my late and sadly-missed friend Contessa M. Manzini, whose spellbinding recollections about her life in 1920s Italy partly inspired me to write The Lost Relic. Thanks also to Tim Boswell for invaluable insider knowledge on SOCA and special police operations; as well as to all those others whose efforts, great or small, have contributed to the creation of this book.
Read on for an exclusive extract from Scott G. Mariani’s new VAMPIRE FEDERATION novel – The Cross, coming in October 2011.
Prologue
The village of St Elowen
Southwest 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 Maxwell, just turned 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 open behind them. A few heads turned to see the man standing there 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 traveler, 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 greatcoat of his.
Little Sam Drinkwater took his mother’s hand. Lucy Maxwell’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 man 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 the weapon out 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 at Reverend Perry. And then, in a smooth and rapid motion that was over before anyone could react, he 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. Began walking slowly up the aisle towards the terrified parishioners.
‘The vestry door!’ Lucy Maxwell 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 rapidly spreading over the church floor. With a look of passionate joy he smeared the blood over his lips, greedily sucked it from his fingers. Then he stood, raised his face to the vaulted ceiling and laughed out loud.
‘You think you’re safe in here? Think your God will protect you?’
The vestry door was bolted from the outside. Lucy Maxwell 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 madman.
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.
What he saw inside was a sight 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, his shaven head, and the blade of the sword he was swinging wildly at the fleeing, screeching figure of Lucy Maxwell. 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 in a language the officers had never heard before, 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 didn’t even realize 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.’
About the Author
Scott Mariani grew up in the historic town of St Andrews, Scotland and now lives in the wilds of Wales. The Lost Relic is the sixth book in The Sunday Times bestselling series featuring ex-SAS hero and former theology scholar Ben Hope, translated into over twenty languages worldwide. Scott is also the author of the Vampire Federation series, which started with the novel Uprising (Avon, June 2010). A sequel, The Cross, is due to be published during autumn 2011. For further information please visit: www.scottmariani.com
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By the same author
BEN HOPE SERIES
The Alchemist’s Secret
The Mozart Conspiracy
The Doomsday Prophecy
The Heretic’s Treasure
The Shadow Project
VAMPIRE FEDERATION SERIES
Uprising
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © Scott Mariani 2011
Scott Mariani asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-84756-197-8
EPub Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9780007342778
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