Joel watched the men walk by and wondered whether they had even an inkling of who their employer really was. Did they know they were protecting a vampire? Did Gabriel Stone pay such men in money, or did he have other ways of holding their allegiance?
He waited until the patrol had passed by, then stepped out of his hiding place and started to move tentatively away. Ducking through the arch the men had come through, he glanced back over his shoulder to check nobody had spotted him.
And froze to the sharp snick-snack of a rifle bolt.
Chapter Eighty-One
Stone and his group led the Federation prisoners out into the night. The wind was howling and the snow lashed down as Alex, Harry Rumble and the remaining six Supremos were shoved down a flight of steps leading from the great hall and surrounding buildings to the upper courtyard that overlooked the castle grounds.
Through the curtain of swirling snowflakes, Alex could see the maze of lanes and streets down below, the tiny trucks parked up inside the gates in the distance.
At a gesture from Stone, the guards halted the prisoners. A few yards away, standing in the middle of the wide cobbled courtyard, was a tall oblong shape, some eight feet high, covered with a canvas sheet that crackled in the wind and was weighed down at the corners with bricks. Big Zachary stepped over, kicked away the bricks and pulled back the sheet to reveal the thing underneath.
It was a guillotine. Simple, but deadly — a rectangular vertical wooden frame with a heavy chopping blade suspended at the top by a crude pulley mechanism. Two steps led up to the horizontal platform on which the victim would be strapped to a plank and their neck secured between wooden stocks. A side lever released the blade, and a wicker basket was positioned underneath to catch the victim’s severed head as it fell.
‘Last used in the Place de la Revolution, Paris, 1793,’ Stone said proudly, running his hand down the side of the grim device. ‘I had to go to some trouble to obtain it after the mob had finished giving the chop to the French aristocracy. I always knew it would come in useful one day.’
Lillith pointed at Alex. ‘Let’s get this started. I want her to be first.’
Stone shook his head. ‘No, Lillith. This has to be done properly. The men first, in order of seniority.’ He scanned the five male Supremos. ‘You,’ he said, pointing at Hassan.
‘You animals,’ Olympia shouted. ‘You can’t do this!’
Stone arched an eyebrow. ‘Really? You would have preferred a Nosferol termination?’
The guards took Hassan’s arms and marched him to the guillotine. He was shaking badly and protesting as they tied his wrists behind his back and strapped his body tightly to the plank. Then it was slid into place and the wooden chocks positioned around his neck to stop his head thrashing about.
‘Something’s missing,’ Anastasia said. ‘We should have got a drummer.’
The blade was in position. Zachary pulled the retaining pin from the activation lever and looked to Stone.
Stone gave a nod.
And Zachary yanked the lever. The blade came whooshing down in the frame.
Its diagonal chopping edge impacted against Hassan’s neck with a sound like a knife hacking through a cabbage. His legs jerked against the restraining straps, then his body flopped and lay still as his head bounced into the wicker basket.
‘Quite clinical, isn’t it?’ Stone said. ‘Far quicker than, say, being left out to burn in the morning sunrise — which is what will happen to any of you who resist.’
Lillith gave a hoot of triumph, went striding over to the basket and snatched Hassan’s head up by a fistful of hair. His face was frozen into an expression of terror.
She spat in his sightless eye. ‘Here’s one Federation tyrant who won’t be bothering us any more.’
The guards busied themselves unstrapping the decapitated body and carrying it away to the side. Dark vampire blood was already soaking into the plank. Stone pointed at Goldmund, who began to bluster and panic.
‘Next.’
Chapter Eighty-Two
The fourth guard must have been lagging behind his companions to light the cigarette that was glowing red in the darkness. Joel had almost run right into him.
Moonlight glittered off the barrel of the rifle as the guard stepped out of the shadows.
Joel backed off, raising his hands, and he saw that it was just a young guy, maybe eighteen or nineteen, smooth-featured and missing the heavy moustache of the older men. There was as much fear as aggression in his eyes.
‘Wait,’ Joel said. ‘Hold on. There are worse things than me in this place. Let’s talk about this.’
The young guy narrowed his eyes, seemed to hesitate for a second, and then opened his mouth to call the others.
Joel moved faster than he’d ever moved in his life. Twisting out of the line of fire, he grabbed the end of the rifle barrel, yanked it hard towards him and then shoved it back towards the guard with all his strength. The gun was an obsolete military rifle, an old Lee Enfield.303. Joel had shot one, once, on the thousand-metre firing range at Bisley while there to compete in a police pistol competition. Even more than the harsh recoil of the weapon, he remembered the solid steel butt plate that had left a painful weal on his shoulder for hours afterwards. It was that same metal plate that he rammed into the young guy’s face now. It caught him across the bridge of his nose and silenced the shout that had been on his lips. Blood hit the snow.
Joel didn’t want to hurt him any more. ‘Listen to me,’ he pleaded, letting the rifle drop to the ground. ‘Try to understand.’
The young guy was bent over, whimpering in pain from his broken nose. His hand flashed down to his boot and, before Joel could register what was happening, the knife was punching out towards him in the dark. There was nothing he could do to stop the blade from sinking deep into his stomach.
But the cross in his belt saved him from a fatal wound. The point of the knife glanced off the hard stone and Joel felt the cold steel slice into the soft flesh of his side, above the left hip.
The young guy started yelling loudly for the others. His head bursting with pain, Joel hit him hard in the face and he went sprawling in the snow.
Joel staggered back a step with the knife still lodged in his side. He gritted his teeth, took hold of the slim wooden hilt and cried out in agony as he drew it out of the bloody wound. The young guy was trying to get to his feet. Joel knocked him back down with a kick to the face. He threw away the red-smeared knife, spotted the fallen Lee Enfield lying in the snow and snatched it up. Footsteps and voices were approaching fast from around the corner. The rest of the guards had been alerted.
Joel ran like crazy, slipping in the snow and trying to fight the pain in his side. He willed himself to go on. He had to get to the upper levels of the castle.
Goldmund’s headless body was thrown on top of Hassan’s as Lillith drop-kicked the head over the edge of the battlements with a whoop. Next up was Korentayer, who showed much less grit than his two predecessors and had to be dragged on his knees to the guillotine.
As Alex watched the unfolding horror, her mind was racing through a thousand ways she could get out of this.
None of them were possible.
Korentayer’s head became the next addition to the basket, then Borowczyk’s.
Lillith was bored with disposing of the heads by now, and let the guards take it away to be added to the pile along with his body. Zachary hauled on the rope and the bloody blade climbed back up to the top of the frame. Last to go of the male Supremos was Mushkavanhu. He shook off the guards’ hands and walked with dignity to the guillotine.
The final look he shot at Gabriel Stone before they strapped him down would have shaken any mortal man and most vampires to the core — but Stone only smiled.
Zachary pulled the lever.
Chop.
‘Now that one,’ Stone said, pointing at Harry Rumble. The guards were well into the routine now, and had grabbed Rumble’s arms almost before their master ha
d given the order.
Rumble turned towards Stone as they led him to the blood-soaked machine. ‘You may think you’ve won, Stone. You’re wrong.’
‘You should study history, my friend. You’d know that the finest speeches are often the most misguided. Take his head off.’
Zachary brought the blade back up as Rumble was secured to the plank. Alex was frantically trying to think of a way she could stop this, but there were just too many of them — and she knew that if she tried something and was caught, Stone’s threat of exposure to the dawn sun hadn’t been a joke. She thought of poor Greg, and her heart pounded.
Anastasia was standing a few yards away, watching with a smile. Just at that moment, her knees seemed to buckle and she gave a violent shudder.
Stone looked at her sharply. ‘Anastasia? What is it?’
She staggered forward a step, clutching her head between her hands. ‘I…felt something. It’s…Gabriel, something’s wrong. I don’t feel well.’
‘Me neither,’ Zachary muttered, swaying on his feet beside the guillotine.
Suddenly, moans and cries were erupting from the whole assembly of vampires.
Alex could feel it too, and it was a sensation she remembered experiencing not so long ago.
Then the sound of gunshots cracked out from nearby.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Joel was running as fast as he could, but the knife wound in his side was slowing him badly. Just a few dozen yards to go and he’d have made it to the upper courtyard.
He was sure he could see figures up there, silhouetted against the light from the buildings beyond, and a strange rectangular object that he couldn’t make out properly in the gloom. Something was happening.
He glanced behind him and swore. He was leaving a blood trail over the snow that a blind man could follow. His trousers were slick with it, and the nausea was making him light-headed. But he could tell from the shouts and running footsteps behind him that his pursuers weren’t far behind. He had to keep moving.
A splintering explosion as a bullet smashed into the masonry a foot from his head; a millisecond later, the crash of a rifle shot reverberated over the castle grounds and the boom echoed around the mountains. He ducked down and ran harder into the blinding snow, grinding his teeth, limping badly. There was a bend up ahead, and just below it was a ruined low wall. He dived under cover, threw the rifle out over the craggy stonework and pressed his cheek to the stock. An instant later the racing figures of the three guards he’d seen earlier appeared around the corner and ran right into the Lee Enfield’s sights. He squeezed the trigger. The massive detonation filled his ears and the rifle kicked back viciously against his injured shoulder. He saw one of the men clutch his chest and go down with a cry.
Joel worked the bolt, fired again, and saw a second gypsy pitch sideways into the snow, dropping his weapon. The third man had fallen into a crouch behind a pile of rocks. The gun in his hands was shorter and stubbier than the big bolt-action rifles, with a long stick magazine. In the quarter-second it took for Joel to duck down behind the wall, a roaring blast of submachine-gun fire raked the masonry and showered him with dust and stone fragments. Keeping him pinned down with steady bursts, the guard got to his feet, leapt over the bodies of his comrades and came running at the low wall.
In two seconds he’d have jumped up onto it and his bullets would be raking the ground where Joel lay huddled under cover.
Joel rolled out from behind the wall, frantically working the bolt of the Lee Enfield. Lying on his back, he thrust the rifle up into the air at the same instant that the gypsy appeared on top of the wall. Their gun muzzles were just three feet apart.
In the same split second that Joel felt the Lee Enfield recoil in his hands, the gypsy’s submachine gun spat flame. The.303 tapered round from the rifle caught the man under the chin and he fell soundlessly back over the wall with most of his head blown away.
Joel dropped the rifle. He knew he’d been hit, and badly. His hands went to his thigh and he almost fainted when he felt the ripped material of his trouser leg and the tattered flesh and the hot blood welling up through his fingers.
‘We’re under attack!’ Lillith yelled. ‘It’s the cross!’
Stone’s face was pale. ‘Solomon is here.’
There was chaos in the upper courtyard as the vampires scattered and fled ahead of the approaching danger. In their panic, Stone’s group seemed to forget all about the remaining prisoners. Olympia Angelopolis managed to scurry away unseen and disappeared among the shadows while the guards stood about in horror-stricken confusion.
Alex finally had her chance. Fighting the terrible sensation that was welling up inside her, just the way it had in Venice, she sprinted over to the guillotine and started ripping apart the straps holding Harry Rumble to the blood-soaked plank. He stumbled free.
‘What the hell’s happening?’
‘Joel’s here,’ she gasped. ‘He’s coming. We need to get away.’ She took hold of his wrist, and they ran. Her only priority in that moment was to get away from the deadly energy of the cross. They could worry later about details like how they were going to escape from the castle. ‘This way, Harry,’ she shouted as they flitted through the darkness.
Stone was dragging Lillith away up the steps towards the great hall and yelling frantically at the vampire guards to go and intercept the human when she twisted away from him.
‘Let me go down there. I can take Solomon.’
‘You can’t, Lillith.’
‘I’ve got a gun,’ Zachary said, pointing urgently up at the window of his quarters in the tower above the great hall.
‘Get it now. We have to stop this human at all cost.’
Zachary went lumbering as fast as he could towards the buildings.
Anton stood rooted, his face twisted in hatred. ‘I don’t need a gun,’ he spat. ‘I haven’t lived for four hundred years to be brought down by some human. This isn’t going to happen to us.’
Anastasia tried to stop him. ‘No, Anton, you’ll be destroyed.’ But he pushed her out of the way and staggered off in the direction of the shots. The guards saw him and followed his lead, their agony visibly increasing with every step.
‘Come back, Anton!’ Anastasia screamed, going after him.
‘Let them go,’ Lillith said. ‘They’ll hold Solomon back while Zachary gets the gun.’
But it was too late. Anastasia took off at a sprint.
‘Fools,’ Stone muttered. ‘Come on, sister.’
Chapter Eighty-Four
Joel could feel his strength draining away along with his fast-spilling blood as he dragged himself up towards the huge flight of steps leading to the upper courtyard.
Sweat was pouring into his eyes despite the bitter cold. He’d dumped his empty rifle now. All he had was the cross, and he held it out in front of him like a beacon.
Dark shapes appeared at the top of the steps. A dozen or more figures in black, with drawn swords glinting and wild screaming faces. Their leader opened his mouth, and the last thing Joel saw of him were his bared fangs.
Then the cross obliterated them. It was like mowing down an infantry charge with a heavy machine gun, except the only sound was the frenzied screaming as their bodies were smashed down and blown into tatters by the sweeping power emanating from his hand. The last figure to appear on the steps, staggering in the wake of the others, was a woman. Her blond hair billowed in the wind as she hurtled down towards him, mouth agape. She shrieked as her companions were destroyed in front of her, but was running too fast to stop herself. Fifteen yards from where Joel stood with the cross, her body hit the energy field and blew apart like burnt paper.
Joel raised the cross higher and dragged himself onwards.
Alex and Rumble had ducked out of sight of their captors and were running through the castle. Darting through an arched doorway, they found themselves in an armoury room filled with ancient cannons and suits of armour. Swords, battle shields, halberds and spears
decorated the walls. Alex spotted a side door lying ajar, beyond it a long, dark passage. ‘I think this could be somewhere to hide, Harry.’
Rumble made no reply.
‘Harry?’ She turned around.
Just in time to see Rumble falling to his knees. His severed head blinked up at her in surprise before it rolled away across the floor; then his decapitated body slumped down on its belly.
Lillith stepped over him with a wild fire dancing in her eyes.
‘This is all your doing, bitch.’ As she spat out the words, she swung her bloody sabre hard and fast, and Alex only just managed to twist out of the way of the hissing blade. She somersaulted backwards and landed on her feet. An array of glittering weapons were mounted across a crimson shield on the wall just a few feet away.
Leaping up, her fingers closed on the basket hilt of a long, curved sword.
Lillith’s teeth were bared as she took another vicious swing that would have lifted Alex’s head clean from her shoulders if she hadn’t parried the blow with her own blade.
The high armoury room filled with the zinging clash of steel on steel as Lillith struck and slashed with ferocious energy. Alex desperately blocked every stroke.
‘You can’t beat me,’ Lillith sneered. Alex was backed up almost to the wall now, with nowhere to go. The sabre came whooshing at her sideways. She brought her own sword up to deflect it, but the angle was awkward and the crashing impact of the blades loosened her grip on her hilt. Her weapon clattered to the flagstones.
‘Ha! What did I tell you?’ Lillith backed off a step, grinning. She raised her sabre for the killing blow and was just about to strike, when she faltered and a cry of pain burst out of her lips.
As Lillith toppled over to the floor, Alex caught a glimpse of Joel Solomon framed in the archway on the far side of the armoury room. He was barely able to stand, covered in blood. Then she, too, felt the pain and began to scramble away in fear.
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